Important Shipping Notice: Due to the ongoing Canada Post strike, delivery times may be longer than usual. Where possible, we’ll use alternative shipping methods to help get your order to you sooner. We appreciate your patience and understanding as your order makes its way to you.

A note to US-based customers: All Lit Up is pausing print orders to the USA until further notice. Read more

Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • First Fiction Friday: The Deserters

    First Fiction Friday: The Deserters

    Pamela Mulloy, in her gorgeous, sparsely written debut novel The Deserters (Véhicule Press) takes on themes of war, PTSD, and marriage that ultimately explore our deep-seated universal need for belonging. A thumbs up from Kerry Clare reads: “[…] Pamela Mulloy makes connections between characters, continents and centuries and creates a constellation.”

  • Why I Didn’t Want to Promote my Family Memoir in 2017

    Why I Didn’t Want to Promote my Family Memoir in 2017

    “Any book about the history of what we now call Canada is inevitably a book about the history of colonialism.” It wasn’t what the people who came to my book launch in Edmonton in 2017 were expecting me to say. 

  • Stars author Lucy Haché on Indigenous resilience, identity, and inspiration

    Stars author Lucy Haché on Indigenous resilience, identity, and inspiration

    We sat down with Kwakwaka’wakw-Métis and Scottish-Irish poet Lucy Haché whose collection Stars (At Bay Press) made CBC Books’s top poetry picks of 2018 to chat about her book (it’s gorgeous!), blending visual art and poetry, and where she draws her inspiration from.

  • Books to Read Based on Your Zodiac Sign

    Books to Read Based on Your Zodiac Sign

    We consulted the stars (internet) and our shelves to bring you book recommendations based (sort of) on your zodiac sign.

  • In Review: The Week of January 14th

    In Review: The Week of January 14th

    This week we created a poetry-inspired cocktail, looked to books to help keep resolutions on track, chatted with authors, and much more.

  • First Fiction Friday: Searching for Terry Punchout

    First Fiction Friday: Searching for Terry Punchout

    PEI native and Calgary-dwelling author Tyler Hellard is scoring goals with his first breakaway novel Searching for Terry Punchout (Invisible Publishing), a truly Canadian tale of hockey, small-town Maritime life, and the universal truth of becoming our parents.

  • Writer’s Block: Elee Kraljii Gardiner

    Writer’s Block: Elee Kraljii Gardiner

    We chat with author Elee Kraljii Gardiner about her latest book, Trauma Head from Anvil Press—shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry—which follows her experiences after a mini-stroke in 2012, her most pleasurable moments as a writer, and why airplanes are productivity capsules.Photo credit: Paul Joseph

  • Chappy Hour: The Super Moon Cocktail + This is the Moon’s Work

    Chappy Hour: The Super Moon Cocktail + This is the Moon’s Work

    Diana Hayes’ This is the Moon’s Work (Mother Tongue Publishing) is a collection of both new and out of print works that will take you on an out-of-this-world journey, through our wild and natural world and into the far reaches of the human psyche. Our ALU resident mixologist Tan pairs a delightfully foamy cocktail with…

  • Four Books to Help Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

    Four Books to Help Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

    Whether you’re of the “New Year, New Me” mindset or simply want to cook more or procrastinate less, we’ve rounded up four books for four common resolutions to help you get there.

  • In Review: The Week of January 7th

    In Review: The Week of January 7th

    Happy 2019! We’re back at it with new reading resolutions, stories from a busker-turned-author, poetry from #haikuaday creator, and more.

  • Busking to Books

    Busking to Books

    I always wondered why we sang songs about Nova Scotia and England on car trips when I was a kid. I couldn’t figure out why there were no songs about where we lived in northern BC—it’s gorgeous, wild, and scary, so why weren’t there songs about it? We bellowed out lyrics by Leonard Cohen, Joni…

  • Poetry in Motion: You Are Enough

    Poetry in Motion: You Are Enough

    When Smokii Sumac undertook a challenge to write a haiku a day, he had little idea of where the practice would take him. Several years and a large online following later, he has collected many of his haiku-style poems into his first published poetry collection, you are enough: love poems for the end of the…

  • Before We Lost the Lake: The Untold Story of the Sumas Lake and the Sema:th

    Before We Lost the Lake: The Untold Story of the Sumas Lake and the Sema:th

    Before its colonization by White immigrants, BC’s Sumas Lake played a vital role in the natural and human history of the region and to the Sema:th and other First Nations. In Before We Lost the Lake (Caitlin Press), historical writer Chad Reimer sets out to uncover the lake’s forgotten past and examine the destructive costs that…

  • 2019 ALU Bookish Resolutions

    2019 ALU Bookish Resolutions

    While we maintain that reading should be for fun and not obligation, we do love a good challenge when it comes to our reading habits (exhibit A). Check out what some of team ALU is resolving this year, and which books we’re putting straight on top of our 2019 TBR pile.

  • In Review: The Week of December 17th

    In Review: The Week of December 17th

    Our last In Review of 2018 is all poetry, holiday book wrapping ideas, reflections on celebrating holidays as an LGBTQ2s+ family, Pantone colour inspo, and more! Thank you, dear reader, for following along with our bookish exploits and adventures all year and we hope you’ll be back in 2019. Happy holidays!

Got any book recommendations?

Get In Touch