More Tim Hortons references - 2024 edition

I'm continually adding to my collection of literary references to Tim Hortons. You can find earlier collections here.

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Where the Falcon Flies: A 3,400 Kilometre Odyssey From My Doorstep to the Arctic by Adam Shoalts

    "I don't think I can round the point in these waves. I will have to wait for the wind to die down. Perhaps in the evening it will be calm enough for me to continue."
    Brad said that he had to take off, but that he might come back and bring me some Tim Hortons, if I were still around.
    I said I may or may not be, depending on what the wind brought.

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    I thanked them once more for all their help. When we parted ways, Tom and Eileen asked if I would object to their bringing me something from Tim Hortons. I had no objection at all. In the meantime, I took shelter under some oaks overlooking Burlington beach. It was only mid-afternoon, so I was reluctant to make camp, although given the grey skies and howling wind, it seemed unlikely that the waves would calm down enough to relaunch anytime soon.

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    At the post office, I was relieved to find my package was safe and sound, and I quickly emptied the precious contents into my depleted pack. Afterwards, knowing I'd soon experience hunger like never before, I treated myself to a grand feast in the form of a Tim Hortons brunch.
    Then, the sun shining on a fine morning, I picked my way along a trail leading north of town to a rough road under construction. There would be no cell service where I was headed, and my route was bound to become much lonelier and wilder.

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    Below the mountains and along the lakeshores were extensive alder swamps. Passing through these vast solitudes made a strange contrast with the crowded cities near the start of my journey, and when I camped in quiet woods or along deserted lakeshores, I'd reflect on how different it felt from when I'd slept, say, under the Burlington skyway. It seemed doubtful that anyone would bring me Tim Hortons now.   

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Winipek: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre by Niigaan Sinclair

    Wearing an orange shirt is a beginning, but four other harder and vital steps--requiring much time and resources--are necessary. These are: Listen. Learn. Commit. Act.
    [...]
    Now comes the really hard part: commitment. Commit to moral, social, cultural, legal and economic change. Justice. Commit to standing up to ignorance every time you encounter it. Commit to voting for leaders who can actually articulate what reconciliation looks like and--most important of all--have a plan to do it. Then, refuse to accept when attempts are made to renege on promises for things like pipelines and payoffs. Commit to talking about relationships with Indigenous Peoples in the community, the home and the workplace. I know a group of seniors who do this during every Tim Hortons visit. Read the treaties. Realize they are about the future, not the past. Recognize that they are not just words but a way of life.
    Then it's time to take the bravest step of all. Act. Fulfill this vision. Don't just be an ally, but live as one. Revisit the first three steps often. When you stumble--and you will--get up and start again.
    That's how we produce change in this place, our place, and the future can be seen here, in more places all the time. I hope I've helped you see that it can be where you are, too. Miigwech.

--from Closing Words: Life in the Centre

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Avalanche: Stories by Jessica Westhead

    I told Janine that I have been talking to Mustafa and she said he should be grateful because our troops over there keeping his family safe. In order to challenge her skewed preconceptions (but gently, so she wouldn't get offended), I pointed out that his family lives here, in Canada. She said well he's probably got a grandmother or grandfather over there, at least. I said yes maybe, but he hasn't told me about them yet.
    One day I brought Mustafa some Timbits. I got him an assortment including chocolate and sour-cream glazed and the birthday-cake kind with sprinkles and the apple-fritter ones my son used to love when he was little but suddenly he's off gluten so who knows anymore. Anyway, he's off at university now so he can eat what he wants, I don't care. All of his classes are online and he still moved away but it's his life and I hope he's happy with it. I slid the box underneath Mustafa's chair and instructed him in a playfully stern voice, "Don't you dare share those with anybody!"
    He said thank you in the nicest, softest way but he didn't reach for the box, so he must have excellent willpower because I would've opened it immediately and gobbled up at least two right off the bat, starting with the chocolate ones. Then I supposed he was probably holding off because he was wearing the face mask, so maybe he'd eat them on his break.

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Hair for Men by Michelle Winters

     I'd picked up a few valuable lessons in my time with them, most notably in the area of law enforcement; one thing I knew was how to spot an undercover cop. Hardcore shows were always getting busted for drugs, underage drinking, assault--you name it. Law enforcement was the enemy and was always nearby. Sometimes they tried to infiltrate, to find out about the parties going on afterward so they could bust them up, that kind of thing. Marko had told me the surest way to spot a cop was that they'd be asking questions. Once you're part of the scene, you don't ask; you just find out. Anyone skulking around wanting to know where the party was, we gave them the address of a Tim Hortons in Regent Park.

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     I drove through the night, seized every so often by waves of doubt, talking myself back through the events. I stopped three times at Tim Hortons for coffee but was too emotionally queasy to even consider one of their sensible ham and cheese sandwiches.

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Peacocks of Instagram by Deepa Rajagopalan

    When it's bright enough, we stop at a rest area for breakfast. I wake Akash and get him into his winter coat while he's still in the car seat. He smiles and says, "Are we there yet?" I say no and tickle his stomach. Inside the building, I contemplate the lines in front of Tim Hortons and Starbucks before choosing Tim Hortons--the line is longer, but they have six employees whereas Starbucks has only three. Tito has disappeared, and I am relieved. A cigarette will do more for this marriage right now than anything else.

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The Knowing by Tanya Talaga

    The voice on the radio declared they were known as school cars and schools on wheels. Trains that brought classrooms to children in the most isolated communities of northern Ontario. I was listening to the introduciton to an hour-long CBC Ideas feature on train schools, a program that would explore remote education, home schooling and nation building. 
    Home schooling? Nation building? Was this for real?
    My friend Alvin Fiddler, then Grand Chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation, and the leader that pushed for the inquest into the deaths of the seven,* had called to tell me about the radio doc. He'd been driving around in his truck in Thunder Bay after a Tim Hortons tea run when he heard the episode.
    He said, "You need to listen to this."

*see Talaga's Seven Fallen Feathers

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Buffalo Dreamer by Violet Duncan

    "Oh, good, you're up! I was just going to wake you," Mom says as she sips from a familiar red paper cup.
    "What?! Mom, you stopped at Timmy's?!" I ask, instantly wide awake.
    Timmy's is our favourite place to go when we drive through Canada, where I always get my favourite drink and treat. The thought of it makes my mouth drool.
    "Why didn't you wake me up?! I would have gotten--"
    "A frozen lemonade with a Boston cream donut," Mom answers, cutting me off mid-sentence. "You have them right there." She points at my cup holder and the paper bag by my feet.
    "Oh, thanks, Mom," I say, feeling a bit embarrassed. I reach for my drink and take a sip.
    "You had quite a nap," my mom says. "You were really out. And I could've sworn you were talking in Cree right before you woke up."
    "Weird, since I don't know any Cree. What did I say?"

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Real Ones by Katherena Vermette

    

"Want me to come get you later, bring you by?"
    "Oh, can't today. I have yoga later. And then I have to finish my knitting. Why don't you come get me tomorrow morning. You can drive me to the Friendship Centre. I've been making mittens and scarves for their program."
    I'm surprised, but only a little. "Okay, sure, what time?"
    "Come by nine. Bring me a double double? It has to be milk and the fake sugar, remember. Awful stuff but better than nothing."

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Age 16 by Rosena Fung

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The Gulf by Adam De Souza

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The Deluge by Stephen Markley

     

"Where you working these days?" you ask.
    "Over by the mall near Indian Ripple. It's a Tim Hortons. How 'bout you? You got a job, with all these collections people after you?"
     "Yeah, I got a job at a blood bank."
     "Blood bank? What you know about that?"
     You pretend you can't be bothered to explain.
--from Book 2. The Watch & the Blood Bank. 2025

     "My mom," you say to Andrade when you reach him. His eyes light up.
     "Such a pleasure," he says, taking your mother's hand in both of his and pumping it profusely. "I heard tell of you, but here you are in the flesh."
     "Least for now," says mom. "Day's not over yet."
     Most of your mother's comments these days are about dying. The reverend compliments your mother's outfit and asks if she'll be staying long.
     "Just until the evening. Got my shift at Hortons tomorrow morning.
--from Book 4. The Ghost and the Mask. 2036

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'Endowed' by Terese Mason Pierre, in The Journey Prize Stories: The Best of Canada's New Black Writers, volume 33

    Headlights turned the corner. Tre's beat-up Corolla swerved slightly as it headed toward Jerry. It jerked when it stopped. Jerry opened the passenger door and got in. "You're late."
    "There was a bomb ting by the Tim's, bro," Tre said as he turned onto Eglinton.
    Jerry rolled his eyes, but his lips twitched in a smile. Tre was his most loyal customer.

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Becoming a Matriarch by Helen Knott 

    Her petite frame didn't seem capable of pulling the heavy words into the room. Her lack of confidence hit me in the stomach. I watched the doctor retreat into her body as she greeted Mama. And then she asked Mama a question: "Before coming here, what did you think your illness could be?"
    There would be no joyous car ride home, and no dark jokes of what could have been, as we went through the Tim Hortons drive-thru. No singing along to songs on the radio as we sipped our creamy, sugared, caffeinated liquids.
    The "C" word tumbled out of Mama's mouth and the doctor nodded slowly to confirm her suspicions.

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Prairie Edge by Conor Kerr

 

  I had been crashing in my auntie's basement. A 1960s wood-panelled wannabe sex dungeon with mirrors in the weirdest places and blue-purple shag carpet. The carpet had stains that I didn't want to think about. My Auntie May had gotten clean in her early thirties. While doing that, she'd gone back to school and earned a nursing degree. And now, she worked with native kids who struggled with addiction. May put everything into the job. When she got home, usually late at night, she'd sit on the house's front steps for hours smoking cigarettes and drinking decaf double-doubles from Tim Hortons. Auntie always let me stay in her basement if I needed to.

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A History of Burning by Janika Oza

    A few weeks later, Hari was working at the kitchen table when Sol called him to come play. The sunlight through the window warmed his forearms, drawing his attention away from his textbook and toward the jungle of vines out back, the leaves of the sugar maple just blushing orange, and Hari had no trouble ditching the report he was supposed to be writing. 
    They met at the Tim Hortons by the park, where Sol ordered two double-doubles and a donut, slapping his change down on the counter before Hari could pay. 
    They hunched over their creamy coffees at a table shared with another family, whose kids were losing their minds, standing on the chairs, the parents switching between English and Vietnamese, so that Hari caught only snatches: Enough! Quiet! Hey!
    "Honey cruller?" Hari poked at the cracked icing, trying to make Sol laugh. "You know it's Boston creme or bust for me."
    "Fine," Sol said distractedly, waving the donut at the screeching kid next to him who grabbed for it with both hands.
    Hari watched as the kid scraped the icing off the cruller with his fingernails before looking up at his mother. The way his eyes sought her out reminded Hari of the last time his parents had come over.

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February 2022 Reading Stats and Booktube Video Links

Best of February:

Overall Best Book: Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre by Carole Boston Weatherford and Floyd Cooper (Picture Book)

Best Poetry: The Gospel of Breaking by Jillian Christmas (Canadian; LGBTQ)

Best Literary Fiction: Burntcoat by Sarah Hall

Best Graphic Novel Series: Descender Vol 1: Tin Stars by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen (Canadian)

Best Essays: 12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next by Jeanette Winterson (LGBTQ)

Best Indigenous Fiction: Home Waltz by GA Grisenthwaite (Canadian)

Best Indigenous Graphic Novel: Borders by Thomas King and Natasha Donovan (Canadian)

Best Indigenous YA: The Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley, audiobook read by Isabella Star LaBlanc

Best LGBTQ Memoir: Lost and Found by Kathryn Schulz, audiobook read by the author

Best Fiction Audiobook: The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton, read by a full cast

Best Nonfiction Audiobook: Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit, read by the author

Best Canadian Nonfiction: Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism and the Rise of Racist Nationalism by Harsha Walia, audiobook read by Cindy Kay 

Best Graphic Nonfiction: The Black Panther Party by David F Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson

Best Canadian Graphic Novel: Fictional Father by Joe Ollman 

Best Disability Own Voices: The Words In My Hands by Asphyxia (Deaf; LGBTQ)

Best Call to Action: What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition by Emma Dabiri, audiobook read by the author

Best Reread: Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan, translation by Noah Stollman (graphic novel)

Best Picture Books (3-way tie): The Rock from the Sky by Jon Klassen (Canadian); The Big Bath House by Kyo Maclear and Gracey Zhang (Canadian); Watercress by Andrea Wang and Jason Chin

Best LGBTQ PictureBook (French language): Anatole qui ne sechait jamais par Stephane Boulay et Agathe Bray-Bourret

My booktube videos this month:

Friday Reads February 4

Umbrella Academy Apocalypse Suite review

Ros and Lindy talk about graphic novels

Friday Reads February 11 

Birth Year Book Tag

Friday Reads February 18

Talking about the cookbook Baking with Dorie

AfriCanLit

Friday Reads February 25

Best LGBTQ Books in November

Here's part three of my picks from November's reads: all by queer authors. November's part one, audiobooks, can be found here. Part two, a lovely mixed bunch, can be found here.

Kimiko Does Cancer: A Graphic Memoir by Kimiko Tobimatsu and Keet Geniza

At 25, Kimiko Tobimatsu was diagnosed with mucinous breast cancer. This comic-format memoir documents her experience navigating the medical system in Canada as a queer woman of mixed ethnicity. Attitudes towards traditional markers of femininity, the emphasis on maintaining a positive outlook, flashy cancer fundraising campaigns, and work ethic while incapacitated by illness are just some of the issues thoughtfully explored. Appealing art by Keet Geniza is a perfect complement.

It probably doesn‘t help that I tie my masculinity—and, really, my value—to being able to provide for others. Whether it‘s running errands, baking or offering emotional support, I tend to focus on my output as the key way I affirm my butchness, dykeness, whatever you want to call it. This isn‘t sustainable post-cancer.

There‘s not a lot of writing out there on cancer and disability. Maybe because for those of us who are now cancer-free, the ongoing symptoms are after-effects (of surgery, radiation, meds), not the result of disease still being present. Or maybe it‘s because the mainstream cancer narrative is about overcoming adversity, not about experiencing ongoing disability.

Luckenbooth by Jenni Fagan

A bracing romp through the 20th century in Edinburgh, starting with arrival of the devil‘s daughter in 1910 and tying up the loose ends of her fate in 1999. There‘s a fascinating cast of mostly queer characters who, over the years, happen to live in the same building, folded into the history of the city and the larger world. A touch of horror, more than a few ghosts, and a large dollop of redemption. 

They say we are helpless, they say we are weak, they say we are nothing … they are liars!

— I didn‘t know poets were so well informed, Mr Burroughs.
— Don‘t trust poets unless they are scientists.

…films of novels make me uneasy. They‘re trying to steal words and put them into boxes. It‘s not where the worlds of novels are meant to be. My words exist in here you see, in my mind. Then they exist in your mind. Nobody else gets to see how they pass between us — it is a form of alchemy! Of all the art forms writing is the most intimate and strange.

His niece‘s set-up at Blossom‘s My Little Pony stables is highly elaborate. First off, Cupcake and Rosedust will bitch about Princess Sparkle. They‘ll talk about how disappointing she is. That she can‘t just be cheerful like them. They will cut her pony tail off. Write all over her stable in coloured pencil. They will steal her favourite things. Then they will trot off, very smug and happy with themselves.

I can verify now, thinking is the deepest act of transgression.

The Actual Star by Monica Byrne

Wow! Alternating between three timelines—Mayan civilization in 1012; Belize in 2012; and post environmental disaster 3012—this hefty, audacious novel tackles big ideas of how best to live on our planet. Monica Byrne‘s vision of a worldwide nomadic sex-positive society that evolves from climate refugees gives me hope. You may need patience for Kriol dialogue, Spanish, and invented future vocabulary that includes many terms for personal identity.

“What does entropy have to do with desire?”
“Well, as the universe comes apart, everything we desire will get farther and farther away. So we‘ll have to work harder to get it.”

18 December 3012
The human race has outgrown this way of life. Just like we outgrew monarchy and capitalism.

Birds are not birds; they are messengers.
This world is a world of deceptions.
This world is merely a representation of representations.
The star we see is not the actual star.

Field Study: Meditations on a Year at the Herbarium by Helen Humphreys

A balm for my soul. Helen Humphreys draws connections between plants and people in astute, quiet, poetic ways—seeking out the stories of collectors who contributed to the Fowler Herbarium in Kingston, Ontario, where she spent a year looking through over 140,000 specimens. This fascinating and contemplative literary work is the result. The book itself is beautifully designed and heavily illustrated: it would make a lovely gift.

This world is a world of disappearing species, but it is also still a world of wonder and beauty. And while we must all do more, and petition our governments to do more about the climate crisis, and not ignore the fact that humans are responsible for the destruction of species and habitat, we must also celebrate what is still here with a ferocious reverence.

A visit to the herbarium is an exquisite kind of time travel. And by learning more about the intersection of people and nature in the past, I hope to gain some understanding of where we can go from here.

The air was churning with coloured birds and the wheel of their songs.

Drawing is mostly looking, or an excuse to look long and hard at something. Francis Hallé, a botanist who also draws, says, “The extended time required for drawing amounts to a dialogue with the plant… Drawing represents the work of human thought.”

Just as I am drawn more to the character of some people, I also prefer the character of particular flowers, and in Queen Anne‘s lace, I prefer there to be space between the blooms and the umbrels, for the head of the flower to have an open appearance, the “lace” loose enough to see through to the field grasses below.

The observations that I have made of the natural world last in my mind because they were hard won. They were gained by hours and hours of watching or walking, hours and hours of looking but not entirely seeing, until the moment when some new piece of knowledge swam into consciousness. These moments of clarity are perhaps one of the greatest pleasures of being a sentient animal.

Raccoon by Daniel Heath Justice

Cherokee scholar Daniel Heath Justice‘s wonderful cultural history of raccoons joins 99 others in the growing Reaktion series, all of which focus on a single species. It‘s well-researched and lavishly illustrated. Rest assured that in the extensive chapter on etymology, the author has avoided including violent and degrading imagery that exemplifies the racist “coon” stereotype. Fun fact: gaze, nursery and mask are collective nouns for raccoons. My big takeaway, among the many things I learned, is the reason that raccoons are thriving: neophilia. They love new things, and so their curiosity makes them highly adaptable to our changing environment.

Even their physical characteristics seem designed to polarize: one observer sees adorable impishness in the black facial pelage, banded tail and hunched back, whereas a less generous viewer sees a masked cartoon criminal sneaking around in a striped prison uniform.

While Fes Parker‘s onscreen portrayals of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone both featured coonskin caps, there is little evidence that the historical personalities themselves wore the now-iconic headwear.

Given that the English word raccoon comes to us directly from the Powhatan arakun, the inclusion of Meeko the raccoon as a sidekick is one of the few legitimate nods to historical accuracy in Disney‘s Pocahontas. […](Pocahontas was a child when she briefly met Smith, she was later kidnapped by the English and subjected to sexual abuse, the English killed her Powhatan husband and her ‘marriage‘ to Rolfe was anything but consensual.)

We so often expect an animal to behave like a docile little human in a fur coat, and such expectations are rife with dangers for both species, although raccoons obviously get the worst of it.

The heaviest raccoon on record was a domesticated northern raccoon named Bandit, who weighed an astonishing 34 kg (75 lb) when he died in Pennsylvania in 2004.

it‘s really, really important to me that Rocket Raccoon … is not a cartoon character, it‘s not Bugs Bunny in the middle of The Avengers, it‘s a real, little, somewhat mangled beast that‘s alone. There‘s no one else in the universe quite like him, he‘s been created by these guys to be a mean-ass fighting machine.
—Director James Gunn

Injun by Jordan Abel

Listening to Jordan Abel read his work is an ideal way to grasp what he is doing with language in this award-winning poetry book. I had been impressed when I heard him perform his work previously, but on the printed page I was initially baffled. Abel's brilliance was gradually revealed to me as I read the included supplementary material, the sentences with the word injun pulled from 91 public domain novels, and then through rereading the poems several times. Words in these collage poems become increasingly fractured as the book progresses. It took me awhile to realize that Jordan Abel‘s deconstruction is a way to decolonize literature. You can view Abel reading from his work on YouTube.

lets play      injun
and clean ourselves
off the       land

Fairest: A Memoir by Meredith Talusan

A thought-provoking memoir of a non-white trans woman with albinism who moved from the Philippines to the USA when she was in her teens. A member of my feminist book club chose this because she is half Filipino and had never read anything by someone from the Philippines. It sparked one of our best discussions ever, because of its nuanced portrayal of appearance, passing and identity. Also, it really shows the way queer culture has changed over a few short decades.

I felt a pang then, my conscience, but the collective voices of my photo professors drowned it out, with stories of how Diane Arbus woke subjects up at sunrise to get them at their most vulnerable, how Nan Goldin took out the door to her bathroom so she could take pictures of people having sex or doing drugs, and how the French artist Sophie Calle even worked as a maid at a hotel just to take pictures of guests‘ private belongings.

Gender transition provided me with much greater freedom of expression, the ability to determine the forms of femininity I wanted to embody, instead of feeling like I had to negotiate every feminine accessory or mannerism with a strict gay church that constantly threatened to reject me. I would have probably been bakla had I stayed in the Philippines, remained in that more indeterminate space in a culture where that was possible.

Cosmoknights (Book 1) by Hannah Templer

Lesbian gladiators (and a lesbian mechanic) rescue princesses … in space. The first volume of this speculative fiction graphic novel is so much fun that I immediately went to queer cartoonist Hannah Templer‘s website to read Book 2 in webcomic format. Print release of Book 2 is scheduled for Fall 2022. Templer's site is here.

--Rough day, huh?
--They put me in a dress.

Note Kate's 'Trans Teen Beauty Queen' tattoo.

August 2021 Reading Roundup

I've highlighted ten favourites here, out of the 38 books that I read in August. If you are a fan of graphic novels, this post is for you, because five out of the ten are in comics format. Read on!

In. by Will McPhail

An introverted, self-centred cartoonist named Nick struggles to make authentic connections with the people around him. When he does, the graphite pencil art blooms into glorious watercolours; I rejoiced with every breakthrough. Nick's performance of life-as-he-believed-was-expected-of-him, plus full-page gags about pretentious coffee shops, kept me giggling, while family and relationship drama added a more serious undertone. This Scottish graphic novel is both funny and sad and I loved it.

I need a good bar to be sad in.

Cyclopedia Exotica by Aminder Dhaliwal

This book opens with pages laid out as if it‘s a reference encyclopedia, with pointed humour in the seemingly-dry entries. Example: “There were few job opportunities for Cyclopes beyond herding. Publishers turned away Cyclopean authors, while many popular Two-Eyed authors wrote stories featuring Cyclopean leads.” Afterwards, the content switches to slice-of-life comics panels following a diverse group of characters, some of them queer.

Cyclops have assimilated into Two-Eyes society, but their daily lives are a series of micro-aggressions and other challenges, in addition to quotidian joys. Representation versus exploitation in consumer marketing, is one example. This uplifting graphic novel presents a witty satire of external and internal prejudices faced by anyone who is different from the mainstream.

    Sometimes there‘s a story we tell ourselves and sometimes a story is told about us. Some parts of our story define us. But nuance and humanity is lost in the encyclopedias.

Menopause: A Comic Treatment edited by MK Czerwiec

This is excellent! Twenty-nine cartoonists with a wide variety of styles write about different aspects of menopause. I really appreciate the diversity because we don‘t all experience menopause the same way. Among the queer contingent of contributors are: Jennifer Camper, KC Councilor, Leslie Ewing, Ellen Forney, Keet Geniza, AK Summers and Kimiko Tobimatsu.

Delicates by Brenna Thummler

I didn‘t read the first graphic novel volume Sheets, about a middle school girl and her ghost friends, but I sure enjoyed this second volume. The topic of being bullied for being different versus being your own weird self is delicately handled, and a neurodiverse character is well portrayed. True friendship is precious. Expressive, colourful art. 

The Tea Dragon Tapestry by Kay O'Neill

Third in the gentle LGBTQ fantasy graphic novel Tea Dragon series from New Zealand, the characters are compassionate and the message of friendship and self worth is reassuring. “You are already whole.” Adorable comics for all ages.

Nature Poem by Tommy Pico

Tommy Pico‘s book-length poem embraces multiple identities—Indigenous, urban, queer—with a voice that‘s urgent, angry, sorrowful and intimate. Gay club culture, online dating apps and colonialism are just some of the topics addressed with wit and quicksilver mood changes. A quick read—75 pages—and so very approachable.

    oh, but you don‘t look very Indian is a thing ppl feel comfortable saying to me on dates.
    What rhymes with, fuck off and die?

    Mirrors love attention.
    Like everyone.

    Who even wants to go into space?
    I fucking hate traveling

    I don‘t like thinking abt nature bc nature makes me suspect there is a god.
[…]
    God wants everything, n I‘m like God—you, I‘m sorry, but you are too much of a time commitment. I have a work thing. It‘s not you, it‘s me.

Razorblade Tears by SA Cosby
Audiobook [12 hr] read by Adam Lazarre-White

“Folks like to talk about revenge like it‘s a righteous thing, but it‘s just hate in a nicer suit.” I agree 100% with this sentiment, voiced by one of the main characters, in an audiobook I loved—even though it's a violent action thriller about vigilante justice. What makes it so good? The character nuances and growth, the complexities of the issues explored—like racism, homophobia and transphobia, and the consequences that are suffered. Plus, it is wickedly funny.

    Ike spied a silver BMW in the rearview mirror, driven by a woman with the most severe I-want-to-speak-with-the-manager haircut he‘d ever seen. She zipped by them doing at least 30 mph, like she had some dalmatians in the trunk that she needed to make into a coat.

    His blond hair was slicked back with so much product, a fly would break its neck trying to land on it.

What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad
Audiobook [7 hr] read by Dion Graham

The gripping, devastating tale of a 9-year-old Syrian refugee, only survivor from a boatload of desperate people. His safety is not assured, even after washing up on a tourist beach on a Greek island. Alternating before and after chapters build empathy and suspense.

    Vänna could not help but think of ancestry as a kind of shackle one could never fully unclasp. An umbilical cord that, no matter how deeply cut, could never be severed.

    Every man you ever meet is nothing but the product of what was withheld from him, what he feels owed.

    “You‘ve got a storybook view of the world.”
    Maher shrugged. “Books are good for the soul,” he said. “Books will wean you off cruelty.”
    “And what will you be left with then?” Mohamed asked.

Farewell, My Orange by Kei Iwaki
Translated by Meredith McKinney

A slim, emotionally-affecting and hopeful novel told in the alternating viewpoints of two immigrants to Australia. Salimah is an African refugee with two young sons. Sayuri is the highly-educated wife of a Japanese academic. The two meet at an ESL class and become friends. This story held me spellbound and continued to disperse gloom even after I had finished reading it.

    Beneath a blue sky, learning to write under a great tree that sheltered her instead of a classroom roof. The first letters she had written with her finger in the sand. Letters that a man‘s feet had trampled. The land where she lived, her family, her friends—all taken from her. And after that, the simple prayer that she live another day to greet the sun again.

    While one lives in a foreign country, language‘s main function is as a means of self-protection and a weapon in one‘s fight with the world. You can‘t fight without a weapon. But perhaps it‘s human instinct that makes it even more imperative to somehow express oneself, convey meaning, connect with others.

The Promise by Damon Galgut

A dysfunctional white South African family gathers for four funerals over the course of three decades. I love the chatty authorial voice, which slips nimbly in close third-person from character to character within single paragraphs. Clever turns of phrase—ie describing a lady as “much in favour of perms and cardigans”—kept me smiling, while the deeper thread witnessing social and political change touched my heart. I would be very pleased to see this win the Booker prize, a couple of months from now (November 3, 2021).

    Will people feel sorry for her all day because her mother has become that word? She feels ugly when she cries, like a tomato breaking open, and thinks that she must get away, away from this horrible little room with its parquet floor and barking Maltese poodle and the eyes of her aunt and uncle sticking into her like nails.

    Her new faith, which she experiences as a kind of waterproof garment she's buttoned down over herself, doesn't stop her from acting on her fears and desires, but it provides a way of washing them off afterwards. She will receive her penance and the karmic clock will be reset again to zero and she will swear to the priest that she will follow his instructions, that this is the last, last time that she will ever stray, and she will deeply mean it.