Book News Vol. 8 No. 33

BOOK NEWS

2013 Festival - October 22-27

We're just 27 days out from the Festival—the excitement is mounting! Tickets are still available for Festival events with Sarah Dunant, Xiaolu Guo, Maureen Johnson, Wayne Johnston, Colin Mochrie, Lisa Moore, Jo Nesbø, George Packer, Eric Schlosser, Maggie Stiefvater, Mary Swan, Michel Tremblay, Scott Turow, Alan Weisman and many more. Complete Festival details including a downloadable PDF of the program guide are available online (http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/) , or if you want a copy of the real thing, visit your local bookstore or Vancouver library branch, or our box office.

Check out this week’s edition of VWF's Artistic Director Hal Wake's Festival picks, this one's about poetry and music at the Festival.
http://youtu.be/cnPXg1eJMdc

VWF Writing Contests for Adults and Youth
Submit your finest prose and poetry to the 15th annual Vancouver Writers Fest Poetry & Short Story Contest, http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/writingcontest. The top entries in poetry and fiction will be published in subTerrain magazine and receive cash prizes. New this year is our writing contest for BC students in grades 8-12 which also awards cash prizes, http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/youthwritingcontest.

SPECIAL EVENTS

J.B. MacKinnon
The independent journalist and award-winning author of The 100-Mile Diet talks about his new book, The Once and Future World, providing an eye-opening account of nature as it was, as it is and as it could be. Event details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/jbmackinnon.

SPECIAL FOR BOOK CLUBS! $16 per person, minimum of 5 people, book by phone only at 604-629-8849.

Thursday, October 3 at 7:30pm
Frederic Wood Theatre
6354 Crescent Road, UBC

The Literati Gala Cabaret
The VWF's fundraising gala on October 21 is hosted by CBC's Gloria Macarenko and features a Literary Cabaret performance with Sal Ferreras and Poetic License, celebrating the Lit Cab's 25th year. Tickets are $175; available at http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/literatigala. Corporate tables are also available-call 604 681 6330 ext 104. Literati supports the VWF's Spreading the Word education program. Presenting sponsor: Scotia Private Client Group
Reception sponsor: Vancouver Film School.

Jung Chang
The best-selling author of the books Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China and Mao: The Unknown Story talks about her groundbreaking new biography, Empress Dowager Cixi. Sponsored by SFU Library Services. Event details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/jungchang

SPECIAL FOR BOOK CLUBS! $16 per person, minimum of 5 people, book by phone only at 604-629-8849.

Thursday, November 21 at 7:30pm
Waterfront Theatre
1412 Cartwright Street, Granville Island

FESTIVAL AUTHORS

As part of the run-up to Word Vancouver (formerly known as Word on the Street), the Georgia Straight is asking some authors what reading experiences shaped their early lives. What is the book that changed your life? According to Shaena Lambert, it's Little Women.
http://www.straight.com/life/427876/book-changed-your-life-shaena-lambert

Amber Dawn was also asked the same question. For her, it was The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham.
http://www.straight.com/life/428291/book-changed-your-life-amber-dawn

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Eric Schlosser discusses his new book, Command and Control, not only within the context of the Cold War, but also in terms of present-day threats.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/dr-strangelove-redux-eric-schlosser-on-our-greatest-threat/article14440194/

David Sedaris' writing has finally made it to the big screen, in a film adaptation of his essay, C.O.G. But movies have always been important to him. "The only thing I ever walked out of was 'Dr. Doolittle' with Eddie Murphy...it's remarkable what I'll sit through—it really is."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/movies/david-sedaris-on-films-hes-watched-and-rewatched.html

In D.W. Wilson's first novel, Ballistics, a young man searches for his estranged father. Now, he has created a list of the "top ten absent fathers in literature" for The Guardian. Unsurprisingly, it's filled with characters from Canadian novels, many of which were written by Writers Fest attendees past and present.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/18/dw-wilson-top-10-absent-fathers-literature

Mary Novik has been included in the Georgia Straight's Best of Vancouver issue. In this interview, she discusses her new historical novel, Muse, a tale of romance and intrigue. Muse tells the story of a 14th century female clairvoyant scribe in Avignon, France, who also just happens to be an imagined lover of the famous humanist Petrarch.
http://www.straight.com/life/425321/bov-2013-muse-mary-noviks-heroine-enchants-poets-and-popes

Andrew Pyper's new novel, The Demonologist, is being developed for film. It tells the story of a Paradise Lost scholar who must use his knowledge of demonic mythology to rescue his daughter from the underworld.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/universal-imagemovers-tap-jonathan-herman-630531

Much has been made of Joseph Boyden's new novel The Orenda. But the writing of it didn't come easy at first. It was only after meeting the aboriginal historian George Sioui that "the dam broke." "It was like I'd gotten on a river at the beginning of this novel and the current picked me up, and by this point the rapids are coming and I'm flying down that river for those last hundred pages just holding on."
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2013/09/17/joseph_boyden_on_the_orenda_his_latest_gillernominated_novel_interview.html

Anthony De Sa's Kicking the Sky has been reviewed in The Globe and Mail. According to the reviewer, "If it isn't on the Toronto Book Award list, I'll be shocked".
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/anthony-de-sas-first-novel-walks-down-the-dark-end-of-the-street/article14443557/

Alan Weisman's book, Countdown, has just hit the shelves. In this interview, he discusses why humanity's mere existence is a big, big problem.
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/24/alan_weisman_just_by_existing_were_contributing_to_the_problem/singleton/

AWARDS & LISTS

Writers Fest author J.B. MacKinnon has been nominated for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize. There are five nominees for the $60,000 non-fiction award, and the winner will be announced in Toronto on October 21.
http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Vancouver+author+MacKinnon+gets+Writers+Trust+Prize/8929196/story.html

Priscila Uppal, another Writers Fest author, has also been named as a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize. Her book, Projection: Encounters with my Runaway Mother, is a memoir about the author's search for her estranged mother.
http://arts.nationalpost.com/2013/09/18/graeme-smith-priscila-uppal-among-finalists-for-hilary-weston-writers-trust-prize-for-non-fiction/

The longlist for the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction has been released. Writers Fest author Rachel Kushner is among the nominees, for her novel The Flamethrowers.
http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-national-book-awards-2013-fiction-longlist-20130919,0,474196.story

NEWS & FEATURES

Columpa C. Bobb, the award-winning actress and playwright of North of 60 fame, has just been named the Vancouver Public Library's Aboriginal storyteller in residence. Created in 2008, the VPL's storyteller program is the first of its kind in British Columbia, dedicated to bringing communities together, profiling Aboriginal cultures, and promoting intercultural understanding.
https://www.vpl.ca/news/details/news_20a

We've read it again and again, and yet its power never wanes. As the leaves begin to turn, and autumn slowly takes hold, The Guardian has listed To Autumn, by John Keats, as its Poem of the Week. You can learn a little bit more about the poem, and what exactly an ode is, here:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/sep/23/poem-week-to-autumn-john-keats

In North Carolina, a university professor has brought us one step closer to uncovering the identity of the author of The Bondwoman's Narrative. It was a bestseller when it was published in 2002, though it was probably actually written by a 19th century escaped female slave. It's an amazing story that will undoubtedly change the history of both African-American and Women's Literature.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/books/professor-says-he-has-solved-a-mystery-over-a-slaves-novel.html?hp&_r=1&

Meanwhile, in Italy, another academic has put forward a theory of his own in relation to authorship. Why was Dante Alighieri always writing about sleep in The Divine Comedy? According to Giuseppe Plazzi, it's because he was narcoleptic.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/24/dante-possible-narcolepsy-academic-writes

Books are moving online, and so are book clubs. Is this the end of an era, or the beginning of something great?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/fashion/online-book-clubs-talk-that-stays-on-the-page.html

Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor was one of the victims of the recent Nairobi terror attack. The African Poetry Book Fund will be publishing his last collection in 2014, titled Promises of Hope: New and Selected Poems. You can read one of the poems here:
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/09/22/read-one-of-kofi-awoonors-final-poems/

Russian literature is frequently cited as being among the world's greatest. But some see its power differently. Recently, Russia's ombudsman declared that Russian literature would be a better alternative to school-sanctioned sex education.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/19/russian-literature-sex-education-schools-childrens-ombudsman

But perhaps spaying and neutering would solve Russia's problems instead? It seemed to have worked for this cat, who recently acquired the title of "assistant librarian" at a library in Novorossiysk, Russia. It's not a complete joke, however. Cats are notorious cockroach killers, and have also been used to protect the treasures of the Hermitage Museum from vermin.
http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/09/18/kuzya-the-cat-assigned-to-assistant-librarian-position-in-novorossiysk-russia/

It's Banned Books Week! In celebration, here's a list of recently challenged titles (Writers Fest favourite Margaret Atwood made it on the list!).
http://bookriot.com/2013/09/23/on-the-banned-wagon-the-month-in-book-challenges/?doing_wp_cron=1379944980.2382240295410156250000

Crack open your mead bottles! This is an article for anyone who ever ignored Woody Allen's advice to not "take any course where you have to read Beowulf." Danish archaeologists have uncovered a sixth-century dining hall that they believe to be the setting for the famous work.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/features/feasting-and-fighting-the-longlost-secrets-of-beowulf-8784510.html

BOOKS & WRITERS

Elizabeth Gilbert is a contentious figure in literary circles. "Despite having spent the first decade of her career writing three critically acclaimed books, critics cast her as a pampered solipsist peddling self-help" after the publication of Eat, Pray, Love. The tables may be turning, however, as her newest book, The Signature of All Things, comes out next month, a 19th century epic that the New York Times has described as a "rip-roaring tale".
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/magazine/eat-pray-love-get-rich-write-a-novel-no-one-expects.html

Reconciliation Week just ended in British Columbia. Residential schools robbed young First Nations children of their cultures and voices, but now one survivor is using her reclaimed voice in order to tell her story. Her memoir They Called Me Number One is now in its 20th week on the B.C. Bestsellers list. Read an interview with Bev Sellars here:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/First+Nations+chief+turns+residential+school+past+into/8933985/story.html

COMMUNITY EVENTS

SURVIVING PROGRESS
Award-winning author Ronald Wright will outline the "progress traps" that threaten our civilization and assess what has changed since his bestselling 2004 Massey Lecture A Short History Of Progress. Thursday, September 26 at 5:00PM, free. Cecil Green Park House, UBC. Part of the Utopia/Dystopia lecture series organized by UBC's Creative Writing Program. Information at www.greencollege.ubc.ca/index/spotlight490.php.

TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
Features poets Celeste Snowber and Carl Leggo with open mic in collaboration with Word Vancouver. Thursday, September 26 at 7:00pm. Suggested donation at the door: $5. The Cottage Bistro, 4468 Main Street, Vancouver. More information at www.pandorascollective.com.

INTO THE ABYSS
Carol Shaben discuses her book Into the Abyss, with special guest former pilot Erik Vogel. Thursday, September 26 at 7:00 PM. 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.

ELIZABETH WEIN
Author of Code Name Verity reads from her latest book Rose Under Fire. Thursday, September 26 at 7:00pm. West Point Grey United Church Sanctuary, 4595 8th Ave. W. For tickets and information, visit kidsbooks.ca.

CULTURE DAYS AT BRITANNIA SHIPYARD
Gary Kent will be telling stories from the sea and talking about the craft of building wooden boats at a fun visual presentation about his books Fishing with Gubby and Gubby Builds a Boat (both co-authored and illustrated by Kim La Fave) at 11:15 am, and again at 12:30pm. Free. Saturday, September 28, Murakami Boatworks, Britannia Shipyard, 5180 Westwater Drive, Richmond. Kent will also sign copies of his books at Britannia's Gift Shop from 1:30-3:30pm. More information at 604-718-8050.

EMILY CON
Now in it's third year, a one day celebration of local comic culture, including live panel discussions, artist demos and a participatory comix jam. Artists, writers and comic book creators will showcase their comics, zines and artwork. Saturday, September 28, 11am to 5pm. South Building atrium, Emily Carr University, 1399 Johnston Street, Granville Island. More information at ecuad.ca.

MARIE-LOUISE GAY
Author reads from her new book, Read Me a Story, Stella. Monday, September 30 at 7:00pm at Kidsbooks Surrey (15033 32nd Ave., South Surrey). And Tuesday, October 1 at 7:00pm at Kidsbooks Vancouver (3083 West Broadway). Information and tickets available at kidsbooks.ca.

Upcoming

NICHOLAS SPARKS
The bestselling author of blockbuster books and films such as Safe Haven, The Lucky One and The Notebook signs his new novel, The Longest Ride. Wednesday, October 2 at 7:00pm. Chapters Metrotown, 4700 Kingsway, Burnaby. More information at 604-431-0463.

SIDNEY LITERARY FESTIVAL
Sidney will host 14 award-winning local authors whose genres cover mystery, war, children's literature, poetry, short story whimsy and local life. October 4-6, 2013. Sidney, BC. Complete information at www.sidneyliteraryfestival.com.

ANTHONY DALTON
Author reads from his first novel, Relentless Pursuit. Monday, October 7 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street. More information at vpl.ca.

TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
Features Cathy Borrie & Heidi Greco with open mic. Wednesday, October 9 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.

PLANET EARTH READING SERIES
Poets Daniela Elza (milk tooth bane bone) and Emilia Neilsen (Surge Narrows) will feature at Planet Earth Reading Series. Friday, October 11 at 7:30pm. The Moka House, 103-1633 Hillside Avenue, Victoria. $3 at the door. http://planetearthpoetryvictoriabc.blogspot.ca.

THE 2013 VISIBLE VERSE FESTIVAL
The annual festival of videopoetry and film is on October 12th, 7pm, at Pacific Cinematheque, 1131 Howe Street,
Vancouver. Also hosting Colorado poet, filmmaker and founder of the Body Electric Poetry Film Festival, R.W. Perkins, who will facilitate Literary Movement, an artist's talk on videopoetry and filmmaking. This talk is at
4pm and free to the public. For the programme & ticket information go to: thecinematheque.ca/visible-verse-2013-festival.

EMERGE 2013 LAUNCH GALA EVENT
36 distinct voices experiment with the written word in emerge 2013, the Writer's Studio Anthology. Guest edited by JJ Lee, author of The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit, the student produced anthology blurs the boundaries between genres as contributors push past limits with their writing process in the year-long program at SFU. Launching with a gala event on October 17th at Simon Fraser University's downtown campus at Harbour Centre, contributors will read from their work. 515 West Hastings. 6 to 9pm. More information at www.facebook.com/EmergeTWS2013 or contact lindsay.glauser@gmail.com.

PAMELA SACKETT
Author reads from her third book of rhythmic prose, Booing Death (with Shpilkes & Rhyme). Thursday, October 17 at 6:30pm, free. Banyen Books & Sound, 3608 4th Ave. W., Vancouver. More information at banyen.com/events/sackett.

INSPIRED BY PACIFIC LANDS
Hawaiian author Tom Peek (Daughters of Fire) will be joined by Trevor Carolan (Cascadia: The Life and Breath of the World) and Daniela Elza (milk tooth bane bone) in a multi-genre evening of Writings from Cascadia and Hawaii. October 20, 7pm, at People's Co-Op Books, 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver. More nformation at www.peoplescoopbookstore.com.

DEAD NORTH
Launch of a Canadian-themed zombie anthology with authors Linda Demeulemeester and Rhea Rose. Thursday, October 24 at 7:00pm. Storm Crow Tavern, 1305 Commercial Drive, Vancouver.

CREATING PAULINE
City Opera Vancouver offers an informal presentation about the creation of the new opera Pauline (by Margaret Atwood and Tobin Stokes) to premiere in May 2014, and an introduction to the life of Canadian poet and performer Pauline Johnson (1861-1913). Guests include composer Tobin Stokes, director Norman Armour, singer Rose-Ellen Nichols, pianist David Boothroyd, and conductor and artistic director Charles Barber. Discussion welcome. Chinese Cultural Centre Museum, 555 Columbia. Tues Oct 29, 8pm. Free.

ICELAND WRITERS RETREAT
The Iceland Writers Retreat invites published and aspiring book writers (fiction and non-fiction) to participate in a series of workshops and panels led by a team of international writers from April 9-13, 2014. Between intimate workshops and lectures tour the spectacular Golden Circle, sit in the cozy cafés of Reykjavik, soak in hot geothermal pools, listen to new Icelandic music, and learn about the country's rich literary tradition. More information at www.IcelandWritersRetreat.com.