Book News Vol. 6 No.21

BOOK NEWS

Incite @ VPL
This January we launched Incite, our new reading series in cooperation with Vancouver Public Library. For the last five months we have presented great writers and new books to Vancouver readers, every second Wednesday. We hope you’ve had a chance to join us. Incite is now on hiatus while we plan this year’s Vancouver International Writers & Readers Festival. The series will start up again in September; confirmed already is The Birth House author Ami MacKay on November 9. Check Book News in August for details on the fall schedule.

SUNSHINE COAST FESTIVAL OF THE WRITTEN ARTS
Tickets are now on sale for the 29th Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts, Canada's longest-running literary festival, taking place August 4-7, 2011 in beautiful downtown Sechelt. Call 1-800-565-9631 to order tickets. Information: www.writersfestival.ca.

AWARDS & LISTS

British-African author Aminatta Forna has captured the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for The Memory of Love. Forna's story of war and its consequences is set in Sierra Leone.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/05/21/commonwealth-writers-prize.html?ref=rss

Gary Shteyngart is the first American ever to win the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction, which goes to a book that "has captured the comic spirit of PG Wodehouse". Shteyngart won for the 'wild comedy' of his novel Super Sad True Love Story.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/24/pg-wodehouse-prize-gary-shteyngart

Edmund de Waal's much-praised biography of his family's history, The Hare with Amber Eyes, has been named winner of the £10,000 Ondaatje prize. The Royal Society of Literature award is given annually to a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry which best evokes "the spirit of a place". De Waal also won the Costa biography award, earlier this year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/24/ondaatje-prize-edmund-de-waal

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have awarded Nebula Awards to: Rachel Swirsky for best novella, The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window; Eric James Stone for best novelette; Kij Johnson's Ponies, an allegory about female bullying, tied for best short story with a piece by Harlan Ellison. Connie Willis won in the novel category for Blackout and All Clear, her two-part chronicle of a time-travel assignment gone awry.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/science-fiction-and-fantasy-writers-of-america-hold-annual-convention/2011/05/21/AF4vkK9G_story.html

Newfoundland and Labrador writer Kathleen Winter has won the 2011 Atlantic Fiction Prize for her book Annabel. The former Parliamentary Poet Laureate John Steffler won the 2011 Atlantic Poetry Prize for Lookout, his fifth poetry collection.
http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2011-05-20/article-2523095/Locals-take-home-Atlantic-Book-Awards/1

Richelle Kosar has won the Toronto Star Short Story contest with Citrines. Second prize winner is Erik Martinez for Up High Towards the Night; third, is Samantha Cragg for Drinking In The Basement.
http://www.thestar.com/news/books/article/994987--toronto-star-short-story-contest-winner-citrines

NEWS & FEATURES

In The Use and Abuse of Literature, author and Harvard professor Marjorie Garber writes that literature is not “good for you,” it is simply “good.” Her message: beware the single interpretation, the closing argument, the simple solution, says Nathan Whitlock.
http://www.thestar.com/news/books/article/995180--the-use-and-abuse-of-literature-by-marjorie-garber

Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth has topped a list of the biggest selling books championed by departing TV diva Oprah Winfrey over the past decade.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2011/05/20/winfrey-books-tolle.html

A rare, handwritten manuscript of Jane Austen's unfinished novel The Watsons is to be sold at auction at Sotherby's in London. The Watsons manuscript shows how Austen's other manuscripts would have looked and shines a light on how she worked.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/20/jane-austen-rare-manuscript-sale-auction

When sci-fi writer Geoffrey Hoyle was asked in 1972 to imagine what the world might be like in 2011, little could he have known quite how many advances he would correctly predict.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/the-man-who-saw-the-future-how-the-scifi-writer-geoffrey-hoyle-predicted-2011s-technologies-in-1972-2285839.html

LA Times journalist Jessica Gelt writes about the transformative moment on her 15 year-old self of reading Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-jessica-gelt-20110522,0,1836204.story

Author Umberto Eco and script-writer Jean-Claude Carrière make some surprising revelations about the scope of their reading.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/22/umberto-eco-writer-not-reader

As digital technology transforms the world of knowledge, writes Ian Brown, there remains a need for spaces that give the mind a home, with the help of specialists which Brown calls “the knowledge concierge”, some call ‘a librarian'.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/dont-discard-the-librarians/article2030514/

In an interview with Kira Cochrane, we learn that Marcia Clark, prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson case, has turned to writing books. Her first novel, Guilt by Association, is a thriller about a special trials prosecutor.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/23/marcia-clark-after-simpson-trial?CMP=EMCGT_240511&

As this week's contributor to the New York Times' Sunday Routine section, Gary Shteyngart describes how he spends his day.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/nyregion/for-gary-shteyngart-hunting-food-and-ideas-on-sundays.html?_r=1&ref=books

The response to Claire Callil's unwillingness to vote for Philip Roth's Booker prize prompts Laura Miller to ask: are women who hate Philip Roth blinded by feminist ideology? Nope.
http://www.salon.com/books/phillip_roth/index.html?story=/books/laura_miller/2011/05/23/callil_vs_roth

Alberto Manguel considers the burning of Rohinton Mistry's Such a Long Journey and asks: how is this still happening?
http://www.geist.com/opinion/burning-mistry

BOOKS & WRITERS

Mellissa Fung interviewed both her rapist the morning after he assaulted her and the man who had knifed her—showing herself to be the ultimate journalist. Under An Afghan Sky is a gripping, searching memoir, says Julius Majerczyk.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Abducted+Afghanistan/4821838/story.html

Between captivity and freedom, optimism alternates with psychological bottom, with long days and nights of boredom. Under the Afghan Sky is a richly detailed chronicle of Fung's ordeal, with an ending as happy as possible, says Michael Posner.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/under-the-afghan-sky-a-memoir-of-captivity-by-mellissa-fung/article2029767/

Philip Kerr writes that Erik Larsen's non-fiction book In the Garden of Beasts reads like an elegant thriller—and is utterly compelling. A key character is Martha Dodd, the U.S. Ambassador's daughter, who becomes a spy for the Soviet Union.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/erik-larsons-in-the-garden-of-beasts/2011/04/05/AFwbUr2G_story.html

In his time, Dodd was taunted, undercut and called “Ambassador Dud.” And he ultimately recognized enough reality, and clung to enough dignity, to make Mr. Larson's powerful, poignant historical narrative a transportingly true story, adds Janet Maslin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/books/in-the-garden-of-beasts-by-erik-larson-review.html?ref=books&pagewanted=all

Recently, a few German writers have delved into their family pasts in the Third Reich. The Perfect Nazi, Martin Davidson's family memoir, uncovers the life of his grandfather, loyal stormtrooper and trained dentist. Nicholas Stargardt calls the book “truly remarkable”.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article7175086.ece

Novelists are lucky, says Sandip Roy. While "new India" nonfiction has come under attack for what is written, Bharati Mukherjee writes about two Bangalores and one woman, telling a story about the best of times and the worst of times.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/21/RVS51JC6DU.DTL

Tracy Sherlock writes that in Caleb's Crossing, Geraldine Brooks has successfully built a fascinating story around a nugget of history involving the first native American to graduate from Harvard—in 1665.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/piece+history+transformed+into+fiction/4821836/story.html

Matthew Gilbert writes that Brooks merges her research with her intuitive sense of the daily lives of both real and fictional individuals—a dazzling act of imagination, creating intimate historical fiction, says Gilbert.
http://articles.boston.com/2011-05-15/ae/29546233_1_novel-teachings-vineyard

'Americans are not very good at nation-building', says Francis Fukayama. Once a favourite of the US right, Fukayama's The Origins of Political Order shows why the anti-state instincts of the Tea Party movement are wrong, writes Will Hutton.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/20/francis-fukuyama-origins-political-order-review

“The pace is fervent, the prose heady and the social observations are bang-on in Zsuzsi Gartner's latest collection. She has outdone herself with Better Living Through Plastic Explosives”, writes Patricia Dawn Robertson, anticipating a fistful of award nominations.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/entertainment/books/brilliant-collections-heady-adult-prose-attacks-all-comers-122380773.html

In Scribbling Women: True Tales from Astonishing Lives, Marthe Jocelyn portrays eleven women, some highly educated, others barely literate, one a horse thief—a powerfully respectful, artful and joyous celebration of a group of diverse women, writes Deirdre Baker.
http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/activities/familyevents/article/995172--scribbling-women-by-marthe-jocelyn

COMMUNITY EVENTS

THROWN
Book launch and signing for the book Thrown: British Columbia's Apprentices of Bernard Leach and Their Contemporaries. Thursday, May 26 at 6:00pm, free. Gallery of BC Ceramics, 1359 Cartwright Street, Granville Island.

MATT HERN
The local author discusses his latest book Common Ground in a Liquid City: Essays in Defense of an Urban Future, a down-to-earth look at the importance of space and place in urban renewal. Thursday, May 26 at 7:00pm, free. Peter Kaye room, Central Branch, 350 W. Georgia Street. More information at www.vpl.ca.

STEVE NOYES
The B.C. author of six books of poetry and fiction reads from his first novel It Is Just That Your House Is So Far Away. Thursday, May 26 at 7:00pm, free. Central Branch, 350 W. Georgia Street. More information at www.vpl.ca.

TORN
Launch of the new anthology features local mama writers sharing their stories about the joys and conflicts of modern motherhood and readings from contributors and local "momior" writers. Thursday, May 26 at 7:00pm, free. Rhizome Cafe, 317 E. Broadway. More information at www.rhizomecafe.ca.

DOUGLAS COUPLAND
Douglas Coupland will be hosting an interactive presentation on Marshall McLuhan and YouTube. Thursday, May 26 at 8:00pm, free. The Waldorf Hotel, 1489 East Hastings. More information at http://tinyurl.com/4226kem.

THE PALE SURFACE OF THINGS
Join us as award winning author, Janey Bennett, discusses her novel, The Pale Surface of Things. The story is set on the Greek Island of Crete. Saturday, May 28 at 3:00pm, free. Kitsilano Branch, 2425 Macdonald Street.

EUROPEAN BOOK CLUB
The first book to be read and discussed will be the novel Visitation by German writer Jenny Erpenbeck. Saturday, May 28 at 4:00pm, free but registration is required at eubookclub.vancouver@shaw.ca. Unitarian Church of Vancouver, 949 49th Ave. W.

DI BRANDT
Pen-In-Hand Poetry/Prose Reading Series and Turnstone Press present a Sunday brunch and workshop with author/poet Di Brandt. Sunday, May 29; brunch at 11am, workshop at 1:15pm. Cost: $40/$25. The Well, 821 Fort Street, Victoria. For complete details, email info@thewellvictoria.com.

JEFF BURSEY
Author reads from his novel, Verbatim, a blackly humorous exposé of parliamentary practice in an unnamed Atlantic province. Monday, May 30 at 7:00pm, free. Meeting room, level 3, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street.

NATIONAL BOOK COLLECTING CONTEST 2010-11
The W.A. Deacon Literary Foundation and Alcuin Society will be presenting the cash prizes to this year's local winners of the National Book-Collecting Contest for young Canadians under 30 years of age. The event will take place on Monday, May 30 at Simon Fraser Univeristy, Rm. 2520 - 515 West Hastings Street, from 7:00 to 8:00 pm.

A CAPITAL CRIME WAVE
Spend an evening with Canadian mystery authors, R.J. Harlick and Barbara Fradkin as they discuss the underlying aboriginal and psychological themes of their mystery series. Wednesday, June 1 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street.

THUNDERING WORD
Spoken word and storytelling performances by C.R. Avery, Bill McNamara, Mary Gavan, Bryant Ross and Rosemary Nowicki. Saturday, June 4 at 7:00pm. Location TBA. For information, visit www.inthehousefestival.com.

Upcoming

SHERYL SALLOUM
Launch of the author's new book The Life and Art of Mildred Valley Thornton. Thursday, June 9 at 8:00pm. Heritage Hall, 3102 Main Street. More information at info@mothertonguepublishing.com.

IRSHAD MANJI
Canadian author and journalist discusses her new book Allah, Liberty, and Love. Friday, June 10 at 7:30pm. Tickets: $18/$15. Capilano Performing Arts Theatre, 2055 Purcell Way, North Vancouver. More information at www.capilanou.ca/theatre/.

GREEK POETRY READING
Manolis Aligizakis is going to talk about his translation of the works of renowned Greek poet, Yiannis Ritsos and about his book The Vernal Equinox. Saturday, June 11 at 3:00pm, free. Kitsilano Branch, VPL, 2425 Macdonald Street.

WORDPLAY
WordPlay is a program of Vancouver Poetry House that sends poets to classrooms to perform spoken word poetry and to run workshops. This year marks the debut of Summer Youth Slam Camp (July 4 to 8) at Little Mountain Gallery. Fifteen youth poets will work with Vancouver's best slam poets in this spoken word intensive. The deadline for registration for Slam Camp is June 15. For more details, go to vancouverpoetryhouse.com.

KEVIN MCNEILLY
Reading by the author of Embouchure, his debut poetry collection. Thursday, June 16 at 7:00pm, free. UBC Bookstore Robson Square, plaza level, 800 Robson Street. More information at www.robsonreadingseries.ubc.ca.

TIMES OUT OF JOINT
Simon Fraser University's 11th annual English Graduate Conference will be held from Thursday, June 16 to Saturday, June 18 at SFU's Harbour Centre (Thursday and Friday) and the Segal Graduate School of Business (Saturday). All events are open to the general public. There is no fee for attendance. For more information check the website: www.sfu.ca/~gradconf/.

JOAN THOMAS
Award-winning novelist Joan Thomas reads from her love story, Curiosity. Tuesday, June 21 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library. 350 W. Georgia St.

WRITE ON BOWEN 2011
Join writers from all over the Lower Mainland for a series of intensive, interactive writing workshops, panel presentations, and other events. July 8 to 11, Artisan Square, Bowen Island. For complete details, visit www.writeonbowen.com.

HAIKU NORTH AMERICA
A long weekend of papers, presentations, workshops, readings, and other activities in celebration of haiku poetry, held at the Seattle Center, at the foot of the Space Needle. Featured presenters already include Cor van den Heuvel, Richard Gilbert, David Lanoue, Carlos Colón, Fay Aoyagi, Jim Kacian, Emiko Miyashita, George Swede, and many others. August 3-7, 2011. For more information, visit www.haikunorthamerica.com.