AbeBooks' Reading Copy

Congratulations to University of Victoria teacher Madeline Sonik, whose collection of personal essays, Afflictions & Departures, has won the ninth annual City of Victoria Butler Book Prize. The collection details Sonik’s childhood stage by stage, relating incidents, feelings and developments to social and current events of the time, with a deep, meaningful understanding and insight [...]

What are you reading this weekend? On my bedside table is Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill. It’s a memoir about working in the tree planting industry in British Columbia. I started reading the book a few days ago and was delighted to find the author describing life, planting seedlings, at the northern tip of Vancouver [...]

Attention Canadian bibliophiles – the three-day Toronto International Antiquarian Book Fair begins on Friday 12th October. After a 15-year hiatus, the fair returned in 2010 and is currently going from strength to strength with a massive array of rare books set to be displayed.You can see a few of the gems from last year’s show below. My [...]

The cover of this vintage children’s book caught my eye. You can see why: It’s an 1860 children’s book called Mee-a-ow! Or, Good Advice to Cats and Kittens by Robert Michael (R.M.) Ballantyne. Ballantyne was a 19th-century Scotsman who lived in Canada and worked for the early Hudson’s Bay Company. He was an incredibly prolific [...]

Myself and my colleagues Eric and Lindsay from AbeBooks visited the Vancouver Antiquarian Book Fair earlier today. Located in UBC Robson in downtown Vancouver, the fair was busy and will attract more bibliophiles on Sunday when it runs from 10am to 5pm. Get down there if you can. Here is a preview in the Vancouver [...]

The 2012 Vancouver Book Fair is fast approaching. This year’s event will be held Saturday, September 22nd and Sunday, September 23rd, 2012 at UBC Robson Square. Along with the Alcuin Society, AbeBooks is a proud sponsor of the event and we hope to see you there. Visitors will see a variety of gorgeous literary treasures, [...]

Toronto mayor Rob Ford is in the middle of a torrid scandal. Sex scandal? No. Embezzling? No. Drinking and driving? Close, but no. Ford’s crime is reading and driving. You read that right. A twitter user posted a photo of what appears to be Rob Ford, driving in 70km/hour traffic on the Gardiner Expressway, with [...]

It’s been 11 years since the publication of Yann Martel’s book of mystery, metaphor and magical realism, Life of Pi, was published. At long last, there is a snippet available – albeit very brief – of the upcoming film adaptation to stoke our excitement. The film is due for release in the United States in [...]

Congratulations to Samuel Jang of Victoria, BC, who was the first place winner in the 2011-2012 National Book Collecting Contest for Young Canadians Under 30, of which AbeBooks was a proud sponsor. The requirements for the contest were simple – be Canadian, be under 30, and write an essay about your book collection – what [...]

Congratulations to Sheila Turner, who recently won BC Transit’s Transit Hero contest and earned a big pile of British Columbia-themed books (donated by AbeBooks) for her efforts. Sheila wrote a very interesting essay about her bus reading club where a small group of like-minded bibliophiles talk books on the morning commute. Our bus has a [...]