Matt's Books and Music

I realized last month that doing a full recap of all my reading was going to be too onerous to be sustainable, so this month I’m introducing a new format, Nine Raves and One Pan, with an additional spot highlighting a piece of Notable Nonfiction.

Nine Raves

Searching for Terry Punchout, by Tyler Hellard (2018 🇨🇦)

Premise: In a last-gasp effort to salvage his career, a struggling sportswriter returns to his small Nova Scotia hometown in the hopes of interviewing his estranged father, a retired NHL enforcer.

Review: I really enjoyed this novel. While its tone is light and thoroughly enjoyable, it offers some surprising and nuanced insight into big topics such as home, belonging, growing up, and the struggles between fathers and sons. This was a big win for me.

Bookish Pair: For another East Coast homegoing story, E. Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News

Nova Scotia House, by Charlie Porter (2025)

Premise: As gentrification renders the East London neighborhood he shared with his late partner unrecognizable, an aging gay man reflects on his present and past losses.

Review: It’s hard to make books dealing with the AIDS epidemic not feel manipulative, but this was very impactful. Having an age-gap relationship at its heart allowed the book to explore three distinct generations of queer experience, from the hedonistic days of the 1970s, through the devastation of the ‘80s and ‘90s, to our present moment. Through these perspectives we see not only change, but also the continuity of queer joy, resistance, and resilience. The writing style is very simple, which I found a bit jarring, but it worked for the narrative voice.

Bookish Pair: A Room Above a Shop, by Anthony Shapland (2025)

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, by Elif Shafak (2019)

Premise: In her final moments, a sex worker reflects on her life and loves, and the next day, her friends seek to give her a proper burial.

Review: This was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2019, and I can understand why. This is a heartbreaking but beautiful novel about resilience, the difference between what is moral and what is simply conventional, and the power of found family. My only complaint is that the conceit of the novel only carries through the first half, while the second half was actually far more compelling to me. But this is absolutely wonderful.

Bookish Pair: For shared themes of found family in marginalized communities, this paired really well with Nova Scotia House, by Charlie Porter (2025)

The Murder at World’s End, by Ross Montgomery (2026)

Premise: A young footman on his last chance at respectable employment must team up with an eccentric old woman to clear his name when he becomes the obvious suspect when the master of the house turns up dead the morning after he arrives.

Review: This is billed as Knives Out meets Downton Abbey and that comp works perfectly. I had so much fun reading this. The humour sparkled without getting in the way of the mystery. The only thing I’ll note is that there are a few anachronisms in the writing, so if that takes you out of your Edwardian fantasy, be prepared. But I loved this.

Bookish Pair: Beatrice Steele’s A Most Agreeable Murder (2023)

Apocalypse Baby, by Virginie Despentes (2010, transl. 2015)

Premise: A quiet private investigator solicits the help of a notorious tracker to find a wealthy teenager.

Review: Overall I enjoyed this take on the noir genre exploring the many seedy underbellies of Paris in the 2000s. It’s at its best when it’s following the two main characters in their investigation; unfortunately, there are substantial sections devoted to the POVs of various people in the lost girl’s life, which felt unnecessarily long. I also found the book’s extreme pessimism and cynicism a bit much—everyone, rich or poor, citizen or immigrant, left or right-wing, young or old, is shown in the worst possible light—and the wild ending felt unearned. But that said, I did enjoy the ride and hope to read more from Despentes in the future.

The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic 0.2), by Alice Hoffman (2017)

Premise: Three New York teenagers wrestle with their identities and a shocking family curse: that anyone who loves them is doomed to early and tragic death.

Review: As someone who didn’t love the book that inspired this series, this was a huge and pleasant surprise for me. The characterization is spectacular and I loved the way it breathed new life into tired themes of fate vs. freedom, and whether it’s better to have loved and lost… This was excellent!

Bookish Pair: As far as family curses go, it’s hard to beat One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez (1967)

Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die, by Greer Stothers (2026 🇨🇦)

Premise: After discovering a prophecy has determined he must die in order to save the world as he knows it, a hapless knight switches sides and discovers that maybe the world as he knows it might not be so great anyway.

Review: This is a pure delight of a novel. A mixture of fantasy and science fiction, with a strong comedic sensibility, it was full of surprises that kept me entertained at every turn. While very fun, it also touched on some important themes in creative ways.

Bookish Pair: ND Stevenson’s graphic novel phenomenon, Nimona (2015)

The Forest on the Edge of Time, by Jasmin Kirkbride (2026)

Premise: Two women are sent 2500 years into the future and past respectively on a desperate mission to save the world from climate devastation.

Review: I wasn’t sure what to expect from this, but I was really impressed. I appreciated how different the timelines were. And, as a humanities guy, I loved the premise that, while science is certainly critical to solving our problems, what’s really needed if we are to avoid disaster is is a shift in our thinking.

Bookish Pair: Sequoia Nagamatsu’s How High We Go in the Dark (2022)

Fire from Heaven (Alexander the Great 1), by Mary Renault (1969)

Premise: A fictionalized account of the life of Alexander the Great, from his early childhood to his father’s assassination.

Review: This is an incredible piece of historical fiction. Renault brings the culture and politics of the rise of Macedon to life in a way second only to her vivid portrayal of Alexander himself. This is no postmodern deconstruction of the ‘great man’ archetype, but it is a searing portrayal of the psychology of a precocious, charismatic, but also dangerously single-minded young man. In his youth we see the beginnings of his greatness and also his downfall. The story drags in places when Greek politics takes focus away from Alexander and the push-pull of his parents. But that is a small quibble in light of everything this does brilliantly.

Bookish Pair: For all the allusions to it, Homer’s The Iliad

And One Pan

Jackson Alone, by Jose Ando (2022, transl. 2026)

Premise: A biracial African-Japanese man is drawn into a world of conspiracy when a clip of a man who looks like him undergoing degrading acts circulates among his coworkers.

Review: This has an exceptional premise and has important things to say about intersectionality and racism in contemporary Japan. However, never has the expression “lost the plot” been more fitting. In a short 160 pages, the plot shifts radically at least four times and by the end I had absolutely no idea what was happening. This won awards in Japan, so maybe it’s just a translation issue; but Either way, I felt so let down because I think it has a lot of very important things to say, but just dropped the ball story-wise.

Bookish Pair: For another book exploring similar themes in Japanese society, Bryan Washington’s Palaver (2025)

Notable Non-Fiction

No Cure for Being Human, by Kate Bowler (2021 🇨🇦)

Premise: A charming and heartfelt memoir by a historian specializing in the American Prosperity Gospel who was diagnosed with stage-4 cancer.

Review: I recently felt the need to get out some big feelings and get my head on straight, so decided to re-read this funny and insightful memoir by the always delightful Kate Bowler. While keeping one foot in academia, she’s also built a name for calling out the lies inherent in contemporary society’s ‘best life’, ‘fix-it’ spiritual consumerism. The reality is, all life is a fatal condition and there is no cure for being human. And there are few people I’d rather face those truths with than Dr. Bowler.

Bookish Pair: Bowler’s Everything Happens for a Reason, and Other Lies I’ve Loved (2018)