Toronto's extensive work on the silver screen reveals that, while we have the chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow, the disguise doesn't always hold up to scrutiny. Reel Toronto revels in digging up and displaying the films that attempt to mask, hide, or—in rare cases—proudly display our city. Before Chapelle became super-famous, he was just another bank tower janitor. Ah, the drug comedy. Do it right and you can......

Toronto's extensive work on the silver screen reveals that, while we have the chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow, the disguise doesn't always hold up to scrutiny. Reel Toronto revels in digging up and displaying the films that attempt to mask, hide, or—in rare cases—proudly display our city. Mediocre Action Movie + Toronto + Sam Jackson = HELL YEAH! Let’s get this out of the way: The Long Kiss......

Over the past little while, Torontoist has been quietly absorbed in The Alphabet Game: a bpNichol reader. Edited by Darren Wershler-Henry and Lori Emerson, The Alphabet Game is an essential anthology for any reader of bpNichol, and is a great starting point for those who have yet to discover his work. Nichol, who is probably most well-known for his concrete and visual poetry, had achieved many things before dying at the age of 44. He......

Well, it's official. This year's Giller Prize has been awarded to Elizabeth Hay for her novel, Late Nights on Air. The announcement was made at a black-tie gala event that began earlier tonight. It was hosted by Seamus O'Regan of Canada AM, and aired live on Bravo! But if you're like Torontoist and don't have cable and missed it, don't worry. The event will broadcast again on CTV tomorrow at 8 p.m. The now co-sponsored......

"Coach House Alley" by chelseagirl We're in the middle of the fall book launch season, and this week we can look forward to some promising new titles being put out by publishing houses such as Coach House Books, Pedlar Press, Quattro Books, Seraphim Editions, Type Books, and plenty of others. The IFOA continues for another strong week with its massive literary buffet of events. The festival will officially conclude on Saturday evening with readings......

Monday morning, amidst a first-rate buffet of coffee, chocolate chip cookies, and fresh orange juice at the Four Seasons Hotel, a disheveled group of journalists and bankers gathered to hear the shortlist announced for the 14th annual Scotiabank Giller Prize. Only the second year that the final contenders were culled from an initial longlist of 15 books, this annum the task fell to the jury of staunch decipherers David Bergen, Camilla Gibb and Lorna......

"March of the Penguins" by BrynJ. This week's LitTO is chock full of reading events, mainly from the Factory Theatre's national-made-local reading series. In collaboration with several play development centres situated throughout the country, the Factory Theatre's Trans-Canada Edition presents new playwrights and their plays from British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Quebec, Manitoba, and the Maritimes. All reading events are free and will take place from October 3–6, with varying times. On Wednesday, Penguin Group......

Torontoist reader John Black has sent us a pair of interesting family photographs that we can't help but wonder about. The photos are of John's great-uncle's funeral in Toronto sometime during the early twentieth century. He and his brother immigrated to Canada sometime in their teens. While not much is known about him, we do know that John's grandfather, Ivan Cherney, was born in 1893 in Okno, which was then part of Ukraine. Ivan......

As back-to-school fast approaches, excitement builds for one thing: the announcing of prestigious book awards. Congratulations go out to Toronto writer Michael Redhill for having his second book Consolation nominated for the Man Booker Prize. Redhill’s book is being hailed as regaining the oomph Canadian historical fiction has been lacking lately. The work, which was chosen as one of Torontoist's favourite books of the last year, is alternately gorgeous and revealing. It weaves together two......

Welcome to Torontoist's new weekly Lit. Listings of all things bookish, wordy, and between the covers. We want to highlight the "lit" in Toronto's literary scene: as you, dear reader, may have noticed, a lot of writing about writing is dull, and could be improved with a bit of light. We are living in a time when major newspapers are folding their books sections, and even alternative weeklies forget their literary pages once in......

For over forty years, Toronto’s Coach House Books has consistently offered stellar choices in all things literature. With a catalogue that includes writers such as Anne Michaels, Di Brandt, Steve McCaffery, Michael Ondaatje and bpNichol, one can't go wrong by supporting this local press. This season’s list of new releases continues the tradition of awesomeness. Tonight, Coach House will launch their five spring titles with a party and reading from all five authors. The new......

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......

Past Griffin Award recipient Christian Bök once stated, "The Griffin is the poetry award that can drastically change a poet’s life." Christian isn't exaggerating: the $100,000 prize, shared by two winners, is one of the largest poetry awards in the world. In a 2000 speech, Scott Griffin, founder of The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry, explained, "the poetry prize had to be of sufficient size to make a statement that declared that poets......

We bet few of you have been to the Toronto Archives. We didn’t even know where it was until last night, when we attended theToronto Book Awards. But stepping into the foyer to be greeted by a room covered in photos and maps of our city’s history, it struck us at just how fitting it is to hold the ceremony here -- books honoured for their fluent portraits of Toronto stories in a building that......

Are you tired of hearing about the adventures of Frodo and Gyllenhaal? A change of pace is yours today, by way of the Coach House Books 40th anniversary reading and 'virtual tour' at Harbourfront. Authors include Karen Hines, Andrew Kaufman, Anne Michaels, Darren O’Donnell, Michael Ondaatje and others. Don't tell the movie stars.......

For the next few weeks a handful of local personalities will be photographing the city as they know and love it for a project organized by Mayor Miller and his minions. My Life, My City will see everyone from Nelly Furtado to Susur Lee to Ben Mulroney (ugh!) playing amateur photographer, and playing fast and loose with our urban affection. Sayeth the release, "This photography exhibit takes viewers behind the scenes to reveal a typical......

It's a certifiable truth that the West has far greater wealth and resources than we can ever hope to, but the realization hit home when we saw that the Gladstone Hotel was hosting a $500 per head event this weekend. The West truly has gone discreetly, charmingly, bourgeoisie on us. Well, perhaps not charmingly. But the Gladstone has slipped itself out of awkward dilapitude and fairly priced housing, and into boho grandeur, and fairly priced......