It's summer, it's bloody hot out and it's only gonna get hotter. Let's just imagine you've got lots of time on your hands to devote to reading that isn't of the ENGL 324 variety (sorry, Professor Miller!). Whether you've already ripped through The Da Vinci Code or you're boycotting anything that bears the line "now a major motion picture!" The Link can help steer you towards something thaat will keep you cool like a slip 'n' slide on a muggy Montreal afternoon.

I know what you did last summer... and last night.... and 2 seconds ago...
Imagine someone watching your every move. Imagine never looking that person in the eye. Imagine never being utterly and truly alone. Meet Rose and Ruby, the craniopagus twins at the heart of Lori Lansens's latest novel, aptly titled The Girls.
The novel garners its shape from Rose's autobiographical perspective, the story unfolding from old memories and forgotten stories of her conjoined childhood. While Rose dreams of writing, next to her Ruby simply dreams. Ruby is the weaker twin, the one the doctors didn't expect to survive. But she did, as Rose tells us, mostly because Rose watched over her and carried her as far as she could, allowing her sister to be enfolded in her own movements and decisions.
The sisterly affection is biting and intense—more so because of their unwavering mental as well as physical connection to one another. Even though the writing of Rose's autobiography is meant to be her work alone, she concedes to Ruby's point that she should be allowed to include her input in the manuscript, which comes across strongly, though infrequently.
The tale that Lansen has entwined with the rural backdrop of southern Ontario is a marvel for anyone who has ever contemplated their singularity in the world and slipped into feelings of loneliness. Rose and Ruby will never have the luxury of wanting to spend time alone and Lansens quite effectively makes the point that none of us will ever experience the closeness that these two sisters know as the truth of their daily lives.

—Kimberly Senf

we luv bill
Who is bill bissett? Jack Kerouac called him a "great poet," James Reaney dubbed him a "one-man civilization," and Margaret Atwood named him her "astral twin." For the uninformed, bissett has been a powerhouse in Canadian literature for over 50 years. His style is unique; often writing phonetically and incorporating visual elements into his works.
In 2003, Jeff Pew and Stephen Roxborough circulated an open invitation over the Internet, asking for poems honouring the poet and began the call for submissions with "dere frenz uv bill bissett." In 2006, the result was radiant danse uv being: A Poetic Portrait of bill bissett with contributions from over 80 writers.
Reading bissett is like entering the stream-of-consciousness thoughts of a mystical dyslexic... but in a good way. For example, one of the few bissett poems in the collection is called "bare bones biography what els shudint I remember," and it is pretty much a condensed life history written in his distinctive way: "hav bin welfare recipient tutor / fens buildr ditch diggr wintr works art gallry co-op / partnr."
The book contains only a handful of poems and drawings by bissett, so those itching to read his actual work should look elsewhere. Still, the compilation is a fun read, with an amazing array of poems, stories and anecdotes from a veritable Who's Who of CanLit.
The book includes contributions by poets whose works have been directly influenced by bissett, such as, Jay MillAr, jwcurry, bpNichol and Darren Wershler-Henry. It is, however, the surprising contributions from the likes of Margaret Avison, Leonard Cohen, Margaret Atwood, George Bowering and P.K. Page—whose styles differ greatly from bissett's—that reveals how significant his work has been to other writers.
From Leonard Cohen's very brief "dear bill": "thank you / for leaving nothing out / fraternally / leonard" to Di Brandt's poem, "we all noh wot scientists hav bin dewing wth th embrioze", the amazing thing is how bissett has been able to transcend literary boundaries.
radiant danse uv being is a collection with samplings for everyone's tastes. It perfectly captures bill bissett's spirit—and spelling—from the point of view of writers, friends and colleagues who have all been touched by his unique voice.

—Greg Santos

Cool off in the stream of consciousness
Beauty is a Liar by Valerie Joy Kalynchuk is one of those books that is difficult to lump into a category; not as much in regard to genre (although that might be an issue in itself) but more in terms of what state of mind you should be in when you attempt to read it. Questions you may end up asking yourself may very well fall into the territory of "Have I taken my Zoloft and Ritalin today?" and "Is my attention span less than 35 seconds?" This is because most trains of thought throughout Beauty is a Liar run off the track before they have adequate time to pick up steam.
Stream-of-consciousness style vignettes that rapidly switch setting, tone and diction are often a double-edged sword for a writer; although the writing itself may in fact be enigmatic and quirky enough to let your book stand out from the crowd, the randomness the reader might encounter once they've picked it up is disconcerting. To give credit where it is undoubtedly due though, it must be pointed out that Kalynchuk is at her best in the more fleshed out vignettes such as the one at the very beginning, where she describes the raw beauty and euphoria her narrator experienced driving through the Canadian Prairies while there was a ferocious thunderstorm raging around her. The method in which her relief and downright exaltation towards the weather is beautifully summed up in the sentence "I don't want lazy summer days browning down my skin after the burn peels away. I want wild and unforgiving weather. I want to dance languid in an expanse of land flooded and never to be drained of driving rain, and wind that is not a cautious spring breeze. I do not want to laugh or cry again."
The underlying issue with Beauty is a Liar is that we see so much packed into this little book, so many delightfully illustrating adjectives, cryptic twists of meaning, bursts of unfiltered fear and joy and rage—and an often engaging voice that draws us in and makes us want to better understand, better get to know the narrator's story.
The problem is we don't get to see enough of it. We are given brief glimpses into a selected anecdote, and then it is taken away, retracted. Lines like "The mop and pail sheetrock crumble dirty rainbow beach ball losing air. Grow to be a giant, stuck neck and shoulders in the cob-webbed crook of the ceiling" and "Maybe I protested, or worse corrected, and chose blue and not yellow" make me wish I had chosen another book.

—Connie Gallant

Literature for assholes
You can describe Denis Leary in one word: asshole. This guy even wrote a song and made a music video way back in the '90s, proudly claiming to be one. The song was called "Asshole."
I think you hear me knocking, Denis, and I think I'm coming in. No Cure for Cancer, which is a transcription of Leary's live comedy set, assaults every politically correct bone in your body. He rants and raves about smoking, death, war, drinking, drugs, meat, rehab and more drugs.
Some excerpts, if you will:
"Kids are driving their bongs down FDR Drive. 'Pull the bong over man, I wanna do a hit. Pull it over!'" Leary writes. "What was the problem with just smoking a joint, eating a couple of Twinkies and going to sleep? Was that a problem? They say marijuana leads to other drugs. No it doesn't, it leads to fucking carpentry. [...] That's why I stopped doing drugs. Not because I didn't like 'em, but because I didn't want to build anything, okay?"
"NyQuil is the secret for all you 12-step recovery program people. [...] 'Are you drunk?' 'No! I have a cold. Same cold I've had for two years. I just can't seem to shake it. I'm high as a kite and my teeth are green. Merry fucking Christmas!'"
Two words, folks: crazy man. Three more words: buy the book. You can always rummage through bargain bins at the Salvation Army, 'cause I don't even know if they have this in stores anymore. Lucky for you, they have most of his set transcribed online at denislearyfan.com.

—Tracey Lindeman

Comic book heroines in love
Beginning with the "females shall be drawn realistically" credo from the 1954 Comic Book Code and ending with her own desirous words "and take me, there," Tanis Rideout’s Delineation explores the modern mythology of superheroes and the heroines that long for them.
Let’s be honest: superheroes are never an easy bunch to peg. Always busy leaping buildings, dodging bullets or saving the world, it’s quite easy to imagine a woman feeling underappreciated and left to her own devices… unless you’re Tanis Rideout.
In her first collection of full-length poems, Rideout has concocted a clever cocktail of passionate characters and the lust-filled alleyways they inhabit. A fierce writer, Rideout weaves deftly through the sexual politics of want, lust and love like a panther stalking the shadows on a collision course with both hunter and prey.
Giving a voice to the caped, draped and caked sexual crusaders of her poems is no easy task, for Rideout knows all too well that the world sometimes wags a disapproving finger at powerful women. The in-your-face swagger of her prose begs you to peek then dares you to smile with glee at what you see.
Through all the hurried passions, there are moments of genuine tenderness as her heroines feel the pangs of lust lost and too much time spent in quiet solitude. The exploration of the dualities in the human condition are what makes Delineation such a tantalizingly harrowing read.

—Stéphane Landry

David Suzuki causes global warming with nude photos!
We all love David Suzuki, but do we really know him? Perhaps you've seen him naked (except for that widely talked about fig leaf), but did you know that he has a twin sister or that he used to smoke?
“I know people like to delve into the hidden parts of the lives of people who have acquired some notoriety," Suzuki says in the preface to David Suzuki: The Autobiography. “It's not my intention to satisfy that curiosity. Instead, as an 'elder,' I hope my reflections on one life may stir a reader to consider those thoughts in relation to his or her own life."
Of course, the man who has educated Canadians about the earth couldn't write a book that people would not learn from. His life is a journey, and as he narrates it to us, he weaves in information that is important for our society to know.
Suzuki talks about his dedication to various environmental causes, including Kyoto, the protection of the rain forest in the Amazon and encouraging the people of Papua New Guinea to decide how they'd like their country to develop, rather than letting the World Bank and other organizations decide for them. With the help of his wife Tara and other environmentalists, The David Suzuki Foundation was started in 1989. It still accepts donations for the causes that they support.
From his childhood to the present, Suzuki shows us how much the world has changed. An avid fisherman all his life, he has noticed a decrease in many species of fish. He has also seen the effects of clear-cutting forests. At one point in his life, he realized that he needed to tell people how they could help, rather than simply telling them that the environment was in danger. By writing about his experiences, he has given us another good example of what we can do.

—Saraline Grenier

Cool as ice-9
Summer reading doesn't usually involve poetry, but then again, most poetry doesn't get reviewed by major newspapers or sound nearly as good when read aloud as Leonard Cohen's does.
Book of Longing is dedicated to Cohen's mentor, Irving Layton, though most of the poems seem to be directed toward an unnamed woman. In "Looking Away," Cohen muses "you would look at me / and it never occurred to me / that you might be choosing / the man of your life."
And who wouldn't choose to spend their life with this tragic poet, this man of mystery and beauty? Okay, some women are inherently rational and would want a man who is stable, dependable, solid... but those women would be missing out on everything. The rest of us will never believe Cohen when he writes lines like "Needless to say / I am one of the fakes, / and this is my story."

—Laura Roberts