Skip to content
logo TNQ
  • Read
    • Dispatches
    • Issues
    • Online Exclusives
    • Under Review
    • Free Archive
      • Poetry
      • Fiction
      • Nonfiction
  • TNQ Presents
    • Wild Writers Literary Festival
    • Writing on the Land: A Wild Writers Retreat
    • The Vestige and TNQ Story
    • Spirit Ink
    • The X-Page Workshop
    • Parallel Homepage
  • Subscribe
    • Print Magazine
    • Digital Edition
    • Free Archive
  • Submit
    • Contests
    • Regular Submissions
  • Donate
  • Shop
    • Where to Buy
  • My Account
  • About TNQ
  • Our Team
  • Contact Us
  • Read
    • Dispatches
    • Issues
    • Online Exclusives
    • Under Review
    • Free Archive
      • Poetry
      • Fiction
      • Nonfiction
  • TNQ Presents
    • Wild Writers Literary Festival
    • Writing on the Land: A Wild Writers Retreat
    • The Vestige and TNQ Story
    • Spirit Ink
    • The X-Page Workshop
    • Parallel Homepage
  • Subscribe
    • Print Magazine
    • Digital Edition
    • Free Archive
  • Submit
    • Contests
    • Regular Submissions
  • Donate
  • Shop
    • Where to Buy
  • My Account
  • About TNQ
  • Our Team
  • Contact Us
Login
$0.00 0 Cart

What is Chase Everett McMurren Reading?

By Chase Everett McMurren

Some years back, I learned about the word “tsundoku” in Ella Frances Sanders’s Lost in Translation. Tsundoku is a Japanese noun describing a pile of unread books.
 
For you, I’ll share handful of partially read, or while-ago read, or up-next books. I currently have six-and-a-half tsundoku surrounding my pandemic-chair (where I meet people virtually for sessions).
 
Here are the books I wish for all of us to read:


1. Behave by Robert M. Sapolsky — an accessible and adventurous dive into human behaviour 


2. Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch — a wonderful invitation to make space for improvisation in every-day surviving (and thriving)


3. Light the Dark, edited by Joe Fassler — a nourishing collection of essays on the artistic process by people like Eiizabeth Gilbert and Sherman Alexie


4. A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt — a hot-off-the-press deeply evocative memoir by Indigenous scholar and poet 


5. You’re the One You’ve Been Waiting For by Richard Schwartz — a powerful DIY-way into exploring the many parts of our complicated, tired, beautiful selves 


6. The Bloom Book by Heidi Smith — a magical introduction to floral essences and making our ways through these trying times using ancient, Wise-Woman wisdom 


7. The Touch of Healing by Alice Burmeister — a delightful, simple how-to guide for using simple, deliberate touch to acknowledge and relieve distress of all sorts 


8. Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them) by Sallie Tisdale — a wonderful guide for embracing the inevitable (death!) with a bit more ease 

Chase Everett McMurren is a queer, Métis, harp-playing, home-visiting physician for elders and a psychotherapist for artists.

Photo courtesy of Jon Tyson.

Read more

  • Chase Everett McMurren
  • Who's Reading What
  • Writer Resources

Post navigation

Finding the Form with Becky Blake
Mia Anderson’s Writing Space

Territorial Acknowledgement

The New Quarterly is based in Waterloo, Ontario, on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabeg, and Neutral Peoples. We acknowledge that this land is part of the Haldimand Tract, the land promised to the Six Nations of the Grand River as part of the Haldimand Proclamation of 1784.

As a literary magazine devoted to storytelling, we recognize that stories have long been a way of knowing, preserving, and sharing in Indigenous cultures. We honour the generations of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples who have cared for these lands and continue to do so. We commit to listening, learning, and amplifying Indigenous voices, and to supporting pathways for truth and reconciliation through the stories we publish.

Facebook-f Instagram Linkedin-in Tiktok X-twitter
  • Privacy Policy
  • Accessibilty

MAGAZINE

  • About
  • Our Team
  • Where to Buy

CONTRIBUTE

  • Submit
  • Volunteer
  • Our Board
  • Donate

CONNECT

  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter

Subscribe to our Newsletter

CONNECT