We hope you're reading along with the Cityline Book Club and enjoying Infidelity by Stacey May Fowles! Our Cityline team has been loving this steamy and engaging novel, and we're already itching to have our book club meeting to fully discuss it together! To help our book club get some additional insight into Fowles as a writer, we asked her 10 questions about her writing habits and favourite books. 1. What was your favourite book as a child? My parents are British, so I read a lot of Enid Blyton’s children’s books as a kid, like The Famous Five and The Secret Seven. I also loved Charlotte’s Web, remembering it as the first book that made me cry. When I got older I just inhaled books like Sweet Valley High, The Baby-Sitters Club, and anything by Judy Blume. I also loved those amazing teen thrillers and horror novels by R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike. 2. What’s your current favourite book? My absolute favourite book for so many years running is Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays. It was the first writing I ever read of hers, back when I was about seventeen. I’ve since read almost everything else she’s written, but I return to the novel every so often for comfort, I suppose. I even have my battered high school copy, which has all of my favourite passages highlighted. For me, at the time, it felt like a radically different way to tell a story, and I loved it. 3. Was there a moment when you first knew you wanted to be a writer? I don’t think there was an exact moment — I always remember writing stories and plays when I was in elementary school, so I think it always seemed like the kind of thing that was a given. I do remember going to to see John Fowles launch a book at a downtown bar when I was about eighteen. It wasn’t that long before he died. I drove downtown in my parents’ car to meet him, and in retrospect, I’m surprised I wasn’t carded at the door. I dressed up in my best (and only) black dress, and I remember naively thinking the whole scene seemed so glamorous, with agents, and publishers, and other writers. Maybe that was the moment when I thought I wanted to be part of a community like that — it seemed so exciting to me at the time. 4. What is your favourite music to write to? I used to have to write to music and had a number of carefully chosen playlists set up for when I went on writing binges. It was usually pretty aggressive, emotive music that I’d choose depending on what was happening in the scene I was trying to write. Lately I’ve been writing in silence, which might have something to do with the more structured non-fiction I’ve been doing. 5. What author do you wish you could write like? I think Joan Didion is an absolute, otherworldly genius. No one in the world writes like her. It seems totally futile to even wish for it. 6. Where is your favourite place to write? It's always shifting, but right now it’s at the dining room table. That’s particularly hilarious because when we moved into our house we made sure we had an office set up. Right now the office is more like book storage and “the cats’ room,” while I’m typing away where we eat our meals. I think most writers just tend to adapt to their spaces and do what works in the moment. I really believe a space can become stagnant, so you have to rotate. 7. What time of day do you do your best writing? Any time other than the early morning. I’m just completely useless then. I know that for many writers that time is their most productive, but I just can’t even imagine writing (or even speaking) a coherent sentence before 8am. 8. What was your last great read? I really loved S. Bear Bergman’s Blood, Marriage, Wine and Glitter. Bergman has such an amazing non-fiction narrative style, such a welcoming voice — the writing is just so charming, moving, and stunning. 9. What is the last book you gave as a gift? I gave my dad Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding recently — half because of our shared love of baseball, half because it’s one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. 10. What do you do when you’re not writing? Cooking. Napping. Watching episodic television. Thinking about how I should be writing. Are you enjoying Infidelity so far? Share your thoughts in the comments – we can’t wait to discuss it with you. Stay tuned for an exclusive interview with Fowles, coming up right here in the Cityline Book Club next week!

Get your kids into the Halloween spirit with our top 10 list of scary, creepy, and always fun reads for teens and little ones. From classic reads to new favourites, these books are perfect reading material for the month of October. Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: Following a horrific family tragedy, 16-year-old Jacob Portman follows a series of mysterious photographic clues that lead him to an abandoned orphanage in Wales. What makes this teen read so unique (and so creepy) are the black-and-white photographs sprinkled throughout the novel -- real photos that the author collected from various sources. Roald Dahl, The Witches: This classic kids' novel tells the scary and funny story of a 7-year-old boy who encounters some real-life witches! These aren't fairytale witches who ride on broomsticks and wear silly black hats, but ordinary women who dress in ordinary clothes and work ordinary jobs -- which is why they're so hard to catch! Roald Dahl is a perennial favourite with kids, so if you haven't introduced his work to your little ones yet, this is a great place to start. Mélanie Watt, Scaredy Squirrel Prepares for Halloween: Get your little ones in the Halloween spirit with this fun picture book in the popular Scaredy Squirrel series. From costume ideas to trick-or-treating strategies, the ever-worrying squirrel will help you and your kids plan for the big day. Neil Gaiman, Coraline: In this beloved children's horror/fantasy novel, young Coraline discovers a house oddly similar to her own, only better. But there's a problem: there's another mother and father there, and they want Coraline to stay there with them. Forever. Coraline's strange adventure is as charming as it is creepy. Evan Munday, The Dead Kid Detective Agency: In this teen mystery novel, October Schwartz is the new kid in town who has trouble making friends...well, at least ones that are still alive! When she starts hanging out in the cemetery that borders on her backyard, she runs into five dead teenagers, each from a different era of the past. Using October's smarts and the dead kids' abilities to sneak around undetected, they form The Dead Kid Detective Agency to solve mysteries in their eerie hometown. If you like this book, be sure to check out the funny and spooky sequel, Dial M for Morna! Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events -- The Bad Beginning: Not so much scary as it is creepy and weird, this first book in the children's series follows the lives of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire after they're placed in the custody of their distant cousin Count Olaf, following their parents' death in a mysterious house fire. The series' title is astonishingly accurate, as one bad thing after another befalls these kids in these gothic-inspired novels. Robert Munsch, Boo!: This Halloween, young Lance decides to paint his face and make it the scariest ever! He ends up making his face so scary that when adults answer the door, they fall over in fright! How does Lance take advantage of this situation? Find out in this entertaining picture book. Lesley Livingston and Jonathan Llyr, How to Curse in Hieroglyphics: BFFs Cheryl and Tweed are obsessed with B movies and playing monster games, so when a mysterious travelling carnival rolls into their small town, they're intrigued...yet suspicious. With real-life mummies and ancient curses, this adventure-filled novel is perfect for middle-graders looking for a fun and exciting read. Alvin Schwartz, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: This first anthology in a series of three children's books collects pieces of folklore and urban legends, collected and adapted by the author. These classic stories are perfect for reading-aloud to your kids on All Hallows' Eve! Julia Donaldson, Room on the Broom: When a stormy wind blows away a witch's hat, bow and wand, the witch gives broomstick rides to a dog, a bird, and a frog, in exchange for their help in retrieving her missing items. But what happens when the broom snaps in two and they tumble into a greedy dragon's lair? This fun picture book is perfect for reading with your little ones. Did we miss your favourite spooky read for kids? Let us know in the comments!

Eleanor Catton, a Canadian-born novelist who grew up in New Zealand, became the youngest-ever winner of the Man Booker Prize with her second novel, The Luminaries, earlier this week. At the age of only 28, Catton took home the prestigious literary prize, which is awarded to an English-language novel written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. Her winning novel, The Luminaries, is an epic Victorian-era murder mystery, set in the 1860s New Zealand gold rush. "It's a dazzling work. It's a luminous work. It is vast without being sprawling," said Robert Macfarlane, chair of the judges. At 832 pages, the novel is also the longest work to ever win the prize. The Luminaries is also a finalist for Canada's Governor General's Literary Award, to be announced next month. Have you read The Luminaries or Catton's first novel, The Rehearsal? Let us know what you thought of either novel in the comments! Photo credit: Robert Catto

Are you reading along with the Cityline Book Club? Our latest pick is Infidelity by Stacey May Fowles, and our Cityline staffers can't get enough of this engaging story. Fowles' writing is precise and unflinching, and we just can't stop reading it. Want to hear an excerpt? We recorded Fowles reading a section of Infidelity -- watch below to see her reading from the opening chapter. [embed]bcid:2748494962001[/embed] Are you enjoying Infidelity so far? Share your thoughts in the comments! We can't wait to discuss it with you!

Acclaimed short story author Alice Munro has made history today by becoming the first Canadian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The 82-year-old author of 14 books, including Lives of Girls and Women (1971) and last year's Dear Life, is only the 13th woman to receive this honour since the award's founding in 1901. In the Swedish Academy's announcement on Thursday morning, they described Munro as a "master of the contemporary short story". This acknowledgement from the world's most prestigious literary award comes only a few months after Munro announced that she'd be retiring from writing. In June 2013, during her acceptance speech for winning the Trillium Book Award for Dear Life, Munro told attendees that she would be ending her more than 40-year writing career. Munro's works have been perennial nominees and winners of literary prizes, and we're thrilled that she's now been recognized by literature's highest honour and is joining the ranks of celebrated past winners such as Toni Morrison, T.S. Eliot, and Pablo Neruda. Are you happy to see a Canadian author win the Nobel Prize for Literature? What's your favourite Alice Munro collection? Let us know in the comments!