Carousel with R. Sikoryak!
NO MORE.
Now we have our own night of Carousel fun, complete with tons of Montrealers. Come on down to the Librairie D+Q tonight, Thursday May 17th at 7 pm. Talks by Howard Chackowicz (CBC's Wiretap with Jonathan Goldstein), Julie Delporte (Le Dernier Kilometre), Pascal Girard (Reunion), Billy Mavreas (Inside Outside Overlap), and Joe Ollmann (Mid-Life)! Man oh man is that a ton of awesome comics folks! Yes!
The Art of Fielding
Remember when you first heard about The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach back in October? But despite all the great reviews and praise, you hummed and hawed about picking up the hardcover. "Hardcovers are heavy!" you exclaimed. "Hardcovers are expensiiive," you lamented. "Hardcovers always want to fold back in while I'm reading them causing me to repeatedly lose my page," you exasperated. Yes. All those things are true.
However! Folks! I have news!
Forget your complaints of the physical state of The Art of Fielding in hardcover. It is now out in paperback! Nice, soft, bendy paperback for your reading pleasure.
Plus the book is pretty phenomenal. So, there's that.
May 23 - Jamie Ross launches Fallow La Friche!
Fallow La Friche is an experimental video and written work on the reforestation of Easter Ontario. Written in the tradition of the artist's monograph, the work reclaims the artist's right to expertise in the usually restricted domains of knowledge: geography, demographics, and history. Embracing hybridity, Ross exposes himself and his personal multi-generational histories as he explores this landscape in the midst of decline and abandonment: the places settled by his ancestors.
The artist also steps aside, giving space to those whose stories are not traditionally told; songs and stories in indigenous as well as colonial languages, documentation of queer sexuality and historical photography wrest explanatory monopoly from the author as from the canon of Canadian history and establish the postcolonial understanding in which the book is rooted.
Fallow La Friche is a radical unsettling of the traditional narratives of permanence and prosperity in the Canadian landscape.
Nova Cantabrigiensis: Plans for a Utopian island
Devlin fell in love with the city of Cambridge, where he went to study Theology in 1979. When mental illness forced him to leave after only one year and move back to Nova Scotia, he channeled his sadness at leaving Cambridge's stunning architecture and "divine atmosphere" by designing and drawing endless sketches of a new, even more perfect version of Cambridge, where he could imagine himself living, as happy as he remembered being during his short time in the "real" Cambridge. He redesigned Cambridge's architecture and design by mixing his favourite elements of different buildings together, adding "joyful features" like lasers and rotating fountains to the mix, and by bringing in architectural motifs and ideas from other cities he admired, like Oxford and Venice. He created over 360 such drawings over the years, using ballpoint pen and Crayola crayons, often on the backs of unemployment lists and government stationary. This book collects many of these superb pieces, which offer endless details to get lost in: symbols that recur throughout; familiar buildings altered in a dreamlike, idiosyncratic way; and handwritten notes and mathematical calculations.
The following photos unfortunately don't do Devlin's drawings justice, but they at least give some idea of his style and minute attention to architectural detail:
The best thing to do would be come by the store and see it for yourself! If you'd like to read more about Nova Cantabrigiensis, you can also visit its official website: http://www.novacantabrigiensis.ca/
Amber's Idyll!
Come this Friday to Librairie D+Q to meet Amber, get your copy signed and enjoy some snacks!
Tracy just posted a preview of the book over on the D+Q blog, check it out, and see you on Friday!
Her Royal Majesty at D&Q
New Mags!
This issue features Charlotte Gainsbourg, Patrik Ervell, Laurel Nakadate, Jim Drain, Mick Barr, Patrik Ervell, Azari & III, Calla Haynes, Hugh Scott-Douglas and more.
Above is a sneak peek of the burning confessions Charlotte Gainsbourg delivers in this issue.
Joining our unusual roster of periodicals, as The Mirror puts it, is the latest issue of Matrix Magazine. This one features D+Q author Matt Forsythe, our friends Jp King, Ian Orti, Katrina Best, David McGimpsey, Todd Swift and more!
Gift ideas for Mother's Day
For the mother-nature type of mother:
Does the mom in your life spend all her time in the garden or going for hikes or climbing trees? Illustrated by Leanne Shapton, The Native Trees of Canada, is a book packed with beautiful watercolor renderings of leaves and firs. This books really works in pinpointing and accentuating the subtle beauty found in nature.
For the mother who never forgets to write a thank you note:
Illustrated by Claire Rojas, From My Garden is a beautiful stationary kit with 16 blank cards, ready to be written with a mom's warm words.
A Naked Singularity.
A Naked Singularity by Sergio De La Pava
Comparisons to Pynchon, Lethem and D.F. Wallace abound in reviews for this, the second book from De La Pava ("a writer who does not live in Brooklyn"). Singularity was self-published in 2008 and found itself tucked into so many admiring hands, and so praised wildly that it's now been republished by University of Chicago press.
A "legal thriller" that absolutely transcends the genre, below is an excerpt from the review that convinced U of C to publish it:
"The first 300 pages of A Naked Singularity are a joy to read—frequently very funny, insightful, gripping—for in those 300 pages it’s never entirely clear where, if anywhere, the narrative is going, but then around page 300 you start to get suspicions of what is going to happen and then when it clicks, you realize that De La Pava, in a purposely meandering and thorough manner, has been setting up the final 400 pages, which are an explosion and immensely difficult to stop reading. It’s a masterful display. In the end, it’s a thriller for people who can’t abide mass-market tripe—a wonderfully-written genre novel that’s too smart for its genre."
Tonight, Her Royal Majesty hits 12!
Tea and scones and readings from issue 12 of Paris-based literary arts magazine, Her Royal Majesty. Issue 12 includes the first short story written by Alice Munro (at age 19), artwork by Drawn & Quarterly author Tom Gauld (Goliath), and Canadians Anne Simpson, Sydney Smith, and Jessica Mensch.
P.S. check out this cute little window display!
Launch for MALEFICIUM tonight!
Author Martine Desjardins, and translators David Homel and Fred Reed will be on hand to read from their work. Maleficium is the fictional account of a heretic priest in nineteenth-century Montreal. It’s a confession-within-a-confession, in which seven penitents, each afflicted with a debilitating malady, relates his encounter in the Near East with an enigmatic young woman whose lips bear a striking scar.
Tonight! Thursday May 10th at 7 pm at the Librairie D+Q, 211 Bernard O.
Librairie D&Q in the Mirror's Best 0f 2012!
Best Bookstore (New)
1. Chapters (various locations)
2. Indigo (various locations)
3. Librairie Dawn & Quarterly (211 Bernard W., (514) 279-2224)
4. Renaud-Bray (various locations)
5. Paragraphe (2220 McGill College, (514) 845-5811)
Best Magazine Store
1. Multimags (various locations)
2. Maison de la Presse (various locations)
3. Chapters (various locations)
4. Point Vert (4040 St-Laurent, (514) 982-9195)
5. Librairie Dawn & Quarterly (211 Bernard W., (514) 279-2224)
Known for comics, art books and fiction, Librairie D&Q storms into this category to nab fifth spot thanks to their unusual roster of periodicals.
Best Comics Store
1. Librarie Drawn & Quarterly (211 Bernard W., (514) 279-2224)
2. 1,000,000 Comix (3868 Jean-Talon E., (514) 725-1355)
3. Capitaine Québec (1837 Ste-Catherine W., (514) 939-9970)
4. The 4th Wall (various locations)
5. Librairie Millénium (451 Marie-Anne E., (514) 284-0358)
Check it all out here:
Thanks, Montreal...we love you too!
Next week at the Librairie D+Q!
This is also a launch for the English and French editions of Virginia Wolf by Kyo Maclear and Isabelle Arsenault. Virginia Wolf is loosely based on the relationship between Virginia Woolf and her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell, and is an uplifting story for siblings of all ages.
Jonathan Lethem's Fear of Music!
We could debate it, but let's just agree to agree that the Talking Heads best record is, at the very least, one of that triumvirate of amazing LPs that Eno co-produced from 1978 'til 1980.
Looks like Lethem agrees, because here he's picked the middle child: Fear of Music as his treatise subject.
I'm not gonna lie, we're big fans of the Talking Heads AND Jonathan Lethem (if you haven't read his most recent non-fiction collection The Ecstasy of Influence, do yourself a favour and pick it up) so this the best of both worlds for us here at 211.
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