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Poetry Winners, Digital Cosmopolitans, and Hamlet’s Ghost: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. The Griffin Poetry Prize 2013 Anthology: A Selection of the Shortlist (House Of Anansi) edited by Mark Doty, Suzanne Buffam, Wang Ping — The Griffin Poetry Prize honours the world’s best poems written in English. The 2013 anthology includes selections…
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Community Sustains Montreal’s The Word Bookstore
The Word Bookstore is located at 469 Rue Milton, Montreal, Quebec. Only two blocks east of McGill University is The Word, one of Montreal’s premiere independent bookstores with a history as exciting as its academic neighbor. The Word bears a simple and modest exterior that can be easily mistaken for another apartment within the McGill student ghetto.…
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Soundstreams, Dusk Dances, and the Latte Art Smackdown: T.O. Events for July 18-August 1, 2013
Journalist and cultural critic Chuck Klosterman reads from his latest collection of essays entitled I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villains (Real and Imagined). 6:30PM-9:30PM. July 23. Gladstone Hotel. $8-$10. The 19th annual Dusk Dances Festival brings contemporary choreography to Toronto’s public parks. Host dancers lead neighbors, kids, and passersby into dynamic dance routines.…
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Atwood’s BookTweetables No. 3
Margaret Atwood’s best tweets, every two weeks. [View the story “Atwood’s BookTweetables No. 3” on Storify]
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Wild Food Spring #5: Fäviken
In this series, Dylan Gordon considers cookbooks, memoirs and fictions about wild, foraged foods. Reviewed in this essay: Fäviken by Magnus Nilsson, Phaidon Press, 2012. Chef Magnus Nilsson, at “the world’s most isolated and daring restaurant,” deep in the heart of the northern Swedish wilderness, has been called “part Viking lumberjack and part Shaman.” Rebelling against…
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Guess the author, abandonment issues, and voguing dinosaurs: Bookishness for July 15, 2013
Mystery (author) solved “Readers described it as complex, compelling and scintillating. They compared the author — a former military police investigator writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith — to P. D. James, Ruth Rendell and Kate Atkinson. They said the book seemed almost too assured and sophisticated to be a first novel… As it happens, they…
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Never Mind the Musicians: Toronto’s Bill Wood
In this series, Trevor Abes sits down with local lights in the Toronto music scene. Since 1986’s hit album Just In Time To Be Late, former Eye Eye vocalist Bill Wood has had a family and started a successful renovation business. Yet his dedication to music has never waned. In 2007, he released a solo…
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CanLit Canon Review #15: Mordecai Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
In an attempt to make himself a better Canadian, Craig MacBride is reading and reviewing the books that shaped this country. Mordecai Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, published in 1959, is a hilarious and rambunctious novel that gives little space to scenery or introspection. It is the story of Duddy Kravitz, a smart-ass kid…
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Hipster maps, Penguin Random House’s GDP, and flying typewriters: Bookishness for Jul. 8, 2013
The earnings to go with those tuxedos Countries whose GDP is below the projected revenue of the newly formed Penguin Random House Accio Diagon Alley Unable to transport yourself into the pages of Harry Pottery (or Orlando)? Summon Diagon Alley with Google Street View. Flock or flee as you see fit Yelp introduces a hipster map of Toronto (and elsewhere).…
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Atwood’s BookTweetables No. 2
Margaret Atwood’s best tweets, every two weeks. [View the story “Atwood’s BookTweetables No. 2” on Storify]
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Young writer workshops, Mad Pride, and George Elliott Clarke’s Beat Café: T.O events for July 4-July 20, 2013
Repair Café Toronto gives household items a new lease on life. Visitors can bring in broken computers, small appliances, small furniture, lamps, clothes, and jewelry and learn how to fix them with the help of volunteer professionals. 10AM-2PM. July 6. Skills For Change (791 St. Clair West, 2nd floor). Free. The 20th Mad Pride Toronto Festival revels…
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Culture Hawker Chronicles: Patrick Grant and Kops Records
In this series, Trevor Abes gets to know the people behind the counter at Toronto’s music stores, book shops, and art galleries. Patrick Grant has his hustles. He’s been the general manager at Kops Records going on four years and he sings lead in Patrick Grant and the FleshVignettes, an indie rock sextet with soul and funk influences. He…