Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Best Bets: CanLit Classics, Present and Future
It’s the final day of Best Bets, and we’re closing out our fortnight of recommendations with two CanLit classics. One is a gorgeous new illustrated edition of W.O. Mitchell’s timeless book, Who Has Seen the Wind (Freehand Books), and the other is a classic-to-be, Brian Thomas Issac’s award-winning, heartbreaking coming-of-age novel, All the Quiet Places (Touchwood Editions). Get…
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Best Bets for cli-po (climate poetry)
Today’s ALU Best Bets are for those readers that connect with nature and the world around them while holding a poetic outlook — for the cli-po (climate poetry) reader. How to Hold a Pebble (NeWest Press) by Jaspreet Singh presents intimate engagements with memory, place, language, migration, while also exploring strategies of survival. Wet Dream…
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Best Bets: For littles
We’ll be the first to admit it: we’ve been a little remiss on these Best Bets recommendations thus far. What about the kids? Fear not, with two gorgeous picture books incoming. Gift the sweet bedtime story Bedtime in Nunatsiavutby Raeann Brown (Arsenal Pulp Press) and the getting-over-travel-anxiety story Lola Flies Alone (Running the Goat), by Bill Richardson and illustrated…
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Best Bets for queens (or kings) of quirk
Peculiar plot lines, strange twists and turns, today’s Best Bets are for the queens (or kings) of quirk. In Muckbang (Linda Leith Publishing) by Fanie Demeule, Kim Delorme is uninterested in anything behind her computer screen and throws herself into a challenge that shocks everyone in her life. Something’s Burning(At Bay Press) by Janet Trull…
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Best Bets: Sports journeys
Sports fans, this Best Bets day is for you (or your like-minded giftees). We recommend Jason Smith’s gritty baseball underdog novel The Closer (Now or Never) and sportswriter Joshua Kloke’s The Voyageurs (Dundurn Press), a look at the meteoric rise of the Canadian men’s soccer team and their recent qualification for the World Cup.
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Best Bets for LGBTQ+ reads
Today’s Best Bets are LGBTQ+ reads; for the poetic reader who loves queer theory. LOTE (Metonymy Press) by Shola von Reinhold takes us through the art world and curates a queer historical scene breaking it open and reveling in it. Horrible Dance (Brick Books) by Avery Lake is a brilliant poetic debut about gender-based violence…
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Best Bets: For the helpers
These Best Bets are for the helpers that are engaged in community for when times get difficult. In Shadows and Light (Goose Lane Editions) emergency physician Heather Patterson takes readers to the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic and giving them an illuminating, behind-the-scenes view of the real impact of the virus through photography. Rescue Me…
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Best Bets: For superfans
These Best Bets are for those superfans on your list: they saw the concert, joined the fanclub, bought the t-shirt. Music fans will naturally gravitate to the in-depth knowledge in the second edition of The Bob Dylan Albums by Anthony Varesi (Guernica Editions), and pop culture fanatics will live for the behind-the-scenes stories in Linda Schuyler’s…
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Best Bets: For Fantasic Nonfiction
Today’s Best Bet picks are two fantastic works of nonfiction. Good Mom on Paper (Book*hug Press) edited by, Stacey May Fowles and Jen Sookfong Lee, is a collection of twenty essays that goes beyond the clichés to explore the complicated relationship between motherhood and creativity. 305 Lost Buildings of Canada (Goose Lane Editions) by Raymond…
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Best Bets: For “here and there” reads
Our first set of Best Bets picks are two novels featuring characters on the move, changing their surroundings in the hope of finding something better. Almost Visible by Michelle Sinclair (Baraka Books) and Yellow Watch by Carmelinda Scian (Mawenzi House) would be the perfect gift for the introspective, empathetic reader who loves reading about lives different from their…
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Best Bets: Something for Everyone
It’s that time of year! This holiday season, the All Lit Up editors present Best Bets: 20 surefire book hits for everyone on your list, all at 15% off! There really is something for everyone; if you’re looking to cross a bunch of names off your gift list, read on.
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Character Study: Bluebirds
As each woman becomes accustomed to her duties and patients in the midst of war, they reveal more personal details to one another and through letters to loved ones. Read on to see who has been casted in this week’s Character Study based off of the play Bluebirds (Playwrights Canada Press) by Vern Thiessen.
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A fiction reading guide for the CanLit awards trifecta
Awards season, we hardly knew ye. With the Writers’ Trust awards last week (including Atwood-Gibson winner Some Hellish), the Giller Prize winner announced this Monday (including winner The Sleeping Car Porter) and the Governor General’s awards due up next week, it’s hard to believe one of the most wide-ranging, eclectic awards seasons in recent memory…
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Under the Cover: Amplifying the Stories of 60s Scoop Survivors
The 60s Scoop (sometimes written as “Sixties Scoop”) was a Canadian policy beginning in the 1960s that took Indigenous children without consent from their families and put them within the child welfare system, where they were either adopted by settler (usually white) families or remained in foster care. In the new anthology Silence to Strength: Writings…
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Beautiful Books: Bent Back Tongue
Both designer Tania Willard and Secwépemc poet Garry Gottfriedson take a moment to discuss the inspiration and meaning behind Gottfriedson’s cover for his latest collection Bent Back Tongue (Caitlin Press).
Got any book recommendations?