An Enduring Passion
Ignited in childhood, still stoked today
In the eleventh grade, I decided that I liked ancient history best: it seemed like maybe I could read everything because so much had already been lost. Perhaps that longing was behind my initial compulsion to “read Canadian”, the idea that maybe I could read it all. Soon after, my reading landscape expanded.
A Wanna-be Read-it-all
Who only wants to ReadAllTheBooks
It is not the job of writers to life our spirits. Books simply do what they do. They sometimes confirm the capricious drama of a childhood living room. When you think that you are in the grace of a dance you come upon something hard.
Dionne Brand
Maharaj to Munro and McNulty to Miller. Browse the Books Discussed Page to look for more. More M’s. More of the other 25.
Indigenous Stories. From Sherman Alexie to Alexis Wright. Louis Riel to Louise Erdrich. Jordan Abel to Eden Robinson. Find new favourites.
Fiercely reading indie. How to preserve your reading spirit when you feel you can’t make a difference.
Recent Bookchat
About CanLit pages I’ve been turning
(For recent bookchat across all categories, visit Home)
Margaret Atwood Reading Month, Wrap-Up #MARM2024
It happened: it snowed. The small lakes are still mostly open water, but you can see where people have thrown bits of snow near the shorelines, to gauge how the freezing is
Week Four: Update and Check-In #MARM2024
Can you believe this is the last check-in of this year’s MARM? The temperatures have steadily dropped all month and just the past two mornings, instead of waking up to a layer
Margaret Atwood’s Dancing Girls, “Dancing Girls” #MARM2024
Happy 85th birthday to Margaret Atwood! I wonder what she thought being 85 would be like when she wrote the title story of her first collection, Dancing Girls (1977). The original publications
Week Three: Update and Check-In #MARM2024
Has anyone else read “Ariadne Sends a Message,” an Atwood poem from Paper Boat: New and Selected Poems 1961-2023 shared on Lithub last month? See how easy it is to participate in
Margaret Atwood’s Old Babes in the Wood, “My Evil Mother” #MARM2024
I don’t like the word ‘evil’: does anyone? Well, some. If only for effect. The showrunners for this show, for instance. [I’ve not watched it. But maybe I should: I had fun
Margaret Atwood Reading Month 2024 #MARM2024
Happy MARM to everyone who’s reading this post! From Friday, November 1st to Saturday, November 30th it’s Margaret Atwood Reading Month, and you’re invited! (And, don’t forget, the 18th is Margaret Atwood’s
Mavis Gallant’s A Fairly Good Time #1970Club
What a delight to be invited to the #1970Club party and to bring Mavis Gallant as my guest. The quintessential short story writer published her novel A Fairly Good Time in 1970.
MARM Countdown, How Long ‘til November?
A couple weeks ago, I shared some recent short story reading, but right now I’m thinking about reading the final stories in Margaret Atwood’s Dancing Girls. And how I’ll soon read the
A Canadian Girl
From Lyn Cook and Jean Little, Onwards
My small-town library had all the Lyn Cook stories on their shelves (my favourite was Samantha’s Secret Room) and usually one or two Jean Little novels (I looked for Stand in the Wind and Look Through My Window first). A trip to the county library meant the chance of a Mouse Woman collection or that thrilling story of how Madeleine de Vercheres single-handedly saved the whole fort in New France (I was immersed in the colonial narrative). When I was a teenager, we moved to the city and the library was huge. Timothy Findley, Wayson Choy, Dionne Brand and Margaret Laurence were among my early favourites.
“Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.”
“I’m starting to realize all readers are writing at least half the book they are reading. Maybe when I write I am responding to that childhood experience of reading, that unequivocal, sensuous absorption. I guess I found writing through reading.”