we've been bad
b4b#41 – October 6:
b4b#40 – September 29:
b4b#32 – August 4:
b4b#31 – July 28:
b4b#30 – July 21:
b4b#29 – July 14:
b4b#28 – July 7:
b4b#27 – June 30:
b4b#26 – June 23:
b4b#25 – June 16:
b4b#24 – June 9:
b4b#23 – June 2:
Today on the show we announced the winner of our First Lines contest (Peter Demakos!), and read from the top 5 submissions with the help of special guest host Judge Roberts. Judge (Michael) Roberts also reviewed the book 1989: Bob Dylan Didn't Have This To Sing About, Dan spoke about David Adams Richards' Incidents In The Life Of Markus Paul, and Kelly talked about the new Elizabeth Hay book Alone In The Classroom. Dan talked about the devoted young readers that he found at his fun trip to the OLA Forest of Reading awards, and Peter spent the show trying to throw people off topic (and also brought in a bookmobile testimonial; more next week!). The show also featured Miriam Toews reading the first chapter of her new book, Irma Voth! Enjoy.
Hear Here:
The Music:
Andrew Vincent & The Pirates – Bahamas
Greenfield Main – Matilda
Cass McCombs – Buried Alive
Nick Hornby & Ben Folds – Doc Pomus
One Hundred Dollars – Where The Sparrows Drop
Chad Vangaalen – Wandering Spirits
Echocentrics – Crescent Sun
Matana Roberts – Kersalia
Cave – Gamm
Today's Kelly-less show featured an interview with Miriam Toews, a review of the Selected Works of T.S Spivet, promises to read more short stories, and a chat about the history of the bookmobile with one of the drivers. Take a listen!
Hear Here:
The Music:
Fanfare Pourpour – Sujet a Changement
El Rego – E Nan Mian Nuku
Echocentrics – Down Under
Cass McCombs – Pleasant Shadow Song
Burning Hell – Stroke of Genius
Greenfield Main – I’ll Take A Chance
Jennifer Castle – Misguided
Andrew Vincent and the Pirates – Straight Outta Hoboken
Noah23 – Nuts
Hear Here:
The List:
Eric Martin and Stephen Elliot’s Donald
the ups and downs of the infamous McSweeney’s box
Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys
Norton Juster’s the Phantom Tollbooth
“Dystopia Reading”
Fiona Smyth’s the Never Weres
the non-fiction imprint: Signal (feat. Atwood, Hitchens, and Stein)
the Donner Prize for books on public policy
Doug Saunders’ A Rival City (winner of the Donner Prize)
Margaret Atwood’s the Tent
Howe Gelb / Giant Sand
William Saroyan’s Our Friends the Mice
Miriam Toews’ Irma Voth
Stop Smiling – once magazine, now press
Listen to the Echoes and How to Wreck a Nice Beach
The Music:
Irma Thomas – I Gave You Everything
Bob Moore and the Temps – Braggin’
Howe Gelb – Worried Spirits
Giant Sand – Ride The Rail
Cass McCombs – Hermit’s Cave
Antoine Berthiaume – Solstice et Reglisse…
Jennifer Castle – Poor As Him
Fanfare Pourpour – Le Rompie
Howe Gelb & Band of Gypsies – The Ballad of Lole y Manuel
Jennifer Castle – Neverride
On this hodgepodge episode of Books For Breakfast, we stepped on to the bookmobile at St Joseph's Health Center to talk to the driver and some patrons, considered what David Byrne was talking about in his book Arboretum (where he suggests the name of a future music genre: Hard Cheeze), and talk about some recent awards. Oh, and we also bring up our first lines contest. Enjoy!
Hear Here:
What We Heard:
Fanfare Pourpour – Willi Grosse Baleine
Black Moth Super Rainbow – Born on a Day The Sun Didn’t Rise
Ocote Soul Sounds – Vendedo Saude E Fe
Jennifer Castle – Remembering
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Can’t Hear My Eyes
Doug Paisley – No One But You
No Gold – Miami
Fanfare Pourpour – Un Souvenir
A special show today, with Montreal's Elfin Saddle joining us in the studio to talk books, perform a few songs, and discuss their film Wurld. We also reviewed some books, took a call about first lines, talked about women in comics with Amy Chop, and recapped some book news from Canadian lit-land.
Hear Here:
What We Heard:
Jay Crocker – I’ve Just Destroyed The World
Magic – Door to Door
Raggmopp – Copper Kettle
Tuneyards – You Yes You
Daniel Romano – Time Forgot to Change My Heart
Elfin Saddle – A bunch of songs, in studio!
Gastr Del Sol – The Season Reverse
Islands – Jogging Gorgeous Summer
Today we heard two testimonials from the Guelph community: one from Anne Mackay, who told us how Winnie the Pooh helps her cope with a stressful schedule, and one from Nicky Dread, who gave us a litany of reasons why Guelph should absolutely NOT cancel its Bookmobile service. We revisited our "first lines showdown" from last week, pitting three Paul Auster first lines against one another. This is to advertise our new contest; visit our contest page and send us your first lines by April 30th to win book prizes! Dan brought us up to date on Poetry Month and the awards that are being shortlisted as we speak. Finally, we did some 60 Second Reviews, with Sarah Manguso's memoir, Two Kinds of Decay, and Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals.
Hear Here:
We talked about:
Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics
Andre Aciman’s “Eight White Nights”
Sarah Wheeler’s “The Magnetic North”
McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #18
Ed. John Metcalf – “How Stories Mean”, particularly the essay “To Begin, To Begin” by Clark Blaise
Paul Auster (and his opening line mastery)
The Guelph Arts Council
A.A Milne – Winnie The Pooh
National Poetry Month, The League of Canadian Poets and the Gerald Lampert and Pat Lowther Awards
Karen Houle’s During
Griffin Prize for Poetry
Colm Toibin (Col-um Toy-bean)
Azeda Booth and Jordan’s side project:Free Nude Celebs
Canada Council Hiring Bookbinder
Book “Hoarding”
Remaindering Books
Jesse Ball’s “The Disastrous Tale of Vera and Linus”
And we listened to some songs:
Betty Everett – 1900 Yesterday
Eddie Bo – The Thang (pt 2)
Bill “Butterbean” Flippo – Love Keeps Hanging On
Aloe Blacc – Femme Fatale
Talles Man On Earth – I Will Follow The Rain
Colin Stetson – Judges (remix)
Azeda Booth – Pink & Lime
Free Nude Celebs – Throne of Blood
Mickey & The Soul Generation – UFO
Rufus Harley – This Little Light of Mine
Timber Timbre – Bad Ritual
This week on Books for Breakfast, we continued our campaign to save the Guelph Bookmobile by sitting down for an interview with Chief Librarian Kitty Pope. She liked us (and our campaign) so much that she invited us to ride along in the Bookmobile as it makes its rounds - so look for that piece in the near future! We also reannounced our new contest: a contest to write the first line of a story. We talked about what makes a good first line and Kelly and Dan had a "first line off." Points were awarded after comparing two first lines. This competition was judiciously judged by Peter, who jumped in unexpectedly with his own first line in the last round and ensured that everyone earned a point. We introduced a new segment called "60 Second Reviews" and each tried our hand at reveiwing a book in just one minute (How to Write a Sentence, Late Nights on Air, the Curfew). We played Peter's LP game and heard some great music. It was an action-packed morning and you can catch it all by clicking on the links below.
Hear here:
Today we talk about:
Soseki Natsume’s “I am a Cat”
Anthropomorphizing Animals
Andrea & Carolyn Beck – “The Waiting Dog”
Paul Auster’s “Timbuktu”
Bob Wiseman @ the Musagetes Event: 1Mile2
Mary Mattingly
1970s Sci-Fi Novels
Bookmobile is in jeopardy
Kitty Pope & the GPL
Library Design
Alexandria Library
Coming Soon: Bumble-Ardy by Maurice Sendak
Also Coming Soon: The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories by Dr Seuss
Posthumous Vonnegut
Jean Auel “The Land of the Painted Caves”
I woke up in Boone, North Carolina…” Winners
Clark Blaise
What does “Frangible” mean?
We held duels between first sentences in stories by Stephen Chbosky, AJ Somerset, Nicole Krauss, Stefan Zweig, JM Coetzee, and Paul Auster.
Stanley Fish “How To Write a Sentence”
And we did 60 second reviews of Elizabeth Hay‘s Late Nights on Air and Jesse Ball‘s The Curfew. We’ll write those up sometime soon.
And we heard some songs:
Bob Wiseman – The Henry Moore Room
Daniel, Fred, and Julie – No One Knew My Name
Caleb Klauder – Satisfied Mind
Chain & the Gang – Youth Is Wasted on the Young
Tuneyards – Doorstep
White Wires – Goodbye Girl
Women – Grey Skies
Bruce Peninsula / Muskox – Shanty Song
Alela Diane – Long Way Down
On this edition of Books for Breakfast, we take a look at some books boldly told from the perspective of an animal narrator. We've all heard from critters in kids books, but we take on some stories for adults too. Specifically, we read Garth Stein, James Agee, Paul Auster, Roald Dahl, Natsume Soseki, Franz Kafka, and try to measure their success in channeling the voice of animals while also asking... why bother? Finally, we launched our new contest, asking you to write a solid-gold first line for us! Details over on the contest page. Thanks to the winner of our previous contest, Michael Roberts, for joining us for the second half of the show.
Hear Here:
The stuff that we talk about:
Timber Timbre
Noon Annual
Writers From the American South
Amy Hempel – The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
Mark Kurlansky and his new eco-book for kids, World Without Fish
Google’s E-book Scheme Denied
Guelph’s Bookmobile: It should Stay
Jacques Derrida
Paul Auster – Timbuktu
Natsume Soseki – I Am A Cat
Garth Stein – The Art Of Racing In the Rain
Franz Kafka – Report For An Academy
James Agee – A Mother’s Tale
Roald Dahl – Fantastic Mr Fox
Maurice Sendak – Where The Wild Things Are (or, the one by Dave Eggers)
The songs that we play:
Brad Suggs & Orchestra – Elephant Walk
Timber Timbre – Lonesome Hunter
Timber Timbre – Do I Have Power
Doug Paisley – Bluebird
Raveonettes – Noisy Summer
Roscoe & Friends – Barnyard Soul
Neko Case – I’m An Animal
Eiyn Sof – Deer in A Tiger’s Disguise
Psapp – Everybody Wants to Be A cat
Eamon McGrath – I am The Deer
RL Burnside – Just Like A Bird Without A Feather
