Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This excerpt is from The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott (to be published September 27, 2011). I’m currently reading an ARC courtesy of the publisher.

“The hotel room was warm from the Quebec stove bravely hissing. Mama sat sewing lace saved from her wedding peignoir to the collars of their ivory shirtwaists, and recalling her own mother, who’d ad some success in the legitimate theatre, long before the current refinement of vaudeville.” (pg.68)

The very first SlutWalk happened in April of this year in Toronto, but it has since taken local, national and even international media by storm. SlutWalks are popping up all over major cities in Canada, USA and across Europe in response to victim-blaming.

SlutWalk Toronto is a rally that began in response to the victim-blaming that occurs throughout society in response to rape and sexual abuse. The tipping point was when Constable Michael Sanguinetti of the Toronto Police Service advised women at York University to “not dress like sluts” to avoid getting sexually assaulted. Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident. In Manitoba, Judge Robert Dewar sentenced a rapist only to house arrest attributing it to the way the victim was dressed and behaved.

If this victim-blaming occurs in Canada, where we have a strange reputation for ‘politeness’, I dread to think what is happening in other countries around the world. Many women have it worse than us living in First World countries, but I strongly believe that action starts at home. Blaming victims of a sex crime—in any country—just doesn’t sit right with me.

A fantastic article was circulated last week (I saw it on Facebook and Twitter) about what would happen if we blamed the victims of other crimes. Do we blame people who are robbed for having expensive items in their home? Do we blame people who are the victims of credit card fraud or identity theft? No! Because that would be ridiculous.

So, this Sunday, May 15, 2011, I will be participating in SlutWalk Vancouver because “whatever I wear, it is never an invitation for sexual objectification, sexual harassment or sexual abuse. Never.”¹

Hope you all had a great Book Blogger Appreciation Week. I was so happy to be involved with the design for BBAW and sorry I wasn’t able to participate more. Congratulations to all the nominees, winners, giveaway recipients, and big thanks to the whole BBAW Committee!

P.S. Sorry I haven’t been around much — but lots of reading has been happening, I assure you! Expect some reviews soon-ish.

Last week CW and I went to Value Village to look for some books for him. Value Village has secondhand books priced on a sliding scale which depends on the original cover price. All hardcovers at $3.99, and then fiction paperbacks that were originally $8+ are sold for $4.99, anything that was $6-8 is now $3.99 and so on and so on. Children’s books and non-fiction are flat prices. Sometimes you can get a good deal.

My only beef with the system is downstairs (where the books are at my local Value Village) the signage says, “Buy 3, Get The 4th Free” but upstairs at the till (for the employees) it says, “Buy 4, Get the 5th Free”. They didn’t believe me and although I am stubborn enough to make a staff member go check, there were other people in line so I didn’t push it. We had four books (I had three, CW had one) and the people behind us at the till had one. They suggested we get their book for free and they would give us $5 for it. Problem solved.

Now, the books. CW got a copy of Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind, the first book in the Sword of Truth series. This is his favourite series and we each have a copy of the entire series (his is in England, mine is here). We also have several extra copies that CW likes to lend to friends but the first book in the series is MIA.

I picked up three books: The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards; Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant; and Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe by Stuart McLean.

Why did I pick up these books? I heard good things about The Memory Keeper’s Daughter when it first came out. Come, Thou Tortoise is the first novel by Canadian author Jessica Grant, and was getting gushing reviews. Also, she just won Amazon.ca’s First Novel Award. I am a big Stuart McLean fan and Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe is one of the (few) Vinyl Cafe books I don’t yet own.

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme that is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. Essentially, people share what books that they got in their mailboxes over the past week. I think it’s much more exciting to talk about all the books I purchased, gifted, or received. Unfortunately I can’t find an exact description of Mailbox Monday, but I think it’s okay for me to show you all the books I got last week!

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