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Read All Over - Joseph Planta

Read All Over celebrates the bookworm in all of us, showcasing readers in Vancouver and the books they love most. Joseph Planta is the founding editor of TheCommentary.ca .

Read All Over celebrates the bookworm in all of us, showcasing readers in Vancouver and the books they love most.
Joseph Planta is the founding editor of TheCommentary.ca. He’s been working on the project for almost eight years and in that time he has amassed a collection of hundreds of audio interviews with artists, authors, journalists, political figures and other notables that feed his interest (and ours) in politics, current affairs, and books. Joseph also holds a day job with a local towing company that’s unrelated to his internet efforts, but we can all be grateful for his dedication to making the most of the off-hours. Listen to his interview with Vancouver is Awesome's editor-in-chief Bob Kronbauer right here.

Who are your favourite Vancouver / Lower Mainland writers?

Charlie Demers is a favourite, because he wrote one of my favourite books on Vancouver; he’s also a gifted and perceptive wit.  Pete McMartin is one of my favourite columnists in the Vancouver Sun.  I also like Douglas Todd a lot.  His pieces are some of the most thoughtful writing on faith and religion in the country.  Stephen Hume is more Vancouver Island than Vancouver/Lower Mainland, but he’s such an elegant writer, I’d hate to leave him off a list of favourites.

The one book you always recommend is...

Vancouver Special by Charles Demers.  It’s the most awesome book about Vancouver ever.  Charlie writes from such a thoughtful and heartfelt place about Vancouver, and in doing so really captures Vancouver: the good and the bad, its spirit, and what we’re all about.    It’s a remarkable achievement for a writer, as he’s a fine writer; but for a Vancouverite, he does this place proud. Charlie’s thought-provoking writing and photographer Emmanuel Buenviaje’s photos are a credit to this town.

Do you have a favourite story set in Vancouver?

I don’t read very much fiction, much to my detriment, but I’d read Wayson Choy’s books growing up, The Jade Peony chief among them, and they’ve stayed with me.  I’m remembering stuff in the book to this day, well over a decade after reading them.

Where is your favourite place to read in Vancouver?

My office at home.  I’ve got a couple thousand books, and that’s where they all are.  I like walking around looking for a book, finding one, and taking it down from the shelf and reading it.  I like reading at the Central Branch of the Vancouver Public Library, too.  I’m afraid of heights, but I like going to the sixth floor and looking out the glass and looking down in the middle of my reading.

Photo courtesy of Joseph Planta

What’s next on your reading list?

I'm in the midst of reading Allan Levine's biography on Mackenzie King.  I’ve also got a Downton Abbey coffee table type book, I’m looking forward to reading.  Everyone seems to be talking about the show, and I'm deeply immersed in it.  I started Kevin Chong’s Beauty Plus Pity before Christmas and am looking forward to finishing it.  I also got Joan Didion’s Blue Nights before the holidays, but haven’t had time to start it.

What writer excites you right now?

I’m also reading J.J. Lee’s wonderful book The Measure of a Man.  I think it's an outstanding book, and his column in the Sun offers useful tips.

What writer would you love to see read their work?

I like Alex Waterhouse-Hayward’s blog, and it’d be great to hear him tell the stories he writes on his website out loud, accompanied with the photos he also posts.

How do you like your books served up best - audio books, graphic novels, used paperbacks, library loaner, e-reader…

There are no better books to add to one’s collection than new, hard covers that are truly one’s own.  They’ve got a certain smell to them, they look smart on a shelf, and cracked open, they’re full of possibility.

Photo courtesy of Joseph Planta

What magazines/journals can you not live without?

Maclean’s, Quill and Quire, Canadian Business, and The Walrus are regular reads.  I read the New Yorker on occasion, buying it on the newsstand, which is as it is, highly overpriced.  Vanity Fair too is worth a read for the articles, and if you run out of cologne.

If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

Rafe Mair.  He wrote as he spoke, and as someone who talks on the internet, one can learn a great deal from his many years of broadcasting and his writing.

What books have changed your life?

Father Joe by Tony Hendra made me laugh and cry in the short time it took me to read it.  It moved me a great deal, and consistently does so whenever I read it.  I try to read it once a year in appreciation of Hendra’s brilliance.  As well, it’s spiritual enough that I find in it some understanding of my relationship with Catholicism.  Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom really affected me in high school.  It did so in a very male sort of way, which I can’t really explain.  Most of all it made me appreciate the older people in my life, as well as all the other people I come across in life.