The Keepin' It Real Book Club

We’re Moving!

JK — Mon, 03 May 2010 13:36:12 +0000

I promised a big announcement today, and here it is! After over a year and a half as a wordpress-hosted site, I thought it was time to graduate to kirbc.com for a little more freedom and flexibility. So go check out the new KIRBC! But prepare yourself . . . it’s like one of those extreme makeover shows where there’s a whole room of people waiting and they all go nuts when their newly coiffed and polished friend/family member emerges. People cheer, the elderly swoon, and children cry because they no longer recognize their mother . . . That’s basically the effect I’m going for.

I know, it’s a lot of excitement to start the week. But collect yourselves a moment. I was planning on having wordpress redirect traffic, but that seems to require some kind of black internet magic from which my new site might never return (if you’ve successfully gone from a wordpress.com to a wordpress.org custom site with a new domain, please do get in touch!). So until I make the requisite blood sacrifices, we’ll do this the old fashioned way: please update your bookmarks!

And never fear, though we’ve got a shiny new look, the Keepin’ It Real Book Club will continue to offer the same books reviews, meeting notes, and special projects that we always have, we’re just eliminated 9 letters from the URL so you can get to the goodness even faster.

KTR2010: Jen Knoch recommends Tales from Outer Suburbia

JK — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:33:45 +0000

Well friends, we have reached the finish line. It’s Day 30 of our month-long video marathon to Keep Toronto Reading, and after kicking off the whole shebang, I thought I’d finish what I started. No one had done a children’s book yet (if we don’t count Lindsey Reeder’s reco for a YA novel), so being a big fan of kidlit, I thought I’d give it a shot. It was really a no-brainer, and I decided to record a recommendation I’ve made countless times: Shaun Tan’s Tales from Outer Suburbia:

Now that we’ve take our last KTR bow, I want to offer my heartfelt thanks to everyone who put up with my pestering and contributed to making another one of my half-baked schemes a great success. I’d also like to give a huge shout-out to Ab at the Toronto Public Library, who supported our effort from day one.

We had a total of 32 videos submitted from 25 different publishing professionals, authors, and civilian book lovers alike, recommending a total of 35 books. Now it’s up to you all to go out in read them! Take them out from your local library branch (the TPL for our targeted Torontonians), or buy them at your local indie bookseller (find one with Indie Bound or the Canadian Booksellers Association), or, if you’re looking to buy a bundle (which I’m thinking is going to happen to me), online retailers are a good option. Since I’ve been linking through to Amazon.ca all along, I also built a handy little bookstore that has all the titles and who recommended them. You can shop it here.

As a final note, be sure to drop by on Monday for a big KIRBC announcement (not another campaign this time, or at least not yet), but it’s still exciting. Thanks for coming by, now go get reading!

KTR2010: Nikki Stafford recommends Geektastic

JK — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:37:01 +0000

We’ve hit the last day of our 30-day book bender in the name of Keep Toronto Reading and we’re going out with a bang with another two-video day. Today I have the pleasure of presenting TV guru and Lost expert Nikki Stafford, who right now is busy enough for two people, but took time out to record for us! I trust all of Nikki’s opinions on TV shows, and we also have remarkably similar taste in books, so I’ll be adding this one to the TBR right away. Nikki Stafford gives her stamp of approval to Geektastic edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci:

Nikki Stafford is the author of the acclaimed Finding Lost series of books, complete analytical episode companion guides to every episode of the series. Newsday has referred to Nikki as “one of the show’s leading scholars,” Entertainment Weekly called Nikki a “top-notch” Lost blogger, and superfan DocArzt wrote, “The Finding Lost series is quite simply the best resource for fans.” She has also written companion guides to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alias, Angel, and Xena: Warrior Princess. Nikki blogs regularly on her site, Nik at Nite and has conducted a complete Lost rewatch at lost-rewatch.blogspot.com. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.

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Stay tuned after lunch for our last video of the campaign!