“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.” I thought about this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. as I visited the Canadian Museum for Human Rights last week. Because as we have seen time and time again throughout history, humankind has survived. We have fought for what’s right, and we have slowly made progress. We have, through adversity and war and civil rights violations and catastrophes, maintained hope. And that’s what a visit to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is truly about: our ability to hope, to dream, and, ultimately, to triumph.

Just like 2020, 2021 has been all about sticking close to home. It’s strange: I don’t even miss international travel that much, even though I haven’t left Manitoba since January of 2020. Part of the reason I’m more than happy to stay close to home is that I’ve been on a quest to see as much of Manitoba as possible, and I’ve been continuously blown away by just how much there is to do in this prairie province I call home. Missing from my previous travels? A proper visit to the neighbouring cities of Morden and Winkler.

Whether you’re after a mystery novel, a lengthy autobiography, a young adult drama, or the latest bestseller, there’s a bookshop in Winnipeg for you. While I’ll admit that I have purchased from corporate giants like Amazon in the past, my goal going forward is to always shop from local bookstores whenever I can, either in person or online. Here are just a few of my favourite independent bookstores in Winnipeg.

Today is the 11th anniversary of This Battered Suitcase. I’d be lying if I said that I felt OK about it all, and that I still have the confidence that things would go back to “normal”. It hits me like a ton of bricks a few times a day: the dream job I worked for for almost two decades is gone, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back to where it used to be. The last year has brought with it massive waves of anxiety, and on some days, I can’t even turn on my computer, let alone try to write anything meaningful or coherent.

For a self-proclaimed bibliophile, I barely read any books in 2020. I would get excited about books I purchased, start them, and then stop reading after only one chapter. My mind just wasn’t in right place to read more (or do much of anything, if I’m honest).

Here’s how I managed to fall in love with reading again, and how to read more books.

For a very long time, it was very important to me that others knew I had good taste, that the books I was reading made me seem smart, that the music I was listening to made me seem cool, that the food I was eating made me seem cultured.

And then I went travelling.