Here are some items that are currently piled up on my bookshelf,  just yelling at me to start reading them:

1. Chicken With Plums by Marjane Satrapi:  A story about the last 8 days of Satrapi’s great-uncle Nasser Ali Khan, one of Iran’s most revered musicians, who takes to bed after realizing that he’ll never be able to find an instrument to replace his beloved, broken tar (lute).
2. Anattitude Magazine Issue 3 The Old School Issue (this is probably the only magazine out there that exclusively deals with women in hip hop). The only place that sells this in Montreal is the Canadian Center for Architecture Bookstore (the staff at the bookstore are INCREDIBLY helpful).
3. Barefoot Gen Vol. 6 Writing the Truth. An autobiographical manga series about a boy surviving the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
4. The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant. This is a historical novel set in early 1800s Cape Ann Massachusetts (this is the area I’ll soon be moving to).