Kat McMorrow
A & E Reporter
The By the Lake Book club premiered its four-part series to a sold out audience last week.
Two-time winner of the Governor General’s Award for fiction Nino Ricci read from his latest novel, The Origin of Species.
The series is a partnership between Humber’s School of Creative and Performing Arts and Toronto Cultural Services.
“We called it a book club; because we wanted to differentiate the experience from a classic reading series where you can go and an author reads, and you can get a book signed, and that’s kind of the way it goes,” said Charlotte Empey, the associate dean of the School of Creative and Performing Arts.
“We thought it would be much more interesting if people could come and get a sense of the person who created this book. We hoped that they would walk away feeling they knew something about Nino Ricci, that other people that didn’t come here tonight don’t know.”
“It’s nice to get out in public and get direct feedback about my work,” said Ricci.
“It’s all people from the neighbourhood – a real feather in the college’s cap,” said Sharon Mundle, Lakeshore bookstore manager.
The climax of the evening was a Q&A session with Ricci.
“The questions were great. I thought it was an incredible evening. It was clearly an audience that reads books,” said Ricci.
One of the club’s aims is to make the guest authors seem more accessible.
“People that write great books are remarkable authors,” said Empey. “That doesn’t mean that they are better people than the rest of us. This club is here to make them more accessible to readers. ”
The series will continue in February, featuring Joe Kertes, dean of Creative and Performing Arts and author of the novel Gratitude.
“There’s an opportunity to make this grow – to have books come alive,” said Empey.
“I think when you don’t have the experience of losing yourself in a book; you lose out on so much. The world of books introduce you to people and places and things and thoughts and ideas that just expand your whole horizon, so to not have that experience means you are less a citizen of the world.”
A new book club is starting on March 6 at North Campus.