Book News Vol. 7 No. 23

BOOK NEWS




VIRTUAL FESTIVAL



Listen to the tenth installment in our series of audio archives from past Festival events. This week you'll hear "Japanning" from the 2010 Festival, featuring Katherine Govier and David Mitchell. The genesis for a great book can develop from the most accidental of moments. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/multimedia/audio-archives.



Special Offers



If being a member of the VIWF didn't already have enough benefits, we've added an extra incentive! Every two weeks new and renewing members will have a chance to win a book by a Festival or Incite author. At the end of August we'll have a grand prize draw for a deluxe pack of Festival tickets - two tickets to any event of your choice for each day of the Festival! Sign up now here, https://www.writersfest.bc.ca/secure/secure_membership.php.



cStories eBook Singles is a new program that offers short Canadian fiction in e-book format for download on a wide array of digital devices, desktop or mobile, to be read anytime, anywhere. The cStories "Get Into Our Shorts" contest runs until the end of June. Enter by midnight June 30 to win an

iPad3 chock full of ebook singles including the stories of Jessica Westhead, named by CBC Books as one of the "10 Canadian women writers you need to read now." Details at win.cstories.ca.



AROUND TOWN THIS MONTH



TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival

The 27th Annual TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival is on NOW until July 1 with a smokin' hot line up including: R&B/Soul sensation Janelle Monae, indie rockers Destroyer, Latin Legends Los Amigos Invisibles, pedal steel guitar god Robert Randolph, the venerable Terell Stafford, Canadian sweetheart Jill Barber and many more. If you missed the fabulous downtown jazz opening weekend, don't forget closing weekend at David Lam Park (June 30 & July 1), Granville Island Jazz, etc... Details here, vanjazzfest.ca.



Indian Summer Literature Series

http://indiansummerfestival.ca

The Indian Summer Festival presents top international talent from Canada and India across music, literature, dance, film, yoga and cuisine. The literature series features some of the most exciting authors and public intellectuals from India, Canada and the UK.



Events this year include:



Tinderbox: India & its Neighbours, with MJ Akbar (THURSDAY JULY 12 @ 7pm
$20 ($80 with reception)
Goldcorp Centre for the Arts) Indians and Pakistanis are of the same people: Why then have their nations moved on such different trajectories since freedom in 1947?



Ideas Series: Buddhist Revival, Sanchi and the Begum of Bhopal with Nayanjot Lahiri (FRIDAY JULY 13 @ 6pm
$15
Goldcorp Centre for the Arts) The Buddhist revival in Asia, beginning in India, and spanning Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, China and Japan is one of the most remarkable pan-Asian cultural phenomenons of modern times. While the Buddhist revival in Asia evokes images of various places, persons and phenomena, Muslim ruling houses rarely figure in narratives about it.



AWARDS & LISTS



Susan Hughes's Off to Class, a non-fiction title detailing the experiences of children seeking an education in countries like India, China and Uganda, is a double nominee for the Canadian Children's Book Awards. Shane Peacock's The Dragon Turn, part of the popular boy Sherlock Holmes series is also a double nominee. Other nominees are listed here:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/06/20/childrens-book-awards-nominees.html



Wayne Arthurson, Susan McCaslin, and Peter Midgley are among the publishers, poets, novelists, and editors to have won 2012 Alberta Book Awards. The complete list is here:

http://holeinthebucket.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/alberta-book-awards-2012-edition/



Poets Phil Hall, Nick Thran, and Sonia Lamontagne, and novelist Michèle Vinet are winners of the 25th annual Trillium Award; Hall and Thran for work in English, Lamontagne and Vinet for work in French.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/poet-phil-hall-wins-english-language-trillium-book-award/article4356286/



The first-ever Andrew Carnegie Awards for Excellence in Literature were announced last week with awards given in fiction and nonfiction. Robert K. Massiec's biography Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman received the nonfiction prize; Anne Enright's The Forgotten Waltz won in fiction.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2012/06/first-ever-carnegie-awards-in-literature-go-to-enright-massie.html



Amber Dawn, a Vancouver writer, filmmaker, and performance artist has won the Dayne Ogilvie Prize from the Writers' Trust of Canada. The prize is given annually to an LGBT emerging writer who demonstrates great literary promise. Mariko Tomaki of Toronto received an honorable mention.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/06/26/dayne-ogilvie-award.html



YOUNG READERS



Geoff Rodkey's Deadweather and Sunrise has a hybrid plot including islands, buried treasure, real pirates, fake pirates, and leftover pirates, too maimed for sea work. At the center, there is Egbert (aka Egg). Egg's practical narrative tone keeps the profusion of plot elements in balance. For ages 10 to 13.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/chi-deadweather-and-sunrise-by-geoff-rodkey--20120614,0,4117902.story



Elisha Cooper's Homer, a large yellow lab, is a porch potato. When the other family dogs burst through the door inviting him to "chase and race around the yard," he simply answers, "No, thanks." All invitations are quietly rejected. Homer's take on life is clear: "I have everything I want," he says. "I have you." For ages 4 to 7.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/homer-by-elisha-cooper-a-picture-book-about-a-very-contented-dog/2012/06/19/gJQAn3BloV_story.html



A great wildlife series by Éditions Michel Quentin called Savais-tu?, is written by Alain M. Bergeron, illustrated by Sampar. Each book in the series looks at a weird and fascinating animal, fish, reptile, bird or insect, zeroing in on the kind of bizarre factoids kids love to learn and recite. The books are part cartoon, part fun facts, and the illustrations are simply brilliant. For ages 7 and over.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/books/Superb+stories+fascinating+facts/6782889/story.html



NEWS & FEATURES



It has been proposed that a new status code to reflect Internet censorship be named after Ray Bradbury's most famous novel, Fahrenheit 451.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/22/ray-bradbury-internet-error-message-451



Jean Craighead George, a leading writer of novels about nature for young readers, including the Newbery Medal-winning Julie of the Wolves, has died at 92.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-jean-craighead-george-20120527,0,3813817.story



Nora Ephron has died of leukemia, at 71.

http://www.thestar.com/news/books/article/1217710--nora-ephron-gravely-ill-rep-says



Brazil will offer inmates in its federal penitentiary system the opportunity to shorten their sentences by four days for every book they read.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/26/prisoners-books-reduce-sentence



Claire Tomalin, who wrote a biography of the novelist Charles Dickens, wrote a letter to Dickens earlier this year, congratulating him on his 200th birthday, as she wonders what he would make of the 21st century.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/07/letter-charles-dickens-200th-birthday



Charles Dickens has been identified as the author of a previously unattributed article which attacks the middle classes for patronising the "working man".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/25/charles-dickens-identified-author-article?CMP=EMCNEWEML1355



Margaret Atwood has joined the story-sharing website Wattpad to share her writing with an online community of nine million other users. Atwood has posted two new poems on the website and is planning to share a piece of fiction this autumn.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/25/margaret-atwood-joins-wattpad



When it comes to reading books, the French are determinedly bucking the digital trend and sticking to paperbacks. Ebooks in France have been slow to catch on, as readers overwhelmingly prefer the printed page, writes Angelique Chrisafis.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/shortcuts/2012/jun/24/why-is-france-shunning-ebooks



When Eric Walters began writing almost 20 years ago, he told his students stories; they offered their feedback. More than 70 books later—kids remain an essential part of the editing process. They spent more than two months this year advising him on Hunter, out this fall.

http://www.thestar.com/news/books/article/1216086--author-eric-walters-lets-kids-be-his-editors



George Orwell had four motives for writing, says Maria Popova: (1) Sheer egoism. (2) Aesthetic enthusiasm. (3) Historical Impulse, and (4) Political purpose.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/06/25/george-orwell-why-i-write/



A bronze sculpture of literary icon Northrop Frye, set to be unveiled in Moncton next month, has University of Toronto officials interested in getting a copy. The life-size statue, depicting Frye sitting on a park bench, reading a book, is being created by Darren Byers and Fred Harrison, in collaboration with Janet Fotheringham, and is intended to mark the 100th anniversary of the literary giant's birth.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/06/26/nb-frye-sculpture-moncton-toronto.html



The Erasure Poetry Contest invites you to create your own poetic masterpiece from an excerpt of How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti—erasing letters, words and sentences until your own genius emerges. Visit geist.com/erasure for more details and to read the excerpt. All entries must be postmarked no later than August 1, 2012.

http://www.geist.com/



Enter the Search for the Great BC Novel contest offered by Mother Tongue Publishing Limited.

http://www.allianceforarts.com/files/enet/pdf/12/06/literary_0.pdf



BOOKS & WRITERS



Denis Béchard's Cures for Hunger is a standard story of father and son, of the struggle for some sort of meaningful communication between the two, writes Brad Smith. But ultimately, the unknowable man remains just that, says Smith.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/cures-for-hunger-by-deni-y-bchard/article4324301/



In Enrique Vila-Matas's Dublinesque, Alberto Manguel visits a Dublin haunted by the ghosts of modern literature. There is a kind of literary fiction that feeds on itself, like an introverted cannibal. And the French excel in this, writes Manguel.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/15/dublinesque-enrique-vila-matas-review



Tanis Rideout's Above All Things fictionalizes George Mallory's historic third attempt to scale the top of Everest. It's a book about obsession, writes Jennifer Hunter, a man's consuming drive to be the first to reach the peak of Mount Everest.

http://www.thestar.com/news/books/article/1215843--above-all-things



Few people have been both great writers and great illustrators of children's books. Perhaps the most gifted of them all was Maurice Sendak, writes Alison Lurie. Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are shocked some adult readers at first; later it was recognized as a brilliant breakthrough.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jul/12/something-wonderful-out-almost-nothing/



Nadine Gordimer's No Time Like the Present concerns the political, social and emotional questions raised by the South Africa of today. This complex, probing novel is emboldened by its attachment of South African political development to the deepening years of one formerly illegal "mixed-race" marriage, writes Darryl Whetter.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/no-time-like-the-present-by-nadine-gordimer/article4363995/



Peter Dubé's protest fiction is well-timed, writes Anne Chudobiak. As "casseroling" becomes a gerund in Montreal English, it's time to read The City's Gates, an eerie, fanciful take on the kinds of issues that have dominated headlines since Quebec's student crisis began.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/books/Peter+Dubé+protest+fiction+well+timed/6824569/story.html



When Victoria Sweet went to practice medicine at the last almshouse in America, she signed a two-month contract—and stayed for 20 years. God's Hotel describes the transformation from almshouse to modern health care facility, writes Joanne Latimer, changing forever Sweet's approach to patient care.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/06/22/review-gods-hotel-a-doctor-a-hospital-and-a-pilgrimage-to-the-heart-of-medicine/



Unless you're traveling alone, don't pack a copy of Mark Haddon's new novel this summer, writes Ron Charles. The Red House is too demanding, too absorbing and, finally, too knowing about the tensions and anxieties that attend vacations with extended family.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/mark-haddons-the-red-house-reviewed-by-ron-charles/2012/06/19/gJQAXOshoV_story.html



Cheryl Strayed's Wild is a dazzling and inspiring account of personal transformation wrapped within a hair-raising story of an exceptionally foolhardy hiking adventure, writes Brett Josef Grubisic. The inexperienced hiker trekked solo for miles. An exciting story, says Grubisic.

http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/books/Cheryl+Strayed+Wild+reckless+journey+redemption/6825608/story.html



"Women take up smoking because it's empowering", says historian Sharon Anne Cook, author of Sex, Lies and Cigarettes. Women use cigarettes as social currency. And cigarettes allow women to express rebellion, presenting yourself as cool, leaving anti-smoking messages as not credible, says Joanne Laucius.

http://www.vancouversun.com/Women+tobacco+Smoke+mirrors/6835151/story.html



Ewan White describes Anne Carson's Antigone as riveting and humorous. In her updated rendition of the play, which she calls Antigonick, Carson fashions a protagonist with the headspace of a suicide bomber. Her Antigone is in love with the idea of martyrdom.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/antigonick-by-anne-carson/article4363942/



Jim Bartley suggests we may have to give Grace O'Connell the prize for aural evocation of a Toronto streetcar. In any case, Bartley finds O'Connell's Magnified World nice, funny and strong, adding that it connects with a wallop.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/magnified-world-by-grace-oconnell/article4363900/



COMMUNITY EVENTS



DAPHNE MARLATT

Presentation of the 19th Annual George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award to Daphne Marlatt for an outstanding literary career in British Columbia. Thursday, June 28 at 7:00pm, free. Alice MacKay room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at 604-331-3603.



OUR FRIEND JOE: THE JOE FORTES STORY

Authors Lisa Anne Smith and Barbara Rogers give a presentation on Vancouver humanitarian Joe Fortes. Saturday, June 30 at 1pm, free, refreshments provided. Door prizes include a $150 gift certificate to the Joe Fortes Restaurant! Roedde House Museum, 1415 Barclay Street.



MARGINS ZINE LAUNCH PARTY

Launch of the first issue with live entertainment provided by local poets, singers and storytellers. Saturday, June 30 at 7:00pm. Rhizome Cafe, 317 East Broadway.



THE RED SHOES

Based on Hans Christian Andersen's story and filmed in 1947, The Red Shoes, beautiful and talented Vicky is hired by the top impresario of the day, Lermontov, to dance in his company. Hosted by Alma Lee. Tuesday, July 3 at 7:30pm. Vancouver International Film Centre, 1181 Seymour Street. More information here, http://filmguide.viff.org/tixSYS/vifcguide/filmguide/films/2279.



JED LA LUMIERE

The author of Patience: A Gay Man's Virtue brings humour and insight to the launch for his book about being an invisible minority. Thursday, July 5 at 7:00pm, free. Little Sister's Book & Art Emporium, 1238 Davie Street.



TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON

Readings by bill bissett and Susan Cormier. Thursday, July 5 at 7:00pm. Suggested donation at the door: $5. The Prophouse Cafe, 1636 Venables Ave., Vancouver. More information at talonbooks.com.



DEAD POETS READING SERIES

Readings by Kate Braid, George McWhirter, Daniela Elza, Ken Klonksy, and Hal Wake. Sunday, July 8 at 3:00pm. Entry by donation. Project Space, 222 East Georgia Street, Vancouver. Details and registration here, www.deadpoetslive.com.



RACHEL HARTMAN

Author launches her new book Seraphina. Tuesday, July 10 at 7:00pm. RSVP to pkells@randomhouse.com. Kidsbooks, 3083 West Broadway. More information at kidsbooks.ca.



Upcoming



TIM WARD

Author reads from Zombies on Kilimanjaro: A Father-Son Journey Above the Clouds. Thursday, July 17 at 7:00pm, free. Alice MacKay room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street. More information at 604-331-3603.



DENMAN ISLAND READERS & WRITERS FESTIVAL

Annual summer event featuring Tseporah Berman, Steven Galloway, Loran Goodison, Timothy Taylor and many others. July 19-22, 2012. For complete details, visit www.denmanislandwritersfestival.com.



VISIBLE VERSE FESTIVAL 2012

VVF seeks videopoems that wed words and images, the voice seen as well as heard. Deadline for submissions is August 1, 2012. For more information, contact Artistic Director Heather Haley at hshaley@emspace.com.



SUMMER DREAMS LITERARY ARTS FESTIVAL

Annual family-friendly celebration of literary arts features two stages, a kids' area, a marketplace, and over 90 performers, including headliner Barbara Adler and Fang, a local spoken-word artist who combines poetry with music. Saturday, August 25, 2012, free. Trout Lake Park, 3350 Victoria. More information at www.summerdreamsfest.com.