Eric Dyck

It’s winter, it’s cold… what better time to bunk in with a stack of books? Here is a list of fall releases that stand out from the rest — sometimes for better, and sometimes for worse.

• Long Story Short by Elyse Friedman (House of Anansi Press, 214 pp.) — Fantastic, strange and moving collection of short fiction. Includes the award-winning tale “The Soother,” about a middle-aged man who finds, um, respite from a demanding family and job by visiting Irma, who changes his diapers and reads stories to him. Highly recommended.

• Love Without by Jerry Stahl (Open City, 192 pp.) — The first story in this collection is about a young boy, lackadaisically finger-banging a middle-aged woman on a plane. It all goes downhill from there (check out Stahl’s awesome memoir Permanent Midnight instead).

• The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Pirates by Gail Selinger with W. Thomas Smith Jr. (Alpha Books, 416 pp.) — OK, yes, it’s one of those Idiot books. It’s also about pirates, though, and a comprehensive history at that — everything from ships to famous pirates, guns and modern-day buccaneers.

• Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker (HarperCollins Canada, 256 pp.) — Surprisingly dull effort from horrormeister Barker, crafted as a more baroque and ugly version of C.S. Lewis’s demonic confessional, The Screwtape Letters.

• Heroes: The Champions of Our Literary Imagination by Bruce Meyer (HarperCollins Canada, 320 pp.) — Literary historian and unabashed book lover, Meyer (The Golden Thread: A Reader’s Journey Through the Great Books) takes readers on a stroll through the great heroes of literature.

• The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories, selected and edited by Jane Urquhart (Penguin Canada, 720 pp.) — Huge tome of more than 60 classic stories, from Margaret Atwood to Alice Munro, Joseph Boyden and more.

• Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia by John Gray (Doubleday Canada, 256 pp.) — Like we need another book about how we’re approaching doomsday. Still, Gray’s latest (after the must-read Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals) is a well-reasoned look at how repressive religions, rather than science, informed the secular, utopian disasters of the last century.

• How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard (Raincoast Books, 208 pp.) — Being “well-read” is a lifelong goal, one that nobody can ever truly succeed at. Still, this nifty book should help you muse on Proust and Montaigne with feigned ease. Just don’t tell anybody you read it.

• SLICE: Health Inspired Food by Barb Davies and Jennifer Rallison — Delicious collection of healthy (yet tasty) recipes from Calgarians Davies and Rallison. Also includes an appendix of local holistic practitioners.

• The Man Who Forgot How to Read by Howard Engel (HarperCollins Canada, 157 pp.) — Fascinating memoir by crime novelist Engel, who suffered a stroke that caused a rare condition called alexia sine agraphia, where he not only forgot how to read, but began to forget everything else.

• Emperor of the North: Sir George Simpson and the Remarkable Story of the Hudson’s Bay Company by James Raffan (HarperCollins Canada, 384 pp.) — Raucous history of the Hudson’s Bay Company and its governor, the grandly pompous and wild Simpson. You’ll never look at one of those nifty blankets the same way again.

• The Anansi Reader: Forty Years of Very Good Books, edited by Lynn Coady (House of Anansi Press, 328 pp.) — Retrospective collection of poetry, prose and non-fiction. Only grumble is the oft-use of excerpting novels, which I hate, but otherwise, a good introduction to the famed Canadian publisher.

• Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age by Matthew Brzezinski (Times, 336 pp.) — Just in time for Sputnik’s 50th anniversary — Cold War, spies and more. Awesome.

• Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf (William Morrow, 320 pp.) — Book lovers and linguists alike will love this examination of how our brains developed the ability to read, and just what happens when we do — from children’s books, to conditions like dyslexia and the aforementioned Proust. Recommended.

• Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks (Knopf Canada, 400 pp.) — Fans of Dr. Sacks’s strange medical essays will want to check out this latest collection, featuring tales of using music as therapy for Parkinson’s disease patients, musical prodigies and more.

• Other Colors: Essays and a Story by Orhan Pamuk (Knopf Canada, 448 pp.) — Delightfully meandering, huge collection of essays from the recent Nobel Prize-winner on everything from travel to quitting smoking and literature.

• Mafia: The Government’s Secret File on Organized Crime (HarperCollins Canada, 944 pp.) — Mafia fans will love this black book (a replica of the actual book used by the U.S. Treasury’s Bureau of Narcotics) of mob history, featuring the profiles of more than 800 gangsters, from Lucky Luciano to Paul Castellano. Too cool.

• Runaway Summer by Stephen W. Shawcross (Donut Train Press, 546 pp.) — Local author Shawcross has had a “runaway” success with this indie hit, and for good reason. Check out this crafty tale of love and murder in the ’60s.

• Exit Ghost by Philip Roth (Viking Canada, 304 pp.) — The “last Zuckerman novel,” by arguably the greatest living American author. Roth’s writing hasn’t diminished over time, and any new book of his is worth checking out. This latest finds lothario and author Nathan Zuckerman meditating on the decay of old age.

• Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson, An Oral Biography by Jann S. Wenner and Corey Seymour (Little, Brown and Company, 496 pp.) — Fans of the gonzo journalist will want to check out this gossipy book, full of commentary by a host of actors, artists and politicos who knew Thompson. Worth reading for the later passages that illuminate his last painful days.

• The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold (Little, Brown and Company, 304 pp.) — Fans waiting for the next The Lovely Bones will be woefully disappointed with Sebold’s new novel, a dark and disturbing tale of matricide. Either Sebold went off the rails and should be prided for the effort, or it’s just awful. Approach with caution.

• Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis (HarperCollins Canada, 288 pp.) — Quick, foul-mouthed read about a loser detective, from graphic novelist Ellis (Transmetropolitan).

• The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction: Volume One, edited by Dave A. Law and Darin Park (Dragon Moon Press, 320 pp.) — Fun and comprehensive compendium of speculative fiction tips and tropes, from Michele Acker, Piers Anthony, Orson Scott Card and more.

• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Riverhead, 352 pp.) — Comic and heartbreaking novel about a chubby nerd cursed in love. It’s sprawling and replete with footnotes, but well worth reading.

• Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism by Umberto Eco (Harcourt, 384 pp.) — New collection of political essays from the always erudite Eco. Like his fiction, he casts the net wide, and comments on everything from Bush and 9/11 to Harry Potter and The Da Vinci Code.

• The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders (Riverhead, 272 pp.) — Collection of previously published pieces by the acclaimed short story author. The more irreverent travel and rant pieces read awkwardly and — unlike Saunders’s hilarious fiction — dull. Still, there are a few gems, including a fantastic intro to The Modern Library’s edition of Huckleberry Finn.

• On the Road: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition by Jack Kerouac (Viking, 320 pp.) — If you've somehow managed to avoid reading the American classic, now's your chance — the book that (for better and worse) launched the beat generation. Approaching the novel now, it reads like post-Steinbeck, and bears little resemblance to the mostly awful beat writing that came after. (OK, there’s a few exceptions, like Ginsburg — but honestly, some... Ferlinghetti, anyone?) For those who want to explore the book further, there's also a hardcover of On the Road: The Original Scroll (Viking, 416 pp.), which, if you have the patience, offers a radically different version of the book (not in plot, mind you). If you want even more, check out pop culture commentator John Leland’s Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think) (Viking, 224 pp.).