Manic Wednesday: That’s My Book Day, My Al Purdy Day

Where to begin? With National Poetry Month and the book-launch season both in high gear, there are events for just about every literary taste in the city today. Start your day with a free reading by Newfoundland author Micheal Crummy at the TPL Reference Library (789 Yonge Street, 12:30 p.m.), and later catch Giller Prize winner Linden MacIntyre at the North York Central Library (5120 Yonge Street, 7 p.m., FREE). The weekly Authors at Harbourfront Centre series (235 Queens Quay West) presents novelists Andrea Levy, Adam Lewis Schroeder, and Helen Simonson reading from their latest works (7:30 p.m., $8, free to members and students with valid ID), while the Pivot Reading Series at the Press Club (850 Dundas Street West, 8 p.m., PWYC) has four authors on their roster, Gary Barwin, Gregory Betts, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, and R.D. Patrick (for kevin mcpherson eckhoff’s contribution to The Optimisms Project go here). The Dora Keogh Pub (141 Danforth Avenue) hosts Ian Orti for the launch of his new book, The Olive and the Dawn (7 p.m., FREE), and the sixth edition of the Hear Hear Reading Series gets underway at The Free Times Cafe (320 College Street) at 6:30 p.m. with readings by Andrew Daley, Adrienne Gruber, Rebecca Rosenblum, and Julia Tausch (PWYC, all ages). An interesting two-part event happens on the grounds of CAMH (1001 Queen Street West) and the ballroom of the Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen Street West) to mark the republication of scholar and activist Geoffrey Reaume’s Remembrance Of Patients Past. At 6 p.m. Reaume will conduct a walking tour along the old wall of CAMH and share his knowledge of institution’s long and troubled past. He will then escort his charges to the Gladstone, where he will be interviewed on stage by Ruth Stackhouse at 8 p.m. For more information please go to the This Is Not a Reading Series website here. And finally, because today is national Al Purdy Day, many of the city’s poets, including David Day, Steven Michael Berzensky, Terry Barker, Guy Ewing, and Shane Neilson, will gather at This Ain’t the Rosedale Library (86 Nassau Street) to honour the late Canadian poetry icon (8 p.m., FREE).