This is a remarkable collection of essays, or perhaps it‘s better described as diaristic musings. Amina Cain‘s thoughts on writing make me feel seen as a reader. I‘m going to the bookstore today to buy my own copy of this because I don‘t want to live without it.

A good title offers something acute without being obvious, without giving something away.

Reading, all on its own, is one of the best things, and yet isn‘t it nice to read in bed at the end of a long day, the darkness of the window meeting the soft light inside the room? Or on the beach, the hot sand and the sound of the waves coming together with the book. Things combine to become other things, other kinds of experiences.

In The Travelling Companions (1862) by Augustus Leopold Egg […] One girl sleeps while the other reads. Each is resting in her own way. All of us need this kind of rest.

When I began looking at paintings of nighttime scenes because I wanted to write about them, I felt immediately comforted. It‘s probably why I was drawn in the first place to write about darkness, but I wasn‘t expecting to be soothed so quickly.

Pleasure, freedom, torment, emptiness: it is what I want my writing to express.

I have never been able to force myself to write about anything, or to avoid anything for that matter, and I don‘t think I ever will, so I‘ll just see what keeps arising, how I approach the difficulties of being alive in this particular moment in time. It‘s freedom I want when it comes to writing, and in life, even within responsibility. Being unrestrained. Like a horse standing in darkness. The pasture gate has been left open.

Yukon travel adventure + recent reads 01/24/25 #booktube #fibrearts #LGBTQ #audiobooks
https://youtu.be/T7K57KCMncU

If you‘re interested in seeing every 5-star book I read in 2024, you‘re invited to have a look at my latest video.
#LGBTQIA+ #booktube #BookPrizes

https://youtu.be/t_qkr__uKBA

Some alpaca yarn dyed with kitchen scraps (pomegranate peels, avocado pits, onion skins) — I am getting ready for a new knitting project. #LitsyCrafters

In my latest video, I share my 2024 reading stats + six stunning books! #booktube
https://youtu.be/Lj6iS4FdYqs

My latest booktube episode includes a dozen recent reads:
https://youtu.be/pLq4BZFeuIY

#LGBTQ #kidlit #picturebook #audiobook #classic #inTranslation #Canadian #essays #science

I‘m back home in Canada & it‘s all Canadian authors in this December 18th episode! #booktube

https://youtu.be/lXJD3Exclio

If you‘re interested in my biblioadventures in New York City, I invite you to watch my latest video:

https://youtu.be/QzWlUxtRse4

I‘m cat sitting in Brooklyn for 2 weeks. In my latest booktube episode, I talk about museums as well as books: Live from New York: books (good & bad) + Brooklyn travel highlights
https://youtu.be/bzle3FV2iRE

I was tickled today to see the MacDonald‘s that‘s mentioned in the tagged novel. #literarytourism

Reflective; emotional; informative; dark: yes, that sounds like my reading tastes. Storygraph is pretty accurate that way.

I love the way that Storygraph makes looking at my reading stats easy.

I read 34 books in November and these are my faves.

My old luggage tag disintegrated so I made a new one out of duct tape and jazzed it up with a bookmark. On my way today to Brooklyn to cat sit for a friend… any Littens want to meet up there before December 14?
#LitsyCrafters

In my latest booktube episode , I talk about 7 Canadian books + recipes #NonfictionNovember #comics

https://youtu.be/EKWSuq0dHlM

When panicked, grant me
the unshakable calm of flowers.

In my latest booktube episode, it‘s all about TRAVEL — in books & in real life ✈️
#WomenInTranslation #Audiobooks #LGBTQ #comics #CanadianAuthors

https://youtu.be/RbeSRuYZI2Q

#endpaperslove

At VWF, Dorothy Grant said she was so proud to see Canada‘s Governor General, Mary Simon—an Inuk woman—wearing one of her garments when she welcomed the pope to Edmonton in 2022.
Look at the two of them in their capes! Who wears it better?
On a serious note, the pope was in Canada to apologize to residential school survivors. Just before he left, he acknowledged: “Yes, it‘s a genocide.”

I was thrilled to hear Haida fashion designer Dorothy Grant talking about her life and work at the Vancouver Writers Fest last month. She said her work was in 5 exhibitions across North America in 2019 & not one curator asked her for info. When she got to the exhibitions, she discovered errors in all of them. This book sets the record straight.

In honour of Louis Riel Day in Canada, and Native American Heritage Month in the USA, here‘s an #Indigenous authors extravaganza (plus a slideshow of appliquéd blankets I made):

https://youtu.be/BDYSgCAiDmk

#NonfictionNovember #comics #kidlit #IndigenousArt #Audiobooks #CanadianAuthors

Help me dunnick, drush and dove.
Love Me Tender. Tender love.

This novel is unlike anything I have read before. There are no characters, except perhaps the land itself. Humans & nonhuman beings alike are there—with their fingers & claws & antlers—but our perspective as readers is somewhere above it all, witnessing changes over countless cycles of seasons. I did this as a text/audio combo & found it soothing. It also worked some kind of magic on my brain. #Indigenous #CanadianAuthor

I‘m delighted to see that Jordan Abel has won a GG award for his remarkable novel!

https://quillandquire.com/omni/jordan-abel-niigaan-sinclair-among-2024-governor-...

My latest booktube episode features recent reads from 7 countries: #comics, a verse narrative & a picture book. #translations #poetry #CanadianAuthor #Kidlit #YA

https://youtu.be/5n28_h07sz8

Friday Listening: an all-audiobook episode for #NonfictionNovember #LGBTQ #IrishAuthors #CanadianAuthors #WomenInTranslation #Indigenous #audiobooks

https://youtu.be/YcRrSvT4lNM

The words of poets are a comfort when sorrow and fear overwhelm me. Jack Gilbert‘s full poem is online here:

https://poetrysociety.org/poems/a-brief-for-the-defense

My latest booktube video features 6 Canadian, Australian & American books. There‘s a bonus clip at the end with footage from my seaplane journey home from the Vancouver Writers Fest. #queer #Victober #comics #audiobooks #poetry

https://youtu.be/6WiKs8r8twM

In my latest booktube episode, I report on 6 events at the Vancouver Writers Fest + talk about 2 audiobooks & 2 picture books that I read recently

https://youtu.be/ukKUqfGyqxo

#kidlit #WomenInTranslation #CanadianAuthor #Indigenous

A bonanza of women in translation & women in art, journalism, geology, engineering, boating + a gay memoir in verse in my latest booktube episode:
https://youtu.be/6nKnqVVch_E

#audiobooks #LGBTQ #translation #comics #CanadianAuthor #kidlit

Artist Julie Heffernan planned a short walk with her infant in the Appalachian Mountains over two decades ago. She got lost in her thoughts and lost her way, but emerged the next day with newfound clarity. This amazing autofictional graphic novel encompasses two days of her thinking about past, present and future. Breathtaking! #comics

Check out the perfect oval of her head, like an egg; her topknot like a brain, like she‘s thinking… the folds of her veil—like tendrils of rising smoke …like she‘s thinking so hard her head is hot.

Julie Heffernan‘s artwork in this graphic novel is ASTOUNDING!

If you‘re looking for something along the lines of Jon Klassen‘s picture books, try this dark & funny fable by Canadian artist Jess Hannigan. It‘s great for kids aged 3-8 anytime, but the black & fluorescent orange colour scheme, plus the spider, make this perfect for a spooky October read. #kidlit

One day, the newsboy had some SHOCKING news to deliver.

Skyscrapers, bridges, tunnels: how these are built is explained in clear, fascinating prose and illustrations. Ages 8-13. Roma Agrawal is a British South Asian structural engineer who has also covered this subject in a book for adults titled Built.

The Metropolitan Cathedral sits on top of an old Aztec pyramid and also the filled-in lake.
Over the past 150 years, [the central area of Mexico City] has sunk by more than the height of a three-story building.

I was drawn into this historical epic chiefly by the fact that the two central characters are queer & the author is trans nonbinary. Despite romantic love triangles not usually being to my taste, I enjoyed this novel, which is told from alternating pov. It‘s set mostly during WWII & there‘s a lot going on besides romantic attraction: gender identity; chosen family; societal expectations… and a touch of Celtic magic. #LGBTQ #CanadianAuthor

I love a good epigraph.

I love this middle grade Peter Pan retelling by Muscogee Creek author Cynthia Leitich Smith. It focuses on two stepsisters & addresses racism straightforwardly in the text. Wendy & Lily immediately speak up when Peter or the Lost boys use the word ‘Injun,‘ for example. On many occasions the omniscient narrator breaks the fourth wall & addresses readers directly—I like that too. A fun read with satisfying depth. #Indigenous #kidlit

Lily: I‘m Muscogee Creek from the Tulsa ‘burbs. I came for my brother and stepsister. Have you seen them? He‘s four, and she‘s annoying.

Marie is a young woman who loves horses and brings her idealism into the lives of carriage horses and their drivers in contemporary Old Montreal. A short, sharp novella that encompasses the criminal underworld and the dark side of gentrification. Translation from French by Sheila Fischman. #CanadianAuthor #WomenInTranslation

The return of the horse to Marie‘s life & the events of the past few days have stirred up memories, painful & ecstatic, against which she has begun to retaliate by the compulsive purchase of horse figurines—her favourite being a plastic Percheron. These past days Marie has travelled across the city & bought all the trinkets that have caught her eye, from antique dealers on rue Notre-Dame & from Dollarama.