happy new year. we are super happy to report that there are two nights with nazneen sheikh in january: the 25th and the 26th. while the 25th has been sold out for some time, there are still tickets available for january 26th at public kitchen. click here to buy a ticket (or two)!
see you at the end of the month.
we are thrilled with the response to our evening with nazneen sheikh on january 25th. it is now sold out but we are considering a second evening on january 26th, if there is sufficient interest. send us a message!
nazneen sheikh, author of "the place of shining light", will join us at public kitchen on monday january 25th. for tickets, tickets go to the join us page .
once you have your ticket, head on down to wordsworth (don't let a little road construction get in your way!), pick up your book (and maybe a few christmas gifts at the same time) then snuggle in to read during the holidays.
Three men race against time to take possession of a sacred 5,000-year-old Buddhist sculpture: Khalid, a leading Pakistani antiquities dealer, arranges for the illegal importation of the statue from neighbouring Afghanistan. Ghalib, a wealthy art collector with political aspirations, has purchased the statue for his private collection. Adeel, a highly recommended ex-military officer, is hired by Khalid to transport the sculpture to its final destination.
When Adeel first views the statue in a cave in Bamiyan — known as “the place of shining light” — he has a profound spiritual reaction and decides to steal the sculpture for himself. When Khalid and Ghalib realize their prized possession is missing, they conspire to do whatever it takes to have it returned — before it’s lost forever.
Taking readers on a wild journey from the valleys of Afghanistan, to the magical mountain kingdoms of Northern Pakistan, and the diplomatic enclaves of Islamabad, The Place of Shining Light is a riveting and timely story of art, war, greed, and spirituality.
to celebrate our first year as a club, we're teaming up with our friends at the new quarterly literary magazine for a special night of great food, great literature and great people to support a local literary endeavour, the wild writers literary festival. on friday november 6th, we hope you'll join us for dinner, wine and a special talk with two award-winning authors at the balsillie school.
here's the deal. with your ticket you get:
tickets go on sale on the "join us" page of this website on october 1
Don Gillmor's brilliant new novel, Long Change, examines the world of oil through the life and loves of one man; both stories are epic.
Fleeing his violent, Pentecostal father, as well as a crime he committed in the parking lot of the first bar he ever entered, Ritt Devlin leaves Texas at fifteen, crossing the border into Alberta. Big for his age, he soon finds work on an oil rig on the outskirts of Medicine Hat. But that's not the life he wants, and he saves up to study geology. By the time he's in his early twenties he's the head of his own oil company.
Spanning almost seventy years, and following the geology and politics of oil from Texas to the Canadian oil patch, to Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Azerbaijan, various political capitals, and the Arctic, Long Change is divided into three parts, each of them framed by one of Ritt's marriages. The first, to his great love, Oda, shows the beginnings of his company; that marriage is cut short when Oda dies of cancer while carrying their first child. His second wife is Deirdre, an elegant lawyer who helps Ritt expand Mackenzie Oil, but who needs more than business from her marriage. Then there is Alexa, a late middle age fling, a bad idea on both sides, in some ways as violent and delusional as the oil business.
The vision that drives Ritt throughout his life is to drill in pristine Arctic waters, and he pulls it off. But then comes the inevitable disaster. Ritt, now in his eighties, is not the man he was in any sense of the word. As he staggers away from the scene of the disaster, through the Arctic night, we know the dream of oil and of his own company is also burning in the night...
From multi-award winning author Nino Ricci comes a novel of harrowing emotional power and suspense, the story of one man’s descent into sleeplessness.
David Pace is a man who seems to have it all – a successful career as an almost-famous academic, a wife blessed with both beauty and brains, a young son and a lovely home. It is only when he comes down with a rare sleep disorder that the careful lies he has stitched together to form his perfect life begin to unravel. As sleep both haunts him and eludes him he descends into a twilight world that leaves his family in tatters and his career on the brink. Then he finds himself with a loaded gun in his hands, and all of a sudden he feels tantalizingly, gloriously awake.
Fuelled by a steady mix of pharmaceuticals, David’s desperate quest to get free of the fog his disorder has plunged him into pushes him towards the very extremes of human behaviour. As he takes ever greater risks and makes ever more destructive choices his sense of what is real and who he is and what he is capable of begins to slip terrifyingly out of reach.
both nights in september with helen humphreys are sold out. but keep your eye on this page for news about future events in the winter and the spring.
but there are still tickets available for september 29. same book. same author. same delicious food and cocktails at public. go to the join us page to get your ticket. they wont be there long!
we are so pleased to announce that Helen Humphreys will join us for two nights on september 28 and 29 to talk to us about her book, "the evening chorus". tickets will go on sale on the website in june so you can take this charming story with you to the beach, the cottage, the backyard ... your own best place to settle into a good book.
and what a night it was! we wound up year one of appetite for reading with christine fischer talking to us about her three-pronged inspiration for her book, umbrella mender. and then we were off with a free-ranging discussion about northern nurses, what made hazel tick, the ethics of removing native children from their communities in the 50s to treat TB and so much more.
it was a great note to end our first year. thanks to public kitchen for superb meals, wordsworth for the clever and inspired book choices, all of the authors who were so integral to the success of the evenings. and to all of our "members". it wouldn't be the same without you.
news of the next book and tickets going on sale will be on the website soon. keep watching. and happy summer reading.
we had a great evening last night with Christine Fischer Guy hearing about the "path through the woods" and how it developed for her. The evening was all the richer for Christine's observations on history, geography and the social issues around treating natives for TB in the 1950s. And, again, great tapas, great conversation and great fun. thanks everyone. and especially thanks to christine.
we are thrilled to announce that both nights with Christine Fischer Guy are sold out. looking forward to seeing old friends and new at public in May.
and watch here for news on what the fall will hold! more authors. more great food. more delicious cocktails.