 | | Sunshine! And Occasionally Warmth... | So, how about those yo-yoing temperatures, huh? Monday walking into work, it was almost humid, flowers were blooming and I almost regretted wearing a jacket. Fast-forward to Tuesday and Wednesday? Snow, wilted flowers, and many layers of clothing, those bitter winds. Gotta love this phase of Spring, huh? I must apologize for the lack of updates. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I haven't been able to get out a newsletter since March. That being the case, we've thrown together a special, longer edition where we talk about how children's books affect us, the beauty of language, Canadian Independent Bookstore Day, an extra long selection of book picks, and more! So let's dive in! | Picks from Words Worth Every two weeks, in time for the newsletter, we will be highlighting books that get us really pumped. We won't limit ourselves to just brand new titles. These may be new releases, beloved classics, hidden gems. Let's all connect on a love of reading.
Have a look at some of the titles we are absolutely loving right now! | Fantastically Good April Picks! To make up for such a long gap between newsletters, today we're bringing a month's worth of picks! Jennifer Egan, critically acclaimed author of A Visit from the Goon Squad, is back this with that book's 'sibling', The Candy House. Between that and The Diamond Eye, the latest from the ever popular Kate Quinn, we had quite the stack of preorders to contact on their release day! Along with them, we have new work from Anne Tyler, another walk in the woods with Hidden Life of Trees writer Peter Wohlleben, and Companion Piece by the ever-impressive Ali Smith! Ocean Vuong, who's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous we could scarcely keep on the shelves in 2021, brings us some of his phenomenal poetry with Time Is A Mother. From the world of entertainment, we have the incredible Viola Davis with her autobiography Finding Me, geek-culture royalty Wil Wheaton with his second book, and the jaw-dropping Janelle Monáe proving to us she can do anything, be it sing, act, or write with her Afrofuturistic collection of stories, The Memory Librarian. Also on the genre front, we have Wild and Wicked Things, or what if you took The Great Gatsby and added witches, Sofi and the Bone Song by Adrienne Tooley, whose 2021 title A Sweet and Bitter Magic was one of my top picks of the year, and the very adorable The Ogress and the Orphans. | For details on all of these new titles, click here! | | The Books We Read as Children Always Change Us — Let’s Embrace It | (By Kali Wallace for Tor.com) What a time it is to be a children’s book author in the United States (and elsewhere ~ Alex) A lot of people are talking about children’s books these days. Not, unfortunately, about how children’s literature is absolutely booming with creativity, diversity, boldness, and ideas—which it is—but instead because book banning is once again en vogue in the worst parts of society, for all the worst reasons. It’s neither difficult nor particularly interesting to discern what’s motivating proponents of book banning: the political power derived from stoking moral outrage, the chance to bully and threaten anybody they don’t like while pretending it’s about protecting children, and the fear that their children might read something that will make them think, “Wow, my parents are astonishingly bigoted and have very bad ideas about many things.” It’s unfortunate that children’s literature only makes the news when people are being terrible about it. I think it changes the way we talk about children’s books, and not for the better. When we’re forced to defend books with diverse characters by insisting it does kids good to see themselves in literature, we’re overlooking the value of seeing characters nothing like themselves too. When we’re forced to defend darker, more mature subject matter by referencing how many kids experience similar challenges in real life, we’re overlooking the value of letting kids read about things that haven’t happened to them and might never happen, but still expand their understanding of the world and the people in it. When we’re forced to defend against charges of grooming or indoctrination—well, many of us pour a very large drink and cry, because there is only so much stupid cruelty anybody can take. Because they do. Of course they do. Everything we read, at any age, influences us. Changes us. Introduces us to new ideas. Generates new emotions and thoughts. Rewires previously comfortable pathways in our minds. And it keeps happening, over and over again, as we grow and mature and change. The fact that books change us shouldn’t be scary. It isn’t scary, not unless you are terrified of other people, such as your children, having ideas that you cannot control. Sometimes it’s unsettling, and sometimes it’s uncomfortable. It’s very rarely straightforward. But it’s also splendid, because while we only ever get to live one human life, books offer up infinite experiences to anybody who goes looking. We should be able to talk about this—about ourselves and about young readers—in a way that isn’t dictated by idiots who believe that a picture book about an anthropomorphized crayon represents society’s worst degeneracy. I’ve been thinking a lot about the books I read as a child that still resonate with me today, the books that contain certain scenes or arcs that I still think about, decades later, because of how deeply they impacted me. And I’m not talking about issue-centered books that book-banners are so afraid of. Sure, I read Number the Stars and The Slave Dancer and Maniac McGee, and I took pride in scouring the ALA’s list of frequently challenged books to find new things to read, because I was an extremely bookish ’80s child of a schoolteacher growing up in a house full of heady sci-fi and fantasy, ponderous literary classics, outrageous teen horror, and Scholastic paperbacks. But, let’s be real, I mostly wanted to read books about people having exciting, strange, mysterious, or magical adventures. That’s still mostly what I want to read and write as an adult, so I like to think about the lasting and unexpected ways they influenced me when I was young. I talk about a few of them below: not just the books that got their claws in and never let go, but the specific scenes that I still think about years later. These are stories full of fairies, dragons, space travel, time travel, battles between good and evil—and much-needed insight into being a person in this world that awkward tween me, braces and uncombed hair and bad attitude and all, didn’t even know she was looking for. For the full article, as well as the accompanying titles, click here | Samantha Hunt on the Wild Delirium of Loving Language (I love language. I'll be the first to admit that my own grasp of it when I'm writing may not be the most high brow, but I think that may be one of the things I love about language itself: it's fluid nature, and how, when done correctly, it can appeal to any and all members of society, because (ideally, anyway), it's about human connection, and emotion. ~Alex) | (Written by Samantha Hunt for LitHub.com) The sun will set soon. Birds come to the feeder. Each bird is magnificent. Each bird is weird. How did the birds get so weird? A bright red head, spiky tufts, yellow eyes, pink feet, hidden fluorescence, the ability to fly. How did the word “weird” get so weird? And my hands, they are also weird. I’m watching the weird world, the weird birds when a thought arrives from nowhere. What if I’ve been dead for a long time? What if I’ve been dead my whole life? If I am dead, the strangeness of existence is momentarily comprehensible. I catch a glimpse or scent of our dispersed worlds, this place without border, boundary, pain, or punctuation. This place where we are all intimately mixed up with one another. My branch, your book. His leg, her light. All the elements my body and your body have known: a mountain boulder, sediment in the sea, an underground pebble, sand. Everything is ancient, small, and eternal. More birds arrive. More birds leave. My children are playing in the yard. They jump, shriek, and pretend to be something other than their current forms. I hear them speak and, as if waking, my specifics come to collect my body back into being a mother, sister, daughter, wife, friend, a woman who is alive, reading a book outside before dusk. In the yard, I shake off enough deadness to go make dinner. My arms feel stronger with the memory of the rocks that make me. But we have been dead a long time. “Of bodies chang’d to various forms, I sing.” Our repurposed parts, like Frankenstein’s creature, are calcium, potassium, phosphorus, sodium, magnesium remixed into bodies. Everything is forever. No one’s going anywhere. Toni Morrison writes, “It’s hard to make yourself die forever.” Thich Nhat Hanh says, “I have been a cloud, a river and the air.” Cristina Rivera Garza tells us, “I know you from when you were a tree. From those times.” Being a human is extraordinary. Being a tree or chickadee or pile of ash is also, no doubt, extraordinary. I just don’t often remember having been those things. Though I studied geology, the long view of existence—our lives as minerals—is not the story I most often focus on. Rather, I look for and love the drama in the small details particular to one person, the crooked tooth, the bitten nails, the hidden suffering. We mourn the loss of one extraordinary human life: a grandmother, a cousin, a father, a friend. There is exquisite beauty and storytelling in the smallness. Reading life and death like a book. Start here. Finish here. These things that end (humans, winters, childhoods, love affairs, books) have sharp edges, painful as desire and packed with grief. Their hurt is precious and rich with meaning. It speaks to the work our bodies are really made for: feeling. How do you feel? I feel like a teenage girl. By that I mean I experience torrential emotions, trying to stay as awake to feeling as a teenage girl might be. In her poem “Some Girls,” Alison Luterman writes, “I have learned that some girls are boys; some are birds / some are oases ringed with stalking lions.” Girls are brave in the ways they feel things. I want to have their courage, to be someone who feels always. I want our world to be led by people who feel things deeply. Then, some days, I am wrecked by feeling. Grief and desperation, anger and anxiety tear a hole in my being. Other days, I feel nothing. Those are the worst days. Where should I begin when writing a book about birds, words, books, death, hormones, collections, desire, letters, booze, family, birds? A circle starts where? For the full article, click here | The first author event that Mandy Brouse and I took part in as the newly-minted (and considerably younger) owners of Words Worth came in the person of Toronto-based crime writer Ian Hamilton. At the time Ian was touring behind his first Ava Lee crime novel, The Water Rat of Wanchai. Ava Lee, a whip-smart forensic accountant, got her start cracking a complex case of invoice fraud, among other things with the help of a mercurial "Uncle", a Chinese national who may have ties to the Triad crime syndicate. At the time, Ian had only done one or two readings previous to our time together at the Princess Cinema down the street and the three of us were only days into our respective endeavours. Since 2011 and the publication of his first book, Ian Hamilton has put together a blue chip crime series consisting of fourteen books that have garnered fans all over the world. He's spoken to innumerable book clubs, penned a handful of titles outside of the Ava Lee series and has been to the shop and to local literary festivals a number of times. In the same time, Mandy has guided the shop through economic downturns, light rail construction, Amazon, ebooks and a pandemic. In between that, she has completed a Bachelor of Arts program at U of W. Me, I've aged a decade or so. It’s bittersweet to note that the Ava Lee series comes to an end with Finale. Ian's venerable publisher House of Anansi Books, who in 2011 and indeed much of the time, know talent when they see it, have asked a number of bookshops to take part in an early release campaign to mark the end of this beloved series of books.
Although the book releases to the rest of the world on July 5, fans will be able to get signed copies of Finale, and meet Ian Hamilton at Words Worth Books on Friday, May 20 @ 12:00 noon. Ian is a lovely fellow, exceedingly talented and not for nothing, two of my very favourite author appearance stories come from Ian's time on tour. All are welcome, and for those who have not yet had the pleasure of meeting Ava, Water Rat of Wanchai is a damn near perfect beer and a hammock book. | Brunswick Books To Close After More Than 40 Years (Curtesy of Quill & Quire) Book sales, marketing, and distribution agency Brunswick Books is closing this spring after more than 40 years in business. President Lindsay Sharpe announced the news in a note to customers and clients last week. “I am very sorry to be sharing such bad news after an awful two years, and I cannot express how much we have appreciated representing this wonderful group of titles to the Canadian market over the many years,” Sharpe wrote. The closure was prompted in part by changes at the warehouse Brunswick Books uses to fulfil their orders. The third-party warehouse operator will be leaving their current space at the end of May. Due to an increase in warehouse rents, the new warehouse will be smaller, and the third-party operator will no longer be able to handle Brunswick Books’ orders, wrote Sharpe. “We have explored other options, but those same costs of warehouse space have made that sort of lateral move impossible,” Sharpe wrote. Brunswick Books is working to set up their client publishers with new distributors. They plan to fulfill as many orders as possible through the end of April but are unlikely to be able to fill any orders after May 6. Returns will be accepted through to the end of April, but stores are encouraged to make returns to publishers’ new distributors. Brunswick Books can transfer back orders to the new distributors or provide stores a back order report. Brunswick Books was founded in Toronto in 1978 as Fernwood Books. | New Arrivals at Words Worth No, I don't mean books this time, we covered that already above with the book picks, remember? No, I'm talking our new staff! As many of you know by now, one of our hires from last year, the incredible Shelby had a great opportunity with her partner and moved to Montreal a few months ago. That being the case, we have hired not one, but two new people, Nat (they/them) & Rhea (she/her)! Some of you may have already met them by now as we've been steadily training them since the start of the month. Already, they've fit in with the rest of us like long lost friends, and we think they're both going to be a great fit. So next time you're in, make sure you stop by! | WHY CELEBRATE INDIE BOOKSTORES? Independent booksellers are an integral part of Canadian culture. As professionals, they are deeply passionate about their work, prioritize best-in-class customer service, and provide unmatched value for the book-buying public. But it’s more than that. Indie bookstores are pillars of the communities in which they reside. Their staff are actively involved in the neighbourhood and provide an inclusive space where people can connect over shared interests and engage in important discourse. Local booksellers also play a vital role in the Canadian literary ecosystem. They are conduits of discovery, championing Canadian creators at all career stages and introducing Canadian readers to a diverse range of voices – including writers who identify as Indigenous, Black, People of Colour, and LGBTQ2S+ – from across Canada's rich cultural landscape. Come on in to Words Worth tomorrow to enjoy the day with us, and be sure to check out the Canadian Independent Bookstore Association website for a chance to win prizes! | | Don't Forget Our Bookclubs! | As of right now, the book clubs are still virtual, but as restrictions lift, we are starting to look into returning to in person. Stay tuned! | Book Humour I can neither confirm, nor deny, that I've done this... | And so we bring another edition of the newsletter to a close, but stay tuned because we have some exciting news coming up soon! For now however, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, are all safe and healthy. Please remember to be kind to one another and yourselves, and I will be back with more news and entertainment in two weeks. | Kindest regards,
Alex, and the whole Words Worth team | | |
