Snakes and Lattes Game Night

Hey Bookenders!

I have closed the poll, and the votes are in! Here are the details for our Games Night:

Place: Snakes and Lattes, College/Bathurst location (apologies for the error)
Date: Thursday, February 2, 2017
Time: 7:00pm to however long you can stay :)

Please note that there is a $5 cover charge! Also, there's a possibility that we may have to wait for seating as it is first-come, first-serve. In this case, we can try the Bloor/Bathurst location. 

Thanks for all your votes!

Best,

Taneeta

January 2017 Meeting Details

Hey Bookenders! 

Here are the details for our January meeting /

Book: Ghosted / Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall

Date: 26 January 2016

Time: 6:30-7:30 pm (time changed, scheduling conflict)

Place: Committees Room, Hart House

Also, we're thinking of doing a games night at Snakes and Lattes. Here is a Doodle for some possible dates. Please let us know if you prefer the Bloor/Spadina location or the College/Spadina location via email, the Discord app, or by replying to this post!

Best,

Taneeta

January 2017 Book of the Month

Hey Bookenders!

Hope you enjoyed your winter break (and if you didn't get much of one, I hope it happens soon!) Thanks to all of you who voted for the book of the month. Without further ado, it is...

Ghosted, by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall.

Here is the poll for the meeting time/date. I'm hoping the place will be somewhere that's relevant to the book! Let me know if you have any ideas as we go along.

Best,

Taneeta

January 2017 Nominations

*NEW SURVEY (DEC 10). PLEASE VOTE AGAIN.*

January's theme is Canadian fiction. I defined "Canadian fiction" as books taking place in Canada that are by Canadian authors. Many of the noms have author talks coming up in the new year (that we can attend!) or take place in areas around Toronto (so we could have a meeting there!) 

*NOTE: Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson was included on this list, but a helpful Bookends member let me know that it's not being released until February 2017, so it has been removed.*

The January nominations are:

The Night Wanderer | Drew Hayden Taylor

Nothing ever happens on the Otter Lake reservation. But when 16-year-old Tiffany discovers her father is renting out her room, she’s deeply upset. Sure, their guest is polite and keeps to himself, but he’s also a little creepy. 

The mysterious Pierre L’Errant is actually a vampire returning to his tribal home. But Tiffany has other things on her mind: her new boyfriend is acting weird, disputes with her father are escalating, and her estranged mother is starting a new life with somebody else. Tiffany flees into the bush, and has a chilling encounter with L’Errant that changes everything ... for both of them.

[source]

*author talk*

George & Rue | George Elliott Clarke

Brothers George and Rufus Hamilton, in a robbery gone wrong, drunkenly bludgeoned a taxi driver to death. It was 1949, and the two siblings, part Mi'kmaq and part African, were hanged for the killing. 

Both repelled and intrigued by his ancestral cousins' deeds, which he only learned about from his mother shortly before her death, Clarke set out to discover just what kind of forces would reduce men to crime, violence and, ultimately, murder.

The novel shifts seamlessly back into the killers' pasts, recounting a bleak and sometimes comic tale of victims of violence who became killers, a black community too poor and too shamed to assist its downtrodden members, and a white community bent on condemning all blacks as dangerous outsiders. 

[source]

No New Land | M.G. Vassanji

Nurdin Lalani and his family, Asian immigrants from Africa, have come to the Toronto suburb of Don Mills only to find that the old world and its values pursue them. A genial orderly at a downtown hospital, he has been accused of sexually assaulting a girl. Although he is innocent, traditional propriety prompts him to question the purity of his own thoughts. 

Ultimately, his friendship with the enlightened Sushila offers him an alluring freedom from a past that haunts him, a marriage that has become routine, and from the trials of coping with teenage children. Introducing us to a cast of vividly drawn characters within this immigrant community, Vassanji is a keen observer of lives caught between one world and another. 

[source]

Ghosted | Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall

Mason, a struggling writer, comes in from the cold after five years of drifting. His childhood friend Chaz loans him an apartment and finds him a job selling hotdogs. But Mason drinks too much, does too many drugs and loses too much money at poker, digging himself even more deeply in debt to Chaz, who also happens to be his drug dealer. Talk about a vicious circle. 

Then Mason decides he'll become a ghostwriter of suicide notes. What happens when someone already wrestling with his own demons immerses himself in the tragedies of other people's lives? In this case, a lot: a hotdog cart is totalled, a convict sprung, a funeral faked, a head scalped, a horse stolen. Then, just when it looks like Mason is finally going down, he faces the biggest test of all. 

[source]

The Featherbed | John Miller

When Anna and Sadie discover the diaries of their mother, Rebecca, in the days following her death, they learn that her life was far more complex than either of them knew: a garment worker in early-1900s New York; the reluctant wife in an arranged marriage to an ailing and abusive husband; the improbable friend of a pregnant prostitute. But the diaries reveal more than just surprising details about Rebecca's life: they also point to a family secret - and questions about Sadie's true parentage.

The Featherbed is a gripping family saga that moves between the tenements of New York's Lower East Side and the stately homes of Toronto's Annex. Strong in plot, character, setting, and style, it is a fully-realised debut from an assured writer.

[source]

Red Rover | Liz Bugg

Thalia Spencer is missing. Is she in trouble or is she simply avoiding her family? When Thalia's conservative tycoon father confesses to private investigator Calli Barnow that he offered his daughter money to give up her girlfriend and start dating men, Calli thinks she knows where to start looking. 

She and her best friend, novice drag queen Dewey, comb the bars and clubs of Toronto's gay village, hoping to find Thalia hiding in plain sight. But then Thalia's lover, Zoe, says the girl is missing from her life too, and Calli realizes the situation is more dangerous than she'd thought.

[source]




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November Meeting Details

Hey Bookenders! 

Ahhh only 2.5 weeks til the end of the semester! I hope you're rising above all the stress :D

Here are the details for our November meeting /
Book: The Book Thief / Marcus Zusak (as you know)
Date: 25 November 2016
Time: 4:00-5:00 pm
Place: Koffler House, 569 Spadina Ave
             Quiet Room (3rd floor) -- we won't need to be quiet, don't worry

Also, a last reminder about our movie night / 
Film: V for Vendetta
Date: 22 November 2016 (this Tuesday)
Time: 6:30-9pm (ish)
Place: Hart House, North Dining Room

Hope you can come!

Best,

Taneeta

November 2016 Book of the Month

Hey Bookenders!

Thanks to everyone who voted for the book of the month. The two top choices were very close (just 1 vote separated them!) but ultimately there was a winner...

The Book Thief, by Marcus Zusak.

Click here to vote for the time/date for our November meeting. Hope you enjoy the book!

Best,

Taneeta

Movie Night Details

Hey Bookenders!

Just a quick update on the movie night -- we're still screening V for Vendetta on Tuesday November 22 in Hart House (North Dining Room -- the same place as the October meeting), but the time is now 6:30 pm because they're really busy! I hope people can still come, and of course you can always leave early. The film is 2h12min, so it should be done by 9pm.

If you're not familiar with Hart House, the North Dining Room is on the second floor (turn left when you've climbed the main stairs). If you take the elevator, turn right and go past the library.

As mentioned before, this is a Bookends-only event due to licensing restrictions.

Details:
V for Vendetta
Tue Nov 22, 6:30pm
Hart House - North Dining Room

Hope to see you there!

Best,
Taneeta