The Buzz...About Books

Seen Reading Toronto Fiction

If it's April it must be Keep Toronto Reading at the library.  As part of this festival of reading people all over Toronto can be seen reading the library's One Book choice "Girls fall Down" by Maggie Helwig.  The library has planned some fascinating and fun events around the content which includes our subway system and our wonderful ravines.

 

I highly recommend "Girls Fall Down".  It's part love-in for the city of Toronto, part love story, part mystery.   It is so much fun reading a book  and knowing exactly where the characters are walking or the subway stop they get off at or streetcar line they're taking.   Still, I've lived here a long, long time and there some places I've never seen but now want to visit like the Terraced Garden in High Park or the Brickworks in the Don Valley.   As to the story girls do indeed start falling.  Are they being poisoned or faking it?   Will the main characters, Alex and Susie, figure out what's actually going on in time and perhaps rekindle their grand passion?   See also Tita's blog review.

 

For those who have already read the book and want more fiction featuring Toronto Library Staff have a list of recommended reads called Toronto Fiction and I have a few to add below:

Amazing Absorbing Boy by Rabindanrath Maharaj

Fauna by Alissa York

Unless by Carol Shields

And here is some just published fiction set in Toronto:

Everybody has Everything by Katrina Onstad

Spoiled Rotten by Mary Jackman

Web of Angels by Lilian Nattel

 

I'm looking forward to Julie Wilson's "Seen Reading"  which contains short stories inspired by sightings of people reading in public, on Toronto's transit system.  See also her great Seen Reading blog.

 

What are you reading?   Where are you reading?    Join the conversation and be seen reading this month and all year round.

 

Maggie Helwig Live Chat

We had a wonderful time talking with Maggie Helwig, author of Girls Fall Down.  If you were unable to attend, the transcript is available at the link below.

Maggie Helwig Chat

Girls Fall Down Online Discussion

Girls Fall Down by Maggie Helwig was chosen as this year's One Book Community Read.  If you've read the book and want to discuss it with other readers, please join us on Book Buzz, Toronto Public Library's online book club.

It's easy to become a member.  All you need to do is go to our registration page and select a user name.  Lurkers are also welcome to read the discussion, but if you want to have your say about the book, you need to sign up. 

We also have an Open Discussion where we have conversations about anything related to books.  It's a wonderful place to get (and make) book recommendations.

Maggie Helwig will be joining us for an online chat on Monday April 16 at 7 pm.  This is a terrific opportunity to meet and talk to an author, all from the comfort of your own home.  Visit our chat page to sign up for an email reminder.

If you would like to meet the author in person, she is also appearing at:

Agincourt Branch, Tuesday April 10, 2 pm.

St Clair/Silverthorn, Tuesday April 10, 7 pm.

 

 

 

Book Buzz reads...Half-Blood Blues

Esi Edugyan's Half-Blood Blues is one of the most celebrated books of the year.  It was the winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award, and Man Booker Prize.  Just this week, it was nominated for two more awards--The Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and The Orange Prize.

Certainly, it is a book people are talking about.  If you'd like to have your say about the novel, join us this month on Book Buzz, Toronto Public Library's virtual book club.  The great thing about an online book club is that you can join the discussion any time and participate when it's convenient for you.

Become a member at our registration page.  All you need to do is pick a user name.  Guest users are also welcome.

Tonight! Chat Online with Alissa York

Alissa York, author of the acclaimed novels Mercy, Effigy and Fauna, was our guest this evening for an online chat.  She provided wonderful insight into the writing process.

Click the link below for the chat replay.

Alissa York Live Chat

Alissa York Online at Book Buzz

Toronto author Alissa York will be our guest on Book Buzz for a live online chat, taking place December 7, 7-8 pm.

Mercy tells the stories of the lonely and flawed citizens of a small town in Manitoba.  It begins in 1948 as the lives of butcher Thomas Rose, Mathilda Nickles and town priest August Day collide.  Although Mathilda and August meet when he is officiating her wedding to Thomas, they find themselves unable to resist falling in love.

Effigy, a novel set on a Mormon ranch in 19th century Utah, was nominated for the 2007 Scotiabank Giller Prize.  It focuses on the lives of Erastus Hammer, a hunter and horse breeder, and his four wives.  Dorrie, the youngest of the wives, is a skilled taxidermist who works to create trophies of her husband's kills.  As she works on a tableau of a family of wolves, she finds herself stuggling with her craft and haunted by strange images.

Fauna is set in present day Toronto.  Wildlife officer Edal is on stress leave from her job when she discovers a small group of individuals caring for injured animals in the Don Valley.  In 2011 Fauna was a finalist for the Toronto Book Award.

York has also published Any Given Power, a collection of short fiction.

Join us on Book Buzz.

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

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."

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

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