Ok, I’ve been linking to a lot of book-related stuff on Twitter, and rather than send a dozen tweets of linkage, why not consolidate the best into a single blog post? Why not, indeed.

Here we go:

• ‘I just adore Dostoevsky…’ Books to impress the babes, Asylum.co.uk – Seriously, people still say “babes”? And they don’t get punched? (Oddly, the list features Crowley, but no Dostoevsky. Go fig.)
• Duke Special and the books that rock, TimesOnline.co.uk – I have no idea who Duke Special is, but the idea of bibliorockers intrigues me.
• Sex Survey of Librarians Reveals 1 in 5 Have Had Sex in the Stacks, Cleavland Leader – I have a friend who’s a genealogical librarian. She recently mentioned that one of her septuagenarian co-workers regularly goes for naps in the afternoon. Naps. Riiight.

While we’re at it, check out this awesome sounding event from Open Book Toronto: Continue reading »

Popularity: unranked [?]

An Evening with Neil Gaiman

I’d originally meant to post this write-up after the event itself, but got rather busy, so here’s the truncated version.

Luminato is a new arts festival in Toronto; this is its second year. Neil Gaiman headlined the literary program with an interview, reading, Q&A and, of course, a lengthy signing.

Tickets were cheap (only $15) and when they were made available to the public they sold out in three minutes. Three. Minutes.

Fortunately, my husband received advanced notification from theglobeandmail.com and were able to purchase ours early. They may have killed their books section, very nearly causing me to cancel my subscription in protest, but I suppose there are still some benefits.

Anyway. Gaiman. Continue reading »

Popularity: 2% [?]

Bailey's Birthday Cheesecake, by Jo

Birthdays as a kid were easy: summer birthday summer + grandparents pool = pool parties. Messes of other kids, swimming, playing Shark and Marco Polo, a barbeque, running around like lunatics, cake, and presents. So easy.

As an adult, things somehow got more complicated, and they turned out to be less fun.⁽¹⁾ This year was certainly an exception.⁽²⁾

Saturday, July 4th

Saturday and Sunday my neighbourhood held⁽³⁾  held its annual do, the Corso Italia Festival on St Claire West.

The street was blocked off from Landsdowne to Dufferin, filled with music and entertainers of many varieties, though largely Italian, of course. There were inflatable things for children to jump on, slides, food, shoes, food, more shoes, and the usual variety of things you’d see at any street festival or faire. Friends of ours joined us for the day, and we browsed and checked things out. Continue reading »

Popularity: 2% [?]

Footnotes:

1. Indeed, every other day the week leading up to my birthday I seemed to find a new grey hair. Quite accidentally. I’d notice something sticking up, and it’d be this coarse grey thing. It was rather disturbing. [↩]
2. Except for the grey hair thing. That sucked. [↩]
3. For those not in the know, Toronto is a city of neighbourhoods – more than 200 – each with their own distinct personality. [↩]

I’ve finished updating my books read list for May. When I first posted about the list, my sister mocked me under the absurd impression that she reads more than I do. So she began to keep track, and in April we held a contest, which I won. By a lot. In May, she tried again, and lost again. It was a silly nonsense contest, but there you have it.

Looking over the list for May, it seems I read far more graphic novels than I usually do (none of which counted for our contest. I’ve finally started on Promethea, which had been recommended to me several times. Inspired by the filming currently under way, I re-read the first Scott Pilgrim, continued with the rest of the books published thus far, then gushed about its infinite awesome. Continue reading »

Popularity: unranked [?]

Scott Pilgrim, written by Bryan Lee O’Malley, is pretty much Awesome Incarnate.

Scott Pilgrim was recently optioned by Universal, and will star Michael Cera,⁽¹⁾ who, upon re-reading book 1, should be damn-near perfect as Scott.

The film version of Scott Pilgrim Versus the World will hit theatres in 2010, but right now they’re shooting around my neighbourhood⁽²⁾ (which is what prompted me to reread the comics).⁽³⁾

I’m very excited to see how this film will turn out. In the meantime, a breakdown of the five books published thusfar: Continue reading »

Popularity: 100% [?]

Footnotes:

1. How does this kid not have his own website yet? [↩]
2. They began March 30th, according to ScottPilgrim.com. [↩]
3. It was kind of weird to see snow machines all over the place with large puffy blankets of white over at Casa Loma and elsewhere in the neighbourhood. Had they come a months earlier they could’ve had the real stuff. [↩]