Whether you have summer travel plans or will enjoy a staycation, grab a novel or play set in La Belle Province to celebrate la Fête nationale (June 23)! This month’s bilingual book display celebrates fictional stories — ranging from romances to murders — set here in Quebec.
In the mood for a vintage mystery? Try David Montrose’s 1951 The Crime on Cote des Neiges, the first in a mystery trilogy.
Love historical fiction? Then Beverley Boissery’s Sophie’s Treason(available in print and as an eBook) is for you!
Whatever your favourite genre, enjoy your summer reading!
For the full list of titles on display, check out our bibliography here.
Que vous ayez des projets de voyage pour l’été ou que vous prévoyez de ne pas voyager pendant les vacances, prenez un roman ou une pièce de théâtre se déroulant dans la Belle Province pour célébrer la Fête nationale (23 juin) ! Cette exposition de livres bilingues met en vedette des histoires – allant des romances aux mystères – qui se tiennent au Québec.
Est-ce que vous vous intéressez aux histoires historiques ? Essayez Em par Kim Thúy.
Est-ce que vous voulez savoir en plus sur le Red Light District de Montréal ? Ramassez La Shéhérazade des pauvres par Michel Tremblay.
Ou, essayez-vous une classique québécoise : Volkswagen Blues par Jacques Poulin.
Quel que soit votre choix, profitez de vos lectures d’été !
Pour obtenir la liste complète des titres exposés, consultez notre bibliographie ici.
In honour of The Eras Tour ™, here is a retrospective of Taylor Swift’s discography through books, one for each album. Taylor Swift is known for storytelling in her music, for creating narratives and being inspired by literature (The Great Gatsby! Pride and Prejudice! Romeo and Juliet!). What better way to celebrate that than to select some items from our catalogue that reflect her discography’s vibes?
Taylor Swift (Debut):
An album that is about discovering yourself and being on the cusp of adulthood, while still being a child. This album, to me, sounds like Stardust, by the one and only Neil Gaiman. It’s a twist on fairy tales – a fantasy novel for when you’re too old for the Grimms brothers, but you still want to read about love, loyalty, and magic.
Featured quote: “Anyone who believes what a cat tells him deserves all he gets.”
Listen to:Mary’s Song (Oh My My My).
Fearless (Taylor’s Version):
Fearless is about running into things headfirst, the euphoria and pain of growing up, and discovering what you want from love and life. That’s what The Sun is Also a Star, by Nicola Yoon, is all about. It’s the story of a single day in a big city, with two lives overflowing into each other and the steady sense of time running out.
Featured quote: “I don’t believe in love.” “It’s not a religion,” he says. “It exists whether you believe in it or not.”
Listen to: Jump then Fall.
Speak Now:
This album is a dreamy, escapist fantasy about past, present and future: what maybe happened, what could be happening now, and what could maybe happen tomorrow. Dreamy escapist fantasies are a dime a dozen, it’s true, but one of the best is The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern. It’s a story about stories, dreams, swirling music and tragically beautiful encounters. When you finish it, you’ll never look at a red scarf in the same way again.
Featured quote: “and there are never really endings, happy or otherwise. Things keep going on, they overlap and blur, your story is part of your sister’s story is part of many other stories, and there is no telling where any of them may lead.”
Listen to: Enchanted.
Red (Taylor’s Version):
Red is the coming-of-age album, the one with the heartbreak and the exhilaration and the rollercoaster of emotions. Normal People, by Sally Rooney, is that ordinary heartbreak that you feel when you’re stuck in a rut of the same mistakes, over and over again – but hoping for the best, and working towards it.
Featured quote: “… the snow keeps falling, like a ceaseless repetition of the same infinitesimally small mistake.”
Listen to: All Too Well (10 min version)
1989:
This album is chaotic young adulthood in a nutshell. It’s the feeling of being under pressure but at the top of the world, living it up in a big city. The City We Became, by NK Jemisin, is a similarly fast-paced urban fantasy novel, full of Lovecraftian horror and a found family trope to warm your heart.
Featured quote: “these people are always gonna tell themselves that a little fascism is okay as long as they can still get unlimited drinks with brunch!”
Listen to: “Out of the Woods”
Reputation:
Rep is angry, sarcastic, and vengeful. It’s also about stepping into your own power, and learning to let yourself love after being hurt. Both of those conflicting directions permeate The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, a massive adventure epic about betrayal, hope, revenge, and mercy.
Featured quote: “Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. Do your worst, for I will do mine! Then the fates will know you as we know you”.
Listen to: I Did Something Bad.
Lover:
It’s about love (surprise!), about adulthood, fighting for peace and being afraid of losing it. The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon, is also a massive epic that has all of these themes and more. War! Sapphics! Witchcraft! Friendship! Dragons!
Featured quote: “My evening star. If the sun burned out tomorrow, your flame would light the world.”
Listen to: The Archer.
Folklore:
The first part of the pandemic, full of cottagecore warmth, whimsy, and fantasies about escaping into nature. The Anne of Green Gables series, by LM Montgomery, is an escapist and comforting read about found family in the countryside, and a young girl dreaming big.
Featured quote: “Dear old world’, she murmured, ‘you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.”
Listen to: Seven
Evermore:
The second half of the pandemic, once we all got cabin fever. If I had to put a label on it, it would be sad, yearning, dark academia. It pairs perfectly with rainy days and On Earch We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong; a devastatingly beautiful work that covers trauma, class and racial dynamics and asks what it means to look for joy and healing in darkness.
Featured quote: “In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same: nhớ. Sometimes, when you ask me over the phone, Có nhớ mẹ không? I flinch, thinking you meant, Do you remember me? I miss you more than I remember you.”
Listen to: Tolerate It.
Midnights:
A retrospective montage about trying to find closure and ascribe different meanings to our past. In the same vein, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig is a short read that combines a slice-of-life style, the multiverse, and all the ways in which our small daily decisions combine to make our lives.
Featured quote: “Is happiness the aim?” “I don’t know. I suppose I want my life to mean something. I want to do something good,”
As we celebrate World Poetry Month this April, we wanted to bring attention to one of McGill’s own worldwide poetry endeavours.
Founded in 2010 by McGill alumnus Asa Boxer, the Montreal International Poetry Prize is an annual global poetry competition. With a prize of $20,000 awarded to one poet for a poem, the competition is judged by a jury of award-winning poets from all over the world, including Lorna Goodison, Heather Christle and Tanur Ojaide for the 2022 competition.
Since 2019, the Montreal International Poetry Prize has been overseen by McGill University’s Department of English. The following year, the international competition received nearly 5,000 entries from more than 100 nations around the world. Of these thousands of submissions from 2020, a select few were shortlisted and were combined to create The Montreal Poetry Prize Anthology 2020, available to students through the McGill Library.
With the 2022 competition having recently ended, the next competition of the Montreal International Poetry Prize will open for entries in January 2024.
For more great poetry check out our collection and the Redpath Book Display which has a great selection of poetry you can borrow. This display will be up for all of April 2023.
