Book News Vol. 6 No. 41

BOOK NEWS

Governor General's Literary Awards
Four writers named this week as finalists for the Governor General's Literary Awards will be appearing at the Vancouver International Writers Festival. Esi Edugyan, Marina Endicott, David Bezmozgis and Andrew Nikiforuk were all named as finalists for the award.
http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/books/author+Edugyan+Patrick+deWitt+score+literary+tricks/5532579/story.html

HAL'S FESTIVAL PICKS
Artistic Director Hal Wake's suggestions for the 2011 Festival

Event 21
There is no more inexpensive way to travel the world than through books. And no better way to travel through time. Rich with History brings together four fine writers who will take us from 1850's Paris to Sri Lanka at the turn of the last century, to the turbulent '70's in Cambodia and back home to Canada at the onset of the 20th century.
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/21-rich-history

Event 6
On the opening night of the Festival we'll introduce you to names you will be hearing from for quite some time. And Introducing... features four fiction writers from around the world who have published a first novel or first collection of stories and are already making a splash with their work. A late edition to this group is Michael Christie whose book The Beggars Garden was longlisted for the Giller Prize and shortlisted for the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize this year.
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/6-and-introducing

Event 40
The Bill in the event Conversations with Bill is Bill Richardson, a name that brings to mind surprise, laughter and insight. His guests at the Festival include cartoon phenomenon Kate Beaton, the quintessential man of letters Barry Callaghan, and the completely fascinating Helen Oyeyemi. Watch Bill bring out the best from a trio of smart folks.
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/40-conversations-bill

2011 FESTIVAL AUTHORS

In a solo event (62) and together with Alexandra Fuller (49) Aminatta Forna will bring to us insights into an Africa most of us don't know. In The Memory of Love (winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book and shortlisted for the Orange Prize), Forna tells the story of a city and a nation whose every recollection is shadowed by grief and loss. Ancestor Stones reflects Forna's look at a society in transition. Her most recent book The Devil That Danced On The Water: A Daughter's Quest has been described as "a shining example of what autobiography can be: harrowing, illuminating and thoughtful".
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/62-intimate-evening-aminatta-forna
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/49-under-african-skies
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/18/memory-of-love-aminatta-forna

Alexandra Fuller's experience of Africa is quite different than Aminatta Forma's, not least because Fuller grew up in South Africa, and Forma, in Sierra Leone. Different again is Gary Geddes's experience. In Truth and Storytelling, Fuller, together with Canada's Man of Letters, Barry Callaghan, Gary Geddes and writer, humanist and primatologist Andrew Westoll will talk about writing non-fiction that has personal significance. And possibly: personal repercussion. Ottawa's Ian Smillie describes Garry Geddes's book as: "Poignant, literature and sometimes just plan funny. Drink the Bitter Root: A Writer's Search for Justice and Redemption in Africa is a deeply textured journey without maps into the unexplored rifts of sub-Saharan Africa, the human experience and the psyche.” (events (43, 58)
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/43-truth-and-storytelling
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/58-non-fiction-after-noon
http://www.villagebooks.com/village-books-gary-geddes-01/31/12

Linda Grant is a popular visitor to the Festival. Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2000, she brought her novel, Still Here, in 2003, a powerful story of women and sex, men and war and miracle face cream. In 2008, her focus was the relationship between the individual and their clothes, reflected in The Thoughtful Dresser and The Clothes on their Backs (shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize). This year, she brings We Had It So Good, which Tom Sandborn described as “one baby boomers will read with rueful recognition”. (events 9, 44)
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/9-intimate-evening-linda-grant
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/44-my-generation
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/we-had-it-so-good-by-linda-grant/article2041666/

Alistair MacLeod considers David Adams Richards “one of the exceptional writers of our time”. And Donna Bailey Nurse writes that New Brunswick's David Adams Richards's Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul exposes Canada's rawest nerve. Between his solo event (50) and conversations with Lynn Coady, Nicole Lundrigan, and D.W. Wilson (event 56), Richards and his colleagues explore the challenge of living with and writing about violence and despair—and finding possibilities of hope.
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/50-intimate-evening-david-adams-richards
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/56-possibilities-hope
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/incidents-in-the-life-of-markus-paul-by-david-adams-richards/article2021437/

Giles Blunt writes that Lynn Coady's The Antagonist is a novel that is all about how it feels to be categorized, dismissed, reduced by the very people who should know you best, adding that “something approaching inner peace becomes possible.” (events 41, 56, 67)
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/41-culture-petri-dish
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/56-possibilities-hope
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/67-afternoon-tea
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/the-antagonist-by-lynn-coady/article2159310/

In Glass Boys, Nicole Lundrigan presents a full cast of broken characters and the ways they shape—and misshape—one another, writes Chad Pelley. It's a dark story carrying a consistently weighty tone, with enough funny and tender moments between characters to spare it from being heavy or maudlin. (events 56, 63)
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/56-possibilities-hope
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/63-sunday-brunch
http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/09/02/book-review-glass-boys-by-nicole-lundrigan/

"Once you break a knuckle...you will break it again," RCMP officer John Crease tells his son Will in the opening story of D.W. Wilson's collection, writes Steven W. Beattie. (The assertion is repeated, mantra-like, in the closing story.) This is at once John's personal philosophy and a statement of principle for Wilson's book, says Beattie. As announced last week, D.W. Wilson has won the £15,000 BBC National Short Story award with The Dead. (events 56, 67)
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/56-possibilities-hope
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2011festival/event/67-afternoon-tea
http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/09/02/book-review-once-you-break-a-knuckle-by-d-w-wilson/

COMMUNITY EVENTS

ROBSON READING SERIES
Readings by Johanna Skibsrud (This Will Be Difficult to Explain & Other Stories) and Martha Schabas (Various Positions). Thursday, October 13 at 7:00pm, free. UBC Bookstore/Library at Robson Square, Plaza level, 800 Robson Street. More information at www.robsonreadingseries.ubc.ca.

TWS READING SERIES
Featuring guest author Jude Neale, who has just published her second book of poetry, Only the Fallen Can see. Friday, October 14 at 7pm. Take 5 Cafe, 429 Granville Street (at West Hastings). For event details, please visit www.thewritersstudio.ca/readings.

HOT SONNET
Calendar poets read the work of Maxine Gadd, Fred Wah, Steve Collis, Kate Braid, Miranda Pearson, Warren Dean Fulton, Diane Tucker, Catherine Owen, Judith Copithorne, Sonnet l'Abbe, Heidi Greco, and George Bowering. Includes music by Jess Hill. Saturday, October 15 at 6:00pm. Tickets: $20. W2 Media Cafe, 111 W. Hastings. More information at www.creativetechnology.org.

JOHN GILMORE AND KEITH HARRISON
Readings by authors John Gilmore and Keith Harrison. John Gilmore's first novel is Head of a Man. Keith Harrison's recent work is The Missionary, The Violinist and the Aunt Whose Head Was Squeezed. Monday, October 17 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St.

PEN-IN-HAND POETRY/PROSE READING SERIES
Readings by Patricia Young, Arlene Paré, Julie Paul, Cynthia Kerkham, Claudia Haagan and Barb Henderson. Monday, October 17 at 7:30pm. Cost: $3. Serious Coffee, Cook Street Village, 230 Cook Street, Victoria.

VANCOUVER 125 POETRY CONFERENCE
Four-day literary event includes daytime seminars and discussions that explore the poetics of everything from the avant-garde to traditional poetic forms. October 19-22, 2011. SFU Woodward's, 149 W. Hastings. Complete information at www.v125pc.com.

CBC RADIO STUDIO ONE BOOK CLUB
On Sat Oct. 22, bestselling author, essayist, cultural observer, and famed New Yorker contributor Adam Gopnik will be the special guest in the CBC Radio Studio One Book Club. Adam is this year's Massey Lecturer (which is at the Chan Oct. 23) and his subject is winter - the season, the space, the cycle. The only way to get in, is to win! www.cbc.ca/bc/bookclub.

Upcoming

JAMES DASHNER
Meet the author of The Maze Runner Trilogy. Wednesday, October 26 at 7:00pm. Tickets: $5. West Point Grey United Church Sanctuary, 4595 8th Ave. W. Information and tickets at www.kidsbooks.ca.

ROBSON READING SERIES
Readings by Susan McCaslin (Demeter Goes Skydiving) and Christopher Patton (Curious Memory). Thursday, October 27 at 7:00pm, free. UBC Bookstore/Library at Robson Square, Plaza level, 800 Robson Street. More information at www.robsonreadingseries.ubc.ca.

ANNIE BARROWS
Two opportunities to meet the author of the popular Ivy + Bean series. North Vancouver: Tuesday, November 1 at 4:00pm, Lynn Valley Branch library. Vancouver: Tuesday, November 1 at 7:00pm, West Point Grey United Church Sanctuary, 4595 8th Ave. W. Tickets: $5. Information and tickets at www.kidsbooks.ca.

JOHN FLANAGAN
Meet the author of the popular series Ranger's Apprentice. Thursday, November 3 at 7:00pm. Tickets: $5. Our Lady of Perpetual Help Gymnasium, 2550 Camosun Street. More information and tickets at www.kidsbooks.ca.