"The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore" (a nominee for Best Animated Short Film at the 84th Academy Awards) uses a variety of techniques like miniatures, computer animation, and 2D animation to explore the curative power of a good story. If this ode to literacy doesn’t turn you into a reader, I don’t know what will.

Follow the one-book-away-from-her-own-library Jennie Ramstad on Twitter at twitter.com/jennieramstad.

Vancouver author Charlotte Gill has won the eighth annual British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. The announcement was made during a ceremony today at the Pan Pacific Vancouver hotel, hosted by B.C. premier Christy Clark and British Columbia Achievement chair Keith Mitchell.

Gill’s book Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe, a memoir of the author’s gruelling years planting trees in B.C., was picked from a field that included Brian Fawcett’s Human Happiness, Andrew Westoll’s The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A Canadian Story of Resilience and Recovery, and Joel Yanofsky’s Bad Animals: A Father’s Accidental Education in Autism.

The award comes with the weighty cash prize of $40,000, one of the largest in the country.

The producers of Toronto’s largest convention for genre fans are bringing the show to Vancouver. And they’re bringing Batman with them.

Fan Expo Vancouver is set to take place at the Vancouver Convention Centre on the weekend of April 21 and 22.

The expo is a celebration of anime, comics, video games, horror, and science fiction. There will be opportunities for autographs and photos with celebrities and creators, costumes and cosplay events, and shopping opportunities at numerous retailers on site.

Workshops and seminars are also included in Fan Expo Vancouver.

Tickets for the all-ages event go on sale on February 21. Single day tickets are $20; a weekend pass is $30. Kids 12 and under will be admitted free.

Celebrity guests at this point include: Adam West (Batman), Burt Ward (Robin), Tom Felton (Harry Potter), Colleen Clinkenbeard (Fullmetal Alchemist), Veronica Taylor (Pokemon), Richard Cox (Inu Yasha), Trevor Deval (Mobile Suit Gundam), Mike McFarland (Dragonball Z), Brian Froud (Bakugan & Jimmy Two Shoes), Nicholas Brendon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and Kristen Bauer (True Blood).

Or annoy the crap out of its staff. Either way, you're probably laughing.

Follow the has-more-books-than-clothing Jennie Ramstad on Twitter at twitter.com/jennieramstad.

Vancouver’s new poet laureate Evelyn Lau is taking a personal approach to the role. Lau, the city’s third poet laureate, will be hosting the first in a series of monthly one-on-one manuscript consultations at the Vancouver Central Library in March. The consultations are to take place on the first Monday of each month.

“I look forward to meeting with poets—aspiring or published—to discuss their submitted work and answer questions abuot the editing and publishing processes,” said Lau in a city news release. “I am happy to offer editorial and publication guidance and provide insights into the writing life.”

Emerging poets can apply for a consultation by submitting a paragraph of no more than 200 words explaining why you would like to meet Lau and what you hope to gain from a consultation; and a writing sample of up to three poems, sent to poetlaureate@vancouver.ca. The deadline for the March consultation is February 13.

In a recent interview with the Straight , Lau, a self-described introvert, suggested that she would enjoy hosting regular meetings with aspiring writers. She also said she hoped to get more poetry into public places, citing a Santa Cruz, California, initiative that had verse being displayed on the brown paper that fills windows of stores under renovation.

Lau’s approach so far seems much more intimate and personal than that of her predecessors: the city’s first poet laureate, George McWhirter, edited the anthology A Verse Map of Vancouver, and the second, Brad Cran, organized the Vancouver 125 Poetry Conference.

Admitedly a little late on the Hark! A Vagrant bandwagon (it was published way back in September), I picked up a copy on a recent jaunt through Pulp Fiction’s Main Street location. As evidenced by an immediate, 10-minute-long chucklefest, this was one collection of comics that was clearly coming home with me.

Lovingly rendered in black-and-white drawings, each comic lambasts a particular aspect of history or literature. My favourites were the ones that dealt with 15th century peasant romance, St. Francis of Assisi and his birds, cruising with the Brontë sisters, and the strange, unreciprocated bromance between Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe.

Although not designed for those who prefer their comics with a dash of capes and masks, Hark! A Vagrant will appeal to all the literature and history buffs out there, or anyone who enjoys a healthy dose of irreverent, somewhat sophisticated in-jokes. If that means you, you should probably check out these graphic novels too.

If you like to try before you buy, check out Kate Beaton’s website and get a taste of the historical and literary romp that’s in store.

Hark! A Vagrant sells for $19.95, and can be found at most local book and comic-book stores.

Follow the reads-too-much-for-her-own-good Jennie Ramstad on Twitter at twitter.com/jennieramstad.

This joyful work of stop-motion animation was filmed at Type Books on Queen Street West, right by Trinity Bellwoods Park. One of my favourite parts of Toronto.

You can follow Stephen Hui on Facebook and Twitter.

Canadian actor and director Sarah Polley is returning to literary inspiration from a Canadian author.

Polley's next project sees her drawing from Margaret Atwood's Giller Prize–winning historical novel Alias Grace , based on the true story of a notorious Canadian double murder. In the 19th century, Grace Marks, a 16-year-old housemaid, was convicted and jailed for killing her employer and his housekeeper, who was also his lover.

Polley impressed critics and audiences with her 2006 directorial debut Away From Her , an adaptation of the Alice Munro short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain". Polley was nominated for a best adapted screenplay Oscar and she won the best director, best adapted screenplay, and the Claude Jutra Award at the Genies. (Julie Christie was nominated for a best actress and the film won a total of seven Genies, including best motion picture.)

Polley wrote her own original screenplay for her second feature, Take This Waltz starring Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen.

Her recent acting credits include Bruce McDonald's Trigger and Vincenzo Natali's sci-fi horror Splice .

Astral's Harold Greenberg Fund will be financing the film with $21,000. It's one of 29 projects being backed by the fund, including Natali's next thriller Nobody , an adaptation of a 1999 Japanese action-thriller by Shundo Ohkawa; Paul Haggis' Paris , a politically motivated drama; and Defendor director Peter Stebbings' Empire of Dirt , a drama about First Nations families.

In other literary adaptation news, Giller Prize–winning author Joseph Boyden ( Through Black Spruce , Three Day Road ) is debuting as a screenwriter by adapting Red , a Haida manga by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, into a screenplay.

Fans of the Trailer Park Boys will be pleased to hear that the boys are back with a mockumentary, Race Dicks , about international drivers competing in the Newfoundland Targa. (Robb Wells, John Paul Tremblay, and Mike Smith will play themselves.)

You can follow Craig Takeuchi on Twitter at twitter.com/cinecraig.

A sequel of sorts to Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice, Death Comes to Pemberley starts off six years after the action of the first book concludes. Four of the Bennet girls are happily married and living an idealized country life with their husbands when sister Lydia unexpectedly arrives at the Pemberley estate, extremely distraught and claiming that her husband Wickham has been murdered. What ensues is a colourful mix of murder, mayhem, and manners.

Not quite something you could picture happening to the oh-so-proper Bennets, is it? Author P.D. James is quick to acknowledge this, even drawing attention to the fact in the author's note, saying that Austen would no doubt object and declare that she could do a better job of it. However, one would be hard-pressed to find a person more likely make such an admirable attempt than James, who here combines her formidable mystery-writing skills with a lifelong love of all things Austen.

Thankfully, in Death Comes to Pemberley James seems content to leave character development well enough alone (no rock-star Darcy here, thank goodness). She instead concentrates on what happens to the characters and how they would authetically react to an otherwise unlikely-yet-possible event like murder. In this respect, it feels less like a mashup or an update and more like a logically executed "What if..." exercise.

Perhaps, then, although the book isn’t quite as good as something Austen herself might have created, Death Comes to Pemberley nonetheless comes in at a very close second.

Death Comes to Pemberley sells for $32.

You can follow Jennie Ramstad on Twitter at twitter.com/jennieramstad.

In this new Sherlock Holmes novel (the only work to be officially approved by the Conan Doyle Estate), Dr. Watson narrates what is presented as a last, lost adventure. The reader is told that this tale has been kept under wraps for 100 years due to a potential for scandal which could, according to the blurb on the inside cover, “tear apart the very fabric of society”. Dire portents indeed.

As a fan of all things related to the great detective, I was at first sceptical that this book could live up to the hype, namely, that it accurately recreated an Arthur Conan Doyle original. After all, the cult of Sherlock Holmes has spawned a series of wonderfully horrible stories, novels, and movies. As it turns out, I was happy to be proven wrong.

Perhaps because he resists the impulse to aggrandize the character and subsequently ignore his substance-abuse issues, author Anthony Horowitz’s Sherlock Holmes comes across just as flawed, quarrelsome, logical, and yes, brilliant, as Arthur Conan Doyle no doubt intended. Dr. Watson emerges as the perfect foil to his much-lauded colleague: well-meaning, slightly bumbling, and competent, a character in his own right as well as a mirror for Holmes.

The story itself, of course, is pure Holmes. At the behest of a terrified art dealer, the two detectives wind their way through the criminal underworlds of London and Boston in search of a shadowy entity called the House of Silk. This organization links the highest governmental bodies with the lowest criminal elements in a conspiracy that Holmes and Watson fear could irrevocably change the world for the worse.

The final word? While it doesn't break any new ground, The House of Silk does a credible job of recreating the literary world of the world's greatest detective and proving, once again, that the game is indeed afoot.

The House of Silk sells for $29.99.

You can follow the meerschaum-toting Jennie Ramstad on Twitter at twitter.com/jennieramstad.

In The Canterbury Tales , American illustrator Seymour Chwast reimagines Chaucer’s poetic survey of medieval England. And, true to Chaucer's vision, each character featured in the original gets a chance to tell their highly visual story, from the Cook to the Wife of Bath.

As anyone who’s had to struggle through reading the original in Middle English (how many ways do you really need to spell eye, anyways?) can attest to, slogging your way through Chaucer’s ode to the life medieval can be a chore. Thankfully, all dialogue and description here are rendered in modern-day English, although in a somewhat pared-down version.

Similarly, given Chwast’s extensive background as a graphic designer and illustrator, the illustrations seem a tad simplistic. I appreciate the need to make the tales easily understandable and scannable, especially in a book where each story only lasts a few pages, but the drawings here are simple to the point of being crude.

But really, when you get to see a cartoon Chaucer riding in a motorcycle sidecar, you’re not going to complain too much.

The Canterbury Tales retails for $23.

You can follow Jennie Ramstad on Twitter at twitter.com/jennieramstad.

On certain days it seems the experience of visiting an independent bookstore is something you’ll be telling baffled children about in a decade or two, in the same tone that 90-year-olds adopt to tell stories about riding a horse in rush hour.

“Yes, I know it sounds strange, but you’d simply walk up and pull open a glass entrance door and inside you’d see all these books sitting on rows and rows of shelves, some of them higher than your own head! And people would be in there too…”

Still, a few indie establishments have managed to dodge the Amazon steamroller. One of them, the People’s Co-op Bookstore at 1391 Commercial Drive, has been in business for 66 years. This Sunday (December 18), it’ll be celebrating the joys of brick-and-mortar book-buying with an open house starting at 5 p.m. and taking place in all three dimensions.

The holiday-shopping crowd will be filled out by an incredibly varied contingent of local authors, ready to chat and sign books. George Bowering, David Chariandy, George Stanley, Ivan Coyote, Charles Demers, Brad Cran, Elizabeth Bachinsky, Peter Darbyshire, Garry Thomas Morse, Aaron Peck, JJ Lee, Gillian Jerome, Jacqueline Turner, Ian Weir, Nikki Reimer, Rita Wong, Hiromi Goto, Dennis Bolen, Kaitlin Fontana, Sarah Levitt—all will be there in the aisles, and all as carbon-based life forms, not as silicon-based avatars.

Circle it on your (paper) calendar.

Lea Watson may be shutting down her used bookstore in Kitsilano, but you won’t hear any gloom and doom from this bookseller.

Indeed, the 61-year-old owner of Vancouver’s Canterbury Tales bookstores told the Straight that the main reason she has decided to close her 1990 West 4th Avenue location on December 31 is that she’s preparing for semi-retirement and, therefore, “looking forward to a simpler life”.

Canterbury Tales’ other location at 2010 Commercial Drive, which sells both new and used books, will remain in business.

“You know, straddling two stores when I’m in my 60s takes up a lot of time, and rent and taxes just keep on going up and up and up,” Watson said by phone, in between helping customers at her Commercial Drive store. “That’s what tipped it. I loved to offer employment. There was always UBC students coming and going, just lovely staff, access to exposure in that community—all of those were positive things.”

According to Watson, the Kitsilano location has been patronized by “lovely customers” over the seven or eight years that it’s been operating. She did look in to moving the store west of Arbutus Street, but found the rents there “more horrific”.

Two years ago, Watson shuttered what was Canterbury Tales’ third location, in the Ambleside area of West Vancouver. Now, she said she’s “quite happy” that she’ll be running just one bookstore.

Canterbury Tales is holding a closing sale at its Kitsilano store. All books are selling for 70 percent off the publisher’s suggested retail price.

You can follow Stephen Hui on Facebook and Twitter.

If you’ve got a teen in your life, chances are you’re heard about YA author Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games trilogy, set in a post-apocalyptic world where young men and women battle to the death in state-sponsored games. And although the film version of first book The Hunger Games won’t be released until late March, fans of the series can now check out author Emily Ansara Baines’s recently released book The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook.

All of the featured recipes are inspired by the trilogy, a relationship borne out by names like Gale’s Bone-Pickin’ Big Game Soup, District 12 Drop Biscuits, and Tigris’s Fig Cookies. The more than 150 recipes are organized into chapters for breakfast, breads, soups/stews/salads, seafood, chicken, beef/lamb/pork, wild game, and desserts. Each recipe comes with a short explanation of how it fits into the Hunger Games world, along with specific tips that tell you how you can change the recipes in order to save time, make healthier versions, and make preparation easier.

Despite the fact that some of the recipes, techniques, and ingredients seem overly complicated for the teens the book is designed for, The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook is still a great way to get already-budding chefs and Hunger Games fans interested and involved in the art of cooking.

The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook retails for $20.99.

You can follow Jennie Ramstad on Twitter at twitter.com/jennieramstad.

With Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer’s The Garden of Vegan sitting on the kitchen counter, I’ve made tofu quiches and portobello mushroom bakes several times. Those recipes are freaking delicious.

Now, if I felt like it, I could perch my iPhone or iPad on the counter instead of said print volume. Fifty vegan recipes from the various cookbooks authored or coauthored by Kramer, who lives in Victoria, have been packaged up with 10 new recipes and put out as an app called Go Vegan! with Sarah Kramer.

Released in late November, the $6.99 app was developed by Vancouver’s Belly of Fire for Arsenal Pulp Press. In addition to the recipes, it’s got videos, audio tips, emailable shopping lists, and more.

Kramer’s last cookbook was 2008’s Vegan A Go-Go. A 10th-anniversary edition of Barnard and Kramer’s best-selling How It All Vegan! hit bookstores in 2009.

This past July, Kramer opened Sarah’s Place, described as the “world’s smallest (we think) vegan curio shop”, at 533 Pandora Avenue in downtown Victoria.

You can follow Stephen Hui on Facebook and Twitter.

If you’ve been having trouble getting into the holiday spirit, Jim Meskimen’s reading of Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (better known as “Twas the Night Before Christmas”) might just put a smile on your face.

The actor, comedian, and impressionist known for his improvisational work on Whose Line Is It Anyway? and TV and movie roles in Parks and Recreation, There Will Be Blood, Frost Nixon, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas , incorporates voice impersonations of celebrities such as Samuel L. Jackson, Liam Neeson, Tom Waits, Woody Allen, Robin Williams, David Letterman, and even Jackie Chan into this charming and hilarious reading.

See for yourself.

You can follow Michelle da Silva on Twitter at twitter.com/michdas.

In this 368-page Santa Olivia sequel, author Jacqueline Carey continues the saga of the genetically altered heroine Loup Garron. The plot follows Loup and her lover Pilar as they escape from the border town of Santa Olivia, become high-priced, high-profile bodyguards, and battle for GMO (genetically modified organism) rights. Sounds like a pretty ripping story, right?

Well, as it turns out, that’s about half right. On one hand, yes, it is a very exciting story. However, as the characters don’t progress much beyond what traits, motivations, and behaviour patterns were set up in the first book, Saints Astray ends up feeling like a rehashing of the previous book, despite the wildly different plots.

That being said, Saints Astray is a fun ride despite the similarities. Who doesn’t love a book where hot, teenaged girls get to walk around whooping some ass while working security for a famous rock band? And the fact that there are enough sex scenes to put Jean M. Auel’s humping-cavemen books to shame doesn’t hurt either.

If you’re not sure if Saints Astray is for you, you can check out a sample chapter on Jacqueline Carey’s website for a taste of the action.

Saints Astray sells for $16.50.

You can follow the literary leanings of Jennie Ramstad on Twitter at twitter.com/jennieramstad.

Gay men in the army, gay marriage, interracial marriage—these are all hot button issues that have riled up intense debate in the U.S. (In Canada, this is the norm so no one really cares. Kidding. Sort of.)

But one of America’s most well-known comics had been and will continue to tackle all of these issues—with one character. Who knew the long-running all-American Archie series could be so political and progressive?

The cover of the January 2012 edition of Life With Archie , in which Archie’s gay friend Kevin Keller gets married to his African American boyfriend, has just been released (shown above).

It will be the first gay wedding to be depicted in an Archie comic. (The plot was originally announced in September.) Readers will learn how Kevin met his fiancé, Clay Walker, in a military hospital after being wounded while serving in the United States Armed Forces.

Kevin, who was introduced to readers in an issue of Veronica in September 2010, was the first openly gay character to be a part of the Riverdale gang in the 70-year history of the comic.

Due to the overwhelming success of the character (the Veronica issue sold out, prompting a second printing—a first in the comic’s history), he also had a four-issue miniseries this year, which explored his relationship with his military father and his life during high school.

Archie Comics will be launching a monthly comic about Kevin In February 2012.

You can follow Craig Takeuchi on Twitter at twitter.com/cinecraig. You can also follow the Straight 's LGBT coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/StraightLGBT.

Book lovers unite at the 27th annual Cherie Smith JCCGV Jewish Book Festival, which takes place from Saturday to Thursday (November 26 to December 1) at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (950 West 41st Avenue).

This year’s festival celebrates authors from across Canada, the U.S., and Israel. The Jewish Book Festival includes literary readings, panel discussions, opportunities to meet authors, writing and self-publishing workshops, film screenings, a literary cocktail evening, and book sales.

Some of this year’s featured authors include Israeli writer and filmmaker Etgar Keret; Snow Falling on Cedars author David Guterson, who will talk about his latest book, Ed King; writer and filmmaker David Bezmozgis; Giller Prize nominee Alexi Zentner; food writer Danyelle Freeman; poet Jill Bialosky; children’s authors Aubrey Davis, Dan Bar-el, Rae Mate, and Ellen Schwartz, and local writers Roberta Rich (The Midwife of Venice), Joel Bakan (Children Under Siege), and Daniel Kalla (The Far Side of the Sky).

Tickets start at $14 and can be purchased online or by calling 604-257-5111.

So you’re young, single, and queer and either love books, movies, or music. And you’re looking to find dates outside the clubs, bars, or dating websites. What can you do?

It’s the Vancouver Public Library to the rescue!

On December 1 (6:30 to 8:30 p.m.), the Vancouver Public Library’s central branch (350 West Georgia Street) will hold its first-ever Read Dating event for participants who are between the ages of 19 and 35. It’s a form of speed dating but as an ice breaker, participants bring their favourite book, DVD, or CD to discuss and get five minutes to chat with up to 12 people..

Each person can use a pseudonym (a character from a book) to use and generic email addresses will be used so personal contact information will remain protected.

Info assistant and program planner Sheila Maier told the Straight (no sexual orientation reference intended) by phone how this program came about. It is the first time they’re doing it, for both the gay and straight communities.

“They did this program down in San Francisco, which quite intrigued us…. It actually went really well in San Francisco with the gay and lesbian community so that’s why we thought this one would be like a no-brainer. It would be the one that would fill really quick and it would be the other, the heterosexual one, that we would have problems with, but it’s been reversed here. And we’re not sure why.”

Maier said they received a lot of interest from older members of the LGBT community as well. However, they will only hold another event if this first one attracts enough participants.

She added that they need to know by about Monday (November 28) if they will have enough people attending so if you’re interested, register as soon as possible. To register, call the Popular Reading library direct line at 604-331-3691 or register in person at the Popular Reading Library desk on level two. And don’t forget to spread the word.

Maier said a maximum of 22 women and 24 men will be accepted as seating is limited. Admission is free.

“It’s a great way of sort of getting that age group who are not in school anymore and they don’t have children so sort of bringing them back into the library,” Maier said.

You can follow Craig Takeuchi on Twitter at twitter.com/cinecraig. You can also follow the Straight 's LGBT coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/StraightLGBT.