The Buzz...About Books

A Quick Read With Charlie D

Looking for a fast, enjoyable read? Don't have time for the new trend of 800 page books? The Rapid Reads series might just be what you are looking for. These books are usually no longer than 100 pages. Stories include anything from mysteries, gang life to romance. If you prefer to read non-fiction, there are also books on a variety of subjects including the World Wars, finance and global warming.

Through this series, I discovered Gail Bowen's interesting character, Charlie D, who hosts a late-night radio program. His listeners are very involved in the call-in portion of the show and his regular callers tend to be outcasts, who feel deeply connected to Charlie. But Charlie also hears from listeners whose personal relationships with him go too far and can result in murder.

   

Love You to Death
Charlie discovers that his callers are being killed on by one. The police suspect that one of Charlie's fans is obsessed and are now depending on Charlie to bring the killer out of hiding before another murder occurs. Also available in eBook.

One Fine Day You're Gonna Die
An expert on death and dying is a guest on Charlie D's radio show. Things take a very dark turn when a caller threatens to kill himself, as well as the daughter of Charlie's guest. Also available in eBook.

The Shadow Killer
It's Father's Day and Charlie D is wrestling with memories of his estranged father, when a young caller shares his plan to murder his own father and the rest of his family. Can Charlie find the location of the caller? Time is running out, and surprisingly Charlie's father may be able to help.

To learn more about Rapid Reads visit their website.

Treating Ideas Like Cats

“Ray Bradbury, cat lover #RIP” was the tweet sent out last June 6 by Buzzfeed after Bradbury’s death at age 92. Not “Ray Bradbury, author extraordinaire #RIP,” or “Ray Bradbury, sci fi genius #RIP,” or even “Ray Bradbury, Author of Fahrenheit 451 #RIP” but “Ray Bradbury, cat lover #RIP.” Elsewhere, blogger Bobby Pfeiffer wrote an obit entitled “R.I.P. Ray Bradbury (and another proof that cats are a writer's best friend)”.  Bradbury, author of this year’s One Book selection Fahrenheit 451, was clearly well known for mentioning his cats fondly in numerous contexts. He had even suggested that he treated his creative ideas (and by extension, his writing) in the same manner as his cats.

Another commenter on an obituary blog post about Bradbury also noted his ongoing interest in cats. “My first encounter with Ray Bradbury was at a book signing for Quicker Than the Eye in 1996,” writes Dale Allen. “When it came my turn to get an autographed copy of the book, I asked him as he shook my hand, ‘What’s your cat’s name?’ referring to his publicity photo on the back of the book. Bradbury said, ‘What?’ The book clerk assisting him repeated my question. ‘Tigger!’ he exclaimed … ‘I told my publishers not to change it until they brought him back to life.’”

Bradbury and his wife Marguerite (Maggie) Bradbury (nee McClure) shared their home with several cats over the years. Like his cats, his wife of 56 years helped enable his writing as, for many years, Maggie was the family breadwinner, allowing Ray to stay home and write. At one point in the 1950s, the Bradbury family home was home to 22 felines, although more recent years saw more manageable numbers, dwindling to only two, Win-Win and Ditzy, at the time of Marguerite’s death in 2003.

In a splendid simile, Bradbury was quoted as treating his writing in the same manner as his cats:

“As soon as things get difficult, I walk away. That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you. If you try to approach a cat and pick it up, hell, it won’t let you do it. You’ve got to say, ‘Well, to hell with you.’ And the cat says, ‘Wait a minute. He’s not behaving the way most humans do.’ Then the cat follows you out of curiosity: ‘Well, what’s wrong with you that you don’t love me?” (Zen in the Art of Writing).

“Any owner of cats will know of what I speak. Cats come at dawn to sit on your bed. They may not nip your nose or inhale your breath or make a sound. They simply sit there and stare at you until you open one eyelid and spy them there about to drop dead for need of feeding. So it is with ideas. They come silently in the hour of trying to wake up and remember my name. The notions and fancies sit on the edge of my wits, whisper in my ears and then, if I don't rouse, give more than cats give: a good knock in the head, which gets me out and down to my typewriter before the ideas flee or die or both. In any event, I make the ideas come to me. I do not go to them. I provoke their patience by pretending disregard. This infuriates the latent creature until it is almost raving to be born and once born, nourished" (Columbia World of Quotations).

And also from Zen in the Art of Writing:

“And metaphors like cats behind your smile,
Each one wound up to purr,
each one a pride,
Each one a fine gold beast you've hid inside (...)”

Cats are mentioned throughout Bradbury’s writing, including in the title of one of his books of short stories, The Cat’s Pajamas. Cats serve both as minor subjects of discussion and more often are used in descriptive similes and metaphors. Says one short story character, “There’s no future without my cat,” a concept probably familiar to Bradbury.  Bradbury also wrote a book of poetry called With Cat for Comforter, even the title giving the reader some sense of the warmth and affection he felt for these animals.

In addition to treating his ideas like cats, Bradbury stated that “I have my favorite cat, who is my paperweight, on my desk while I am writing”.  Anyone who has tried to read a newspaper with a cat in the room certainly knows that feeling!

Bradbury is certainly not the only author who shares his life with cats. Blogger Bobby Pfeiffer, who alleges that cats are a writer’s best friend, notes that: “Writers are great people.  They might be rambling lunatics or lazy drunkards or unpleasant anti-socials or even ordinary dullards, but they are still great.  You know why?  Because a) they write and b) they love cats. No man or a woman who loves language and stories, and keeps a furry friend around can be a bad person.” Pfeiffer has collected a fascinating selection of photos of authors as illustrious as Stephen King, Allen Ginsberg, Ernest Hemingway, Joyce Carol Oates, William Faulkner, William Burroughs, Truman Capote, Sylvia Plath, Samuel Beckett and Herman Hesse, in addition to Bradbury, all in the company of their cats.

Another article on writing and cats adds TS Eliot, Mark Twain, William Butler Yeats, Patricia Highsmith, Charles Dickens and Neil Gaiman to the list of ailurophile authors.  Of course, we are not suggesting that it is absolutely necessary to share your home with a cat or two in order to produce prize-winning prose, but it sure sounds like it helps. Just in case, if you are an aspiring author, visit your local animal shelter or Toronto Cat Rescue to help enable your next prize-winning novel. Tell them Ray sent you.

March 16 is Lips Appreciation Day.

According to Wellcat Holidays, March 16 is Lips Appreciation Day--a day to "do something nice for your lips". This is a list of novels that feature lips prominently on their covers. This won't do anything for your lips but I hope it does something nice for your leisure reading time.

The Bloodsucking Fiends Series by Christopher Moore
Set in San Francisco, this series begins when a nice, normal woman wakes up to discover that she's been turned into a vampire.

Bloodsucking Fiends: a Love Story

You Suck: a Love Story
• Audiobook
• eBook

Bite Me: a Love Story by Christopher Moore
• eBook

Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories by Steven Millhauser
• eAudiobook
A collection of surrealistic short stories from Pulitzer Prize-winner Millhauser

Dare Me by Megan Abbott
• Audiobook
• eAudiobook
• Talking Book (restricted to Print Disabled patrons)
Jealousy and insecurity plague a group of high school cheerleaders.

A Killer's Kiss by William Lashner
• Large Print
DA Victor Carl becomes the prime suspect his ex-fiancée's husband is murdered.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov
• Audiobook
• eAudiobook
• eBook
• Talking Book (restricted to Print Disabled patrons)
The classic story of an aging man's obsessive love for a young girl.

Our Lady of the Forest by David Guterson
• Audiobook
• Large Print
A small town is forever changed when a 16-year-old mushroom picker claims to have seen the Virgin Mary.

The Tin Horse by Janice Steinberg
• eAudiobook
• eBook
When octogenarian Elaine Greenstein goes through her possessions before she moves to a retirement community, she discovers a clue to the disappearance of her twin sister--a girl who went missing in 1939.

Unspoken by Lisa Jackson
• eAudiobook
• ebook
Shelby Cole had left her hometown following the death of her baby but returns when she begins receiving anonymous messages that her child is still alive.

Vintage Vampire Stories edited by Robert Eighteen-Bistang and Richard Dalby
A collection of vampire stories published between 1679 and 1909.

Relit Winners Announced

Earlier this week the Relit Awards were presented at the Ottawa International Writers Festival. These awards celebrate the best in Canadian independent publishing. They are given in three categories: novel, short fiction and poetry.

This year's winners were:

Novel: Monoceros by Suzette Mayr
• eBook

Short Fiction Collection: Pretty by Greg Kearney

Poetry Collection: Jumping in the Asylum by Patrick Friesen

This year's other finalists were:

Novels:

Break Me by Tom Reynolds

Dirty Feet by Edem Awumey
• eBook

Easy to Like by Edward Riche
• eBook
• Talking Book (restricted to Print Disabled patrons)

Flowers of Spit by Catherine Mavrikakis

Prick: Confessions of a Tattoo Artist by Ashley Little

Short Fiction

Distillery Songs by Mike Spry

Easy Living by Jesus Hardwell

The Odious Child by Carolyn Black

Shag Carpet Action by Matthew Firth

Stopping for Strangers by Daniel Griffin

Poetry

The Ditch was Lit Like This by Sean Johnston

Grunt of the Minotaur by Robin Richardson

Post-Apothecary by Sandra Ridley

Straight Razor Days by Joel Thomas Hynes

Woods Wolf Girl by Cornelia Hoogland

Andrew Borkowski wins Toronto Book Award

Last night the Toronto Book Award was presented to Andrew Borkowski for Copernicus Avenue, a collection of linked short stories. The book is set in the fictional Copernicus Avenue neighbourhood, and explores the lives of its residents, predominantly Polish immigrants in the years following World War II.

Read more about Copernicus Avenue:

• Toronto Book Awards website
• Joseph's review

The Toronto Book Award was founded in 1974 to celebrate books that are evocative of the city.

This year's other finalists were:

Paramita, Little Black by Suzanne Robertson
The complexity of modern life is explored in this poetry collection.

• More about the book and author
• Read Diana's review

Six Metres of Pavement by Farzana Doctor
Three Torontonians are drawn together by their loneliness in this novel of second chances.

• More about the book and author
• Read Soheli's review

Writing Gordon Lightfoot: the Man, the Music and the World in 1972 by Dave Bidini
An inspiring look at Gordon Lightfoot at the height of his career, and at the political and social changes that were changing Canada in 1972.

• More about the book and author
• Read C's review

Writing the Revolution by Michele Landsberg
Journalist Landsberg's collection of her favourite and most relevant columns from her tenure at the Toronto Star.

• More about the book and author
• Read Beatriz's review

A Safer Way To Be "One With the Tiger"

'God created the cat so that mankind may know the pleasure of caressing the tiger' Fernand Mery

In recent news, a young man lept into the tiger's pen at the Bronx zoo, home to Bashuta, a 400 lb Siberian tiger.  He approached the great cat and began to tenderly stroke it.  As he was rushed to hospital, he explained: "I wanted to be one with the tiger."  Being eaten is one way to do that. Whatever this poor soul was thinking, the fact remains - tigers capture our imagination. Indeed, their beauty, danger and power infuses legends, poetry, art, and literature with stripey splendour.  From William Blake's "Tyger" to Kipling's Shere Khan, this animal has burned bright in some of the best reads ever:  

• The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
• The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• I Am An Executioner: Love Stories by Rajesh Parameswaran

 

 

 

 

 

• The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant
• Tigers in Red Weather by Ruth Padel
• The Essential Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. (Best. Tiger. Ever.)
• The Tiger's Curse by Colleen Houck. First in a great teen series.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Left to right: Shere Khan from Disney's The Jungle Book (voiced by the incomparable George Sanders), Tony the Tiger (Kellogg's gggrreat spokestiger since 1951), A. A. Milne's Tigger (via Disney), and Calvin and Hobbs, a brilliant comic strip which ran from 1985-1995.

Watch the trailer for Ang Lee's soon-to-be-released Life of Pi. Martel likes what Lee did with his Booker Prize-winning novel. 

 

This is kind of creepy, but here is a creative clip of Blake "reading" his poem, The Tyger.

  

William Blake's The Tyger from Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Related posts:   

• The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival
• Millions and Millions of Cats

Relit Awards Shortlist

Earlier this week the 12th annual Relit Awards shortlist was revealed. These awards, founded in 2000 by Kenneth J. Harvey as an alternative to mainstream awards, celebrate independent publishing in Canada. Awards are presented to novels, short story and poetry collections.

Novels:

Break Me by Tom Reynolds

Dirty Feet by Edem Awumey
• eBook

Easy to Like by Edward Riche
• eBook
• Talking Book (restricted to Print Disabled patrons)

Flowers of Spit by Catherine Mavrikakis

Monoceros by Suzette Mayr
• eBook

Prick: Confessions of a Tattoo Artist by Ashley Little

Short Fiction

Distillery Songs by Mike Spry

Easy Living by Jesus Hardwell

The Odious Child by Carolyn Black

Pretty by Greg Kearney

Shag Carpet Action by Matthew Firth

Stopping for Strangers by Daniel Griffin

Poetry

The Ditch was Lit Like This by Sean Johnston

Grunt of the Minotaur by Robin Richardson

Jumping in the Asylum by Patrick Friesen

Post-Apothecary by Sandra Ridley

Straight Razor Days by Joel Thomas Hynes

Woods Wolf Girl by Cornelia Hoogland

The winners will be announced on October 20.

Toronto Book Awards Shortlist Announced

The Toronto Book Awards Shortlist was revealed earlier today. Five books were selected from 75 submissions.

The award was established by city council in 1974 to honour authors and books evocative of Toronto. Fiction, non-fiction, drama and poetry are eligible for this award.

2012 Finalists:

Copernicus Avenue by Andrew Borkowski
The Polish citizens living in the fictional Copernicus Avenue neighbourhood adjust to the challenges of mid-20th century Toronto while struggling to balance tradition and modern life in this collection of short stories.

Paramita, Little Black by Suzanne Robertson
Robertson's poetry explores themes of personal transformation and enlightenment along with the conflicting desires for love and autonomy in modern society. The collection was a finalist for the 2012 Gerald Lampert Award.

Six Metres of Pavement by Farzana Doctor
Ismail Boxwala spends his days working, his nights drinking, always trying to deal with the guilt he feels over the death of his daughter. Unexpectedly he finds himself befriending two women and discovers an opportunity for redemption and even love. Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for General Lesbian Fiction.

Writing Gordon Lightfoot: the Man, the Music, and the World in 1972 by Dave Bidini
Although Bidini envisioned writing a biography of Gordon Lightfoot, the singer was not willing to cooperate. Instead Bidini examines Lightfoot in the context of Canada in 1972, an era of great change and a closer look at the 1972 Mariposa Folk Festival where Lightfoot performed alongside Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan.

Writing the Revolution by Michele Landsberg
Groundbreaking columnist Landsberg wrote about women's issues at a time when they were rarely featured in major newspapers. This collection of columns written between 1978 and 2003 act as a history of this critical era, with new commentary from the author about events and personalities of the time.

The winner will be announced on October 11, 2012.

The Law According to Raylan Givens

If you enjoy gritty mysteries with an old-school crime fighter, who follows his own set of morals, you may enjoy Elmore Leonard's books, on which the TV series Justified is based. 

Raylan Givens is a Deputy U.S. Marshal, who wears a Stetson hat, enjoys ice cream and tends to shoot criminals. He tries to resolve things peacefully, but in Harlan County, Kentucky, the bad guys do not give up easily and Raylan is not the type to forgive and forget.

In the novels, Pronto and Riding the Rap, Raylan is working in Miami Beach, Florida. However, after shooting a few too many bad guys, Raylan is sent back to his home town of Harlan County. In the short story "Fire in the Hole," which can be found in the collection, When the Women Come Out to Dance: Stories, Raylan meets many old home town friends; unfortunately, the majority have become career criminals.

The most recent novel, Raylan, finds two pot dealing brothers branching out into black market organ trafficking. Of course Raylan will not stand for this, but what will the Marshal do when he wakes up in a bathtub with his own kidney on the chopping block?

                                 

Pronto  by Elmore Leonard

    eAudiobook

    eBook

    Large Print

Riding the Rap by Elmore Leonard

    eAudiobook

    eBook

    Large Print

When the Women Come Out to Dance: Stories by Elmore Leonard

    Audiobook

    Large Print

    Talking Book (Restricted to print disabled patrons)

Raylan by Elmore Leonard

    Audiobook

    eAudiobook

    Large Print

Ray Bradbury, 1920-2012

Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois on August 22, 1920.  As a child, he was a frequent patron of the Carnegie Library in Waukegan.  He was drawn to speculative fiction, particularly the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe.

Looking back at his childhood Bradbury said "Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years."

A lifelong fan of magic, Bradbury was 12 when he encountered Mr. Electrico, a carnival magician.  The magician touched Bradbury with an electrified wand and instructed the child to "live forever!"  The author later credited Mr. Electrico for inspiring him to write every day, a practice he continued until shortly before his death.

His novels include The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes and Farewell Summer.  I Sing the Body Electric, Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales and The October Country are among the many short story collections available at Toronto Public Library.

Although I have a great affection for Fahrenheit 451, my all-time favourite Bradbury work is The Illustrated Man, a collection of 18 haunting short stories represented by tattoos on the title character's body.

One of the most influential writers of the 20th century, Ray Bradbuy died June 5, 2012 at the age of 91.