ann y.k. choi
Toronto-based author and educator
The art of bookbinding
Posted on May 10, 2015
These are the books I made in the workshop
I recently attended my first workshop on bookbinding. Today, I spent the afternoon picking up some supplies and tools to keep practising the art. One of the stores my instructor, Vanessa, recommended was The Paper Place. Located in downtown Toronto, it’s a great shop that carries a wide variety of decorative Japanese papers, as well as the book binding and paper crafting tools needed for any book project.
I learned to type on one of these!
After, I ended up wandering into Type Books, an independent bookstore, which is next door. This old fashion typewriter was on display there. It reminded me of the old manual typewriter I learned to type on decades ago!
I was happy that the store had Chang Rae Lee’s new book On Such a Full Sea , which I ended up getting.
Read more about bookbinding:
Bookbinding 101: Five-hole Pamphlet Stitch
Coptic Stitch Binding Tutorial (on youtube)
Paperbacks and fresh maple syrup
Posted on March 19, 2015
A horse drawn wagon filled with delicious maple syrup for sale
Local farmers were out selling fresh maple syrup at St. Jacobs Farmers’ Market. The place was packed with people, mostly families out enjoying a sunny March Break day. Located 1.5 hours west of Toronto, this is the largest year-round farmers’ market in Canada.
Along with some wonderful ready-to-eat foods like perogies, souvlaki, and apple fritters, you can find everything from handmade quilts to used vinyl records. I spent quite a bit of time perusing used books, finally getting the following copies to take home:
The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom. I read the book years ago and loved it. It’s a fast read so I can re-read it again fairly quickly. For a novel summary, click here:
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. It’s been on my list to read since 2010! For a summary, click here.
She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb. The cover image has always intrigued me. I’d like to finally get around to reading it. For a summary, click here.
Hope In The Desperate Hour by David Adams Richards. Another book I’ve wanted to read for a while now. For a summary, click here.
Stories for writers
Posted on October 27, 2013
I’ve had to read many interesting stories since enrolling in a fiction class as part of my MFA studies. I wanted to pass along some of the titles.
The following stories are housed in Joyce Carol Oates’ book entitled Telling Stories: An Anthology for Writers. You can read them online by clicking on the story titles.
“Aren’t You Happy For Me?” by Richard Bausch
An excellent example of how a story can be constructed using mainly dialogue. How would you react if your 22-year-old daughter phoned one day and said that she was engaged to a 63-year-old man?
“That Evening Sun” by William Faulkner
Written in 1931, this is a dark and disturbing story about a white family’s reaction to the fears of their black servant, Nancy.
“In the American Society” by Gish Jen
Told from the point of view of a Chinese-American girl, this story looks at a family’s attempt to assimilate into American culture and sheds light on the immigrant experience.
“Father’s Last Escape” by Bruno Schulz
If you’re a fan of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, you’ll appreciate this story. In this story, the father turns into a crab which the mother later cooks for dinner.
“Borges and I” by Jorge Luis Borges
A short autobiographical work that looks at the private versus the personal self. It ends with the line, “I do not know which of us has written this page.”
Two books
Posted on May 28, 2013
I have a tendency of reading more than one book at a time. Right now, Chang-Rae Lee’s A Gesture Life is sitting on my nightstand. It’s what I’m reading at home. Judy Fong Bates’ Midnight at the Dragon Café is in my bag. It gets read everywhere else, especially in my car as I wait for my daughter during her piano lessons and band practice.
A Gesture Life by Chang-Rae Lee
Lee, a Korean-American writer, immigrated to the States in 1965. A Gesture Life weaves some heavy issues into the storytelling, including the treatment of Korean comfort women by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II – something the protagonist witnessed during his years of military service. Needless to say, it has a profound effect on him that lasts a lifetime.
Midnight at the Dragon Cafe by Judy Fong Bates
Fong-Bates is a Chinese-Canadian writer. I’m only a couple of chapters into Midnight at the Dragon Café, which was recommended to me by a friend. The book was the 2011 One Book Community Read for the city of Toronto.
Writers of Korean descent
Posted on August 30, 2012
Stumbled onto this list of American writers of Korean descent. I read Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee years ago. Great book. The protagonist, Henry, is a man caught between two worlds – Korean and American, and finds himself belonging to neither.
ann y.k. choi 