Who's Reading What: Issue 103 

Compiled and edited by Julianna Varga

Rosalynn Tyo Managing Editor, The New Quarterly

I have just finished reading The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester. It is absolutely fascinating and entertaining. Winchester has added “anodyne,” “bellicose,” “oleaginous,” “rebarbative,” “fulminated,” and--I can hardly wait for an opportunity to use this in print--“pettifogging” to my personal vocabulary, and plenty more. Next on my list, Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson (I was feeling so bereft when The Meaning of Everything ended I consulted the recommended reading list at the end and found this book there) and Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883, also by Simon Winchester. I am wondering if I will find his prose as stylish and engaging on a completely different subject. I suspect I will.

Michael Winter Author of "Trying to Be Good" (Issue 103: The List Goes On)

I'm reading The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham. I'm realizing that my new book is pretty much an updated Razor's Edge, and unfortunately Maugham's is far better. At one point, about three hundred pages in, our narrator (a character named Maugham) says of a character's name, something like: "I can't expect the reader to remember this person, as I myself had to flick back and find out what I'd named him." Am in the last forty pages now, which is the weakest section. I also just read Kathleen Winter's story "Binocular" (read excerpt) in the latest New Quarterly (Issue 103: Natural Histories). It's a fantastic story, which I am reluctant to say publicly as she is my sister and it will embarrass her.

Jesse P. Ferguson Author of "Riparian Zone" (Issue 103: Poetry)

I'm currently reading Contexts of Canadian Criticism: A Collection of Critical Essays for my comprehensive exam in Canadian literature at the University of New Brunswick. I'm also reading Nicholas Lea's Everything is Movies for pleasure, because Lea is a fun and fearless poet and because he's my best friend.

Elspeth Cameron Author of "The Point of Change" (Issue 103: Poetry)

I'm reading Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky--a half-finished novel about fleeing Paris when the Germans invaded. It is probably the best writing I've ever read, and the afterword explaining how the manuscript got published after her death is truly poignant.

I'm also reading River Horse: Across America by Boat by William Least Heat-Moon, a travel book about going by small boat from New York to the West Coast via American rivers. It is excellent for the armchair traveller who wants the experience but not the frustrations and discomforts!

I have also just finished The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro (author of Remains of the Day) about the return of a concert pianist to his (unspecified) European hometown for a very important concert. It is fluid and phantasmagoric, yet beautifully detailed. I've never read anything that so astutely portrays the artist and his motives. The suspense and frustration that build up in this book are unmatched--even in thrillers and detective mysteries.

Colette Maitland Author of "Testimonial" (Issue 103: Postscripts)

I'm reading The Horseman's Graves by Jacqueline Baker--great characters, wonderful writing. Check it out.

Isabel Huggan Author of "Rivertime," "Small Fish," and "Heron Departing" (Issue 103: Natural Histories) Read excerpt

As I am driving around Ontario visiting friends and relatives all summer, my reading is all over the map, consisting mainly of what is left by my bedside. However, I've been carrying with me the advance reading copy of a novel that'll be coming out this autumn, and having finished it last evening, am anxious to recommend it--I absolutely loved it. Set in the 1930s, partly in rural Sasketchewan and, by contrast, urban Waterloo, Watermelon Syrup tells the story of Lexi, a young Mennonite girl encountering the world in all its pain and glory. Its author, Annie Jacobsen, died in 2005, leaving behind a manuscript that has been beautifully edited and polished by Jane Finlay-Young and Di Brandt. There's an authentic, compelling voice in Watermelon Syrup that speaks right from the heart, and I found myself engaged and moved by Lexi's conflict with the religion of her father and the desire of her own spirit to be free. Not only does the novel give an accurate portrayal of a people and a period, but of the soul of a young woman struggling to become herself. Look out for this one come September!

Kate Wringe TNQ Volunteer

I'm reading a bunch of humorous graphic novels that explore stereotypical relationships between American teenagers in the 20th and 21st centuries. The stories revolve around five main characters and although the time periods, fashions, and lexicon span decades, the characters themselves never age. The plots involve solving mundane suburban teenage conflicts such as earning money to buy gas, hamburgers, new clothes, etc. in order to go on a date while trying to stay out of detention. The central themes explore unrequited teenage love within a love triangle.

The main character, an auburn-haired youth named Archie, is often immobilized because he can't choose between his two loves: the good-hearted, brownie-baking blonde, Betty, and the raven-haired, pampered vixen, Veronica. In addition, Archie must also compete for Veronica's affections against the handsome and devious Reginald. Luckily, Archie has a good best friend, a hamburger-inhaling woman-hater, Jughead Jones. Although Jughead professes misogynic sentiments, he is loved by the ever-faithful Ethel.

I purchased these social commentaries at a yard sale this summer for twenty-five cents. However, someone told me that you can purchase new copies at your local grocery store magazine stand.

Kim Jernigan Editor, The New Quarterly

I'm currently reading Robyn Sarah's Little Eurekas: A Decade's Thoughts on Poetry. This lively collection of essays, many of them first published in The New Quarterly, explores "all aspects of a life in poetry: reading it, writing it, teaching it, editing it, publishing it, reviewing it." Sarah's own prose is immensely readable. She approaches each of her topics with a certain unknowingness but a great deal of concern about the question. We get to see, not preconceived ideas, but a mind at work. I was particularly taken with her analyses of individual poems, including a long essay on the work of the late George Johnston in which she shows how glancingly he illuminates deep things through seemingly innocent surface detail. The book ends with a series of conversations with other poets, a lively give-and-take in which we're allowed to see how provisional any poetic manifesto is, including her own. If you love poetry, this is your book.