Jason and Wendy talk about online book clubs and other services for readers, and announce a new Shelve Under: Book Club. Join us in reading Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other then send in your thoughts on the book to shelveunder@tpl.ca by Wednesday, June 17th.
Books and resources discussed in this episode:
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
The Great Mortality by John Kelly
Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style by W. David Marx
Appel Salon author events online
Toronto Public Library Reading Challenge
Jason: Welcome to Shelve Under: Podcast, the Toronto Public Library podcast for readers, writers and readers again, as well as those practising safe physical distancing. That's right, today we're going to bring you another bonus episode to give some recommendations for virtual reading activities that our readers can do that you can access from home while our branches are continuing to be closed due to the COVID-19 virus pandemic. My name is Jason and today I'll be joined by my colleague Wendy and we're going to talk about a couple of those different resources. We realize this is a difficult time and hope our recommendations can help those seeking a distraction. Our thoughts are with everyone in the city, especially those keeping those essential services running. Hi, Wendy.
Wendy: Hey, Jason. How are you doing?
Jason: I'm pretty good. During the library being close, a big part of what we normally do is have different book clubs and author talks and things like that, but obviously we can't do those in the same form as we've been doing them. That's right, huh?
Wendy: Yeah, exactly. I mean, we can't, you know, all be together in a building at the same time or anything like that. So yeah, that kind of puts a cramp in your book club.
Jason: In your book club our your kind of sense of community. But we've come up with some really cool virtual ways to do some of these things, isn't that right?
Wendy: Yeah, exactly. Well, I was actually just talking to Sarah Bradley, who's one of the managers at TPL, and she's one of the managers responsible for what we call Reader Services. So that's, you know, book clubs and book lists and things that we put out to help people find things to read and help people find other people to talk to about things they read. And she was filling me in on a bunch of the activities that we have been putting together that people can access online. But I was actually hoping to interview her today or have you interview her today, but she's actually busy running around right now getting ready for curbside pickup, which is going to be starting at branches in a couple of weeks from when we're recording this. So she wasn't available to talk to us. I just got a bunch of notes from her.
Jason: Right. And that's an exciting thing coming up. But we're kind of also want to say that probably for the future, for the next little bit, we're going to be doing virtual programming and continuing on in that vein, because we have to keep the space separate and we can still do the book drop off, but we won't be able to be doing physical programming still for safety reasons, right?
Wendy: Yeah, we won't be able to have, like, large crowds of people together. Like you used to go to the Appel Salon and there'd be, you know, 500 people in the room for a program and it's, you know, that's not coming anytime soon. But, you know, one thing is that the Appel Salon, which is the place at Toronto Reference Library where we have the big literary programs and cultural programs.
Jason: Beautiful space.
Wendy: Yeah. And they've started putting their programs online instead. So just last week they had their first one, which was Emily St. John Mandel, who wrote Station Eleven. And she was talking about her new book, The Glass Hotel, which, by the way, I just read and it's also really good, although it's not quite as on the nose as Station Eleven. Have you read Station Eleven, by the way?
Jason: I have started it, but I have not finished it.
Wendy: It's such a great book. And it's about the aftermath of a pandemic around the shores of Lake Ontario. So if you're feeling like really getting into the moment, it's a good one. If you're feeling really anxious, then it might not be so great. But anyway, so that kind of program is still going on, it's just going on online now. And of course, everything's still free. If you go to our website, it's tpl.ca, they're usually promoted pretty prominently on the home page. So you can find out about what's going on this week.
Jason: I'll confess my ignorance. Is it a ticketed event like or is it a livestream type of thing? How are they arranging that?
Wendy: It's a livestream thing. So it's, I believe, you can go and register but it's... They have a platform called Crowdcast that can have up to four people talking at one time, so you can have panel discussions and that kind of thing. And they just have, I think they just had an author interview. So they had a host interviewing Emily St. John Mandel who did a reading and talked about her book. And then people can type in comments and questions and there are polls and that kind of thing that go on so that you can sort of participate more actively as well.
Jason: Oh wow, that's amazing. Yeah, like everybody else, we are still doing things, but like everyone else we're also doing a lot of teleconference type programming. We're doing our own recording right now over the same kind of virtual teleconferencing because we all want to be safe. So this is another way for us to keep doing the kind of great programming that we're doing.
Wendy: Yeah.
Jason: We're adapting to the times.
Wendy: And there's another one that I'm really excited about. This is one that I've been I've been kind of involved with for a while. It's, and I think I've mentioned it on this podcast before, so I'm gonna mention it again, it's the Toronto Public Library reading challenge. This is actually the second year that we've done it. It started off as a social media project last year. And basically what it is is we've created twelve categories of books for people to read over the course of a year. So categories like "a book that you would like to live in," "a book that's older than you," "a book based on a fairytale, myth or legend," that kind of thing. And it's sort of like a book scavenger hunt. And then if you finish the first 12 categories, we have 14 more difficult categories for the really like avid readers. And basically the idea is that you just go through this list and find books that fit the categories. And it's a way for people to discover new books. And one of the kind of fun things about it is that we also created a Facebook group where people could go and talk about these books. I know Facebook isn't for everyone, not everyone is on Facebook. But if you are, this is a really good use of your Facebook time. Someone commented a little while ago when the pandemic first started that this is the only group that they're in on Facebook where people stick to the subject. And it's a really library group where people... It's a really good community. People come in, you know, they get together and they chat about what they're reading for different categories, what books they like, what books they don't like. They share recommendations with each other. And it's actually a really fun place to hang out online. And another thing we've just started doing is having some of our librarians go on every couple of weeks and do live book chats where they'll take one of the topics for the reading challenge. For example, there's one coming up next week that is "a book that you found helpful." And they're collecting recommendations from other librarians and then they're collecting recommendations from members of the Facebook group. So we'll put up a post saying, "what book did you read for this category? What do you recommend?" And then we pull them all together. And then a couple of our librarians are going to go on Facebook live and talk about what they read for that category, what they recommend, what some other people recommended and then people will be able to type in their recommendations as well. So it's sort of a big... and, you know, questions and requests for recommendations, too. So it's sort of an opportunity for people. It's sort of like an online book club and it's about a half hour program or so. And then we record it and leave it up on Facebook so you can go in and see it afterwards, too, if you want to see some other recommendations. And I've got to say, the librarian who's been doing it so far, Christie, is great. She's really charming and fun, and it's just a really good time. So that's my plug for that program, the reading challenge.
Jason: I've got to say, I really enjoy the reading challenge. Last year I took part in it when it was a physical sheet that I could get at the library. And it's really great because of the way it's broken up into different categories. The categories make it nice and accessible so you can kind of interpret them as you see fit. It's about just encouraging trying to get outside your comfort zone a little bit, but it's not in such a way that you're going to be stuck or really baffled about what the next category should be or what you should read. There's always very easy to fill in each of those gaps as you go and you kind of realize as you go, oh, wait, I kind of do a lot of this if you read a lot. Like a lot of us library people do
Wendy: Yeah. I mean, one thing that we got a lot when we first started was people asking, you know, is it OK if I read this book for this category and people being kind of nervous that they were doing it wrong or, you know, that we were going to we were going to penalize them somehow if they read the wrong book for a given category. And I mean, for us, the whole point is just we want people to discover new books that they wouldn't have found otherwise. It's really sort of just a we want people to sort of have fun and read things a bit outside of their comfort zone. So as long as people are doing that, there pretty much are no wrong answers. The only thing that we're really strict about is you can't use the same book for two categories. You have to do at least 12 books.
Jason: Of course.
Wendy: You can't, say, read six books and say, oh yeah, I covered all the categories that way. That is forbidden. But aside from that, we're not too hardline. We're pretty open about it.
Jason: Not surprisingly, of course, we want you to read as many books as possible.
Wendy: Yes. Read all the books, read as many books as you can. Actually, one person in the first year sent us a list at the end of the year and she had read like 20 books for every category or something. It was amazing. It just like, I saw it and might my librarian eyes popped open. I couldn't believe it. So, you know, we love to see that kind of thing. And some people are doing things like doing the reading challenge, but only in science fiction or only in graphic novels or we've got one person who's only reading LGBTQ books. So it's, really, you can have fun with it. You can kind of do whatever you like with it. So that's another one of our sort of fun online interactive communities for readers. And then the other thing that's just starting to happen and this is kind of exciting, is... So you probably know this, TPL has a ton of book clubs. Like a lot of branches have at least one book club, some of them have many book clubs. But one thing about the pandemic is that people haven't been able to get together with their book clubs, but they're starting to put them online now and they're bringing new ones online all the time. And I just heard last night that the reader services people are putting together a new graphic novel book club that's going to go online. There is a French book club going up online and there's an LGBTQ2S+ book club also going up online all within the next week or so. So that's in addition to, I think, three other book clubs that exist right now. So, again, if you go to our website TPL.ca, you'll be able to find information on the programs page about all of these book clubs and what you have to do to join and what it entails.
Jason: And this is due to a lot of people's hard work over this past a little bit, trying to figure out the way to make this happen and put it into action. So it's really proven to be this really great program that a lot of the great minds of TPL have been behind this and figuring to make this happen.
Wendy: And we're just... And I think a lot of people are just really excited to be able to see library patrons again, you know, and interact with the people you used to see everyday at work and people you got to know through your book clubs and stuff. I think people are just very, very excited to, you know, make those connections again. So it's something that we're all very keen on and even if it's going to be quite a while before we can have programs in libraries again, this is, you know, another opportunity, another way that we can do that.
Jason: Fantastic.
Wendy: And now, speaking of book clubs, we have some news on that. Do you want to address that, Jason?
Jason: Absolutely, yes. So we want to get in on this, basically, because we are looking to engage with our audience a little bit more if we can. But we wanted to do a book club of our own. So we decided that might not work as well as it might at previous times, so we're gonna do a read along event. So the four hosts of the show, Wendy, myself - Jason, Mike and Christina are all going to read the same book. And we're going to do kind of a book club episode where we've all read the book and we discuss it. And if you read the book or you want to read along with us and submit questions to our email.
Wendy: Or comments.
Jason: Or comments or anything really at all to shelveunder at tpl.ca. We will be taking those and we will read the ones that are resonating with us on the show that week. So we're looking to... We're going to announce it now and we are going to kind of do that episode and it'll be out towards the end of June. And the book that we have chosen is called Girl, Woman, Other, and it is written by Bernadine Evaristo. Have I said that, right? I hope so. It was a joint winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2019. It's a really interesting story. It goes between multiple different characters and it kind of covers their lives and talks about who they are. Most of the characters are women. It's a British book, so they're mostly British. A lot of them are black as well. And just kind of goes across their lives across the country and through the years. And it's just kind of this really interesting story structure where it switches between characters, so it is one of those books where these characters all kind of are separate and they find as you go that they interweave. But I wanted to read just this little excerpt of it, just to give you a sense of kind of how it reads. Also, there's a different... It's got kind of a different structure. It's almost got like a poetic, lyrical structure to it the way that it's written, at least so far.
Wendy: It's sort of written in sort of like blank verse. There are no periods at the end of sentences, no capital letters at the beginnings of sentences. It's sort of this, yeah, there are sort of like loosely structured paragraphs. It's got kind of a flow to it. It's going to be... It's interesting. I've only read the first few pages, so I'm really curious to see where it goes.
Jason: Me as well, yeah. So this is just from that first little section to give you a sense of kind of what the writing's like. I'll do my best to represent the structure, but I don't think I'll be able to do that. But this is just a short little excerpt.
"Home was a derelict factory in Deptford with concrete walls, a collapsing ceiling and a community of rats that defeated all attempts at extermination. Thereafter, she moved into a series of similarly squalid squats until she found herself living in the most desirable squat in the whole of London, a Soviet sized former office block at the back of King's Cross. She was lucky enough to be one of the first to hear about it before it filled up and stayed upstairs when bailiffs set a hydraulic excavator at the main door, which triggered violent countermeasures and prison sentences for the headbanger's, who thought a bailiff down deserved a good kicking. They called it Battle of Kings Cross."
Jason: So as you're reading it and as you see it on the page, and as I'm kind of trying to read it, it has that kind of a rhythm to it. So it isn't poetic, per say, but it does have that kind of almost a beat to it.
Wendy: Yeah, that's very evocative, right? It's very... I have not lived in London, but it sort of sounds like living in London the way I understand it from fiction to be. You know, in a certain era. It's very vivid.
Jason: It's very vivid. So, like, we have not read the whole book yet, so our comments at this point are more or less just check it out with us, kind of go on this journey with us and we will kind of explore it as we go and learn more about it. And we're excited to talk about it with you soon.
Wendy: Yeah. Let us let us know what you think.
Jason: That kind of brings us to the end. I want to talk a little bit, I want to ask if you have any recommendations. Do you have a book recommendation? We thought we would do this a little bit differently and do it more in the style of the reading challenge or a book club or kind of something like that and just talk about what we have just been reading. So what have you been reading lately, Wendy?
Wendy: Let's see. Well, I just finished... Well, I actually didn't finish the book. It expired and got returned, and I'm gonna have to borrow it again because I was really enjoying it. It's a book called The Great Mortality by... I believe the author is John Kelly. It's a history of the Black Death in Europe. Again, a little bit on the nose. But I'm finding it really interesting because, wow, the Black Death was really bad. It was a lot worse than this and because people didn't know how disease worked back then, right? Like people thought it was like if we pray enough, it'll go away. Or if we smell bad smells, it will somehow chase the disease away from us, so people would go around inhaling over the open sewers in Rome or wherever. So it's a really interesting book. It gets a little bit repetitious because it goes from town to town across Europe as the disease progresses. And it's sort of like, well, the disease hits, you know, Naples and a whole bunch of people died. And then the disease moved on to Rome and then a whole bunch more people died. And, you know, but at the same time, a lot of interesting details make their way in there. And so I've been really enjoying that. How about you? Have you been reading anything lately?
Jason: Yeah. I mean, you say your book is on the nose, my book is very far off the nose, if I can use that terminology. The book I just finished is called Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style. So ametora is the Japanese kind of hybrid, short form word for American traditional style. And this book kind of goes through the history of Japanese kind of obsession with American style and how that is adapted and changed and how they went from copying American style in the 50s and 40s based on just like leftovers from soldiers and like from clothing drives essentially in the rebuilt and reconstruction period after World War Two, and then became a thing unto itself where they became such good interpreters of the style that they copied it and almost... Not surpassed it, but they made their own style so unique where they had such good versions of things like denim and jeans that they became the premier place to get that stuff. Or interpreters of this American style of fashion, so much so that they are now the vanguard of it. So it's this totally other worldly experience right now to read this book. It's just about fashion and people showing their fashion and collecting this kind of stuff. And I really, really enjoyed it because it presented this whole other world to me that I didn't really... That I'm not really living right now, right, where I'm out in the world and enjoying fashion and stuff like that. So the book is called Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style and it's by the author. W. David Marx.
Wendy: Excellent. Yeah, that sounds like a nice sort of escape, you know, from what's going on right now.
Jason: It really is. Yeah. I mean, I can see it both ways. I either want to be completely immersed in what's going on and like on the nose or I want to be so far off of it that I don't even know.
Wendy: Yeah. All right. Well, I think that's it for us for today. So once again, if you want to join us in reading along, it's Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo. There are a lot of copies available in OverDrive right now, so if you go to TPL.ca, search for Girl, Woman, Other, you should be able to find an e-book copy or an audio book copy. And, you know, send us your comments at shelveunder at TPL.ca.
Jason: Right, and we'll link to that in our notes for this episode, as well as the books that we just suggested.
Wendy: That's right. OK. Thanks, Jason. We'll talk soon.
Jason: Bye.