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Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • Writer’s Block: Endre Farkas

    Writer’s Block: Endre Farkas

    Author of Home Game (Signature Editions), the sequel to his highly praised novel Never, Again, Endre Farkas talks to us about being a genre fluid writer, the very real struggle between googling and writing, and his new book.

  • Where in Canada: Misconduct of the Heart

    Where in Canada: Misconduct of the Heart

    Today’s Where in Canada takes us to Scarborough, Ontario—the setting for Cordelia Strube’s Misconduct of the Heart (ECW Press). With its stark mix of hills, ravines, greenery and…strip malls, Scarborough offers a contrasting sense of place for main character Stevie, who, in navigating a toxic 21st century and the day-to-day of her corporate-controlled restaurant job,…

  • ALU Book Club: Follow-up Reads After Polar Vortex

    ALU Book Club: Follow-up Reads After Polar Vortex

    For our final week of our July book club, we’ve rounded up four follow-up reads to Shani Mootoo’s Polar Vortex (Book*hug Press) that’ll keep the reading times rolling.

  • Cover Collage: Pool Party

    Cover Collage: Pool Party

    Suffering a bit of that summertime sadness? Turn those frowns upside down with this bluesy cover collage that we’re channeling big pool party energy with. Grab your favourite pair of sunnies and any one of these rad reads to brighten your day and ramp up your summer vibes.

  • In Review: The Week of July 13th

    In Review: The Week of July 13th

    This week we recommended books to beat the quarantine ennui, chatted with author Shani Mootoo for #ALUbookclub, read harder with a duo of books by authors of colour, and more!

  • Read Harder Challenge 9 & 10

    Read Harder Challenge 9 & 10

    Throughout 2020, All Lit Up-er Tan Light is participating in BookRiot’s Read Harder Challenge—a reading task designed to expand readerly boundaries—and doing so with an indie twist. Each entry in this series will highlight one or two completed challenges along with a list of books from All Lit Up to have you reading harder, too! This month’s…

  • On the Search for a Great Graphic Novel

    On the Search for a Great Graphic Novel

    Things we’re searching for lately: more snacks, more clothes that are the perfect blend of couch-comfy and Zoom-meeting appropriate, and enough good reads to get us through the rest of 2020. For anyone else seeking out the latter, we’re passing on recs for 3 graphic novels that are all about taking up a search for…

  • ALU Summer Book Club: Interview with Shani Mootoo

    ALU Summer Book Club: Interview with Shani Mootoo

    Week three of ALU Summer Book Club has us in the lucky position to ask author Shani Mootoo all of our burning readerly questions about her irresistibly readable novel Polar Vortex (Book*hug Press). Read on for our interview with Shani about identity and intersections, art and influences, Priya and Alex, and more. Plus, hear Shani…

  • Choose Your Quarantine Fighter: Mighty Books for Hard Times

    Choose Your Quarantine Fighter: Mighty Books for Hard Times

    Defeat your quarantine boredom with books — which will you take into battle? Choose your fighter below!

  • In Review: The Week of July 6th

    In Review: The Week of July 6th

    This week in news that isn’t about that open letter, we recommend books for food lovers this Culinary Arts Month, gab about our July #ALUbookclub pick, share new poetry from Kevin Spenst, marvel at some nerdy engineering, and more.

  • 5 Books About Food to Devour

    5 Books About Food to Devour

    We whipped up a list of five books about food that set the table this Culinary Arts Month.

  • Poetry in Motion: Hearts Amok

    Poetry in Motion: Hearts Amok

    Poet Kevin Spenst loves love. Hearts Amok: A Memoir in Verse (Anvil Press), the third in a trilogy that explores how our hearts are shaped, is proof of that. Below, Kevin shares a selection of readings from the collection, delivering an emotional intensity sure to blast out the quarantine cobwebs from around your own heart.

  • ALU Summer Book Club: Polar Vortex Discussion

    ALU Summer Book Club: Polar Vortex Discussion

    Last week we introduced you to our July book club pick Polar Vortex by Shani Mootoo with a little behind-the-scenes interview with publisher Book*hug Press on how the book came to be. This week we put on our best Zoom backgrounds and got chatty with each other about desire, queerness, identity, and some of our fave passages in Polar Vortex. Below…

  • Read This, Then That: War and Immigration Through a Child’s Eyes

    Read This, Then That: War and Immigration Through a Child’s Eyes

    In this edition of Read This, Then That, we see war-torn worlds through the eyes of a child. Comparing Abu Bakr Al Rabeeah’s Homes and Endre Farkas’s Never, Again we bear witness to the shared stories of violence, danger and religious persecution as children from different countries make their own immigration journeys, seeking safety in…

  • In Review: The Week of June 30th

    In Review: The Week of June 30th

    This week we shared our summer reading picks, chatted with publisher Book*hug Press about our #ALUbookclub pick Polar Vortex, talked writing and rituals with Gary Barwin, and more!

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