It's summertime. You're going to read. This summer, you swear, you're going to read.
But what? You're afraid of the new Chapters. You don't understand the book reviews in trashy alternative weeklies. And, goddammit, The Blair Witch Project doesn't come in paperback.
So to help you in your quest, NOW asked a motley crew of Toronto personalities what their favourite books are and why. This is what they said.
[Other people's books omitted]
JIAN GHOMESHI
It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love In The Time Of Cholera
Jian Ghomeshi is a singer, songwriter and tin-whistle-blower in poppy Toronto sensation Moxy Früvous, who made their name by weaving music, politics and humour into five hit albums. But this professional political satirist admits it: he always writes the sappy love songs. You know, the ones about being on Ferris wheels and holding hands and healing her pain.
Which is why he chose Love In The Time Of Cholera, the story of a man's 50-years-pining heart.
"This makes me madly self-conscious, because maybe I'll be seen as the lightweight romantic I am," he says, "but I remain a hopeless and hopeful romantic to the nth degree. Throw in every bad cliche and that's me. This book provides me with with my empirical blueprint for the notion of true love."
Ghomeshi goes on to suggest that anyone who allows him- or herself to cry during, for example, an Eight Is Enough episode should read it.
The band's next album -- Thornhill -- will be released August 24. And all the gushing gal Früheads out there should know that Ghomeshi can only date women who like this book.
But please note: he recently appeared at the Falconbridge Festival in New York in a skintight Britney Spears T-shirt, for which he was accused of being gay.
Sigh. What a dreamboat.
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