The Seaboard Review of Books, December 8, 2025
Volume 2, Issue 54 of The Seaboard Review of Books, December 8, 2025
In this issue:
Quantum: Poems by Irina Moga (Poetry)
At Beckett’s Grave by Robin Durnford (Poetry)
Magical Realism Series Continues in No Love Lost by Jane Glatt (Fiction)
Planet Earth: Stories by Nicholas Ruddock (Fiction)
Dust: More Lives Of The Poets (With Guitars) by Ray Robertson (Non-Fiction)
Curling Rocks!: Chronicles of The Roaring Game, by John Cullen (Non-Fiction)
Thanks for reading this issue of The Seaboard Review of Books!
James M. Fisher, editor-in-chief
Fiction
Magical Realism Series Continues in No Love Lost by Jane Glatt
No Love Lost, Book 2 of Jane Glatt’s “Wrap-It-Up Magic” series, resumes the story of Barb Baker and her curious talent for finding what has been lost. Barb, the protagonist of the series’s first book, Lost and Found, is continuing to rebuild a life shattered after the revelation of her husband Richard’s embezzlement schemes. Even though Barb did not kno…
Planet Earth: Stories by Nicholas Ruddock
For readers who are tired of wading through four or five-hundred-page novels, but who still like a hit of fiction, Nicholas Ruddock is the relief you have been longing for. His most recent work, Planet Earth: Stories, consists of 18 short stories, every one of which packs a wallop. Six of the stories are very short indeed, less than two pages each, whil…
Non-Fiction
Dust: More Lives Of The Poets (With Guitars) by Ray Robertson
I first encountered Ray Robertson’s talent for assessment in Mental Arithmetic, a 2004 collection of book reviews and essays originating in The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. He came across as a sharp, witty and provocative critic, and I kept his name in mind as the years rolled by, years in which much prose, fiction and otherwise, appeared and his p…
Curling Rocks!: Chronicles of The Roaring Game, by John Cullen
My Toronto high school friend, Susan Holladay, took figure skating lessons. Of course she did. It was the girl thing to do. However, Susan wasn’t a starry-eyed would-be Barbara Ann Scott or Peggy Fleming. While doing bunny hops, she cast curious, wistful glances toward the opposite end of the Granite Club’s rink—at the curlers.
Poetry
At Beckett's Grave by Robin Durnford
Robin Durnford’s fourth poetry collection is titled At Beckett’s Grave, but it isn’t really about the 20th-century existentialist writer Samuel Beckett. It’s a quietly articulated personal journey through the landscapes of loss, culminating in a visit to the Parisian cemetery where Beckett is buried. The book starts with a baby, conceived as a work of a…
Michael Greenstein Reviews
Quantum: Poems by Irina Moga
Part bird, part human, the two elegantly attired creatures on the cover of Irina Moga’s Quantum hold an open book in one hand, and with the other pluck fruit, heartstrings, and other rhythms from a colourful garden of earthly delights. These colourful figures forage for sounds, metaphors, bookmarks, and greenery. Moga’s four-part harmonies involve sente…
New, Old & Notable is a reoccurring column by Gordon Phinn in which he concisely reviews several books from the past and present.
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There’s Magic Here Too: A Trans Woman’s Guide to Being Monstrous by Skylar Kay
This new collection by Calgary poet Skylar Kay knocked my socks off! It’s urgent and generous with shout-outs to Jafar, Game Boy, Ursula, and a Magic 8 Ball, and full of supernatural incantations—“Expel penile poltergeist” and “Stash a bauble under your pillow, / close by for gifting to crows.” I was mesmerized by the nested footnotes in the standout poem “Mirror, Mirror … Or Maybe Overthinking … I Don’t Know Yet,” which starts with the line “I am a woman1.” and leads the reader into a labyrinth of what it means to be enough. There’s Magic Here Too: A Trans Woman’s Guide to Being Monstrous is essential reading that will make you laugh, then take your breath away, and invite you to witness lived experience that is sure to inspire care and solidarity. (Contributed by Samantha Jones)
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