Here's an article about FTRW that appeared in Xtra.ca (“Where Queers Conspire”). They asked various Canadian literary types and free speech proponents to give their thoughts on some common and/or recently challenged books. From the article's introduction:Canada is a censorious country. Our nanny state bans most hate speech (not the religious-based homophobic kind), stops erotica […]
What's FTRW without a couple stories about Peggy Atwood… Her books are currently being challenged in a Toronto school by a parent who says: “…if students repeated some of the words from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale in the school halls, they'd be suspended, so he questions why it is okay in the classroom.” But […]
Last night, we watched Tim Burton's “Big Fish“. I barely remember hearing about this movie when it came out for some unknown reason. I only picked it up now because it was recommended a couple times in a thread I posted on AskMetafilter asking for suggestions of works about fathers and sons (a big theme […]
A photo tour of unique bookstores around the world, similar to a list of unique libraries I've posted before (but can't find now of course – bad librarian!)
“Consider the Lobster” is one of four (how'd that happen?) books I currently have on the go (the others – “Convergence Culture”, one about contrarian management principles which I can't remember the title of – probably “Contrarian Management”, and buzz book of the moment, “Twilight”.)One of the essays in the first book on that list […]
“The Baldwin Project seeks to make available online a comprehensive collection of resources for parents and teachers of children. Our focus, initially, is on literature for children that is in the public domain in the United States. This includes all works first published before 1923.”Many of the texts include illustrations from the original book, such […]
A couple sites I've come across to help if you're selecting titles for your public library…The Early Word blog is awesome for not only listing what the new books are but doing a bit of analysis of why they're gaining in popularity and taking a look at whether they're being held in various libraries. ReadersAdvice […]
Went to the Sask Book Awards tonight and if I'm counting right, it was my 10th anniversary attending the event. (I've gone every year since 1997 except for 2006 when a little side trip to Ontario got in the way. And even that year, as I was wrapping up my time at FIMS, I was […]
I found the Secret Santa site, Elfster, via MetaFilter and thought I'd give it a shot on this blog. Odds are, if you're reading this blog, you're a book lover who has a living space full of books you'll likely never get around to reading or will never read again. So here's what I'm proposing: […]
Eco-libris is a site where you can pay to have one tree planted for every book that you've read (or bought or whatever “balance” you want to create.) The cost is just under $1 per book – a small price to pay (er, not that I will be anytime soon but the concept has lots […]
