Book News Vol. 5 No. 41

BOOK NEWS

Festival News
Tickets are on sale for the 23rd Vancouver International Writers & Readers Festival. For up-to-the-moment Festival information please visit our website: writersfest.bc.ca, or pick up a copy of the Festival program guide at various Lower Mainland locations including Book Warehouse locations, Chapters, Sitka Books and Art, Vancouver Public Library branches and on Granville Island at Blackberry Books. In North Vancouver, check out 32 Books.

The Vancouver International Writers Festival invites you to Literati, our annual Gala Dinner, presented by Scotia Private Client Group. Join a host of 2010 Festival authors for an unforgettable evening of festivity, food and literary laughs, hosted by Bill Richardson. In support of Spreading the Word, the educational program of the Vancouver International Writers Festival. Complete details here, http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/literati.

Writers Festival Art Raffle! Win a beautiful Jamie Evrard painting, Leap of Faith II-Yellow, Green and Red Flowers (Edition 1/1). Jamie Evrard creates rich and exuberant still life and floral paintings using several mediums, including oil paint, monotype and watercolour. Jamie has an exhibition the Bau-Xi Gallery until October 2. Raffle details here, http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/literati/raffle.

Virtual Festival
The latest recording in our recently launched series of archived events from Festivals-past features Kate Braid, accompanied by musician Clyde Reed, reading from her collection Turning Left to the Ladies—an autobiographical account of her experiences building homes and high rises. http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/multimedia/audio-archives

Special Events

Stevie Cameron
Vancouver International Writers Festival presents a special event with journalist Stevie Cameron. Her new book is On the Farm: Robert William Pickton and the tragic story of Vancouver’s missing women. Details at http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/cameron.

In his review of On the Farm, Rafe Mair writes: “Stevie Cameron has written yet another great book exposing, as is her wont, the "comfortable establishment" in our country of indifference to societal ills that might be expensive nuisances to deal with.”
http://thetyee.ca/Books/2010/09/13/PicktonHorror/?utm_source=mondayheadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=130910

Neil Boyd writes that Cameron gives us women who were much more than drug-addled prostitutes, women with families and hopes.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/review-on-the-farm-by-stevie-cameron-pickton/article1711472/?cmpid=rss1

Read chapter 1 here:
http://www.mysterybooks.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780676975840&view=excerpt

Stuart McLean
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 his CBC radio program. Please join us for a rare, intimate evening with one of Canada's best loved storytellers. Details here, http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/maclean.

Sara Gruen
The Vancouver International Writers Festival and Random House Canada present the author of Water for Elephants reading from her new book Ape House. Details here, http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/gruen.

Sara Gruen talks to Martin Levin about her preparation for, and visits and talking with, bonobos.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/talk-to-the-animals-and-theyll-talk-back/article1702488/

But are we really listening, asks Diane Baker Mason in her review of Ape House.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/review-ape-house-by-sara-gruen/article1702481/


2010 FESTIVAL AUTHORS
The following authors are among those appearing at the Festival in October or participating in special events in the fall.

Jeffrey Simpson comments that Charlotte Gray's Gold Diggers allows us to experience the greed, debauchery and hardship endured by prospectors during the Klondike gold rush: one of the most astonishing moments in Canadian history.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/grays-account-of-the-klondike-gold-rush-deserves-to-strike-it-rich/article1707485/

Pascale Quiviger's The Breakwater House is a riddle that entertains and delights, but refuses solution...it rejects the easy endings offered by most novels.” writes Casey N. Cap.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/review-the-breakwater-house-by-pascale-quiviger/article1571318/

Ron Charles describes Emma Donoghue's Room as one of the most affecting and subtly profound novels of the year.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/14/AR2010091406235.html

What gives Room particular authenticity was the author's decision to tell the story through the eyes of Jack, who was born in captivity, says reviewer Stephen Amidon.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/review-room-by-emma-donoghue/article1702566/

Aimee Bender finds the child narrator one of the most engaging in years—"his voice so pervasive I could hear him chatting away during the day when I wasn’t reading the book".
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Bender-t.html?nl=books&emc=booksupdateema1

Francine Prose writes that in Yiyun Li's subtle stories of hapless souls, destiny continually subverts plans for happiness.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Prose-t.html?nl=books&emc=booksupdateema3

Quill and Quire describes Chevy Stevens' Still Missing as a gripping debut novel.
http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=6908

Stevens' character Annie is kept captive differently than the characters in Donoghue's Room. Annie is a strong, smart woman who won't stop fighting to regain her sanity and equilibrium, says Janet Maslin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/books/05book.html

Edmund White writes that every one of Wells Tower's stories in Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is polished and distinctive. His range is wide, writing with equal power about men older than he is, young women and boys.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/books/review/White-t.html

Commenting on Joan Thomas' Curiosity, J.C. Sutcliffe writes "being able to sink fully into a novel-length, fictionalized exploration of Mary Anning's life is a bit like eating comfort food at a high-end restaurant."
“http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/review-curiosity-by-joan-thomas/article1513447/

This is a love story with a narrative dynamic as old as Cinderella, says Philip Marchand.
http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/afterword/archive/2010/04/03/open-book-by-philip-marchand-joan-thomas-s-curiosity.aspx

Russell Wangersky returns to the Festival with his first novel The Glass Harmonica, which sketches the history of an inner-city street in St. John's through the eyes of multiple characters.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/review-the-glass-harmonica-by-russell-wangersky/article1551301/

David Grossman's To the End of the Land is the Guardian's Book of the Week.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/18/david-grossman-end-of-the-land

Charles Foran's Mordecai is one of the ten books Martin Levin has identified as 'must reads' for this fall.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/10-books-you-have-to-read-this-fall/article1711599/

Richard Helm writes that Michael Winter's The Death of Donna Whalen weaves its spell in small increments and that Winter has produced one of the best documentary accounts of a Canadian crime ever written.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Michael+Winter+does+true+crime/3543361/story.html

Lynn Coady adds: "His respect for his 'characters' who have given him his story and lent him their voices...brings an entirely new kind of Michael Winter to the page."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/review-the-death-of-donna-whalen-by-michael-winter/article1711436/

T.F. Rigelhof says Caroline Adderson's The Sky is Falling "has the most memorable final chapter of anything I’ve read in years."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/review-the-sky-is-falling-by-caroline-adderson/article1711435/

The surprise Canadian publishing success is Shilpi Somaya Gowda's Secret Daughter—now No. 2 on Canada's bestsellers list.
http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20100918.RVGOWDA0918ATL/TPStory/TPEntertainment/

Michael Winter talks about his new novel The Death of Donna Whalen and how it's a departure from his previous work.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/michael-winter-st-johns-with-no-veneer-no-romance/article1717039/

AWARDS & LISTS

Tom Wolfe, author of The Right Stuff and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, has won the 2010 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2010/09/15/wolfe-national-book-foundation.html

Seán Cullen’s children’s novel The Prince of Neither Here Nor There is one of five books shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/article/862135--sean-cullen-makes-toronto-book-awards-short-list

Five of the authors on the longlist for the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize will be appearing at the Festival this fall.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/small-presses-dominate-giller-long-list/article1715325/


NEWS & FEATURES

The Nobel Prize winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk has turned his fictional Museum of Innocence into fact.
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/The+museum+that+was+written+down/21427

Daniel Pennac and Michael Morpurgo share the experience of having been regarded as dunces. They both now write and are teachers. Pennac’s latest book Chagrin d’école (published this month in English as School Blues) is about a dunce.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/daniel-pennac-head-teacher-from-the-school-of-joy-2081187.html

Leah McLaren argues that Sisterhood is the hottest memoir topic right now.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/style/let-the-boys-have-their-bromances-sisterhood-is-the-hot-memoir-topic/article1712340/

BOOKS & WRITERS

To coincide with Granta's publication of its issue devoted to the best new writing from Pakistan, an extract from one of its standout stories.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/13/extract-leila-wilderness-nadeem-aslam

Richard Wright's Mr. Shakespeare’s Bastard, may be the final proof that he is indeed CanLit's answer to Meryl Streep, says Emily Donaldson in The Star.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/article/862481--mr-shakespeare-s-bastard-the-wright-stuff

What is the essence of a human being when everything that defines her humanity has been taken from her? That is the underlying question in Ingrid Betancourt's recently published Even Silence Has An End, about her six years in captivity.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/18/ingrid-betancourt-i-still-have-nightmares

Kate Kellaway in her review of Robert Bringhurst's Selected Poems, writes that Bringhurst's work – funny, fond and devastating – grasps the essence of what it is to be alive.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/19/robert-bringhurst-selected-poems-review

Poet and family doctor Shane Neilson on why editors of poetry anthologies should leave themselves out of the mix.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/editor-heel-thyself/article1716728/

COMMUNITY EVENTS

IN MANIA'S MEMORY
Launch of Vancouver writer Lisa Birnie's latest book. Thursday, September 23 at 6:00pm. Bau-Xi Gallery, 3045 Granville Street. For more information, 604-733-7011.

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.

THE ARTEMIS ROCKS!
Launch of best-selling author Eoin Colfer's seventh book in his Artemis Fowl adventure series. Thursday, September 23 at 7:00pm. Free admission but tickets required via online contest at www.vpl.ca. Alice MacKay room, VPL, 350 W. Georgia Street. More information at 604-331-3603.

WRITER'S STUDIO SNEAK PREVIEW
The SFU Writer's Studio will be launching emerge, its 2010 anthology, at the Vancouver International Writers & Readers Festival, but for those people looking for a sneak preview, the authors will be performing pre-release readings at the Cottage Bistro, 4470 Main Street, on Thursday, September 23, from 7-10 p.m. More information at www.thewritersstudio.ca.

ROB HALPERN AND TAYLOR BRADY
Reading by poet Rob Halpern and talk by Taylor Brady. Friday, September 24 at 8:00pm. Suggested donation: $3-$5. Spartacus Books, 684 East Hastings Street.

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.

BOOK ARTS MOSAIC OPENING
Books by award-winning local writers will be showcased for the opening of A Book Arts Mosaic. A book sale and meet the authors event happen in conjunction. Saturday, September 25 at 1:00pm. Burnaby Arts Council's Deer Lake Gallery, 6584 Deer Lake Avenue, Burnaby. Details at info@burnabyartscouncil.org.

ROBERT BATEMAN
One of the world's greatest wildlife artists signs his new book, Bateman: New Works. Saturday, September 25 at 2:00pm. Chapters Broadway and Granville, 2505 Granville Street. More information at 604-731-7822.

WRITING AND THE CREATIVE PROCESS
An interactive program led by Silvana Goldemberg Faifman, designed for those who love stories and want to unlock their creative potential. Saturday, September 25 at 3:30pm, free. Limited seating, please register here: http://behappyalltogether.wordpress.com. Richmond Public Library, 7700 Minoru Gate, Richmond.

SHILPI SOMAYA GOWDA
Meet Canadian author Shilpi Somaya Gowda as she signs copies of her debut novel, Secret Daughter. Saturday, September 25 at 4:00pm. Chapters Park Royal, 900 Park Royal South, West Vancouver. More information at 604-922-3222.

POETRY READING
Governor-General's Award nominated poet Barry McKinnon (In the Millennium) and Terrace poet Simon Thompson (Why Does It Feel So Late?) will fete the new People's Co-op with readings from their books. Saturday, September 25 at 7:00pm, free. People's Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial Drive.

TAYLOR BRADY AND ROB HALPERN
Reading by the author of Microclimate (Brady) and talk by Rob Halpern. Saturday, September 25 at 8:00pm. Suggested donation: $3-$5. W2 Storyeum, 151 West Cordova Street.

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.

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.

JACK WHYTE
Bestselling author from Kelowna, BC, signs the first book in his exciting new trilogy, The Forest Laird. Monday, September 27 at 7:00pm. Chapters Marine Drive, 1025 Marine Drive, North Vancouver. More information at 604-988-6681.

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.

GAIL ANDERSON-DARGATZ
Reading by the author of The Stalker, a Good Reads novel written for adult literacy learners. Tuesday, September 28 at 7:00pm, free. Bob Prittie Metrotown, 6100 Willingdon Ave, Burnaby. For more information, phone 604-436-5400.

SO LARGE AN ANIMAL
Reading by New Westminster poet Bibiana Tomasic. Wednesday, September 29 at 7:00pm. Museum of Vancouver Studio, 1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver.

CBC RADIO STUDIO ONE BOOK CLUB
On September 29, the CBC Radio Studio One Book Club will welcome author Marina Nemat with her second memoir "After Tehran: A Life Reclaimed". Marina was thrown into Iran's most notorious prison at the age of 16 after demanding her teacher stop teaching religious propaganda and resume teaching math. After two years of hell, she finally emigrated to Canada in 1991. A powerful, shocking, and ultimately inspiring story, enter to win free tickets to see Marina at www.cbc.ca/bc/bookclub.

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.

ON EDGE READING SERIES
Reading by poet Garry Morse. Thursday, September 30 at 7:00pm, free. Library, Emily Carr University, Granville Island. More information here, http://www.ecuad.ca/about/news/71335.

ROBSON READING SERIES
Readings by Mette Bach (Off the Highway) and Melanie Siebert (Deepwater Vee). Thursday, September 30 at 7:00pm, free. UBC Library, Robson Square (plaza level, 800 Robson Street).More information at www.robsonreadingseries.ubc.ca.

Upcoming

DAN GREEN
Readings from the author's debut work of fiction, Blue Saltwater, an historical drama which follows one Haida teenager's experience within the residential school system and his struggle to return home. Friday, October 1 at 7:30pm, free. Silk Purse, 1570 Argyle Ave., West Vancouver. For more information, phone 604-925-7292.

ANNABEL LYON
Discussion by the author of The Golden Mean. Monday, October 4 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen and Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 West Georgia Street. More information at 604-331-3603.

CAROLINE ADDERSON
Award-winning author reads from her new novel, The Sky is Falling. Tuesday, October 5 at 7:00pm, free. Alice MacKay room, lower level, Central Library, 350 West Georgia Street. More information at 604-331-3603.

CBC RADIO STUDIO ONE BOOK CLUB
On October 5, the CBC Radio Studio One Book Club is pleased to once again partner with CBC Ideas to present the 2010 Massey Lecturer in an exclusive book club taping. This year Vancouver's own Douglas Coupland presents the first ever Massey in fiction! In "Player One: What is to Become of Us", Doug has created a five hour story that explores time, human identity, society, religion and the afterlife. Enter to win free tickets and a preview of the Masseys at www.cbc.ca/bc/bookclub.

GRANT LAWRENCE
Join CBC Radio’s Grant Lawrence for the launch of his debut book Adventures In Solitude: What Not to Wear to a Nude Potluck and Other Stories from Desolation Sound ($26.95, Harbour Publishing) at the Museum of Vancouver (1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver) on Thursday, October 7th at 7:00 pm. Grant’s days spent in Desolation Sound as a child led him away from the coast to a life in music and journalism and eventually back again. In Adventures in Solitude, Grant returns to regale us with tales of this unique place. This free event will be held in the MOV Studio with musical performances from Jill Barber and Said the Whale. A cash bar will be available. For more information regarding Grant’s book launch in Vancouver, please call the Museum of Vancouver at 604.736.4431.

DOUG SAUNDERS
Pacific Arbour Speaker Series presents the author of Arrival City, a new book analyzing the rise of mega-cities in a vastly changing world. Thursday, October 7 at 7:30pm. Tickets $15/$12 and are available at www.capilanou.ca/theatre or 604-990-7810. Kay Meek Centre, 1700 Mathers Ave., West Vancouver.