Let me set the scene. You’ve always wanted to join a book club. You’ve thought about it, mentioned it to your friends, done your research to find some book clubs near you, and even said to yourself that you’d start one if all else fails. Then, the inevitable roadblocks start popping up, as they often tend to, and that “want to join a book club” stays that way.
Now, let me paint a different picture for you. One that has OverDrive’s annual Together We Read Digital Book Club. It’s a book club that you can easily access from the comfort of your own home, taking out all the pesky things that might get in the way of you and finally reaching that goal of joining a group of fellow bookworms. It also happens to be the largest book club I can think of, with readers from all over Canada, the US, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand able to join from their local library branches (which means there’s no lack of people to keep you motivated and on track).
This November 4th-18th, the book chosen for Canadian members is Denison Avenue by Christina Wong (illustrated by Daniel Innes). It’s a book that strikes a beautiful balance between illustration (it’s part graphic novel!) and storytelling as you witness the changes to Toronto’s Chinatown and Kensington Market through the eyes of elderly Chinese immigrant Wong Cho Sum. She walks the titular Avenue collecting recyclables to fill her time after the passing of her husband, partially as a good Samaritan but mostly to avoid thinking about any of the uncomfortable feelings grief brings. She collects experiences almost as much as she does her cans and bottles, getting to see the full breadth of Torontonian culture in the 1960s, the pretty and the ugly. It’s a book about our history that tackles personal and communal destruction and reinvention with an introspective touch and a fresh set of eyes.
If that’s piqued your interest, I have some good news for you! For the duration of the Together We Read Digital Book Club, you’ll be able to get your eBook copy of Denison Avenue instantaneously, with no waitlists or queues to suffer through (but if you like the weight of a physical book in your hands, we have those too… no guarantees on that waitlist though). But that’s not the best part. As part of Together We Read, Overdrive has set up several discussion threads that you can jump into whenever you’re done reading to see what other people have thought of the book, or to give you some more food for thought (which is always a good snack, no matter how many book club table snacks you’ve already eaten). Think of it like Book Club Plus. It’s all the fun of a good post-read talk with the addition of handy-dandy discussion guides at the back of CliffsNotes editions of beloved classics.
If you’re here after finishing Denison Avenue, though, and loved its local touch, let me take the time to point you in the direction of several other Toronto-based eBooks (or not) that you can pick up to fill the time while you wait for next year’s Together We Read club.
Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill was the first book that came to mind as some quintessential Toronto fiction (and prize winning at that!). During my university days, I probably passed by the titular park once a week as I tried to familiarize myself with the city’s infinite grids. As it turns out, you can get to Bellevue Square by turning onto Denison Square (what a coincidence and convenient segue!). Both Denison Avenue and Denison Square are also named after the Denison family, who donated several chunks of land in and around the area of Kensington Market. The colorful communities of the market and Bellevue Square serve as a backdrop and a fascinating cast list to the life of Jean Mason, owner and proprietor of the nearby bookshop named… Bookshop. Jean’s penchant for naming things and Redhill’s to-the-point frills-less writing style set the tone for things being just slightly left of normal when one of her regulars walks in and strikes up a conversation, letting her know that he may or may not have seen someone who looks just like her hanging around the park. What starts as curiosity becomes an undeniable obsession as Jean tries to catch just a glimpse of the woman who could be her twin… or worse, because the people that meet her doppelgänger don’t live long to tell the tale afterward.
I ended up finishing Bellevue Square in record time. Its mind-bending mystery and its questions about perception and the self had me saying “ok, maybe just one more page” after I’d read ten more anyway. It also gives a close-up snapshot of Toronto’s unhoused communities that often don’t get the spotlight as Jean enlists them in trying to track down her double, so even if it didn’t win a single award, Bellevue Square would still be a winner in my book.
Speaking of prize-winning Toronto books, though, if you’ve perhaps been getting familiar with the underside of a rock, you may not have heard about Carley Fortune’s 2024 Canada Reads finalist Meet Me at the Lake (which also happens to be the first romance title nominated for the competition). I’m cheating a little here as the story doesn’t fully take place in Toronto proper, but since Muskoka Lake is (give or take) a hop and a skip away from the city, this still makes my list of local reads. After spending a whirlwind 24 hours in Toronto nearly a decade ago with the charming and annoyingly attractive artist Will Baxter, Fern has been having regrets. They made a promise to meet in the same place at the same time a year later, and she never showed up. Now she’s 32, and her life hasn’t panned out at all like she thought it would. She’s broken her vow to never take over her mother’s lakeside resort, which also happens to be managed by her ex-boyfriend (…yikes). But when Will finds his way back into her life, suited up and very different than the man she met years ago, she doesn’t know what to do. Something feels off, and she can’t decide if she wants to start digging, even if Will had given her a new lease on life all those years ago. As a professional romance avoider, even I can’t help but be a little nosy about the mystery that Fortune’s weaved into her book, which is pretty high praise if you know my track record.
If you were hoping to spend more time in Toronto proper with the street-level view that Denison Avenue offers, you won’t have to look further than André Alexis’s Fifteen Dogs. And when I say street level, I mean street level, because, as you might have guessed, the main characters of the book all happen to be well… dogs; our furry pals who are probably more familiar with city streets than anyone. Hermes and Apollo (the two members of the Greek pantheon who give off the most Torontonian vibes, of course) make a bet over intelligence: does having it make people happier, or is ignorance actually bliss? What better way to experiment than by granting the overnight crew at a local veterinary clinic human consciousness and language! What follows is a thought-provoking comedy of philosophical errors that veers into black humor, bringing a Lord of the Flies–esque inspired tale to the streets of Toronto.
But if you’re interested in something a bit more lighthearted (who knew a story about dogs could actually be dark?), we’ll end this post with the cult favorite (and personal favorite, too!) of Toronto-featured reads, Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim. What started off as a little series of graphic novels about a somewhat not great guy who’s resigned himself to a pretty pathetic existence after he starts dating a high schooler has grown to spawn a peak Edgar Wright movie and animated Netflix remake (so you can experience Toronto in every medium). Everything kicks off when he meets the enigmatic Ramona Flowers at your typical Toronto house party, and when he starts developing an all-consuming crush, he finds out there’s a catch to winning her hand. He must defeat her seven evil exes in Street Fighter-style fights for his right to date her. It’s witty and hilarious with evergreen quotes and special love shown to places that everyone in the know about Toronto locales will recognize (we miss you, Honest Ed’s). Every new iteration of Scott has also grown with the author from book to screen, and it makes Scott Pilgrim that much more of a story worth checking out as you watch O’Malley’s views on love, relationships, and romantic tropes change over time.
With that, I’ll wish you some happy reading with whatever Toronto-themed book you happen to pick up. We’ll see you at (or on, technically!) book club in November for Together We Read. Until next month!