The Dusty Bookcase: A Journey Through Canada's Forgotten, Neglected and Suppressed Writing

(Paperback)

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Largely drawn from his columns for Canadian Notes & Queries and entries in his popular blog by the same name, Brian Busby's The Dusty Bookcase explores the fascinating world of Canada's lesser-known literary efforts: works that suffered censorship, critical neglect, or brilliant yet fleeting notoriety. These rare and quirky totems of Canadiana, collected over the last three decades, form a travel diary of sortsyet one without maps. Covering more than 250 books, peppered with observations on the writing and publishing scenes, Busby's work explores our cultural past, questioning why certain works are celebrated and others ignored.

Brilliantly illustrated with covers and ephemera related to the titles discussed, The Dusty Bookcase draws much needed attention to unknown writing worthy of our attention, and some of our acclaim.

Reviews

PRAISE FOR THE DUSTY BOOKCASE

Even if youre not interested in reading the books, The Dusty Bookcases tour through an alternate New Canadian Library is well worth reading for Busbys insight and good humour. But if youre the sort of person who spends time digging through used bookshop dollar bins looking for forgotten gems, this is an indispensable bibliography to the hits and misses of Canadian literatures past.National Post

And so began a lifetime of scouring bargain bins, library book sales and obscure online auctions in search of the many forgotten gems of Canada's literary history, a never-ending search Busby first documented in columns and a blog and now in the entertaining book The Dusty Bookcase.Toronto Star

PRAISE FOR BRIAN BUSBY

A thorough and thoroughly entertaining study of Canadas foremost literary charlatan.Geist

Exquisitely written, and endlessly interesting.George Elliott Clarke

Author Bio

Brian Busby's books include Character Parts: Who's Really Who in CanLit, In Flanders Fields, and Other Poems of the First World War, and numerous titles written under cover of noms de plume. His proudest achievement is A Gentleman of Pleasure: One Life of John Glassco, Poet, Memoirist, Translator and Pornographer, which was shortlisted for the 2011 Gabrielle Roy Prize. He and his wife currently live in St. Mary's, Ontario.