Days and Days is one of the great books we've got up for giveaway throughout November. 

Check out everything else we've got on offer on our giveaways page, and don't miss your chance to win. 

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When thinking about the Canadian music books I’ve chosen to list here, I suppose I tend to gravitate toward the fringes. Anything a little melancholy is what I connect with. Anything that embodies the troubadour with true grit at its core will keep me turning the pages. 

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On a Cold Road, by Dave Bidini

In On a Cold Road, Rheostatics guitarist and award-winning writer Dave Bidini, documents his time spent touring with the Tragically Hip. This journal is the window into what it was like to travel across the country with one of the greatest bands in Canadian history. Woven around Bidini’s personal stories are interviews with well known musicians sharing their accounts of life on the road. At times, the reader is right there with the band on stage with sweat dripping from their brow. It’s snow storms and arena lights, blunders and triumphs. I took a card from this book about how to write about live music. 

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Here Goes Nothing, by Eamon McGrath

I’ve been a fan of McGrath’s music long enough to know that he tours more than almost any Canadian musician you could think of. It was interesting to connect the thread from select moments in the book to specific lyrics that have resonated with me. In Here Goes Nothing, the reader is dragged into the tour van and driven out into the great unknown, where rock ‘n roll reigns. McGrath shows what it feels like, what it smells like, how psychologically brutal and fragile it can be. It’s dreamy, dark and the days meld together through two distinct narratives. 

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Treat Me Like Dirt, by Liz Worth

Do I ever love reading about local music history from the generations that came  before me. Treat Me Like Dirt is told by the musicians that ruled the desolate landscape of Hamilton and Toronto’s Yonge Street and Queen Street before everything changed, back when they were dark, seedy, and full of artists and off-beat characters. Worth lets these conversations paint the picture, where each new paragraph is told from another musician’s perspective. It’s clever how these recollections collide. Teenage Head. Diodes. Heck yeah.

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Before the Fame, by Stompin’ Tom Connors  

It took me a minute to get into this book to be quite honest. But once I did, I ripped through it. This Canadian folk hero speaks in straightforward prose about his trials and tribulations from childhood onward. It’s a road map of Canada told through the lens of one of our truest and most earnest troubadours. It’s about overcoming adversity, keeping your faith, and staying the course. The minute I set this book down, I picked up my guitar.

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Songbook, by Steven Heighton

Songbook is a collection of Heighton’s lyrics and music. I came late to Heighton, unaware of his musical prowess at first. After reading the lyrics in this book, it became clear to me that this was someone so entrenched in storytelling that his need for expression extended well past novels and poetry. I could almost hear what each one sounded like as I read through. The music is powerful. “Don’t Remember Me” is a pull-the-car-over-and-listen type of song. My suggestion is to listen to that song first, let it sink in, then discover his other books if you haven’t already.      

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Learn more about Days and Days: 

A revelatory adventure that leads two friends into the belly of the beast with the ’90s most influential U.K. punk band that changed so many lives

It might seem odd—a punk band introducing poetry into someone’s life. But what if this lyrical influence was the reason you became a writer in the first place?

Days and Days weaves together two stories. One is a tale of friendship and self-discovery that occurs during a backpacking adventure through England, Scotland, and Ireland. The other celebrates the highly influential yet underestimated UK band Leatherface, a group that The Guardian called “the greatest British punk band of the modern era.”

Without so much as a single hostel booked, Chris MacDonald and his friend Jason cross the Atlantic. They sleep in train stations, endure a haunting on top of a volcano in Edinburgh, are driven out of Belfast by the IRA, and witness the mother of all storms. They also find themselves in the rehearsal space of their teenage punk idols, a building steeped in cultural significance for the Sunderland music scene.

Days and Days is about the silver thread that connects us even after drifting apart. It’s a story about forgiveness and reflection, how beauty can be found within callous cladding. Leatherface band members, colleagues, and friends generously share personal insights that guide the reader into the melancholy, darkness, and humor that surround Sunderland’s best-kept secret.