Hello everyone,
Firstly, thank you so much for patiently waiting out our radio silence. We’ve both been busy working on our new books. Vanessa has been at home writing the Great Canadian Novel. Jason has been in Toronto researching the Great Canadian Non-Fiction book. We’ve turned over the New Arrivals sections on the website weekly but haven’t had a chance to craft our cheeky emails. Please know we feel this absence too. Not having a weekly outlet to write silly and smart things on the Internet leaves us feeling cold. Who would have known that materializing four or five paragraphs of seductive, book-collecting focused prose would fulfill a desire in our hearts? This may be why Jason softly mutters cataloguing details in his sleep. In dulcet tones he relays the pagination of hand-press era titles. “Lacking map between pages iv-v,” he dreams, melancholically, “all other maps present.” Vanessa, silent in her c-pap machine, pats his head comfortingly. See, we even work at night.
We’ve also been busy preparing for this weekend’s big party: the Home County Music & Art Festival!
Guess what? WE’RE GOING TO HAVE A BOOTH THERE! Our friends at the Friends of the Public Library Bookstore and Bread and Roses Books have partnered up with us to bring a mini Book Row to what is easily the best festival of the season. All three of us will be bringing our signature style to a 20 FOOT TENT FULL OF BOOKS! Remember when we used to have a booth at Home County? Remember how awesome that was? Well now we’ll be there IN A BIGGER TENT WITH TWO OTHER AMAZING BOOKSHOPS PARTYING LIKE IT’S 2019! Remember 2019? NEITHER DO WE! So let’s bring back some of that magic. Not the year that it rained so much that like 100 books were drenched. But that other year that we all sat in lawn chairs beneath our living room lamp in the middle of Vic Park and snuck whiskey in a flask, thinking, “Fortune favours the bold.”
Additionally, we are also COMPLETELY STOKED to announce the launch of our first bookshop book, the incredible, remarkably titled BIG DUMB BRAIN by superstellar London zinester and comic artist Sammy Orlowski. Sammy has sold us zines for years and they always sold really well at the shop. She NEEDS A BOOK. It’s so obvious to us. So we all made one together. This is a collection of her zines and has a cover and is stapled and is in colour and everything. IT EVEN HAS AN ISBN NUMBER! Sammy is excited. We are excited. The dogs are excited, although for food not zines. Even the book is excited, as it leaps from the table into the hands of eager buyers desperate for contemporary humour in boss style. Sammy will be at our Home County booth this Saturday from 12pm to 2pm signing this beautiful thing so COME AND SAY HELLO!
So we think that brings us all up to date. To recap: 1. radio silence explained, 2. Home County this weekend, 3. SAMMY’S NEW BOOK!
Be well friends. Crawl our of your houses this weekend if you can. This is the least of the crazy festivals. We hope to see you there.
With love,
Jason and Vanessa
