The Buzz...About Books

Emma Ruby-Sachs at North York Central Library

North York Central Library welcomes Emma Ruby-Sachs on November 30, 7-8 pm.

The author of the critically acclaimed novel The Water Man's Daughter, Ruby-Sachs is also a lawyer and journalist.  She currently works for Avaaz, a global organization promoting activism on issues like climate change, poverty, and corruption.

The Water Man's Daughter is the story of three women who are drawn together by circumstance.  Police chief Zembe Afrika must investigate the murder of Peter Matthews, a Canadian water company executive;  Nomsulwa Sithu is a young activist leading the fight against water privatization; Claire Matthews' is the distraught daughter of the murdered man.  During the investigation, each of the woman will make a decision that will change her life.

For registration and information call: 416-395-5639

Prisoners of Fiction

Hip hop artist T.I. recently released his debut novel, Power and Beauty: a Love Story of Life on the Streets.  Inspired by Sister Souljah's The Coldest Winter Ever, the novel tells the story of Paul "Power" Clay and his adopted sister Tanya "Beauty" Long.  After their mother dies in a fire, the siblings follow separate paths into adulthood but are always connected by their past and their growing love for each other.

Also recently released was the author himself, after serving an 11-month prison term for drug possession.  Although he began his novel before entering prison, T.I. says that his time incarcerated gave him "a lot more time to focus and go through it with a fine-tooth comb and just apply all of the necessary bells, whistles, and all of the extra elements into it that...would make it a compelling piece".

The following novels were also written while the authors were incarcerated:

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland

Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory

The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan

How to Live, Work and Play in the City

All of us have at least one brilliant friend with endlessly fascinating ideas and opinions, but few of us do anything about it. Toronto novelist Sheila Heti decided to sit down with her friend Misha Glouberman and write down everything he knew.

The result of their collaboration is a lively and very readable self-help book that distills the culture of downtown Toronto.

It's called The Chairs Are Where the People Go: How to Live, Work and Play in the City.

Most of the chapters are a page or two long.

The opinions are Glouberman's. The editing is Heti's.

Glouberman is a wonderful talker. I was impressed by his good sense and the down-to-earth nature of his sometimes surprising opinions. Here is a sampling.

• From Why a Computer Only Lasts Three Years -- "The typewriter that lasted for fifty years wasn't built in a world where the machines we type on on become a hundred times more powerful every three years."
• From Kensington Market [on Pedestrian Sundays] -- "Neighborhoods that are really good, I think, are places that feel like people live there. When you throw a huge, noisy street party every Sunday, it really creates the impression that people don't live there... Who would think that what their own neighborhood needs is to have a drum circle and an amplified performance poet outside their own home every single Sunday all summer? So a festival like [Pedestrian Sundays] creates the message that the neighborhood belongs to the people who come there as an entertainment destination, not to the people who live there."
• From Why Robert McKee Is Wrong About Casablanca -- "The idea that love is something magical, almost supernatural, in your heart, that has nothing to do with the day-to-day encounters with a real person ... has probably created more unhappiness and ruined more marriages than just about anything."

Inside the Dollhouse

Kris Humphries, best known for his recent, short-lived marriage to Kim Kardashian, once accused her of having "no talent" according to Us Magazine.  I am not sure whether he had a chance to read the novel she has recently co-written with sisters Khloé and Kourtney.

Dollhouse centres on the lives of three sisters--beautiful Kamille, shocking Kyle and "superboring" Kassidy--who find their lives turned upside down when Kamille is discovered by a modelling agency and becomes famous overnight.  Kamille and her sisters discover that the glamorous life is far from perfect.  Juggling nightclub parties, red carpet openings, and a televised wedding (hmmm), the sisters discover that their loyalty to each other may become a casualty of the glittering celebrity world.

Kim reported on her blog that the novel is loosely based on her real life relationship with her sisters.

 

If you can't get enough of the Kardashian family, be sure to check out Kardashian Konfidential, a non-fiction book also written by Kim, Khloé and Kourtney.  It includes biographical material and beauty tips.  Kardashian "momager" Kris Jenner has released her own memoir, Kris Jenner...and All Things Kardashian, earlier this month.

Robert J. Sawyer wins his 12th Aurora Award

Robert J. Sawyer's  Watch has won the Best English-language Novel Award at the 2011 Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association Canvention, which was held this past weekend in Toronto.

Watch is the sequel to last year's winning Wake and the second book in Sawyer's WWW triology about Caitlin Decter who was born blind, but after a surgery  to restore her sight, is able to see paths in the World Wide Web instead of reality.

Since 1980, the Prix Aurora Awards have been awarded annually on behalf of Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy fans.   With this year's win, Robert J. Sawyer has now won 12 Aurora Awards in total.

The other 2011 winners are:

Best Short Fiction: "The Burden of Fire" by Hayden Trenholm, Neo-Opsis Magazine #19

Best Poem/Song: "The ABCs of the End of the World" by Carolyn Clink, A Verdant Green, The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box

Best Graphic Novel: Goblins, Tarol Hunt

Best Related Work: The Dragon and the Stars, edited by Derwin Mak and Eric Choi, DAW

Best Artist: Erik Mohr

Best Fan Filk: Dave Clement and Tom Jeffers for Face on Mars, CD
- Filk is fan music based on science fiction or fantasy

Best Fan Organizational: Helen Marshall and Sandra Kasturi for Toronto SpecFic Colloquium

Best Fan Other: John Mansfield and Linda Ross-Mansfield for the conception of Aurora Nominee pins

Snow-Bound Books

 

I saw my first snowflakes on Thursday afternoon outside Toronto Reference Library.  It was horrifying.  I do not care for winter although it is a great time to stay indoors and read.

These are some of my favourite winter-themed reads.

Non-Fiction

The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander
Ernest Shackleton and 27 crew members spent 20 months trapped in the Antarctic after their ship The Endurance, was crushed by the ice pack.  This book includes the amazing photographs taken during the ordeal by Frank Hurley, the expedition's official photographer.

Ken Libbrecht's Field Guide to Snowflakes by Kenneth Libbrecht
Physicist Libbrecht's entertaining look at the art and science of snowflakes will fascinate even the die-hard winter hater.

Return to Antarctica: the Amazing Adventure of Sir Charles Wright on Robert Scott's Journey to the South Pole by Adrian Raeside
In 1911, Canadian physicist Charles Wright was selected to join Robert Scott's expedition to the Antarctic.  Unfortunately, the team discovered they were unprepared for the hardship of the journey and Scott opted to take only 4 men to the South Pole, leaving Wright and the others behind.  The following year, Wright led the search party that discovered the frozen bodies of Scott and his team. 

Winter: Five Windows on the Season by Adam Gopnik
Gopnik explores the magic of winter in this book version of his 2011 Massey Lecture series.

Fiction

The Shining by Stephen King
The new winter caretakers are trapped by the snow and terrorized in the haunted Overlook Hotel. 
    ❄Audiobook
    ❄eBook
    ❄Talking Book (restricted to Print Disabled patrons)

The Silent Land by Graham Joyce.
While skiing in the French Alps, a young couple is buried in an avalanche.  They manage to dig themselves out and return to their hotel but find it, and the surrounding town, completely deserted.  As every attempt to contact the outside world fails, they realize that they are trapped.

Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg
Smilla Jasperson's intuitive understanding of all types of snow helps her learn the truth about the death of a child she knows.
    ❄Large Print

Whiteout by Ken Follett
During a blizzard, Toni Gallo races against time to find a stolen virus before it is used in a terrorist attack.
    ❄Large Print
    ❄Audiobook
    ❄Talking Book (restricted to Print Disabled patrons)

Governor General's Literary Awards Announced

The fourteen winners of the Governor General's Literary Awards were announced earlier today.  The awards are presented for books in English and French and for both adult and juvenile literature.  Each winner will receive $25,000.  The presentation ceremony will take place on November 24 at Rideau Hall.

Fiction

    The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt

    L'homme blanc,  Perrine Leblanc

Poetry

    Killdeer, Phil Hall

    Plus haut que les flammes, Louise Dupré

Drama

    If We Were Birds, Erin Shields

    Ce qui meurt un dernier, Normand Chaurette

Non-Fiction

    Mordecai: The Life and Times, Charles Foran

    Wanderer: essai sur le Voyage d'hiver de Franz Schubert, Georges Leroux

Children's Literature--Text

    From Then to Now: a Short History of the World, Christopher Moore

    Les aventures de Radisson--1: L'enfer ne brûle pas, Martin Fournier

Children's Literature--Illustrations

    Ten Birds, Cybèle Young

    Lili et les poilus, Caroline Merola

Translation--French to English

    Partita for Glenn Gould, Donald Winkler, translation of Partita pour Glenn Gould by Georges Leroux

Translation--English to French

    Toxique ou l'incident dans l'autobus, Maryse Warda, translation of The Toxic Bus Incident by Greg MacArthur

 

 

Jackie O: First Lady Gets the Last Word

Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy are Jacqueline Kennedy's candid interviews with Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a few months after her husband's assassination on November 22, 1963. Sealed at her request, the tapes were recently released by her daughter, Caroline, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of JFK's presidency. 

Listen to excerpts of Jackie's interviews posted by the New York Times. But don't let the breathy little-girl voice fool you. This gossip girl has claws.

No one is safe. Martin Luther King Jr., Indira Ghandi, Churchill, DeGaulle, FDR, LBJ, Lady Bird. Jackie O?  More like, "Oh no, she didn't."  

Watch Diane Sawyer's coverage on Nightline. Watch Caroline on Good Morning America address some of the more troubling opinions expressed by her mother and the effect these comments had on the Kennedy clan.

In the end, these interviews offer a glimpse into a time and place - the real-life Mad Men era - and it's not always pretty.

 

Further reading on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Jackie as Editor: The Literary Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Greg Lawrence
• Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books by William M. Kuhn
• Jacqueline Kennedy: the White House Years by Hamish Bowles
• America's Queen: the Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Sarah Bradford

Lest We Forget: Wartime fiction

Reading novels set during wartime is one way of learning history and reminding ourselves of the horror and sacrifices of war.  On this Remembrance Day, check out one of these wartime novels written by Canadians:

 

Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway.  While the cellist plays for twenty-two days in the mortar hole where his neighbours died, three people, including the sniper working to protect him, try to survive and maintain a semblance of humanity in war-torn Sarajevo

This suspenseful and haunting novel won the Ontario Library Association's Evergreen Award in 2009.The Cellist of Sarajevo is also available in audiobook format.

 

 The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.  Set in an Italian villa just after World War II, the horribly burned 'English patient' gradually reveals his tragic story to the thief, Caravaggio. 

The English Patient won many awards in 1992, including the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize.  It is available in Large Print,  eBook and eAudiobook formats.  In 1996, it was made into an Oscar winning film.

 

 

 Far to Go by Alison Pick.   When Czechoslovakia relinquishes the Sudetenland to Hitler,  the Bauer family are helpless to prevent their world from falling apart as Nazi propaganda turns their friends and neighbours against them. 

Nominated for the 2011 Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award and longlisted for Man Booker Prize, it won the 2011 Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards for Fiction.

 

 

 No Man's Land, by Kevin Major, follows the lives of the young men of the 1st Newfoundland Regiment as they proudly fight in the Battle of the Somme.  On July 1, 1916, the first day of the battle, over 700 members of the Regiment were killed and a generation of Newfoundland men were wiped out.  The Battle of Beaumont Hamel is considered the greatest tragedy in Newfoundland and Labrador's history.

 

 

 

  Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden.   In 1919, Niska, a Cree medicine woman, receives word that one of the two boys she saw off to war has returned.  As Niska paddles the gravely wounded Xavier Bird the three days home, she tries to keep him alive through the stories of her life.  In turn, Xavier relates the horrifying years of war for himself and his missing best friend,Elijah Whiskeyjack.  

Three Day Road won the Rogers' Writers Trust Fiction Prize and the OLA's Evergreen Award in 2006.  It is also available in audiobook, and eBook .

 

 The Timothy Findlay classic, The Wars , is the story of Robert Ross, a Canadian officer whose encounter with the violence and horror of trench warfare during the First World War takes him to the brink of madness.  This short gem is definitely worth checking out.

The Wars won the Governor General's Award for Fiction in 1977.

 

 

Can you recommend any others?   Please share in the comments section.

Esi Edugyan wins Scotiabank Giller Prize

This year's Scotiabank Giller prize was presented to Esi Edugyan at a gala in Toronto last night.  Her novel Half-Blood Blues tells the story of an African-German jazz musician who disappears at the beginning of World War II.  Calgary-born Edugyan was inspired to write the book following an academic residency in Germany.

 

It has been one of the most honoured novels of the year and was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust and Man Booker Prizes.   Half-Blood Blues is also a contender for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction, which will announce its winner on November 15.

 

 

Related Posts:
Governor General's Literary Awards Finalists
Scotiabank Giller Prize Longlist
Scotiabank Giller Shortlist Announced
Man Booker Prize Longlist
Man Booker Prize Shortlist
Writers Trust of Canada Awards Announced