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1000 Poems Per Night: TRB Live, January
Happy New Year! 2017 begins with a packed list of Toronto readings and events. Rowers Reading Series gets things moving on January 10 with a night of poetry and prose by Joan Crate, Adebe DeRango-Adem, Jacob McArthur Mooney, and Hoa Nguyen (6:30pm, Supermarket, 268 Augusta Avenue). Circle January 11 on your calendar for back-to-back readings. At 6:30pm at…
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TRB Live: November
TRB Live is a monthly roundup of literary events you might enjoy. Get in touch with me (@kathmcleod) or the TRB (@TorontoReview) on Twitter if you’d like to suggest an event to include next month. In Toronto, Pivot Reading Series presents three readings all-star casts of readers: Leesa Dean, Stevie Howell, Rob Taylor, and Erin Wunker on November 2;…
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The Talk of the Canadian Writers’ Summit
Last week at the Canadian Writers’ Summit in Toronto many people who work with words walked around blearily, carrying canvas bags, seeing old friends, wilting in the heat. Things are tough for us writers, publishers, and editors. There is great gloom, there is despair! Gentle reader: there is also hope. The Canadian Writers’ Summit is…
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Really Seeing: An Interview with Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer about All The Broken Things
SP: In your remarkable and moving All The Broken Things, Toronto’s CNE, bear-wrestling, Agent Orange, and Bo’s family life and history all work together to filter sadness, rage, love, regret, guilt, and joy to a pure and human core. What was the writing process like? Did you ever find a tension between the documentary facts…
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Maritime Life at Fredericton’s Westminster Books
Westminster Books, 445 King St, Fredericton, New Brunswick Westminster Books, Fredericton’s only independent bookstore that focuses on new books, has been a community staple for over thirty years. The brother-in-law of the current owner, Janet North, opened the store in 1975. He ran it for two years before moving back to Ontario and selling the…
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Community Strangeness: On Fredericton’s Owl’s Nest Bookstore
Owl’s Nest Bookstore, 390 Queen St., Fredericton, New Brunswick. “If nothing else, we add some strangeness to the community,” says Debbie of Owl’s Nest Books, Fredericton’s principal secondhand bookstore. And indeed, with its endless rooms and motley décor, the store glows with haphazard charm. Owls hang on the walls. Q plays on the radio. Room after…
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Podcast: A Brief History of Books in Indigenous North America, by Matt Cohen
On November 7, University of Texas at Austin Professor Matt Cohen spoke to the Toronto Centre for the Book about early printing and indigenous communities. Read Cohen’s abstract below, or listen to the full talk here: [audio: Fall2013/CohenTRBpodcast.mp3] The first Bible printed in North America was in a Native language. Many of the influential early printed…
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Buy Tasting Menu at The Paper Hound
Good news! The TRB’s Tasting Menu has landed at The Paper Hound, Vancouver’s most charming new indie bookshop. TRB collaborator and Vancouver expat Katherine McLeod sent us this picture to prove it. Vancouver readers! You know where to go and what to do. Toronto folk: why not pick up your copy at the…
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Histories and Hauntings: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (McClelland & Stewart) – Hailed as a promising young writer after her award-winning first novel, Eleanor Catton won the Man Booker Prize for this 800-page historical saga. Attracted to Hokitika by the West Coast Gold Rush, Walter Moody…
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Dante, Science, Masculinity and Travels: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. Dante’s House by Richard Greene (Vehicule Press) — Greene’s verses begin by tackling the intangible — the faint, grey areas of “rumours, misunderstandings and half-truths that often comprise our knowledge of the others” — and end with an homage in…
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Remembering Family and Searching for Home: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. Strays by Ed Kavanaugh (Killick Press) — Kavanaugh’s ten short stories revolve around emotional and social vagabonds from all walks of Canadian life. Despite the succinctly despondent title and theme, readers are promised stories told with humour, insight and sensitivity.…
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Sad Clowns, Family Secrets, and Secret Gardens: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. Kolia by Perrine LeBlanc, translated by David Scott Hamilton (House of Anansi) — Born in a Siberian gulag, Kolia receives basic survival training as well as higher education from fellow prisoner Iosif. This past and its memories follow and haunt…