So, what’s scarier: a zombie infestation or the melting of the polar ice caps? This is an urgent and legitimate question! And later this week, Toronto cineastes can compare and contrast, for just as the After Dark Festival winds down, the Planet in Focus International Environmental Film & Video Festival springs up. Running from October 24 to 28, Planet in Focus is the most acclaimed film festival of its environmentally-minded ilk. This year, to......

Photo by EIFF. Next week on October 17th, the International Festival of Authors will kick off its 28th year since its inception in 1980 at the Premiere Dance Theatre (207 Queens Quay West). Incorporating some of the best contemporary world literature, the festival is comprised of eleven days and nights of readings, interviews, round-table discussions, lectures, and book signings—not to mention special event readings by Scotiabank Giller Prize and Governor General’s Literary Awards finalists.......

Three years ago, Frank Warren printed 3000 postcards inviting people to share a secret with him. Long since he stopped handing these first postcards out at subway stations and art galleries, he continues to receive secrets from around the world. Each week, Warren posts some of these on PostSecret, the largest advertisement-free blog on the internet. He has also published three books compiling some of these secrets: PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives, My Secret......

The good news: tonight, there are three great literary events happening in our fair city. The bad news: you’re going to have to choose. Mark Truscott’s Test Reading Series presents Reg Johanson and Jordan Scott at Mercer Union, A Centre for Contemporary Art (37 Lisgar Street) tonight at 7:30 p.m. Reg Johanson has traveled from East Vancouver for tonight’s performance. His first book, Courage, My Love was published by Line Books last year. Reg’s critical......

If you happened to read The Toronto Star on Sunday, you may have seen a short excerpt from novelist, historian, and journalist Lawrence Hill’s new novel, The Book of Negroes. Tonight, This Is Not A Reading Series invites you to the Gladstone Hotel to celebrate the book’s launch. The novel concerns Aminata Diallo, who is sent to South Carolina to work as a slave, eventually wins her freedom – signing her name in the Book......

Fresh from their holiday break, the fine folks at This Is Not A Reading Series kick off the Winter/Spring 2007 season with…a film? Well, partly. This evening, join TINARS at the Royal Cinema as they celebrate the launch of Annabelle Gurwitch’s new book, Fired! Tales of The Canned, Canceled, Downsized & Dismissed. As the title would suggest, the book is comprised of tales of getting the axe from a host of contributors, from Bill Maher......

We've got an invite to pass along for a launch party, exhibit, and book signing for photographer Geoffrey James' newest effort, Toronto, on Thursday night. James has travelled around the city taking shots of some of the underappreciated places in the city with his wide-angle panoramic camera. Torontoist's favourite local philosopher, Mark Kingwell, provides the introduction. The exhibition that accompanies the book launch features large black and white prints by James and some other......

Only someone of Leonard Cohen's stature could stop traffic on Bay St. It also helps when you're one of Canada's most esteemed poets and just released a book after 22 years. The "silent one" (apparently that's his Zen name) will be at the Bay and Bloor Indigo tomorrow at 4:00pm. They're closing Bay St. from Bloor to Charles to accommodate the mad throngs of Cohen devotees that'll show up. It's not a book signing......

Starting at noon today, buy advance tickets for this Saturday's Crispin Glover extravaganza at Bloor Cinema. Glover, who has played the elder McFly in Back to the Future and the dangerously odd Layne in The River's Edge, will be in Toronto this week promoting his new flick, What Is It? The BC (that's Bloor Cinema) will show his '35 mm opus' followed by a Q&A and book signing with the stranged-out actor. This will be......

Torontoist likes to make our own rules, so when it comes to year end lists and such, there are no rules. Along the lines of Torontoist's kinda-sorta-best-of's for 2004, while out and about we've noticed some good stuff, some bad stuff, and some damn near ugly stuff: The Good: Rediscovering Cheap - it's out there, you just have to find it--on Queen West of course. $2.50 beers at The Queenshead, $3.99 Breakfasts at Still......

For lovers of new music and concerts, Friday night often means making tough decisions. Do you check out the local up and comers, or do you see the established favourites? Or, do you maybe pay a visit to the band just passing through? This particular Friday is no exception, with the Tragically Hip and Joel Plaskett rockin' the Air Canada Centre and Badly Drawn Boy stopping in at the Palais Royale. But really, the Hip......