This book is sweet, funny and insightful. Winter unerringly dissects the intimate minutiae of relationships with friends and lovers, while simultaneously maintaining a wry distance, and also looking out at the bigger world. His dialogue is at times devastatingly hilarious and moving.

This plainspoken book is riveting, emotionally stunning, a marvel. Its rapid-fire juxtaposition of harsh, abrupt violence, unexpected thoughtfulness, enduring tenderness and wry wit is unforgettable. Its themes have Biblical majesty. That one of the strongest ethical statements comes from the most twisted, perverse characters is a haunting conundrum. Equally haunting is the Bells’ love story, which underpins the entire story.

Overall, I feel like I learned a lot, as I did with “No Logo”. I’m also filled with even more admiration for Klein’s intellect and tenacity with complex, thorny, overwhelming subject matter. Unlike “No Logo”, however, “Shock Doctrine” left me feeling pretty bleak, hopeless and powerless. It wasn’t until mere pages from the end that Klein starts to give examples of people rising up against and finding ways to resist being shocked into accepting the Freidmanesque privatization of government and social services – almost as if she is pretty weary and despairing of the subject, too.

Intoxicatingly paced, Kim Echlin’s “The Disappeared” draws the reader into the rich experiences of its characters and their vibrant relationships and worlds. Echlin convincingly captures perspectives and emotions at different ages – the naive conviction and unstoppable passion of a precocious teenager, the quiet resolve of an aging widower and parent, the death-defying devotion of a person to a tragically lost family, history and country, the determination bordering on obsession of another person literally reclaiming pieces of a shattered life and love. Surprisingly, Echlin’s prose is spare and at times abrupt, yet it still manages to sweep the reader into 1960s-70s Montreal and Phnom Penh and back again. This is a moving, evocative and unforgettable story.

This touching, thoughtful story is somewhat diminished by an overly telescoped plot line and at times stodgy prose.

All of Guinness’ memoirs – Blessings in Disguise, My Name Escapes Me and A Positively Final Appearance – are wry, funny, observant, wistful at times and utterly fascinating.

This book is disorienting, disturbing, haunting and compelling both in plot and character development. It is richly deserving of its IMPAC recognition.

Margaret Atwood made me get teary-eyed on the subway while reading this book.

“Negotiating With the Dead” is a reflection on the roles of writers and their readers, adapted and somewhat expanded from the Empson Lectures which Margaret Atwood delivered at Cambridge University in 2000. It is breathtakingly erudite and eclectic, but is also interwoven with very personal and down-to-earth recollections and episodes from Atwood’s own journey as both a writer and a reader. It was a sweet reminiscence about the person whom she considered to be her first reader – and who she later paid tribute to with an appearance in one of her novels – that brought on my moved and appreciative tears. It also drove home that the audience and the individual reader are critical figures in the symbiosis of the writer’s creative process.

This book brims with examples from the classical to the contemporary of the multifaceted and sometimes conflicted roles, challenges and opportunities of the writer. At the same time, much of it has a conversational tone that undoubtedly stems from both its origin as a series of lectures, but also Atwood’s strong and singular voice. Some might count that as a flaw of this work, in that the overall voice is somewhat inconsistent, but I think that’s part of its charm and makes the subject matter that much more approachable, digestible and memorable.

Negotiating With the Dead is one of the Canadian non-fiction titles I’ve recommended for Canada Reads 2012: True Stories. If you’d like to support this book as a possible Canada Reads finalist, you can vote for it here, as well as perusing some other great recommendations.