A big Eclectic Closet shout-out to Bookninja for being featured tonight on The Arts Tonight with Eleanor Wachtel. The feature which ran just after 10 pm tonight should be posted in a few days on the Arts Tonight website so check it out if you get a chance.

Congratulations as well to Bookninja for winning the Canadian Blog Award for Best Entertainment Blog.

If you’re looking for something different for gifts, you should visit Selsi Sea Rocks. Celebrating everything salty, this unique sea salt bar offers truly flavourful gift ideas. Owner Andrea Brockie used to have an outdoor stall at the St. Lawrence Market but decided to move to a retail location to expand her range of products.

As a special treat, every Sunday in December you can experience complimentary sea salt mini massages and reflexology, to help combat the stresses of holiday shopping!

Selsi Sea Rocks
2 Gladstone Ave.
(at Queen St. W.)
416-854-9088

UPDATE (February 13, 2007): Due to condo construction, Andrea had to give up her storefront. You can now find her back at the St. Lawrence Market but indoors on the lower level.

Making his first appearance, my four-hour-old nephew – Matthew Timothy. Weighing in at 7 pounds, 14 oz. and 20 inches long, Matthew has brown hair with curls.

Happy Birth Day Matthew!

Into every blogger’s life comes a week when they can’t seem to post at all and this has been mine. Life explodes with craziness and good intentions of daily posts go out the window. The stack of books waiting for reviews to be typed up has grown monstrous, so expect a flurry of posts next week.

Tonight I head to Baltimore to attend Stitches East – entering that nirvana of yarn goodness. I wish you all days filled with books and will report back next week, refreshed and overflowing with creativity.

What a thrill to discover that you are being quoted by an author in their press material. I’m still waiting for that elusive quote on the book jacket!

Here are links to quotes I’ve discovered:

For The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster

For Anonymous Lawyer by Jeremy Blachman

For The Scot, the Witch and the Wardrobe by Annette Blair

For The Unwritten Girl by James Bow

For In Arctic Waters by Laura Crawford

For Some Like it Haute by Julie K.L. Dam

For Troubling Love by Elena Ferrante

For A Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch

For Waking Lazarus by T.L. Hines

For The Exquisite by Laird Hunt

For Miss Understanding by Stephanie Lessing

For The Inhabited World by David Long

For The Things That Matter by Edward Mendelson

For The Restoration of Emily by Kim Moritsugu

For Luxury Knitting by Linda Morse

For Damsel Under Stress by Shanna Swendson

For Flora Segunda by Ysabeau S. Wilce

Book Sense has announced their Halloween Top Ten (part of the “Get Caught Reading” campaign)and two books I’ve reviewed this year made the cut.

#2 – The Mercy of Thin Air: a Novel by Ronlyn Domingue

#8 – The Inhabited World: a Novel by David Long

If you haven’t read these titles yet, may I suggest you take the earliest opportunity to pick these up? Oh, and what books would be on your top ten for Halloween?

What is Get Caught Reading?
Get Caught Reading is a nationwide book and magazine industry-supported literacy campaign to remind people of all ages how much fun it is to read.

tags: books Get Caught Reading Book Sense Ronlyn Domingue David Long

I’m taking a mini-vacation this week to catch up on reading and writing reviews. So in the meantime, feel free to peruse the archived book reviews and I’ll be back with fresh reviews on September 12.

In the news – I’m highlighted in this month’s Armchair Interviews ezine. This is a bit blush-inducing, but publicity is a good thing. Andrea and Connie do a great ezine so I would recommend signing up on their site.

Happy reading everyone – and don’t forget to enter my first book giveaway, the deadline is September 15!

Where did the summer go?

To date I haven’t put any fundraising appeals on my blog but this one definitely deserves a mention! My friend Linda is participating in Plymouth-Banjul Challenge. Anyone who has to dodge minefields and hire armed escorts in order to support charities has my support! And to top it off, she’s getting married at the end.

Anyway the end result of this has been that both Dave and I adopted a “life’s too short” philosophy and decided to get married. We didn’t want to do anything conventional (one of my long-time friends said “Linda, when you get married there’s no way it will ever be a normal ceremony”). So this is what we’re planning:

We have been accepted to take part in the Plymouth-Banjul Challenge. This is a charity car race of more than 4000 miles, travelling from Plymouth, England to Banjul, The Gambia. On the way we have to navigate a large stretch of the Western Sahara, pass through a minefield in Mauritania and hire armed escorts in Senegal. It is a totally unsupported race – no break-down trucks, no back-up vehicles, no medical staff standing by.

Oh, and by the way, vehicles are not allowed to cost more than £100, with no more than £15 spent on preparing it. Anything else has to be begged, scrounged or borrowed.

On arrival in the Gambia, all vehicles and equipment are auctioned, with the proceeds going to various Gambian charities.

So we figured since we were going to be in the Gambia, we might as well get married there. My dress and Dave’s suit will be made by a local tailor when we arrive. The eco-lodge we are staying in are baking us a local style cake. And the ceremony will be simple and short – down on the beach with whoever wants to watch as witnesses.

Linda has a goal to raise £2000 so please visit the website to follow along on their process, and if you are so inspired, make a donation in support of the charities.

Anne at Fernham has written a brilliant article on the challenges of reviewing books and literary criticism. A highly recommended commentary – and food for thought as I continue to develop my skills as a reviewer.

So, I think about Keats and try not to write a thumbs-down review that would kill a young genius. And, I think about Lockhart and try to remember not to judge literature by my own prejudices but, instead, to judge it on its own terms. For me, that means following the lesson of Woolf, who always tried to discern a book’s own goals for itself. What is it trying to do? Does it do it?

tags: literary criticism book reviews Virginia Woolf John Gibson Lockhart

On Saturday I made my first “pilgrimage” to Book Depot in St. Catharines. This is the physical store associated with BookCloseouts, an addictive source for books online. I went with a group of friends and we made a day of it, spending several hours browsing in the cavernous warehouse, followed by a great dinner at Spice of Life in Port Dalhousie (although we may have been a bit raucous for those diners trying for a bit of romance).

Needless to say, I bought books. Wise? Perhaps not, but who can resist the lure of fabulous books at closeout pricing – especially if said books have been on your wishlist for ages.

Here’s the list of what I bought (for under $50):
1. We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver
2. Population 485: Meeting your Neighbors One Siren at a Time by Michael Perry
3. The Sixth Lamentation by William Brodrick
4. Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired by Benson Bobrick
5. The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco
6. The Secret River by Kate Grenville
7. I & Claudius: Travels With My Cat by Clare de Vries
8. Codex by Lev Grossman
9. The Little Lady Agency by Hester Browne
10. The Pack: Serenity Falls Book II by James A. Moore
11. Krazy Kat by Jay Cantor
12. The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break: A Novel by Steve Sherrill
13. The Mineral Palace by Heidi Julavits
14. Forever: a Novel by Pete Hamill
15. The Afterword: a Novel by Mike Bryan
16. The Magic Shop by Denise Little
17. Piratica: Being a Daring Tale of a Singular Girl’s Adventure upon the High Seas by Tanith Lee