This Ain’t the Rosedale Library to re-emerge

Despite the stifling heat and humidity, Book Madam Julie Wilson and Invisible Publishing’s Nic Boshart hosted an al fresco reading outside the troubled This Ain’t the Rosedale Library bookstore last night. Originally slated as a stop on Jeff Miller’s summer tour for Ghost Pine: All Stories True (Invisible Publishing), the reading became a celebration of the bookstore instead.

Besides Miller, who hails from Montreal, the readers included Joey Comeau and Liz Worth, both of Toronto, and Dave Roche of Kansas City. Listeners crowded around the concrete patio, sitting on benches and cross-legged on the ground. After the readings, each reader recounted how indie bookstores have affected their writing, and Charlie Huisken gave a This-Ain’t state-of-the-union: It’s “business as unusual.” Once he and his son and partner Jesse have extricated themselves from their current situation, he said, they can work on getting This Ain’t up and running again. He gave no details, but said the business will probably look quite different than it used to.

Bookmarks: The Advent Book Blog helps you shop, The National Post picks a shadow Canada Reads list, and more

• Richard Lea at the Guardian blog: If you can’t get Roth, Palin, or Rowling on the Kindle, what can you get?
• David Suzuki’s garbage gets combed through for incriminating Kraft Dinner boxes, and now archeologists are looking at what the Bard may have tossed away
• The L.A. Times picks their 25 favourite books of the year and actually selects some – gasp – poetry! That provoked a hearty booyah from this cubicle
• Web 2.0 marketing guru and Bookmadam Julie Wilson has teamed up with Books on the Radio‘s Sean Cranbury to offer the Advent Book Blog: Great Books Recommended by Great People
• Those funny book blog dudes at the National Post noted this year’s Canada Reads pics and wondered, what should Canada also read? Get your answers in by 5:00 p.m. this afternoon and maybe you’ll be able to participate in the alterna-reads version of the popular CBC book debate show

She’ll be seein’ ya: Julie Wilson ends Seen Reading

After almost three years, Julie Wilson, creator of the blog Seen Reading, has decided to end the popular literary voyeur project. For those unfamiliar with Seen Reading, Wilson spots people reading in public, notes the book and approximate page number, visits a bookstore to copy a short excerpt from the book, and then writes a blog entry with this information and a small piece of fiction about the reader’s life. Wilson announced yesterday that the site will continue as a personal blog, and as the home for her other lit projects.

During what she’s calling an “extended hiatus,” Wilson will work on a collection of microfiction loosely based on the more than 300 sightings she has collected on the site. The blog’s final entries will be posted on the week of August 3. Visit the blog for her full explanation on ending the project, and a story about her how her sightings have affected her views on reading.