Welcome to BOOKz COOKz NOOKz
A Community Voice for Pickering and Durham Region — www.szpin.ca
If you live in Pickering, or anywhere in Durham Region, and have ever wished for one place that pulls together the news, the notices, the local color, and a bit of good old-fashioned neighbourliness — you have found it. BOOKz COOKz NOOKz (www.szpin.ca) is a community website built and written by me, a Pickering resident of 40 years, for Pickering residents, and its guiding idea is simple: help people live better — personally, electronically, financially, and in whatever other ways a small, independent website can manage.
It is not a polished corporate news outlet, and it does not try to be. It is closer to a neighbour who reads everything, remembers everything, and shows up at your door most mornings with the highlights — plus a recipe, a book recommendation, and news of a puppy called Mico.
The Morning News Desk
At the heart of the site is the Morning News Desk, a daily digest built fresh every day and organized into four sections: Pickering/Durham, Canada, International, and The Lighter Side. Each section is a short, plain-language summary crediting the original source clearly so you can always read further if a story catches your interest.
New this month, the site’s “Daily News” widget on the homepage takes visitors to a simple choose-your-section page: four signposts, one for each part of the digest. Click Pickering/Durham and you go straight to the local stories; click Canada or International and you jump directly to that section, without having to scroll past everything else. It is a small piece of design, but it reflects the site’s larger philosophy — give people exactly what they came for, quickly and without fuss.
Local Life, Council, and the Community Board
Beyond the daily digest, BOOKz COOKz NOOKz is where Pickering’s civic life gets tracked in detail: council news, election coverage, and a running conversation about the issues that shape the city, filed under categories like Pickering Council News, Elections, and Politics. Readers who want a wider civic lens will also find Politics (USA) and Editorial and Opinion pieces that dig into current events, along with a Point/Counterpoint feature that lays out both sides of an issue side by side.
The Community Board is the site’s bulletin board in the best sense — neighbourhood barbecues, local associations, notices, and events that would otherwise circulate only by word of mouth or a flyer on a lamppost. A recent post, for instance, invited readers to the Pickering West Shore Community Association’s annual neighbourhood BBQ, with a friendly reminder that it is a social event, not a campaign stop. It is the kind of item you will not find on a national news feed, and it is exactly the kind of item with which this website deals.
Seniors, Health, and Everyday Living
A significant part of the site’s audience is 55 and older, and it shows in the sections built with that in mind: Seniors Scene and Aging cover the topics that matter at that stage of life. Healthy and Health look at wellness in practical researched pieces, and a standing Scams, Frauds, and Hacks section exists purely to help readers spot the schemes — phone, email, and online — that increasingly target older adults. The footer of the homepage carries two quick-reference widgets, “Useful” Phone Numbers and “Emergency” Phone Numbers, so that a visitor never has to dig for an important contact and I recommend you post these numbers for handy reference.
Lighter sections round things out nicely: Richard Reads offers book recommendations and reviews for anyone building a reading list, Recipes shares dishes worth trying, many of which I have cooked and tried, and Technology explains the devices and digital tools of daily life in plain terms rather than technical ones.
Meet the Person Behind the Page
BOOKz COOKz NOOKz is the work of Richard Szpin, a Pickering resident who built and has maintained the site as a one-person operation — writer, editor, and publisher all at once. Richard is also known to readers as the proud owner of Mico, a puppy whose updates have become something of a recurring, much-loved feature in their own right.
What comes through most, browsing the site, is that it is genuinely personal. Posts are signed, phone numbers and an email address are offered right on the homepage, and the tone throughout is warm and direct rather than institutional. For a website with more than twelve thousand posts behind it, that consistency of voice is no small thing.
Why It Is Worth a Visit
For a first-time visitor, the appeal of BOOKz COOKz NOOKz comes down to three things: it is local in a way that larger outlets cannot match, it is current, with a digest refreshed every day, and it is personal, written by someone who lives in the community he is writing about and reporting on. Whether you come for the morning headlines, the council updates, a recipe, a good read, or simply to find out what Mico has been up to, there is a good chance you will stay for something else you did not expect to find.
Stay Connected
BOOKz COOKz NOOKz is online at www.szpin.ca. Richard welcomes calls and emails from readers directly: by phone at 905-509-8666, or by email at zippyonego@gmail.com. New visitors are encouraged to start at the homepage, take in the Daily News digest, and browse the category list on the right-hand side to find the corner of the site that speaks to them most.
As always…
Best,
Richard
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