Click here to return to the series The global novel exists, not as a genre separated from and opposed to other kinds of fiction, but as a perspective that governs the interpretation of experience. In this way, it is faithful to the way the global is actually lived–not through the […]
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This is the 600th book post made in the years I’ve run Dragonfly, and I wanted to make it special on this fifth anniversary. Perhaps this should have been my first post ever, but it took me a long time to come up with a standard for any sort of […]
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In light of the Discover feature here at Dragonfly, I began writing what would turn into three articles, between 2017 and 2018, about ecological weird fiction. This series was published at SFFWorld. My goal was to get familiar with what ecological weird fiction was, and could be. Part I is […]
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It’s been a while since I have had time to write a new Discover book feature. Partly it is just that this eco-fiction project is entirely voluntary. I also work full-time (in an engaging career) and run a small book publishing company. I want to thank a reader named Dylan […]
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I was happy to find this old book at the Value Village in Burquitlam. I have this book on Kindle, but can’t pass up such a classic hard copy in good shape. Though not really an unpopular book in need of rescue, it is quite old and probably not as […]
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Over a decade ago, when I was chief editor of Jack Magazine, issues would have themes, whether South African poetry or Gregory Corso or Philip Whalen or science fiction and fantasy–all of these usually punctuated with narratives about nature. When I closed the magazine and opened Moon Willow Press, I […]
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I found this book among a collection of “The Works of F. Hopkinson Smith” at Brown’s Books in Burnaby. I didn’t buy the whole collection but simply chose the book that looked tempting to me. I often joke that if reincarnation were real, I would most certainly have lived a […]
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These days we would say First Nations, but during anthropologist Diamond Jenness’s day–this book first published in 1955–the term Indian was widely used when referring to the natives of the Americas. Jenness had the best intentions and made genuine friendships when studying various First Nations in the 20th century, but […]
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Nevil Shute’s On the Beach is credited as an example of fiction that changed the way we think about a major world problem or issue, in this case nuclear war and weapons. It is one among many prophetic type books that has predicted doom and apocalypse, but the book also […]
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The story behind this book is that I discovered it when I lived in California. I wish I could remember where I found this book, but I just can’t remember. The important thing is that I found it somehow, likely at a bookstore or surf shop, and from the minute […]
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Michael Bernanos’s The Other Side of the Mountain is an awesome book, which I ordered used. The genre is weird fiction–I learned of the book from author Jeff VanderMeer whose Southern Reach trilogy I’m enjoying. He and his wife Ann edited an anthology called Weird, which included The Other Side […]
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Eco-fiction is a little gem that I believe is out of print. You can find a used copy on Amazon, Abe Books, and other places, or perhaps in your local used bookstore. I found mine at the prior-mentioned Olde Jolly Bookstore in Port Moody. This book was published in 1971 […]
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This beautiful book of children’s poetry, another I found at the bookstore in Port Moody, was originally published in 1885 and “reflects a Scottish poet’s vision of the Victorian world.” Illustrated by Joanna Isles (from a 1994 reprint), A Child’s Garden of Verses, with dozens of poems, is exploding with old-time […]
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There is an interesting story behind this book. Back when I published an online literary magazine (Jack), and my maiden name was Sands, I worked closely with poet Michael Rothenberg, who at that time was very close to Philip Whalen and later handled his estate. Michael also knew “meat poet” […]
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Discover Dance of the Coyote Back to the new Discover feature I became enamored of Bill Hotchkiss accidentally. I was looking for a good book once, roaming the eerily silent aisles of the Undergrad Library at Purdue University (the library was in a basement, and hardly anyone ever was there!)–when […]
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