At the moment, Vancouver is trapped in a snow globe. It’s nice, but really, isn’t this quite enough?
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The view from Canada Place.
Drinking Sahleb with Ayala and friends.
Finding the car.
Wallpaper* City Guide: London 2008
Phaidon has a great series of city guides. I used the Cairo one on my trip and it was fantastic for restaurant recommendations and for giving a different perspective on the architecture, art and culture of the place.
I highly recommend these as supplemental guides. Not a great replacement for your full-blown guide book, but definitely necessary reading in advance of the trip, good for nightlife planning, and perfect as small, pocket-sized gems that you can easily cart around while on tour.
A full range of stars for these city guides.
Fugitives by Suzanne Jacob is a novel translated by Sheila Fischman, who must be the best French-English translator in Canada.
Suzanne Jacob is a major voice in Quebec fiction and I wanted to read her latest (the 7th) novel. Fugitives is the story of four generations of women who are trying to escape the madness of their families. These are children who are taken advantage of by adults, children finding their way sexually, children finding their place in the world.
The chapters switch between different points of view and although it is evokative and mysterious, I didn’t quite get into this story. It’s a novel of the mind, in this case the minds of four women.
A worthwhile read, but I did have to stick with it.
Fugitives by Suzanne Jacob
translated by Sheila Fischman
published by Thomas Allen Publishers
THE SURFACE OF MEANING: BOOKS AND BOOKS DESIGN IN CANADA by Robert Bringhurst
CCSP ISBN 978-0-9738727-2-9
$60.00 hardcover
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From the Raincoast Books newsletter:
Quote: Robert Bringhurst takes us on another of his walking tours, this time through the bramble of English and French-Canadian books and book design, from the mid-18th Century to the present day. Along the way, he discovers a true “image trove” of identity, culture and history.
And he does what no other work on books and publications does: He creates a truly national survey of Canadian books by bringing Canada’s long history of Aboriginal story-telling into a context of “book”. It is a context that goes into the depths of our prehistory, far beyond the printed page.
I am a big fan of Bringhurst and a fan of book design. Penguin by Design by Philip Baines was a favourite read a couple of years ago.
Today was a snow day so we went for high tea at T Bakery.
The Tales of Beedle Bard by JK Rowling (Collector’s Edition) arrived today. It was as cool as opening a package from Apple. Thank you Jo!
Opening the box. The gift case is bigger than I expected. I also saw the regular edition in the store and was hoping this would be spectacular by far. It is.
Slipping off the case cover, you have a big leathery book hallowed out with a side pocket for your Beedle the Bard reproductions of the prints and the velvety pouch with The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
I chose to look at the prints first. Love the skull.
Lots of great sketches. A whole envelope.
The fountain is my favourite. I might frame this one.
In case you need to be taunted, here’s the gift package.
The Gryffindor red and gold embroidered pouch containing the tales.
Gasping. The title page is beautiful. I love it.
Jo’s handwritten introduction.
The rest of the book looks like Cochin Wizard (?) to me. (That’s a font.) It’s awesome. Cute metal clasp. There are more photos to come. Can’t talk now … reading.
UPDATE
Opening the box from Amazon.
This side up.
The Tales cover.
The book also smells good.
Marbled end papers.
The title page. Still gorgeous every time I open the book. Loving this present.
Farmstead Wines announced a photo contest recently and there are still prizes left.
Post a photo to Twitter, TwitPic, Flickr wearing your Farmstead button or drinking a bottle of Farmstead wine. Really, even if there are no prizes left, wear your button, drink the wine. It will change your life (or at least your opinion of good wine).
Quote: Vinaroon: Wine is grown, not made