Brick Books - An Appreciation

I've written about a few other imprints that I admire, such as NYRB Classics and LOA.  I thought I would shine a bit of a light on Brick Books, which specializes in poetry by Canadians (talk about niche!).  I have won two mini competitions sponsored by the Canadian Book Challenge where the prize was poetry books by Brick Books.  I did get around to reviewing the first set, but haven't finished the second set.  I have to admit, my compulsion to wrap up a number of reviews is on the low side right now.

My favourite book they published was Sue Sinclair's Mortal Arguments, though I also liked Chris Hutchinson's Other People's Lives a fair bit.

Here are a handful of other reviews I can recall, though it is not intended to be the exhaustive list of the Brick Books titles I have reviewed:
Michael Crummey Hard Light
John Donlan Spirit Engine
Jane Munro Blue Sonoma
David O'Meara Noble Gas, Penny Black 
Sue Sinclair Breaker

Anyway, I found that a number of their newest titles, including a new collection by Jane Munro, Glass Float, and Maureen Hyne's Sotto Voce and Kate Cayley's Other Houses are available through Overdrive, so they can be read while in lockdown even though the libraries are all closed. Overdrive has several somewhat older collections by the poet A.F. Moritz,* including Mahoning and Rest on the Flight into Egypt as well.

Sometimes poetry translates reasonably well in e-book format and sometimes the columns get a bit squished.  No question I would generally prefer to read poetry in a hard copy, but I'm getting used to this.  (I wouldn't be surprised if 10-15 years down the road, poets will have largely adapted their craft to e-books and just stick to shorter lines.)

I was poking around on the Brick Books website and apparently I missed a pretty big sale of their back titles running last month during Poetry Month (and while I don't really need a bunch of books sitting around the house, most of these probably aren't available as e-books**).  I also found out that they have repackaged 6 of their favourite titles as "Brick Books Classics."  5 of the 6 are on Overdrive, but interestingly Dennis Lee's Riffs is not (though the poems themselves should be available in Heart Residence from House of Anansi, and this is in Overdrive).  This omission led me to finding out that Brick Books is running a mini-sale on its e-books, where virtually all of their e-books are only $5, which is quite a good deal, so I ordered a couple that weren't available in Overdrive.

I would strongly encourage anyone interested in Canadian poetry to check out what is still available electronically through their libraries, as well as checking out the Brick Book website and seeing if anything grabs your fancy.  The odds are pretty good that you can get it as an e-book for $5, though apparently the sale will only last through May, so you may want to jump on it.


* Though it does appear that his very latest -- Night Street Repairs and As Far as You Know -- are on House of Anansi, which is also a very good imprint focused on Canadian authors, though they publish fiction and occasional non-fiction and apparently colouring books, in addition to poetry.  At the moment, they are not running an e-book sale, and I'll try to stick to their books available through Overdrive.

** I'm so tempted to email and ask if the sale can be extended by just another week, but I think I'll hold off, given just how many books I have to try to read and get out of the house.  If they run the same sale next year, then all bets are off...