Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto
General non-fiction, Canadian non-fiction
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Summary
What is the 'Toronto look'? Glass skyscrapers rise beside Victorian homes, and Brutalist apartment buildings often mark the edge of leafy ravines, creating a city of contrasts whose architectural look can only be defined by telling the story of how… it came together and how it works, today, as an imperfect machine. Shawn Micallef has been examining Toronto's streetscapes for a decade. His psychogeographic reportages, some of which have been featured in EYE WEEKLY and Spacing magazine, situate Toronto's buildings and streets in living, breathing detail, and tell us about the people who use them; the ways, intended or otherwise, that they are being used; and how they are evolving. Stroll celebrates Toronto's details - some subtle, others grand - at the speed of walking and, in so doing, helps us to better get to know its many neighbourhoods, taking us from well-known spots like the CN Tower and Pearson Airport to the overlooked corners of Scarborough and all the way to the end of the Leslie Street Spit in Lake Ontario. Stroll features thirty-two walks, a flâneur manifesto, a foreword by architecture critic John Bentley Mays and dozens of hand-drawn maps by Marlena Zuber. 'Shawn Micallef looks at the city in a way we all should more often - he sees it as a living book that is alive with stories just waiting to be told to the attentive observer. In Stroll, he gives us an introduction to just how interesting and surprisingly dramatic those stories are, and how exciting our city is when we hear them.' - David Crombie, former mayor of Toronto. 'A smart and intimate guide to the city that makes you feel like an insider from start to finish.' - Douglas Coupland. Stroll is co-published with EYE WEEKLY.