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Bookishness: October 22, 2012
The Toronto Reference Library has binders full of women too Catalogued and everything. Another thing they’ve got? Study carrels for exhibitionists. Scribbles In recent Internet meanderings I came across this little app and subsequently lost hours making little drawings that looked suspiciously like art. 10 best films of the 90s Alas, no Clueless. It’s the best films…
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Bookishness: October 1, 2012
A PhD in Pictures Matthew Might’s visual explanation of what, exactly, a PhD involves. Whitman in tights Selections from The Graphic Canon: Volume 2, a collection of classic works of literature re-imagined in graphic form. Boyless wonder? What critics are saying about The Casual Vacancy: a roundup of reviews of J.K. Rowling’s latest. … Writers’…
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Bookishness: September 24, 2012
Milk, spinach, books Loblaws will be carrying the titles shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Non-fiction (finalists will be announced tomorrow). Speak Celebrity A blog for those who “enjoy… poetry more when it’s slightly tainted with fame, glitz, and glamour.” The artless dodger OCAD responds to student criticism over blank-paged art history…
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Bookishness: September 17, 2012
Two dots The New Yorker was temporarily banned from Facebook due to Female Nipple Bulges (FNB). Jay is for Just beautiful typographic birdhouses. Meet with the Writer in Residence at TPL Toronto Public Library will be accepting submissions from literary fiction writers until September 29 for meetings with Writer in Residence Farzana Doctor. Hindsight “Not interested in…
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Bookishness: Week of September 10, 2012
An open letter to Wikipedia “Dear Wikipedia, I am Philip Roth.” (Feed-)killer robots In a fittingly sci-fi worthy turn, digital restriction management (DRM) robots, on the hunt for copyrighted material on the web, killed the feed broadcasting this year’s Hugo Awards when the ceremony broadcast clips from winning television shows (totally legally). An aside: Montreal-based writer…
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Bookishness: Week of September 3, 2012
Happy Labour Day! Here’s hoping your day involves at least an hour or two (or seven) of reading somewhere pleasant. Look, a new thing “Personal publishing is like voting. In theory, it’s the very definition of empowerment. In reality, it’s an excellent way for your personal shout to be cancelled out by someone else’s shout.” 13…
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Bookishness: Week of August 27, 2012
Proustian paint chips Decorate like the stars (famous authors — the best kind of celebrity) with these literary colour palettes. Bradbury Landing NASA has announced that the Curiosity landing site on Mars will be called Bradbury Landing. “There will always be a place for disposable things.” Ellis Hamburger interviews Little Printer creator Matt Webb. 500…
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Bookishness: Week of August 20, 2012
It was a terrible and overwrought sentence This year’s Bulwer-Lytton winner. The Pussy Riot reading list The literature that inspires Pussy Riot. I don’t believe in guilty pleasures, I only believe in pleasures Ira Glass (coming to Toronto in October) on books and reading and movies and more. “I didn’t actually finish the book.” An interview…
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Bookishness: Week of August 13, 2012
!! I once decided to entirely abandon use of the exclamation mark. This lasted until I got an office job and realized that my refusal to use the offending punctuation would likely lead my colleagues thinking me humourless if not plain mean, and they would never invite me for expensive lattes in the afternoons. I…
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Bookishness: Week of August 6, 2012
“Wonderful things happen when your brain is empty.” Maira Kalman on the difference between thinking and feeling. A little too much imagining for non-fiction Author of the (until now) best-selling Imagination: How Creativity Works Jonah Lehrer has admitted to inventing quotes in the book. The publisher has pulled the title, and is issuing refunds. Poets in…
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Bookishness: Week of July 30, 2012
Book keeping “To my mother, libraries smell of a Britain waking up from rationing, and induce an extreme and horrifying existential anxiety. ‘Here is Everything You Will Never Read’ shout the dusty tomes. For me, ever the optimist, libraries represent the blissful, undestroyed promise of Everything I Am Yet To Discover.” Susanna Hislop, in an agony of…
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Bookishness: Week of July 23, 2012
Reading at the table Dinah Fried’s Fictitious Dishes features meals from novels recreated and photographed. At right: Holden Caulfield’s drug store sandwich and malted. A flourish here and a curlicue there On a trend in book covers. Harlequin in steamy water The publisher is facing a class-action suit alleging that it has underpaid authors on digital royalties. “It’s a book about a…