Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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In Review: The Week of October 23rd
This week we recalled our ICQ-glory days with our Time Capsule series and had way too much fun imagining a dream cast for the novel Sports and Pastimes (calling all producers!).
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First Fiction Friday: Dazzle Patterns
Alison Watt’s historical novel Dazzle Patterns (Freehand Books) opens on the day of the Halifax Explosion of 1917 – the largest man-made disaster in Canadian history – when a cargo ship carrying explosives collided with another vessel. A story about love, loss, and the role of art, the novel has been described by award-winning author Kevin Patterson as “a…
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Time Capsule: The ’10s
Our final edition of Time Capsule takes us back to the early twenty-tens all the way to the present in the era of Kickstarter campaigns, 3-D bio-printing, and millennial madness. (And let’s not forget one of 2017’s rising stars: The Avocado.)
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Character Study: Sports and Pastimes
Jean-Philippe Baril Guerard’s Sports and Pastimes (translated by Aimee Wall, BookThug) achieves the nigh-impossible: it perfectly describes the apathy and disillusionment of wealthy youth (in this case, wealthy Montreal youth) while still being super-fun to read. It’s a premise ripe for film adaptation…so adapt we did.
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Time Capsule: The ’00s
This edition of Time Capsule looks at the 2000s…the aughts seem like they were yesterday, right? But think about them this way: after dodging that Y2K bullet on January 1, 2000, we didn’t yet have iPods, smartphones, Facebook, or Twitter, and most of those only until halfway through the decade. Dare we say, we miss…
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This Week in Lit Events: October 23-29th
Tons of launches and reading events going down this week in Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton, and Vancouver. Go, won’t you?Are you hosting an event featuring an author whose titles are available on All Lit Up? Send the event details, including author, book, date, time, and address to hello@alllitup.ca to be included in our listings.
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In Review: The Week of October 16th
This week the 2017 QWF Literary Awards shortlists were announced (go indies!), the lids came off our ’80s and ’90s ALU Time Capsule, and some beautiful fall books were unveiled.
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First Fiction Fridays: You Can’t Stay Here
Of late, public discussion surrounding migration has been largely limited to whether or not it can or should happen (we’re looking at YOU, travel ban). Jasmina Odor’s collection You Can’t Stay Here (Thistledown Press) offers a more nuanced and human take: observing the lives of folks in new places, for a myriad of reasons.
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Time Capsule: The ’90s
The 1990s in Canada was marked by the continued recession of the ’80s, grunge-rock, the rise of celebrity culture and tabloids, and the Information Age. (And dangerous children’s toys. See: moon shoes.) Scroll down to see what historical and literary happenings we dug up.
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In House: ECW’s Fall Colours
ECW Press has a history of beautifully designed book covers, and this fall season is no exception. We got a behind-the-scenes peek at some of the eye-catching books staff and authors have fallen for, and covers that have been a treat for designers to work on.
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Time Capsule: The ’80s
Ushering in a decade of “me! Me! Me!”, the 1980s was paradoxically an era of recession and consumption. The disco and (now) classic rock of the 1970s gave way to synth and keytars, and movies like Ghostbusters and The Breakfast Club were on screens everywhere.
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This Week in Lit Events: October 16-22nd
Don’t miss festivals like Vancouver Writers’ Fest, International Festival of Authors, Bookfest Windsor, and the Stratford Writers’ Festival, all starting this week!Are you hosting an event featuring an author whose titles are available on All Lit Up? Send the event details, including author, book, date, time, and address to hello@alllitup.ca to be included in our listings.
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Writer’s Block: Sam Shelstad
We chat with author of Cop House (Nightwood Editions) Sam Shelstad about the one book that turned him from reader to READER, writing rituals, and Homer Simpson.
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In Review: The Week of October 9th
We had another week of awards celebrations at ALU HQ: Carleigh Baker’s Bad Endings (Anvil Press) won the City of Vancouver Book Award and B. Denham Jolly’s In the Black (ECW Press) was awarded the Toronto Book Award. In other news, we dug up some historical and literary dirt with #ALUTimeCapsule and drank a tasty…
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First Fiction Fridays: The Whole Beautiful World
In her debut collection of short stories The Whole Beautiful World (Brindle & Glass), Melissa Kuipers channels her own experiences living in rural Ontario to create the fictional small town of Talbot, and then fills it with characters both dysfunctional and darkly funny. Her cast is primarily made up of women and girls who are by turns…
Got any book recommendations?