Book News Vol. 8 No. 14

BOOK NEWS

Incite: An Exploration of Books and Ideas

Join us on Wednesday, May 22 as bestselling author Meg Wolitzer and Jim Lynch talk about their latest books. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/incite. Register here: http://incitevpl2013spring.eventbrite.ca.

Meg Wolitzer's novel, The Interestings, moves away from an intense focus on women's place in the world and the illusion of one's specialness.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/meg-wolitzers-latest-captures-the-sting-and-pleasure-of-living/article11147623/

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 EVENTS

Whet your whistle at A Dram Come True!

A Dram Come True is fast approaching! This year ten whisky tasting bars will feature fabulous scotches from Edgemont Liquor and Legacy Liquor, the Single Malt Whisky Society and others, as well as rare releases and special
surprises that will be revealed at the event. Tickets are selling fast, so get yours today.
Event details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/dram-come-true.

Jeannette Walls
Jeannette Walls' latest novel, The Silver Star, is a heartbreaking and redemptive novel about an intrepid girl who challenges the injustice of the adult world–a triumph of imagination and storytelling. Details:
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/jeannettewalls.

AWARDS & LISTS

Barbara Kingsolver has been shortlisted for the Women's Prize for her novel Flight Behaviour, a novel charting the impact of climate change on a rural farming community in the Appalachians.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/11/barbara-kingsolver-interview-flight-behaviour

Avery Nordman, a 13 year old student from Grand Forks, B.C., is the winner of the World Literacy Canada's Write for a Better World writing contest.
http://www.worldlit.ca/write2013winners

Read interviews with the contenders for next week's Man Booker International prize.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/14/man-booker-international-prize-finalists-speak

Philip Hensher has won the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje prize with a fictionalized account of his husband's childhood in what is now Bangladesh. Scenes from Early Life tells the story of Zaved Mahmood, whom Hensher married in 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/14/philip-hensher-wins-ondaatje-prize

The five regional winners of the Commonwealth book prize for best first novel have just been announced: Lisa O'Donnell (UK), Ezekel Alan (Jamaica), Michael Sala (Australia), E.E. Sule (Nigeria), Nayomi Munawura (Sri Lanka).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/gallery/2013/may/14/commonwealth-book-prize-2013-fiction-in-pictures#/?picture=408768605&index=4

Howard Jacobson has won his second Wodehouse prize for comic fiction. The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse award secures the author his second Old Spot pig, named in honour of his winning novel Zoo Time.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/15/howard-jacobson-wins-second-wodehouse-prize

Iain M. Banks, Cory Doctorow, China Miéville and Terry Pratchett are among the finalists for the 2013 Locus Award in fifteen categories of work, ranging from science fiction and fantasy, young adult and first novel, novelette and anthology, as well as publisher, editor and artist.
http://www.sliceofscifi.com/2013/05/09/2013-locus-nominees-announced/

YOUNG READERS

Amy Krouse Rosenthal's I Scream Ice Cream is about an exclamation mark who feels out of place in a line of periods and struggles to fit in. The book is bound to amuse young readers (and listeners)—especially when our hero encounters a question mark. The result is a read-to-yourself-and-figure-it-out book, writes Bernie Goedhart. For ages 7 to 12.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Kids+Scream+Cream/8368773/story.html#ixzz2SxUX54M2

David O'Connells' Monster and Chips is complete with jokes and a witty plot', writes Evapea. Joe was just a normal boy with a normal life until he discovered a monster diner. During his quest to find chips, he stumbled across a door with a red 'F' on it and learns about vomit burgers, flattened frog fritters, and monsters. For ages 7 to 8.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2013/may/06/review-monster-and-chips-david-o-connell

The comic-book art form Raina Telgemeier uses to illustrate her words has both simplicity and a sophistication that makes it accessible to young readers. There is a joie de vivre in Drama and other books, even when its characters are dealing with clueless boys or wire-tightening orthodontists, writes Bernie Goedhart. For ages 10 to 12.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Kids+drama+middle+school/8138583/story.html#ixzz2T1gY6gPz

NEWS & FEATURES

Fresno inaugurated its first poet laureate in April, formally embracing a rich poetic history that had received little recognition. Not only have Houston and Los Angeles established poet laureateships but so have Boise, Idaho; Key West, Fla.; McAllen, Tex.; and San Mateo County, near San Francisco. The popularity of poets is a pleasant surprise. Why now, though, remains something of a mystery.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/08/us/poets-laureate-proliferate-across-us.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The citizens of Florence, not least City Councillor Eugenio Giani, hope that a tourism miracle will result from Dan Brown's Inferno, the follow-up to The Da Vinci Code. There are rich pickings for hidden, deadly meanings in Dante's description of his descent into hell in the Divine Comedy. In a preview chapter, a female assassin tries to kill Langdon.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/11/dan-brown-inferno-florence-tourism

The refusal of Nobel laureate Mo Yan to discuss politics raises a question: do cultural figures in China have a responsibility to be dissidents? "I just want to write," says Mo Yan. Mo Yan directly addressed a main controversy that surrounded him since his win: "Should Nobel laureates take on more social responsibility?" His answer was a firm negative.
http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/05/mo-yan-i-just-want-to-write-leave-me-alone/275751/

World Literacy Canada (WLC) received 1,300 short stories from students in grades 5-8 from every province and territory in Canada for the Write for a Better World 2013 writing contest. The winning stories were selected by best selling Canadian author Eric Walters because they were beautifully crafted and epitomized the ideals of global citizenship. The top ten winning stories can be read online.
http://www.worldlit.ca/write2013winners

Bid to censor Anne Frank's 'pornographic' diary in Michigan schools fails.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/16/censor-anne-frank-diary-schools-fails

What's a Charlotte Bronte poem worth? $47,000 an inch.
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-poetry-at-50000-an-inch-20130411,0,2642820.story

BOOKS & WRITERS

Acclaimed as one of the great postwar American writers, James Salter has, at 87, spent his working life in the shadow of his peers; All That Is has a grandeur all its own. Salter's reputation rests on two collections of short stories, and a memoir, Burning the Days. He is, nevertheless, the kind of American writer who is sometimes called great, says Rachel Clarke.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/11/james-salter-forgotten-hero-literature-interview

Work on The Poisonwood Bible began with my reading Endless Enemies, says Barbara Kingsolver, an analysis of US foreign policy that overrules the autonomy of developing nations, somewhat as a condescending parent would rule a child. "The analogy struck me as novelesque," she writes: "arrogance masquerading as helpfulness could be a personal story that also functioned as allegory."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/11/book-club-barbara-kingsolver-poisonwood

This Boy: A Memoir of a Childhood by Alan Johnson describes the former British Home Secretary's memories of extreme childhood poverty, perhaps the last example of a leading politician who was born into the working class–perhaps even what we would now call the underclass. In the main, Johnson writes about two extraordinary women who waged a battle for survival.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/02/this-boy-alan-johnson-review

In John LeCarré's A Delicate Truth, Toby Bell considers recent history and the new order, particularly the use by government of corporate security forces to engage in war. The mission is carried out, hailed a success and everybody goes back to their pre-mission lives: a warning bell about the sort of society one creates when the truth is doomed to remain secret.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2013/05/10/a_delicate_truth_by_john_le_carr_review.html

Painter Leo Millar arrives on the island of La Mouche, near Normandy, in a deep fog. It's 1966, the U.S. is bombing Hanoi and de Gaulle is planning a trip to the U.S.S.R., the backdrop to Lewis DeSoto's The Restoration Artist. He is alone because, just over a year or two ago, his wife Claudine and 10-year-old son Piero were killed in a terrorist attack on Cyprus: "Another small war in another small place."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/broken-artist-mute-orphan-mysterious-woman-is-this-a-soap-opera-or-a-novel/article11848829/?cmpid=rss1

Eve Ensler, the celebrated author of The Vagina Monologues, has shifted her attention to working with women in the Democratic Republic of Congo. An excerpt from Ensler's In the Body of the World can be found here:
http://www.vancouversun.com/Book+excerpt+Body+World+Ensler/8367984/story.html

The same spirit that has informed many a film has seen adaptations of literary novels, writes John Dugdale. William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying will be at the Cannes Film Festival next week; Paul Thomas Anderson will soon shoot his version of Pynchon's Inherent Vice. Something is clearly changing, raising the question of whether any books still remain off-limits.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Book+excerpt+Body+World+Ensler/8367984/story.html

It takes an extraordinary novelist to capture the life of a character so ordinary that we might not notice her, writes Monique Polak. Claire Messud's The Woman Upstairs gives us Nora Eldridge: unmarried, 42, clog-wearing, a former third-grade teacher: unremarkable. When a new child arrives in her classroom, and Nora gets to know him and his parents, her life is transformed.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/books/Claire+Messud+Woman+Upstairs+remarkable+tale/8368769/story.html

COMMUNITY EVENTS

UNTYING THE APRON: DAUGHTERS REMEMBER MOTHERS OF THE 1950s
Readings by Kate Braid, Shauna Butterwick, Clarissa P. Green, Zoe Landale, Marsha Lederman, Daphne Marlatt, Jane Munro, and Sheila Norgate. Thursday, May 16 at 7:00pm, free. Refreshments will be served. People's Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver. More information at www.peoplescoopbookstore.com.

ARGO ADVENTURE OR CANADIAN CAPER?
A dialogue with Mark and Cora Lijek, two of six Americans represented in the 2013 "Best Picture" Argo. Thursday, May 16 at 7:00pm. Room 2600, Westminster Savings Lecture Theatre, SFU Surrey. Free but registration and more information here, http://www.sfu.ca/publicsquare/upcoming-events/ArgoAdventureorCanadianCaper.html.

BOOK LAUNCH: JANET E. CAMERON
Join Janet E. Cameron for the launch of her debut novel Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World, a coming of age novel set in Nova Scotia in the 1980s. May 16 at 7:00 Ppm at Christianne's Lyceum (3696 W. 8th Ave.). Refreshments will be served. Copies of the book will be available for sale. Call 604.733.1356 or email lyceum@christiannehayward.com for more information.

MIAH
Author Julia Lin reads from her new book. Saturday, May 18 at 2:00pm. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, 578 Carrall Street, Vancouver. More information at julialinbooks.com.

BOOK LAUNCH AND POETRY READING
Celebrate the launch of Force Field–77 Women Poets of British Columbia, edited by Susan Musgrave, with a poetry reading. Sunday, May 19 at 2:00pm, free. Seymour Art Gallery, 4360 Gallant Avenue, North Vancouver. More information at www.seymourartgallery.com.

DEAD POETS READING SERIES
Readings by Danny Peart, Elizabeth Bachinsky, Kate Braid, and Elsie Neufeld. Sunday, May 19 at 3:00pm. Admission by donation. Project Space, 222 East Georgia Street. More information at deadpoetslive.com.

SHARON JENNINGS
Meet the author of more than 60 books for young people. Tuesday, May 21. Newton Library at 10:00am; Strawberry Hill Library at 1:00pm. Complete details at surreylibraries.ca.

SPOKEN INK
Crystal Favel is the featured author. Tuesday, May 21 at 8:00pm. La Fontana Caffe, 101-3701 East Hastings, Burnaby. More information at burnabywritersnews.blogspot.com.

NVCL LOCAL AUTHOR SERIES
Readings with award-winning novelist Annabel Lyon and North Vancouver author Lynn Crymble. Wednesday, May 22 at 6:30pm, free. G. Paul Singh room, 3rd floor, North Vancouver City Library, 120 14th Street W., North Vancouver. More information at cnv.org.

TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
Features poets Aislinn Hunter and Daniela Elza. Thursday, May 23 at 7:00pm. The Cottage Bistro, 4468 Main Street, Vancouver. Suggested donation at the door: $5. All are welcome. More information at www.pandorascollective.com.

MEET THE AUTHOR: RICHARD WAGAMESE
Richard Wagamese discusses his 2013 Canada Reads novel Indian Horse. Thursday, May 23 at 7:00PM. Christianne's Lyceum. 3696 W. 8th Ave. $20 (includes refreshments). To reserve your space call 604.733.1356
or email lyceum@christiannehayward.com. More information at www.christiannehayward.com.

3RD ANNUAL VOGON POETRY SLAM AND VOG-OFF
To celebrate Towel Day and Douglas Adams, the absolutely worst poems in the universe are to be presented slam style at an evening gala. Saturday, May 25 at 1:00pm. Alice MacKay room, VPL, 350 W. Georgia Street. More information at www.vpl.ca.

POETIC JUSTICE READING SERIES
Featuring Fran Bourassa, Wilhelmina Salmi, RC Weslowski, with host Sho Wiley. Sunday, May 26 at 3:00pm. Heritage Grill, 447 Columbia Street, New Westminster. More information at poeticjustice.ca.

Upcoming

JAY RUZESKY
Lecture and reading by the author of In Antarctica: An Amundsen Pilgrimage. Wednesday, May 29 at 7:00pm. Maritime Museum of BC, 28 Bastion Square, Victoria. More information at nightwoodeditions.com.

CALL AND RESPONSE: THREE
Poets in Conversation. Join Anna Swanson, Bren Simmers and Ariel Gordon for a reading that celebrates a decade of friendship. Saturday, June 8th at 7:30 pm, free. People’s Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver.

CHRISTINA JOHNSON-DEAN
Author will give an illustrated talk about the artist Ina D.D. Uhthoff, who was a driving force in the Victoria art scene of the mid-20th century. Sunday, June 9 at 4:00pm. Royal BC Museum, 675 Belleville Street, Victoria. More information at royalbcmuseum.bc.ca.

KELLEY ARMSTRONG
Meet the author of the Women of the Otherworld series for young people. Tuesday, June 11. Author reading at City Centre Library at 1:30pm; writing workshop for ages 12+ at Guildford Library at 4:30pm. Complete details at surreylibraries.ca.

BC GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY FAMILY HISTORY BOOK AWARDS
A Strawberry tea and the BCGS 2012 Family History Book Awards. Authors' talks. All interested in genealogy and family history are welcome to attend. Wednesday, June 11 at 7:30pm. Danish Lutheran Church, 6010 Kincaid Street, Burnaby. More information at www.bcgs.ca.

THE WALKING READ
CWILL BC presents a costume gala to benefit the BC Children's Hospital Foundation. Friday, June 14 at 7:00pm. Tickets: $60. Richmond Open Road Lexus dealership, 5631 Parkwood Way, Richmond. More information at thewalkingread.com.