Time To Read

Thanks for joining us. This month we are discussing The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See. Set on the Korean island of Jeju, this story follows Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls from very different backgrounds, as they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective. Over many decades- through the Japanese colonialism of the 1930s and 40s, World War II, the Korean War, and the era of cellphones and wet suits for the women divers- Mi-ja and Young-sook develop the closest of bonds. However, after hundreds of dives and years of friendship, forces outside their control will push their relationship to the breaking point.. Mentioned in this episode: UNESCO video about the Haenyeo – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk7DQLMKBTE Fong See and On Gold Mountain (Lisa See’s family history) Monica Highland (Lisa See’s pen name) Truth and Reconciliation Commission Tell us about another book we might like: Dennis: The Player of Games by Iain M Banks Kirsten: Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim Trevor: Korea:

Thanks for joining us. We’re talking about The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel: Is it possible to live a totally solitary life, without relying on others or modern society at all? Christopher Knight lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years. Though in that time he had no contact or conversation with another person, he survived off food, books and provisions stolen from nearby cottages, greatly affecting the people who owned them. Why did this shy young man depart on such a life? How else could he have lived the life he craved, not at the expense of others? Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a vividly detailed account of his secluded life. In this episode we also discuss: Editor’s Note (New York Times) True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa True Story (movie) The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. Can you tell me a book I would also like? Erica: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer Kirsten: Intimations: Six Essay

Thanks for joining us. We’re talking about The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt: Hermann Kermit Warm (great name right??) is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and hired Eli and Charlie Sisters to see it done. The Sisters Brothers are notorious killers. But Eli has begun to question what he does for a living – and whom he does it for. As they embark on what may well be their last job, they find their prey isn’t an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Sacramento California they encounter no end of adventure, cheaters, and ne’er-do-wells in a violent, lustful odyssey of the 1850”s frontier, that beautifully captures the humour, melancholy, and grit of the Old West. Can you tell me a book I would also like? Trevor: The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe; Erica: Days Without End by Sebastian Barry; Kirsten: French Exit by Patrick deWitt; Dennis: Off the Mangrove Coast by Louis L’amour, They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush by Jo A

Thanks for joining us! We’re talking about Charcoal Joe by Walter Mosley. Life seems to be finally turning around for Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins. He’s just opened a PI agency with two partners and is planning to propose to his girlfriend. What could possibly go wrong? An old pal shows up and asks Easy to meet with notorious gangster Rufus Tyler, known on the street as “Charcoal Joe”. Charcoal Joe has a request. Joe’s friend’s son, Seymour, a young bright “top of his class” student at Stanford, was arrested for the murder of two white men. Seymour is an unlikely suspect,, but when you’re found at the murder scene and you happen to be black in LA in 1968, there’s little hope for justice. So, Easy takes the case and we’re off with Easy on his latest adventure, meeting a cast of colourful and questionable characters, getting into and out of tight spots, all while getting a glimpse into Mosley’s thoughts on American race relations and inner-city culture in the 1960’s and today. In this episode we discuss Devil in the

Thanks for joining us! In this episode we’re talking about Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin. San Francisco, 1976. A naive young secretary, fresh out of Cleveland, tumbles headlong into a brave new world of laundromat Lotharios, pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, and Jockey Shorts dance contests. The saga that ensues is manic, romantic, tawdry, touching, and outrageous. The first novel in the beloved Tales of the City series is both a sparkling comedy of manners and an indelible portrait of an era that changed forever the way we live. In this episode we discuss Armistead Maupin’s days as a Republican and his family’s Confederate history; Maupin’s memoir, Logical Family; The two Tales of the City TV series (1993 and 2019); The Letter to Mama which Michael writes (Trevor found this amazing video of Sir Ian McKellan reading it); Hal Johnson talks about Body Break and racism; Ongoing discrimination toward trans men and women; Learning to use gender neutral pronouns; Misgendering and microaggressio

Thanks for joining us! In this episode we’ll be talking about Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, as it was chosen for us by our lovely Facebook group! Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy are four sisters caught between childhood dreams and the realities of burgeoning adulthood as they come of age in New England during and after the civil war. Pastor’s daughters raised in raised in integrity and virtue, but also love and imagination, they negotiate the choices that will either narrow or expand their destinies. Inspired by the author’s life, Little Women transcends genre, gender, and class with its examination of personal quests, societal and religious restrictions, family ties, and the growing pains of becoming an adult. In this episode we discuss How Kirsten was such a Meg as a kid (and this photo of her directing a theatrical performance from the early 1980s); A Long Fatal Love Chase  by A.M. Barnard; Duncan Mercredi and his recent interview on the Winnipeg Arts Council website. Trevor’s surprising experience as assistan

Thanks for joining us! This the second part of a special episode that ran long. Instead of talking about a book like we normally do, we’ve been ruminating on movie or tv adaptations of books. We ran out of time in part one, so here’s the rest, where we talk adaptations that we like, that…

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Time to Read! We’re chatting about a few of the many screen adaptations of The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In this episode we discuss The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) starring Basil Rathbone; The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959) starring Peter Cushing; The…

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Time to Read! We’re talking about The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the 1880s, Sir Henry Baskerville is an unassuming farmer in Canada when he gets the news that he’s inherited his ancestral home, Baskerville Hall, back in England on the edge of the dreary Grimpen Mire. But wait: there’s a catch! The inheritance comes with a FAMILY CURSE which puts the Baskerville line in the high risk category of being stalked by a demonic ghostly hound! It turns out the former master of Baskerville Hall, Sir Charles DIED OF FRIGHT outside his home three months before, with evidence of PAW PRINTS near his body and an expression of horror upon his face. Secrets are discovered, plots thicken, the moor gurgles and the hound howls. What’s the meaning behind all this? Turns out it’s quite elementary. In this episode we discuss Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s vaccination arguments, The Ghost Club, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s visit and the Manitoba Historical Society, How

Hello, dear readers. In this special episode we share the WPL resources we are ourselves relying on right now. Everything can be found through winnipeg.ca/library. At Home: A Click Away Info Guide, COVID-19 Info Guide, Media Literacy and Spotting Fake News Info Guide, Kanopy and Kanopy Kids, Ancestry, Always available stuff on Overdrive, Hoopla, Pressreader (Plus: How-to guide for…

Hello dear readers. This episode is very different. Due to libraries being closed we are all working at home and recording remotely. Also, this time we each read a book nominated for the Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Awards! Find all the MYRCA books online on Overdrive! Learn more about the awards and voting on the MYRCA website. In This Episode We Discuss Shelters and Crisis Supports, Surviving the City by Tasha Spillett and Natasha Donovan, The Sockeye Mother by Natasha Donovan, A Girl Called Echo by Katherena Vermette, Rez Poetry by Leonard Sumner, Berry Fasts, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Coop the Great by Larry Verstraete, Missing Mike by Shari Green, No Fixed Address by Susin Nielsen, Call of the Wild by Jack London, Julie’s Wolf Pack by Jean Craighead Jones, Journey of Little Charlie by Christopher Paul Curtis, Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis, Nerd Words for Word Nerds Erica: Abibliophobia and Alogotransiphobia, Kirsten: Persimmon, Trevor: Tablespo

Thanks for joining us for this episode of Time to Read. We are talking about The Break by Katherena Vermette. When Stella, a young Métis mother, looks out her window one evening and spots someone in trouble on the Break — a barren field on an isolated strip of land outside her house — she calls the police to alert them to a possible crime. In a series of shifting narratives, people who are connected, with the victim — police, family, and friends — tell their personal stories leading up to that fateful night. Through their various perspectives a larger, more comprehensive story about lives in this community and the after-effects of trauma emerges. In this episode we discussed: The Tom Austen series by Eric Wilson, This River (NFB Film), What brings us here (companion piece to This River – on Instagram @whatbringsushere), Indigenous Writers Collective, Manitoba Library Association – Prison Libraries Committee, More with Anna Maria Tremonti (podcast). Another book you might like: Erica: Women Talking by Miriam T

Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Time to Read podcast. We are talking about Great House by Nicole Krauss. A reclusive American novelist, a young Chilean poet who disappears, in the suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers a lock of hair revealing a secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer slowly reassembles his father’s study, plundered by the Nazis in 1944. Connecting these is an odd desk of many drawers. As the narrators of Great House make their confessions, the desk takes on more meaning, and comes to stand for all that has been stolen from them, and all that binds them to what has disappeared. This is a story haunted by questions: How do we respond to disappearance, destruction, and change? How are we affected by the physical environment we create (or that is created for us)? And how can the associations we have with objects, combined with our stories, become symbols of past trauma or joy? In this episode we discussed: This is Alan’s last episode (so it goes); How to eat

Today we are talking about S. Morgenstern’s “The Princess Bride”, edited by William Goldman. Summary: Westley and Buttercup live a simple life on a farm, and fall in love. Westley sails off to find his fortune so that he can properly marry Buttercup, but his ship is overtaken by a notorious pirate who never leaves survivors. Heart-broken, Buttercup eventually agrees to marry Prince Humperdinck (rather than face execution), but she does not love him. Then she is kidnapped by people intending on murdering her, then kidnapped again by a masked stranger who turns out to be her lost love, Westley. They are captured by Humperdinck, who secretly tortures and then murders Westley, and plans to murder Buttercup after they wed. Unlikely alliances and one miracle later, Westley rescues Buttercup and they ride off into the sunset into eternal happiness. That’s the story. Or at least, that’s one of the stories, told within a bigger story about stories. It’s a romance, it’s an adventure, it’s a revenge tale, it’s a fairy

Today we’re talking about The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. The Remains of the Day is a subtle, sad, humorous love story, and portrayal of a vanished way of life. It’s also a meditation on the high cost of duty and service. In the summer of 1956, Stevens, a man who has dedicated his life to becoming the perfect butler in the one-time great house of Darlington Hall, sets off on a holiday that will take him deep into the English countryside and, unexpectedly, into his own past; Specifically, his friendship with the housekeeper, Miss Kenton. Memories begin to surface of his lifetime “in service” to Lord Darlington, and of the years between the wars, when the fate of the continent seemed to lie in the hands of a few men. He finds himself confronting the dark undercurrent beneath the carefully run world of his employer as well as that of the life he could have had, but for a few key choices. In This Episode We Mention Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe Can You Tell Me A Book You Would Also Like? Erica: The Rosie Pr

Today we’re discussing Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut One of the world’s great antiwar books, centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, it’s the result of what Vonnegut describes as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines science fiction, autobiography, humour, historical fiction, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. Billy Pilgrim’s odyssey reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most. In This Episode We Mention Video clips of Kurt Vonnegut in Back to School The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America by Matt Krach Find great books through NoveList Plus Great banned and challenged books like The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie and To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee Can You Tell Me A B

Thanks for joining us! This month we’re discussing Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. Bernadette Fox is notorious. To other private-school mothers she’s a disgrace; to design mavens, she’s a revolutionary architect. But to 15-year-old Bee, she is simply Mom. Then Bernadette vanishes. It all began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But the idea of this trip sends Bernadette into an agoraphobic spiral. To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, and secret correspondence to form a story about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s role in an absurd world. In This Episode We Mention (We went pretty off-track this time) The Global Amphibian Assessment; Where’d You Go, Bernadette – the movie; Email chains as juicy reading; Where’d you go, question mark in this book title?; Swedish Death Cleaning; Sputnik light fixtures and Alcatraz spoons; The ideaMILL; Where’d you go, actual letters?; Friends of the Winnipeg Public Li

Thanks for joining us for our ***TWENTIETH*** episode! This month we’re discussing The Changeling by Victor LaValle Apollo Kagwa is an antiquarian book dealer trying to be an involved father to his new baby, unlike his own father who abandoned him, when his wife Emma begins acting strange. Is it post-partum complications, or something much more sinister? Then Emma commits a horrific act—beyond any parent’s comprehension—and vanishes, seemingly into thin air. Thus begins Apollo’s journey to find a wife and child who are nothing like he’d imagined. With mysterious strangers, fantastic books, forgotten islands, graveyards, forests, and monsters in caves, it reveals the homey, messy magic that can save us all, if we’re lucky. In This Episode We Mention Bremen Town Musicians aka Bremen Stadtmusikanten Max and Moritz: A Story of Seven Boyish Pranks Hans the Hedgehog (Trevor found a delightful drawing of Hans on Deviant Art by “DBed”) Outside Over There by Maurice Sendak by Maurice Chicken Soup with Rice by Maurice

Thanks for joining us! This month we’re discussing All Systems Red by Martha Wells. The self-named Murderbot doesn’t really want to stop binge-watching media content long enough to do its boring security job for a bunch of humans surveying an unknown planet. But when an unknown life-form attacks one of the team, Murderbot is forced to start paying attention. When the humans try to talk to it, ask it questions and, worst of all, treat it like a person, Murderbot must confront its own social anxieties and self-consciousnesses, all the while trying to solve the mystery of what or who is trying to kill them all. In This Episode We Mention Unbury the Future Martha Wells’s full speech from the 2017 World Fantasy Awards Novel Finding: Reading Literary Fiction Improves Empathy Bonus short story: Online version of Compulsory: A Murderbot Story in Wired Magazine (set before All Systems Red). Our Favourite Media Content Erica: Brooklyn Nine-Nine Kirsten: Broadchurch, Top of the Lake Alan: Moneyball, Gattacca, Donnie Dar

Thanks for joining us! This month we’re discussing Trickster Drift the by Eden Robinson, chosen by author and WPL Writer-in-Residence alumnus Jordon Wheeler, who joined us as a guest host, for which we are very grateful! Trickster Drift is the second book in a trilogy by Eden Robinson (we read the first book Son of a Trickster last year, remember that? Good times.) Now, we catch up with Jared as he moves from Kitimat to Vancouver for school, and finds he is still a magnet for magic. And more mundane trouble as well. In This Episode We Mention Fainting Couch Feminists Podcast – Episode 22 “When your book becomes a movie, featuring Eden Robinson” Monkey Beach (movie website) Snotty Nose Rez Kids Polaris Prize 2019 (longlist) Sleeping with the Enemy, a movie that Trevor saw too many times in the theatre A photo of 1640 Graverley St, Vancouver, courtesy of Google Street View TD Summer Reading Club How to Suggest a Purchase at WPL Can You Tell Me A Book I Would Also Like? Erica: Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman Trevor: