BOOK PERSON | Summer Hours

And some recent favourites.

Hello friends,

Lately I’ve been spending more time with friends (still outdoors, still at a distance) and enjoying the improving weather. Maeve and I are averaging four parks per weekend, and I suspect we’ll have hit up every playground in the city by September. We dusted off the BBQ and are eating dinner in the backyard most nights. I’m roller skating (and also writing about roller skating) and reading (and writing about reading). I’m also, to be honest, pretty burnt out.

All that is to say, throughout the summer I’ll be sending out an email every second weekend! I have some wonderful interviews lined up for you, and I hope with a little breathing room you can dive into even more of their thoughtful recommendations.

I also want to revisit some of the great recommendations that have been shared in the last 22 volumes, in case you’re looking for your next park read:

• True Grit, recommended by Mike Hingston, which was (as promised) a perfect novel in every way.

• Parable of the Sower, recommended by Carmen Mathes, which made her rethink how fiction can uphold or dismantle existing structures of power.

• Entangled Life, recommended by Mandy Len Catron, hallucinatory non-fiction about mushrooms by the spectacularly-named Merlin (!) Sheldrake (!!)

• Islands of Decolonial Love, recommended by Dani Roulette, an incredible short story collection by the genius Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, which is the perfect thing to read right now if you are struggling under the crushing weight of colonialism.

• Oreo, recommended by Marisa Grizenko, accurately described as “a book so smart it left me stunned,” if you want to read something hysterically funny but also intellectually stimulating.

See you next week!