Holiday Picks 2021 - Catherine
November 2, 2021
While compiling my selection for this holiday season, I realized this year I mostly read atmospheric, disorienting, tantalizing novels. Something New Under the Sun by Alexandra Kleeman was a huge surprise, such an unexpected novel. Not only was it funny and strange, it also profoundly touched me and left me in a daze. It was quite a unique experience. The writing's palette and minutiae impressed me.
Romans Graphiques
J'en ai profité cette année pour plonger dans la série culte de Walter Scott, Wendy, et j'ai englouti les trois tomes à la vitesse de l'éclair. Très très drôle et déjanté. Local artist Lee Lai's Stone Fruit and Alison Bechdel's Secret to Superhuman Strength (one of my graphic novel heroes) were highlights of this year, and I quite enjoyed Seek You by Kristen Radtke, a thorough research about loneliness in America and the graphic novel adaptation of Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny illustrated by Nora Krug (who had given us the beautiful Belonging in 2019). Le Grand Vide de Léa Murawiec est un livre dystopique enlevant et magnifique. I adore Keiler Roberts and My Begging Chart did not let me down! A special shout out to Montrealer Cesario Lavery and his zine Der Eydes! It was really fun to read and I'm looking forward to reading more!
Something New Under the Sun
Alexandra Kleeman
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A novelist discovers the dark side of Hollywood and reckons with ambition, corruption, and connectedness in the age of...
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Katie Kitamura
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE SUMMER READS “One of the best novels I’ve read in 2021.” – Dwight Garner, The New York Times“A perfect novel—taut...
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Mona Awad
“Dear Readers: This is one wild book! . . . No holds barred.” —Margaret Atwood via Twitter“Mind-blowing. Equal parts brilliant and hilarious.” —Heather O’Neill,...
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Anthony Veasna So
A Roxane Gay's Audacious Book Club Pick!Named a Best Book of Summer by: Wall Street Journal * Thrillist * Vogue * Lit Hub *...
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Helen Chau Bradley
A young gymnast crushes on an older, more talented teammate while contending with her overworked mother. A newly queer twenty-something juggles two intimate relationships--with...
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Vinciane Despret
Un récit d'anticipation dans lequel l'auteure imagine que les animaux adressent des messages codés à travers leurs comportements.
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Olivia Tepiero
"Je veux écrire à marée basse." Rien du tout, c'est l'espace où tout s'effondre, la forme, le genre, l'être. S'ouvre le trou noir, auquel...
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Adel B Khelifa
e tour de la question est un livre inclassable flirtant entre le récit de soi, l’essai et la fiction pure. Le narrateur explore un...
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Mariana Enriquez
Gaspar, un petit garçon dont la mère a disparu dans des circonstances étranges, a hérité d'un don qui le destine, comme son père, à...
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Deborah Levy
From one of the great thinkers and writers of our time, comes the highly anticipated final installment in Deborah Levy's critically acclaimed "living autobiography"...
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Nedja Kacimi
Pour commémorer les soixante ans de l'indépendance de l'Algérie, l'auteure évoque les discriminations dont elle a été victime pour brosser le portrait d'une société...
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Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch
Swinging from post-explosion Beirut to a Parc-Extension balcony in summer, the verse and prose poems in The Good Arabs ground the reader in place,...
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Mona Chollet
Etude de l'impact des représentations idéales du couple héritées du patriarcat sur les relations hétérosexuelles. La journaliste considère que l'espace du désir est saturé...
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Elkahna Talbi
Pomme-grenade, deuxième recueil d’Elkahna Talbi, présente la femme amoureuse, désireuse et désirée. Le poème creuse les chemins de l’amour et de l’intimité face à...
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Chloé Savoie-Bernard
L'autrice poursuit son exploration poétique du désir, de l'identité, du rapport à l'autre dans un recueil d'une impudeur ardente, et élégante. Dans des vers...
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Chet'la Sebree
Winner of the 2020 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets"Layered, complex, and infinitely compelling, Chet’la Sebree’sField Study is a daring exploration...
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Maryanne Amacher
Now in paperback, the first ever book on American composer and sound-art pioneer Maryanne Amacher, with letters, manifestos, notes and more elucidating her eclectic...
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Lawrence Kumpf
Archival documents and new writings on the intermedia collaborations of avant-garde jazz trumpeter Don Cherry and textile artist Moki CherryDon Cherry and Moki Karlsson...
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Dylan Robinson
Reimagining how we understand and write about the Indigenous listening experience?Hungry Listening is the first book to consider listening from both Indigenous and settler...
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Two Fingas, James Kirk
Back in print after more than twenty years, this cult classic of underground British fiction tells the story of young Black men coming of...
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Dhanveer Singh Brar
How black electronic dance music makes it possible to reorganize life within the contemporary city.Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski argues that Black electronic dance music produces...
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Alyssa Favreau
In Janelle Monáe's full-length debut, the science fiction concept albumThe ArchAndroid, the android Cindi Mayweather is on the run from the authorities for the...
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Alexandre Fontaine-Rousseau
Allô. Ici Alexandre Fontaine Rousseau. Ça fait douze ans que je suis bénévole à CISM. C’est très exactement le tiers de ma vie. Juste...
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David Graeber, David Wengrow
Renowned activist and public intellectual David Graeber teams up with professor of comparative archaeology David Wengrow to deliver a trailblazing account of human history,...
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Walter Scott
The outrageously funny and painfully relatable satire of an aspiring artist and millennial culture Walter Scott's Wendy comics have become a critical sensation, with...
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Lee Lai
Bron and Ray are a queer couple who enjoy their role as the fun weirdo aunties to Ray’s niece, six-year-old Nessie. Their playdates are...
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Alison Bechdel
From the author of Fun Home, a profoundly affecting graphic memoir of Bechdel's lifelong love affair with exercise, set against a hilarious chronicle of fitness fads in our times...
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Kristen Radtke
From the acclaimed author of Imagine Wanting Only This—a timely and moving meditation on isolation and longing, both as individuals and as a societyThere...
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Timothy Snyder
A graphic edition of historian Timothy Snyder’s bestselling book of lessons for surviving and resisting America’s arc toward authoritarianism, featuring the visual storytelling talents...
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Léa Murawiec
Manel Naher, qui passe ses journées dans une petite librairie, est éclipsée par une célébrité qui porte le même nom. Mais le succès de...
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Keiler Roberts
?One of comics? preeminent humorists.??The AV Club Keiler Roberts mines the passing moments of family life to deliver an affecting and funny account of...
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Cesario Lavery
(Der Eydes—The Witness) is Cesario’s ongoing serialized comic about the treasure he found and the treasure it led to. It is one part detective...
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