Have you been reading along with the Cityline Book Club? Here at the Cityline office, we've been completely enchanted by the relationship between Bo and Bear in Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer's All the Broken Things. Animal and human relationships are always interesting to read about, but there's something about that bear that has really captured our imaginations. If you loved reading about Bo and Bear's friendship, check out these five other novels that feature bear characters: Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book: Baloo the bear stars in this classic collection of stories inspired by British author Rudyard Kipling's years living in India. These fable-style stories use anthropomorphic animals to give moral lessons, and Baloo (along with Bagheera the panther) endeavours to teach young boy Mowgli the "Law of the Jungle". Claire Cameron, The Bear: When a bear attacks her family's campsite and kills her parents, five-year-old Anna escapes with her younger brother and so begins a thrilling survival tale. By using Anna as the novel's narrator, Cameron gives a new perspective to the wilderness survival genre as we see fear, hope, and bravery through young eyes. Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass: Iorek Byrnison, an armoured sentient bear, joins protagonist Lyra Belacqua in an Arctic search to find Lyra's missing friend Roger, in this first novel in the His Dark Materials trilogy. This epic fantasy series is an unique coming-of-age story as Lyra and her new friend Will wander through a series of parallel universes. A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh: Is there any bear more adorable than Pooh Bear? In this first collection of stories about the "silly old bear", readers also get to meet his friends Piglet, Eeyore, Owl, Rabbit in the Hundred Acre Wood. Beware of the heffalumps and woozles! James Oliver Curwood, The Grizzly King: This 1916 novella inspired the more famous 1998 film L'Ours, known in North America as The Bear. Set in the Canadian Rockies, the story centers around Thor, a huge grizzly bear, who adopts an orphaned black bear while trying to escape from a team of hunters, and tackles issues of conservationism and environmentalism. Have you read any great books featuring animals? We’d love to hear about them in the comments — share your faves below!

Have you been reading Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer's All the Broken Things along with the Cityline Book Club? We recently met with Kuitenbrouwer here at our Toronto studio to chat about bears, Agent Orange, Vietnamese boat people, and more. Watch the video below and find out all about Kuitenbrouwer's inspirations for the novel, and how she weaved several seemingly disparate stories together. [embed]bcid:3366959577001[/embed] Are you enjoying All the Broken Things so far? Share your thoughts in the comments -- we can’t wait to discuss it with you!

Are you reading along with the Cityline Book Club?  We hope you're enjoying All the Broken Things by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer -- our Cityline team has been loving the mix of an urban tale and a wilderness story, and we've become completely captivated by the amazing friendship of Bo and Bear. To help our book club get some additional insight into Kuitenbrouwer as a writer, we asked her 10 questions about her writing habits and favourite books. 1. What was your favourite book as a child? I loved Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book and Just So Stories. He’s not in vogue, I suppose, but Kipling’s prose rhythm is worth studying for any writer. He captures the reader in it and it’s very beautiful, languid, and lovely to read aloud. I also adore his two stories “Riki-Tiki-Tavi” and “The White Seal.” So, perhaps I should amend to say that I loved all of Kipling’s children stories when I was a young girl. 2. What’s your current favourite book? It is hard to pick favourites. I try to enjoy a book for what it tries to do and really give the work credit as I read it. It is not easy to make something. I had not read Carson McCullers until this past year and I love The Collected Stories, particularly “The Member of the Wedding,” which is an ingenious short story a pre-pubescent girl who falls in love with her brother’s wedding and contrives to, essentially, marry his marriage. It’s very funny and also very odd and wonderfully sad. 3. Was there a moment when you first knew you wanted to be a writer? I think I knew I wanted to be a writer out of kindergarten, or, as soon as I learned how to write. My first novel involved a great deal of pink rooms and a clown. I kept it in my bottom drawer. My second book was non-fiction: an encyclopedia of reptiles. 4. What is your favourite music to write to? I never listen to music when I write. I find it distracting and interfering. I start writing to that rhythm and not my own. 5. Name a writer whose style you admire and tell us why. I’ve been immensely enjoying the style of Yoko Ogawa for the last few years, as her work is slowly translated. It’s a strange thing to say I enjoy her style when I can’t read it in the original language. I have always enjoyed reading work in translation. It always has some trace of the translator, I guess, and there is something about that which has always excited me. I used to try to write work that sounded as if it had been translated and once a misguided reviewer, in a dire attempt at criticism, accused my work of sounding translated, which, of course, made me so very pleased. Ogawa’s work has gothic elements to it. What impresses me is her stout refusal to foreshadow. You never ever know or have a feeling for the awful thing that awaits you in her work. I particularly like her story “Dormitory” from The Diving Pool. Read it. Seriously. It’s outstanding. 6. Where is your favourite place to write? My favourite place to write is no where and every where. I rove when I write. 7. What time of day do you do your best writing? I don’t have a set practice. I write when I get that feeling that I have to. I write to release that feeling and I write to see what comes out. 8. What was your last great read? I think the last novel that really astounded me was Summer by Edith Wharton. Written in 1917, it is the story of Charity Royall, who is “rescued” from impoverishment and wildness; her mother is a prostitute. In many ways, this novel is an indictment of civility and an ode to our inner wildness. 9. What is the last book you gave as a gift? I have wrapped and ready to give a copy of Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking. Pippi is the most important novel-child that all real children should meet. They might also do well to meet Ronia, Lindren’s Robber Daughter. 10. What do you do when you’re not writing? When I am not writing, lately, I study literature at the University of Toronto, where I am working toward a PhD. Are you enjoying All the Broken Things so far? Share your thoughts in the comments – we can’t wait to discuss it with you. Stay tuned for our video interview with Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, coming up right here in the Cityline Book Club next week!

Are you reading along with the Cityline Book Club? Our latest pick is All the Broken Things by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, and our Cityline staffers are loving this Toronto novel about a 14 year old boy named Bo and his bear, that weaves both an urban tale with a wilderness survival story. Want to hear an excerpt? We recorded Kuitenbrouwer reading from the very beginning of the novel -- we love this introduction to Bo and Bear's amazing relationship. Take a look: [embed]bcid:3366912954001[/embed] Are you enjoying All the Broken Things so far? Share your thoughts in the comments! We can't wait to discuss it with you!

Since we're a big group of book lovers here at Cityline, we're inviting our viewers to read along with us! For our last book club pick, we read the beautifully written The Wind is Not a River by Brian Payton (HarperCollins Canada) -- did you read it, too? Be sure to watch the video of our book club meeting to see what we thought of the book, and to enter for your chance to win a book prize pack courtesy of HarperCollins Canada! For our latest book pick, we'll be curling up with All the Broken Things by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer (Random House Canada). Once again, we hope you'll read along with us! Here's a little bit about the book:

September, 1983. Fourteen-year-old Bo, a boat person from Vietnam, lives in a small house in the Junction neighbourhood of Toronto with his mother, Thao, and his four-year-old sister, who was born severely disfigured from the effects of Agent Orange. Named Orange, she is the family secret; Thao keeps her hidden away, and when Bo's not at school or getting into fights on the street, he cares for her. One day a carnival worker and bear trainer, Gerry, sees Bo in a streetfight, and recruits him for the bear wrestling circuit, eventually giving him his own cub to train. This opens up a new world for Bo--but then Gerry's boss, Max, begins pursuing Thao with an eye on Orange for his travelling freak show. When Bo wakes up one night to find the house empty, he knows he and his cub, Bear, are truly alone. Together they set off on an extraordinary journey through the streets of Toronto and High Park. Awake at night, boy and bear form a unique and powerful bond. When Bo emerges from the park to search for his sister, he discovers a new way of seeing Orange, himself and the world around them. All the Broken Things is a spellbinding novel, at once melancholy and hopeful, about the peculiarities that divide us and bring us together, and the human capacity for love and acceptance.

We're so excited to start reading this exciting story of love, adventure, and the ties that bind us to each other, and we hope you'll read along with us! Want a copy? We have 5 copies to give away to some lucky readers, courtesy of Random House Canada! To enter for your chance to win, tell us about your last great read in the comments below! Over the next six weeks, we'll be sharing tons of great features about All the Broken Things and Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, as well as a behind-the-scenes look at our office discussion of the book! So go out and grab your copy, and get reading! We can't wait to discuss with you!