Nino Ricci takes Governor General's Fiction Award
Vit Wagner  
Rawi Hage, reigning winner of the internationally renowned and lucrative IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, again has been shut out of Canada's trio of top fiction prizes, despite being nominated for all three.

Miriam Toews wins Writers' Trust fiction prize
Vit Wagner  
Miriam Toews' The Flying Troutmans , touted early on as a possible candidate for several major Canadian book prizes, ended up earning a single nomination. But the popular Winnipeg author's bestselling novel ...

Setting the record straight on Hearst
Bruce DeMara  
You might call Kenneth Whyte's book chronicling the early years of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst a sort of "Kane" mutiny.

This book delivers in the Xtreme
Garth Woolsey  
"Hockey has never been so Xtreme."

Toilet habits are no laughing matter
Leslie Scrivener  
Prudishness about human waste has deadly consequences, says the author of an engaging new book.

Moscow as the real star
Geoff Pevere  
Jon Fasman's novel about a young American misadventuring in Moscow takes its title from Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities : "Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his he did not know he had: the ...

A great evil gathers
Derek Weiler  
Roberto Bolaño's 2666 is monumental in more ways than one. A 900-page opus that spans decades and ranges from Europe to Mexico, the novel is the most potent distillation yet of its creator's themes and techniques.

Two of Britain's very best stumble badly
Jack Batten  
Rhoda Gradwyn, a single woman in her mid-40s, is the murder victim in The Private Patient , P.D. James's new novel featuring Scotland Yard's Commander Adam Dalgliesh. Throughout the book, James identifies Gradwyn ...

Morrison's call to conscience
Barbara Carey  
"People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them," the celebrated James Baldwin once said. Nowhere is this more powerfully expressed than in the work of another famous black American author, ...

As it happens, radio translates well onto paper
Greg Quill  
By design CBC Radio's As It Happens – after the network's Ideas , the world's longest-running radio program – is the ultimate listening adventure.

Nazi-occupied Paris through the eyes of Hélène Berr
Hélène Berr was 21 and attending the Sorbonne when she began keeping a journal.


Good reads for bad days
Geoff Pevere  
Your stock portfolio may be battered, but at least you're not in a Dickens novel. These 20 books offer shelter from these stormy times.

Joseph Boyden wins $50,000 Giller Prize
Vit Wagner  
Through Black Spruce , the follow-up to Joseph Boyden's acclaimed novel Three Day Road , is this year's winner of this year's $50,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Book set in bush takes $50,000 Giller Prize
Vit Wagner  
Through Black Spruce , the follow-up to Joseph Boyden's acclaimed novel Three Day Road , is this year's winner of the $50,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Library's new look an old story
Jason Miller  
Books aren't the only things that tell stories inside the newly renovated Dufferin/St. Clair Public Library.

'Strong, proud and delicious'
Kim Honey  
On one side of the room divider, the smell of livestock was palpable as the juniors showed off their cattle in the judging ring at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair.

Fine Yuletide gift for wee hockey fans
Garth Woolsey  
"The outlook wasn't hopeful for the Rocket team that day..."

Five still alive in race for G-G Award
Deirdre Baker  
The mystery that is the Governor General's Awards is upon us again, this time with a short list of picture book finalists that ranges from a toddler's lullaby to poetry by Emily Dickinson.

The definitive Lennon at last
GREG QUILL  
A new biography of John Lennon unfolds as a novel, with never-before-shared insights drawn from childhood friends and a vivid re-creation of post-war Liverpool, writes Greg Quill.

A talented observer of lives in between
Geoff Pevere  
Rebecca Rosenblum's head-turningly good debut, Once , is a story collection about people who tend not to see the narrative of their own lives.

Lest we forget
DAN SMITH  
The undeniable pride in Canada's military men and women that can be seen everywhere in this country – regardless of the legitimate debate about whether they should be fighting and dying in Afghanistan – is in some ways a return to our traditional ...

Battle of the book prizes
Vit Wagner  
The Giller Prize winner will be announced Tuesday. Read about an increasingly crowded season of literary laurels, and vote in our Giller poll.

The book award parade
Here is a rundown of prominent awards for writers.

Forgery of antiquities is big business
Stuart Laidlaw  
A new book explores the the shadowy world of antiquities and archeology in Israel. Its focus is the James Ossuary, once purported to have held the bones of Jesus's brother and now exposed as a fake, writes Stuart ...