Every Happy Family by Dede Crane

“I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes
The blackbird whistling/Or just after.”  
(Wallace Stevens, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”)

Some books have aftersound.  You finish a novel, file it away, but the cadence of the narrator -- like Lawrence Hill’s Aminata in The Book of Negroes – lingers in your ears, or an edge of dissonance hangs in your mind. For instance, in Elizabeth Hay’s Alone in the Classroom, why does the best way to teach reading figure in a story about power and abuse? (There’s a compelling connection.)

So when a book insists on being heard well after I have read it, I “submit to whatever spell . . . is being cast," as John Updike puts it, I want to read the book again, listen more closely, find deeper connections between its movements, and share my discoveries with other curious readers. And I want to hear the voices of other reviewers. There are at least thirteen ways of looking at a book.

Read my reviews of Small Beneath the Sky by Lorna Crozier (Spring, 2010) and Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (Spring, 2012) in The Malahat Review.

Have a look at an issue of The Malahat's virtual newsletter that reviews the book review itself (see Section 10).

Peruse the Coastal Spectator for lively reviews of arts and culture on Vancouver Island.

Read Globe and Mail Books.

Listen to/Read Eleanor Wachtel at Writers and Company; add to the conversation via Twitter. 

Join Goodreads and post reviews yourself.