Mayne Island Book Swap (circa 1994)
When we were growing up our Vancouver cousins used to spend a month each summer in the Gulf Islands, and for a few summers running we got to join them for a week. Once they…
Singing Wind & Skylight Books
It’s been so long since we got home from our trip to Arizona and California (and a tiny impromptu bit of Death Valley, Nevada), but there were great bookstores and not all the books bought…
Buenos Aires Public Library
A few years ago my partner and I spent a couple of months in Argentina. The idea before we left was that we would spend the first month in Buenos Aires and in addition to…
Books & Bikes
A little later this month I’ll be getting together with a bunch of the cyclists from a cross-Canada trip I was part of ten years ago, and to gear up for our reunion ride I…
Lillooet Public Library
A couple of years ago I set out to write a series of poems about libraries: the public library in my town, the book swap that may or may not still operate in its very…
PrairyErth by William Least Heat-Moon
I bought this on one of my last visits to The Odd Book in Wolfville, N.S., before moving to Halifax almost a year ago. The Odd Book is relatively small, but it’s well organized and…
P. K. Page
When I was about eleven my gran took me with her to hear P. K. Page reading from Brazilian Journal, her memoir of the time she and her husband, a Canadian diplomat, spent in Brazil…