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The Toronto Public Library Welcomes its First Aboriginal Writer in Residence
On March 7, 2015, a small crowd gathered to celebrate the appointment of award-winning Métis author Cherie Dimaline as the Toronto Public Library’s first Aboriginal Writer in Residence, a position she will hold at the North York Central Library. “I really see it as a tremendous beginning for a partnership between the Aboriginal literary community…
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Wandering the stacks with space superstars: Bookishness for August 19, 2013
Finalists! “Once again I’m struck by the range of perspectives on the city… A novel and a memoir each tackle questions of identity; a volume of poetry connects an iconic Canadian artist to urban life; a book of photographs invites us to really look at the city around us; and a second novel paints an…
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Roger Ebert, book body parts, and art speak: Bookishness for Apr. 8, 2013
A speculatively ruptured transversal Your guide to International Art English. The Toronto Public Library and the Case of the Missing Money “In classic murder mysteries, the detective looks for motive, method and opportunity. Councillors have the opportunity and the method to cut back on the library but what could possibly be their motive?” Asking “Why does…
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Freedom to Read Week in Toronto: A guide
Though some of you will no doubt choose to celebrate Freedom to Read week in Toronto by exercising your freedom to stay home and read (for which we would never fault you), the week of Feb. 24-Mar. 2, 2013, does promise a thrilling roster of events about censorship and books to draw you out of…
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Bookishness: Week of February 11, 2013
Trans(it)media “When I started standing on subway platforms and watching people looking at the screens, I realized that the people who watch the screens are mostly commuters who take the same path to work every day and see those screens everyday in a ritualized way,” said Switzer. “An interesting way to reach out to those…
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DNA poetry, thinking like Sherlock, and defining Toronto: Bookishness, Jan. 14, 2013
The little questions “What does Toronto even mean? What kind of city is it? What kind of place do we want it to be? That’s the big question, isn’t it?” – Edward Keenan, Some Great Idea. While you think about how you might answer the big question, try your hand at answering some little questions…
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Book sculptures, Dickens, and 10 rules for writing: Bookishness for Dec. 10, 2012
2012’s most looked up words Capitalism and socialism. Five new works Edinburgh’s mysterious (and delightful) book sculptor is back. 10. Hear what everyone has to say but don’t listen to anyone (except him). “Just as nobody can really teach you how you like your coffee, so nobody can really teach you how to write.” 10…
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Bookishness: Dec. 3, 2012 – MOMA, trees, the gay revolution, and more
Glad day to night “I often refer back to a quote from author Christopher Bram that I once jotted down in a notebook: ‘The gay revolution began as a literary revolution.’ The same could be said about many great revolutions. This is why we should care about Glad Day, and the similar (indie/niche/speciality) bookshops beyond…
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Bookishness: November 12, 2012
Worth more than a thousand words Litographs: the entire text of classic books printed on 24×36. Here’s Around the World in 80 Days: The Smithsonian home for wayward books Inside the Smithsonian’s Book Conservation Lab, where rare books are adopted into a loving family. #love “This bit of utilitarian Web ephemera, invented with functionality…
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Bookishness: October 29, 2012
All of the books “Saddling another person with a book he did not ask for has always seemed to me like a huge psychological imposition, like forcing someone to eat a chicken biryani without so much as inquiring whether they like cilantro.” Joe Queenan’s 6,128 favourite books. (image via flickr user zen) Poems for Pussy…
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TRB Podcast: John Baird on Dickens and Great Expectations
On September 20, lauded U of T professor John Baird visited the Deer Park Branch of the Toronto Public Library to give a reading and lead a discussion of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. As part of the TPL’s lecture series “Celebrate Dickens,” which commemorates the bicentennial of the author’s birth, Prof. Baird addressed the social mores…
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With voices raised: Tamil artists get their due at the TPL
It is appropriate that Saturday’s event was named Tamil Literary Voices, in the plural, because in a cross-section of some of the language’s more prominent Torontonians, it was indeed a remarkable spectrum of voices—both in terms of political perspective and artistic media alike.