Hot Pepper Latte is a book blog I started in 2013 to help track my reading and promote Canadian literature. Originally its own site built on WordPress, I retired the account now but you can still follow my reading adventures here and at @hplreads.
The Red Palace by June Hur
I first heard about The Red Palace from the author, June Hur, herself. I stumbled across her Instagram reels recapping her various historical fiction novels, and when I read “a dark romantic mystery about a palace nurse and a royal investigator” I knew it was a must-read. The novel takes place during the Joseon dynasty…
A Chorus of Mushrooms by Hiromi Goto
I first discovered Chorus of Mushrooms in a used bookstore. It’s red and black cover caught my eye and the title including mushrooms (in these fungi obsessed times) was enough for me to pick it up and take it home. Little did I know at that time this wonderful piece of fiction by Hiromi Goto…
Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
Like many, I heard about Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree through hype online. The name alone made it an obvious choice for me, but it helped that I was in the mood for reading something light and fluffy to combat these cold, dreary days. The book is exactly that—a real cinnamon roll of read—heart…
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Pachinko is one of those novels that I felt I should have read a while ago. It had been recommended to me so many times, by so many different friends I was curious how I would finally react once I read it. It’s a meaty book that made it perfect for my 2022 holiday break,…
Two Trees Make a Forest by Jessica J. Lee
A perfect blend of memoir, non-fiction, epistolary, and poetry, Two Trees Make a Forest was not a read I wanted to rush. In it, Jessica J. Lee recounts some of her family histories as she hikes through Taiwan, confronting secrets about her Mom, Gong, and Po she’s learned from translations of her Gong’s own memoirs.…
How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa
Souvankham Thammavongsa’s How to Pronounce Knife is a masterful collection of short stories that bite. The book is a meditation on the feelings of displacement, discomfort, and alienation that often comes with the immigrant experience, particularly the refugee experience, in Canada. Most stories end on a melancholic note, but it isn’t all doom and gloom.…
The Boat People by Sharon Bala
Sharon Bala’s The Boat People is controversial, to say the least. Featured in the 2018 Canada Reads competition only to be ousted on day one, it takes an honest attempt to steer the course of Canadian conversation by directly addressing one of our hot-button issues of the moment. In this case, the refugee crisis. Starting in 2009,…
The Back of the Turtle by Thomas King
The Back of the Turtle by Thomas King was recommended to me by the same friend (and fan of King) who suggested I read Truth and Bright Water. It should come as no surprise to anyone that I loved both of them! The Back of the Turtle follows a few different characters, each chapter alternating…
Monoceros by Suzette Mayr
Lately, I’ve been challenging myself to read more outside of my comfort zone. When I spotted Monoceros’ beautiful cover on the discount shelf at TYPE Books, I thought why not give it a shot? I read the summary on the back and it seemed alright. I was not disappointed! Inside was a beautiful and tragic story. Unfortunately,…
No-No Boy by John Okada
I picked up John Okada’s No-No Boy in the Alcatraz Island gift shop when I was visiting San Francisco. It was part of a display about the time period that Alcatraz prison existed in, and when I found out that Okada’s novel is considered the first Asian-American novel I knew it was going to be my choice…
Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
The funny thing with reading a lot and only writing in my odd spare moment on weekends means that I often have to remind myself what I read and if I had written a blog about it yet. I was surprised this morning when I realized that I hadn’t actually written my review of Hag-Seed…
The Pain Tree by Olive Senior
I picked up The Pain Tree at the Word on the Street festival in Toronto this past fall. It was recommended to me at the Cormorant Books tent, and always happy to pick up more Canlit and Caribbean lit, I couldn’t say no! Olive Senior is a prolific writer, having published many volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and…
The Witches of New York by Ami McKay
I got Ami McKay’s latest book, The Witches of New York, in a swag bag from a special sale at Joe Fresh on Queen St. This is a rare book for this blog – one that I didn’t choose for myself nor was it recommended to me by a close friend. By coincidence, it also turned…
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
Do Not Say We Have Nothing is a critically acclaimed new novel from Madeleine Thien. Winner of the Giller Prize and Governor General’s Award as well as shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and longlisted for an Andrew Carnegie Medal, it is effectively the book of 2016. I can’t believe I actually read it before…
A Brief History of Seven Killings by James Marlon
Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings opens with a Jamaican proverb: “If it no go so, it go near so.” As a fictional account of very real events, it’s hard to think of a more fitting phrase. I’d been meaning to read A Brief History for many months. A year, in fact, as a…
Rich and Poor by Jacob Wren
I picked up Rich and Poor at the Book Thug tent at Word on the Street. Struck at first by its beautiful cover, the synopsis really hooked me with its brutal honesty: “Rich and Poor is a novel of a man who washes dishes for a living and decides to kill a billionaire as a political act.”…
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
I woke the next morning knowing that nothing would be the same. It would change and go on changing. Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea has been on my list for a long time. The story gives new voice to Bertha, the boogeywoman from one of my favourite novels, Jane Eyre. Reimagined as Antoinette Cosway in Rhys’ beautiful, ripe world…
Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull
Ed Catmull’s Creativity Inc. was an accomplishment for me. I’ve never been a huge fan of non-fiction books. Not that I shy away from the genre as a whole but that I prefer a deep delve into a narrative which many authors of non-fiction don’t fulfill. Catmull, as one of the founders of Pixar, doesn’t…
The Shepherd’s Life by James Rebanks
I first heard about James Rebanks through his Twitter account @herdyshepherd1 which features beautiful photos of his flock and brought the rural Lake District of England into my daily life. The Shepherd’s Life is Rebanks’ first novel, a memoir told in seasons, capturing the traditional farming lifestyle he was born and raised into. His story and sense…
On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee
On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee has been most aptly compared to the works of Cormac McCarthy and Kazuo Ishiguro. The post-apocalyptic fiction is grim and lyrical but I find it sticks out in a way which its peers haven’t. Lee’s novel has a thread of comfort sewn throughout it in the form…
The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
I only wrote this review a few months ago, but there has been an exciting new development in the real world which Lawrence Hill drew inspiration from. The Nova Scotia government has released the real Book of Negroes as an open data set for researchers or anyone to use really. You can see a digitized…
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
Roxane Gay’s essay collection, Bad Feminist, is essential reading. The professor cum Twitter personality works through the question: “How do we reconcile the imperfections of feminism with all the good it can do?” Beginning with herself, Gay presents the body of a black woman as a platform for analysis, examining the politics of that state…
Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill
A tale of innocence and adolescence will crack your heart right open. Lullabies for Little Criminals is the coming-of-age story of Baby, who lives mostly on the streets of Montreal with her father Jules, a drug addict. O’Neill’s bildungsroman looks at the myriad of issues surrounding street kid culture. Readers are forced to question why…
Family Life by Akhil Sharma
I was transfixed reading Akhil Sharma’s Family Life. The semi-autobiographical novel is full and heavy with grief and comedy following the story of the Mishtra family from the perspective of Ajay, the youngest son, as they cope not only with immigrating to America from India but the tragic loss of their eldest child. Birju becomes brain…
Truth and Bright Water by Thomas King
I picked up my copy of Truth & Bright Water at the 2015 Hagey Lecture featuring Thomas King. His lecture entitled “Love in the Time of Cholera: Canadian Edition” was moving, topical, and, of course, exceedingly funny. Meeting authors I adore is always a panic-filled moment for me. I fear that meeting my hero may reveal a…
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie was recommended to me by a beloved professor after I had mentioned reading The Inconvenient Indian. This is not my first time reading Alexie. Although I am more familiar with his body of poetry, his short story collection carries his signature voice: thoughtful, well-spoken,…
The Silver Star by Jeanette Walls
I often find in the pursuit of creating a touching, artistic story novels turn the world into a dark and unfair place, which it can be if we’re being honest, but sometimes what readers need is a good storybook ending. It’s okay to say you like a book that has a predictable ending where everything…
And the Birds Rained Down by Jocelyne Saucier
And the Birds Rained Down written by Jocelyne Saucier (originally in French as Il pleuvait des oiseaux and translated by Rhonda Mullins) was a Canada Reads 2015 contender and also covers the translated book category of the Read Harder challenge (bonus!). Heavy on the imagery, And the Birds builds an isolating, foreign experience of rural…
The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan
What does twenty-two years old look like? “In love, impressed, humbled, scared.” That is exactly how Marina Keegan felt as she was graduating from Yale in 2012 and how it feels to read her book The Opposite of Loneliness. I selected Keegan’s book after I read the original essay. I heard about her talent, her job…
Station Eleven by Emily St. John
I got the flu a little while ago and while I’ve been playing catch up in my life I decided to treat myself by falling headlong into the haunting Station Eleven by Emily St. John. I’ve also gotten a case of reader’s fatigue–my pace is slower and it’s more difficult to focus on the page…
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