Book News Vol. 5 No. 37

BOOK NEWS

Important Notice
Tickets go on sale for this year's Festival on September 8. You can get full information on our web site, www.writersfest.bc.ca. To ensure there are tickets for the events you really want to see, become a member for just $35. Tickets go on sale to members September 1 and you will also be providing much needed support to the Festival. Membership information at http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/get-involved/membership.

Just Announced
Stuart McLean talks with Hal Wake about his new book The Vinyl Café Notebooks, a collection of wonderfully eclectic essays selected from 15 years of radio-show archives and re-edited by the author. Join us for a rare chance to gain insight into the thoughtful mind at work behind The Vinyl Cafe. Details here, http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/maclean.

Virtual Festival
The latest recording in our recently launched series of archived events from Festivals-past features a rare, rock star combination on the stage—Douglas Coupland and Irvine Welsh. http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/multimedia/audio-archives

Call for Volunteers
The submission deadline for returning volunteers is today, August 27. First-time volunteers are urged to apply no later than September 10. Please see http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/volunteers/volunteers_needed.htm for details and on-line registration. Come and join us, it's fun and illuminating!

Special Events

John Vaillant
The author of the multi-award-winning The Golden Spruce will discuss his new book The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, a gripping tale of man and nature in collision, that leads inexorably to a final showdown in a clearing deep in the Siberian forest. Details here, http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/vaillant.

Author, editor, reviewer Stephen Bodio quotes Annie Proulx on Amazon about John Vaillant's The Tiger: "The Tiger is the sort of book I very much like and rarely find." "It is better than good" writes Bodio. More comments from Proulx and Bodio are here:
http://stephenbodio.blogspot.com/2010/08/john-vaillants-tiger.html

Alissa York and Richard Harvell
Please join us as Giller-shortlisted author Alissa York and debut novelist Richard Harvell read from their new works. Details at http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/yorkharvell.


2010 FESTIVAL AUTHORS
The following authors will be attending the Festival in October or participating in special events in the fall.

Margaret Cannon writes that The Nesting Dolls is one of Gail Bowen's best books.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/new-in-crime-fiction/article1679724/

Like the Russian matryoshka dolls, one secret tucks into another, making it a compelling read, writes Cheryl Parker.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Secrets+within+secrets+shape+plot/3426991/story.html

CBC interviewer Lee Ferguson says of The Beauty of Humanity Movement: "The book’s genesis is nearly as spellbinding as the novel itself."
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2010/08/20/f-camilla-gibb-the-beauty-of-humanity-movement.html

Terence Young's new collection of short stories The End of the Ice Age focuses attention on the tricky state of being between young and old.
http://roverarts.com/2010/08/forever-young/

The National Post review ends with the words "Buy It".
http://arts.nationalpost.com/2010/08/10/buy-it-or-skip-it-the-end-of-the-ice-age/

Halifax's poet laureate, spoken-word artist Shauntay Grant has produced a second children's book with illustrations by Susan Tooke. The City Speaks in Drums, writes reviewer Susan Perren, brings Halifax to life.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/bringing-halifax-to-life/article1678707/

What makes a poet a poet? Is one of many questions asked of George Bowering in the blog in Other Words.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/in-other-words/george-bowering-bullshit-artist-a-poetics-of-attention/article1675695/

AWARDS & LISTS

Geraldine Brooks, author of March and People of the Book, among other works, will receive the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for lifetime achievement at a ceremony in November.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/08/dayton-literary-peace-prize-geraldine-brooks.html

Alanna Mitchell's Sea Sick: The Global Ocean in Crisis is one of three finalists for the inaugural Lane Anderson Award for Canadian science writing. The complete list of finalists, including for the young readers award, is here.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/article/850222--finalists-named-for-science-writing-prizes

Newscientist describes Sea Sick as a very important book about the state of two-thirds of our planet.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227071.800-review-seasick-by-alanna-mitchell.html

Earlier this year, Michell was awarded the $75,000 Grantham Prize for environmental writing.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/alanna-mitchell-wins-writing-award/article1613674/

Rick Gekowski writes about being a good literary loser, based on his experience on the shortlist for the PEN/Ackerley prize. Gekowski is a judge for the Man Booker international prize for 2011.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/aug/24/literary-awards-man-booker-prize

NEWS & FEATURES

BC Ferries has banned from its shelves Annabel Lyon's award-winning book The Golden Mean, due to the jacket's illustration of a naked man lying on the back of a horse. International publications are both offended by this censorship, and finding the story a good source for bad jokes. Here are two responses to the censorship news:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/24/alexander-the-great-annabel-lyon-bum
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/08/banned-book-bummer.html

Edwin Morgan, Scotland's first national poet (Scots Makar), has died aged 90. Between 1952 and 2007, he published over 60 books of his own writing and translations of others' works.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/19/edwin-morgan-obituary

Examples from the TLS of the late Scottish Makar's varied, often magnificent work, can be found here.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article7165495.ece

Ed Pilkington meets journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sherry WuDunn and learns how their discovery of, and response to, trafficking of women—a modern form of global slavery—has changed the way they write.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/19/women-slavery-half-the-sky

From the archives of the New York Review of Books, David Lodge on literary critic Frank Kermode, whose death was announced last week.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1996/may/09/confessions-of-a-literary-man/?pagination=false

Three years after his death, pieces of Kurt Vonnegut's life are coming together in his hometown (Indianapolis) in a new library that will also be a museum devoted to his legacy. The collection includes first editions of his books, his Purple Heart and the rejection letters that preceded his success. “You have no talent and we suggest you give up writing,'" says one.
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2010/08/18/vonnegut-library.html

AS Byatt criticizes the Orange prize for fiction, saying there is no such thing as feminine subject matter. She also claims that women who write intellectual books are seen as unnatural.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/20/as-byatt-intellectual-women-strange

The newest French literary star is 15. Carmen Bramly's first novel Pastel Fauve is due out this week.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/bonjour-jeunesse-new-french-literary-star-carmen-bramly-is-15-2054453.html

Other young folk are out to rid the world of typos.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/magazine/20100817_They_re_out_to_rid_the_world_of_typos.html#ixzz0wxpynJkO

Roy Peter Clark has written The Glamour of Grammar, a grammar manual for the 21st century that endorses breaking rules that make no sense.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/books/review/Shea-t.html?_r=1&nl=books&emc=booksupdateema3&pagewanted=all

Every day, the website Five Books features an eminent writer, thinker, commentator, politician, academic who chooses five books on his or her specialist subject.
http://fivebooks.com/

There was a time, not so long ago, when Shakespeare was banned. In Ontario.
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/850826--the-day-shakespeare-was-banned

A "book" can mean many things and has many futures, but it may need explaining for new readers. Lane Smith's new work for children is It's a Book.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129251016&ft=1&f=1008

The recent Norwegian court ruling against Åsne Seierstad, the author of The Bookseller of Kabul, throws into sharp relief the fine line between journalism and literature and raises questions about the very nature of non-fiction writing itself, writes Faisal al Yafai.
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100820/REVIEW/708199994/1008

BOOKS & WRITERS

Intellectual property has become such a hot topic that Lewis Hyde's Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership is timely indeed. Robert Darnton describes the book as an eloquent and erudite plea for protecting our cultural patrimony from appropriation by commercial interests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/books/review/Darnton-t.html?nl=books&emc=booksupdateema3

Vietnam veteran and novelist Edward Wilson finds chilling echoes of that war in a US platoon's Iraq killing spree as described in Jim Frederick's Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/21/black-hearts-jim-frederick

James Ellroy, the author of LA Confidential and The Black Dahlia, and whose latest book, Blood's a Rover, is now out in paperback, is still haunted by his mother's ghost.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/aug/22/observer-profile-james-ellroy

Milan Kundera's trademark lightness of style continues in Encounters: Essays.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/21/encounters-essays-milan-kundera

Kundera's exhumed essays cast a spell with their insights into creativity, writes Geoff Dyer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/22/encounter-essays-review

Human Chain, Seamus Heaney's new collection brilliantly enacts the struggle between memory and loss, says Colm Tóibín.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/21/seamus-heaney-human-chain-review

Susan Salter Reynolds writes that Per Petterson's I Curse the River of Time masterfully captures a family's sorrow and disconnect - a vivid portrait of longing for something just out of reach.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-book-20100821,0,6463919.story

William Skidelsky argues that the fascination with Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap is due to its being a novel about the failings of middle-class life and points to wider concerns about the durability of liberal values in a multicultural society.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/22/will-skidelsky-the-slap-success

R.B. Fleming's Peter Gzowski: A Biography paints a portrait of a brilliant man who hid a private dark side.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/biographer-claims-peter-gzowski-had-secret-child/article1682183/

Margaret MacMillan's new biography of Stephen Leacock indicates that he, too, had a dark side.
http://thetyee.ca/Books/2010/08/23/StephenLeacock/?utm_source=mondayheadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=230810

Günther Grass says that his new book Grimms Wörter: Eine Liebeserklärung (Grimms' Words: A Declaration of Love), a paean to the Brothers Grimm and the dictionary of German language they began to write, marks the end of his autobiographical writing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/24/gunter-grass-last-autobiography

COMMUNITY EVENTS

JILL EDMONSON
Author reads from her new novel, Blood and Groom, part of the Castle Street Mysteries. Saturday, August 28 at 1:00pm. Indigo Marine Drive (1025 Marine Drive).

COMIX & STORIES
Vancouver Comiccon's annual event featuring independent, small-press, and alternative publishers, comics, artists, animators,
and zines. Guests include Emily Horne and Joey Comeau. Sunday, August 29 from 11am to 5pm. Tickets $4. Heritage Hall, 3102 Main Street. For more information, visit www.vancouvercomiccon.com.

VANCOUVER POETRY SLAM
Van Slam featuring Kim Johnson. Monday, August 30 at 8:00pm. Cover: $10/$5. Cafe Deux Soleils (2096 Commercial). More information at www.vancouverpoetryhouse.com

Upcoming

SPIDER ROBINSON
The Library's sixth Writer in Residence will read from some of his many award-winning works and talk about the writing process at his inaugural reading. Thursday, September 9 at 7:00pm, free. Alice McKay room, lower level, Central Branch, 350 W. Georgia Street. For more information please contact Vancouver Public Library at 604-331-3603.

GARY GEDDES
Reading by the author from his latest book of poetry, Swimming Ginger. Monday, September 13 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen Room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street. For more information, phone 604-331-3603.

KATHY PAGE AND ALISSA YORK
Authors will be reading from their works. Saturday, September 18. Bolen Books (111 - 1644 Hillside Avenue, Victoria). For more information, visit www.kathypage.info or contact Bolen Books, (250) 595-4232.

SUSAN BOYD
Join the author as she reads from her book Hooked: Drug War Films in Britain, Canada and the United States. Wednesday, September 22 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street. For more information, phone 604-331-3738.

THE RAVEN'S GIFT
Author John Turk will read from his new book. Thursday, September 23 at 7:00pm. Banyen Books & Sound, 3608 4th Ave. West.

KOOTENAY BOOK WEEKEND
Discuss four books in small groups throughout the weekend. This year's books are The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels, The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barberry and our guest author, Anita Rau Badami's book Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? September 24-26, 2010, Nelson BC. Further information and registration forms can be found here, www.kootenaybookweekend.ca.

DAVID GLENN
The Burnaby Arts Council will host a launch of The Queen's Sword and The Queen's Jewels. Saturday, September 25 at 1:00pm. Deer Lake Gallery, 6584 Deer Lake Avenue, Burnaby.

EVENING THE FRAYED EDGES
Launch of the Recovery Narrative Project's first anthology of collected works, edited by Susan J. Katz, featuring a series of narratives and poems bringing first-hand accounts of turning points in recovery from mental illness. Sunday, September 26 at 7:00pm, free. John Braithwaite Community Centre, 145 West 1st Street, North Vancouver.

WORD ON THE STREET
Annual event dedicated to promoting reading and literacy throughout the community. Sunday, September 26 from 11am to 6pm. Library Square, Central Libray, 350 West Georgia Street. For more information, visit www.thewordonthestreet.ca/wots/vancouver.

EVOLVE: VAMPIRE STORIES OF THE NEW UNDEAD
Listen to Vancouver writers Mary Choo, Sandra Wickham and Celdae (Colleen) Anderson, 3 of 22 Canadian authors featured in this most unusual and compelling collection as they re-imagine the future of vampires. Monday, September 27 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street. For more information phone 604-331-3691.

MICHAEL NICHOLL YAHGULANAAS
Reading by the author of Red. Thursday, September 30 at 1:00pm, free. Lillooet Room (level 3), Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, 1961 East Mall, Vancouver. More information at www.ikebarberlearningcentre.ubc.ca.