From the Bookery

The trip to St. John's, NL, this past weekend was most excellent. It was drizzly the first day, but that was a welcome change in the midst of the heatwave persisting back in Halifax. My previous visit to Newfoundland was toward the end of a summer-long bike tour in 2001 and a much less relaxed affair. This time there were long walks, picnics, beer, meals out, and an afternoon at the provincial art gallery, The Rooms. On Friday afternoon I found a great little bookstore called The Bookery a few minutes' walk from downtown up Signal Hill Road. The selection was surprising for a store of its size, with better representation from small presses than I've seen in a long while. I made a few passes through before settling in the poetry section by the stairs. My eventual picks were Gander poet Stephen Rowe's debut collection Never More There, published by Nightwood Editions last year; more established Newfoundland poet Mary Dalton's fourth collection, Red Ledger, published a few years ago by Signal Editions; and Karen Solie's Pigeon, this year's Griffin Prize winner, published by Anansi. After that I tromped back down the hill for a pint of stout at the Yellow Belly microbrewery on Water Street. It was all too much really.

I will post more on all of these new purchases very soon. The Count-down is on. I have run out of enthusiastic musings on the 1095-page beast and now just have my eye on the finish line.