Feb 2017 Meeting & Movie Final Details

Here are the details for our February 2017 meeting:

Date: Thursday, March 2, 2017
Time: 6:30 pm
Place: Boardroom, Hart House (second floor)

The meeting will be from 6:30-7:30ish, and then we'll start the movie. You're welcome to stay if you like, but you don't have to :) We'll be watching The Grand Budapest Hotel!

See you then!

February 2017 Book of the Month & Pick a Movie!

Reading Week is finally here! And with it, you have the chance to relax - and, well, read. Our book of the month is...

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling.

The meeting date/time is Thursday March 2, at 6:30 pm. I'll post again about the place (which will most likely be at Hart House). 

Here is the survey for our Movie Night (also March 2, right after the meeting):

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February 2017 Nominations

Hey everyone!

February's theme is Humour. (After January's somewhat depressing book, and considering it's the middle of winter, we all need this!) 

Here's a link to the Doodle for our meeting date & time.

The February nominations are:

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole,
Aged 13 3/4 | Sue Townsend

Adrian Mole's first love, Pandora, has left him; a neighbor, Mr. Lucas, appears to be seducing his mother (and what does that mean for his father?); the BBC refuses to publish his poetry; and his dog swallowed the tree off the Christmas cake. "Why" indeed. [source]

The Sellout | Paul Beatty

Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, it challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality—the black Chinese restaurant. [source]

The Indifference League
Richard Scarsbrook

Sexy, racy, hilarious, and even moving, The Indifference League is a story of what happens when the starry-eyed optimism of the Greatest Generation crashes into the obsessions and fears of the New Lost Generation. 

Under the faded banner of Superman, Wonder Woman, and other heroes past steps the Indifference League: The Statistician, Time Bomb, Hippie Avenger, SuperKen, SuperBarbie, Miss Demeanour, Mr. Nice Guy, Psycho Superstar, The Drifter, and The Stunner. All archetypes of Generations X and Y, they are here to show us just how much things have changed.

Sex and love. Religion and politics. Left and Right. Right and Wrong. Can anyone be a hero in an age where the lines are so blurred? When they meet again at The Hall of Indifference for a long weekend together, The Indifference League will fight to find out. Or not. [source]

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
(And Other Concerns) | Mindy Kaling

Mindy Kaling has lived many lives: the obedient child of immigrant professionals, a timid chubster afraid of her own bike, a Ben Affleck–impersonating Off-Broadway performer and playwright, and, finally, a comedy writer and actress prone to starting fights with her friends and coworkers with the sentence “Can I just say one last thing about this, and then I swear I’ll shut up about it?” 

In Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy invites readers on a tour of her life and her unscientific observations on romance, friendship, and Hollywood, with several conveniently placed stopping points for you to run errands and make phone calls. Mindy Kaling really is just a Girl Next Door—not so much literally anywhere in the continental United States, but definitely if you live in India or Sri Lanka. [source]

Weird Things Customers Say
in Bookstores | Jen Campbell

This Sunday Times bestseller is a miscellany of hilarious and peculiar bookshop moments: 'Can books conduct electricity?' 'My children are just climbing your bookshelves: that's ok... isn't it?'

A John Cleese Twitter question ['What is your pet peeve?'], first sparked the 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops' blog, which grew over three years into one bookseller's collection of ridiculous conversations on the shop floor. 

From 'Did Beatrix Potter ever write a book about dinosaurs?' to the hunt for a paperback which could forecast the next year's weather; and from 'I've forgotten my glasses, please read me the first chapter' to 'Excuse me... is this book edible?: here is a book for heroic booksellers and booklovers everywhere. [source]

Wake Up, Sir! | Jonathan Ames

Alan Blair is a young, loony writer with numerous problems. He's also quite skilled at getting into trouble. But luckily for Alan, he has a personal valet, a wondrously helpful fellow named Jeeves, who does his best to sort things out for his young master.

Our tale begins in Montclair, New Jersey, where Alan gets into a scrape with his uncle Irwin, a gun-toting member of the NRA. So Alan and Jeeves flee New Jersey and take refuge at a Hasidic enclave in Sharon Springs, New York. Unfortunately, more trouble ensues, so Alan and Jeeves again take flight, this time landing at a famous artist colony in Saratoga Springs, New York. There Alan encounters a femme fatale who is in possession of the most spectacular nose in the history of noses. Such a nose can only lead to a wild disaster for someone like Alan, and Jeeves tries to help him, but... [source]


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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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