Book News Vol. 8 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, from gift certificates to memberships.
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/content/perfect-gifts-book-lovers

AWARDS & LISTS

The shortlists for the Costa Book Awards, which reward enjoyability by writers based in the UK and Ireland, have been announced. The all-female fiction shortlist (one of several categories) includes a posthumous nomination for Bernardine Bishop, who wrote three novels with a blaze of energy before her death in July.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/26/costa-book-award-shortlists-2013

The New York Times Book Review has unveiled its Notable Children's Books of 2013 List. This list includes young adult, middle grade and picture books titles.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/books/review/notable-childrens-books-of-2013.html

Novelist Gillian Slovo has won the Golden PEN award for 2013. She has written twelve novels and a memoir, Every Secret Thing, which told her parents' story as committed anti-apartheid campaigners. Ironically, she had just recently resigned as president of PEN on grounds of "democratic accountability".
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/03/gillian-slovo-golden-pen-award

YOUNG READERS

"If breakfast is the most important meal of the day, surely the half-hour or so before bed is, for families, the day's most important moment: a time to reflect on the past, plan for tomorrow, and read together." Here are three new picture books that make for great bedtime reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/27/books/harriet-zieferts-its-time-to-say-good-night-and-more.html

NEWS & FEATURES

The Guardian has created its own book advent calendar, with daily extracts from Barnaby Rogerson's fascinating Book of Numbers: the Culture of numbers from 1001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. Here's day one:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/dec/01/books-advent-calendar-1-year-one

What does your favorite book from high school tell you about your life? Check out the Paris Review's High School Literature zodiac, here:
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/11/27/the-high-school-literature-zodiac/

"Homer's Iliad is the first and greatest poetic account of the first type of war. But it is the Odyssey that takes on the second kind: the war of the homecoming." What can Odyssesus' journey tell us about a soldier's road home? How do they cope when conflicts end?
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/30/odyssey-soldier-afghanistan-military-homer

Concordia University has opened a new reading room named after Mordechai Richler. Many of the author's personal possessions were donated, including his tea-stained desk, one of his old typewriters, and some typescripts and personal papers.
http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/book-news/concordia-opens-mordecai-richler-reading-room/

Three of J.D. Salinger's unpublished stories have been leaked online. Fans are inevitably split on the issue, with some "eager to get at every unpublished word", and others "respectful of their eccentric hero's determination to control his literary legacy from beyond the grave."
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/28/salinger-unpublished-stories-leaked-online

We have already seen many lists of the year's best books. But what about the best book covers? Five eminent book designers make their choices, and two of them are Writers Fest faves!
http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/books-year/books-of-the-year-2013-designers-choice/attachment/cavepainter/

Are you a fan of e-books? Penguin has just teamed up with Treadmill on a booksharing app that allows e-book readers to share highlights and updates to social media websites.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/28/penguin-sell-ebooks-direct-readmill-app

When Aimee Bender, author of The Color Master, set out to memorize Wallace Stevens' poem "Final Soliloquy Of the Interior Paramour", she found that "much more than the pleasure of learning words by heart—the poem worked a real, physiological magic that surprises her to this day." She discusses her favourite passage in literature, here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/how-aimee-bender-feels-after-memorizing-a-poem-caffeinated/281861/

Dutch literary star Arnon Grunberg has begun a "literary stunt turned lab experiment that combines the rigor of academic neuroscience with the self-obsessive spirit of the "quantified self" movement, which has inspired people to track (and broadcast) the minutiae of their lives." He's currently writing a novella while attached to electrodes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/30/books/arnon-grunberg-is-writing-while-connected-to-electrodes.html

BOOKS & WRITERS

The online magazine Slate has chosen its favourite books of 2013. Among the chosen and reviewed are two books by Writers Fest authors: Rachel Kushner's The Flamethrowers, and Amanda Lindhout's A House in the Sky.
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2013/11/slate_staff_picks_for_best.

Charles Glass' The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II is a collection of stories about men who fled conflict. According to The Tyee, this book may finally kill the myth of the 'Good War'.
http://thetyee.ca/Books/2013/11/29/Deserters/

What has happened to the art of letter writing? Simon Garfield's To the Letter "is a nostalgic and fretful look at the "lost art" of letter writing. "A world without letters would surely be a world without oxygen," [the author] declares."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/01/books/review/to-the-letter-by-simon-garfield.html

Harvard professor Leo Damrosch has written a commanding new biography of Jonathan Swift, called Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World. According to The New York Times, it "does ample justice to a figure for whom religion and politics — the world—were even more important than literature and especially the other arts."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/01/books/review/jonathan-swift-by-leo-damrosch.html

In this month's New Yorker fiction podcast, Jonathan Safran Foer reads Amos Oz's "The King of Norway". The story tells the tale of a kibbutz gardener named Zvi Provizor who is "obsessed with delivering news of disaster and suffering in distant parts of the world."
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/12/fiction-podcast-jonathan-safran-foer-reads-amos-oz.html

In Donna Tartt's new novel, The Goldfinch, tragedy strikes New York in the form of a fictional bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A young boy named Theo loses a mother, but in a strange twist of fate, also gains a painting. According to Maureen Corrigan, no other word can describe this novel except 'Dickensian', "both in the ambition of its jumbo, coincidence-laced plot, as well as in its symphonic range of emotions."
http://www.npr.org/2013/10/31/242105656/dickensian-ambition-and-emotion-make-goldfinch-worth-the-wait

Mary Lawson's relationship with her imagination " seems like that between ill-suited spouses...she has to follow him around, even along the garden paths he leads her down, tricking her into thinking it's the right way, only to discover a dead end." She discusses this, and her new novel, Road Ends, here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/why-novelist-mary-lawsons-imagination-is-like-an-ill-suited-spouse/article15716750/

If you didn't already follow along on Tuesday, Joseph Boyden's book, The Orenda, was featured in this week's Vancouver Sun Book Club live chat. Joseph Boyden participated in the discussion, which you can read here:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Live+chat+noon+Joseph+Boyden+Orenda/9237221/story.html

COMMUNITY EVENTS

STORY/LINE: MUSIC, POETRY, AND ART
An evening featuring poetry inspired by Larry Wolfson's exhibit Story/Line and music by Tzimmers. Featured poets are Dennis E. Bolen, Chelsea Comeau, Daniela Elza, Christy Hill, Dethe Elza, Natasha Boskic, and Una Bruhns. Dec. 5th, 7-9 pm, at Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, Jewish Community Centre, 950 West 41st Ave, Vancouver. Free admission.

ZAPATOS EN LAS PIEDRAS/SHOES ON THE ROCKS
An evening of storytelling, live music and tango performance with six Latino-Canadian writers. Friday, December 6 at 7:00pm, free. Alice MacKay room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street. More information at 604-331-3603.

DANIELA ELZA
Daniela Elza will be featuring at Renaissance Books. Sunday, December 8th, 1-3pm, 43-6th Street, New Westminster. This event is free and will also have an open mic portion. http://www.renaissancebookstore.com.

ALIVE AT THE CENTRE
Twisted Poets Literary Salon will be hosting a reading for Alive at the Centre Anthology. Over 20 poets will be reading from the anthology. December 11, 7-9:30pm, at The Cottage Bistro, 4468 Main Street, Vancouver. Hosts: Daniela Elza & Bonnie Nish. Suggested donation at the door: $5. All are welcome. More information at www.pandorascollective.com.

GRANT LAWRENCE
West Vancouver-raised CBC Radio broadcaster, musician and award-winning author will read from his new memoir, The Lonely End of the Rink: Confessions of a Reluctant Goalie. Sunday, December 15 at 2;30pm. West Vancouver Memorial Library, 1950 Marine Drive, West Vancouver. For more information, phone 604-925-7403.

LUNCH POEMS AT SFU
Jordan Abel and Nicole Markotic featured at Dec 18 "Lunch Poems at SFU." Presented by SFU Public Square, 12-1pm in SFU Harbour Centre's Teck Gallery (515 W Hastings St.). Free admission, no registration required. For more information visit www.sfu.ca/publicsquare/lunchpoems.

Upcoming

DEAD POETS READING SERIES
Five poets/readers/poetry-lovers/writers with extensive public reading experience read poems from one of their favourite dead poets. Sunday, January 12 at 3:00pm, free. Meeting Room, level 3, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street. More information at vpl.ca.

RAILWAY ROCK GANG
Join former BC RAIL Rock Gang foreman Gary Sim for a presentation on his new book. Wednesday, January 15 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street. More information at vpl.ca.

SHY: AN ANTHOLOGY
Contributors Sylvia Stopforth, Dhana Musil and Elaine Woo will read. Tuesday, January 28 at 7:00pm, free. McGill Branch, Burnaby Public Library, 4595 Albert Street. More information and registration at 604-299-8955.

AUTHORS UNBOUND
An evening of readings of both brand new and established local authors in a variety of genres from poetry to short stories to novels. Monday, February 17 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street. More information at vpl.ca.

F.G. BRESSANI LITERARY PRIZE
IL CENTRO Italian Cultural Centre is thrilled to announce the publication of the Rules & Regulations for the 2014 Edition of the F.G. Bressani Literary Prize. The literary prize honours and promotes the work of Canadian writers of Italian origin or Italian descent. Deadline: April 2, 2014. Complete details can be found here: http://italianculturalcentre.ca/blog/bressani-literary-prize/.

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 including Joseph Boyden. 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.