‘We all know the scenario,” Pages Books proprietor Marc Glassman grouses while ruminating on the stilted dynamics of book launches. “The writer spends a minute or two thanking the editor and publisher and explaining what is going to be read from the book. Then, using an appropriate plumy tone, passages from the book are read for half an hour or so. Those in the audience who are still awake at the end of what is often a less than scintillating performance, applaud, and — apart from a signing — the evening is over.” 

Five years ago Glassman, along with his then–store manager Shaun Smith, concocted This Is Not a Reading Series, a venue for publishers to launch their books with one challenging constraint: no readings. Pages Books will be celebrating the anniversary with a Marc Glassman roast this week, while the series begins in earnest the following night with the launch of Lee Henderson’s novel The Man Game, which may be the best (and most divisive) book ever written by a Canadian.

Chris Reed, who took over coordinating the series last year, is happy to see it as an ongoing experiment. He points to their new “TINARS For Tots” series as one example. “It is the most unique in so far as no one else in town is doing Mr. Dress Up for the Converse set.”
Given the series’ capacity for invention, and in honour of the anniversary, EYE WEEKLY asked Glassman to list the five past TINARS events he found the most surprising:

Bigfoot lives
“In response to Graham Roumieu’s latest Bigfoot book, I Not Dead, a group of performers including Sean Cullen, Doug Bell, Damian Rogers and Michael Winter delivered mock eulogies to the dreaded but beloved comic figure. A very funny night indeed.”

uTopics
“We have been eager participants in the trilogy of Coach House books about Toronto. Each has been extraordinary and great discussions about the city and its future have always ensued.”

The obsessions of Seth and Chester Brown
“Two iconic graphic novelists gave us an exceptional evening in which Seth delivered an erudite and personal look at the 20 cartoonists who have influenced his art. Brown took us through the creation of his hugely influential and successful book on Louis Riel.”

Producing Gene Wilder
“Clips of such films as The Producers and Silver Streak were interspersed with excellent questions by Ralph Benmergui about the roots of Wilder’s comic art.

Broken socialism
“For the launch of Ibi Kaslik’s first novel, Skinny, she brought along as musical accompaniment many members of Broken Social Scene. ’Nuff said, as Stan Lee used to say.”