Book News Vol. 7 No. 30

BOOK NEWS

2012 Festival
Details of the 2012 Vancouver Writers Fest are now online! Visit our website to see what you can look forward to in October. Tickets go on sale to members on Aug 29th and the general public on Sept 5th. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2012festival

UPCOMING EVENTS
Michael Chabon
September 26, 2012 at 8:00pm
St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church
Author of the New York Times bestselling novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, talks about his latest book, Telegraph Avenue. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/michaelchabon

VIRTUAL FESTIVAL

Listen to the seventeenth installment in our series of audio archives from past Festival events. This week you'll hear an "Intimate Evening" featuring Yann Martel. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/multimedia/audio-archives.

Special Offers

If being a member of the VWF 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.

AWARDS & LISTS

The Australian State of Victoria has announced the Victorian Prize for Literature shortlist. The winners will be announced October 16. The list of shortlisted writers of fiction, nonficton, drama, poetry and young adult is here:
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/shortlisted-authors-take-centre-stage-20120809-23vz4.html

British writer Rachel Joyce's debut novel, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, has earned her a place on the longlist for the 2012 Man Booker prize. The Man Booker shortlist will be announced September 11.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/08/09/rachel-joyce-video.html

The Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association presented a wide variety of The Auroras-Canada's Science Fiction & Fantasy Awards—at its AGM earlier this month.
http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/

The CBC Books and Scotiabank Giller Prize Readers' Choice contest is back. As we await the announcement of this year's long-list, CBC Books offer a chance to share great Canadian literature discovered this past year. Rules and regulations are here:
http://www.cbc.ca/books/scotiabankgillerprize/readers-choice-2012-rules-and-regulations.html

Submit your nomination here:
http://3495051.polldaddy.com/s/sgp2012?pop=11

YOUNG READERS

In Rebecca Stead's Liar & Spy, seventh-grader Georges (named after painter Georges Seurat) is bullied at school. His parents care, but their communication strategies—tiles on a Scrabble tray—seem babyish. New apartment building neighbors are appealing, but are their games real or lies? Like Stead's Newbery Medal-winning When You Reach Me, there's a mystery, and rereading the book would be a pleasure. Ages 9 to 12.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/site/newspaper/entertainment/sc-ent-0808-books-kids-20120810,0,2848953.story

Libby Thump isn't good at the things she's supposed to be good at: school and swimming. As fourth grade ends, her teacher advises her to "live up to your potential." But Libby knows that she won't shine in the classroom or the swimming pool. Instead, she can shine at the stable, around horses. Libby of High Hopes, by Elise Primavera, is a perfect read for kids who have dreamed of having their own horse. Ages 7 to 10.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/libby-of-high-hopes-is-another-book-that-you-might-like/2012/08/07/62deb150-d1b7-11e1-8bea-6dc0b4879aab_story.html

Reviewer Bookworm 11 writes that The Name of This Book is a Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch "is extremely frightening and an edge of the seat read." Cassandra is always preparing for disaster; Max-Ernest, her collaborator in their adventure, always tells jokes. Ages 12 and up.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2012/aug/07/review-name-of-book-is-secret-pseudonymous-bosch

NEWS & FEATURES

Inspired by Team GB's recent performances in the javelin, triathlon and cycling, Scottish poet Jackie Kay created her own armchair triathlon-reading out three short poems she wrote, on video.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/video/2012/aug/08/olympics-2012-art-jackie-kay-video

Robert Hughes was Australia's Dante, writes Peter Carey. Robert Hughes wasn't just a great art critic. He was one of the finest writers Australia has ever produced–the man who told his countrymen who they were, says Carey.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/07/robert-hughes-by-peter-carey

The award-winning, wickedly funny author and actor David Rakoff died last week, at 47. He submitted his novel in verse Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die; Cherish, Perish well in advance of its deadline. Doubleday plans to publish Rakoff's final work next year.
http://arts.nationalpost.com/2012/08/10/david-rakoff-dies-at-47/

The Globe and Mail has posted on its website excerpts from five of Rakoff's books.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/excerpts-from-david-rakoffs-work/article4475264/

K'naan left Somalia with his family, to escape the Somalia Civil War in 1991. Tundra Books announced this week that K'naan's children's book (ages 7 to 10) When I Get Older: The Story behind Wavin' Flag, with illustrations by artist Rudy Gutierrez, will be published at the end of September.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/08/13/knaan-childrens-book.html

Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy is writing her first ballet, based on the classic fairytale of Rapunzel–and has promised to put back the darkness and terror. Rapunzel-dance theatre rather than straight ballet-is a commission by Sadler's Wells.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/aug/14/carol-ann-duffy-rapunzel-ballet

The poet laureate captured the mood of London's Olympic Games with Translating the British, 2012.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/10/carol-ann-duffy-olympics-london

1972 and culture is the new cold war front line. Serena Frome, recently recruited by MI5, is sent for her first assignment to meet a promising young writer... Thus begins The Guardian's extract from Ian McEwen's forthcoming novel Sweet Tooth, here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/10/ian-mcewan-sweet-tooth-extract

Philip Jones writes that Fifty Shades of Grey is the latest reminder of what makes the publishing industry important. Every few years, the industry offers a title that crystallizes what it means to put an author in touch with a reader. And, digital doesn't alter this.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/08/publishing-fifty-shades-books-important

Thinly veiled fables of political love and war are the surprise bestsellers of the summer in France. Le Monarque, Son Fils, Son Fief (The monarch, his son, his fief) by Marie-Célie Guillaume has topped the French bestseller charts for seven weeks. Les Strauss-Kahn is at number two in the non-fiction bestsellers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/10/france-europe-news

Citing a loss of confidence in the book's details, Christian publisher Thomas Nelson is ending the publication and distribution of David Barton's The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson. The book was voted the worst history book ever.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/08/09/158510648/publisher-pulls-controversial-thomas-jefferson-book-citing-loss-of-confidence

When she was asked to write a sequel to E Nesbit's classic children's book Five Children and It, Jacqueline Wilson said no. But then she saw the fun she could have with the wish-granting fairy and a modern jigsaw family.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/10/jacqueline-wilson-five-children-and-it-and-me

Mark Haddon, the award-winning author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, has written to his MP arguing that he and other wealthy people should pay more tax to save others being hit by government spending cuts.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/12/curious-incident-mark-haddon-wealthy-tax

Only a few people have been both great writers and great illustrators of children's books: Edward Lear, Dr. Seuss and—perhaps the most gifted of them all—Maurice Sendak, who died in May at the age of eighty-three. Thus begins Alison Lurie's Something Wonderful Out of Almost Nothing.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jul/12/something-wonderful-out-almost-nothing/

A reminder that the deadline for submission to CBC Books' new contest on last lines is Sunday, August 19, 2012, at 11:59 p.m. ET. Last lines are the final thought readers are left with. Whether it be from the past or the present, from fiction or non-fiction–the CBC wants to know what it is and why you love it. The rules and regulations are here:
http://www.cbc.ca/books/2012/08/whats-your-favourite-last-line-in-literature.html

What a nightmare-not having any books to buy. This is the scenario Heather Mallick alludes to in this article about what she sees as a decline in publishing.
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1240637--as-publishing-withers-where-will-we-find-great-books

BOOKS & WRITERS

Battleborn (Granta) is a collection of 10 short stories rooted in small-town Nevada, writes Corrine Jones. Unsettling and compelling, Claire Vaye Watkins's writing has deservedly been likened to Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx for its fresh, foreboding approach to America's west, with Hari Kunzru hailing her as "one of the most exciting young voices in American fiction".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/12/claire-vaye-watkins-battleborn-granta

Liza Klaussman's Tigers in Red Weather is an immensely gripping and well-told tale of two generations of a family spanning the period from 1945 to 1969, writes Kamila Shamsie. A gripping tale, in which a dead body changes everything, says Shamsie.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/08/tigers-red-weather-klaussman-review

People caught up in tumultuous times often become nostalgic for the past or hopeful for the future, writes Jason Beerman. The characters at the centre of Gail Tsukiyama's A Hundred Flowers do both, as their lives become increasingly rattled by political upheaval in 1957 China.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/article/1239012--gail-tsukiyama-s-a-hundred-flowers-review

Jeanette Winterson's The Daylight Gate adds her interpretation of the Pendle Hill events: power, fear, and the forces of darkness and light that exist within the extremes of human nature, writes Stephanie Merritt. Historical fact proves more chilling than the supernatural fantasy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/12/daylight-gate-jeanette-winterson-review

Lorna Crozier, Susan Musgrave, and Sharon Thesen reside in British Columbia (in fact, all have poems that take place on or refer to Haida Gwaii) and it is fair to say that they are all at the top of their games, writes Zoe Whittall. Crozier's Small Mechanics, Musgrave's Origami Dove, and Thesen's Oyama Pink Shale are simply stunning, says Whittall.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/three-poets-canadian-women-all-for-the-ages/article4259381/

Michael V. Smith's Progress is a tale of family love, betrayal, and deception, set in a small Ontario town about to be flooded by a huge dam. Helen Massey sees a workman fall from the face of the dam being built, encountering denial and cover-up when she reports the sight. Progress requires the keeping of secrets, and this is a book, most fundamentally, about secrets, writes Tom Sandborn.
http://thetyee.ca/Books/2012/08/11/Progress/?utm_source=mondayheadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=130812

"Embrace the sweet lovely mess," says a character in Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins. She's talking about life, but could mean the multiple, intersecting storylines and numerous lives, writes Joel Yanofsky. Walter offers a change of scene, setting and point-of-view in each successive chapter.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/books/Italian+hotelier+falls+actress/7039086/story.html

Richard Fitzpatrick's El Clasico: Barcelona v Real Madrid: Football's Greatest Rivalry is about soccer, styles, ideologies. and a history of hatred; e.g., when Johan Cruyff was pursued by Real Madrid, he said he would never play for a team "associated with Franco". A riveting read, writes Tim Lewis.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/03/clasico-barcelona-real-madrid-review

Just as Chilean post Pablo Neruda created odes to common things, writes Mary Ann Moore, so also is Lorna Crozier's gathering the universe around Bed, Chair, Coffee Pot, Ironing Board, Mirror, and other items in The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things.
http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/books/Author+Lorna+Crozier+offers+tribute+everyday+objects/7071346/story.html

Zoe Whittall describes Marie-Claire Blais as Canada's very own Gertrude Stein, a rebel in a sea of boring, upstanding literary WASPs. One cannot skim, says Whittall; one must immerse and reread. If you put the time in, Mai at the Predator's Ball will reward you, writes Whittall.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/learning-to-read-marie-claire-blais/article4473062/

COMMUNITY EVENTS

SUNSHINE COAST FESTIVAL OF THE WRITTEN ARTS
Canada's longest running summer gathering of Canadian writers and readers. Features Wayson Choy, Charlotte Gill, Patrick Lane, Ami McKay, Richard Wagamese and many others. Tickets on sale now! August 16-19, 2012. Sechelt, BC. Complete details at www.writersfestival.ca.

IMAGINING LIVES
Launch of Bernice Lever's latest book of poetry. Sunday, August 19 at 2:00pm. Collins Hall, 1122 Miller Road, Bowen Island.

MARISSA MEYER ONLINE AUTHOR VISIT
Interact with bestselling author of Cinder, Marissa Meyer, in the City Centre library's Computer Learning Centre. Hang out with other teens and ask Andrea questions through the TeenRC website. Snacks to follow! Wednesday, August 22 at 2:00pm. For more information and to reserve a spot, call 604-598-7426. City Centre Library, 10350 University Drive, Surrey.

Upcoming

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.

2012 PANDORA'S LITERARY AWARDS GALA
Pandora's Collective is proud to announce the recipients of the Pandora's Literary Awards for 2012. This year's awards winners will be honoured at a special gala to be held on Friday, August 24th at CBC Studio 700 (700 Hamilton Street, Vancouver). The night will be hosted by Charles Demers and will feature a performance by Mount Pleasant's Inchoiring Minds. Award presenters include George Bowering, Brian Kaufman, Sean Cranbury, Betsy Warland and RC Weslowski. 7pm (Doors open at 6:30pm), CBC Studio 700 (700 Hamilton St.), Free event, Food, Cash bar. Silent Auction. For more information on the winners and the event: https://sites.google.com/site/summerdreamsfest/home/gala.

VANCOUVER POETRY SLAM
Qualifying slam for poets to earn points for the playoffs in March 2013. Featuring Tanya Evanson. Monday, August 27 at 8:00p. Cost: $4/$6. Cafe Deux Soleils, 2096 Commercial Drive.

TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
(Please note New Location Starting September) Features Wayde Compton and Warren Dean Fulton + Open Mic. Thursday, September 6th at 7:00pm. Suggested donation at the door: $5. @Cafe Montmartre, 4362 Main Street, Vancouver. More information at www.pandorascollective.com.

ANDREA LISTER
Writer and historian Andrea Lister follows the generations of determined women who fundraised, sewed, canned, and knitted to establish Chilliwack's first hospital. Tuesday, September 18 at 7:00pm. Chilliwack Library, 45860 First Avenue, Chilliwack.

JOHN VIGNA
Launch of the author's latest book, Bull Head. Wednesday, September 19 at 7:30pm. The Bourbon, 50 West Cordova Street, Vancouver. RSVP to bullheadlaunch@gmail.com.

WORD ON THE STREET
Features author readings, writing and publishing exhibits, musical entertainment, roving performers, children's activities, workshops, panels, books, and magazines. September 28-30, 2012. More information at wotsvan@thewordonthestreet.ca.

A POETIC WALK THROUGH NATURE
Join Vancouver's 100,000 Poets for Change on an Earthwalk. Poets will read select poems calling for the preservation of our beautiful forests and shorelines. A guest speaker will also present a narrative tour of the cultural history and natural habitat of Stanley Park. September 29 at 10:00am, free. For more information and to register, visit http://earthwalks11poets.eventbrite.com/.