Stir Bedside Table: Hilary Atleo
The Indigenous co-owner of Iron Dog Books talks science fiction, graphic novels, and beach reads
Hilary Atleo.
Stir Bedside Table is a column where Stir connects with local artists and creatives to hear about some of their favourite reads.
Canadian Independent Booksellers Association presents Canadian Independent Bookstore Day on April 29
The reader:
Hilary Atleo
Iron Dog Books.
What’s your story?
My name is Hilary Atleo, and I’m the co-owner of Iron Dog Books with my husband, Cliff. We started Iron Dog in 2017 as a mobile bookstore, and in 2019 we opened our brick-and-mortar in East Van (2671 East Hastings Street). For the last three and half years we have been running both the storefront and the truck, and this year we are excited to be adding literary events to our business.
As Indigenous people (I'm mixed Anishinaabe/settler and Cliff is Nuu Chah Nulth/Tsimsian), it's important to us that the bookshop reflects our values and represents the diversity of Indigenous voices. One of the most exciting things to us is that we have Angeline Boulley, author of Firekeeper's Daughter, visiting Vancouver for a big event on May 12. Boulley’s work resonates very strongly with me; she writes about the tension of growing up mixed, with close ties to your home reserve. I can’t recommend her books enough. The other big event we have on the horizon is Canadian Independent Bookstore Day on April 29. Many of the Vancouver independent shops have collaborated on a map of stores to visit and a big giveaway of great prizes at each store. It’s worth travelling around to several of them on the day to enter all the draws!
What's on your bedside table right now?
I have so many books on my bedside table! But the two I’m most excited about are Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto and Ann Xu and Your Driver is Waiting by Priya Guns. Shadow Life has been out for a couple of years, but I am just getting to it now. It is a very evocative graphic novel, and I’m reading it slowly to savour the moodiness of the artwork. Your Driver is Waiting is a new release this spring and it is so dark and funny, it feels incredibly fresh.
The book that changed your life?
The best books invite you in and reorient your position in the world so that you see just a little bit more, or just a little bit differently. When I’ve been immersed in a favourite novel I feel like returning to real life is swimming up through a dream. Most of the books that changed my life are science fiction; they are the books that have made me imagine a way that I could be different in our world, or that I could work in our world to change it. They have shown me possibilities beyond the predictable. I suppose the book that most changed my life is one of the many childhood favourites that made me fall in love with reading, that set me on the path to becoming a bookseller; it's called Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett (published in1992) and it’s about a boy in England who has to reconsider all his assumptions about who counts as a person. I still recommend it to kids today and I think the way Pratchett challenges notions of difference is incredibly meaningful for a child, plus it’s very funny.
Most inspiring biography or autobiography?
This is the hardest question because to me, the most inspirational autobiography is very clearly Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom, first published in 1994 and continually in print since. It would be nearly impossible to find a more inspiring and well written life story, and if you haven’t read it I think you should, preferably over the summer, carting the absolutely enormous 650-page book from park to social gathering and making sure to tell everyone you encounter all about it. However Long Walk to Freedom is possibly also the most obvious answer, so I will offer up that for a recently published autobiography, I very much enjoyed Nanette by Hannah Gadsby.
Best beach-read?
Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare. It’s a murder mystery set on an ocean liner in 1936. There is nothing more satisfying on the beach than an intelligent and brave heroine outwitting some baddies—unless it's a romance novel. Best romance beach read for this summer is Jasmine and Jake Rock The Boat by Sonya Lalli. Lalli is a Vancouver author, and the book finds our heroine accidentally trapped on vacation with her parents and all their friends. There is lots of great intergenerational humour and a satisfying enemies-to-lovers plot.
Iron Dog Books.
Working title of your autobiography?
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