On Tuesday night, I joined a small but mighty crowd of book lovers in the upstairs of the Rose and Crown on 4th to hear this year’s shortlisted W.O. Mitchell Book Prize authors read from their nominated works. Those were: Glenn Dixon for Tripping the World Fantastic (Dundurn Press) Juleta Severson-Baker for Incarnate (Frontenac House)…
Yup, you read that right. Jessica Fletcher, my favourite heroine from my favourite television show Murder, She Wrote has written a book. If you follow the show, you will know that Miss Fletcher has written many books, but this is the first book of hers that I’ve actually read! Because Jessica Fletcher is a television…
I don’t typically dwell on book design on this blog, but I do want to state, for the record how much I enjoyed the cover of Nancy Lee’s novel The Age. Based on my comment above, you can probably tell that I’m grasping at straws a bit here. Not because I didn’t like The Age,…
Want to know how successful a writer is? Take a look at their website, that’s a clear indication of how many books he/she has sold. How can I make this bold statement? I’ll give you an example-take Roberta Rich, the author of The Harem Midwife, sequel to the popular Midwife of Venice released a few…
If I had taken science past the required grade 11 in high school, I’m pretty sure I would have failed it. And reading books like this, books that reference physics and other sciency-things of a similar nature remind me of this sad fact. Good thing I stuck to what I knew-English literature. If I had…
Oh hi there Alberta book lovers (and book lovers in general). Many of you may already be aware that the Alberta Literary Awards Shortlist was announced, but if you’re not, you can find the list of nominees here. There, now that you’re up to speed, you can decide whether to purchase your tickets or not….
The horror genre is a paradox for me. I love reading scary books and watching scary movies, but as soon as I close the book or turn off the television, I regret my actions immediately. I’m the kind of person that has an overactive imagination (I blame all the books I read) so whenever I’m…
A good friend of mine posted this on my facebook page this past weekend. If you read it first, the following few paragraphs will make a lot more sense. Now, there are so many aspects to facebook postings that are ripe for complaining about (see below). However, I think I’ve been lucky enough to surround…
Do you recognize the two men above? The shaggy head with the over-sized sunglasses is none other than Jon Bon Jovi, but that’s not who I’m interested in here-the other man, Christopher Ward, was the original MuchMusic VJ, and the writer of the most recent book I just finished titled Dead Brilliant. Oh, and he…
So full disclosure here: I’ve seen the Hunger Games movies, but I haven’t actually read the books (gasp!). Why would a book-lover like me not read the books if I enjoyed the movies? Well, dystopian sci-fi isn’t really my thing, so I figured watching the movies was good enough for the Hunger Games franchise. Besides,…
There are a few reasons why I love this video. The first is that it’s a featured clip from the Jimmy Fallon show, which is, as you all know, awesome. And, Jimmy obviously doesn’t have poets on his show on a very regular basis, so you can tell he’s a bit ‘out of his element’…
So living in Alberta has led me to develop a fierce loyalty to AB authors and their books. I’m also aware that prairie literature doesn’t get the attention it deserves, as Ontario and BC authors are typically on Can-Lit’s radar more than the remaining provinces. This isn’t really a fair observation to make, but it’s…
