Dark Summit by Nick Heil

I am obsessed with like three things: Joan Didion, athletes who dope, and Mt. Everest. And Lebron. So four things. I know a few people who are obsessed/fascinated with the highest mountain on Earth, many who have read John Krakauer's first-person account of the 1996 tragedy that killed eight.

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In Conclusion, Don't Worry About It by Lauren Graham

This review will be very short as the book itself is ridiculously short. I read it in two, twenty-minute bath sessions. I didn't entirely know it was more of a 'Hallmark' book before adding it to my wish list but I did know it was an expanded version of the commencement speech she gave at her high school (Langley High) in 2017, so I sort of expected it to be shorter and a tad cheesy. I almost decided it wasn't really the type of book we'd normally review on this blog, but thought I'd better in case any of you were half expecting more of a novel like I was.

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Brown & Dickson's Fall Reading List

We thought you may be tired of hearing from us Megs, so we invited bookselling couple Jason Dickson and Vanessa Brown (of London, Ontario's lovely antiquarian bookstore Brown & Dickson) to provide you with some wildly different recommendations on their fall reading list. I know we're off to spend the weekend hunting a few of these down ourselves now...

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Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

I have always found it more difficult to write reviews for fiction books than non-fiction, and Elizabeth Strout's Oliver Kitteridge is no exception. I did enjoy reading this book but have been slow to review it, so here goes my best effort:

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The Children Act by Ian McEwan

Let me preface this entire review by saying this was my favourite read of the year so far. It is so, so, so good. If you'll remember, I ordered this on a whim after researching the story for our post on last year's TIFF adaptations. I'd read McEwan's On Chesil Beach and didn't love it (although I do think I was too young for the content and now desperately want to go back), but figured I would give this a try because I loved the premise. If you follow the blog regularly you know I've been feeling pretty 'meh' about the last few books I've read and this was the perfect piece of fiction I needed to get me excited about reading again. I loved the story but I also surprisingly loved McEwan's detailed and sophisticated writing style. For those of you who aren't huge readers, the movie adaptation is soon to hit theatres so it's your lucky day.

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Our 2018 TIFF Experience

Collectively this is our fourth year going to TIFF as a threesome. It is the vacation we look forward to all year so we thought we would do a similar post to last year's where we give a breakdown of each movie we saw and our thoughts on TIFF 2018 in general! Basically we spend a whole weekend sitting in lines, watching movies, and eating food... who needs Italy? TIFF runs right through until the 16th so there's still plenty of time if you want to check it out.

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Book Adaptations at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival

This is one of our favourite posts to write because we use these books to start padding our Christmas lists. We've compiled all the books that are being adapted at the Toronto International Film Festival which starts today and runs until September 16th. If you've read our past posts, TIFF is a festival we hate to love, but we always go opening weekend with Meagan's mom and it's a highlight of our year. If any of these are interesting to you, some tickets may still be available. If you can't get tickets (which is not uncommon with their awful system) you can always go stand on the street while the movies open and just stalk celebs.

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The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

I am pretty sure I bought this book while I was reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. Nothing like a +1,000-paged book to make you want to buy another one apparently. I remember going to the bookstore and having absolutely no idea what I was in for size wise. They only had one copy in store and I was shocked by how massive it was. I was also thrilled that the forward was written by Dave Eggers, and even more happy that JOAN DIDION (love of my life) was on the cover singing Mailer's praises. There was a lot of initial excitement, but it didn't last long once I started reading.

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Smart Women by Judy Blume

In case you haven't figured it out just yet, I love Judy Blume. I loved all of her young adult fiction throughout my teens and then was pleasantly surprised to learn she wrote some adult fiction as well as I got older. My absolute favourite is Summer Sisters (which you can read more about here). My parents got me this one for Christmas back in 2016 and I only just got around to reading it. While it wasn't a life-changing piece of fiction for me the way Summer Sisters was, I did really enjoy it and think it seemed to have an incredibly accurate finger on the pulse of complex adult relationships (not that I'd know anything about those).

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Through the Shadowlands by Julie Rehmeyer

Meg and I have this thing where we love to obsess over a topic and then read every book we can find on it. We have been obsessed with survivalist strategies, sperm whales, Mount Everest, and the Navy SEALs. And so I decided to give medical memoirs a go. I mean who doesn't love to be the most knowledgeable layperson about a bizarre illness? 

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The Stars are Fire by Anita Shreve

Let me start this review by saying that while I love Anita Shreve (there's a whole author review on her here), this was one of my least favourite of her books that I've read. It's also her most recent. My Aunt and Uncle got it for me for Christmas last year and I was so excited to read it because it sounded like it was about a family torn apart by a wildfire. And it was, in a sense, but it's also got more of an Enough / Sleeping with the Enemy Vibe that the characters and time period just didn't lend themselves to in my opinion. It was also incredibly slow.

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Surviving the Heat: 10 Books for the Beach

We get a lot of good reading done at the beach. It's socially acceptable to pull your book out at a beach, even in a large group, and ignore everyone for hours on end without seeming rude (this is the best part of beach reading next to being able to use your book to hide your gut or block the sun from your face). We've pulled together 10 of our favourite beach reads for you guys today to help you soak up the last bit of summer.

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