Book Reviews

Jennifer Vanderbes’s deft and thorough Wonder Drug maps the thalidomide tragedy

Mind Golf is an attempt to share secrets of eccentric legend Moe Norman

Queer romance novel Solomon’s Crown finds new ground in the medieval terrain

Noir thriller Red Team Blues captures the anxious tension of our time

Camp Zero reads like a chronicle of the present

All Things Move investigates the Sistine Chapel from all angles

Steven Heighton’s posthumous collection Instructions for the Drowning has emotional heft

Catherine Hernandez’s The Story of Us forces us to witness the structures of Canada’s immigration system

Thomas d’Aquino’s Private Power, Public Purpose challenges next generation to build on the ultimate Ottawa insider’s legacy

Vincent Lam’s On the Ravine offers a compelling narrative on the purgatory of addiction

Into the Great Emptiness makes case for Henry George Watkins to join pantheon of great explorers

Failure isn’t always a precursor to success when it comes to writing, book argues

In new book, Mike Pompeo offers up a valuable but troubling account of the Trump presidency

With Victory City, Salman Rushdie delivers not so much a masterpiece as a plea for humanity

With its chills and thrills, Bad Cree goes beyond the genre’s trope

New Bill Morneau book offers insider’s account of first five years of Trudeau government

Five mystery books to start the year with a thrill

Prince Harry’s memoir Spare a portrait of an angry man struggling to make peace with his past

These three new books break true-crime conventions

In A Private Spy, John le Carré's personal letters come to life as fine literature

The Song of the Cell asks us to ponder the huge implications of microscopic biology

Love The White Lotus? Try these books

Buyer beware: Book warns Group of Seven forgeries might resurface

Biography mostly captures the magic of punk rocker Art Bergmann

New book asks tough but necessary questions about Irish unity

Four recently published books help take our anthropocentric arrogance down a notch

Clark Blaise is the greatest Canadian writer no one has heard about

New books capture the myths, realities and conundrum of Russia and a possible new Russian resistance

Chelene Knight’s latest novel Junie is an intimate look at how Black women try to thrive in a unique community

Menaka Raman-Wilms’s debut novel is a slow burn, with a dark, gripping reveal

Whit Fraser revisits a pivotal moment in Nunavut’s past in Cold Edge of Heaven

Steve Paikin’s John Turner biography reveals a conflicted man who influenced Canadian politics mostly for the better

Jowita Bydlowska provocatively embraces Camus, blends Gothic horror elements in Possessed

George McCullagh created the Globe and Mail, but he wielded more power than just the press

Gabor Maté explores the toll of trauma on our physical health in The Myth of Normal