Each week, Globe and Mail staffers and readers share what they’re reading now, whether it’s a hot new release or an old book they’re discovering for the first time. Tell me about a book you loved and we might publish your recommendation. Fill out this form, or send your book recommendation to Lara Pingue at lpingue@globeandmail.com
Spring books preview: 39 hot new titles
Explore: The Globe 100 book archive, a complete collection of our annual list
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The School of Night, Karl Ove Knausgaard
I’ve read several of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s works before. He’s a brilliant writer, but his books require nerves of steel to tackle their difficult subjects. He takes a microscope to the inner lives of his subjects, and that method requires much from his readers. The same is true of The School of Night, in which Knausgaard delivers a narcissist of the first order: a young art-school student who will do anything to succeed, even at a devastating cost. Though the character is hard to like or connect with, I was compelled to read to the end and I spent a long time thinking about the writing of it. If you can stick with it, it’s worth the pain.
-Globe reader Lindsay Bryan, Welland, Ont.
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Remembering Peasants, Patrick Joyce
Historian Patrick Joyce’s Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World is a personal exploration of peasant life in Europe, tracing its disappearance in the 20th century. Such recall requires effort as the culture of Joyce’s ancestors (and mine) left “no literature, art, or monuments” behind as reminders of a group that once made up 80 per cent of Eastern Europe’s population. Joyce characterizes the essential harshness of peasant life: “Near-perennial scarcity … a bag of grain away from starvation”; hunger, cold and voicelessness. All built an endurance that seems a heroic contrast to our modern-day personal fragility and perpetual grievance. This book will provide many with an appreciation of the lives of parents and grandparents who grew up without English, electricity or much formal education, but who offer lessons of strength, survival and resilience.
-Globe reader Chester Fedoruk, Toronto
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Escape!, Stephen Fishbach
Stephen Fishbach’s first novel, Escape!, is a captivating look into the lives of contestants that have been contrived and trivialized to entertain fans of reality TV. The story follows Kent, who wants to regain his former celebrity reality TV fame and is offered a spot on a new jungle survival show. There is lots of backstabbing, plotting and strategic alliances among the contestants as they vie for the large cash prize. Readers will enjoy the challenge of separating fact from fiction in this innovative novel.
-Globe reader Julie Kirsh, Toronto
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Sultry, is the Night, Barbara Avon
Canadian author Barbara Avon’s Sultry, is the Night is a gritty love story set in the 1980s about a poor boy who falls for a rich girl with a dark secret. This is a romantic tale, yes, but it weaves in themes of family conflict and abandonment. Even the unnamed town where the story takes place feels like a character, someone from the “wrong side of the tracks.” Avon’s every sentence packs a big punch, and the book delivers a powerful, memorable ending.
-Globe reader Bruce Brown, Ottawa
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In the Fullness of Time, Terry Roberts
In the Fullness of Time by Terry Roberts is a marvellous book, rich with Depression-era history and set in the mountains of North Carolina. The story follows widowed Sheriff Clinton Salter, who believes he’ll be dealing with minor small-town offences but quickly becomes entangled with solving crimes of arson, political corruptions and murder. In the meantime, he finds romance again with a woman who’s dealing with her own problems. Our family in Asheville, N.C.. recommended this book, and so do I.
-Globe reader Jane Wilson, Ottawa
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Mahatma Among the Revolutionaries, Vivek Verma
I picked up Vivek Verma’s book, Mahatma Among the Revolutionaries: Disturbed India of the 1920s, because I was curious to learn about how British colonization affected Indians. As a Korean-Canadian living in Toronto, I wondered if there might be some parallels between the stories in this book and the events of the early 1900s, when Japan colonized Korea. While I searched for similarities of Indian resistance to English colonial power, I also wanted to know the role played by Mahatma Gandhi. The book explores several Indian and British characters who bring the gripping tale to life. Although the book is non-fiction, it doesn’t read like a history textbook. The demonstrations of Indian resistance, both violent and non-violent, are moving. For example, the simple act of making salt, an essential ingredient, was prohibited to all Indians and taxed at a punitive rate. The ensuing peaceful protest against the tax, called the Salt March, made headlines around the world.
-Globe reader MJ Lee, Toronto
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Cabin, Patrick Hutchison
In his memoir Cabin, author Patrick Hutchison recounts his frustrated ambition of becoming a roving global journalist who instead finds himself in an unfulfilling copywriting job. But when he chances upon a For Sale ad for a cabin in the Cascade Mountains outside of Seattle, everything changes. Thus begins a five-year adventure with a gaggle of friends who set about to repair and renovate the tiny cabin. Hutchison writes, “At a time in our lives when each year brought a move to a new apartment, or a new relationship, or a new job, the idea of having a place that was permanent was an immense comfort. It soothed a type of homesickness that we felt but maybe couldn’t describe.” A very readable memoir told with forthrightness, insight and humour.
-Globe reader Derek Wilson, Port Moody, B.C.
The Tyrnanny of Good Intentions.Amazon/Supplied
The Tyranny of Good Intentions, Jack Stillborn
I recently finished rereading The Tyranny of Good Intentions by Jack Stilborn, my beloved older brother. Fourteen years my elder, he’s always been my hero, and publishing his debut novel at age 77 makes him ever more so. This is a book about politics, drawing on Jack’s rich background in political science, but it’s also about second chances and finding hope in life’s unexpected passages. On the surface it’s essentially about a condo board – and how to get off it, once you’re on. Told with the same wit I recall from decades enjoying Jack’s storytelling around daily life, this is a title that makes me laugh out loud and think deeply about the systems underpinning our social networks. In particular, it makes me ponder my own experiences on committees, always hoping to extricate myself while engaging new members. Though I never actually ate fermented fish as a ploy. (Read the book to figure out what I’m talking about!)
-Globe reader Beverley Brenna, Saskatoon
In the Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson
I just read Eric Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts, a fascinating account of the rise of Hitler’s Germany from 1933 to 1939 as witnessed by the family of the American ambassador to Berlin. The parallels to Trump‘s America of 2025 are frightening: People grabbed from the streets, imprisoned and deported. Hitler’s Brownshirts, the Nazis paramilitary wing known for their brown uniforms, are the ICE of today. This book was published in 2011, but it could’ve been written by a New Yorker of today. It’s a good example of history repeating itself, and the fact that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. This book is highly recommended to remind us that we must be ever vigilant against evil.
-Globe reader JEM Young, Dundas, Ont.
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Against the Grain: Defiant Giants Who Changed the World, Terry O’Reilly
It’s a challenge to find books that interest my husband, but after I read Against the Grain: Defiant Giants Who Changed the World, I knew he would enjoy it too. Written by CBC Radio host Terry O’Reilly, it’s a series of short stories about mavericks who went “against the grain” in their work and made breakthroughs. They include Dr. Katalin Kariko, the co-creator of the COVID vaccine, who was humiliated and dismissed her entire career; former mayor of Bogota Antanas Mockus, who used inventive methods to reduce violent crimes and traffic fatalities; and NHL coach Roger Neilson, who sports fans will remember for his various ingenious strategies.
-Globe reader Jeanette Hingst-Aishford, Canmore, Alta.
Tell us about a book you love
What are you reading now? Is it a hot new release or an old classic you're discovering for the first time? Share all about your latest literary obsession below.