Books
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My Reading Month: June
Audiobook Gold, Great Sequels and Old Friends
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Book Subscription Box – Boxwalla
As a lover of reading, I have long been intrigued by book subscription boxes. I currently do the Book of the Month club, which I love for so many reasons, namely that you can choose the book yourself and you can skip a month if there isn’t anything you are that interested in, which I do quite often. However, I recently branched out to try a new box, called Boxwalla. I wanted something that wouldn’t come too often as I struggle to get through the books I own already). I also needed a box that wouldn’t double up on books I already had or pick books I had little interest…
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Small Publisher Book Prizes
Both the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year and the Independent Audiobook Awards were announced recently! Both of these awards are intended to support lesser known authors and to highlight books that do not have the dollars of a major book publishing company behind their marketing campaigns. Foreword INDIES Book of the Year: This is one of my favorite indie book awards because of its format. One of the things I find difficult about some of these awards seeking to highlight diversity is that their categories become so specific that there are too many “winners” for me to focus on. While the Foreword INDIES still follow this format, with prizes…
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My Reading Month – Trees and Murder
I feel like I have been coming out of a bit of a fog over the past month – between work and life things, my life has been incredibly crazy over the past year, and it is so lovely to begin to have a little breathing room. I still have not found myself reading all that much over the past month, and have only finished 1 or 2 physical books. This is probably due to the fact that the one of my other obsessions, RuPaul’s Drag Race, has been airing the final episodes of its most recent season, so I have been going down that rabbit hole instead. (Go Big,…
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Diversity in Children’s Literature: The Pride Month Edition
The generally white, always heterosexual parents of my favorite children’s books as a kid are a stark contrast (at least in terms of sexuality) to the world I was brought up in. However, while same-sex couples I grew up around never stood out as different to me, it was still incredibly difficult for non-heterosexual friends of mine, raised in that same community, to explore and express their personal feelings, and issues of intersexuality and transsexuality were never discussed (or shown on the pages of my books). In fact, I vividly remember reading Middlesex as a (maybe) 14 year old and being kind of mind-blown by the idea that a person…
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Lambda Literary Awards 2019
You may have noticed that it is Pride Month! Make sure you show your support at the Pride events around you this month and go spend some money on some of these amazing queer authors! The Lambda Literary Awards are probably the most comprehensive LBGTQIA+ book awards in the country. Awarded in 24 categories, they highlight fiction, non fiction, poetry, genre writing, erotica and more! These awards were announced at the start of Pride Month on June 3rd. I can’t highlight every book but you can find the full list of winners HERE. 2019 Winners Lesbian Fiction – The Tiger Flu by Larissa Lai – “In this visionary novel by…
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Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019
I promise that at some point I will start actually posting about the books I am reading, but with so many awards out at the moment (and so many of the awards going to authors of color), I feel like this is important too! The shortlist for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction was actually amazing – every book I have read off this list was great! Shortlist The Silence of Girls by Pat Barker – “There was a woman at the heart of the Trojan war whose voice has been silent – till now. Briseis was a queen until her city was destroyed. Now she is slave to Achilles,…
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Book Awards – LBGTQ+ books, translations and more!
It seems it is well and truly book prize season! A number of book prizes have been awarded over the past week, and there are some really interesting books in the mix. Look below for updates on the Best Translated Book Award, the Dayne Ogilvie Prize and The Indie Book Awards. As always, you can find these winners and former prize winners on the master list of book awards HERE. Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers This annual award is given to an emerging writer from the Canadian LBGTQ community. Last year’s winner, Ben Ladouceur was the author of a poetry anthology called Otter. Winner nîtisânak by Lindsay Nixon…
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2019 Man Booker International Prize
The Man Booker International Prize was announced on May 21st. According to their website, this biannual prize is “recognizes one writer for his or her achievement in fiction. Worth £60,000, the prize is awarded every two years to a living author who has published fiction either originally in English or whose work is generally available in translation in the English language.” This award does a great job of highlighting books translated into English from around the world, as you can see in this year’s shortlist. I haven’t read any of these at this point, but I am very interested, especially in Celestial Bodies as I know very little about Oman!…
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Dangerous Fiction: Stories of the Displaced and Placeless – A Reading List by Omar El Akkad
A few months ago, I got the opportunity to attend a talk by Omar El Akkad, the author of the incredible book American War. We were in a small room with about 10 people, and I was in heaven. His talk was fascinating and centered on the ways that displacement and disruption can fracture personal identities. In addition, he did something that will always win me over. He gave us a book list. Some of the books I had read, some I had heard of, and some were completely new. I wanted to share this list with you. It is for those who read American War, and also for those…
