A look back at summer and this reader's confessions of reading for escape and how reading fits into my life plus more reading aspirations and hopefully some new titles for you!

Here are the books and authors I mention:

The Five Invitations: Discovering what death can teach us about living fully by Frank Ostaseski

Quicksilver, by Callie Hart 

Dreadfulwater by Thomas King

Under One Roof, Loathe to Love You, Below Zero and Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood

The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata

Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center

Roomies by Christina Lauren

It’s a Love Story by Annabel Monaghan

Out of the Woods by Hannah Bonam-Young

Two Rogues Make a Right and We Could be So Good by Cat Sebastian

The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match and The Hating Game by Sally

Thorne

The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith

Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Permanent Astonishment by Tomson Highway

Weyward by Emilia Hart 

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okarofor

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

The Hearts Invisible Furies by John Boyne 

A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver

Steering the Craft by Ursula le Guin

I apologize for the delay in getting this summer episode recorded. Hopefully you can find some good lazy-day reading inspiration with this short update.

Here are books and authors I mention:

Rose in Chains by Julie Soto

Manacled and Alchemised by SenLinYu

Eve: How the female body drove 200 million years of human evolution  by Cat Bohannon

Nobody wants your shit: the art of decluttering before you die by Messi Condo

Swept Away by Beth O’Leary

Sarah Adams Rome, Kentucky trilogy

Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating by Christina Lauren

Nine Rules to Break when Romancing a Rake and These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean

All Rhodes Lead Here by Mariana Zapata

A Five Letter Word for Love by Amy James

Hair for Men by Michelle Winters

Other sports romance authors:

Elle Kennedy

Sarina Bowen

Damon Suede

I am so pleased to be able to share my first-ever interview with a published author here on Bookmarkable. I was delighted to sit down with local North Vancouver writer Frances Peck to discuss her debut novel, The Broken Places — a Globe and Mail best book of 2022, and finalist for the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. 

We had a lot to talk about and time flew by! We learned a bit about her second novel, Uncontrolled Flight and she gave some insight into the novel she’s working on now and her writing process.

We also dove into all the ways reading has been a key influence, inspiration, object of focused study and pleasure throughout her life. Plus we explored areas of common interest.

Books and authors mentioned on this episode:

Thomas Hardy (Far from the Madding Crowd, Tess of the D’Ubervilles, Jude the Obscure, The Mayor of Casterbridge).

Crash Landing by Li Charmaine Anne

Happy One-Year Anniversary to Bookmarkable!

On April 26, I went to the Canadian Independent Bookstore Day at Cross & Crows Books on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, BC. There were tables of people selling jewellery, authors promoting their books and a pop-up bookstore for the currently online Perfect Match romance bookstore, with owner Amy Pelletier displaying lots of physical copies of popular books. She is searching for a good spot in the city for a physical bookstore, coming soon. You can follow her on IG @perfectmatchbookshop. I also spoke with the book crawl organizer, (there was a book crawl of all independent bookstore on Commercial Drive "the Drive"), who goes by the handle Lady Jane who has a website romancingthedata.com/ and you can find her on IG @romancingthedata. I know on the podcast she also mentions Focus on Romance, but I'm not sure that IG account is hers...

I spoke with author Wren Handman and purchased her set-in-Vancouver book, A Midnight So Deadly. I also spoke with a bookstore browser Ben Hill who has a legacy podcast called History of the Mongols (you can still find it and it is fascinating). I also met Ruby Smith Diaz and purchased her book Searching for Seraphim about the late great Vancouver legend, "Joe" Fortes. I met the author Li Charmaine Anne.

Other authors and books mentioned on this podcast include:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Hello Bookmarkable listeners: Before I forget, here’s where you can signup for April 26th’s Vancouver Book Crawl - or just drop by Cross & Crows bookstore at 1 pm: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/vancouver-book-crawl-tickets-1322842340049. I hear there will be contests and prizes too, plus a popup of a new local romance bookstore, Perfect Match.

Reflections on comfort genre (bliss) reading - my conversation with Cathy Needham. In this episode we talked about or I mentioned a few writers and books including:

Love sharing the book love with you!

Here are the books I mentioned in this episode:

Stolen Focus by Johann Hari

I also mentioned the podcasts:

Reading Glasses

If you enjoy listening, please let me know, give me a rating. If you have ideas for shows or books, send me an email at [email protected].

Thank you for listening and many happy blessings for reading journey!

Wherein I seek to patch together meaning with the insights, gleaned from my latest reads, that point the way with many signs that might mean something. To sum up: reading might not always give you answers but it helps.

Here are books mentioned in this episode:

Kill for Me, Kill for You by Steve Cavanagh

Reach the show by emailing: [email protected]

It's a new year and I'm here and making it through January. Books are always there for comfort, guidance and reflection, showing the way. But you still need to read them (or listen to them). What circumstances help you feel like you can read more challenging titles and in hardcover? It's not just about having enough time. Waiting for tips: I need role models...

Here's books I mention on this show:

The Message and Between the World and Me by Ta Neishi Coates

Martyr by Kaveh Akbar

The Land of Lost Things by John Connolly

Whiskey Tender by Deborah Jackson Taffa

Faith, Hope and Carnage by Nick Cave and Sean O’Hagan

Beautiful, Beautiful by Brandon Reid

I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes (audio by Christopher Ragland)

Roar and Next Level by Stacy T. Sims

I look back on my year of reading with more gusto, and starting this podcast in May...and share my latest reading adventures from the month of November.

Read Dangerously: the Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Time by Azar Nafisi

Beneath the Surface of Things by Wade Davis

Sarah J. Maas

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Grief is for People, by Sloane Crossley

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

How we Named the Stars by Andres N. Ordorica

Somewhere Beyond the Sea and House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune

Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes (read by Christopher Ragland)

The Martyr by Kaveh Akbar

There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

Knife by Salman Rushdie

If you have ideas for future shows, books you recommend or want to share anything else, you can email the show at [email protected].

Claudia is a local (Vancouver) business owner, entrepreneur, community leader, and all round wonderful, fun and caring friend to many.

She is also a big reader and shared with me the long impressive list of books she's read with her book club -- but we also delved into some of the many more books she reads and enjoys beyond that list. We followed a list of questions to uncover what she likes and doesn't like and heard what she's come to know is important for her in reading, and the power of the story for all of us.

We looked for a couple of books we'd both enjoyed reading and settled on these two Canadian reads, the novel Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese

Other books that came up in our discussion were:

Women Talking by Miriam Toews

Children’s books: