A PSEUDONYM or PEN NAME or NOM DE PLUME is a fictitious name used by an author.
Why use a pen name? To preserve anonymity, counter bias, try a new genre, get a fresh start or any other number of reasons!
All the items in this display are by or about an author who published under a pseudonym.
Great works by authors like Lewis Carroll, Maya Angelou, and Voltaire can be found in this display, but their true names have to be sought out. Join us in the hunt to uncover these enigmatic authors by filling out our quiz.
Coffee is more than just a beverage, it’s a global ritual that connects people across cultures, borders, and generations. From bustling cafés in Paris to roadside stalls in Ethiopia, coffee serves as a shared language of hospitality and community. It fuels workplaces, inspires creativity, and anchors social traditions in nearly every corner of the world. In bringing people together around a simple cup, coffee quietly unites humanity through shared experience.
Below you will find a selection of books dedicated to coffee and all it brings to the world. On display in July 2025 “Coffee Culture” is available in the Redpath Library Building main floor and online.
“This is the first book presenting the relation between coffee producers and consumers of coffee beverages, at marketing management level. Many books offer advice on how to write effective marketing strategies, but only few indicate how to implement them successfully. This book belongs to the second group. The proposed solutions can be applied by coffee producers, but can also be adapted to suit the needs of enterprises operating on other markets. The actual needs of the clients are presented, and the authors show how to implement and control the adopted marketing strategies to satisfy those needs”
“We are told that simply by sipping our morning cup of organic, fair-trade coffee we are encouraging environmentally friendly agricultural methods, community development, fair prices, and shortened commodity chains. But what is the reality for producers, intermediaries, and consumers? This ethnographic analysis of fair-trade coffee analyzes the collective action and combined efforts of fair-trade network participants to construct a new economic reality.”
“The history of coffee is much more than the tale of one luxury good–it is a lens through which to consider various strands of world history, from food and foodways to religion and economics and sociocultural dynamics. A Rich and Tantalizing Brew traces the history of coffee from its cultivation and brewing first as a private pleasure in the highlands of Ethiopia and Yemen through its emergence as a sought-after public commodity served in coffeehouses first in the Muslim world, and then traveling across the Mediterranean to Italy, to other parts of Europe, and finally to India and the Americas. At each of these stops the brew gathered ardent aficionados and vocal critics, all the while reshaping patterns of socialization. Taking its conversational tone from the chats often held over a steaming cup, A Rich and Tantalizing Brew offers a critical and entertaining look at how this bitter beverage, with a little help from the tastes that traveled with it–chocolate, tea, and sugar–has connected people to each other both within and outside of their typical circles, inspiring a new context for sharing news, conducting business affairs, and even plotting revolution.”
Placing coffee at the center of its analysis, Brewing Socialism links East Germany’s consumption and food culture to its relationship to the wider world. Andrew Kloiber reveals the ways that everyday cultural practices surrounding coffee drinking not only connected East Germans to a global system of exchange, but also perpetuated a set of traditions and values which fit uneasily into the Socialist Unity Party’s conceptualization of a modern Socialist Utopia. Sifting through the relationship between material culture and ideology, this unique work examines the complex tapestry of traditions, history and cultural values that underpinned the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR).
The first Asian Canadian magazine, TheAsianadian, was published from 1978 to 1985. It was described as a “progressive magazine” that “united Asian Canadian communities, and gave them the opportunity to cultivate a sense of cultural identity and political consciousness”. This historical magazine is a fine example of “Unity in Diversity: The Impact of Asian Communities in Shaping Canadian Identity”, the theme of Asian Heritage Month 2025.
Why The Asianadian?
It’s simply fun to look at this magazine! Pick any issue. Look at it from cover to cover. Leaf through it page by page. Especially if you’re of the digital generation, having little experience with print magazines, you’ll learn about and be fascinated by this vintage form of entertainment.
Notice the price on the cover. The first issues cost $1 per issue, $4 per year for individual subscribers, $6 for institutional (library) subscribers! All prices included postage. That’s right, the magazine was physically delivered.
The magazine covered historical, political, cultural and down-to-earth real-life topics that were relevant to to Canadians, not just limited to Asian-Canadians. For an example, browse the Spring 1980 issue on the theme of “Quebec”.
The editorial, written in English and French, discusses the soon-to-be-held Quebec referendum, the French Nationalism that originates from the historical discrimination against French Quebécois as minority in Canada, and the lessons that minorities, including Asianadians and Asiabécois, can learn from French Quebécois.
“…Whatever the outcome of the referendum, the current national consciousness will continue to grow as long as racial inequality perpetuates. French Quebecers have an historical duty to emancipate themselves from the yoke of injustices—just as Asianadians and Asiabécois have an historical duty to fight for equality and dignity.”
« Il adviendra, un jour, que toutes les nations vont, ensemble, s’unir contre les conditions, la haine et le préjugés qui opposèrent leurs ancêtres les uns contre les autres. En attendant ce jour, c’est notre devoir à nous tous de continuer chacun nos luttes nécessaires et complémentaires. »
The Asianadian @ McGill Libraries
All twenty-four issues of The Asianadian are available for download on the publisher’s website. You can also look at print copies of nineteen issues held at Rare Books and Special Collections. (*Our special thanks to Philip Cheong, a native Montréaler and McGill alumnus, whose generous gift enabled the McGill Libraries to purchase these rare items!)
