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University Press Week!
It’s University Press Week! This must be a new designation because in the past I have honoured university press books in a haphazard way, apparently at the wrong time of year. My efforts to get some...
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In Which Etsy Gets All My Holiday Money
You can follow the #FridayReads hashtag on Twitter and get a snapshot of what the Twitterati (Litertwatti?) are reading, if you choose. If you do follow, you might have noticed that I have been reading...
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Themed Reading Projects, and Publicity
I suffer from a lot of reader’s guilt. I want to buy all the books, read them all, write about them all, and single-handedly support the writing and publishing careers of every scribbler and...
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On Anna Karenina In All Forms
Director Joe Wright has just released his Anna Karenina, a film based on the opera based on Tolstoy’s book. Wait – there wasn’t an opera? Well, there is now. And it’s bloody fantastic. This is big,...
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*phew*! Canada Reads 2013 Finalists At Long Last
The Canada Reads 2013 finalists have been announced! I am super enthusiastic about this list – it is the strongest, most literary list Canada Reads has settled on since they introduced the...
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Canada Reads 2013: The Panelists
The Canada Reads 2013 list is out, and yesterday I had the pleasure of going down to the CBC building in Toronto to meet, greet & grill all five panelists. What I learned made me even more...
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Holiday Round-Up Pt. I
I like to find cool literary gifts for people. I don’t mean books, since I have been long since barred from buying members of my family “any more damn books”; but the next best thing, items which...
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Five Big-Idea Holiday Best-Sellers
My bookstore is an unusual one. We are a trade bookstore, but we have a disproportionate number of academics and intellectuals as customers and this has flavoured our stock. So when I look at other...
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Review: Kitchen Party by Sheryl Kirby
I first met Sheryl Kirby in Parkdale as a wide-eyed, totally hysterical and completely raw 17-year-old in the late 90s. At that time I was so overwhelmed by Toronto and living alone for the first time...
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Canada Reads 2013 Review #1 – Indian Horse
If you, like me, are horribly, inexcusably ignorant of Canadian Indigenous history, you will probably want to read Richard Wagamese’s Indian Horse with Wikipedia open next to you. Perhaps you don’t;...
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On Literature and Fandom
When Jim Zubkavich, the Toronto-based creator of the comic Skullkickers, posted this plea to fans to support creator-controlled comics, it got me thinking about the new realities of publishing. Making...
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Read 2013
The books I have read in 2013, and links to the reviews (where I bothered): The Age of Hope by David Bergen Away by Jane Urquhart See my 2012, 2011, 2010 & 2009 reading lists too!
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Canada Reads 2013 Review #2 – The Age of Hope
David Bergen preempted this review in the last chapter of The Age of Hope with a scene in which Hope’s middle daughter, Penny, divulges her intention to write a novel that sounds like it’s likely to be...
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That Little Something Extra
Yours humbly. It was a random act. Last spring I contributed to an Indigeogo campaign to help Irish cartoonist Dale O’Flaherty get to TCAF. I had no idea who Dale was, nor was I familiar with his work,...
View ArticleUnder Construction!
After nearly a year on hiatus I am almost ready to relaunch the blog! What have I been up to? Writing, mostly. While I’m rebuilding, I hope you’ll follow me on Twitter @CharlotteAshley! You can also...
View ArticleWant to be a Bookseller for a Day?
There is some excellent discussion over at E. Catherine Tobler’s blog about reading women, something we should all be doing more. There is nothing new under the sun: this issue comes up all the time...
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Representing Daddy
Because my children are very small, they do not, at this stage, look for themselves in books. Their brains don’t work like that yet – they take themselves for granted, since they are the centre of the...
View ArticleClavis Aurea – February 20, 2014
My short story reviews are up at ChiZine.com! Check ‘em out.
View ArticleIn which I change place, talk about place
With ChiZine.com refocussing to feature their own publications, the folks at Apex Magazine have been good enough to host my short story review column, Clavis Aurea. The first installment is out today –...
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The state of my bookselling, 2014
I am still a bookseller. It is March 20th, 2014. Everybody is surprised, me included. Every day customers wander through the door and look at me, startled, saying, “You’re still here!” My boss opens...
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