All posts by Claire

About Claire

Claire is an Information Assistant at Vaughan Public Libraries. Avid cooker, concertgoer, coffee drinker, TV and movie watcher, washi tape enthusiast, and unabashed fan of romance in all its varieties (even Hallmark movies).  |  Meet the team

Hidden Wonders of Hoopla and Kanopy

I have a sneaking suspicion that the wonders of our digital services remain woefully unknown to too many of VPL’s customers. With the increased cost of platforms like Netflix and the recent return to colder temperatures, I wanted to explore the two main streaming services we provide access to — entirely for free — and provide some recommendations to cozy up with while we wait for warmer days. 

Hoopla

The range of Hoopla’s content might surprise you. There are e-books, audiobooks, movies, and even music. If you haven’t used it before, you will have to sign in through the VPL website here (scroll down to Hoopla). Once you create an account using your library card number and pin, you’re good to go. Here are some titles that have become favourites in my house, available now in no particular order.

Misbehaviour

Movie poster image for Misbehaviour film.

It’s difficult to sum up the complex story this film tells. I take that as a good sign. The real-life events at its heart are multifaceted and worth reminding audiences of. I will endeavour to do my best, however. In 1970, at the Miss World pageant in London, controversy ran rampant. To begin with, South Africa was allowed to send contestants to compete, which was interpreted as tacit endorsement of apartheid. The decision to have two contestants from South Africa (one white and one black) was also criticized. During the pageant, a group of Women’s Liberation protesters (played in part by Keira Knightley and Jessie Buckley) interrupted the televised proceedings, throwing flour in outrage over Bob Hope’s chauvinistic jokes. This would also be the first year that Miss World was won by a black woman: Jennifer Hosten from Grenada (expertly portrayed by Gugu Mbatha-Raw). 

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The Indubitable Value of Reading Without Finishing the Book

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There is, without a doubt, a stigma against not finishing books. Unread tomes on our bookshelves are often alluded to in hushed tones, guilty secrets only we know about, like that dentist visit we keep putting off. (Who would do such a thing? Not me, of course.)

Lately, I’ve had the conviction that this is nothing to be ashamed of. I have started and not gotten to the end of many a book in my time, and I will most likely do so for the rest of my life. I read a book up until the point where I decide it’s not worth its remaining hours. There is also a different sort of timing to consider. As in the realm of relationships (what is reading if not a relationship you have with a book for a period of time), sometimes you’re not at the right point in your life’s trajectory to connect with a story and appreciate it for how great it is.

As a result, there are several books that I have spent a good chunk of time with and never finished. Many of them I would recommend to anyone, but I just reached a point where my interest waned. More than that, I felt satisfied by what I’d read up until that point, like a seven-course tasting menu that fills you up by the third dish. I’m highlighting them here because they are all worth any amount of time you have to spend. Given that there are so many books in VPL’s collection, especially when you include digital subscription content, you don’t always have endless hours to read everything to completion. Nor do you necessarily want to. Don’t let that stop you from reading or listening to an audiobook of whichever work has grabbed your interest in the present moment. Seriously, don’t.

Conversations with Friends

Book cover image for Conversations with Friends.

I’m sure many of you are familiar with Normal People — Rooney’s literary romance bestseller. I listened to it on audiobook and found it quietly heartbreaking, an almost ironic lack of romanticism audible in the Irish narrator’s voice. That sharply trained focus on realism and melancholy vision of high school love kept me listening the whole way through.

Before Normal People, there was Conversations with Friends. In the beginning, I was really excited about its narrative voice, which was dry, witty, and intelligent. The main character is Frances, best friend to Bobbi and aspiring professional writer. The two become entangled with older couple Melissa and Nick (a successful journalist and actor respectively). I read to about halfway, to a point in the plot where it’s clear where the relationships are headed. This is often where I leave stories like these. Once I know where we’re headed and the majority of how we’ll get there, it’s hard for me to persevere to the end. I very much enjoyed the part I read, however. As they say, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey, and this book was like a road trip filled with stimulating dialogue and gorgeously-written scenery.

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What Happens When You Go Looking in the DVD Section of the Library

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I’m one of those people who finds it hard to pick a movie to watch on a Friday night. Growing up, the family’s weekly excursion to Blockbuster became a lengthy, leisurely affair. Despite my family’s frustration, I doubled down and took my time, knowing how important it was to select the right movie for the right evening. A movie was the perfect complement to a long day of being subjected to my peers. These days the choice is made harder by the fact that I’ve seen hundreds of them.

So, when I found myself in Woodbridge Library on a day off last week, I thought I would take a gander at their DVD and Blu-Ray collection. For my first post on Hot Off the Shelf, I wanted to extol the virtues of what I found there, as well as some other DVDs I’ve borrowed from the library recently.

Press

DVD cover for the television show Press.

Woodbridge is where I found Press, a PBS Masterpiece series with woefully few episodes. Masterpiece (Theater as it used to be known) on PBS is something I imagine the younger generations have absolutely no idea exists. It’s a series of shows on PBS on Sunday evenings, often featuring actors dressed in empire waists, rigidly riding horses, and declaring how “drole” everything is. I tease because I love – fan as I am of everything romance, including Austen.

Press is something different altogether, though. On the surface, a blatant warning about the future of journalism in Britain (and the world in general) told through a parable about two papers on opposite sides of the political spectrum in London. Duncan Allen is the editor of The Post, a right-leaning tabloid-leaning sensationalist paper that puts narrative above all else, even the truth. On the other side of the coin is Holly Evans, deputy editor of The Herald, an earnest daily that adheres closely to the journalistic code. Despite this — or perhaps because of it — it’s on the way out.

Episodes are divided between the two newsrooms, and there is a clear winner as to which is more interesting to watch. No surprise there. Infuriatingly, Ben Chaplin’s portrayal of Duncan Allen is gripping. Somehow, he makes Allen someone we want nothing and everything to do with. Morally, there is nothing ambiguous as to Allen’s shortcomings. Yet, he sees himself as working towards a better society, “A Better Britain,” as it says on The Post’s stark red wall. Luckily, the other characters are intriguing too and infuriating in their own ways. Case in point, Holly Evans makes a decision that is both incredulous and somehow feels inevitable toward the end of the six episodes. Although you may inhale them all and spend the rest of your life pining for more, like hunger pangs in your stomach, it will have been worth it. It’s better to have loved, they say.

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