Tag: diversity
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A Chorus of Mushrooms by Hiromi Goto
I first discovered Chorus of Mushrooms in a used bookstore. It’s red and black cover caught my eye and the title including mushrooms (in these fungi obsessed times) was enough for me to pick it up and take it home. Little did I know at that time this wonderful piece of fiction by Hiromi Goto…
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Resource List: Stories addressing anti-black racism
“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” -Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. “The danger of a single story” In light of the recent cases of George Floyd and Regis Korchinski-Paquet, conversations about anti-racism and the history…
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The Boat People by Sharon Bala
Sharon Bala’s The Boat People is controversial, to say the least. Featured in the 2018 Canada Reads competition only to be ousted on day one, it takes an honest attempt to steer the course of Canadian conversation by directly addressing one of our hot-button issues of the moment. In this case, the refugee crisis. Starting in 2009,…
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A Year of Missed Reviews
A lot has happened in 2017, I took a short break from blogging which turned into a long break so I could focus on my job and non-profit activities. I don’t regret my choice really but every now and again I’ll be riding the subway or walking down the street and I would think of…
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No Place Strange by Diana Fitzgerald Bryden
I seem to have made it a habit of picking books that are difficult to write about even though I know that I will spend more time going back and forth about what I can and can’t say than actually sitting down and trying to write a review. First, it was student suicide, now it…
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Lattes with Ladies: Jasmine Gui
I finally got the chance to transcribe this exciting interview with Jasmine Gui, translator, editor, and co-founder of the Project 40 Collective. She is a really, really cool lady whose passion for diversity and accessibility in literature have helped to create LooseLeaf Magazine and Col.lab Incubator. I became familiar with her stuff through Instagram and when I realized…
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No-No Boy by John Okada
I picked up John Okada’s No-No Boy in the Alcatraz Island gift shop when I was visiting San Francisco. It was part of a display about the time period that Alcatraz prison existed in, and when I found out that Okada’s novel is considered the first Asian-American novel I knew it was going to be my choice…
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Top 10 Bookstagrammers you need to follow
Ah, #Bookstagram. That wonderful world of photos of books and avid readers on the hunt for their next beautiful, great read. I only discovered bookstagram myself a little while ago, but since then I can’t get enough. In fact, you can follow me @hplreads to see some bookstagrams of my own. My favourite thing about…
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The Pain Tree by Olive Senior
I picked up The Pain Tree at the Word on the Street festival in Toronto this past fall. It was recommended to me at the Cormorant Books tent, and always happy to pick up more Canlit and Caribbean lit, I couldn’t say no! Olive Senior is a prolific writer, having published many volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and…
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Lattes with Ladies: Jessie Ho!
It’s my first international Lattes with Ladies featuring the intrepid Jessie Ho! Jessie is a writer, aspiring creative, fashion fiend, media addict, would-be social entrepreneur, and my old roommate from university. In between catching up over Skype, we talked about our reading lives in a post-grad world and the challenges of finding books in Hong…
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Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
Do Not Say We Have Nothing is a critically acclaimed new novel from Madeleine Thien. Winner of the Giller Prize and Governor General’s Award as well as shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and longlisted for an Andrew Carnegie Medal, it is effectively the book of 2016. I can’t believe I actually read it before…
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An Ode to Festivals
The Word on the Street book and magazine festival hits the Harbourfront this Sunday, September 25, 2016. After four years of attending, I decided to spice things up this year and volunteer for the first time! If you’ve never attended Word on the Street you should definitely check it out this weekend. Literary festivals are…