In Review: The Week of October 19th

~ This week’s #IndieReadingRoom author P.C. Vandall on poetry and her newest collection The Blue Moth of Morning (The Porcupine’s Quill), an intimate look at life through the eyes of a mother, wife, friend, and lover: “Life is a mere illusion of self-control on the outside with chaos and anarchy on the inside.”~ Author Susan Sanford Blades made us this rad playlist with bangers from Hole, Sex Pistols, Grimes, and Spice Girls (not punk rock, but makes sense) to pair with her debut novel Fake It So Real (Nightwood Editions), about the fallout from a punk-rock lifestyle: “This mixtape is a musical tour of the novel and (with a couple deviations), is pure punk rock, at least in spirit. Just like the women in my novel, these songs are raw, honest and they hover on the edge of normal.”~ Our Field Trip column unpacks its bags and gets into sweats for a special digital edition of the Frankfurt Book Fair—an FBM novice recounts past memories and new takeaways from 2020: “This session really shed light on how special Canada is because of its openness and tolerance—something that attracts a lot of authors who maybe would not have been able to publish their stories within their own countries for various political and cultural reasons.”~ Dr. Theresa Turmel takes us to Ontario’s Walpole Island to listen to the stories of thirteen residential school survivors: mnidoo bemaasing bemaadiziwin

~ These Are the Words That Were Added to the Dictionary the Year You Were Born via Thrillist~ The best independent reads to pick up this fall via Jade Colbert at the The Globe and Mail ~ Where Do Reading Lists Come From? (And Why Do We Love Them?) via Lithub 

ICYMI (last week)

Read Harder Challenge #15

This month’s #ReadHarderChallenge is perfect for October reading: make it spooky Phillip Ernest’s vampire horror novel The Vetala (Linda Leith Publishing) + follow-up reads