Devour Book Club
Welcome to Devour Book Club, dedicated to the 100-mile literary diet. Every month, we feature an eastern Ontario author living within a hundred miles of Kingston: YOU choose the book we read and discuss.
Devour is a moveable literary feast, held on the third Sunday of each month at venues around Kingston where we discuss the best from our homegrown writers in a congenial atmosphere, with food and drink available for purchase. We bring the author to town, and local book clubs join in, asking questions and making comments. We record the events as video podcasts that are posted to our website and made available to schools. We Tweet the book as a read-along in the weeks leading up to club-day, and welcome questions for our guest via Twitter. As our pilot project develops, we’ll be live-streaming so that readers from across Ontario and around the world can participate in the delectable literary treats this part of the planet has to offer.
And check out our Book Club Commons, where you can find a Summer Reading List of our 2013 Festival authors and lots of links for book club enthusiasts.
Why read local?
The stories we read help us discover who we are. Sometimes they give us a global perspective, sometimes the view they offer comes from our own backyard.
In the same way that a local berry is sweeter because you’ve shared the same sun and rain, a local book can be a more intense pleasure, too: you know the elements that made it, the voices that run through it, the culture that informed it.
Devour Book Club aims to bring local readers and local writers together to share our connection with the world.
Kingston Literary Landmarks
“Canlit was hatched in Kingston, Ontario, in 1955,” The Walrus declared in its January 2013 issue. But Kingston’s place in Canada’s literary history goes further back than that, to the first novel published in Canada (it’s buried under the footings of Kingston Penitentiary), the first cookbook, and the first mystery story, too. Robertson Davies spent time here, Michael Ondaatje set part of a novel here, and so did Margaret Atwood.
Do you have a favourite local literary landmark? Whether it’s the quarry where Daddy Long Legs did hard time in The Convict Lover or the ice rink that Ellen floods in Steven Heighton’s “The Dead Are More Visible,” we want to know about it. We’re building a list, so as you’re reading local, when you see a place or a moment you recognize, tell us about it at devour@kingstonwritersfest.ca
Vote for Your Favourite Book in Upcoming Months!
JUNE
For June, we’ve invited Violette Malan to join us. Vote below to help determine which of her novels we’ll be reading.
JULY
For July, we’ve invited Michelle Berry to join us. Vote below to determine which of her books we’ll be reading.
