News from the Bookshop

Hello Book Friend,

 

Happy New Year and welcome to our first newsletter of 2023. We hope you were gifted all of the books on your wish list for Christmas and that you are happily ensconced in a warm, cozy place enjoying the pleasure of reading.


‘Tis the season for making New Year’s Resolutions. Included in this month’s newsletter are some titles that may help you be successful with your 2023 resolutions. 


Big congratulations to Michael Hamm, the manager of Bookmark Halifax on being awarded a Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal. This medal was created to mark the 70th anniversary of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the Throne and to honour those who have devoted themselves to the service of others, especially throughout the pandemic, be it as a result of their job, volunteer work or contributions to their community. Congratulations Michael!

On the Night Table
In this section of the newsletter, booksellers from Halifax and Charlottetown will give you a sneak peek of what they’ve been reading or are looking forward to reading soon!
Ben

Ben still remembers his first reading experience: it was a book about Arthur the Aardvark going to the park when he was three years old! When not selling books these days, Ben is a playwright and actor who has a deep love of literature, reading all sorts of genres including Contemporary Fiction, YA, Biographies, and History.


As a bookseller there are certain books that always catch my eye when I'm shelving books or walking around the store, and this is one of them. Everyone I've asked about this Lovecraftian superhero story set in New York City has absolutely raved about it, so I'm excited to be slowly moving it up my TBR pile.
I have a soft spot for coming-of-age stories set in Ireland. This story of a young Irish woman leaving her rural dairy farm to attend Trinity College checks a lot of boxes for me, and the first few chapters have not disappointed me!
Maybe it's the pandemic coming out in me, but I have been thinking about the nature of endings for a while now. The author seems to be a kindred spirit, as through the first handful of mini-stories he outlines his life as a constant series of endings, and manages to make it sound a lot less bleak than it could.
I'm a huge fan of just about anything Drawn & Quarterly puts out, and to have one of their newest offerings be centered around theatre really hits the spot for me. I find myself cackling at the characters and their reasons for coming to this acting class, transported back to my own theatre school days.
Lorna

Lorna is a part-time Bookmark employee who loves fountain pens and ink. Since joining the Bookmark team, she finds that one of her greatest difficulties now is trying to leave work without a new pen or book in hand. Her reading interests are broad with a particular interest in mystery and the supernatural.  

 


Having read her previous book, The Lost Apothecary, I jumped at the chance to read this advance copy.  It is a murder mystery set in historical London where Lenna is searching for answers about her sister's death leading her to study under the spiritualist Vaudeline D'Allaire.  Both women set out to identify the killer by summoning the victim's spirit through a séance.  This is a captivating and suspenseful read and I am loving it!  The book is scheduled for release March 23, 2023.
After hurricane Fiona, I feel that we need to do more for the planet than plant trees.  l need to inform myself of measures that I can take as an individual to reduce global warming. This book not only explains the problem, but also provides solutions. 
This book literally fell into my hands as I was stocking the shelves.  I read the back cover and was intrigued by this story of two sisters who choose to live in exile in Canada after fleeing Tibet due to China's invasion in the 1950's.  A story of Tibetan exiles; a story I didn't want to miss.
In this mystery, Phyllida Bright is the fictional housekeeper to Agatha Christie who is out to uncover a murderer.  Unfortunately for her, the suspects are a group of celebrated crime writers who are experts not only in murder, but how to get away with it. As a long-time Agatha Christie fan, I was naturally drawn to a story of her fictional housekeeper and can't wait to read this one.
Neil
Neil has been a valued member of Bookmark Halifax for 16 years during which he’s cultivated quite a following …. his Staff Picks are usually purchased quickly and with fervour! Having family ties to the UK, Neil is interested in books of British folklore and travelogues from the Isles. Neil’s home library is also well stocked with classic and contemporary horror. No surprise, his Halloween store displays are an annual treat. A recent development with two young children needing bedtime reading, Neil has become expert in finding and ordering the most clever and beautiful picture books. A final fact that many may not know, Neil is a brilliant drummer and was a member of a blues/rock band in earlier days.
A new Andrey Kurkov book is always cause for excitement. As a prominent voice of Ukrainian letters, I hope that Grey Bees brings Kurkov a wider audience who will also enjoy his quirky brand of political humour. 
If you love reading and you love cooking, you absolutely must check out Kate Young's books, including Little Library Year and Little Library Christmas. Her enthusiastic prose will inspire you to try out new tastes and to seek out books you may have overlooked. 
As a long-time fan of Nick Cave, I am very excited to gain insight into any aspect of his life and career. Such an inspiring and remarkable figure. 
Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis created one of my all-time favourite series ( Wildwood) and have now written an 80s horror. It can't get any better than that!
Emma

Emma enjoys reading a variety of genres including poetry, memoir, graphic novels, and creative nonfiction. She moved to Nova Scotia in 2016 to attend NSCAD University and now lives in Dartmouth North with her partner and two cats. When Emma is not working at Bookmark II she occasionally designs books for Independent Canadian Presses.

I'm currently midway through this beautiful novella written from the perspective of an eavesdropping ghost. It's airy and weird, almost plotless, and extremely sad—yet I keep going back to it for a few more pages.
My household may well be the headquarters of the Chuck Klosterman fan club, but this is one of his that I haven't yet had the chance to read. After tearing through his most recent book, The Nineties, my partner recommended But What If We're Wrong? as a companion piece. I'm excited to find out how wrong we are.
As a lover of Billy-Ray Belcourt's poetry I am super excited to dig into his first novel. The book is also a beautiful object, a hardcover image wrap amended with tufting and embroidery and bright red endsheets.
The jacket of this book describes Jia Tolentino as "what Susan Sontag would have been like if she had brain damage from the internet" and, frankly, that's all I needed to hear.

"You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems."

- James Clear, author of

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build

Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Habit Books

Here is a list of books to help you improve your systems as we start a new year. Enjoy!

“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards.”

― G.K. Chesterton

December Best Sellers
Bookmarks & Dog-Ears

This Is Your Brain on ‘Deep Reading.’ It’s Pretty Magnificent.

The literary scholar Maryanne Wolf maps out the ways ‘deep reading’ nourishes our capacity for attention, empathy and insight. Listen to the podcast here.

The Virtue of Owning Books You Haven’t Read: Why Umberto Eco Kept an “Antilibrary”
 
When considering whether to buy yet another book, you might well ask yourself when you’ll get around to reading it. But perhaps there are other, even more important considerations, such as the intellectual value of the book in its still-unread state.

Top 10 Experimental Feminist Books

Bringing historical women to life, exploring mythical cities or telling a life through a 1,000-page internal monologue – these are form-breaking feminist books.

If You Loved That, You May like This
If you LOVED...
You May Like...
Human Origins, Anthropology, Migrations
Sapiens was an instant hit when it came out in English in 2015. It covers 70,000 years of human history in intelligent yet clear language. Much of the book is about human migrations, and how our species came to inhabit so much of the world.
Like Sapiens, Sea People is an eye-opening book. Thompson begins by asking questions about where the Polynesian people originated and how they ended up in remote, yet vast, areas of the Pacific, but she focuses the book on how we know.
WWI, Nautical History, Minute-by-Minute Explanations
One boat, laden with explosives bound for Europe during WWI was hit by another boat in the Halifax Harbour. Bacon breaks down the minute-by-minute details of the events leading up to the explosion, the devastation caused and the aftermath of the disaster.
Two years prior to the Halifax Explosion, the British passenger ship the Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat. Larson tells each side of the story, from the travelers on the ship to the crew of the submarine, chapter-for-chapter, in a remarkably page-turning book.
Canadian Winter Books
Winter is such a beautiful time of year in Canada. And when it’s not so beautiful outside, what better than to curl up cosily indoors with a book. Here’s a small selection of books, set in winter, by Canadian writers.
“Why are we reading, if not in the hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mysteries probed?... Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power?”
- Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
Readerity Quotes

“The kindling snaps; the logs wheeze then ignite. The fire susurrates with stories. There are many whispers. Ghosts and presences all greedy to be heard.”

- Sheree Fitch


“How did I think I could write about books and childhood and not be overwhelmed? How could I not see this would be the whole story of my life flashing fast-forward: books and memories, technicolour images tumbling in with every book from childhood, with every character from every book, with every syllable of every word, with every classroom where i uttered a sound and book covers opened up like our bookshop door hinges, letting in all those people, letting out all those ghosts.”

- Sheree Fitch

What's In Your Bag?
 
 
 
 
 
Mark Leggott is the Director of International Relations for the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, and has had a long and varied career in the best profession of all: Librarian. Mark lives with his wife, Trina, in Pownal, and enjoys nothing more than picking her up early from work so he can look at the new books at the Bookmark!

This is a love story, of a Turk and a Greek, told through the eyes of 3 narrators, including a fig tree in the restaurant where the lovers met clandestinely on Cyprus in their early years: a beautiful book told with a love of language.

 

What surprised me about this book was that it wasn’t the typical Western view of Putin: it seemed almost defensive about Putin and his reasons for the invasion of Ukraine. If you can get beyond this aspect of the book, it is a fascinating window into the man who would be king.

Like the Shafak book above this one is also beautiful, but this time a feast for the eyes, with gorgeous examples of the printmakers craft that are truly evocative of nature.

The Dawn of Everything attempts to overthrow a traditional orthodoxy, in this case presenting a fascinating alternate view from anthropology and archaeology on the history of civilization.

Would you like to share what’s in your bag? Email olivia@bookmarkreads.ca for more information!
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