Knotaknew:
(Corner of George St. and Sherbrooke)
The collections of paperbacks near the till always provide a wealth of affordable books, and now is no different. Ray Bradbury’s seminal Farenheit 451 sits for ($4.50), as does legendary Canadian poet/singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen’s novel Beautiful Losers.
For more Canadiana, two of the recently passed Alistair Macleod’s collections of Nova Scotian short fiction Bring Forth The Sun and Lost Salt Gift Of Blood.
Mark Jokinen’s:
(George St. between King and Sherbrooke)
J.K Rowling’s ‘non-Harry’ novel Casual Vacancies is sitting near the window (although not quite upright).
Also in the window is a collection of writings from the Marquis De Sade, the depraved libertinage introduced the world to what we might call ‘BDSM’ (although DeSade goes way beyond what the BDSM community would find acceptable).
Speaking of libertinage, also sitting in the window is a Dover Thrift edition Thomas De Quincey’s 1821 autobiography Confessions Of An English Opium Eater.
Scholar’s Bookstore:
(Water St. between Simcoe and Hunter)
Scholar’s also gives us some highly recommendable window-shopping this week, with Iris Chang’s The Rape Of Nanking, a historical account of Japanese imperial atrocities committed during WW2. Japanese denialism surrounding these events and others in its own colonial history is a major sticking point in contemporary East Asian diplomacy, and Chang’s account is an excellent starter.
You will also find Vincent Lam’s award-winning Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures which poignantly and often humourously explores the lives of four young students as they go through medical school and on to professional practices.
Finally look for Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, co-authored by Trent’s own Chancellor Don Tapscott and Anthony D.Williams.
Books And Things:
(Water St. between Simcoe and Hunter)
Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet is hovering in the general fiction carousel, while right beside that carousel is another containing pocket-sized paperbacks- look near the top for ($5) editions of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Deadeye Dick.
Thea’s Books and Violins:
(Water St. between Simcoe and Hunter)
Thea’s science fiction and fantasy section has an almost exhaustive selection of Michael Moorcock, making it an excellent place to start your collection of the famed, anarchic English SF’s writer’s works.
Dixon’s Bookstore:
(Water St. between Simcoe and Hunter)
Feminist magical realist, Angela Carter’s fairy-tale based The Bloody Chamber is available in the general fiction section for ($4.95).
In that same section you’ll find Andre Brink’s Rumors Of Rain for ($3.95). Brink, alongside fellow South African writers Nadine Gordimer and JM Coetzee, is one of a triumverate of white South African writers famed for their terse, uncompromising opposition to the Apartheid regime and Brink’s Rumors is clear demonstration of why.
Although it should be in the Canlit section, Canadian author Sandra Birdsell’s short fiction collection The Chrome Suite is sitting in the fiction section for ($3.95).