Book News Vol. 8 No. 5

BOOK NEWS

Incite: Our free, bi-weekly reading series continues!

Join us on Wednesday, March 27 for an evening with Pat Morrow and Sharon Wood who share their gripping stories of climbing Everest and reaching the summit in distinctly different ways. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/incite. Register here: http://incitevpl2013spring.eventbrite.ca/.

Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library. Incite is sponsored by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association and supported by the R.J. Nelson Family Foundation.

SPECIAL EVENT

Sally Armstrong in conversation with Kathryn Gretsinger
Armstrong's unflinching accounts of atrocities experienced by women around the world have mobilized readers to become involved in global issues. In her new book, Ascent of Women, the award-winning journalist, author, and human rights activist comments on recent studies by economists and social scientists that claim women hold the key to economic justice and the end to violence in developing countries. Click here to get your tickets today, https://secure.artsclub.com/tickets/reserve.aspx?type=rentals&performanceNumber=8146

Listen to Sally Armstrong's inspiring interview on CBC Radio's The Current, http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/ID/ID/2340427936/.

Monday, March 25 at 7:30pm
St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church
Burrard at Nelson

A DRAM COME TRUE

Tickets are on sale now for our popular single malt tasting A Dram Come True. Join us at Hycroft, the elegant Shaughnessy mansion, for an evening of great fun and good spirits. Enjoy the superb, complex flavours of a variety of rare and distinguished single malts, a premium silent auction, Cuban cigars and great company. A Dram Comes True is a fundraiser for the Writers Fest. Event details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/dram-come-true.

AWARDS & LISTS

The West Coast Book Prize Society has announced the finalists for the 2013 BC Book Prizes, honouring 38 authors in seven categories.
http://www.bcbookprizes.ca/news/article/2013-bc-book-prizes-shortlists-announced/

Contenders for the $46K Women's Prize for Fiction include Emily Perkins, Hilary Mantel, Zadie Smith, Barbara Kingsolver and Sheila Heti, among others.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2013/03/13/womens-prize-longlist-sheila-heti.html

The Folio Society has been named as sponsor of a fiction prize to rival the Man Booker. The new £40,000 prize is to be awarded for the first time in March 2014, and will be open to American writers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/13/folio-society-sponsor-fiction-prize

Calgary writer Marcello Di Cintio was named winner of the $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing for Walls: Travels Along the Barricades, a moving and vivid account of the cultural effects of enclosure.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2013/03/07/marcello_di_cintios_account_of_the_culture_of_enclosure_takes_shaughnessy_cohen_prize_for_political_nonfiction.html

Vancouver's Arsenal Pulp Press has announced that two Arsenal titles have been shortlisted for Lambda Literary Awards: First Spring Grass Fire by Rae Spoon (transgender fiction), and The Lava in My Bones by Barry Webster (Gay General Fiction). The Lava in My Bones is also shortlisted for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction by the Publishing Triangle Awards.
http://www.publishingtriangle.org/

Victoria writer Eliza Robertson is among five finalists in the CBC Canada Writes competition.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Victoria+writer+among+five+finalists/8083031/story.html

Having received two Bookers and a Costa prize, Hilary Mantel has now received the award described as the "British Nobel"–the £40,000 David Cohen prize, an award celebrating an entire career.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/07/hilary-mantel-david-cohen-prize

Booker prize-winner Roddy Doyle is in the running for the UK's most prestigious children's book prize, the Carnegie medal, for Greyhound of a Girl, a moving tale of four generations of women from one Irish family (including a ghost). Children's fiction prize-winner, Marcus Sedgwick, is on the shortlist with Midwinterblood.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2013/mar/12/roddy-doyle-greyhound-carnegie

The inaugural winners of the Windham Campbell Prizes have been announced. The $150,000 prizes are awarded by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University for outstanding achievement in fiction, nonfiction, and drama.
http://windhamcampbell.org/prize/2013

YOUNG READERS

Shaun Tan's The Bird King is a series of sketches and commentaries that trace Tan's approach to art. Even young children for whom the text might be a bit highbrow will find this book a source of wonder, writes Bernie Goedhart. Chances are they, even more than adult readers, will delve deeper and more easily into the art itself, says Goedhart. All ages.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Kids+Shaun+demonstrates+illustration/8070534/story.html#ixzz2N4tIenJv

Twelve-year-old Eliza Tok is an ordinary girl, but nothing is as it appears in Catherine Egan's Shade & Sorceress. The world of Tian Di protects the humans from enslavement and war with Mancers, benevolent magical beings. The Mancers locate Eliza and bring her to their Citadel to begin training as a sorceress. But there is a problem: Eliza cannot do magic. For ages 10 and up.
http://www.quillandquire.com/books_young/review.cfm?review_id=7749

Having a sibling with a serious intellectual disability changed Rachel Simon's life. The 10-year anniversary edition of "Riding the Bus With My Sister" recounts Simon's efforts to understand her sister's life. Now a staple text for anyone interested in the lives of people living with disabilities, it was adapted into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie directed by Anjelica Huston. Age 12 and up.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/with-10th-anniversary-edition-of-riding-the-bus-comes-subtler-understanding-of-mental-disability/2013/03/03/e36c2e5a-8441-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394_story.html

NEWS & FEATURES

The recently published Free Boy: A True Story of Slave and Master on Puget Sound by two U.S. historians, Lorraine McConaghy and Judy Bentley, sheds light on a young slave's 1860 rescue by abolitionists in pre-Confederation Victoria.
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/historians+shed+light+young+slave+1860+escape+Vancouver+Island/8081268/story.html

What ho! It may be almost 40 years since their last appearance, but Bertie Wooster and his "gentleman's personal gentleman" Jeeves are due to return this November. Jeeves will carry on in Sebastian Faulks's Wodehouse sequel. Faulks is to publish the first ever authorized follow-up to the beloved Bertie Wooster novels.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/07/jeeves-sebastian-faulks-wodehouse-novel

Mikhail Shishkin, one of Russia's most important contemporary authors, has pulled out of representing Russia in a major international literary event, stating he does not want to be the voice of "a country where power has been seized by a corrupt, criminal regime [and] where the state is a pyramid of thieves".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/07/mikhail-shishkin-russia-us-book-expo

Scientists who decode the genetic history of humans by tracking how genes mutate have applied the same technique to one of the most ancient and celebrated texts to uncover the date it was first written. Homer's "Iliad," and Homer–if there were such a person–probably wrote it in 762 B.C., give or take 50 years, the researchers found.
http://www.insidescience.org/content/geneticists-estimate-publication-date-iliad/946

The life and work of science fiction and comedy writer Douglas Adams has been marked by a Google doodle.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/11/douglas-adams-celebrated-google-doodle

Some of Britain's most acclaimed authors and playwrights including Sir Tom Stoppard, William Boyd, Margaret Drabble, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie have called on the main party leaders to honour their pledge and implement a defamation bill aimed at transforming 170-year-old laws they say have silenced scientists and authors as well as journalists and activists.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/mar/06/authors-party-leaders-libel-reforms

Male authors and reviewers continue to take a disproportionate slice of the literary pie, according to new research. Such publications as the London Review of Books and the New Yorker all show a considerable bias towards men. Vida, an American organization for women in the literary arts, has analysed the reviews and bylines for the last three years. The latest figures show that little has changed since 2010.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/06/men-dominate-books-world-study-vida

In 2011, theatre director Jim Culleton asked Maeve Binchy to write a mini-play. She delivered Soul Mates, a play about a man and woman in the optician's waiting room who fancy each other but, waiting for glasses, can't read the signs—unable to seize the opportunity that is there." Maeve's play, one of 25 new 'tiny' plays—each 600 words long—lasts for less than four minutes.
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/books-arts/the-fourminute-smile-its-maeves-swansong-29119121.html

Smart technology and the sort of big data available to social networking sites are helping police target crime before it happens. But is this ethical? Here is a link to an edited extract from To Save Everything, Click Here: Technology, Solutionism, and the Urge to Fix Problems that Don't Exist by Evgeny Morozov.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/09/facebook-arrested-evgeny-morozov-extract

In an interview, Marilynne Robinson says that after Housekeeping, her greatest fear was writing "a fraudulent book simply to escape the embarrassments of having written only one novel."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/books/review/marilynne-robinson-by-the-book.html?ref=books

HarperCollins is embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with a former prisoner who spent 21 years in solitary confinement in the US for a rape and murder he did not commit. Nick Yarris, released from death row in Pennsylvania in 2004, is suing HarperCollins for breach of contract over his life story, Seven Days to Live, published in 2008.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/mar/12/harpercollins-death-row-nick-yarris

BOOKS & WRITERS

The destructive love affair captured in By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept always puzzled Laura Barton, who reveals how she finally unravelled the mystery. This year is the centenary of both Smart and Barker's births—she, to a wealthy family in Ottawa; he, in Essex.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2013/mar/06/by-grand-central-station-radio-documentary

Sarah Gristwood's Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses tells the story of seven women whose strength, determination and influence changed history. The cunning and courage of seven women "created a new English dynasty" between 1445 and the early 16th century, writes Linda Diebl. These women should be legends, says Diebl.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2013/03/08/blood_sisters_the_women_behind_the_wars_of_the_roses_by_sarah_gristwood_review.html

An abusive husband, torture by Stalin's secret police, threats to her children. The tragic life of Lina Prokofiev, revealed in 600 unpublished letters, was made available to Simon Morrison by Prokofiev's son, Svyatoslav, whose "dying wish was for his mother's story to be told in unvarnished guise". The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev will be published 21 March.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/mar/10/biography-abandoned-prokofiev-wife-gulag

In the tradition of the heroine's journey, Kate Braid's Journeywoman: Swinging a Hammer in a Man's World describes her becoming a qualified carpenter and the many concerns she addressed. The story sometimes beggars belief, writes Dennis E. Bolen. As well as being a living novel of a fascinating life, Journeywoman would be an apt primer for WorkSafeBC harmonic comportment, says Bolen.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Woman+journey+tells+story/7975742/story.html

A fine murder story is like a great love affair: an infinite catacomb of excitement, sorrow and desire, writes Robert McCrum. Javier Marías' The Infatuations, a haunting murder mystery, embracing all the big questions about life, love and death, is an instant Spanish classic.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/10/the-infatuations-javier-marias-review

Scullery maids seen on TV are now frequently portrayed in books. Mary Beth Kean's Fever features a scullery maid who illustrates the life of Mary Mallon, an immigrant who worked her way up to being a cook and also, alas, one source of typhoid. Everyone in Mary Mallon's world is separated from despair by just one stroke of bad luck.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/fever-another-book-that-gives-us-a-peek-at-the-curious-lives-of-the-help/article9520397/

For three decades, the surveillance of Britain's supposedly communist writers and intellectuals was a comedy of errors. James Smith's British Writers and MI5 Surveillance, 1930-1960 is a scholarly attempt to tell the story straight. Most of the scoops were scoops of perspective, and often, a comedy of errors. Bureaucracy, inter-service rivalry and sheer inertia tangled things further.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/07/british-writers-surveillance-smith-review

COMMUNITY EVENTS

HAIKU INVITATIONAL 2013
Vancouver loves its flowering cherry trees-all 40,000 of them! While they bloom from March through May, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival invites you to celebrate their beauty with your haiku. Now accepting submissions. Complete contest details here: www.vcbf.ca.

ROBSON READING SERIES
Readings by Andrew Kaufman, Camille Martin, and Barry Webster. Thursday, March 14 at 7:00pm, free. UBC Bookstore at Robson Square. For more information and to register, visit http://www.rrs-mar2013.eventbrite.ca.

MEG TILLY
Meet the author and actor as she presents her newest book A Taste of Heaven. Thursday, March 14 at 7:00pm. Kidsbooks on Broadway. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit kidsbooks.ca.

DAPHNE MARLATT
Author reads from her new book of poems, Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now. Saturday, March 16 at 8:00pm. The Western Front, 303 8th Ave. E., Vancouver. More information at talonbooks.com.

JOEL DICKER
La Verite sur l'Affaire Harry Quebert is finally coming to Vancouver. Joel Dicker, a 27-year-old Geneva-born author, will present his second novel. The discussion will be in French. Monday, March 18 at 6:15pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street.

BOOK LAUNCH
Features Prince George poet Al Rempel (This Isn't the Apocalypse We Hoped For, Caitlin Press, 2013), Adrienne Fitzpatrick (The Earth Remembers Everything, Caitlin Press), and Daniela Elza (the weight of dew and new work). March 18, 7:30 pm, at People's Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver. Phone: 604.253.6442. Refreshments will be served.

LUNCH POEMS @ SFU VANCOUVER
Readings by Stephen Collis and Rachel Rose. Wednesday, March 20 at 12:00 noon, free. Teck Gallery, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 W. Hastings Street. More information at www.sfu.ca/publicsquare/lunchpoems.

PLAY CHTHONICS
Readings by poets Jan Zwicky and Robert Bringhurst. Wednesday, March 20. Piano lounge, Green College, UBC. More information at www.greencollege.ubc.ca.

THE LINE HAS SHATTERED
Premiere screening of film documentary on the 1963 Vancouver Poetry Conference, directed by Robert McTavish. Introduced by Canadian Poet Laureate (and '63 conference participant) Fred Wah. Thursday, March 21 at 7:30pm. Cost: $5/$3. Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, SFU Woodward's, 149 West Hastings. For reservations, email library@sfu.ca.

GLIMPSES OF AFRICA: PHOTOGRAPHY, POETRY AND MUSIC
An evening featuring music by singer/songwriter, Nancy Newman and poetry inspired by photographs by Claudine Pommier in her Glimpses of Africa exhibit. March 21, 7-9 pm, at Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, Jewish Community Centre, 950 West 41st Ave, Vancouver. Free admission.

ROBERT R. REID AWARD
The Alcuin Society presents Will Rueter (Aliquando Press) in an illustrated interview by Rollin Milroy (Heavenly Monkey). The 6th Robert R. Reid Award and Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Book Arts will be presented to Rueter. Thursday, March 21 at 7:30 pm, free. Fletcher Challenge Room, Harbour Centre, SFU Downtown Campus, 2300-515 West Hastings St., Vancouver. More information at http://blog.alcuinsociety.com.

WRITERS INTERNATIONAL NETWORK CANADA
2nd annual literary festival featuring Dennis E. Bolen, Bonnie Nish, Jai Birdi, Lila Shahani and many others. Hosted by Lilija Valis, Bernice Lever and Charlene Sayo. Saturday, March 23 from 10am to 4pm. Richmond Cultural Centre, 7700 Minoru Gate, Richmond. More information at 604-327-6040.

Upcoming

POETIC JUSTICE
Readings featuring Teo Dobre, Kyle Hawke and Sho Wiley with host Franci Louann. Sunday, March 24 at 3:00pm. Heritage Grill, 447 Columbia Street, New Westminster. More information at poeticjustice.ca.

TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
A night of socially engaged writing of peace provocation and witness with the launch of Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Anthology. Featuring Cristine Leclerc with special guests Susan McCaslin, Stephen Collis, Renee Saklikar, Elena E. Johnson and Juliane Okot Bitek. Thursday, March 28, 7-9:30pm, at The Cottage Bistro, 4468 Main Street.
Suggested donation at the door: $5. All are welcome. More information at www.pandorascollective.com.

ROBERT J. SAWYER
Author reads from his latest book, Red Planet Blues, a noir mystery set on a lawless Mars in a future where everything is cheap, and life is even cheaper. Wednesday, April 3 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.

HULLABALOO SPOKEN WORD FESTIVAL
A youth poetry festival featuring 2009 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion, Amy Everhart and Ted-X featured poet Truth Is. April 3-6, 2013. Roundhouse Community Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews. Complete details at youthslam.ca.

VERSES FESTIVAL OF WORDS
3rd annual festival celebrating the transformative power of words. April 8-13, 2013. Complete details at versesfestival.ca.

TALONBOOKS SPRING POETRY LAUNCH
Talonbooks is launching its Spring poetry collection. Featuring readings by Dina Del Bucchia, Wanda John-Kehewin, Mariner Janes, Stephen Collis and Daphne Marlatt. Wednesday, April 10 at 8:00pm. Anza Club, 3 W. 8th Ave. More information at talonbooks.com.

LITFEST
The 3rd Annual LitFest New West celebrates the literary arts at New Westminster Public Library and Douglas Collage. April 11-13, 2013. More information at artscouncilnewwest.org.

FORCE FIELD
Force Field - 77 Women Poets of British Columbia. The first of its kind in thirty-four years, this anthology strongly celebrates women poets, from the emerging, mid-career to the established. Saturday, April 13 at 3:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Branch, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.

EVENT'S 2013 NON-FICTION CONTEST
Writers are invited to submit manuscripts exploring the creative non-fiction form. $1500 in prizes available, plus publication. Contest judge Russell Wangersky. Maximum entry length is 5000 words. $34.95 entry fee. April 15, 2013, deadline. Entrants will receive a one-year subscription to EVENT (or extension). Complete contest guidelines can be found at eventmags.com.

NORTH SHORE WRITERS FESTIVAL
A celebration of Canadian writers featuring Helen Humphreys, Terry Fallis, Evelyn Lau, Sean Cranbury and others. April 19-20, 2013. Lynn Valley branch, North Vancouver District Public Library, 1277 Lynn Valley Road, North Vancouver. Complete details at northshorewritersfestival.com.

FAN EXPO VANCOUVER
Second annual comicon featuring comic, anime, science fiction, horror and gaming. Authors scheduled to appear include Hiromi Goto, A.M. Dellamonica, Eileen Kernaghan and many more. April 20-21, 2013. Complete details a fanexpovancouver.com.