Book News Vol. 7 No. 42

BOOK NEWS

Holiday Giving

Looking for a special gift for the book-lovers on your list? Look no further! The VWF has gift ideas to bring joy to readers of all persuasions:

Alistair MacLeod's Remembrance - the beautiful limited edition chapbook of Alistair's newly commissioned short story, $25 each. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/2012festival/remembrance

Festival Memberships - ticket discounts, early-bird access and more for a $35 annual fee (or $60 for two years). Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/get-involved/membership

Gift Certificates - to be used for the 2013 Festival, available in $25 increments.

Call us on 604-681-6330 x0 to order. Please note that all orders must be placed before Dec 18.

Jewish Book Festival
28th annual Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival. Featuring Maya Arad, Stan Coren, Deborah Hodge, Sayed Kashua and many others, including VWF Artistic Director Hal Wake interviewing Shalom Auslander in the opening event Saturday November 24th. November 24-29, 2012. For complete details, visit jccgv.ca.

AWARDS & LISTS

France's most prestigious prize for literature, the Goncourt prize, went to Jerome Ferrari for The Sermon on the Fall of Rome.
http://www.france24.com/en/20121107-corsican-saga-wins-france-top-literary-goncourt-prize-ferrari-sermon-on-fall-rome

Candace Savage has won the $60,000 Hilary Weston prize for A Geography of Blood.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/candace-savages-a-geography-of-blood-wins-60000-hilary-weston-prize/article5215416/

Wade Davis's Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest has been awarded the $32,000 Samuel Johnson Prize.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/12/into-silence-wade-davis-award

Women won five of the seven English-language categories of the 2012 Governor General's Literary Awards. These include Linda Spalding's The Purchase, and playwright Catherine Banks's It is Solved by Walking. Poet Julie Bruck's Monkey Ranch won the award for poetry; Susin Nielsen's The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen won the Governor General's Literary Award in children's writing; Isabelle Arsenault won the Children's Illustration Award for her illustration of Kyo Maclear's Virginia Wolf; Nigel Spencer won the translation award for translating Marie-Claire Blais' Mai at the Predators Ball. Ross King's Leonardo and the Last Supper won the non-fiction prize.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/11/13/gg-lit-awards-winners.html

The Guardian First Book award 2012 shortlist Include: Kevin Powers' The Yellow Birds, Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding, and Kerry Hudson's Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma. The two non-fiction titles for the shortlist are Lindsey Hilsum's Sandstorm, and journalist Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/08/guardian-first-book-award-2012-shortlist

My Big Shouting Day, by Rebecca Patterson, is the winner of the 2012 Roald Dahl Funny prize in the category aged 6 and under. Jamie Thomson's Dark Lord: The Teenage Years, a tale about a powerful netherworld lord who finds himself inhabiting the body of a chubby teenager, scooped the seven to 14 year category prize.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Roald+Dahl+prizes+awarded+dark+lord+shouting/7504899/story.html#ixzz2BleTNZYl

Robert Fowler's hostage tale is one of the 10 semi-finalists for the $40,000 B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. Other authors longlisted are: Nahlah Ayed, Samantha Bernstein, George Bowering, Stephen R. Bown, Marcello Di Cintio, Modris Eksteins, Taras Grescoe, Andrew Preston and Candace Savage.
http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/books/Robert+Fowler+hostage+tale+among+semi+finalists/7506101/story.html#ixzz2BteSXjMk

Anita Rau Badami, Patrick de Witt, Esi Edugyan and Michael Ondaatje are among the 19 Canadian authors up for the prestigious 100,000-euro ($127,000 Cdn) IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/books/Montrealer+among+Canadians+Dublin+award+long+list/7534982/story.html

YOUNG READERS

There's fantasy and adventure but what makes Dark Lord: The Teenage Years tick is the humour. Space creature or not, young adult readers will identify with a hero who hates being told what to do, "especially in a patronising manner", writes Martin Chilton. Ages 7 to 14.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/children_sbookreviews/9658122/Dark-Lord-The-Teenage-Years-by-Jamie-Thomson-review.html

Irav writes of Chomp by Carl Hiaasen: This book is hilarious with a lot of laugh out loud moments. The story concerns an animal handler, Mickey Cray and his son Wahoo, who are low on money because of an unfortunate incident with a frozen iguana.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2012/nov/09/review-chomp-carl-hiaasen

NEWS & FEATURES

Penguin chairman John Makinson says the planned merger with Random House is about widening range, not downsizing. "We are completely committed to this industry," Makinson said while visiting Penguin Canada in Toronto last week.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/what-does-penguins-chairman-see-in-the-random-house-merger-more-firepower/article5214995/

The "marvellous geology" of the white cliffs of Dover has been celebrated by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy in a poem published by the Guardian. The poem was commissioned by the National Trust to mark the success of a public appeal to buy one of the last stretches of the famous landmark still in private ownership.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/07/carol-ann-duffy-white-cliffs-dover

The American novelist Philip Roth announced his retirement in October in a little-noticed interview with French magazine Les inRocks. "To tell you the truth, I'm done", said Roth.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/09/philip-roth-retires

Like affairs, biographies hold seduction and betrayal between the pages. Is there a code of ethics for biographers? If there is, it would have to acknowledge the difficulties writers face in serving two masters: their subjects and the truth, writes Emma G. Keller.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/10/affairs-biographies-seduction-betrayal

Salman Rushdie and John le Carré have ended their fatwa face-off, expressing regret over their 15-year-long war of words, which began when Le Carré criticised The Satanic Verses.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/12/salman-rushdie-john-le-carre

The blow-by-blow exchange in November, 1979, available from The Guardian's archives, can be found here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog

"Over a lifetime in writing, I've had numerous opportunities to perfect the art of not winning literary prizes," says Rose Tremain. "My facial muscles are well practised in the "non-winners smile. The art of surviving this is simply the art of carrying on," says Tremain, whose most recent novel is Merivel: A Man of His Time.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/08/art-of-not-winning-literary-prizes

In a conversation with the Los Angeles Times' Carolyn Kellogg, Margaret Atwood is full of cheer, seeing the humor in the darkest situations. She tells us, in this video interview, that she's not alone; even Kafka laughed while writing his tales of desperation.
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-margaret-atwood-byliner-serial-fun-dystopia-video-20121023,0,3745538.story

It's the 200th anniversary of the books that brought us Hansel and Gretel, and 200 other stories, first published by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in 1812. In Philip Pullman's Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm, he retells his 50 favourites, offering a brief analysis at the end of each of the sources of the stories and the various forms they've taken over the centuries.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/article/1284797--grimms-fairy-tales-20-things-you-didn-t-know

Valerie Eliot, the widow and literary executor of Nobel laureate T.S. Eliot, has died, at 86.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/11/valerie-eliot-ts-eliot-dies

Environmentalists campaigning to prevent the wholesale destruction of the Indonesian rainforest have succeeding in persuading the Walt Disney company, one of the world's largest publishers of children's books, to revamp its paper purchasing policies.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/11/disney-paper-indonesian-rainforest

The Geist Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest, the writing contest whose name is almost as long as the entries, is back! The 9th annual contest is now underway. More details here:
http://www.geist.com/articles/postcard-contest

BOOKS & WRITERS

A dolls' hospital near Chartres Cathedral: a strange conjunction of a beautiful religious building and broken toys, writes Ruth Scurr. Salley Vickers' The Cleaner of Chartres centres on Agnès Morel, a foundling raised by nuns, now the cleaner. Vickers' novel touches lightly but knowingly on the seedy side of human nature.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/11/cleaner-of-chartres-salley-vickers-review

Writer-neurologist Oliver Sacks never meant to be part of the story in Hallucinations, writes David L. Ulin. Much of Hallucinations had already been written when, in March 2011, the 79-year-old author and neurologist tripped over a box of books in his lower Manhattan apartment and broke his hip.
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-oliver-sacks-20121111,0,3601111.story

Nate Silver's correct predictions in the 2008 and 2012 US presidential races brought to our attention his work as a statistician and election analyst. Silver's The Signal and the Noise is a general tome about predictions: which are valuable, which are not.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-signal-and-the-noise-why-so-many-predictions-fail--but-some-dont-by-nate-silver/2012/11/09/620bf2d0-0671-11e2-a10c-fa5a255a9258_story.html

The Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where China's new leadership will soon be announced, stands opposite Mao's mausoleum. Facing them both is the Forbidden City, where emperors plotted and killed for their own succession. The reader of Mao, the Real Story, will receive a clear, rounded account of a tireless revolutionary fighter, and bloody social reformer, writes Shuyun Sun.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/new-bio-reveals-mao-the-builder-and-the-monster/article5153889/

COMMUNITY EVENTS

JACQUELINE PEARCE
Meet the author of The Truth About Rats (and Dogs), Dog House Blues, The Reunion and The Trickster. Monday, November 19 at 1:30pm. Newton Library, SPL, 13795 70 Ave., Surrey. More information at 604-598-7408.

PEN-IN-HAND READING SERIES
Readings by Stella Leventoyannis Harvey, Andrea Raine, and Jessica Michaelofsky. Tuesday, November 19 at 7:00pm. Cost: $3. Serious Coffee, Cook St. Village, 2300 Cook Street, Victoria.

ANNABEL LYON AND SARA GRAFFE
Authors and UBC Creative Writing instructors will present their work. Tuesday, November 20 at 12:00pm. Green College Coach House, UBC. For more information, email grad.research.assistant@gmail.com.

LUNCH POEMS @ SFU
Jamie Reid and Aislinn Hunter featured at November 21 lunch poems @SFU. Presented by SFU Public Square, 12-1pm in SFU Harbour Centre's Teck Gallery (515 W Hastings St.). Free admission, no registration required. lunch poems @ SFU hosts well-known and up-and-coming poets on the third Wednesday of every month. For more information visit www.facebook.com/LunchPoemsAtSFU.

SPOKEN INK
Reading by author Linda Svendsen, author of Sussex Drive. Tuesday, November 20 at 7:30pm. La Fontana Caffe, 101-3701 East Hastings, Burnaby. For more information, email bwscafe@gmail.com.

PLAY CHTHONICS
Readings by Garry Thomas Morse and Brad Cran. Wednesday, November 21 at 5:00pm. Piano lounge, Green College, UBC.

ROBSON READING SERIES
Readings by Dani Couture (Algoma) and Julie Wilson (Seen Reading). Thursday, November 22 at 7:00pm, free. UBC Bookstore at Robson Square, 800 Robson Street, Plaza level. More information at www.robsonreadingseries.ubc.ca.

MARGARET ATWOOD: WRITING THE FUTURE
The Canadian author explores whether or not one can write about the future, why prophecy is dodgy, and the meaning of the zombie apocalypse. Thursday, November 22 at 8:00pm. Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, 6265 Crescent Road. More information at www.terry.ubc.ca.

Upcoming

A READING
Authors John Francis Hughes and George Bowering read from their recent non-fiction collections Nobody Rides for Free: a Drifter in the Americas and The Diamond Alphabet: Baseball in Shorts. Wednesday, November 28 at 7:00pm, free. Meeting room, level 3, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street. More information at www.vpl.ca.

CARMEN AGUIRRE
Reading by the author of Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter. Wednesday, November 28 at 7:00pm. North Vancouver City Library, 120 14th Street W., North Vancouver.