reading – Canadian Dad

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If You Love Books, You’ll Love This News!

September 14, 2017/3 Comments/in THE BLOG /by Chris Read

Here’s something about me that you may not have known. While I love a good book, I’ve never really been a fan of sitting there and holding the physical book in my hands. Call me lazy if you want but I know who I am and that’s just not something I’m interested in doing.

I’m an audio book kind of guy because it allows me the freedom to work and listen to my favourite books at the same time. And yes, the term “work” occasionally means lying on the couch and staring at the ceiling but I don’t see why we have to get into all of that… Access to audio books has been a challenge but they still have books on CD at the library even though I feel like a dinosaur when I check them out.

So I was very excited this week when I found out that Audible, an Amazon company, was launching a unique and dedicated digital storefront for Canadian consumers as of September 13th! As a fan of listening to audio versions of books, I am pumped to know that I can now visit Audible.ca or download their new Audible.ca app for iOS or Android and be listening to my favourite books anywhere I go!

I also think it’s very cool that Canadian customers will be able to check out curated Audible playlists from leading Canadian voices like Margaret Atwood, George Stroumboulopoulos, Julie Le Breton, and more, as well as offering the best spoken word content from Canada and around the world. Hey, I figure if a book is good enough for Strombo, it’s perfect for me!

I had the opportunity to test out the Audible.ca service and wanted to share my original Playlist with you! Without further ado!

1. Game of Thrones, baby! ~ by George R. R. Martin

That’s right, number 1 on my list had to be Game of Thrones! I am not ashamed to admit that I have seen every episode of this show more than once (maybe 3-4 times) but the thought of picking up those huge books was daunting.

Now I have access to the entire collection, which I am fortunate enough to be able to listen to while I am at work. Sure, I may know what’s going to happen but I’ve been wanting to hear the deeper details since I first watched the show!

2. Ready Player One ~ by Ernest Cline

This is probably my favourite book of all-time. I have read it approximately 5 times already and it is one of the few hard copy books I bring with me everywhere I go.

With Spielberg’s movie adaptation coming out soon, my love for this one can only go up!

3. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth ~ by Chris Hadfield (Canadian!)

I don’t know of a single Canadian who wasn’t completely captured by Chris Hadfield’s adventures in space. He has a charisma that is infectious in the best possible way.

The second I found out he had a book I purchased it and the rest is history. To hear this book read in his own voice is definitely going to be a treat and I highly recommend that you download a copy today!

4. Waging Heavy Peace ~ by Neil Young (Canadian!)

What can I say about Neil Young that hasn’t already been said? I grew up as a musician and Young’s music was the standard I used when thinking of the kind of artist I wanted to be.

It didn’t quite work out for me in that field but I still lean on Neil Young’s music in good times and bad and he remains one of the greatest to ever hit the stage.

5. In This Moment ~ by Karma Brown (Canadian!)

Another Canadian author rounds out my list of must-reads and I am a huge fan of Karma’s work! She is an incredibly smart writer whose books will draw you in and make you not want to put them down, or turn them off, as it were.

With 3 books currently available on Audible.ca, you will thank me for passing Karma’s name along to you!

That is just a fraction of the books I have already downloaded and with membership starting at only $14.95 CAD per month, including 1 credit/month, I will be reading a ton more before the end of the year! What are you waiting for? Go download the Audible.ca app right now and get started!! You can also visit the Audible Canada Facebook page and the @Audible_CA Twitter account for more news and details!

Oh! Also, make sure to leave a comment letting me know what your top 3 book choices are going to be!

Happy Reading!!

Disclosure: I was compensated for my participation in this program. That said, I am absolutely addicted to audio books and love that I can listen to them on the Audible app now!

My Summertime Reading List and Subliminal Father’s Day Wish List

May 19, 2013/8 Comments/in Reviews, THE BLOG /by Chris Read

As a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community, I was asked to pick out a few of my favourite Summer reads from Chapters and share them with you as part of a #cbias campaign. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and their client, Chapters.

Only in the past few years have I become more interested in the joys of reading. I realize that sounds weird coming from a grown man but I was so into sports and video games that I never really had time for it. Now with kids, age and gravity all changing the way I looked at the world, I decided to try it out and couldn’t believe what I had been missing out on.

I still remember the exact book that dragged me back from my Hardy Boys days and into and new era of appreciation for books. It was Mo Hayder’s “Birdman” and it is a gruesomely amazing detective thriller. The kind that you never want to put down and that wakes you with nightmares so realistic that you’d swear you were living it. I have read all of her books since and was excited to snag one of her newer ones, “Hanging Hill”, on my latest trip to Chapters.

Since that first Mo Hayder book, I have been sampling every genre I can think of in order to find a few that fit. As it turns out, I haven’t been able to narrow down the field too much because there are so many incredible titles throughout all genres. If pressured, I could probably cut it down to murder mysteries and biographies but it would be painful to leave the others behind. The biographies have really been growing on me lately, especially after reading “Always Looking Up” by Michael J. Fox and “Home Game” by Michael Lewis.

With Father’s Day just around the corner, I was excited to see that Chapters had dedicated three separate displays to books for Dad. On one of the displays I found what I believe to be a jewel in the rough, so to speak, in Mike Adamick’s “Dad’s Book of Awesome Projects”. I consider myself to be a novice crafter but this book looks to challenge me to step outside of my home made light sabers and to step up my game to the next level of Fatherhood!

Not to be outdone, the kids love a good trip to Chapters as well because on top of the incredible play areas they have set up, they know that a book store is the one place where Daddy can’t say no to a new purchase. I’m not saying I bribe them but the promise of new reading material is an excellent way to get them to behave while Daddy shops for his literary needs.

I have to admit that I may have gone a little overboard on my latest shopping trip but it’s a long summer and once I’m in the beach chair it’s really hard to convince me to get back out of it. Yeah, I’m kind of lazy, wanna fight about it? Sorry about that. Anyway, here is what my shopping bag full of summer reading looks like. Do you recognize any of these titles?

Finally, I imagine that we all have a favourite place to read, whether it be in bed, on a park bench or on the beach, and I am no exception to that rule. There is nothing I love more than heading up to the cottage, grabbing a copy of Barbie’s Princess and the Popstar and curling up on a deck chair with my best gal.

We had a great time on our shopping trip to Chapters and you can see everything I checked out, which includes my subliminal Father’s Day Wish List, over on my Google+ page! Also, I’d like to know, do you have a favourite genre, author or book? Give me your suggestions in the comments so I can expand my summer library. Happy Reading, My Friends!

The Time I Froze Like A Wil Wheaton Fan Boy At ComicCon

May 15, 2013/8 Comments/in Reviews, THE BLOG, The Daddy Files /by Chris Read

I went to Ottawa ComicCon over the past weekend. I had a very short To-Do list, which included shooting a few interviews with vendors, snapping some pics with the crowd and finally, requesting an interview with Wil Wheaton. I accomplished only one of those goals over the weekend and as you will see from the photos I have attached, the interviews did not go so well.

I guess I should point out a few things before I get into my ComicCon experience. I am a closet nerd; or at least to myself I am. I suspect that others never thought I was as cool as I think I portray myself to be. I love superheroes, Star Wars and card collecting, and couldn’t wait to dive in to everything there was to offer. My goal of interviewing Wil Wheaton had nothing to do with some dream of being the next Bloggess, either. It’s awesome what Mr. Wheaton did for Jenny Lawson but my interest in him had nothing to do with Star Trek or collating paper, and had everything to do with getting his take on fatherhood; something he openly discusses on his blog and the thing I like most about him; other than Toy Soldiers, which was the bomb!

While my original interview request had been denied due to his busy weekend schedule, I had other tricks up my sleeve. One of them included getting in line for a photo opp with him and casually passing him the questions folded up with my card attached to a witty cover letter. It also included me saying something profound to entice him to want to answer said questions. What happened instead was me standing in line, confident with questions in hand, until it was my turn, when I decided to scrap the plan, throw out a “How’s it going?” and turn in this beauty of a crazy-eyed, deer in the healdights fan boy pic.

Yeah… I know. I didn’t even suggest the pose I wanted, which was going to be the classic DX pose from WWE Wrestling. I would have been Shawn Michaels in the front, by the way. Unless Wil had wanted to be Shawn, of course, than I would have been Triple H. Side note: In thinking about this, Felicia Day would have made for a cool, Lita, and Nathan Fillion could have bumped me down to X-Pac, but now we’re talking about some serious $$$.

Where was I?? Oh yeah, my interview with Wil never panned out and the vendor interviews we shot got drowned out by the noise of the 30,000 attendees, but I learned a lot and will be far better prepared the next time. I have to admit that all of this news got me a little down and I almost forgot why I was there in the first place, so I did the thing that always makes me feel better. I told my kids to pick out some costumes and packed them up for ComicCon’s Sunday festivities.

Watching their excited faces as they saw and yelled out the names of all of their favourite superhero characters, was exactly the thing I needed to snap me back to reality. Their innocence reminded me that I am still clinging on to a little bit of my own, especially when it comes to superheroes and celebrities.

In reminiscing about the weekend that was ComicCon, I have to say that other than the crummy cell reception, the entire thing was a huge success and I will definitely be back. I’d also like to add that one of the interviews that didn’t pan out was with the Ottawa Public Library. I thought it was awesome that they purchased a table to showcase that they had a ton of cool things for kids at their branches. As we get further into the technological age, it’s important to encourage our children that reading can be fun, so I appreciated and fully support their presence and message.

Did you make it out to Ottawa ComicCon this year? If so, what was your favourite part? Also, for more pictures of our ComicCon adventure, check out my Google+ album.

PS – Wil, still hoping for that interview.

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