20 Aug My summer of CanLit

Where is the line between book nerd and full-blown reading addict? I’m not sure at what point exactly I crossed said line, but it must have been some time ago. Decades, even.  At least I’ve been maxing out my library card, not my credit card. I must have some kind of record at the Toronto Public Library – Most Holds Ever.

This is my summer of CanLit. It started innocently enough with Zsuzsi Gartner’s wryly observed Better Living Through Plastic Explosives. Next, I finally snagged a copy of Kathleen Winter’s Annabel (183 holds, 50 copies) and disappeared for a time, lost in the harsh beauty of Labrador and Winter’s strange but captivating story.

Then came two books that have been on my list for a while – Camilla Gibb’s evocative Sweetness in the Belly, and Miriam Toews’ A Complicated Kindness (Perhaps the only flat note of the summer – I just couldn’t get into the “angry teenager in a small town” plotline.)

My current companion, as I lounge lazily in the hammock, is the rip-roaring, free-stylin’ How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired. Have you read this book? It’s like Canlit meets the Beats. A hot, sexy, jazz-filled book – perfect for summer.

(Up next: Muriella Pent, and The Evolution of Inanimate Objects.)