"Don't judge a book by its cover. And don't judge an unfinished building by its cladding."
Tag: canada
Hear Margaret Atwood Read From ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Sequel This Fall
Throughout September and early October of this year, Atwood will make several stops around Canada to read from The Testaments and answer audience questions.
Grandma Wins Lotto With Forgotten Ticket She Used as Bookmark
The relationship between grandparent and grandchild is a sacred thing. Those of us who have been lucky enough to know our patriarchs and matriarchs cherish the memories we have of them. And the food. Oh, the food: grub that often we weren’t even hungry for. The cookies they baked (and lowkey ate half of), the cars they drove us around in (so slow, and often in silence, that all we could do was ponder the concept of time) and the tissues they gave us (that always seemed to come out of nowhere). All these things pale in comparison to the most important lesson they ever taught us: hide valuable things in places so safe that even you will forget to check.
My grandpa used to hide money in picture frames; I once found a fifty-dollar bill behind one of my school pictures. I confessed to the unintentional theft and was rewarded with the very money I had found behind my own face. I can’t remember what I bought with it—probably a lot of cheeseburgers. If I had found it today, I would put it towards rent… But my memory of my grandmother was the first thing I thought of when I read an article about a Canadian couple winning the lottery thanks to a bookmark.
Image Via Bbc.com
Canadian Nicole Pedneault’s methods of financial security are in line with that of my G-Pa’s. She hid a lottery ticket in a book a year ago. Nicole Pedneault and Roger Larocque bought this ticket last year on Valentine’s Day to shy away from your typical “flowers or chocolate” gifting cliché. The couple found the ticket days before the deadline to turn it in.
Nicole Pedneault’s grandson was preparing a presentation on Japan for school, so she shuffled through souvenirs from a trip she once took to Japan—she wanted to help him with his project. It was in her shuffling that she found the ticket tucked between the pages of a book. She had unwittingly forgotten she hid the ticket there. I mean, who doesn’t use lotto tickets and other random pieces of paper for makeshift bookmarks?
“If my grandson hadn’t asked to borrow those items for his show-and-tell presentation, I would never have found the ticket on time,” she said.
The original drawing for their ticket was 5 April 2018; lucky for them, winners have a year to claim the prize. Even luckier for them is the fact that this ticket won them one million Canadian dollars (which is roughly… well, not as much in USD). It would seem that the ‘sacred thing’ I referred to earlier has truly paid off for Nicole; however, she will probably not be hiding the winnings in a picture frame.
Roger, on the other hand, shares my appreciation for cheese:
We have no plans to celebrate tonight. We will go to a small restaurant, and we’ll spoil ourselves by ordering poutine, double sauce, and double cheese.
Well played. While you guys feast, the rest of us will be frantically flipping through the pages of books we never finished.
Featured Image Via Afroditacurlymind Etsy Store.
With 10 Million Copies Sold, ‘Becoming’ on Track to Be Bestselling Memoir Ever
The former First Lady has a smash hit on her hands. According to The Guardian, Michelle Obama’s autobiography, Becoming, has sold more than 10 million copies and is on track to become the most successful memoir in history. Penguin Random House has revealed that the book was their biggest success of last year and is still growing. Becoming has been a global sales juggernaut since its release in November of last year, having been translated into thirty-one languages and the audiobook becoming Random House’s fastest seller ever.
Image Via The Guardian
Michelle Obama has been promoting the book on a press tour, having been visiting Copenhagen, Paris, Amsterdam, the USA, and Canada. The tour has proven to be hugely popular and she next plans to visit London on April 14th. The book itself details her life, chronicling her early childhood in the South Side of Chicago to her years as an early mother to her time serving as First Lady. Let’s hope it continues to keep climbing and breaking new records!
Featured Image Via Goodreads
The Newest Book Vending Machine You Never Knew You Needed
We’re all pretty familiar with the short story vending machines that are sprinkled throughout Europe, but now there is a new vendor in town. The Monkey’s Paw in Toronto, Canada is home to the Biblio-Mat, a vending machine that randomly distributes an “old and unusual” book for only $2 CAD (~$1.50 USD).
Image via Vimeo
The Monkey’s Paw is known for and specializes in lesser known and appreciated books spanning the 20th century. The vending machine was created as a kind of alternative to the typical discount or clearance racks and bins often seen outside of bookstores.
Stocked with books that don’t have any practical retail value, but are still interesting and worth distributing, the machine whirrs to life when the coin is inserted, completing the transaction with the ring of an antique telephone bell.
Image via Craig Small
Explaining to Quill & Quire, owner Stephen Fowler originally imagined the Biblio-Mat “as a painted refrigerator box with one of my assistants inside; people would put in a coin and he would drop a book out.” Thanks to a friend of Fowler’s, that version of the machine never made it, but the current version created in 2012 is completely automated.
Adding even more charm to an already charming used bookstore, the Biblio-Mat has become an extension of the store, providing new and otherwise unknown books to customers. One of those customers being The Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood.
Featured Image Via OnFiction
