SPECIAL EVENTS
Michael Ondaatje - September 21, 2011
Join us for an evening with the Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje, as he discusses his forthcoming novel, The Cat's Table. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/ondaatje.
Wade Davis - November 10, 2011
An evening with scientist, anthropologist and bestselling author Wade Davis discussing his latest book Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/wadedavis.
Indian Summer Literature Series
The Indian Summer Festival celebrates the 'Year of India in Canada' with music, literature, dance, film, yoga and cuisine. The literature series features renowned authors and thinkers from India, Canada and the UK—intimate, thought-provoking and truly international conversations about literature, language, politics, democracy and freedom of speech.
Yann Martel in Conversation with Tabu (July 8, 7:30pm) - Man Booker Prize winner Yann Martel and award-winning Indian film star Tabu talk about their work and Tabu's experience working with director Ang Lee in the upcoming film adaption of Life of Pi. Followed by a screening of The Namesake, starring Tabu a critically-acclaimed, poignant film about a Bengali family's move to New York. http://www.indiansummerfestival.ca/events.php?cat=3#subev1
Hari Kunzru and Anosh Irani in Conversation (July 14, 6pm) - Hari Kunzru (The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions) and Anosh Irani (The Song of Kahunsha) in conversation with moderator Dr. Azadeh Yamini-Hamedani. http://www.indiansummerfestival.ca/events.php?cat=3#subev2
Writers & Democracy: Tarun Tejpal in Conversation with Terry Gould (July 14, 8pm) - Tejpal and Gould are known for their fearlessness and defence of the freedom of speech. These award-winning journalists discuss the role of writers and journalists in a modern democracy, the challenges facing them, and how each has fought to defend that vision. http://www.indiansummerfestival.ca/events.php?cat=3#subev3
AWARDS & LISTS
Five writers are among 50 Canadians recently appointed to the Order of Canada. Writers Lorna Crozier and the Hon. Herménégilde Chiasson, O.C., were appointed Officers of the Order of Canada. Writers Malcolm Gladwell, Pierre Nepveu and Nino Ricci were appointed Members of the Order of Canada.
http://www.gg.ca/document.aspx?id=14175
The Writers' Trust of Canada and Samara, a democracy-focused charity, received 180 nominations for the contest Best Canadian Political Books of the Last 25 Years. A short list of 12 finalists was revealed last week. Canadians are encouraged to spend July reading the books and then vote online
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/books/story/2011/06/30/pol-books-contest.html
Anna Swanson is the winner of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for the book The Nights Also (Tightrope Books) and Evelyn Lau has won the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for Living Under Plastic (Oolichan Books). The awards were announced at a special event at the LCP Poetry Festival and Conference in Toronto last month.
http://poets.ca/wordpress/
Swanson's The Nights Also has also won a Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry.
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/05/27/23rd-annual-lambda-literary-award-winners/
The prestigious literary award the John Llewellyn Rhys prize has been suspended this year because of lack of funding, organizers have confirmed. The £5,000 award was founded in 1942 in honour of the writer John Llewellyn Rhys, who was killed in action during World War II and is presented to authors aged 35 or under.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13973301
NEWS & FEATURES
Vancouver is seeking its third Poet Laureate. Nominations and submissions will be accepted until Aug. 24.
http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/covertocover/archive/2011/06/23/vancouver-seeking-third-poet-laureate.aspx
Because of the postal strike, Geist extended its deadline for its erasure poetry contest to July 15, 2011. To win Canadian-style fame and glory, read the excerpt of Susanna Moodie's Roughing It In the Bush
http://geist.submishmash.com/Submit
Questions? Contact geist@geist.com.
If you haven't yet got all of your summertime books, you may want to check out the Anansi annual Beach Blanket BOGO sale!
http://www.anansi.ca/home.cfm
And/or enter the contest to win a copy of Peter Behrens' new novel The O'Briens.
http://www.anansi.ca/current_contest.cfm
JK Rowling has "terminated" her long-running association with the literary agent Christopher Little, who helped to launch her first book about the boy wizard. She will now be represented by Neil Blair, who has left the Christopher Little Literary Agency and set up The Blair Partnership. Blair is a lawyer and not a conventional literary agent.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/harry-potter-and-the-furious-feud-rowling-banishes-her-literary-agent-2306257.html
Tom Sutcliffe analyzes the impact on the book industry.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/thomas-sutcliffe/tom-sutcliffe-j-k-rowling-may-not-need-one-but-other-writers-do-2307042.html
Flannery O'Connor is best remembered for her potent fictions, and to a lesser extent for her unfortunate life. What she isn't primarily remembered for are her cartoons, although this may change with the publication of a collection of her early drawings later this year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/jul/05/fresh-look-flannery-o-connor-cartoons
Emma Brockes interviews Cynthia Ozick and discovers that so serious a novelist is Ozick, in subject matter and theme, it is often overlooked how funny she is and how playful is her writing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/jul/04/cynthia-ozick-life-writing-interview
Since it planned not to update its book review section over the Canada Day weekend, the National Post has instead published the title story of The Interloper by Rabindranath Maharaj.
http://arts.nationalpost.com/category/afterword/
Fantasy author George R.R. Martin says he will 'mount their head on a spike' of the hapless Amazon employee who shipped copies of A Dance With Dragons early. The 1,000-page novel is subject to a strict embargo by its publisher.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/04/george-rr-martin-decapitate-spoiler
Andrew Johnson interviews Margaret Drabble, whom he describes as "the original angry young woman".
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/margaret-drabble-the-original-angry-young-woman-2305790.html
Laura Miller follows up Philip Roth's turning away from made-up stories. Never having liked fiction is quite different from having once read fiction avidly and then, in the fullness of time, giving it up. Like Philip Roth and Cormac McCarthy, Diana Athill stopped reading fiction--at age 90.
http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/index.html?story=/books/laura_miller/2011/06/28/stopped_reading_fiction
In what its editor called a publishing first, 26 authors—including Jeffrey Deaver, Kathy Reichs and Faye Kellerman—have joined forces to write a single thriller called No Rest For the Dead.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/twenty-six-writers-one-history-making-crime-novel/article2086291/
More details here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/05/crime-novel-co-written-26-authors
BOOKS & WRITERS
In her review of Margaret Drabble's collection A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman, Elaine Showalter says that Drabble's collected stories are more than the sum of their parts.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/30/margaret-drabble-smiling-woman-review
Monica Ali's Untold Story asks: What if Princess Diana had faked her own death and gone to live under an alias in America? Curtis Sittenfeld finds the idea irresistible, but the premise is the best part of Untold Story, she says.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/books/review/book-review-untold-story-by-monica-ali.html?ref=books
Donna Bailey Nurse responds differently, writing "I was surprised to encounter in this book her (Diana's) thoughts and feelings. I realized I had never perceived her as fully human."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/untold-story-by-monica-ali/article2083427/
An excerpt is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/books/review/excerpt-untold-story-by-monica-ali.html?ref=review
Mervyn Peake, creator of Gormenghast, is now recognised as a brilliant novelist and artist. Michael Moorcock, China Miéville, Hilary Spurling and AL Kennedy celebrate his achievements.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/01/mervyn-peake-gormenghast
Michael Bliss writes that Roderick and Sharon Stewart's Phoenix: The Life of Norman Bethune is so thorough and so objective, it should become definitive, and spark a more informed debate about, Bethune's career.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/phoenix-the-life-of-norman-bethune-reviewed-by-michael-bliss/article2083346/
Is academic criticism worth reading? A study of David Mitchell suggests there's plenty for the lay reader to enjoy, says Sam Jordison, adding "this book of essays is actually fun – and that's something I'm surprised to write about literary theory".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/jul/01/is-academic-criticism-worth-reading
Rachel Shteir's The Steal: A Cultural History examines the knot of desire, fear and rage—and the enterprise—at the heart of the five-fingered discount (shoplifting), writes Laura Miller. You can see why their targets would rather keep it all under wraps.
http://www.salon.com/news/crime/index.html?story=/books/laura_miller/2011/06/26/the_steal
Heller McAlpine writes that Shteir goes to great lengths to try to understand this "silent epidemic", delving into history, and citing, among others, a security expert who quipped that Eve was the first shoplifter.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/25/entertainment/la-et-book-20110625
In Suining, China, 152 boys are born for every 100 girls, writes Mara Hvistendahl. Hvistendahl is convincing in Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, says Elaine Showalter, but is she alarmist or alarming?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/mara-hvistendahls-unnatural-selection-about-a-world-with-too-many-men/2011/06/15/AGYB7AuH_story.html
Although Claudia Casper challenges some of Hvistendahl's argument, she states that Hvistendahl makes an utterly convincing case that abortion for sex selection must stop. Hvistendahl is not just entering an important conversation, she's starting one, says Casper.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/where-are-all-the-missing-girls/article2083448/
Every once in a while, a writer's voice hits such a clear note, the resulting book makes you hold it before putting it on your shelves. Molly McCloskey's Circles Around the Sun is this kind of book, writes Anne Enright.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/01/circles-around-the-sun-mccloskey-review
In her new book Allah, Liberty & Love: The Courage to Reconcile Faith and Freedom, Irshad Manji keeps encouraging her fellow Muslims to keep asking questions. As well, Canadians should jump right in and engage in dialogue with Muslims, says Manji.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Irshad+Manji+Reconciling+faith+freedom/4965044/story.html#ixzz1QzF11QLv
Bobbie Ann Mason, author of In Country and other books has, in The Girl in the Blue Beret, plumbed the moral dimensions of national conflict in the lives of individual participants and produced a deeply moving, relevant novel, writes Ron Charles.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/books-bobbie-ann-masons-the-girl-in-the-blue-beret/2011/06/14/AGh5ptpH_story_1.html
Duncan Campbell describes books written by some of Britain's best-known former prison inmates. They will discuss their writing and how writing helped them escape a life of crime at The Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival later this month.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/03/british-crime-memoirs
Johanna Skibsrud's The Sentimentalists is one of four books briefly reviewed by Hirsh Sawhney. A hypnotic meditation on memory, (The Sentimentalists) reaffirms the potential for storytelling to offer clarity and redemption, writes Sawhney.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/books/review/fiction-chronicle-novels-by-banana-yoshimoto-marcelo-figueras-helon-habila-and-johanna-skibsrud.html?nl=books&emc=booksupdateema3
After time in Auschwitz, then Buchenwald, Imre Kertész returned to Budapest and the question "Where have you been?" His response was a trilogy of novels that earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002. With the translation of Fiasco into English, the trilogy for English readers is now complete.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/books/la-et-book-fiasco-20110614,0,3535589.story
In a brief review of Colm Tóibín's The Empty Family, Lesley McDowell writes "Colm Tóibín's beautiful and carefully executed prose conveys intimacy the way one might whisper a secret."
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-empty-family-by-colm-tibn-2305803.html
Peggy Curran writes that Peter Behrens' The O'Briens picks up 40 years after his first novel's tale of Fergus O'Brien's flight from Ireland during the potato famine. However, The O'Briens also stands on its own, she says.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/books/Review+Brien+saga+continues+page+turner+from+Peter+Behrens/5047526/story.html
Louisa Thomas' Conscience: Two Soldiers, Two Pacifists, One Family—A Test of Will and Faith in World War I focuses on the experiences of her great grandfather, Norman and his brothers, examining how conscience fares when society considers it subversive. Alan Riding finds the book "enthralling".
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/books/review/book-review-conscience-by-louisa-thomas.html?ref=books
The Globe and Mail has commissioned short stories to run over the next six weeks. This week: horror-mistress Kelley Armstrong's The Hunt.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/stories-for-summer-the-hunt-by-kelley-armstrong/article2083453/
COMMUNITY EVENTS
KY-MANI MARLEY
Son of reggae icon Bob Marley presents his biography of his dad, Dear Dad. Friday, July 8 at 4:00pm. Chapters Robson, 788 Robson Street. More information at 604-682-4056.
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.
DAVOOD KHALILI
Book signing by the author of Developing Olympian Character, a graphic novel about sports, health and the environment. Saturday, July 9 at 1pm. Black Bond Books, Lansdowne Centre, 5300 No. 3 Road, Richmond. For more information, call 604-233-0004.
CROSS BORDER READING SERIES
Readings and conversations with writers and poets from Canada, US, and Scotland. Featuring Alan Jamieson, Carmen Aguirre, Andrew Feld, Pimone Triplett, Bren Simmers and Maggie de Vries. Saturday, July 9 at 5:00pm. Room 1530, SFU Harbour Centre, 555 W. Hastings Street. More information cbprs.wordpress.com.
Upcoming
CHEVY STEVENS
Reading by the author of Never Knowing. Monday, July 25 at 7:00pm. Chapters Granville, 2505 Granville Street. More information at 604-731-7822.
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 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.
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