Browsing “Vancouver Book Club”

Read All Over celebrates the bookworm in all of us, showcasing readers in Vancouver and the books they love most. Six years of University gives you a lot of tools for appreciating literature and exposure to some amazing books – if you do it right, a lit class can be like a really great book club. But more often than not it withers your passion for reading. So now that I’m graduated and doing ads and promotions for Discorder (check out the Fundrive!), Books and I are patching things up. I’ve made Books a nice lobster dinner, open Books’ favourite bottle of wine, and bought Books a little something for after.

What book makes you feel like a kid again?

Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson, 1955, fills me with wonder and glee. You can read “Writers on Writing” or “The Paris Review” but everything you really need to know – about creativity, writing, life – is in The Purple Crayon.

What books have changed your life?

Unfortunately, I can’t say that any book changed my life, but some drops in the bucket are definitely bigger than others. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, clichéd as that sounds, crystallized a lot of things for me and is as relevant now as ever; the same for Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell. Add to that Slaughter House Five or pretty much anything by Kurt Vonnegut, and Harold, and you can get a good sense of me.

The one book you always recommend is…
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson, 1955. But a close second is Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey. It’s my desert island book, the one book you’d ever need. That and Harold, of course.

How do you like your books served up best – audio books, graphic novels, used paperbacks, library loaner, e-reader…

I’m getting more into podcast and audiobooks, and availing myself of the library (save those pennies kids!). But I like to own a book, preferably one with some years on it. I’ve always been a dog earier, a note maker, a hard mistress of my tomes. I have love for writing and books, but not a lot of reverence.

Librarian vs. English Professor – who is sexier?

Depends on which one has authority over me in the given moment.

Your life story is published tomorrow. What’s the title?

Have You Gone Outside Today? The Maegan Thomas Story.

Where is your favorite place to crack open a good book in Vancouver?

I’m definitely a bus reader, but the best is in the summer I pull my scraggly, red velor armchair onto our porch overlooking 10th and read with a cold one while the bikes go by, the trees rustle, and our downstairs neighbour blast what can only be describe as hardcore jug country.

photo by the lovely christine mcavoy

Here at VIA we were thrilled to see our current Vancouver Book Club pick all around town. There was the Adventures In Solitude launch party at the Museum of Vancouver, Grant’s tour across the province and the book reaching #1 on the BC Bestsellers List!

We are so excited for the second Vancouver Book Club Meeting tomorrow – Tuesday, November 9th, 6:30 to 8:30 pm at Sitka Books and Art in Vancouver.

In a cozy and intimate space learn more about the man behind the memoir, the process of writing a first book and dive into the stories and characters of Desolation Sound. Meet other booklovers, browse the incredible collection of books at Sitka and be the first to know our next Vancouver Book Club pick!

The meeting is open to everyone – including those who haven’t read or “finished” the book yet (we’ll do our best not to spoil everything… ). Bring along your friends, lovers and your questions for Grant.

If you aren’t able to make it to the meeting post your questions below or send them along on Twitter @VIAReads!

Read All Over celebrates the bookworm in all of us, showcasing readers in Vancouver and the books they love most. I try to be a writer: I have, combined, 3.5 novels and probably 50 stories written to various levels of completion and saved where no one can see them.  I spend my days working as Housing Services Manager at Seniors Services Society, an organization that serves homeless and at risk seniors.  I live in East Van with my boyfriend Angus, and currently spend most of my time in my messy office, which contains a kitchen table for a desk, a malfunctioning discount laptop, and a 120 year old out of tune Heinzman piano. - Lindsay

What book makes you feel like a kid again?

Jelly Belly by Dennis Lee.  It’s a cut above Alligator Pie.

What books have changed your life?

The first one I can think of is the first novel I ever read, The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler.  I was eight. There’s a sex scene in it that is a grand two lines, which vaguely refer to two people being in bed together. I probably read those lines a hundred times. Escandalo! More importantly I was told Anne Tyler is a distant cousin of mine so I felt like writing novels for a living was somehow actually achievable. I’m still not sure about that. Another is The Diviners, by Margaret Laurence. I found solace with the protagonist, Morag Gunn, with her unpretty name and simple, working poor upbringing. I read the book when I was about fifteen and was trying to work out what kind of person I wanted to be. The novel exhibited a new and appealing way for a woman to go about her life that was starkly different from the bubblegum and lipstick I was drowning in at the time.

The one book you always recommend is…

Z for Zacharia by Robert C. O’Brien. It’s a YA dystopia about a sixteen year old girl in the aftermath of a nuclear war. She lives in a valley that was protected from the fallout, and she is alone after her family goes searching for other survivors and never returns. She begins to believe she is the last person on earth until a man in a safe-suit comes into the valley and stirs shit up. I love the desperation and finality of end of the world stories and this is one of the better, simpler, more insidious ones.

How do you like your books served up best – audio books, graphic novels, used paperbacks, library loaner, e-reader…

I have a giant collection of books I haven’t read yet (99.5% used paperbacks) and still I’m a library junkie. I usually get too ambitious and take out a dozen books at a go, so I basically tithe the VPL with my late fines.

Librarian vs. English Professor – who is sexier?

I think everyone’s sexy as hell when talking books.

Your life story is published tomorrow. What’s the title?

Whale Oil Beef Hooked.

Where is your favorite place to crack open a good book in Vancouver?

Translink. I get into a real funk when I have to resort to the paper on my ride.

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking. – Jerry Seinfeld

This fall has been quite the season for book lovers from events like the Vancouver International Writers Festival, Word On The Street and Canzine West. Other great book news to celebrate is the opening of Sitka Books and Art! Located in the West End, it’s a beautiful open space run by lovely staff and full of your next favourite books. When I walked in on a rainy Sunday I overheard “I can’t believe you have this book! How wonderful!” I had to try my hardest not to say the same thing every time I turned a corner.

The best part about independent bookstores like Sitka Books is the way they organize the space, highlight staff favourites and celebrate local authors. Here is a quick tour of their Vancouver and British Columbia titles:

Not only does Sitka Books have a fabulous collection of new fiction, children and young adult books, amazing non-fiction titles and local reads you’ll treasure, they are partnering up with the Vancouver Book Club for our next EVENT!

See you next Tuesday for the second Vancouver Book Club meeting where we will ask new author and radio veteran Grant Lawrence burning questions about his book, becoming an author and Desolation Sound. Enjoy this intimate evening while sipping Barefoot Wine and supporting the local bookscene. We will also announce our next bookclub pick! To get you ready dive into Grant’s Home Movies from Desolation Sound.

RSVP on FACEBOOK

Read All Over celebrates the bookworm in all of us, showcasing readers in Vancouver and the books they love most. Michelle Morinaga is a librarian, dancer and performer from Toronto. She loves working with books and has earned herself a sweet pair of bookstore biceps to prove it. She currently resides in East Vancouver.

What book makes you feel like a kid again?

I am continually blown away by Shaun Tan’s surreal and gorgeously illustrated picture books. The Arrival and The Red Tree induce nostalgia, dreaminess and magical wonder every time I revisit them.  I have always thrived on the escapism of fictional universes, so in that sense, I’ll always be a kid at heart.

What books have changed your life?

Going back several years, bell hooks (Killing Rage, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center) had a pretty big impact on my political awakening as a feminist. Scholars like Edward Said, Michel Foucault, Sharene Razack and Himani Bannerji were also influential at the time. On a more creative note, authors like Haruki Murakami, Miranda July, Sean Dixon, Tinling Choong, Gil Adamson and Rick Moody inspire me to start writing again.

The one book you always recommend is…

Mark Danielewski’s epic House of Leaves jumps to mind. It’s been a few years since I read it but it still stands out as one of the most haunting, intricate and psychologically affecting novels I’ve ever read. It’s about a metaphysical house of sorts, and the psychoses that befall the unfortunate souls consumed by its mysteries.

How do you like your books served up best – audio books, graphic novels, used paperbacks, library loaner, e-reader…

I’m a visual person so I love art books and graphic novels. Excuse the upcoming rant, but in terms of format, there are few tactile pleasures in life that I enjoy more than browsing the shelves of mom n’ pop bookshops. Digital books definitely have their place in the literary world but, for me, the analog experience is irreplaceable. I’m saddened by the closure of indie bookstores like This Ain’t the Rosedale Library in Toronto and Duthie’s in Vancouver because it means that there are fewer and fewer opportunities to engage with literary communities on a local level. Fortunately for us Vancouverites, we have positive initiatives like the Vancouver Book Club. Nonetheless, all you lovely readers out there, I encourage you to keep showing your love & support for local libraries and bookstores.

Librarian vs. English Professor – who is sexier?

As a librarian, my entirely unbiased opinion would have to be the former!

Your life story is published tomorrow. What’s the title?

For the life of me, I can’t decide on a title. That probably says a lot right there.

Where is your favorite place to crack open a good book in Vancouver?

Nothing beats bringing a companion, a beach blanket, wine, and a book of short stories to read aloud at English Bay. Miranda July’s No One Belongs Here More Than You is a perfect choice for this experience. It may be cliche, but beach side reading in the West End is high on my list of favourite Vancouver activities.

Read All Over celebrates the bookworm in all of us, showcasing readers in Vancouver and the books they love most. Sean Patrick Sullivan is a Vancouver writer/editor who — these days, at least — is interested in music, local food and running away to the wilderness in his free time. He’s good at sharing but doesn’t like talking about himself. Sean lives in a cottage in East Van.

What book makes you feel like a kid again?

The SAS Survival Handbook, by John Wiseman. It’s an illustrated, no-nonsense guide by a longtime instructor for the British Special Air Service that gives survival techniques for every disaster and situation imaginable, from the Arctic ice to mountains, jungles and swamps.

Learn about raiding hornet nests for food, making spear traps for wild pigs, building a snow cave, tying knots, reading constellations and building rafts to navigate a waterway. I want to try taking it and nothing else into the North Shore forest for a week; my girlfriend insists it’s better as a coffee table conversation piece. She’s probably right.

What books have changed your life?

Alden Nowlan: Selected Poems, edited by Patrick Lane and Lorna Crozier. Back when I was 18, I hitchhiked across most of Canada. After a nightmarish ordeal of a five-day hike through Jasper, I found myself in Edmonton, waiting for a train that would take me home to New Brunswick. I was short on money; whatever book I found would have to last me six days on the train. I found this.

Nowlan was a big, bearded man; an outsider who never quite overcame his feeling of isolation despite eventually being acknowledged as the best Canadian poet of his generation. He left school at 15 to work in a Nova Scotia mill, eventually moving to New Brunswick where he found a career as a journalist. He won a Governor General’s award for poetry and died of cancer in 1983.

The poems are simple but tell of complex human emotions, of awkwardness and uncertainty, of ordinary people and Canadian life. Much of this book is online, here.

The one book you always recommend is…

East of Eden, by John Steinbeck. This was the American writer’s self-proclaimed great work; he called it, “The story of my country, the story of me.” It’s a novel about two families and love, guilt, sin, self-destruction and redemption, set to the changing face of California’s Salinas Valley through the 1900s. One of the few novels I’ve been obsessed with, save for, perhaps, a couple by Kurt Vonnegut.

How do you like your books served up best – audio books, graphic novels, used paperbacks, library loaner, e-reader…

Used paperbacks. I’m rough on my books.

Your life story is published tomorrow. What’s the title?

That’s a tough one. Maybe, “A Maritime constitution.” I can’t tell you why.

Where is your favorite place to crack open a good book in Vancouver?

My couch, though I suppose I haven’t tried reading in many other places. The beach always seems like a good idea but I’m too distracted by birds, sand, moving water and tall things.

This is my safety-hazard of a patio. I can read there, but I usually don't.