'The Heart Specialist' named best book by a Montreal author

The accolades just keep rolling in for Claire Holden Rothman's novel The Heart Specialist, which was listed in this article at Hour.ca as the best book by a Montreal author.

It's about time you read a preview of the book and found out what the buzz is all about!

More words on City of Words

Got some last minute Christmas shopping that needs to be done? Don't know what to get the people left on your list? Well, I've put together a handy-dandy guide to help you choose the perfect present.

Does the giftee:

- like books?
- live in/near Toronto, or is curious about seeing Toronto from a literary perspective?
- enjoy beautiful photographs?
- own a coffee table/want to own a coffee table/stack flat surfaces in their living room to create a makeshift coffee table?

Then may we humbly suggest City of Words: Toronto Through Her Writers' Eyes, a tome that is currently doing bananas* at Toronto-area bookstores.

Need more convincing? Check out these writeups at the Toronto Star and torontoist.com to see just how well the book captures the soul of our city. And head on over to our website for previews of photos in the book!


*Note: Authentic publishing term

City of Words and The Heart Specialist top Ben McNally's best

On Thursday, December 4, Ben McNally and his partner Lynn Thompson presented their top 45 books of the season. 

We are proud to see both The Heart Specialist and City of Words in the fiction top five! 

Click here to read more.

Win a free copy of City of Words!

Open Book Toronto is offering up a free copy of City of Words. To enter, head over to the contest page and make a comment telling them about one of your favourite things about Toronto.

You can also read about some of Sarah Elton's Toronto favourites, such as the book(s) which, in her eyes, best represent Toronto:

There are so many! Ondaatje made part of Toronto's history come to life with In The Skin of a Lion, and Austin Clarke captured another in his Toronto Trilogy. Dionne Brand's What We All Long For portrays the city as it is today, I think. And then there's David Bezmozgis' Natasha, which combines great writing with great storytelling and at the same time tells us about life here.

 Be sure to enter soon - the deadline is December 18th!

Trailer for The Wolf's Head by Peter Unwin

See more information on The Wolf's Head

Read a preview

Review of The Honey Locust

Check out this rave review of Jeffrey Round's The Honey Locust at stageand page.com:

"The fiction is charged with wisdom as it probes what lies under surfaces of reality and discovers that darkness is not just a camera’s fade to black but the ruins of Angkor Wat, the Lacandan rainforests, the shell-shocked regions of former Yugoslavia, and, most of all, the human heart—that crater where we often miss the chance to forgive and forget and where we waste time and effort in fighting and distancing ourselves from one another."

Read the rest of the review