For readers, the release of the Booker Prize longlist is always exciting. Today's longlist celebrates great writers with long track records. Kazuo Ishiguro won the award in 1989 for Remains of the Day and Rachel Cusk, Damon Galgut, Mary Lawson, Richard Powers and Sunjeev Sahota have each received nominations previously....
There are 100 libraries in Toronto and each branch has it's own character, collection and community. Across all libraries though, biographies and memoirs are popular. In this blog post I'm looking at the life experiences of journalists (very broadly defined!). The Dewey call number range for these books is 070-079....
One of the strangest effects of COVID-19 for me is that I've lost patience for reading fiction. Don't worry, Fiction Authors, I do still read novels but I am more drawn to non-fiction than ever. What is narrative non-fiction? Narrative non-fiction is also called creative non-fiction, literary journalism, and literary...
As someone* once said, writing about music is like dancing about architecture. It's awkward, isn't it? When someone's writing about music, they're usually really writing about something adjacent to music. They're writing about the lives of musicians, or the brains of people listening to music, or music's historical or social...
From celebrity memoirs to chilling dystopias, there are many ways to complete TPL Reading Challenge's "a book about fame" category. Library staff and Reading Challenge participants have shared their favourite books which explore fame, infamy and celebrity culture. Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood by Karina Longworth...
I love summer and I really love seeing summer activities depicted on book covers. You can tell I work at a library, can't you? We don't really know what this summer will bring, but let's enjoy it all. Live vicariously through these book covers. Sunglasses Whatever you do this summer,...
We're just about halfway through the year, and we're on to the first of the categories in our Advanced Challenge... a debut book! Have you ever read the first book an author ever wrote and thought, "Wow! This is their FIRST book?" Well, here's some recommendations to provoke just that...
There are 100 libraries in Toronto and each branch has it's own character, collection and community. Across all libraries though, perhaps not surprisingly, books on books, reading and books about libraries are quite popular. The Dewey call number range for these books is 020-029. Some older books have withstood the...
We are glad to share our Read Indigenous 2021 list! In previous years, we shared this list in October. Starting this year, we will share our picks every year starting in June. Read Indigenous is our yearly list of must-read books by Indigenous writers and illustrators. All of these books...
Explore futuristic dystopias, parallel worlds, magical lands and more with these 11 recently published science fiction and fantasy books. We asked staff from the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation & Fantasy to share their favourite speculative fiction reads from the past year. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke This is a...