Top Reads of 2016

Posted on December 31, 2016

Inscription reads: For Stacie, Hope the women unleaded some spirit! Marlon James — I made Marlon James smile and chuckle as he inscribed my copy of *The Book of Night Women*, so that was obviously a highlight of my year.

I don’t think I’ve ever known so many people to be so happy that a year is coming to a close. Didn’t make very many friends, did ya, 2016?

Well, at least there were good books! I heard a stat earlier this year that blew my mind. (Disclaimer: This is not fact checked!) And that is: There are one million books published in the US every year. One million. Apparently, 250,000 are published by the big publishing houses, another 250,000 by small indie presses, and 500,000 are self-published. That. Is. Nuts. No wonder I feel like I can never keep up, no matter how many I read! (96 treebooks + 7 ebooks + 11 audiobooks = 114 on the year.) Continue reading →

Top Reads of 2015

Posted on January 2, 2016

shelf-absorbed

Road Trip Rwanda, by Will Ferguson. Inscription reads: "To Stacie, Some armchair travel for you! Will" — Even Will Ferguson knows I’ll never make it there…

Helllllloooooooooo? Anyone out there? Sorry, I completely disappeared on you. Blame work! I managed to read – not as many books as usual – but no time to blog. But I wouldn’t leave you without my now-traditional musings on my favourite books of the year. Here goes… Continue reading →

“…I don’t really get the appeal of YOLO. I live many times over. Hypothetical, subterranean lives that run beneath the relative tedium of my own and have the power to occasionally penetrate or even derail it. I find it hard to name the one book that was so damn delightful it changed my life. The truth is, they have all changed my life, every single one of them—even the ones I hated.”

~ Zadie Smith

			Lovely readers, let’s take a sec to acknowledge that the land where I sit to write this blog is the traditional territory of the Wendat, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the Anishinaabeg, and is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit. It’s part of the Dish with One Spoon treaty, an agreement among Indigenous nations and newcomers to peaceably share and care for the land. Toronto is home to many Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island, and I am grateful to be able to live, work and celebrate literature here.
Join me in decolonizing our reading lives – we can do this by seeking out, reading and supporting the work of First Nations, Métis and Inuit writers, and authors from many diverse communities whose work has traditionally been disadvantaged by colonialism.


Happy reading! If you'd like to receive automated email notifications when new posts go up, drop me a line and I'll add you to the mailing list.

`Meta`


		
						Log in
			Entries feed
			Comments feed

			WordPress.org



	
		
			
			
					
		
						This site is powered by WordPress and styled with SemPress

Shelf-Absorbed

A blog about books 'n' such

Tag: The Fishermen

Top Reads of 2016

Top Reads of 2015