WORD ON THE STREET TORONTO: WHICH WORD DO WE WANT

The book or the reading of the book.

The word or the discussion of the book.

The book fair or the literary event

Collette and I have attended the Toronto version of Word on the Street for may years, many years. I remember when it was held on Queen St W, down by Much Music. It's been held at Queen's Park Circle for several years now and generally the location suits it well

There is more space in the Circle (a park basically) to accomadate tents for readings, author signings, presentations etc. And therein is a bit of a problem. I appreciate that Word is a place for all things literary, you can probably find an author you like and hear them read, there are many performances aimed at kids, from books for said kids. There have always been booths where authors give you the chance to talk to them and discuss their work

That is the Literary Event part of Word on the Street and even if  don't always participate, I appreciate it. And I have been able to connect with authors and their work who otherwise may have remained a mystery to me

But there is another part to the festival; the book fair part of it. Collette and I used to pack several bags with us and pack them up, stuffing them with dozens of books got for extremely low prices. Big book stores and publishers would come and offer up hardcovers for a few bucks a pop; a great way to try books and authors unknown to you with very little risk

That part of Word on the Street has almost vanished. None of the big books stores bring their wares or if they do, they bring very little. Only one publisher brought deeply discounted books and not surprisingly, it was the most popular booth there

Word has always had a focus on kids, Collette used to stock her classroom with books for the year. Well, now it's hard to find a good selection of adult books and for all the kids books, most of them were only 10 or 20 % off .. which Collette can often find on Amazon

This year we barely filled one pack with books. I got some good deals on some graphic novels, Collette found a few things for her nieces and nephews but not much for her classroom; the prices matched what she could order through the Board with no need to transport. I ventured into the one cheap publisher book and came away with a few 3 dollar books but I swear I have bruises from the experiences

So the Literary Event lives and that's great. But the Book Fair is dying, so our annual fall trip to Word may well be expiring as well

At any rate, here's a little video

WORD ON THE STREET

This past weekend, Collette and I attended one of our favorite events in Toronto, the Word on the Street book festival. This is a huge book fair held simultaneously in Toronto, Kitchener, Halifax and Vancouver. Here in TO, it's held in Queen's Park circle. That's where the provincial Parliament is located. So even when it's chilly, enough hot air wafts out of that building, that you can still wear shorts. Ahem

It actually turned out to be a pretty nice day, no rain, sun with some clouds, not too hot, a perfect day to wander around all the tents, perusing thousands of books. Collette did not bring her Nikon, that would just occupy space in her bag that books could go into. Such a practical girl. I did bring the Samsung palmcorder, as it fits in my pocket. There's a little video at the bottom of the post, just to give you a taste of what the festival was like.

There are lots of scheduled events at the fair, including readings (Margaret Atwood was there) and musical performances and awards being passed out in various genres, but frankly we go there for the books. Very often we can buy a year's worth of reading material in one day.

It may be a sign of the economy, but the really amazing deals of years past just weren't there. The Toronto Library used to bag up books by genre (westerns, thrillers, romance etc) and sell a bag of eight books for two bucks .. an outstanding deal. You find one paperback for that price you like, you are in great shape, if find another,you're laughing. But they no longer do that, not really sure why, probably too labour intensive or something. Heaven forbid we should wake up a librarian and make him/her work. Ahem

Collette goes primarily to look for books for her classroom and certainly, kids books are a huge part of the festival. This is a good thing. Encouraging kids to read is a bonus. So when they grow up and start driving, perhaps they will have enough reading skill to understand what "do not enter" or "speed limit" means. Ahem

But seriously, it was great to see the vast variety of books and other materials available to kids and their keepers. Collette not only scored some books for her classroom, she made connections with companies that produced a wide range of teaching materials. She was a bit disappointed that the number of exhibitors seemed to be down, and the ones that were there, weren't carrying the usual number of books.

Still, she managed to pick up some cool stuff that should aid her in her new position

It wasn't all work related for Collette. One of the cool things about a fair like this, is the opportunity to get up close and personal with publishers, artists, editors and authors. A lot of authors are there, flogging their books and Collette met such a woman, S.P. Hozy who stood by here tent saying "real life author here" After chatting, Collette ended up buying her novel, which looks interesting indeed.

Of course, yours truly was not really hunting down anything of any kind of educational value. If I wanted education, I would have gone to colleges without student pubs. But I scored some great swag. I have a long time interest in American pulp crime fiction and it doesn't get much tougher and grittier (with the exception of St Mickey Spillane) than Jim Thompson and James Ellroy

From tough guy fiction, I morphed into ludicrously fantastical females, or more precisely, Japanese anime picture books. Full colour books of just images are hard to find and stupidly expensive and I got a couple at what were pretty fair prices

I've recently reconnected with my past passion for comics. I bought a couple of graphic novels at the Fan Fest earlier this year and I picked up a few at Word, a couple that were not costume hero kind of tales and one that fits nicely into the contemporary superhero mode.

I am not, normally a big fan of manga. I find perusing the endless titles of the endless series that I don't see many that appeal to me. But a lot of American comics are the same, if I am going to invest in the time and money it requires to buy a series of books (I'm an old dude, I recall buying comic books for 8 cents a pop) it really needs to grab my attention.

But there are exceptions to every rule. I found a huge manga, really a graphic novel, by Akira Hiramoto. The title is Me and the Devil Blues and it is a fictionalized, mythical account of the life of bluesman Robert Johnson. Anyone who knows me, realizes that this book was in my hand in the blink of an eye. Robert Johnson. The Crossroads. The Delta. The dark, pulsing, mysterious music banged out on simple six string guitar. Hell yeah, I'm in

So another successful Word on the Street. A pleasant day wandering around, surrounded by thousands of books and magazines and people of like interests. We came home with sore feet and bags laden with our books and these gems should get us through the long cold winter that is beginning to bang upon the door.

Here's the video, just a short piece, to give you an idea of what the festival looked like. Music is Enya's Book of Dreams ..yes, book. Shut up. Watch the video.

Word on the Street from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.