Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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In Review: The Week of June 12
Our Summer Book Club launched this week! Beginning in July with Death and the Intern, we’ll have weekly check-ins with readers-along (so be sure to get your on-sale copy!). Dads, don’t think we forgot about you: we rounded up some poetry books that poignantly speak to the father-child relationship.
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Kinds of Dads: A Poetic Retrospective for Father’s Day
You may know us best as poetry-lovin’ folks here on All Lit Up, so we’re viewing this year’s Father’s Day through poetry-coloured glasses: we’ve rounded up three books from poets/children who each remember and honour their fathers in their collections, as well as a snippet of poetry from each that you can share with your…
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ALU Summer Book Club
It’s time for the second annual ALU Book Club! Launched last year, we featured one book a month in July and August and we got real gabby about them with staff discussions, author interviews, and chats with the publishers who brought them to us. And because we had a lot of nerdy fun, we’re bringing…
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How Do We Summer? ALU Staffers Share Their Reads
You could probably guess that each one of our preferred summer pastimes involve reading – but what? When it comes to reading interests, ALU staffers are as varied as the independent Canadian publishers we rep. Check out what we’ll be bringing to the coffee shop/beach/cottage/airport/dog park/all-inclusive this summer…looks like our vacation interests are different, too.
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Beautiful Books: Comma
Healing and transformation are central to Jennifer Still’s Comma, poetry borne of her brother’s long illness. Jennifer wrote poems by his bedside, punctuated with her brother’s own written guide to prairie grasses, her embroidery, and, of course, commas. See the original scrolls in Jennifer’s post, and how they became a book, below.
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This Week in Lit Events: June 12-18th
We’ve got coast-to-coast events this week from Saint John, NB to Vancouver, BC. Catch what’s going on in your area with our listings below.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…
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In Review: The Week of June 5th
This week we cheered for two books on the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize shortlist: Silvija by Sandra Ridley (BookThug) and Injun by Jordan Abel (Talonbooks) who ultimately won the prize. We also shared eco-tips for reading green, maundered with a new poetry collection, and much more.
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First Fiction Fridays: An Extraordinary Destiny
Shekhar Paleja’s debut novel An Extraordinary Destiny (Brindle & Glass Publishing) is a generational family saga that begins in 1947 in Lahore, India. At the centre of this epic, is the Sharma family who are forced to flee their home during the Partition of India. Foreward Reviews has said of the novel: “These characters’ stories influence…
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Poetry in Motion: The varying gaits of Claire Kelly’s Maunder
“Take this angular threat, a man in heavy shoes” begins Claire Kelly’s deeply personal reading of “Before the Dream in which She is Followed Begins”, a poem from her latest collection, Maunder (Palimpsest Press). The lines encompass the crux of this collection: thoughts on how and why people, especially women, walk, and what happens on those…
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Chappy Hour: Seven Seas & Sassafras + What the Soul Doesn’t Want
We’re kicking off June with a summer-inspired cocktail and Lorna Crozier’s brand new collection What the Soul Doesn’t Want(Freehand Books); a collection full of Crozier’s signature wit and imagery that explores aging, grief, and the wonder of the natural world with quirk and whimsy.
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Do-Lit-Yourself: Eco-tips for Reading Green
Yesterday was World Environment Day! As a reader, how do you keep up that earth-saving momentum? When trying to 3Rs any area of your life, first think about how that activity consumes resources. The good news? Reading is a pretty low-environmental-impact activity. Check out our tips on how to make it even lower.
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This Week in Lit Events: June 5-11th
Some launches and reading series hit your calendars this week, as well as the Griffin Poetry Prize Readings (fingers crossed for all of the excellent nominees!).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…
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In Review: The Week of May 29th
This week we said goodbye to Short Story Month, gave aspiring authors some advice, and were reminded that Toronto’s landscape is more than just concrete and high rises.
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Under the Cover: Michelle Elrick’s then/again, or “Write Home”
Michelle Elrick’s latest, then/again (Nightwood Editions), is a poetic account of rediscovering the place or places that have been “home,” and likewise a rumination on what “home” means. In this Under the Cover, she talks about her multinational blanket fort project, Notes from the Fort, and how it inspired then/again.
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Where in Canada: An Enduring Wilderness
In An Enduring Wilderness (ECW Press), Robert Burley surveys Toronto, the city sometimes referred to as “The Big Smoke,” making the case for its extensive network of rivers, ravines, forested vales, and expansive shoreline, often overlooked. As David Suzuki tells us, “With three-quarters of Canadians now living in cities, I’m glad that our city planners, municipal politicians,…
Got any book recommendations?