In Review: The Week of July 13th

On the Blog

~ Defeat your quarantine ennui with books — which will you take into battle? Choose your fighter!~ Author Shani Mootoo chats with us for ALU Summer Book Club about writing, identity, and her novel Polar Vortex: “[…] mainstream awareness regarding non-white race and queered sexuality is growing and deepening in ways I had never experienced before.”~ We’re beating quarantine boredom with three great graphic novels from Pow Pow Press, Arsenal Pulp Press, and Conundrum Press that take us on a search.~ ALU staffer Tan Light takes on BookRiot’s Read Harder Challenge again this month with a duo of books by writers of colour.

Around the Web

~ Word on the Street Toronto announces a summer-long virtual festival kicking off with a civic issues series.~ The Quill and Quire interviews BIPOC of Publishing in Canada, a new industry collective in support of community.~ An artist reimagines classic books as comic strips.~ Apollo magazine offers a brief history on the vitality of public libraries in times of war and crises.

ICYMI (last week)

ALU Summer Book Club: Polar Vortex Discussion

Check out some of the highlights from our #ALUbookclub staff discussion of Shani Mootoo’s Polar Vortex (Book*hug Press) + download questions for your own book club!