I recently completed three booklists for library customers, part of a system-wide readers’ advisory project. The lists use good gender balance, and a strong representation of people of colour and…
Like many writers, especially those of us who grew up before the digital age, I keep a notebook. I use it to capture ideas, capture thoughts about I’m reading, take…
Here we are in the middle of a global pandemic, and I feel (to paraphrase my favourite baseball player) like the luckiest person on the face of the earth.* I’m…
An Antidote to COVID Boredom: Virtual Book Clubs As winter settles in on the North Island, and we continue social distancing to lessen the risks of contracting COVID-19, life can…
Homeschooling? Your Library Can Help One of the many ways COVID has changed our lives is an increased interest in homeschooling. Of course no parents want their children to be…
New E-Resources – and New Holl different areas – language learning, music, crafts, local history and culture, auto repair – and so much more. And like everything in your library,…
Catching up on my “At Your Library” column in one of our free local newspapers. September Is Literacy Month When you hear the word “literacy”, you might think of reading…
Taming the Tiger, 1998 Taming the Tiger is markedly different than Joni’s previous album, Turbulent Indigo. Where Turbulent Indigo is dark, intense, and enigmatic, and the lyrics largely topical, this…
Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor by Steven Greenhouse is exactly what the subtitle says: a history and analysis of the rise, decline, and…
When we were in Salt Spring Island, we went to the Saturday Market, and I instantly fell in love with this man’s work. Salt Spring artist Lorne Tippett uses wine-barrel…
We had a bit of excitement last week, and I realized I shared it only on Facebook. I’m sure wmtc readers want an answer to the burning question, What is…
Many well-known rock and pop musicians have died lately, including Helen Reddy, Eddie Van Halen, and Jerry Jeff Walker. More names will be coming fast and furiously as the icons…
I was very saddened to hear of the too-young death of Robert Fisk, veteran war journalist, author, and truth-teller. Fisk was often criticized for “politicizing” war reporting, or for not…
When I scroll through my ridiculously long book list, the name Frans de Waal appears again and again. I read reviews of his books, they sound appealing, they go on…
United States Vice Presidents After the positive result in the US election, so many of my fellow leftists refuse to find joy in the occasion. They seem determined to not…
During the pandemic shutdown, there were so many offers of interesting things to do online — cooking, crafting, indoor exercise, art classes, author readings, and on and on. I didn’t…
How to Move to Canada 1. Go here: Citizenship and Immigration Canada. 2. Read everything that might apply to you. Find out if you qualify, and what will be required…
To quote a headline I saw tonight, what should have been a landslide has turned into a nail-biter. No matter what the outcome of this election, we can clearly see…
This article was originally published by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative news organization based in Washington, D.C., from their excellent series “Barriers to the Ballot Box“. Analysis:…
