People have been asking me lately why I periodically give away free copies of my backlist titles. I did it yesterday with my short story collection The Necessary Havoc of Love. Mainly I want people to read books that would otherwise disappear. There’s also that magic term advertisers use: name recognition. Does it giving away […]
Reviewer Alison Manley looks at my new novel from an angle I couldn’t have predicted. I’m reprinting part of it here. A starred review! February 5, 2024 by Alison Manley The first thought I had about Far Creek Road by Lesley Krueger was that it was made so perfectly for me, an adult who had fallen in love with […]
Piles of books. Piles and piles of books. Cases and shelves of books, books, books, and a table in my office stacked with them. I bring this up not just to share the burden, although I’m happy if you’d like to. Instead, I want to mention a plan. There are very few book reviews in […]
Happy holidays to everyone, and a wish that the sun will rise on peace throughout the world in 2024.
“The menace of the Communists to our Canadian way of life is vividly evident. In a Communist Canada, every surviving citizen would be subject to a rigidly tyrannical control of every detail of his existence. He could not choose his job, or change his job. For grousing he could be ejected from his home. For […]
On the subway, a father is doing exercises in a workbook with his six- or seven-year-old son. I’m sitting kittycorner to them, and I can see that the book open to a story with blanks left so kids can fill in the words. The v. attentive father is asking his son for a verb or […]
I went to the Toronto Old Book and Paper Show a couple of weeks ago planning to buy nothing. Instead, I wanted to pick up business cards from merchants who might be interested in the old maps, magazines and other ephemera filling boxes and shelves and attic space in our house. I’m still trying to […]
When writing my latest novel, which is set during the early 1960s, I had fun cooking recipes from the Cold War years. Many were awful, which means I had to remind myself not to condescend to the past. We like to believe we’ve progressed beyond our parents’ and grandparents’ generations, which can strike us as […]
Mid-Century Modern furniture is one thing, but I’m afraid the dinners originally laid on those enviable teak tables were seldom up to the decor. My new novel, Far Creek Road, is set in suburban Vancouver in 1962, around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Research—I love doing research—often had me wading through tomes about Cold […]
My book launch last week was held in an important place: Gabby’s, the favorite bar of our friend Michael Finlay. Michael was a former CBC radio producer who died in Toronto last February after being assaulted only metres from Gabby’s. While walking down Danforth Avenue, Michael was pushed into a large concrete planter. He suffered […]
My new novel, Far Creek Road, was launched into the world last night at lovely pub gathering. That’s Michelline behind the bar at Gabby’s in Toronto, the enthusiastic host of the launch. Huge thanks to all my family and friends who gathered at Gabby’s to raise a glass. Major thanks as well to ECW Press, where […]
Sitting in a restaurant on a sunny evening. Outside is a man wearing shorts, a jacket and a black top hat like a magician’s. Both the jacket and the top hat are sewn with shards of mirror, sparkling with them, scintillating. The man is parading back and forth on the sidewalk. Back and forth. Another […]