Motherhood by Sheila Heti

I always check out "best of the year" write ups when it comes to books, and then make a list of the ones I would be interested in reading myself. Sheila Heti's Motherhood happened to be on the New York Times Magazine list last year (published in May 2018) and I decided to buy it after working on our 10 Books About Motherhood list. Motherhood is something all women think about, myself included, and I was really drawn to a book whose central purpose is to weigh the pros and cons.

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Bachelor Nation: Inside the World of America's Favourite Guilty Pleasure by Amy Kaufman

ANOTHER BACHELOR BOOK? I know, I know, but after reading Most Dramatic Ever at the end of the summer I just felt like I had no other choice than to read this one as well and really kill all my brain cells at once with useless facts about a dumb reality show THAT I LOVE. I got this book for Christmas last year and was curious how it would stack up against Showler's pop culture analysis.

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2019 Holiday Gift Guide

Based on popular demand (relative to this blog, lol) we've moved this list up to November to accommodate early shoppers. We love making this list to help people shop for people who are notoriously hard to shop for, the teachers and mother-in-laws, and new boyfriends that you're not sure if you're supposed to get a gift for or not. We really don't think there are any better gifts than books. There's some really fun stuff on the list this year, and a few we're both hoping may be wrapped under the tree for ourselves.

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Dead Girls by Alice Bolin

I picked this book up because I've been trying to be more conscious of all the "dead women" media I take in every year. I don't read a lot of thrillers but I do consume A LOT of television and a lot of it involves crimes against women. I was obsessed with the first season of True Detective, I was deeply disturbed by Sharp Objects, and I eagerly await new seasons of Mindhunter, Top of the Lake, and Westworld. I read an interview with the author (Alice Bolin) and thought it would be interesting to learn more about why so many people (myself included) find these stories so compelling.

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I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

This has been sitting on my shelf for a number of years and I felt really inspired to read it after reading Sister Mother Husband Dog by Nora Ephron's sister Delia earlier this year.  I've read other books by Nora Ephron before and I have to say, I wasn't a big fan of this book. I found the content to be pretty superficial and boring.

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Ru by Kim Thuy

Dear friend of the blog ASHLEY RYAN bought me this book. How incredibly sweet of her. I didn't know anything about Kim Thuy and I honestly had never heard of Ru, even though it won the Canada Reads competition in 2015. Ru is only 152 pages and I flew through it. I'm glad Ashley got me it so I could give it a try!

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10 of Our Favourite Big Books

Long books are truly one of the greatest art forms we have. There are few things as impressive than authors who can tell such meaningful stories (fiction or nonfiction) over hundreds and hundreds of pages. The fact that we pick these books up and don't put them down until we've finished them weeks (and often months) later is a testament to how strong their writing is. Here are some of our favourites!

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Most Dramatic Ever: The Bachelor by Suzannah Showler

Hi I'm Meagan and I'm addicted to The Bachelor. Not just The Bachelor, but the entire franchise. I started watching in the Trista Sutter era (likely before I should have been, thanks mom) and haven't missed a season since. A friend of mine from high school recommended this on Instagram and I ordered it almost immediately. It's a cultural analysis of my favourite show and the only thing could come closer to my dream of a book would be if Chuck Klosterman had written it.

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Every Love Story is a Ghost Story by D. T. Max

The last author biography I read was The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion by Tracy Daugherty. I remember thinking it was both dull and dense but when you're captivated by someone you'll take whatever you can get to learn more about them. I have read all of Didion's bibliography, as well as all of Jonathan Franzen's - another author I bought a biography of. I have only read a few of David Foster Wallace's works (Infinite Jest, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Girl With Curious Hair) but even though I read the least amount of his work I'm still fascinated by him as a person. Another Wallace enthusiast recommended I check out Wallace's biography Every Love Story is a Ghost Story by D.T. Max and so here we are.

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Our 2019 TIFF Experience

TIFF is our favourite time of the year, because unlike the other times Meg flies to Ontario so we can watch movies together, for TIFF we don't feel like as big of losers telling other people that's what she came here for. It's exciting! King Street is alive, there is music and food trucks and celebrities. And there is something so cool about seeing movies for the first time, often before they have trailers and posters, watching alongside the directors in the audience. We think you'll like most of the movies we saw this year, and a lot of them will be available to watch publicly soon enough.

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Book Adaptations at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival

This is always one of our favourite lists of the year (and also the most time consuming) because it gets us hyped for the festival and helps us decide what we are/aren't interested in seeing. Sometimes we luck out and get to see one of these movies during the festival, but not always. What we love about this list is that if we don't get to see one we're excited about, we have time to go out and read the book before we get out next opportunity. Many of these movies don't get released until much later in the year so have a look and pick one up! Some TIFF tickets are still available so if one of these adaptations look interesting you can see what's left here.

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This Will Only Hurt a Little by Busy Philipps

I've always been a fan of Busy Philipps but I could never put my finger on why. She's always been annoying in everything I've seen her in. Having read this book I feel like I can finally articulate it: Philipps is a celebrity we all have a real chance of being. Her 'vibe', for lack of a less cringey word, feels mildly attainable to us nobodies.

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