World's Biggest Bookstore - Toronto

Whilst in Toronto I "accidentally" discovered that the World's Biggest Bookstore* was very close to our friend's apartment so I gave my husband the choice of spending some time there or visiting the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum...


He chose a trip to the bookshop (on condition he could buy books too!) and when I realised just how many books this place stocked, I genuinely felt a bit overwhelmed... and a bit over-excited too. Aside from a library, I honestly don't believe that I have ever seen this many books in one room! It was such a delight as well to see so many Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre books on display and I spent aaages browsing through them - oh the novelty of visiting a book shop that actually stocks an entire series! They also have a great graphic novel and manga section and it was fabulous to be able to look at books that I've only read about online and get a real feel for the artwork.

I only allowed myself to buy three books there and they HAD to already be on my wish list although I concede that given the length of my wish list that's not exactly difficult to do. I bought an anthology of Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry, Cory Doctorow's Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town and Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. The first two have a Toronto connection so it seemed appropriate to buy them there and the third I have had my eye on for a while and just looked too interesting to pass up. A seriously crazy looking book that would have been perfect for R.I.P. IV! I am a bit cross with myself that I ended up not buying any of Alice Munro's work whilst there, given she's a prominent Canadian author whose work I have not read, but I honestly felt a bit overwhelmed by the sheer choice.

If I could have worked out how to get them home, I could so easily have bought many, many, many more books as just by browsing I found so many tempting reads that I'd not previously heard of. There really is something about being in a book shop and having such a huge choice about what to buy there and then that is so alluring. Just as well that shop is in another continent really or my bank balance would be (more of) a disgrace. I wish that there was somewhere near me where I could go and look at books I have read about online but I doubt Norwich is really large enough to support this scale of shop. :(

* actually no longer the case but it was certainly a big one and given that's the name of the shop, I am not sure how else to refer to it!

October reading list and an apology

I feel as if I should hang a large "I Aten't Dead" note around my blog's virtual neck and my humble apologies for my utter lack of posting. I've been visiting friends who live in Toronto for the last couple of weeks and I write this post from Montréal, Quebec as Mr B and I come towards the end of our trip to Canada. We've been really lucky that the leaves are still on the trees so the countryside is a delight to drive through as the remnants of the Fall colours are incredible.

As well as doing some Toronto downtown exploring and obvious tourist things like dinner in the CN Tower, we were lucky enough to get tickets to see the Toronto Raptors win their first game of the season (Go Raptors!), visited Gananoque, Sandbanks National Park, Niagara Falls/Niagara-on-the-Lake and we've just spent a couple of nights in Québec City. Phew.

In contrast to the last couple of months, I've read a grand total of 13 books this month - although weirdly only one whilst I have actually been on holiday - s0 that's another £13 to my Book Aid fund which is now over the £100 mark! I've had a great time reading recently and nearly every book I read in October was the result of an amazon splurge where I bought books I knew I'd enjoy and race through. Rather shamefully I only blogged about the first book that I read this month and I really don't think I am going to get around to catching those posts up...

Reading List:
Past Imperfect - Julian Fellowes
Fables: Legends in Exile - Bill Willingham
Teremaire & Throne of Jade & Black Powder War & Empire of Ivory & Victory of Eagles - Naomi Novik
Unseen Academicals - Terry Pratchett
Grimspace - Ann Aguirre
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill
The Good Thief - Hannah Tinti
Ariel - Steven P Boyett
Singularity Sky - Charles Stross