May Happenings

Next online book club pick, and my favourite book right now

Hello readers,

I hope this letter finds you all well, and perhaps, deeply immersed in a new book. As for me, I’m absolutely loving The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life by Suleika Jaouad. The book is a guide to the art of journaling — and a meditation on the central questions of life — with contributions from Hanif Abdurraqib, Jon Batiste, Salman Rushdie, Ann Patchett, Gloria Steinem, George Saunders and more.

The book is structured on 10 themes such as fear, love, and ego featuring essays by Suleika and 100 contributors, as well as prompts to tap into your creativity. She provides the tools, direction, and encouragement to engage, ask questions, to dream, and to peel back the layers. For Suleika, journaling has seen her through illness, heartbreak, and the deepest uncertainty. And with this book, she encourages you to pick up your pen, to write through it, to keep going.

“I reach for the page like I reach for prayer: to plead, to confess, to commune, to remember that all is not chaos, all is not lost.” - Suleika Jaouad from The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life.

While we’re on the subject of creativity and Suleika, I strongly recommend the intimate and moving documentary, American Symphony. The film chronicles a year in the life of Suleika and her Grammy-award winning musician husband Jon Batiste through a period of high highs and low lows. It is incredible.

Sometimes a book will find you just when you need it the most. I’m in a period of writing where I needed a creative boost, something to lift me, and this book landed at just the right time.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written a letter here, life has a funny way of flying by. There is much to reflect on, and more to say, and I will. Look for a future post soon on a behind-the-scenes look at my book project. You might remember early on a post I did about the book I’m currently working on, and, well, there are some exciting updates to share on that front.

And in other news, we hosted the ever lovely and lively Nita Prose in Stratford, Ontario last week, and it was delightful. We had a delicious high tea in a gorgeous room at The Bruce Hotel - for a moment we felt we had been transported to the Regency Grand Hotel and were seated in the Tea Room.

Our inaugural sold-out event for Stratford Arts & Lectures was one for the books, and we now have multiple signed copies in stock of Nita’s newest release: The Maid’s Secret. We also have signed copies of The Maid and The Mystery Guest. If you’d like a copy, please reply to this email, or pop into Curiosity House Books to pick one up.

We can’t wait for our next Spilling the Tea event with bestselling author Martha Hall Kelly on June 10th. Limited tickets available.

Stay tuned in the next week or two as we announce an incredible event we’ll be hosting this summer in Stratford. It’s all just a big MYSTERY really ;)

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ONLINE BOOK CLUB PICK

And we finally have our next book pick for our ONLINE SHORT STORIES BOOK CLUB (thank you Nancy for the nudge!).

We will be reading Other Worlds: Stories by Andre Alexis. The book was just released last week to starred reviews and critical acclaim.

“Author/writer/librettist Alexis, who has won every major Canadian literary prize, presents a stupendously vivid, astonishingly original nine-story collection... Each story is a compact revelation about human contradictions, unreliable history, and the stories we tell when understanding is not an option.” —Booklist (Starred Review)

The award-winning author of Fifteen Dogs conjures up worlds – real, invented, uncanny – in this ingenious, electrifying collection.

A Trinidadian Obeah man finds himself reborn, a hundred years after his death, in the body of a Canadian child. A writer takes up a seasonal job as the caretaker of a set of mysterious large sacks hanging from the rafters of the houses in a small town. A woman starts a relationship with the famous artist who painted portraits of her mother. The contents of a sealed envelope upend a woman’s understanding about a tragic crime she committed at the age of six.

In this dazzling collection of stories, André Alexis draws fresh connections between worlds: the ones we occupy, the ones we imagine, and the ones that preceded our own. He introduces us to characters during moments of profound puzzlement, and transports us from 19th century Trinidad and Tobago to small-town Ontario, from Amherst, Massachusetts to contemporary Toronto.

These captivating stories reveal flashes of reckoning, defeat, despair, alienation, and understanding, all the while playfully using a multitude of literary genres, including gothic horror and isekai, and referencing works from greats like Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Yasunari Kawabata, Witold Gombrowicz, and Tomasso Landolfi.

Masterfully crafted, blending poignant philosophical inquiry and wry humour tinged with the absurd, here are worlds refracted and reflected back to us with pristine clarity and stunning emotional resonance as only André Alexis can.

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We will meet in August - date TBA - to discuss this new and noteworthy story collection. It will be an online evening meet-up. Please reply to this email to RSVP.

If you would like to order the book through Curiosity House Books, you can do so by replying to this email, or sending an email to: info@curiosityhousebooks.com

We look forward to our next SOLD OUT event in Creemore with author Jesse Thistle for our Beer & Books series. Limited tickets still available for our events with Helen Humphreys and Bianca Marais - June 6th and June 10th respectively.

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Have a wonderful week, and happy reading.

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In case you missed it:

Happy Bookstore Day to all who celebrate