The Seaboard Review: April 28th, 2025
Volume 2, Issue 17
Last Chance!
This is the last chance to enter the final two giveaways, exclusively for our Substack subscribers.
The first giveaway is of a six-book bundle from Penguin Random House for our paid subscribers (all paid subscribers are automatically entered). These are six of their top-selling titles from 2024 and a paid subscriber will win them all!
Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune
Who We Are: Four Questions for a Life and a Nation by Murray Sinclair
Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI by Yuval Noah Harari
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie
If you are not a paid subscriber, then let this be the incentive you need to sign up! If that’s not enough, we’ve discounted annual subscriptions by 50% for April, our anniversary month.
The second giveaway is sponsored by Breakwater Books, and it is for our many free Substack subscribers:
Hides by Rod Moody-Corbett
The Weather Diviner by Elizabeth Murphy
Called by Mother Earth by Greg Naterer
Both giveaway winners will be announced Wednesday April 30th/May 1st. The winning subscriber must have a Canadian mailing address.
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I believe this to be one of the best (if not THE best) entry in the popular Thief 4 Hire series. Mr. Bowie goes “bare bones” on this one, with Sean Donovan hired to find a friend's “missing” daughter in London. Sean is pretty much on his own, as he prefers to be, leaving his wife Beth in Niagara to run the winery. With less baggage, Sean can do what he does best. Great adventure awaits the reader, but it's helpful to have read the previous 5 books to know the reoccurring characters. (James)
THE LAST CHAIRLIFT by John Irving
In The Last Chairlift, John Irving offers a sprawling, deeply felt meditation on identity, family, and the ghosts—literal and figurative—that shape a life. The novel is slow to start, its first chapters thick with exposition and digression, but once it finds its rhythm, it becomes an unexpectedly moving and immersive experience. I’ve been listening to the audiobook throughout the winter on my commutes, and gradually, its meandering pace began to feel like a feature rather than a flaw—a kind of literary snowfall that accumulates meaning over time. At the centre is Adam Brewster, a writer raised by a fiercely private ski-racing mother, whose coming-of-age is shaped by questions of origin, sexuality, and belief. Familiar Irving motifs abound—unconventional families, gender nonconformity, the collision of personal and political—but here they are delivered with a quiet, elegiac sincerity that makes this novel feel like a summing up of a storied career. Expansive, tender, and often strange, The Last Chairlift rewards those willing to go along for the long ride. (Selena Mercuri)
News
For folks out Toronto way, once a month The Caledonian Pub at 856 College St is home to Drunk Fiction, an irreverent night of readings, where readers, listeners, authors and those who love them can gather, drink and nosh! May 27 is Dennis E Bolen touring his new book, along with Marianne Miller, Aviva Rubin and Sydney Hegele. Check in at https://emilyweedon.com/drunk-fiction for more info!
If you can't be there in person but would like a copy. it's only $10 (TEN DOLLARS!) plus postage. Contact John via Facebook.
TSR Subscriber Count
We now have 341 349 subscribers! That number includes our paying subscribers (thank you!) as well as our free ones. Being a paid subscriber (for as little as $5/month) allows us to give out honorariums to our team of contributors, which keeps them dedicated to writing reviews of books we think are worthy of your time. Click the button to see all the Substack options. For the month of April, annual subscriptions are 50% off!
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Thanks for reading this issue of The Seaboard Review!
James M. Fisher, editor-in-chief
