The Seaboard Review of Books: June 9, 2025
Volume 2, Issue 23
In this issue: reviews of books written by two Austens (Jane and Emily), The Fun Times Brigade by Lindsay Zier-Vogel, the new “Wakeland” novel from Sam Wiebe, Diana Stevan’s book on her experiences as a family therapist and gardener, audio poems from Olga Stein. Lisa Timpf reviews some sport-themed poetry, and Danila Botha (welcome!) interviews author Avner Landes, and some excellent “Hot Takes” to consider for your summer reading list!
Review of the Week
The Fun Times Brigade by Lindsay Zier-Vogel
Amy is struggling with the demands of new motherhood. Like many new mothers, she feels ill-prepared to care for an infant and still have a career. As a children’s entertainer, she’s never considered the lives of the parents of her target audience. Amy’s story is interwoven with flashback chapters that give the background of how she entered her career. S…
Other Reviews
Fiction
The Last Exile: A Wakeland Novel by Sam Wiebe
Do you want to get taken for a drive down a dark road at night? Good. Relax. Sam Wiebe is driving. He’s got one hand draped light on the wheel, as he steers readers through his latest book The Last Exile, the other one is slung out the window as he moves fast and fleet, noting changes in the flow of traffic with an absent expertise. He’s driving stick, …
We Could Be Rats by Emily Austin
I have read and loved all three of Emily Austin’s books. All are written with a queer, neurodivergent young protagonist who is real and raw and hurting, but who is also endearing and trying so hard to love the world and find her place in it.
Non-Fiction
Poetry
Goalie by Ben von Jagow
The rituals involved in maintaining a backyard rink, the mingled boredom and anticipation of long bus rides to games, and the tension of watching the game clock tick down are among the scenarios explored in Ben von Jagow’s debut poetry collection. Goalie. The collection includes 31 poems, some of which have been previously published in
Audio Poems
Olga Stein reads two poems from her new collection, Love Songs: Prayers to Gods, Not Men, “Mezanotte” and “Epigram”. For more information about Olga and her Love Songs, please see the publisher’s page here.
Michael Greenstein Reviews:
Emma by Jane Austen (200th Anniversary Annotated Edition)
What is it about Jane Austen’s fiction that appeals to writers as diverse as Mordecai Richler and André Alexis? After 200 years, her polished prose, social satire, and psychological insights endear her to readers across the board. Emma Woodhouse, the eponymous protagonist in her novel, balances between a romantic softness in her given name and a harder …
Interview
The Avner Landes Interview
The Delegation is one of the most ambitious and brilliant novels I’ve read in a long time. I’ve been a fan of Avner Landes ever since his sharply funny, very literary debut novel, Meiselman: The Lean Years which was published by Tortoise Books in 2021.
Hot Takes: Brief Notes on Books Present & Past
(Note: clicking on the underlined link takes you to the book’s publisher page or Amazon.ca for more information or for purchasing purposes)
The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall
This Giller Prize-nominated novel from 2016 did not disappoint. I first read Whittall's work in her novel The Fake, which I reviewed a few months ago. In The Best Kind of People, George Woodbury, a well-respected member of a small community, is accused of being sexually inappropriate with students at a local prep school. His wife doesn't know what to think, but wants to believe in her husband. As a highly trained nurse, she considers various possibilities and wonders if there is something wrong with George. Their daughter Sadie, is close in age to the accusers and becomes a social pariah when she discovers that one of her father's possible victims is the younger sister of a close friend. George's defence is assisted by his grown son, Andrew. All this is muddied by the unexpected and unwanted involvement of a group of men's rights activists. The characters are insightful and developed, and the novel contributes to the much needed conversation on rape culture. Loved this book! (Contributed by Pamela Sinclair)
If you’re browsing in the bookstore somewhere in the B’s, and you hear a muffled clamouring, don’t be alarmed. It’s Ali Bryan’s book Coq, and that sound is the hurly-burly of the many characters in her book yelling, sassing, coming, going, loving, hating and crashing bikes.
Ali’s style is all the hot heart of a Hollywood rom com - something spicy starring Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake but with the hit-you-in-the-feels of a Hallmark movie, or that one Christmas movie you let yourself watch every year after everyone else is drunk or asleep. All this mixed with the channelled ghost of PG Wodehouse. Every single sentence zigs a slightly different way making up a maximalist, chaotic Jackson Pollack of pudding and wine and tears and tiny plastic Eiffel Towers spilling all over the place.
Picture Amelie, but with a minivan full of Canadians and you’re starting to get there. Bryan leaves the reader hanging at the end of each chapter waiting for the next twist with the structural control of a screenwriter or an air traffic controller. It’s a rollercoaster experience, Euro Disney style, and your best bet is to strap in, and wear goggles: things will fly at you, and you won’t want to miss a thing. (Contributed by Emily Weedon)
A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters by Henry Gee
The title explains its topic. In just over 200 pages, Gee traces the dawning of life from the right mix of chemicals, sunlight and water, and then walks the reader through the evolution of plant and animal life from single cells to, well, humans. Gee's prose is wonderfully clear, and entertaining. He mentions a land-living amphibian, Eyrops, "which looked like a bullfrog imagining itself as an alligator. Had it had wheels, it would have been an armoured personnel carrier." Gee avoids getting bogged down in overly scientific jargon, keeping his history comprehensible, and often surprising: "At the very end of glaciation, about ten thousand years, ago the climate of Europe went from subarctic to equably temperate in the space of a human lifetime." This is a great addition to that shelf of books you (should) have that explain science in everyday terms, and great inspiration for poets and fiction writers, who want to go way back in imagination. (Contributed by John Oughton)
Book News
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Emily Weedon’s Drunk Fiction Event:
Lisa Timpf:
Lisa's poem “An Aging Athlete Holds Their Ground” was one of the poems selected for recognition in the Adult division at the 2025 National Baseball Poetry Festival. The 2025 event was the third annual National Baseball Poetry Festival. More information about the event can be found at https://baseballpoetryfest.org/
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Thanks for reading this issue of The Seaboard Review of Books!
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