Here are some Quebec books to add to your summer pleasure-reading stack
Goderich Signal Star | Ian McGillis | June 11, 2022
Time Zone J featured in a roundup of Quebec reads
Once again it’s the time of year when — if only in our minds — our pleasure-reading time expands. In 2022, of course, there’s the added factor of our reading locale options also having grown, to something like what they might have been in, say, 2019.
Here, then, are six recommendations. Continuing what has become an annual tradition in this space, these books range beyond the standard “beach read” remit. Give one or more of them a try, whether at a beach or your preferred equivalent, and you’re likely to rediscover the simple truth that a good read is a good read.
Time Zone J, Julie Doucet (Drawn & Quarterly, 144 pp, $34.95).
When the massive career retrospective Dirty Plotte: The Complete Julie Doucet was published in 2018, it served as a valuable reminder both of Doucet’s pioneering status in comics culture and of how much her presence had been missed during an extended hiatus from long-form works. That break has emphatically ended with the appearance of this immersive revisiting of an impulsive romance from Doucet’s pre-fame youth. As is her custom, Doucet extends her compositions to the very edge of the page and far beyond. The images might appear riotous at a glance, but close attention to their deftly arranged, multi-layered detail is rewarded. A note at the beginning says: “This book was drawn from bottom to top. Please read accordingly.” This takes a bit of getting used to, but you sense that mild disorientation — the good kind, the kind that gets you seeing and thinking in fresh ways — is part of Doucet’s point.
Read the rest of the list here!
Here, then, are six recommendations. Continuing what has become an annual tradition in this space, these books range beyond the standard “beach read” remit. Give one or more of them a try, whether at a beach or your preferred equivalent, and you’re likely to rediscover the simple truth that a good read is a good read.
Time Zone J, Julie Doucet (Drawn & Quarterly, 144 pp, $34.95).
When the massive career retrospective Dirty Plotte: The Complete Julie Doucet was published in 2018, it served as a valuable reminder both of Doucet’s pioneering status in comics culture and of how much her presence had been missed during an extended hiatus from long-form works. That break has emphatically ended with the appearance of this immersive revisiting of an impulsive romance from Doucet’s pre-fame youth. As is her custom, Doucet extends her compositions to the very edge of the page and far beyond. The images might appear riotous at a glance, but close attention to their deftly arranged, multi-layered detail is rewarded. A note at the beginning says: “This book was drawn from bottom to top. Please read accordingly.” This takes a bit of getting used to, but you sense that mild disorientation — the good kind, the kind that gets you seeing and thinking in fresh ways — is part of Doucet’s point.
Read the rest of the list here!