I’m coming to GUELPH, ONTARIO TODAY (May 8) to deliver the Musagetes Lecture.
Lee Lai's Cannon is an extraordinary graphic novel that turns out a beautifully told, subtle and ambiguous tale about Lucy (Lucy -> "Loose" -> "Loose Cannon" -> "Cannon"), a queer Chinese-Canadian chef at a Montreal restaurant whose messy family, work, personal and sex life are all falling apart in ways that are powerfully engrossing:
https://drawnandquarterly.com/books/cannon/
This is the second outing from Lee Lai, whose debut, Stone Fruit, swept many of the field's awards and won major critical acclaim. When a debut comes out that strong, it's sometimes followed with the dread "second book syndrome" in which a creator who has poured everything they ever thought about putting in a book now has to write another book, from scratch. But Cannon avoids any hint of that second book malaise; rather, it is jammed with dense and densely connected ideas, character beats and graphic signifiers that are brilliant in so many ways:
Cannon is a thirtysomething chef in a Montreal restaurant run by Guy, an instantly recognizable hustler who praises Cannon for her culinary abilities and her pliability, talks over her, demands the impossible from her kitchen colleagues and periodically breaks out into soliloquies about his own martyrdom to the hardships of entrepreneurship.
Cannon cares for her grandfather, who has been abandoned by her mother, who has been traumatized by the abuse he meted out to her during her upbringing. Now in decline and unable to care for himself, Cannon's grandfather continues his abusive ways, scaring off all of his home help, which means Cannon must devote even more time to him (she can't bring herself to put him in a care facility that will inevitably be full of white people who don't speak Chinese).
These familial duties leave Cannon isolated, with only one important friendship: Trish, an up-and-coming novelist whom Cannon has known since their school days in Montreal's suburban Eastern Townships, where they were the only queer Chinese girls either of them knew. Trish owes her professional acclaim to her own neurotic social instincts, which she polishes on the page with the help of an old writing teacher who serves as her mentor. Trish may be Cannon's oldest and best friend, but she's not actually a very good friend, and now that they're both in their 30s, neither Cannon nor Trish is entirely sure where they'd make new friends.
This is where Cannon starts, as Cannon tries to resolve all these bad situations, each of which is only worsening. Trish disapproves of Cannon's sexual affair with the new front-of-house woman at the restaurant – even as Trish begins a friends-with-benefits arrangement with a guy from her fitness club who clearly wants more than the odd tumble. Guy the restaurateur positions Cannon as his hatchet-woman and confidante, driving conflict in the kitchen that she is meant to hold the bag for. Her grandfather enters a terminal decline, and still her mother won't answer her calls and texts about it. And then, Cannon discovers that Trish has violated her in a way that is intimate and appalling.
These may sound like the beats that you'd find in a melodramatic soap opera, but Cannon's affect is so stoic, and her interiority is so beautifully and inventively depicted – Lai deploying the unique strengths of the graphic novel form here with total virtuosity – that the vibe is more David Lynch than Dallas.
The result is something that's beautiful, sharp, critical and lingering. Long after I closed the cover, I found myself mulling over the delicate ways that Lai raised the contradictions, sorrows and beauty of queer love, racial identity, camaraderie, self-control, and self-indulgence. Lai's characters have no answers, only questions that can never be fully resolved. Instead, these questions are the defining puzzles, defeats and triumphs of their lives.
It's a magnificent, sensitive and innovative work of storytelling.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
2026 Book Review #2 – Why Fish Piss Matters: On The Last Authentic Bohemia by Andy Brown
The independent, alternative, vaguely punk-aligned artistic and music scenes of the late 20th century have been mythologized while everyone involved is basically still around like nothing else I have ever encountered. This book is a proud addition to that effort, a hagiography of the zine Fish Piss and the scene in the downtown Montreal of the ‘90s and 2000s that it rose out of, written by someone who was intimately involved on the ground as it happened. It was a Christmas gift, and not something I’d have picked up otherwise, but an interesting enough little read. Though I’m not sure whether it’s better to describe it as a fascinating emic account of a specific cultural moment undercut by pretensions to profound social import, or as a slim book of pop-sociological theory drowning in a 40-something guy with the three kids and a house in the country reminiscing about how cool and punk rock he used to be.
The book is in equal parts an exploration of the idea of ‘Bohemia’ (in the Rent sense, not the medieval Prague sense), an examination of why Montreal (and specifically the Mile End neighbourhood thereof) was such a productive example of one in the ‘90s and 2000s, and a history and recounting of the ‘zine Fish Piss and its particular influence. It does, I think, decent-to-good job at the first two and a curiously terrible one at the last. (Curious because the book is written by a man who was intimately involved in the thing’s production and has made a career out of preserving artifacts of the scene it emerged out of).
‘Bohemian’ is one of those terms that gets used a lot as a vague, vibes-based description, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it considered or defined with any sort of rigour before. The book’s effort is a bit drawn out (especially given how short a volume it’s taking up space in), but is both interesting and (it seems to me) useful. After exploring a few different agreed-upon historical examples and delving into the etymology of the term, Brown defines it with something like sociological rigour. A Bohemia, to him, is a neighbourhood or locality in a larger city, defined by a constellation of cultural and artistic venues and populated by an artistically productive but economically marginal subculture of (predominantly) the downwardly mobile scions of the middle and upper classes. Such circumstances never last for long, but the density of connections between people genuinely dedicating the majority of their waking hours towards the production of art for its own sake and for the appreciation of their peers is often explosively productive.
I appreciate this definition a great deal, in large part because (despite Brown’s clear sympathies and inclinations) it resists the urge to make Bohemia a purely ‘good’ thing. A Bohemia is necessarily not any sort of real mass movement, nor something of real political power or relevance (except in mythologized retrospect). It’s to some degree necessarily elitist, a subculture centred around the over-educated and under-employed (even if they are often dying from drinking bad water in their 30s with the best of them) and only peripherally involving those without access to some sort of cultural capital. The book never really explicitly reckons with this, but insofar as ‘gentrification’ is a specific coherent and bad thing (which the book clearly agrees that it is), it’s also impossible to read it without coming away understanding that somewhere becoming Bohemia is a guaranteed way to start the process. It is always – for me, anyway – much easier to take the analysis of something by an author who clearly loves it seriously when they do reckon with the negatives.
More controversially – and I’m undecided how much of this is just an old man yelling at clouds – Brown argues that no true Bohemia will ever appear again. The internet ruined it – social media and cultural globalization make the development of the kind of close-knit and isolated scene where artists grow together in tightly-nested and overlapping petri dishes impossible to sustain for long enough for anything interesting to happen. Bohemias are necessarily physical locations. Venues where the same people trade off being performers, audience and critiques and come into organic contact with wholly different projects which end up influencing each other. Which I can see if I squint, but I really can’t help but wonder if Brown’s problem is just that he’s incapable of finding the scenes online where similar processes occur – if he could find them, that would just be proof positive that they’re not hidden enough to avoid the social media flattening he complains about).
All that said, the most interesting part of the book to read for me (and not by any close margin) was the series of chapters exploring the Mile End scene, its history, and why it developed. This may be because I personally find Québécois language politics (that the scene was largely anglophone in a city and province consciously dedicated to promoting the French language was not incidental), late 20th century urban decay and redevelopment, and cute little cultural anecdotes all fascinating reading, but still. I don’t really have anything to say about it but part is just straightforwardly good.
It’s when the book shifts from talking about the scene at large to talking about Fish Piss in particular that it runs into really major problems. The author was, as mentioned, personally involved with the ‘zine’s production and the people behind it – even if it weren’t stated, this would be painfully obvious. The book is a hagiography in the worst possible way, refusing to even obliquely discuss flaws of or arguments between figures the author clearly thinks highly of, and not having much of interest to replace them with. The result is the dullest recitation of names, dates and titles I can imagine. No amount of generously heaped superlatives used to describe the art included in the ‘zine can really stop the book’s descriptions of it sounding like particularly bad plaques at a mediocre art gallery (though the reprinted cover art in the middle of the book is appreciated). The major changes and events across the ‘zine’s run (the shift in who was printed, the deemphasis of prose and fiction for more music coverage, the distribution deal at Tower Records, the end of the ‘zine) are relayed exclusively in passive voice, with no interest in mining them for drama or explaining the decisions behind them. The chapter titled ‘The Death of Bohemia’ has all the vigour and passion of a Wikipedia article.
The book’s other main stumbling block – not a small one – is politics. Which is to say – the Mile End scene and Fish Piss in particularly clearly had about the kind of not-especially-coherent, deeply felt anti-globalization, anti-consumerism anarcho-socialist punk politics you’d expect of the place Godspeed You! Black Emperor emerged from. For all his enthusiastic singing of their praises, Andy Brown does not seem to share these convictions (or, at least, finds them embarrassing). The book seems to view any sort of mass movement or organized politics with distaste, instead defaulting to a sort of ‘Keep Montreal Weird!’ commonsense where the most pressing civic issue is setting aside zones of urban blight for starving artists to settle in. The dissonance is sharpest in how Brown keeps insistently referring to the (protests against the) 2001 Summit of the Americas in Quebec City as a disillusioning moment for much of the scene and frames it as almost a beginning of the end – but basically every direct quote included about the event is an impassioned account of radicalization. It’s a bit odd for the book to conclude that Fish Piss’smain political message was the DIY ethos embodied in its very production so soon after the reprinted anti-Iraq War cover art of an American Flag made of missiles and erect penises.
Brown is very passionate and effusive about that DIY ethos and the importance of outsider art, but also painfully insecure about it. The title of the book invites you to ask why you should care about any of this. The resounding answer it, somewhat accidentally, gives is that you should care about this sort of Bohemia because they eventually produce art that gets mainstream acclaim and recognition. Mile End was important because it gave you Godspeed and (later) Arcade Fire. Fish Piss Matters because a half-dozen different award winning authors practiced and tried things out in it before making it big. The alternative scene deserves support because it’s the disgusting compost that the occasional actually good artist will grow out of. Now to be clear I’m certain this isn’t what Brown is actually trying to say, but it is still what comes across.
All told, this was an afternoon’s read that I got as a Christmas gift. So certainly worth the price of admission. An interesting read, provided you have a high tolerance for rolling your eyes.
hi videogame fans. don't worry this tumblr isn't changing to monetise or advertise, but i wrote a novel with a kickstarter coming in august and think that you might be interested. inspired by apogee and id software releases i'm using the '90s shareware distribution method, aka first 'episode' free
most things haven't worked out, a science fiction novel
industrial gothic scifi about you and me and everyone else, with networked brain implants
wondering what's gone wrong with the economy and our society ? most things haven't worked out is a gothic science fiction novel about brain implants romance and our breaking world
read the first chapter (100 pages) now for free (PDF, no account necessary just click 'download'): https://tinyurl.com/y6ke36fw
support the kickstarter (launching in august) to read the rest of the novel: https://kickstarter.com/projects/recycledcan/most-things-havent-worked-out-a-science-fiction-novel
Some of the highlights from my 2025 reads! As always, it’s hard to decide which books are worth including and which need to be tossed aside, I’ve been fussing over this list for days… but I’m pretty pleased with my final selection. My 3 “hey if you want to take an intriguing recommendation right now and ignore everything else on this list” books this year would probably be The Dallergut Dream Department Store, Journey to the West, and Three Bags Full. None of them were quite what I expected, and helped break me out of a reading rut!
A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo
The sixth book of the Singing Hills Cycle, which follows Cleric Chih as they travel across the lands in the name of their monastery which believes in the recording of stories and histories, be that true accounts, local opinions, or obvious myths. And in this fantastical land, those categories can blur and overlap. This series tends to explore the concept of narrative on a very meta level, and each novella is a different, episodic adventure experienced by Chih (and usually their magical bird companion, Almost Brilliant). This latest story sees the two in a land that has recently recovered from famine, and they begin to dig into the dark secrets that occurred during that time.
Audrey (cow) by Dan Bar-El
A really charming middle grade novel about a Audrey (a cow) who has recently learnt that unlike the other cows on the farm she and her mother are not a dairy breed, but a meat breed. Her mother has already been taken away, and Audrey is next on the chopping block. This novel is told in an interview style, in which different inhabitants of the farm share their perspectives on what happened as Audrey begins to plan her escape. It’s fun and quirky, and each character voice is unique and charming in its own way.
Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker
Probably my favourite horror novel from this year. The story is set during the Covid Lockdown, and opens with Cora and her sister heading home through the largely deserted New York streets. As they wait on the subway platform for their train though, her sister is shoved onto the tracks and killed by a stranger who just utters the words “bat eater” before fleeing. You would think things couldn’t get worse, but then the hungry ghosts begin to appear. This story blends supernatural horror, personal grief and displacement, mental health issues, and systemic racism in truly delicious and horrific way.
Dallergut Dream Department Store // The Dallergut Dream-Making District by Miye Lee
Such a neat duology. This series follows Penny, a new hire at the much lauded Dallergut Dream Department Store which sells dreams to the various sleepers that pass through their little village. This is a slow-paced, low-stakes exploration of what dreams mean to people, and the enchanting world that the author has created for such a store to exist in. It created an atmosphere that pulled me in and held me like a blanket.
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton
A grim and fascinating graphic novel account of what it’s like to work on the Albertan oil sands by the author herself. Kate Beaton is a significant Canadian cartoonist who, like many people, was enticed into working on the oil sands by the huge amount of money one can make, all in the hopes of paying off art school debt. Even while steeped with Beaton’s notable humour, this is still an entirely unflinching look at what life is like in these camps, and the abuses that run rampant.
The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For // Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
I’ve seen Bechdel’s work floating around the internet for years but finally decided to read some of her work which includes The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For and Fun Home. Dykes to Watch Out For is one of her most notable works; a series of comics that began their serial run in 1983 and shows the lives of a group of queer friends, including Mo, Lois, Ginger and many more. It doesn’t hold back from showing the various debates and issues that were prominent in queer circles at the time, with different characters holding their own opinions, biases, preferences and personalities. The art was charming and really celebrated how real people look, it was informative, and, most importantly for a comic, it was very funny. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I read a work that made me feel so seen.
East Side Story: Growing Up at the PNE by Nick Marino
An interesting non-fiction historical about the experience of growing up in a poor neighbourhood in the Canadian city of Vancouver. It’s a nice combination of the author’s personal experience of being a kid growing up around the PNE (a notable amusement park and general exhibition centre), and a larger scale look at how the area has changed over the decades, and what life was like for the locals during those times. The section about World War II and Japanese internment was particularly interesting. It was all very human, often quite funny, and steeped in a sense of nostalgia.
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
A middle grade novel that I got recced on Tumblr and which I was completely enthralled with by the end. It’s about a small, independent nation that celebrates its founder, the man who coined “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” with a statue that includes the notable quote. However when those letters begin to fall off it’s decreed that this must mean they are no longer meant to use those letters, and doing so will result in severe punishment. It’s a story that explores censorship, resistance, and how the suppression of language has a cascading effect on people’s abilities to live their lives and push back against injustice. Considering the state of the world right now it felt very topical, I would definitely recommend it.
Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert
Probably my favourite nonfiction read of the year. This book looks at how public opinion on feminism has changed since Third Wave Feminism in the nineties and aughts, to where we’re currently at in the 2020s, experiencing a“post-feminism” world. It’s a very validating read, as the author explicitly describes things it feels like I’ve been witnessing in real time. It strikes a good balance between highlighting exactly what’s wrong, how we got here, and stoking a fire in its readers, while also making sure you know what has improved, and that everything isn’t hopeless.
Hi Honey, I’m Homo!: Sitcoms, Specials, and the Queering of American Culture by Matt Baume
Just a fun nonfiction book that looks at how queer representation in sitcoms has changed over time. It’s neat to see how culture affected them, but also how they affected the dominant culture. Even when it was covering shows I’m not familiar with, the author does a great job of ensuring you understand what’s being discussed and that it’s easy to stay a part of the conversation.
The Husky and His White Cat Shizun v1 by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou
A danmei series I’ve heard plenty about, but have only just decided to dip my toes into — and man, this is going to be like catnip to me, I can tell. It’s so crunchy. Everything about the main relationship is a nightmare, and I cannot wait to see how things progress. I’m not even going to attempt to describe what’s going on, just now that this one definitely comes with trigger warnings up wazoo.
Monkey King: Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en, translated and abridged by Julia Lovell
This is a classical text that I thought would be dry but ended up being a hilarious, episodic romp as it follows the exploits of Sun Wukong, the immortal Monkey King, as he causes chaos in the Heavens and is ultimately forced to protect the Buddhist monk Tripitaka to make amends for his crimes. The main story is about Tripitaka and his disciples (Sun Wukong, the pig demon Zhu Bajie, the river ogre Sha Wujing, and the transformed dragon prince Bai Longma) as they travel west to India to collect sutra, and all the various misadventures that befall them along the way. You can understand how this inspired Dragon Ball because it's one hilariously over the top fight after the next, since every demon in existences seems to really want to eat poor Tripitaka.
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews
A children’s novel that a librarian recommended as one of her favourite books from her childhood. It’s so cosy! It tells about a group of children who befriend an eccentric scientists to invites them to join him as he adventures into Whangdoodleland, a place that is entirely imaginary and filled with the strangest creatures, sights, and threats that the children could ever dream of.
The Lilac People by Milo Todd
Historical fiction set in Germany just before and just after the Second World War. It focuses on the life of Bertie, a transman, and his queer friends living in Berlin. It starts before WWII, during a period when the queer community was experience unprecedented levels of progress and acknowledgement, and what happens as the country slips further and further into fascism as Hitler rises to power. The story jumps between this, and what happened after the war, and how Bertie and his wife are now trying to survive after the atrocities of WWII. A very timely book with unavoidable parallels to the real world. It was a very impactful read.
Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle
Absurdist horror that’s done in such a way that it really captures both aspects of that genre. It is a technicoloured horror that feels like it should be funny but is described in such a way that it very much is not. Those who survived the apocalyptic event known as the Low Probability Event are still reeling from the aftershocks, trying to understand the impossible, absurd ways that countless people were killed. Vera, a statistics and probability professor whose life was completely derailed by the events of that day, finds herself dragged into a mysterious case that all revolves around these unexplainable, low-probability events.
The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today v1-9 by Hitsuzi Yamada
A manga series that I fell in love with in ways I didn’t expect. It follows a young, working woman, and the kitten that she rescued one night… a kitten which has since grown into a human-sized cat which is determined to manage his owners house even if his owner insists on failing at any basic, domestic task imaginable. He will keep his human alive one way or another. It’s cosy and silly and very heart-warming.
Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling
A satirical, dystopian scifi novel set in the (really not all that distant) future, in which everyone’s life is comfortably run by the all powerful Algorithm. You no longer even need to go out of your way to buy or request what you want, The Shop, a Amazon-like overlord of a corporate entity, simply knows what your needs and desires are based on a predictability model and ensures that it is delivered to you promptly, and that you are charged just as promptly. People can be objectively ranked, ideal relationships can be arranged, and everything is kept running nice and smoothly by the computers that fill the world. All you need to do is go along with it, and not worry about how either you or the tech might grow obsolete. This book holds up an at-times-hilarious and at-times-horrifying mirror to our world, and shows us what the extreme, logical conclusions of our current society must be
The Summer Hikaru Died (light novel v1) story by Mokumokuren, adapted by Mio Nukaga
Hikaru died in the mountains. Yoshiki knows this. What he doesn’t know is what exactly the thing is that has returned from the mountains, looking, speaking, and acting exactly like Hikaru. He knows its not Hikaru, and yet he also knows he can’t stand to be without Hikaru, even if it’s only an imitation. I’ve read some of the manga too, but I honestly think I prefer to the light novel adaptation of this story — the author has a wonderful way with words and the way sensory experiences are described captures something viscerally horrifying in a way that only images can’t. And it captures the allegory of growing up, changing, and being queer in a homophobic society in beautiful, chilling, and all-too-real ways.
Sunny Days: The Children’s Television Revolution that Changed America by David Hamp
An excellent nonfiction book about the rise of Sesame Street and other “edutainment” based children’s television shows. It satisfied both my interest in muppets, as well as my interest in education and how these types of shows evolved, what the ethos behind them was, the push for societal improvement and its opposition, and where we’re at right now.
Talking to Canadians by Rick Mercer
The first part of Rick Mercer’s memoir. For those unfamiliar with the name, Rick Mercer is an iconic Canadian comedian. This book is his account of growing up in the Maritimes, how he eventually entered the entertainment industry, and continues on up to his time with This Hour Has Twenty-Two Minutes. Because it’s Rick Mercer, this book will have you laughing the entire way through, his humour is absolutely unmatched — I strongly recommend the audiobook because he reads it himself and you get the jokes delivered exactly as he intends it… and you get to listen to his Newfie accents which is a major perk. This is funny, insightful (he's a political satirist at his core), and delightfully nostalgic.
Thousand Autumns v1-5
This danmei series follows sect leader Shen Qiao who experiences a catastrophic, unexpected defeat in a duel that leaves in near dead. It’s his luck — good or bad, who can say — that demonic cultivator Yan Wushi happened to be there and finds him collapsed in the valley. Yan Wushi decides to take him in, and see just what it might take for a great, noble cultivator like Shen Qiao to break now that he’s no longer sequestered on his lofty, untouchable mountain.
Three Bags Full // Big Bad Wool by Leonie Swann
A murder mystery from the point of view of a flock of sheep. Need I say more? Read this. Their shepherd is found dead, and the sheep resolve that whatever the humans may be doing, they are going to figure out who or what is responsible for this horrible crime. It goes about as smoothly as one might expect, with sheep. The sequel includes a werewolf (maybe, possibly), if that sweetens the pot for you
The Wife Comes First v1
Imprisoned, betrayed, and on the brink of death, Prince Jing Shao finally comes to the realization that the only one still at his side is his gentleman wife, a man he resented being married to and who he spent years ignoring and neglecting. Now, as he's forced to accept just how much he let emotions and spite colour his judgement, he resolves that if either of them is reborn he would spend his next life making it up to his wife. So imagine his shock when he wakes up the morning after his wedding night, many years ago. Jing Shao resolves that this time he is going to do things better, and that starts by ensuring his wife gets everything he deserved to have back in their first life. Exciting start to the danmei series, I'm looking forward to book 2.
World War Z
Normally I’m not one for zombie stories, so this one surprised me by how much I enjoyed it. It’s written as an “oral history”, and collects various people’s accounts of the zombie war, starting from the initial infection, the confusion and the spread, all the way through the haunting years that people and countries struggled to survive and fight back against the plague. It’s a shockingly grounded look at how such an outbreak might actually manifest, on a local, political, social, and global scale. It is a very, very human story, letting different people from different countries all over the world describe their personal experiences rather than take a more omniscient pov -- it's less about fighting zombies and more about how humans survive. ...Honestly it’s a bit uncanny to read post-Covid, because despite being written in 2006 a lot of what happens in it rings true with how people and governments dealt with the pandemic.
If I were being perfectly honest most of this would have just been my continuous reread of The Foxhole Court but I'm going to pretend I'm a well-adjusted person who is capable of reading other things...
fuck. i saved this draft to the wrong blog. it is too much work to redo this whole thing so here's an impromptu book update i guess enjoy
Beasts of Burden: Neighborhood Watch // Wise Dogs and Eldritch Men
Wildly varied quality. I quite liked the first volume of this series, as it introduced a world were average, every-day pets acted as the neighbourhood guardians against supernatural horrors. It was a fun twist on the monster-of-the-week genre, and introduced fun characters and laid out a story that seemed to be gradually building on itself. That all feel apart in volume 2 which was a collection of middling episodic nonsense. It felt like any bigger picture had disintegrated, characterization began to flatten, the art fluctuate in quality a lot, and there were suddenly more humans involved in this world that had so tightly revolved around the animals. The sheep story was really he only worthwhile one of the lot — and hey, why was Hellboy there??? Book 3 follows a different group of dogs but was much better than 2. The story felt more put together again, and the art was beautiful the whole way through. Still lost some of the magic that the first book had though.
Boyfriends
Some day I’ll learn to stop trying to read books published by Webtoons
The Convenience Store by the Sea
A nifty little book. It’s doing something similar to The Kamogawa Food Detectives, in that it creates a cosy, low-stakes story that revolves around different people who pass through the Tenderness Convenience Store. It’s not quite as successful as Kamogawa in my opinion — some stories were better than others, and it took a while for me to really figure out what was happening with the pacing but it was interesting enough. I appreciate some of the heavier topics it tackled and how compassionate it was too such a wide range of characters.
Girl Giant and the Monkey King
A middle-grade novel I bought secondhand on impulse — it had Sun Wukong on the cover, I was intrigued! Unfortunately what I had hoped would be a fun romp (Monkey King teaming up with a teenaged girl??? Sign me up, there are gonna be hijinks!) was instead mostly just middle school girl drama. The pacing was slow and repetitive, there was really no adventure, and it circled the same few issues in a heavy-handed way. I ended up not finishing it.
Haikyu!! v7-18
I continue my Haikyu!! Reread and continue to love it. Some books are slower than others, but that’s honestly just the natural flow of a series this long — there needs to be some breathing room so that you’re ready when the narrative kicks back into high gear. I love the summer training arc that you get around book 10, I love the characters that are introduced and I love seeing the growth in those chapters!
Hockey Rants & Raves
This book was recommended after I finished reading Alan Doyle’s books, and I totally get why, it’s the same sort of exuberant, sincere comedy that you can’t help but get sucked into. I can’t say I honestly know all that much about hockey — beyond being Canadian and absorbing a certain amount through general osmosis — but the author is both a very funny speaker and has a very honest, approachable love for the sport. This man is the opposite of a gatekeeper. He explains what he’s talking about, and is clearly welcoming everyone to come and enjoy this thing he loves so much. It’s just fun, like listening to a friend gush about their favourite thing.
Paddington: Here and Now
I needed something chill to listen to while I was falling asleep so I decided on another Paddington book. It delivered exactly what I wanted. It didn’t stand out in any particular way, but it was charming and cosy in the way of most Paddington stories.
The Role I Played
A second hockey book. After Hockey Rants & Raves I realised I was curious about learning a bit more about the sport beyond the surface level knowledge I’ve scraped up passively over the years. This is a memoir written by Sami Jo Small, an accomplished goalie who played in a number of games and leagues over the years. The most interesting thing about the story is her time participating in the Olympics — specifically the fact that she was generally a third-line goalie, meaning she was almost exclusively a backup and didn’t actually see much if any ice time. It’s such a strange situation that I had never considered before… one of the three women considered good enough out of the entire country to participate on the Canadian Olympic hockey team, but not good enough to win the ice time she so desperately wanted. Unfortunately while the topic is interesting, and I enjoy the stories about her teammates and training camps, the writing itself is pretty tedious. Small is not the most compelling writer out there.
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk
Absolutely bizarre little book. It’s like a modern day Aesop’s Fables for adults… each short story is uniquely strange. It made me feel some sort of emotions. Couldn’t tell you which.
The Smiling Land
The second Alan Doyle book I read after All Together Now from last month. I do think I liked All Together Now more, since it was such a fun collection of vignettes, but The Smiling Land was a charming book in its own right and I definitely enjoyed my time reading it. In this one, Alan Doyle travels around his home province of Newfoundland and Labrador and shares all sorts of descriptions and stories about the places he stops and the people he meets. It’s warm and welcoming and fun; it makes you want to go on a trip there immediately.
The Sunshine Court // The Golden Raven
I am so unwell about this book series 😌 This is the second arc from the All For The Game series. The first trilogy (starting with The Foxhole Court) followed Neil Josten, a boy on the run from his murderous father who is just trying to play exy and figure out how to survive his unhinged teammates. This new series picks at the tail end of book three and follows Jean Moreau, a member of the ruthless Raven exy team who was rescued at the end of the first trilogy. Deeply traumatized and rightful scared for his life, Jean finds himself dumped in California with the USC Trojan exy team, a group of individuals that may as well be the polar opposite to what the Ravens represent. This new trilogy has everything I love from the first trilogy (an oversaturated world of intense mafia drama and sports and whump) but brings a very different energy. Jean’s story is very much one of recovery, and the more we learn about what he experienced with the Ravens and just how broken he is as a person the deeper invested I get. I am going to go insane waiting for the final book.
Exclu: 'Heated Rivalry' creator Jacob Tierney gets Netflix series order for Alexander The Great drama based on Annabel Lyon book. Jason Bate
Well! This is exciting. A real departure from their usual collabs, but I'm into it.
(Alexander was famously blond, so I imagine folks will put their clown shoes on and assume Connor Storrie is already cast, even though he is not a teenager.)
Authors for eSims for Gaza ends tomorrow at 3pm, PST, May 18th
There is still time (24 hours!) to bid on the Authors for eSims auction. All shipping will be covered by the authors. Thank you to Thea Lim and Jody Chan for organizing, with the support of T. Liem.
In a time when moving basic resources like food and cash into Gaza has become virtually impossible due to Israel's ongoing bombardment and blockading of aid, eSims have remained a direct and accessible site of support. More about Crips for eSims for Gaza (a project organized and begun by me, Alice Wong, and Leah Lakshmi-Piepzna Samarasinha).
People can bid on 170+ very cool items like a draft of an Eden Robinson novel, signed books from Billy-Ray Belcourt, Jessica Johns, David Chariandy, Danez Smith, Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's Rehearsals for Living, and many naming rights. Also some incredible new releases like Natalie Lim's Elegy for Opportunity and Terese Mason Pierre's Myth. And from me: a 10 page manuscript consultation + behind the poem, as well as a slightly water-damaged copy of echolalia echolalia + battle-worn copy of Alice Wong's Disability Intimacy (do not leave the orange your friend gave you in your bag with a new book for several days 😅…).
As poet Rasha Abdulhadi shares, "This auction isn't for bidding on the value of books. It's a generous opportunity to donate the maximum we can afford to keep Palestinians in Gaza connected to each other & the world, through desolating genocidal siege. We can give accordingly."
