Book News Vol. 7 No. 11

BOOK NEWS

UPCOMING VIWF EVENTS

Incite

At the next Incite on April 18, Irish novelist John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, reads from The Absolutist, Buffy Cram reads from her debut collection of short stories, Radio Belly and Owen Laukkanen shares his debut thriller, The Professionals. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/inciteapril18. Also appearing at Incite in the next few weeks are Linden MacIntyre, Vincent Lam, Richard Stursberg and Trevor Green.

Richard Ford
Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author Richard Ford appears with his latest novel, Canada. A visionary novel of vast landscapes, complex identities and fragile humanity. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/richardford.

AWARDS & LISTS

The late Christopher Hitchens is one of 18 authors selected for the Orwell Prize for political writing.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9169607/Christopher-Hitchens-leads-Orwell-Prize-longlist.html

Lebanese writer Rabee Jaber has won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, which has become known as the "Arabic Booker".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/28/rabee-jaber-international-prize-arabic-fiction

Don McKay's The Shell of the Tortoise (Gaspereau Press) has won the $10,000 BMO Winterset Award, the first ever essay collection to win the award.
http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/2012/03/29/don-mckay-wins-bmo-winterset-award/

Lavinia Greenlaw's "outstanding" sound work Audio Obscura, has won the Ted Hughes award for new work in poetry.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/30/lavinia-greenlaw-wins-ted-hughes-award

Five authors are shortlisted for a new Canadian literary award for feel-good mysteries. The award is nicknamed the Bony Blithe, for "a book that makes us smile".
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2012/03/28/new-award-announced-for-feel-good-mysteries/

Theresha Kishkan's Mnemonic: A Book of Trees is on the shortlist for the Hubert Evans Nonfiction Prize.
https://www.gooselane.com//books.php?ean=9780864926517

The 5-person shortlist for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour Writing consists of four women and one man.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/women-authors-dominate-short-list-for-leacock-humour-prize/article2389537/

The shortlist for the Donner Prize, which recognizes the best book on public policy by a Canadian, was announced this week.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/books-about-obesity-museums-in-the-running-for-donner-prize/article2390415/

Esi Edugyan and Patrick DeWitt are two of the six authors shortlisted for the 2012 Walter Scott prize for historical fiction in the U.K.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-17610307

Three finalists, two of them from Vancouver, have been named for the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/04/03/bronwen-wallace-prize.html

Songwriter poet Kris Demeanor has been named Calgary's new poet laureate.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/meet-kris-demeanour-calgary-poet-laureate-and-art-slut/article2387030/

Jonny Duddle's The Pirates Next Door is the first picture book to win the Waterstones children's prize voted for by booksellers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2012/mar/28/pirate-waterstones-prize-winner

Andy Mulligan's Trash, a thriller about children who live on a dump in a developing country, has been shortlisted for the UK's Carnegie medal for children's literature.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/dec/20/andy-mulligan-trash-blue-peter

The Alcuin Society has announced the winners of its 30th annual Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada. The winning books will be exhibited in Germany, Japan and in eight Canadian provinces.
http://www.alcuinsociety.com/

YOUNG READERS

Jonny Duddle's The Pirates Next Door features the Jolley-Rogers, a family of swashbuckling pirates who move to the quiet seaside town of Dull-on-Sea. There's buried treasure the pirates leave behind. Up to 4 years old.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2012/mar/28/pirate-waterstones-prize-winner

Vincent van Gogh and the Colors of the Wind, by Chiara Lossani is one of many biographical picture books about artists, with text inspired by Vincent's letters to his brother, Theo. Stylized illustrations by Octavia Monaco set this book apart writes Bernie Goedhart. Age 9 and up.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/books/Kids+Picture+books+about+real+people/6343643/story.html

Andy Milligan's thriller Trash reflects a real school that Milligan knows. Raphael is a dumpsite boy. One day, Raphael's world turns upside down. A small leather bag falls into his hands: a bag of clues and hope, a bag that will change everything. Age 8 to 12.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/data/book/unclassified/9780385619011/trash

In a review of Suzanne Collins's Catching Fire, pinkbookworms writes: "The first book was captivating, action packed and a page-turner. I started the second book with high hopes and expectations. But I was very disappointed indeed." Age 12 and up.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2012/mar/24/review-catching-fire-suzanne-collins

NEWS & FEATURES

Adrienne Rich, award-winning poet and essayist, has died, age 82. Among her many awards was a MacArthur "genius"Fellowship in 1994.
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-adrienne-rich-20120329,0,4556618,full.story

April is National Poetry Month and CBC Reads is having a contest. Tell them what your favourite collection of poetry is and why, and you could win one of four prizes. Deadline for entry is Sunday, April 29, at midnight ET. Complete rules and regulations are here:
http://www.cbc.ca/books/cbc-books-poetry-month-contest----rules-and-regulations.html

The Canada Writes Poetry Prize competition is now open. Deadline for entries is May 1 at 11:59 pm ET. More information at:
http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadawrites/literaryprizes/poetry/

Geist has announced the Second Annual Geist Erasure Poetry Contest. Writers are asked to create their own poetic masterpiece from an excerpt of How Should a Person Be? a creative non-fiction novel by celebrated author Sheila Heti. Visit geist.com/erasure for more details and to read the excerpt.

The Aspiring Poets Contest, a new contest in Canada, is for unpublished Canadian poets, and begins in April, national poetry month. Vancouver's Poet Laureate Evelyn Lau is the honorary patron. Submissions will be accepted, beginning April 1. More information at: www.aspiringpoetscontest.org.

Novelist Ann Patchett's fight to save independent bookshops, having opened her own shop in Tennessee and championed the importance of bookselling on American television, has led to her nomination as one of Time magazine's most influential people in the world.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/02/ann-patchett-time-most-influential

Libraries on Nova Scotia's South Shore are boycotting Random House, one of the world's largest book publishers, over unfair e-book pricing. The company began charging public libraries up to three times the retail price for downloadable books last month.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/04/02/ns-south-shore-libraries-boycot-random-house.html

Amazon.com‘s efforts to get deeper discounts from publishers prompted this comment from novelist Richard Russo. "When you sell books at a loss to corner the market, you're not interested in competing. You're interested in burying your competitors and then burying the shovel."
shttp://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2017889877_amazonpublisher02.html

TV columnist John Doyle wrote that Mad Men represents the triumph of TV over novels. Russell Smith responds that reports of the novel's death have been exaggerated. And Twitter gives us access to how people read novels, writes Smith.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/russell-smith/reports-of-the-novels-death-have-been-exaggerated/article2384385/

The history of bookmaking hasn't been without its challenges, but never was its craft as painstaking as during the era of illuminated manuscripts. Here is a collection of complaints monks scribbled in the pages of illuminated manuscripts.
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/03/21/monk-complaints-manuscripts/

A search made at the request of her biographer has uncovered three poems and two pieces of prose published in the school magazine when the late Angela Carter was a teenager in the 1950s, offering an insight into Carter's development.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/31/angela-carter-teenage-poetry-found-school

In the most recent issue of the New Yorker, David Sedaris writes about socialized medicine in the heart of old Europe, especially Dentists Without Borders.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/02/120402fa_fact_sedaris

In 1969, Monica Searle was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive form of breast cancer. After each chemotherapy treatment, Ronald made Monica a Mrs. Mole drawing "to evoke the blissful future ahead." Combined, they formed Les Très Riches Heures de Mrs Mole.http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/01/10/les-tres-riches-heures-de-mrs-mole-ronald-searle/

Anna Holmes writes about the outrage some Hunger Games fans experienced when the movie version of The Hunger Games made it clear that two key characters were black. Bad reading comprehension? Fans who could not believe—or accept—that Rue and Thresh, were black? http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/03/hunger-games-and-trayvon-martin.html#ixzz1qg0ISr00

No one can predict the fate of a book, whether it's British author EL James' Fifty Shades of Grey or Edgar Allen Poe, ignored in his lifetime but feted ever since for his detective fiction and pioneering horror, writes Robert McCrum.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/01/edgar-allan-poe-literary-life

Michael Crummey identifies his top ten literary feuds.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/04/michael-crummey-top-10-literary-feuds

BOOKS & WRITERS

Linden Macintyre's Why Men Lie is told from the point of view of a smart, intuitive female protagonist, a psychological drama about the limitations of love. It's a compelling yarn riddled with dark secrets and complex relationships, writes Greg Quill.
http://www.thestar.com/news/books/article/1152562--linden-macintyre-knows-why-men-lie

As dark as We Need to Talk About Kevin and So Much for That, Lionel Shriver's The New Republic is written with a lighter touch, writes Zsuzsi Gartner. But those with faith in elected governments and the fourth estate, might try hard not to shudder, says Gartner.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/the-new-republic-by-lionel-shriver/article2387188/

Ron Rash's The Cove is situated in the Appalachian mountains of Carolina. Appalachia is, in American terms, old: long populated, with dialects and folkways that go back centuries, very beautiful; not too far from Wales on the literary map, writes Ursula K Le Guin.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/16/the-cove-ron-rash-review

A storm about to make landfall, a dysfunctional father-son relationship and a double homicide anchor Montrealer Robert Pobi's chilling debut thriller, Bloodman, writes François Lauzon. Though the clues are there, this sparkling first novel has an ending few readers will see coming.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/books/reads+Estranged+plate/6387411/story.html

How do honour killings differ from crimes of passion? Not much, Stieg Larsson says in an excerpt from The Expo Files: Articles By Crusading Journalist Stieg Larsson, a new compilation of non-fiction.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/how-do-honour-killings-differ-from-crimes-of-passion/article2387722/

CBC radio and television reports by Annamaria Tremonti and Carol Off, along with American print journalist Barbara Demick's Besieged: Life Under Fire on a Sarajevo Street catch us up on people's lives since the Serbian siege of Sarajevo twenty years ago.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/03/life-and-death-in-sarajevo

COMMUNITY EVENTS

TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
Performance by Kate Braid and Daniela Elza with bass player Clyde Reed. Thursday, April 5 at 7:00pm. Suggested donation: $5. The Prophouse, 1636 Venables Avenue, Vancouver. More information at blnish@pandorascollective.com.

VANCOUVER HOWLS
Celebration of Allen Ginsberg, featuring a performance of Howl. With CR Avery, Jamie Reid, Sasha Wiley, Trevor Carolan and others. Friday, April 6 at 7:00pm. $8 suggested donation. Rhizome Cafe, 317 East Broadway.

CARMEN AGUIRRE
Vancouver-based actress and writer reads from her book Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter. Monday, April 9 at 7:30pm. Admission by donation and RSVP to http://www.thecultch.com/content/view/348/508/. Vancity Culture Lab (the Cultch, 1895 Venables). More information at 604-251-1363.

CAA VANCOUVER BRANCH MEETING
Vancouver poet laureate Evelyn Lau speaks at the monthly meeting of the local branch of the Canadian Authors Association. Wednesday, April 11 at 7:00pm. Tickets: $10/$5/free for members. Alliance for Arts and Culture, 100-938 Howe Street. More information at www.canauthorsvancouver.org.

ON EDGE READING SERIES
Presents readings by Kaie Kellough and Cornelia Hoogland. Thursday, April 12 at 7:00pm, free. SB301, Emily Carr University, 1399 Johnston Street. More information at http://www.ecuad.ca/about/events/198108.

V6A
Launch of the new anthology V6A: Writing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Featuring readings by Cathleen With, Henry Doyle, Phoenix Winter and My Name is Scot. Thursday, April 12 at 7:00pm. The Waldorf, 1489 East Hastings.

VILLANELLES
US poets Sharmagne Leland-St. John and Ellaraine Lockie, and BC poets Sandy Shreve and Kate Braid read from the newly published poetry anthology Villanelles (an Everymans Library Pocket Poets book). Friday, April 13 at 7:00pm. People's Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial Drive.

THE WRITER'S STUDIO READING SERIES
An evening of storytelling poetry, lyric prose, and personal essays related to the theme of travel. Guest author is writer and photographer Tayu Hayward who will show a collection of his photographs and share his stories. Friday, April 13 at 7:00pm, free. Take 5 Cafe, 429 Granville Street.

LIT FEST NEW WEST
All day event featuring speakers, authors, workshops, readings and more. Saturday, April 14 at 9:00am. Douglas College, 700 Royal Avenue, New Westminster. More information at artscouncilnewwest.org.

GRANT LAWRENCE
Author reads and presents a slideshow from his new book Adventures in Solitude. Monday, April 16 at 7:00pm. Admission free for members; $5 for non-members. Capilano Public Library, 3045 Highland Blvd., North Vancouver. For more information or to register, visit www.nswriters.bc.ca.

PEN-IN-HAND POETRY/PROSE READING SERIES
Readings by Chris Hutchinson, Teresa McWhirter and Billeh Nickerson. Monday, April 16 at 7:00pm. Cost: $3. Serious Coffee, 230 Cook Street, Victoria. More information at ainbinder.collins@gmail.com.

KEVIN CHONG
Author reads from his most recent book My Year of the Racehorse: Falling in Love With The Sport of Kings. Books will be available for purchase. Tuesday, April 17 at 7:00pm, free. Tommy Douglas branch, Burnaby Public Library, 7311 Kingsway, Burnaby. More information at 604-522-3971.

RAZORBILL
Launch of the new publisher of many young adult books. Meet authors Jay Asher, Hiromi Goto and Carrie Mac. Tuesday, April 17 at 7:00pm, free. Chapters Metrotown, Burnaby.

Upcoming

JACK WHYTE
Meet the author of the A Dream of Eagles series and the Templar Trilogy. Wednesday, April 18 at 7:00pm. Register at 604-598-7426. City Centre Library, Surrey Public Library, 10350 University Drive, Surrey.

AT THE WORLD'S EDGE
Author Claudia Cornwall discusses her new book At the World's Edge-Curt Lang's Vancouver: 1937-1998. Wednesday, April 18 at 7:00pm, free but registration required. Parkgate Branch library, 3675 Banff Court, North Vancouver. More information at 604-929-3727.

NVCL LOCAL AUTHOR SERIES
Readings by Gerhard Winkler and the Rogue Writers. Wednesday, April 18 at 7:00pm, free. Dr. G. Paul Singh Study Hall, North Vancouver City Library, 120 14th Street W., North Vancouver. More information at 604-998-3450.

VOICES OF LOCAL POETS
Celebrate National Poetry Month with Mission poets Heidi Greco and Marion Quednau. Thursday, April 19 at 4:00pm. Clearbrook Library, 32320 George Ferguson Way, Abbotsford. More information at 604-859-7814.

CANADIAN CRIME WRITING
BC members of Crime Writers of Canada will present a lively panel discussion about Canadian crime writing, followed by announcement of nominees for this years Arthur Ellis Awards. Thursday, April 19 at 7:00pm, free. Alice MacKay room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street. More information at 604-331-3691.

CHRIS MCMAHEN
Two appearances by the author of Box of Shocks. Friday, April 20 at 10:00am at Semiahmoo Library, 1815 152 Street, Surrey. More information at 604-592-6900. Also Friday, April 20 at 1:00pm at Fleetwood Library, 15996 84 Ave. Surrey. To register, call 604-598-7340. More information at www.spl.surrey.bc.ca.

LIT! QUEER WRITERS DRINKING
Queer writers read their best works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Friday, April 20 at 8:00pm. $5-$10 sliding scale. Rhizome Cafe, 317 East Broadway.

NORTH SHORE WRITERS FESTIVAL
13th annual festival of writers and readers, this year featuring Marina Endicott, Anita Rau Badami and Daniel Kalla. Saturday, April 21, free. From 11:30am to 8:30pm. West Vancouver Memorial Library, 1950 Marine Drive, West Vancouver. Complete details at northshorewritersfestival.com.

VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL POETRY FESTIVAL
Second annual festival and poetry slam championship. April 23-28, 2012. Registration deadlines and complete details here: http://www.vancouverpoetryhouse.com/vipf-2012-is-coming/.

TIMOTHY TAYLOR
Reading by the author of Stanley Park and The Blue Light Project. Wednesday, April 25 at 7:00pm, free. Chilliwack Library, 45860 First Avenue Chilliwack. More information at www.fvrl.bc.ca.

HIROMI GOTO
Book launch of the author's latest novel, Darkest Light. Thursday, April 26 at 7:00pm, free. Rhizome Cafe, 317 East Broadway.