This regular feature on BIP altered during the past year; my favourite on-the-move notebook sprouted a layer of dust because now that I’m consistently sitting at my desk, I often choose to key my notes directly rather than handwrite. For rereading, I still appreciate handwritten notes; that way, I’m
Every year, GoodReads does a nice job of summarizing my reading (I wish they hadn't been bought out by Amazon.) This year suggests I've read 330 books or 84, 433 pages (that's just 20 pages below my all-time record--if only I'd known). (I also washed the kitchen floor three
While I put the finishing touches on the pie-charts and calculations from 2020’s reading log, there are just a couple other books to talk about that I read (mostly) over the holiday break. Ruth Gilligan’s The Butchers’ Blessing (2020) is praised by two writers who snag my attention: Colum
Before I post about the new reading year, there are a few memorable reads from my 2020 log that I haven’t mentioned yet. Like Pourin’ Down Rain, Cheryl Foggo's memoir about growing up in 1960s Calgary, in a small and tight-knit Black community. When she was young, she heard
The call for witnesses in The Stone Diaries resonates throughout Shields’ work: “Life is an endless recruiting of witnesses. It seems we need to be observed in our postures of extravagance or shame, we need attention paid to us. Our own memory is altogether too cherishing, which is the
