Book News Vol. 6 No. 33

BOOK NEWS

Purchase a Festival Membership between August 1 and September 30, 2011 and be entered to win a Fabulous Festival Evening Out! The prize package includes:
• Two Tickets to the 2011 Literary Cabaret
• $100 Gift Card for the Dockside Restaurant
• Valet Parking at the Granville Island Hotel
Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/get-involved/memberprize
Purchase a Festival membership: https://www.writersfest.bc.ca/secure/secure_membership.php

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.

An Evening with Anthony Bourdain - 8pm, October 29, 2011
The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts. Tickets: $47.50/$55.00/$62.50/VIP package: $152.50. Tickets now on sale at Ticketmaster. Support the Writers Festival: use the code "writers" when purchasing your ticket, a portion of the ticket proceeds will go to the VIWF and you will receive a $5 discount per ticket. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/bourdain.

An Evening with David Sedaris - 8pm, November 5, 2011
The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts. Tickets: $45.00/$50.00/$57.50. Tickets now on sale at Ticketmaster. Support the Writers Festival: use the code "writers" when purchasing your ticket, a portion of the ticket proceeds will go to the VIWF and you will receive a $5 discount per ticket. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/davidsedaris.

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.

2011 FESTIVAL AUTHORS

Wayne Johnston's A World Elsewhere is a novel that turns upon lies and deceits. Read it and revel in one of the funniest books that will move you to a deeper sense of the poignancy of human experience, says T. F. Rigelhof.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/a-world-elsewhere-by-wayne-johnston/article2128173/

"Skip this review and head directly to the bookstore for Binyavanga Wainaina's memoir One Day I Will Write About This Place" says Alexandra Fuller. Fuller will attend the Festival with her latest memoir Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, to be published mid-September.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/books/review/one-day-i-will-write-about-this-place-by-binyavanga-wainaina-book-review.html?_r=1&nl=books&emc=booksupdateema3&pagewanted=all

All serious writers have at least two dreams, writes Randy Boyagoda (who will be at the Festival with Beggar's Feast): the primal dream is of immediate discovery: the back-up dream is of posthumous discovery: Mihail Sebastian's The Accident is, alas, a posthumous discovery.
http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/08/12/book-review-the-accident-by-mihail-sebastian/#more-42686

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, the foremost French literary critic of his day, is best remembered for his love affair with Victor Hugo's wife, Adèle, says William Palmer. Helen Humphreys' The Reinvention of Love is narrated by Charles and Adèle alternately.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-reinvention-of-love-by-helen-humphreys-2334871.html

David Adams Richards' Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul unfolds with the weight and significance of an Old Testament story, rooted in a strongly oral storytelling tradition. The novel sparks with an immediacy and power that is rare, writes Robert J. Wiersema.
http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/books/David+Adams+Richards+game+latest+novel/5247409/story.html

The theft of the legendary Cartier Dagger during 1955's Richard Riot, and a brutal homicide in the immediate aftermath, comprise the central event of John Farrow's River City. It's also a sweeping history of Montreal, says H.J. Kitchhoff. John Farrow is the pen name of Trevor Ferguson.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/river-city-by-john-farrow/article2125502/

AWARDS & LISTS

Pulitzer prize winner Philip Levine, known for his detailed and personal verse about the working class, has been appointed the US's new poet laureate.The laureate is known officially as the poet laureate consultant in poetry.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/11/philip-levine-us-poet-laureate

The inaugural award of the Edwin Morgan international poetry prize has gone to Jane McKie, for her poem Leper Window, St Mary the Virgin. It's a poem about touch–one of the most difficult senses to write about, says judge Vicki Feaver. The £5,000 prize is one of the largest of its kind and honours the first man to be made Scotland's national poet or makar.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-14561680

Vancouver poet Anna Swanson's first book of poems, The Nights Also has received two awards: the 2011 Lambda Award for Lesbian Poetry and the 2011 Gerald Lampert Memorial award, which recognizes the best first book of poetry published by a Canadian in the preceding year.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Poet+garners+awards+first+effort/5251027/story.html

Paris bookshop Shakespeare & Co is among the 46 bookshops to be nationally recognised as libraires indépendantes de référence (LIR). The benchmark award was launched by French culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand and brings to 514 the total number of label recipients since the scheme was launched in April 2009.
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/french-government-lauds-independents.html

NEWS & FEATURES

Philip Levine wrote poetry for seven years before his first poem was published in his mid-20s, wrote Jan Herman when Levine won a 1991 Los Angeles Book Prize.
http://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2011/08/levines_voiceless_legion_of_fa.html

Carolyn Kellogg interviews Philip Levine about his goals for his one-year tenure as poet laureate.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/books/la-et-levine-20110812,0,3919693,full.story

A leader in the booming genre of highbrow historical fiction–or "fictional history," as he is happy to call it–Wayne Johnston is always prepared for a fight, writes John Barber in his interview of Johnston.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/wayne-johnstons-colony-of-outraged-readers/article2127807/

Amazon has moved to fulfill its new ambition to publish as well as sell books, announcing it will publish Timothy Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Chef in the spring—as a hardcover, an e-book and an audio book. Some independent bookstores have already said they do not intend to carry any books from the retailer, not wanting to give a dollar to a company they feel is putting them out of business.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/technology/amazon-set-to-publish-tim-ferriss.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha26

Slaughterhouse-Five has been banned or challenged on at least 18 occasions. And no book is immune: the list includes Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and the Harry Potter series, among others. The ALA attempts to understand why.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/08/the-neverending-campaign-to-ban-slaughterhouse-five/243525/

The Vancouver Observer urges us to crack open the books on BookNet Canada's July bestseller lists of fiction, nonfiction and juvenile books.
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/bedsidetable/2011/08/11/booknet-canadas-july-bestseller-lists

John Mackie interviews David Watmough, who turned 85 this week, still writing, but not novels—sonnets now.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/David+Watmough+Notes+life+literature/5247791/story.html

Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell and others will contribute to a new collection of short stories imagining the impact of global warming. The Verso publication will be out in October.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/10/climate-change-short-stories

The NY Times reports that the publishing industry has expanded in the past three years, according to a new survey of thousands of publishers, retailers and distributors, challenging the gloom that tends to dominate discussions of the industry's health.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/books/survey-shows-publishing-expanded-since-2008.html?src=recg

A class-action lawsuit has been filed in the US alleging that HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster conspired with Apple to increase ebook prices "to boost profits and force ebook rival Amazon to abandon its pro-consumer discount pricing."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/11/apple-ebook-price-fixing-penguin-macmillan

Do you know what wilfing is? Have you heard of keitai shosetsus? Sam Leith writes on what to expect if the Kindle really does kill off the printed book.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/14/kindle-books

Sleeping With The Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War, by Paris-based American journalist Hal Vaughan aims to strengthen claims the French designer collaborated with the Nazis during World War II as a spy code-named "Westminster."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americas/book-claims-coco-chanel-was-a-nazi-spy/article2131773/?cmpid=nl-news1

"Words that once led meaningful lives, now lie unused, unloved and unwanted." The Save the Words website (http://www.savethewords.org/) has an adoption scheme: you choose a word, and then sign a pledge to use this word, in conversation and correspondence."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/aug/10/save-the-words-endangered

Jonah Lehrer reports that spoilers don't spoil anything. In fact, a new study suggests that spoilers can actually increase our enjoyment of literature.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/spoilers-dont-spoil-anything/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

\Orlando Figes will donate to charity half the takings from his next (unnamed) book. Based on 1,500 letters between a Russian soldier and his wife, smuggled from the Pechora gulag, the book is "a unique and uncensored account".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/16/orlando-figes-royalties-next-book

CBC Books invites Canadian fiction fans to nominate a book for the Scotiabank Giller Prize 2011 longlist—and become eligible for prizes. The most nominated book will be added to the official longlist. More information, and nomination forms are here:
http://www.cbc.ca/books/scotiabankgillerprize/#more

Vancouver continues the search for its third Poet Laureate. Nominations, Submissions will be accepted until Aug. 24.
http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/covertocover/archive/2011/06/23/vancouver-seeking-third-poet-laureate.aspx

A reminder that Readers' Choice nominations to the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist must be submitted by midnight ET on August 28.
http://www.cbc.ca/books/scotiabankgillerprize/#more

BOOKS & WRITERS

An excerpt from Nassir Ghaemi's A First-rate Madness argues that Winston Churchill's depression helped him see the Nazi threat while non-depressed others, such as David Lloyd George and Chamberlain, were impressed by Hitler, describing him "a born leader".
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/how-churchills-depression-helped-him-see-the-nazi-threat/article2123794/singlepage/#articlecontent

Anyone interested in West Coast writing will glean much from Frank Davey's When TISH Happens, writes Alexander Varty. Feisty young intellectuals enrolled at UBC when a degree in English was seen as a far more glorious thing than one in forest management.
http://www.straight.com/article-419577/vancouver/when-tish-happens-exercise-inference-and-deduction

Mark Bourrie presents excellent material in The Fog of War, says J.L. Granatstein. Particularly important is his account of the censors arguing against government and the military in an effort to get news out during the Second World War.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/the-fog-of-war-by-mark-bourrie/article2128145/

Colour Me English reflects Caryl Phillips' thinking about race, racism, identity and Englishness. Currently a lecturer at Yale, Phillips follows the tradition of writers who, by moving abroad, have gained perspective on their homeland. A timely book, says Robert Epstein.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/colour-me-english-by-caryl-phillips-2337170.html

Idaho's story is the most brilliantly terrifying dream you've ever had, compelling and funny; even the random, seemingly impossible events make sense in the hands of Burgess, says Brooke Ford of Tony Burgess's Idaho Winter: simultaneously absurd and acceptable.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/idaho-winter-by-tony-burgess/article2130180/

Chattering is the short-fiction debut of visual artist and children's magazine publisher Louise Stern. Stern's stories run along unpredictably, much like the characters that inhabit them, writes Devon Code. Like the author, the narrator of some stories is deaf.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/chattering-by-louise-stern/article2131623/

COMMUNITY EVENTS

MAIN STREET MAGAZINE TOUR
Celebrate local arts and literary magazines and the community spaces in which they thrive. Includes EVENT, PRISM international, Room, Poetry Is Dead, Lester's Army, and OCW Magazine. Ends with a comedy reading of Say Wha?! Readings of Deliciously Rotten Writing. Thursday, August 18 at 6:00pm, admission by donation. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, 578 Carrall. More information at www.magsbc.com/mainst.

CBC STUDIO ONE BOOK CLUB
For the next CBC Studio One Book Club, author William Gibson suggested British writer Sarah Salway. Her three novels and her short stories all share a common theme of how identity is formed through the stories we tell about ourselves - or those that are told about us. William is a big fan of Sarah's writing, so he's going to co-host with Sheryl MacKay, on Thursday August 25th at 6:30 pm. Check out Sarah's writing and enter to win free tickets at www.cbc.ca/bc/bookclub.

Upcoming

MIXED VOICES RAISED
Writers Fred Wah, Joanne Arnott, and Tanya Evanson engage the audience in mixed root dialogue and share their literary expression in fiction, poetry and spoken-word performance. Wednesday, September 7 at 7:00pm, free. Alice MacKay room, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street. Information at www.hapapalooza.ca/wednesday.

TZEPORAH BERMAN
Pacific Arbour Speaker Series presents Tzeporah Berman on Wednesday, Sept 7th @ 7:30pm. Currently Greenpeace International's Climate and Energy co-director tasked with working on climate change, Berman will address her past and the future of the environmental movement in relation to her new book entitled "This Crazy Time." Tickets and Info: 604.990.7810 / www.capilanou.ca/nscucentre

THE WRITER'S STUDIO READING SERIES
An evening of storytelling and poetry featuring Melanie Jackson, a suspense-adventure writer for children and young adults. Thursday, September 8 at 7pm. Rhizome Cafe, 317 East Broadway. More information at www.thewritersstudio.ca.

DENNIS BOLEN AND SORESSA GARDNER
Author Dennis Bolen presents Anticipated Results, his first story collection, in collaboration with unconventional soundscapes and song by artist Soressa Gardner. Wednesday, September 14 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street.

PEN-IN-HAND POETRY & PROSE READING SERIES
Presenting John Barton and Miles Lowry. Monday, September 19 at 7:30pm. Cost: $3. Serious Coffee, 230 Cook Street, Victoria.

WAYDE COMPTON
Inaugural reading by the Library's seventh Writer in Residence. Tuesday, September 20 at 7:00pm, free.Alice MacKay room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street.

SUSAN MCCASLIN
Award-winning poet reads from her new volume of poetry, Demeter Goes Skydiving. Wednesday, September 21 at 7:00pm, free. Literature, Social Sciences and Multicultural Services, level 3, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St.

VOGON POETRY SLAM
Are you the best Vogon poet? Prove it and you may win Earth dollars! Submit your absolutely worst poems to be presented slam style at the VPL/VCON Gala with 501st Legion Stormtroopers. Prizes: $100, $60, $40. Youth prize: $42. Thursday, September 22 at 6:30pm, free. Alice MacKay room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street. Information: www.vpl.ca.

ROBSON READING SERIES
Readings by Linda Besner (The Id Kid) and Matthew J. Trafford (The Divinity Gene). Thursday, September 22 at 7:00pm, free. UBC Bookstore/Library at Robson Square, Plaza level, 800 Robson Street. More information at www.robsonreadingseries.ubc.ca.

KOOTENAY BOOK WEEKEND
The 8th Annual Kootenay Book Weekend will take place in Nelson B.C. September 23, 24 an 25. The featured books are: Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap; Kathryn Stockett's The Help; Li Cunxin's Mao's Last Dancer, and special guest Ruth Ozeki and her books My Year of Meats and All Over Creation. Further information and registration forms can be found at www.kootenaybookweekend.ca.

WORD ON THE STREET
The VPL invites you to one of Canada's biggest annual book and magazine festivals. Sunday, September 25 from 11am to 5pm, free. North & South Plaza, Promenade, Alice MacKay room, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street. Information at www.vpl.ca.

ROBSON READING SERIES
Timothy Taylor reads from his novel, The Blue Light Project. Thursday, September 29 at 2:00pm, free. Dodson Room (302), Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, 1961 East Mall, UBC, Vancouver. More information at www.ikebarberlearningcentre.ubc.ca/robson.