Last Leaves: One more book sale report

On Thursday I evaded the week's responsibilities and biked downtown to pick up warm-from-the-press copies of GreenTOpia: Towards a Sustainable Toronto (Coach House, 2007; I'm a contributor) and stopped by the St. Michael's College book sale. A smaller sale than the others, but still offering its own treats and treasures.

My special finds:

Gwendolyn MacEwen's The T.E. Lawrence Poems (Mosaic, 1982). The brilliance and beauty of MacEwen's poetry takes my breath away.

Former city councillor Jane Pitfield's Leaside (Natural Heritage Books, 2000: second edition). The writing is a little wooden, but this book seems thoroughly researched and is richly illustrated with archival images and addresses a part of Toronto often overlooked by other historians.

Jeffrey Miller's Toronto novel, Murder at Osgoode Hall (ECW, 2004). Chatty but amusing.

Charles Foran's The Story of my Life (So far) (Harper Collins, 1998), a Toronto-based memoir narrated as if by a young boy, and featuring the Don River and its ravine.

Also some books for pleasure reading and/or gifts, including David Larkin (with Julek Heller, Carolyn Scrace, Juan Wijngaard and Sarah Teale)'s Giants (Abrams, 1979), a classic illustrated anthropology and archaeology of the giants the authors suggest once strode the earth; Catherine Sheldrick Ross' Alice Munro: A Double Life (ECW, 1992); Beatrice Culleton's April Raintree (Pemmican, 1984); John Metcalf's edited anthology, The Bumper Book (ECW, 1986), a collection of essays about Canadian writing and publishing and a follow-up to Kicking Against the Pricks (1982), which reportedly raised a fuss when first published for its expose of Canadian literary politics.

And then I sped over to Ben McNally Books (366 Bay, a block or two south of Queen) and bought a copy of Mark Strand's New Selected Poems (Knopf, 2007). Strand is my favourite poet, period. Pity he's never written a word about Toronto.

And now, with the book sales ended and the season cooling as the sun turns away from the hemisphere, I turn inward. I've made considerable progress on the intellectual underpinnings of Imagining Toronto despite taking on too many other projects at the same time, and would like now to return to it on a more full-time basis with the aim of finishing it off as a coherent manuscript rather than simply whoring bits and pieces of it out to magazines and journals.

[Old books image by David Pritchard and used under the aegis of a Creative Commons license.]

Beware of Falling Leaves

Yesterday errands and a strong wind blew us downtown, where Peter and I spent a couple of hours at the Trinity College book sale (it's on until Tuesday in case you're interested in some good deals). Peter bought an armload of science fiction, and I picked up a few treasures, including:

Margaret Avison's Momentary Dark (McClelland & Stewart, 2006), the last collection of Avison's poems published before she died this past summer.

A collection of Diane Schoemperlen's stories, Red Plaid Shirt (Harper Perennian, 2002), which I'll look forward to reading in the bathtub as soon as I can afford an afternoon break from Toronto literature. Schoemperlen's stories are not only good; more importantly, they come across as true. Homey without being domestic, they interweave the mundane (recipes, photographs, trips to the A&P) with the meaningful (meditations on love, morality, finitude). I also like Schoemperlen's invocations of Kingston, a city I loved living in.

Austin Clarke's The Bigger Light (originally published in 1975; my copy a 1998 Vintage Canada trade paperback), the third volume of Clarke's 'Toronto Trilogy' interrogating the experiences of West Indian immigrants in Toronto and their impact on the city's culture. See also: The Meeting Point (1967) and Storm of Fortune (1971).

Charles Sauriol's Remembering the Don (Amethyst, 1981), a kind of episodic memoir of the river and the ravine.

Oh, and other books of course: Irving Layton's memoir, Waiting for the Messiah (McClelland & Stewart, 1985). Alden Nowlan's Bread, Wine and Salt (Clark Irwin, 1973; originally published 1967), an amusing (and sometimes perplexing) collection of his essays, Double Exposure (Brunswick Press, 1978), and An Exchange of Gifts: Poems New & Selected (Irwin, 1985). Jay Macpherson's Poems Twice Told (Oxford, 1981; a reprinting of The Boatman and Welcoming Disaster). Derek McCormack's The Haunted Hillbilly (ECW, 2003); a novel/writer whose alleged cult status I might believe in if not for the stylistic/grammatical errors marring the text. Rob Budde's The Dying Poem (Coach House, 2002), which looks really interesting: bombed out libraries, dismembered poets -- how can you go wrong? Also New Canadian Poetry (ed. A.F. Moritz; Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2000), a decent if brief overview/anthology of contemporary Canadian poetry. And, for good measure, Coles paperback editions of Catharine Parr Traill's The Backwoods of Canada (reprint of a volume originally published in 1836) and the diary of Elizabeth Graves Simcoe, circa 1792-1976 -- which I've long since tired of consulting in their electronic versions.

I have to admit that Trinity isn't my favourite book sale. It's usually appallingly crowded and busy with book scouts too busy chatting via cell with their dealers to get out of anyone else's way. Also far too many master's students loudly and self-consciously reviewing theorists they appear never to have read. As at University College, the gems are mixed in with a lot of trash (dated anthologies and multiple copies of the same title should not be taking up valuable real estate on the tables). The prices are higher than the other sales, as well as uneven: some decidedly third-rate poetry anthologies were marked at $6 while I picked up my copy of Avison's Momentary Dark for only $2. In its favour, Trinity has a great selection of Canadiana, lots of science fiction, and masses of history, military, philosophy and political science titles. For the most part they manage to weed out the marked-up textbooks. And the volunteers are helpful and efficient.

Biking toward home I was nearly run down by a well-dressed middle-aged woman plowing her late model black Mercedes through the intersection of Harbord and Spadina. Her approach to making the left turn was to play chicken with the pedestrians and other vehicles who actually had the right of way. Sadly, Peter and I failed to pull our usual box-phalanx formation in time and she got away with it despite coming close to crushing me under her left front tire.

But we had fun fighting the wind all the way home, stopping in at a great (tawdry, flashy, fun) Hallowe'en store at the Dufferin Mall to pick up a mask for Peter and a few costume bits for me for a party next weekend. Then back to work (still working on a long story about dwelling, homelessness and the im/permanence of objects ... set in Toronto, of course).

[Photo by Dan LaMee and used here under the aegis of a Creative Commons license.]

Pillage Report: Fall Book Sales

Ah, fall book sales, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Just as garage sale season ends, the University of Toronto holds its annual book sales. Here's my summation of the line-up.

Peter and I swung by the annual September Woodsworth College book sale on the last day this year and didn't pick up too much, but the Woodsworth sale is usually pretty good for Toronto poetry, popular paperback fiction (including genre novels set in Toronto) and signed first editions. While books are sorted into sections (philosophy, literature, etc.), they are not alphabetized and many good books never make it out of the boxes crammed in under the tables. A related problem is that not much effort is made to separate really good books from the chaff, meaning that browsing can be fatiguing and a little frustrating. A third problem is that the auditorium is not quite large enough to hold the bounty of books included in the sale. More diligent book sorting would solve all of these problems and would probably ultimately mean less work during the sale itself for Woodsworth's wonderful volunteers. I would also like to see more effort to separate Canadian literature and poetry, which deserves its own section(s).

I biked to the Victoria College Book Sale the day before Word on the Street and bought so many books the box barely fit onto my rack. The Vic sale is very well organized; while not really alphabetized, Canadian literature has its own section, and Canadian poetry is further categorized, making it easier to find Toronto titles. Prices are good (although not as good as at Woodsworth) and the halls are large enough to alleviate claustrophobia even among the crowds. Saturday morning seems to be the best time to hit this sale, as the opening night crowds have dispersed and the afternoon browsers are still having brunch somewhere else. A few of many special finds at the Vic sale:

• Stuart Ross' Wooden Rooster (Proper Tales Press, 1986).
• I am Watching (Anansi, 1973), a collection of poems by Shirley Gibson, apparently about the end of her marriage to Graeme Gibson. One might be forgiven for reading this collection alongside some of the stories in Margaret Atwood's Moral Disorder (2006).
  
• The Story So Far 3 (ed. David Young; Coach House, 1974), including a detective story of sorts by bpNichol, a picture of George Bowering looking suspiciously like Boy George and (among numerous other contributions) work by Matt Cohen and ... William S. Burroughs. A letter from Buckingham Palace rejecting a requested submission is included. Overall, a snapshot of Coach House (and local writing) circa 1974 which joins a bookshelf-length row of similar volumes I've picked up over the years. Neat stuff.
• Plush, selected poems by Sky Gilbert, Courtnay McFarlane, Jeffrey Conway, R.M. Vaughan and David Trinidad (Coach House, 1995; ed. Lynn Crosbie and Michael Holmes). An anthology I've wanted for quite a while but have never managed to pick up.
  
• Grammar of Dissent: Poetry and prose by Claire Harris, M. Nourbese Philip and Dionne Brand (Goose Lane Editions, 1994; ed. Carol Morrell). Interesting as a retrospective of these women's work on identity and exile.
  
• Kim Moritsugu's Old Flames (Porcupine's Quill, 1999), a Toronto novel and, if it's like Mortsugu's other work, a great fun read.
  
• Sylvia Fraser's The Candy Factory (McClelland & Stewart, 1975; my copy a mass market paperback reprinted by New American Library), a salacious novel set in what appears to be a fictional Hamilton.
  
• Sketches of Old Toronto (Frank N. Walker; Longmans, 1965).
• And at last, a hardcover copy of Hugh Garner's autobiography, One Damn Thing After Another (McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1973)

Yesterday I visited the University College book sale (which runs until Tuesday). Again a meticulously curated book sale with sections clearly distinguished and, in some cases, alphabetized. Prices are good here, too. The selection of poetry is quite limited (or was by the time I got there), but there was plenty of good Canadian literature, including new and old hardcover first editions, almost all priced under five dollars. Again I biked home in a high wind with a huge box acting as a sail. Some of yesterday's good finds:

• Raymond Souster's Selected Poems (Oberon, 1972). Okay, so I paid $8 for this in the 'special books' section. It's a great anthology concentrating (for a change) some of Souster's best work, and is highly evocative of Toronto represented across the decades referenced in the book. There's also a thoughtful essay by editor Michael Macklem, making this a good introduction to Souster's work up to the 1970s.
• Graeme Gibson's Communion (Anansi, 1971). I don't care for Gibson's work especially (Five Legs perplexed me so deeply in high school -- when I sought it out specifically because it was referenced in Atwood's Survival -- that I never went back to it), but this appears both interesting and strongly written. It's set in Toronto, and so goes onto the subway reading pile.
  
• A nice first edition copy of Morley Callaghan's Our Lady of the Snows (Macmillan, 1985)
  
• Barry Callaghan's Black Queen Stories (Lester & Orpen Dennys), likewise a nice hardcover (apparent) first edition.
  
• Poetry Toronto (Number 46, February 1988), a neat little photocopied magazine (an early zine, really, or a precursor to Word) including work by Rosemary Aubert (well-known author of Toronto-based thrillers) and a bunch of other people I've never heard of.
• Variable Cloudiness: New Poems by John Robert Colombo (Houndslow Press, 1977)
• Alana Wilcox's A Grammar of Endings (Mercury, 2000). A beautiful and haunting novel, but perhaps with a surfeit of metaphors. A good book to read alongside Stephen Marche's Raymond and Hannah.
  

And some neat other finds.

• I went through a large pile of the journal Canadian Literature and was pleased to find no. 22, with Louis Dudek's essay on Raymond Souster (one I've put off photocopying at the university library) and no. 35, a special edition on Wyndham Lewis.
  
• I also picked up an astonishing volume called The Urban Experience, part of a 'Themes in Canadian Literature' series (including other volumes such as The Maritime Experience and The Frontier Experience) published by Macmillan in 1975. The Urban Experience is an anthology of Canadian city writing, including Earle Birney's 'I Think You Are a Whole City' and Miriam Waddington's 'Toronto the Golden-Vaulted City' , as well as Toronto-focused work by Margaret Atwood, Hugh Garner and others. Other Canadian cities are represented here, too, but the unusual thing about this book is that it appeared at a time when Canadian writers were not widely acknowledged to write about cities. Indeed, neither Hal Niedviecki's Concrete Forest (1998) nor Downtown Canada: Writing Canadian Cities (2005) (both excellent books) references this much earlier anthology.

I also picked up Double Exposures (Coach House, 1984) a book of images and texts by one of my favourite non-Toronto-centric writers, Diane Schoemperlen; Patrick J. Kearney's A History of Erotic Literature (Macmillan London, 1982); artist Ronald Woodall's Magnificent Derelicts (J.J. Douglas, 1975), paintings of abandoned rural buildings; and Heather Robinson's A Terrible Beauty: The Art of Canada at War (James Lorimer, 1977). All in beautiful editions.

This coming weekend I'll be checking out the Trinity College book sale (October 19 to 23) which, if last year was any indication, will have a very good selection of Canadian poetry and literature. Last year I went on a very busy and crowded Sunday, but this year I think I'll go earlier. Right after that I'll visit the St. Michaels' College book sale (October 23 to 27), which I've never been to before.

After that it's a long wait until the Vanier College book sale at York University.