Matt's Books and Music

Here are some of the highlights, and one notable low-light, from the past month of my reading life.

Nine Raves

The Fire-Dwellers, by Margaret Laurence (1969 🇨🇦)

Premise: A housewife struggles to break the culture of silence and keeping up appearances in her suburban Vancouver neighborhood.

Review: This is in all respects a typical second-wave feminist novel: women’s unfulfilled potential, boredom, and desperation are the main themes. But the story is so well-told, I was never bored despite the well-worn tropes. Immersed in the protagonist’s internal narrative, we get a first-hand view of the tensions between her genuine love for her family and desperation to have something of her own. But we also come to see her husband’s own desperation, and the ways the secrecy that pervades their suburban world takes its toll on everyone. This was worthy of its place on the Booker longlist and is my new favourite Laurence.

Bookish Pair: Mrs. Caliban, Rachel Ingalls (1982)

The Things We Never Say, by Elizabeth Strout (2026)

Premise: A good man struggles to make sense of a revelation that threatens to rupture his family life, even as he witnesses the radical political ruptures harming his country, career, and relationships.

Review: I’ve had a strange journey with Strout’s novels, and this book features both the things I’ve loved about her, and the things I’ve not enjoyed. On the positive side, we see her patented spare but solid writing style and her way of putting the spotlight on the big dramas of everyday lives. The central drama among the family is nothing short of beautiful, and if the story focused primarily on this plotline, it would have easily been a five-star read for me. But, on the negative side, much like Strout’s Lucy by the Sea, the political and social commentary felt very ‘on the nose’, with a ‘ripped from the headlines’ sensibility that seems more about indulging anxieties than speaking to them. And that just doesn’t work for me.

Bookish Pair: Oh William! (2021) is my favourite Strout.

The Beheading Game, by Rebecca Lehmann (2026)

Premise: The newly beheaded Queen Anne Boleyn wakes up, sews her head back on, and gets down to the business of vengeance.

Review: The first scene of this novel is one of the most memorable I’ve read, and sets up a fascinating premise. While it’s received mixed reviews from readers, I really loved this fantastical spin on historical fiction. Despite the obvious historical liberties, Lehmann absolutely did her homework in bringing both the Tudor Court and peasant classes to life. This was a big and unexpected win for me.

Bookish Pair: For another perspective on Anne’s downfall, Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies (2012)

Life Ceremony, by Sayaka Murata (2019, transl. 2023)

Premise: A collection of speculative short stories asking unsettling questions about the relationship between morality, convention, and social acceptability.

Review: My feeling while reading this was that there were some excellent stories, but it was overall pretty uneven. But, the final story tied everything together so powerfully that I can’t help but give this five enthusiastic stars. I’m not sure why Japan does disturbing speculative fiction so well, but it really does. The stories often set up a clear ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ only to unfold in ways that undermine those categories. Brilliant.

Bookish Pair: The author’s wonderful novel Vanishing World (2015, transl. 2025) is perfectly of a piece with this.

The Renovation, by Kenan Orhan (2026)

Premise: Past and present come crashing together for a political refugee living in Italy when a renovation intended to create a sanctuary for her becomes instead a Turkish prison cell.

Review: This is the kind of novel made for awards like the Booker. It’s exquisitely written and takes bold swings. Its major themes of the erosion of civil liberties in Turkey and caregiving for a parent with Alzheimer’s don’t seem like they would naturally mix, but in Orhan’s skilled hands, they come together to create an exceptional story of loss and need. This isn’t going to be a favourite book for me, but I marvel at its genius.

Land, by Maggie O’Farrell (2026)

Premise: In the generation after the Famine, an Irish surveyor has a mystical encounter that sets off a chain of events that breaks and refashions his family.

Review: I experienced a bit of a push and pull with this one; at times I thought it was one of the best things I’ve read and at other times, my interest waned and my eyes started to roll. While, overall, I wish there was a bit less heartache in it, it really is a beautiful and true story of Ireland, family, and migrant life.

Bookish Pair: Jane Uruhart’s The Stone Carvers (2001 🇨🇦)

May We Feed the King, by Rebecca Perry (2026)

Premise: As an expert room dresser prepares a medieval palace for a major anniversary, we see scenes that took place in those rooms centuries before in the life of a mysterious and reluctant king.

Review: This is a remarkable achievement in subtle storytelling. We see the king’s life in only brief moments that come across almost as hushed palace whispers. It’s experimental but in a way that felt like the author was playing with readers rather than antagonizing them. It also asks interesting questions about history and historiography, that evergreen question of who gets to tell our stories. This was a big win for me.

Bookish Pair: For a very different book that asks similar questions, Saleem Haddad’s Floodlines (2026)

The Butcher’s Masquerade (Dungeon Crawler Carl 5), by Matt Dinniman (2022)

Premise: On the sixth floor of the dungeon, the crawlers encounter prize hunters, divinities, and dinosaurs, as Carl takes his attacks on the system to the next level.

Review: This may have been my favourite in the series so far. While there’s still a bit of plot-creep, this was overall more focused than the last two and set up a lot of good potential stuff for the future.

Stones, by Timothy Findley (1988 🇨🇦)

Premise: A collection of short stories, largely on themes related to mental health and neurodiversity

Review: Timothy Findley was an exceptional writer; while his subject matter is hit and miss for me, the prose never disappoints. Like most collections, this is a bit uneven, but a majority of the stories hit hard and left me wanting More. I can’t quite give it 5 stars, due to some of the weaker stories and to the fact that some of the ways he talks about mental health and neurodiversity in these stories are dated enough to feel a bit problematic close to forty years later. (But considering how taboo these topics still were in the ‘80s, he should be commended for addressing them!)

Bookish Pair: This pairs well with Findley’s You Went Away (1996)

And One Disappointment

The Humble Lover, by Edmund White (2023)

Premise: An aging New York socialite becomes obsessed with a male ballet dancer, with terrible consequences.

Review: I honestly don’t have words for how much I hated this novel, which was sadly White’s last before his death. All the characters are horrible and unsympathetic, all the relationships are transactional to the extreme, the sexual content is very unsexy, and the plot is dumb and off-putting. I’m normally comfortable saying a book just wasn’t for me, but I think this was just bad. A rare actual pan from me!

Bookish Pair: If you want misanthropy with less bad sex, that’s why we have Atwood.

 

Notable Non-Fiction

The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin (1963)

Premise: A series of reflections on the past, ‘present,’ and future of race relations written from within the heat of the Civil Rights Movement and the rise of the Nation of Islam.

Review: I don’t think there is any writer of the 20th century who wrote with as much insight or precision, yet also grace, as James Baldwin. He uses language like a scalpel and it’s a powerful thing. It’s sad that over sixty years later, so much of what he says remains relevant.

Bookish Pair: The Cross and the Lynching Tree, by James H. Cone (2011)