What‘s not to love about a species that comes into its own in the rain if you live in a damp place like the UK? With that rain comes mossy magic, softening shapes, muffling harsh sound, painting our world with greenery and poetry.

You are invited to watch my latest Friday Reads episode #booktube #HighExpectations #kidlit #FeministClassic #LGBTQ

https://youtu.be/2MaNE0Co1fM

Nonbinary British writer Olivia Laing‘s experience of renovating a garden in Suffolk is entwined with an exploration of the role of gardens in history & in particular their connection with sociopolitical issues. The role of gardens in the lives of queer folk during a time when it wasn‘t good to be gay, the therapeutic effect of gardens to this day, the lush botanical language: there‘s so much that I love about this book! #LGBTQ

Sameness was anathema to William Morris. What he liked was individuality amidst common purpose, each person as distinctive as flowers in a meadow.

The study of botany was an exercise in looking. It made the ordinary world more intricate and finely detailed, as if I had acquired a magnifying glass that trebled the eye‘s capacity.

There‘s no point looking for Eden on a map. It‘s a dream that is carried in the heart: a fertile garden, time and space enough for all of us.

Morris thought everyone‘s environment could be & should be more beautiful. He believed it was people‘s right to live in beautiful, unspoilt, unpolluted places & he thought, like Ruskin, that beauty was not a luxury & that luxurious & unnecessary things were actually unbeautiful, since beauty was so closely aligned to necessity & nature.

What makes a garden such an important constituent of a utopia? It is neither a farm nor a wilderness, though it can push up hard against either of these extremes. This means it betokens more than just utility, encompassing beauty, pleasure & delight, while remaining emphatically a site of labour as well as leisure, a place to please puritans & sybarites alike.

A bisexual woman in a fever looks back on four individuals who were significant in her life. These quiet, exquisite character studies are crafted from ordinary details that, together, give us a portrait of the narrator. And a reminder that every one of us is extraordinary. Translation from Swedish by Kira Josefsson. Long, multiple-clause sentences flow smoothly in the audio edition read by Julie Maisey. So good I listened to it twice. #LGBTQ

Some books stay in your bones long after their titles and details have slipped from memory.

In my latest Friday Reads: Big dog, tiny hippo, a fur coat that growls, sacred bones, holiday rentals, mud brick construction, brownstone renovation, rage, joy etc

https://youtu.be/BjJkKy8QAHY

I saw this framed photo while I was travelling recently and thought immediately of the horse in Gliff.

This is a remarkable collection of essays, or perhaps it‘s better described as diaristic musings. Amina Cain‘s thoughts on writing make me feel seen as a reader. I‘m going to the bookstore today to buy my own copy of this because I don‘t want to live without it.

A good title offers something acute without being obvious, without giving something away.

Reading, all on its own, is one of the best things, and yet isn‘t it nice to read in bed at the end of a long day, the darkness of the window meeting the soft light inside the room? Or on the beach, the hot sand and the sound of the waves coming together with the book. Things combine to become other things, other kinds of experiences.

In The Travelling Companions (1862) by Augustus Leopold Egg […] One girl sleeps while the other reads. Each is resting in her own way. All of us need this kind of rest.

When I began looking at paintings of nighttime scenes because I wanted to write about them, I felt immediately comforted. It‘s probably why I was drawn in the first place to write about darkness, but I wasn‘t expecting to be soothed so quickly.

Pleasure, freedom, torment, emptiness: it is what I want my writing to express.

I have never been able to force myself to write about anything, or to avoid anything for that matter, and I don‘t think I ever will, so I‘ll just see what keeps arising, how I approach the difficulties of being alive in this particular moment in time. It‘s freedom I want when it comes to writing, and in life, even within responsibility. Being unrestrained. Like a horse standing in darkness. The pasture gate has been left open.

Yukon travel adventure + recent reads 01/24/25 #booktube #fibrearts #LGBTQ #audiobooks
https://youtu.be/T7K57KCMncU

If you‘re interested in seeing every 5-star book I read in 2024, you‘re invited to have a look at my latest video.
#LGBTQIA+ #booktube #BookPrizes

https://youtu.be/t_qkr__uKBA

Some alpaca yarn dyed with kitchen scraps (pomegranate peels, avocado pits, onion skins) — I am getting ready for a new knitting project. #LitsyCrafters

In my latest video, I share my 2024 reading stats + six stunning books! #booktube
https://youtu.be/Lj6iS4FdYqs

My latest booktube episode includes a dozen recent reads:
https://youtu.be/pLq4BZFeuIY

#LGBTQ #kidlit #picturebook #audiobook #classic #inTranslation #Canadian #essays #science

I‘m back home in Canada & it‘s all Canadian authors in this December 18th episode! #booktube

https://youtu.be/lXJD3Exclio

If you‘re interested in my biblioadventures in New York City, I invite you to watch my latest video:

https://youtu.be/QzWlUxtRse4

I‘m cat sitting in Brooklyn for 2 weeks. In my latest booktube episode, I talk about museums as well as books: Live from New York: books (good & bad) + Brooklyn travel highlights
https://youtu.be/bzle3FV2iRE

I was tickled today to see the MacDonald‘s that‘s mentioned in the tagged novel. #literarytourism

Reflective; emotional; informative; dark: yes, that sounds like my reading tastes. Storygraph is pretty accurate that way.

I love the way that Storygraph makes looking at my reading stats easy.

I read 34 books in November and these are my faves.

My old luggage tag disintegrated so I made a new one out of duct tape and jazzed it up with a bookmark. On my way today to Brooklyn to cat sit for a friend… any Littens want to meet up there before December 14?
#LitsyCrafters

In my latest booktube episode , I talk about 7 Canadian books + recipes #NonfictionNovember #comics

https://youtu.be/EKWSuq0dHlM

When panicked, grant me
the unshakable calm of flowers.

In my latest booktube episode, it‘s all about TRAVEL — in books & in real life ✈️
#WomenInTranslation #Audiobooks #LGBTQ #comics #CanadianAuthors

https://youtu.be/RbeSRuYZI2Q

#endpaperslove

At VWF, Dorothy Grant said she was so proud to see Canada‘s Governor General, Mary Simon—an Inuk woman—wearing one of her garments when she welcomed the pope to Edmonton in 2022.
Look at the two of them in their capes! Who wears it better?
On a serious note, the pope was in Canada to apologize to residential school survivors. Just before he left, he acknowledged: “Yes, it‘s a genocide.”

I was thrilled to hear Haida fashion designer Dorothy Grant talking about her life and work at the Vancouver Writers Fest last month. She said her work was in 5 exhibitions across North America in 2019 & not one curator asked her for info. When she got to the exhibitions, she discovered errors in all of them. This book sets the record straight.

In honour of Louis Riel Day in Canada, and Native American Heritage Month in the USA, here‘s an #Indigenous authors extravaganza (plus a slideshow of appliquéd blankets I made):

https://youtu.be/BDYSgCAiDmk

#NonfictionNovember #comics #kidlit #IndigenousArt #Audiobooks #CanadianAuthors

Help me dunnick, drush and dove.
Love Me Tender. Tender love.

This novel is unlike anything I have read before. There are no characters, except perhaps the land itself. Humans & nonhuman beings alike are there—with their fingers & claws & antlers—but our perspective as readers is somewhere above it all, witnessing changes over countless cycles of seasons. I did this as a text/audio combo & found it soothing. It also worked some kind of magic on my brain. #Indigenous #CanadianAuthor

I‘m delighted to see that Jordan Abel has won a GG award for his remarkable novel!

https://quillandquire.com/omni/jordan-abel-niigaan-sinclair-among-2024-governor-...

My latest booktube episode features recent reads from 7 countries: #comics, a verse narrative & a picture book. #translations #poetry #CanadianAuthor #Kidlit #YA

https://youtu.be/5n28_h07sz8

Friday Listening: an all-audiobook episode for #NonfictionNovember #LGBTQ #IrishAuthors #CanadianAuthors #WomenInTranslation #Indigenous #audiobooks

https://youtu.be/YcRrSvT4lNM

The words of poets are a comfort when sorrow and fear overwhelm me. Jack Gilbert‘s full poem is online here:

https://poetrysociety.org/poems/a-brief-for-the-defense

My latest booktube video features 6 Canadian, Australian & American books. There‘s a bonus clip at the end with footage from my seaplane journey home from the Vancouver Writers Fest. #queer #Victober #comics #audiobooks #poetry

https://youtu.be/6WiKs8r8twM

In my latest booktube episode, I report on 6 events at the Vancouver Writers Fest + talk about 2 audiobooks & 2 picture books that I read recently

https://youtu.be/ukKUqfGyqxo

#kidlit #WomenInTranslation #CanadianAuthor #Indigenous

A bonanza of women in translation & women in art, journalism, geology, engineering, boating + a gay memoir in verse in my latest booktube episode:
https://youtu.be/6nKnqVVch_E

#audiobooks #LGBTQ #translation #comics #CanadianAuthor #kidlit

Artist Julie Heffernan planned a short walk with her infant in the Appalachian Mountains over two decades ago. She got lost in her thoughts and lost her way, but emerged the next day with newfound clarity. This amazing autofictional graphic novel encompasses two days of her thinking about past, present and future. Breathtaking! #comics