With an eye to keeping up with the latest technology trends, here is a list of gear and gadgets you'll want to take with you into 2012.
Apple iPad 2 Rightly called "the game changer" the iPad2 sold out on all channels with 500,000 units flying out the door on the first weekend alone. The reason? Our smart phones aren't really large enough to read books or browse websites and many of the new apps are easier to see and use on an ipad. Our laptops are too cumbersome to pack and carry for international travel, or for that matter commuting by bicycle to work. Two cameras make FaceTime and HD video recording possible. Using the ipad as a surrogate office station is possible through the free (or larger data subscriber rates) of iCloud, where all your memory heavy programs and data is kept on a remote server you can access and update from anywhere. The dual-core A5 chip and 10-hour battery life keep you powered. Over 200 new software features in iOS 5. Manipulate and share photos art. Carry all your digital and audio books, music & films, world newspapers and magazines in one slim device. Use the GPS positioning system for every app that you now rely on: google maps, cinema and restaurant locator, taxis, that wine label locator, etc.
Boxee Live TV ($50)
Now that you've streamlined your office, why not dump your cable company? How many times have you lamented that you were paying for hundreds of stations that you never use or want to see or have to negotiate around? Boxee Live TV ($50) uses an HDTV antenna or unencrypted cable connection to access to local broadcast stations with a friendly show-finding interface that lets you receive recommendations from friends, and even remove channels that you never watch. Boxee puts viewers in control of their television viewing preferences for the first time! It's a positive revolution that may save us all from a Kardasian-esque future idiocracy.
The Audio Bulb:
It's a light bulb and a wireless audio speaker. Just screw it into your light bulb socket for added sound. What a great idea!
Next year will mark the 200 anniversary of the birth of English author Charles Dickens, and all kinds of things are planned to mark the occasion. Check out www.dickens2012.org. I just downloaded a cool App for my iPad. It's a narrated and illustrated copy of Dickens: Dark London by the Museum of London that is interactive, and takes users on a journey through the darker side of Charles Dickens’ London in a unique series of interactive graphic novels narrated by Tinker Tailor Solder Spy actor Mark Strong. It's compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.2.1 or later.
Since it is "that festive time of year" let us focus on Dickens' classic short novel A Christmas Carol. The book has remarkably been in print continuously for 167 years. The novella was first published by Chapman & Hall on 19 December 1843 during the Victorian era when people were experiencing a nostalgia for traditions - the Christmas carol and the German tradition of decorating evergreen trees. In fact, Dickens is credited with changing the way Great Britain, the rest of the Commonwealth and western Christian society now celebrates this holiday, which before the runaway success of A Christmas Carol wasn't even a bank holiday. This Penguin copy, Classics Christmas Carol And Other Christmas Writings has a wonderful combination of stories you can read aloud in your family to start your own family aural tradition.
Each year our local library puts on a collective reading of A Christmas Carol for the public. And each year our family watches the black and white remastered film version starring Alister Sims on Christmas Eve, all of us huddle together on our old couch at the ski cabin with a fire blazing, hot rum toddies and various savory treats along with Nana's traditional Christmas fruitcake with a large chunk of aged cheddar on the side, and Purdy chocolate balls wrapped in green or red tin foil being tossed around the room along with Mandarin oranges that we compete to remove the skins in one intact piece. Get the new Blu-ray version.
It might seem ironic that the man considered one of this generation's best, if not most controversial, essayists and speakers, prone to a prodigious often vitriolic verbal attack on his topic or target d'moment (Mother Teresa, Henry Kissinger, the royal family—God) has died of complications of esophageal cancer. It's as though the words and the cigarettes conspired against him. He was a great friend of other great literary personalities and minds: Ian McEwan, Martin Amos, Salman Rushdie, and I watched him with great interest on all the Charlie Rose interviews. He could recite in entirety several of his favorite books and also his favorite plays by Shakespeare. A prolific writer he contributed articles to: The New Statesman, the London Evening Standard, London’s Daily Express, Harper’s, The Spectator, and The Times Literary Supplement, among others. He was an editor and writer at Vanity Fair and wrote for Slate, The Atlantic among others. His books include The Trial of Henry Kissinger (Verso, 2001), Letters to a Young Contrarian (Basic, 2001), God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Twelve, 2007), Hitch-22: A Memoir (Twelve, 2010), and Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens (Twelve, 2011), a collection of his later essays. He took pains to assure people he had not changed his views on religion after being diagnosed with cancer. The world shall miss his brilliant mind, "slashing polemicist in the tradition of Thomas Paine and George Orwell" to use a quote from William Grimes of The New York Times eulogy in today's paper.
The lists are coming out fast and furious these days and I always enjoy finding new books as recommended by sage review teams and of course noted authors. Check out the Guardian's list recommendations from heavy-hitters: Julian Barnes, John Banville, Tariq Ali, Chimamanda Adichie, AS Byatt, William Boyd et al - all my favorites. Then there is the annual lists from:
Cranford is the mythical setting for Elizabeth Gaskell's novels. Sue Bertwhistle has a love affair with period pieces. She adapted Gaskell's Wives and Daughters and of course the ever popular Jane Austen"s Pride & Predjudice starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle and Emma starring Kate Beckingsdale. When asked how she came upon the Carnford series she replied that it was recommended to her after the success of Pride & Predjudice and she quickly became entranced with the author who uses her characters over and over with each new work of fiction substituting different names and scenarios, but whose work remains true to her own life experiences: a brother that went off to sea at age 16, the death of an infant (her own). Like Austen these tell the minutia of women's country lives in the period, and adhere to all the details Masterpiece productions are well know for, including a repertoire of wonderful actors such as: Dame Judy Dench, Claudie Blakley, Julia McKenzie and Alex Jennings, to name but a few here. This story has the addition of curious animal behavior - a cow that is dressed up in pajamas daily that is based on a real sartorial cow in the author's hometown of Knutsford,. Oh those Brits! Get the DVD package here Elizabeth Gaskell Series.
Jeffrey Sachs is a writer economist with numerous distinctions; he's on the list of the 100 most influential people in the the world, the 50 most important leaders in globalization, the 500 most influential foreign policy advisors, and he's the director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. In his previous 14 books and publications Sachs has written about the economies of the developing world and macroeconomics of the globe. He's been a champion of people in extreme poverty and as director of the UN Millennium Project he helped write the Millennium Development Goals among other groundbreaking initiatives. He's been criticized as "leftest" and "neoliberal". His latest book, The Price of Civilization: Economics and Ethics After the Fall (Random House 2011) turns the telescope away from those "other nations" and focuses it firmly on the USA. And although the book was written before the "occupy movement", he feels that it is the banner to which his book's message speaks.
The following video posted on You Tube comes from a talk he gave at the Toronto Public Library. It is a 3 part series.
If you have an interest in these two things; CERN and the consequences of algorithmic trading, then Robert Harris's new novel The Fear Index (Hutchinson UK, Knopf NAmerica Jan2012) is a must read. I told my husband about it and he picked up a copy at Heathrow airport and says it's a real page-turner, er, iPad-turner.
Bloomberg's correspondent Hephzibah Anderson met up with the author to discuss his book the premise to which is a "physicist-turned-hedge-fund-manager unleashes a trading algorithm that feeds on human emotions to predict market fluctuations. In just a week, VIXAL-4 makes a profit of $79.7 million. Then, on May 6, 2010 -- the day of the so-called flash crash, when the Dow briefly dropped 9.2 percent -- it goes rogue, catapulting its creator into a paranoid universe of murder and market mayhem."
“The fund is like a malevolent creature,” says Harris, 54, the author of bestselling novels including “Pompeii,” “Fatherland” and “The Ghost,” the basis for Roman Polanski’s movie about a thinly veiled Tony Blair. Speaking from the depths of a leather chair in a London hotel, he shares some of his own anxieties over club sandwiches and lounge music.
Anderson: What inspired the switch from historical and political thrillers?
Harris: I see myself as writing books about power and this is the same -- it’s all about control.
A dozen years ago I wanted to write a version of George Orwell’s “1984” in which the threat to the individual wasn’t the state, but rather corporations and computers. I got very interested in artificial intelligence. It wasn’t until the financial crisis that I realized I could marry finance and computers.
Financial Research
Anderson: How much did you know about finance going into this project?
Harris: I didn’t understand what a short was, or a credit derivative, or even precisely what it was that a hedge fund did. I asked a lot of very embarrassing questions of very busy people.
Anderson: So plenty of research, then?
Upon learning that Kurt Vonnegut's mother successfully committed suicide when he was 21 - on Mother's Day, a peep of insight into the writer's life works begins to dawn. The author of “Cat’s Cradle”, “Sirens of Titan”, “Breakfast of Champions” and his masterpiece, “Slaughterhouse-Five”
There has been a general trend in western society toward political apathy to the point where both the US and Britain have gone down on the "democracy index" as compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a think tank that examines information collected on countries around the world. Evidence shows poor voter turnout, bounding cynicism, young people like those of the occupy movement disenfranchised with the political system, the candidates running and disgust for the collusion between big money and big government. The US is frustrated by political gridlock and a seemingly backward mandate by fully 50% of the political combatants. The Euro debt crisis further shows government mangling our collective economic future.
As a timely respite, Canada Reads —the countrywide competition to choose the next book that Canadians will read en mass, discuss and possibly become influenced by—was announced yesterday. The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis is a great way for folks on both sides of the 49th parallel to enjoy a political satire addressing all of the above. The Globe writes:
"[Best Laid Plans is a] political satire about a crusty old engineering professor named Angus McLintock who agrees to run as an MP because he's certain to lose. He is accidentally swept into office and decides to see what good an honest MP, who doesn't care about being re-elected, can do in Parliament and hilarity results."
Ali Velshi, the CNN journalist who defended Best Laid Plans, said Canada needs people like [the fictional character] McLintock. "This book is about the current thing that affects us now in our world, which is the people who make decisions for us," he said. The book "speaks to frustration and disenfranchisement around the world."
Former NHL enforcer Georges Laraque agreed, saying the book could inspire interest in the political process in younger readers. "Today, in Canada, people don't vote and we live in a democratic country. If people read this book, they would want to vote. We need this," he said.
Best Laid Plans also won Canada's Stephen Leacock Award for Humor. We're picking a wonderful Canadian winery for the spirit side of things: Laughing Stock Winery in BC has some fabulous choices. Join the group, purchase the wine and discuss this book with your group!
PD James has a bio to knock your socks off: The author of twenty books, most of which have been filmed and broadcast on television in the United States and other countries. She spent thirty years in various departments of the British Civil Service, including the Police and Criminal Law Department of Great Britain's Home Office. She has served as a magistrate and as a governor of the BBC. In 2000 she celebrated her eightieth birthday and published her autobiography, Time to Be in Earnest. The recipient of many prizes and honors, she was created Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991. She lives in London and Oxford. —Random House
With her love of Jane Austen (she re-reads the entire canon every year) she has devised a mystery picking up 6 years after the marriage of Elizabeth Bennet to Mr. Knightly. Sound intriguing? Check out the interview (below) with the author and purchase copies of Death Comes to Pemberley(Random House 2010) for each JA fan on your holiday gift list.
Even if you are not a design professional, there are situations when you need to come up with a palette of color swatches: you're picking wall paint or furniture fabric after a house reno, you're designing a new web site and need a set of colors - or like me, you're in publishing and need to determine colors accents for a large format coffee table style book. Check out kuler Kuler is the web-hosted application that is part of the Adobe suite used for generating color themes that can inspire any project. No matter what you're creating, with Kuler you can experiment quickly with color variations and browse thousands of themes from the Kuler community.You can load in a picture and kulercolor.com will come up with a set of swatches automatically that you can brighten or mute as needed. Name and save the chip sample, post it to friends or colleagues. It's an indispensable tool in several industries. Here's how it works. After registering as a user (it's free) you can create your own swatches by uploading a photograph and then letting the program do the work. It picks 3 to 4 or 5 colors from your sample and you can select a mood, "brighter, muted, deep, darker or custom." These make subtle changes to the palette that might be more in line with your project goal. You can save swatches and refer to them again and again, and you get to see what other users have come up with when they name a swatch set. Go ahead, give it whirl.
Michael Lewis, author of The Big Short has a new book out that essentially takes TBS on a world tour. Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World is Lewis's take on how the world financial markets got caught in the financial crisis. He devotes a chapter each to Iceland, Germany, Greece and Ireland and asigns sweeping character assessments to explain their investor Gestalt. Forbes says "[Boomerang] demystifies Germany's role in the global debt calamity." Jackie McNish at the Globe and Mail says, "In Boomerang, a travelogue through the globe’s economic ruins, Lewis takes us into the lives of the hapless and misguided government officials, bankers and speculators who stoked the 2008 financial fires we wishfully and wrongly believed had been doused by massive government bailouts. Turns out, taxpayer dollars only stalled the carnage. Like a boomerang, the crisis is now swinging back with a vengeance and this slight, poignantly humorous 212-page book tells even the most informed student of global economics why it was inevitable." Check out Lewis's interview on You Tube with PBS economics correspondent, Paul Solman at this cozy little European-style restaurant in Washington, DC. What I love is how Lewis pokes a stick in the eye of all the people who he says thought they could beat the system. He says they were that guy in a dark room sitting next to a wad of money. Who could resist? They all knew what they were doing, and they handled it in their own stereotypical way. Don't take offense. The world tour's last stop is America, where Lewis claims that Americans, adept at re-inventing themselves without the fear of a European-like stigmata post-bankruptcy will use their "stories of woe" to rise pheonix-like out of the current world quagmire. My stock portfolio could use a little boost - thanks Michael..
For the past three weeks, Canadians from coast to coast to coast have been nominating their favourite memoirs, biographies and literary non-fiction reads for Canada Reads: True Stories. The response has been overwhelming! Thousands of entries poured in from nook and cranny, with readers nominating everything from CanLit classics like The Last Spike by Pierre Berton to new names in non-fiction like One Bird's Choice by Iain Reid. Browse the list and cast your vote.
In Alphabetic Order
Adventures in Solitude by Grant Lawrence And No Birds Sang by Farley Mowat Baltimore's Mansion by Wayne Johnston The Boy in the Moon by Ian Brown Burmese Lessons by Karen Connelly Burning Down the House by Russell Wangersky The Cello Suites by Eric Siblin Down to This by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall The Film Club by David Gilmour Gabrielle Roy written by Francois Ricard, translated by Patricia Claxton The Game by Ken Dryden The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant Jane Austen by Carol Shields The Last Spike by Pierre Berton Louis Riel by Chester Brown The Love Queen of Malabar by Merrily Weisbord Mordecai by Charles Foran The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary by Andrew Westoll Cockeyed by Ryan Knighton The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
We all expected it, but the news still came as a shock. Steve Jobs dead at 56. He was a genius, a visionary and an aesthetic rebel. Like the products he produced and the industries he affected. He made tech cool. As the accolades pour in for him I reflect on the impact he's made in my life and the lives of my family. We bought the first MacIntosh in 1984. (In fact we only recently gave it to a computer recycling depot after storing it for over 20 years.) My husband used it in medical school and upgraded religiously as newer models came along. We've always been a Mac family and so when my son entered into the gaming world and preferred to program with a PC we took it personally. (Don't worry, he's got lotsa Mac stuff now.) There has always been a Mac/PC schism in the world of geeks which is reflective of Steve Jobs own rebel attitude in business - he twice organized a coup of his company board and regularly addled executives. But his persistence paid off. PC users loved their key commands and code, while Mac users loved our intuitive operating system and attention to design elements. We've always bragged about the "plug and play" facility of Mac products and scorned the "blue screen of death" that our PC friends endured regularly. Start an Apple product and begin work instantly. Start a PC product and you have to take a coffee break before it's ready to use. That was the old LOL.
Learning opportunities abound on the web. We've talked about iTunes University's list of ivy league podcast lectures from Stanford, Berkeley et al, to award winning math educator KahnAcademy.com with 2,400 videos teaching everything from basic algebra to GMAT exam tutorials to multidisciplinary applied math in areas like astronomy, computer science or economics, (and even up-to-date stuff like videos of The Geithner Plan to Solve the Banking Crisis.) Want to learn a new language? Watch a series of You Tube videos in the language of choice. The difference between all those experiences and Saylor.org is that the Saylor Foundation offers the entire college experience in a choice 13 areas of study (Art History, Biology, Business Administration, Computer Science... ) that includes the complete course curriculum, online access to all suggested class reading material through the creative commons license, a full set of video lectures to follow along, all the course assignments you would normally get at a brick and mortar school, and of course, final exams. The clincher is IT'S ALL FREE. The Foundation is indebted to founder Michael Saylor and his dedicated full and part time staff, academic consultants and network content providers. I logged onto the site and picked the English Literature degree for example. LIke any college degree you have required core courses in the 100-300 level and a selection of elective choices in the 400 level. I picked the 200 level course: Cultural and Literary Expression in the 18th and 19th Century and got the course purpose, learning outcomes, course overview with a breakdown of concepts from the origins of the term "enlightenment" to the rise of the early novel and so on, all in palatable bite size pieces similar to what you'd learn in a typical classroom experience. In order to take the exam you must be logged into your Saylor Foundation School account. Check it out! There's no excuse not to get Back To School in your spare time.
I've been looking for a novel that captures the essence of life for the citizens of Libya during the Quadafi regime, and found it in Egyptian author, Idris Ali's The Leader Gets A Haircut. Unfortunately, I cannot read Arabic. If anyone knows of an English translation - please let me know; info @ bookbuffet.com. The Sept 5th, 2011 edition of The New Yorker has a feature by Hisham Matar, a Lybian writer, who describes his own experience under that regime; the disappearance of his father who became a permanent statistic of men who crossed Quadafi's political boundaries and paid the price with their life. Matar explains how Haircut derives its title: it is based on a well-circulated account of the day all the barbershops in Libya were closed by order of Colonel Muammar Quadafi. Apparently the dictator had had a nightmare where he was getting a haircut and a shave at a local barbershop and the razor-weilding barber slits his throat. Convinced that his dream is a premonition of some diabolical plot against him, the ensuing public consequence demonstrates how irrationality became the norm for the citizens of Libya. Arabic Literature in English writes "The 130-page book was based on Ali’s four years (1976-1980) as a foreign worker in Libya, and describes Egyptians toiling there under inhumane conditions. According to the the website Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), the book 'included testimonies of Libyans about social life there and how it was affected by repression under the rule of Colonel Quadafi.
Fantasy isn't generally speaking "my bag" but this book came so highly recommended by people I admire that I decided to give it a try. Glad I did. Lev Grossman writes in a style that's easy to fall into within the first page. The Magician King (Penguin, 2011) is categorized as psychological fiction. Some call it urban fantasy. It is the sequel to Grossman's first NYT bestseller and "literary phenomenon of 2009". Juno Diaz (author of The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao) calls it "a stirring, complex adventurous coming-of-age fantasy." It's about three brilliant college students who've known each other since childhood owing to the Brookline school system's propensity to "sort out the gifted [students] and shove them together, then separate the ridiculously brilliant ones from the merely gifted ones and shove them together; and as a result they'd been bumping into each other in the same speaking contests and regional Latin exams and tiny, specially convened ultra-advanced math classes since elementary school." pg 4. Everyone loves to read about exceptional people. And fantasy has been reeling them in from Narnia to Harry Potter. We are drawn into contemporary fantasy where the landscape is the imagination.
Quentin is the thin tall hero of the story. Julia and James are his schoolmates. Together they find unexpected power and the dark side of hedonism and disillusionment in a place called Fillory. (Don't worry - like all good fantasies there is a map on the first page.) I can't think of a better way to lose oneself at the close of summer.
For Whistler Reads members, our next book discussion will be Canadian author Wayne Johnston's new novel, A World Elsewhere (RandomHouse CA 2011). Click on the link to purchase from amazon.ca for $20.56, or locals go see Dan Ellis at Armchair Books in Whistler and receive our 10% WR member discount off retail. GREAT NEWS! The author is coming to Whistler for the Whistler Readers & Writers 2011 Festival on Sunday October 16th from 10-2pm along with another award-winning Canadian author, Miriam Toews. Purchase your ticket ($35 includes breakfast) here if you'd like to attend. Check out the rest of the festival line-up here for daily blog entries promoting the program and inspiring us all to write and read.
True confession: Wayne Johnston is the reason I created this website 9 years ago. I don't know whether to thank him or taunt him with the fact that he essentially changed the course of my life?
So you've been plugging away at the next great novel or perhaps that longish fiction piece based on your last trip to Turkey and you're beginning to wonder where you could get published for money, joy or fame? Look no further than DUOTROPE. Duotrope is the award-winning, free writers' resource listing over 3525 current Fiction and Poetry publications. Use this site to search for markets that may make a fine home for the piece you just polished. Use the menus at the top and right of the home page to explore all of the free services they offer writers and editors, including a free online submissions tracker for registered users. They claim to "make several updates per day, and check each of the current listings regularly (at least once a month) to ensure the most up-to-date database humanly possible. So far this week, [they] have checked guidelines for 918 listings, and we have made 527 listing updates. The last update was made 1 hour(s) and 7 minute(s) ago." Sounds like these guys have your back.
I tried it and here's how it worked. I used the drop down menu to select TRAVEL, HISTORICAL, 2500 WORDS, LITERARY, YES PAY, WHATEVER THEY WILL and so on. The results turned up The Manchester Review as a first suggestion with some interesting link options that allow you to explore the publication, check out back issues, see if there are any upcoming events, listen to their podcasts, check out their "Center for Writing" and of course the be-all and end-all, names of the review team, dates they accept submissions, guidelines and so on. There is also a section listing other publications that people submitted works to like the search return, and other publications people were accepted at who fit this category. All in all, this is a fantastic site for writers looking to find homes for their work. Check it out. DUOTROPE Next I think that I will follow up with a suggested editor/publication and let you know how I make out!
The Help by Karen Stock Stockett is one of those books that you see on the NYT Bestsellers list for over 100 weeks, is translated into 5 languages and sells 5 million copies (so far), gets adapted into a summer film feature blockbuster with rumors of Academy Award nominations that you go to see with your entire book club and have to push past all the other women in the audience seated with their book club. When you hear The Help is the author's break out novel and that it was turned down by 60 literary agents before finally being picked up by the apparently clairvoyant Susan Ramer you want to cheer. My 20-year-strong book group (who've carried on without me through thick and thin) picked this book for our summer read and I have to say that the plot originally did not move me: set in the 60s during the civil rights movement it exposes the bigotry, cruelty and injustices of the White Southern society toward the one-generation-removed-from-slavery African American residents who work for them as domestics and laborers. I felt I "knew" that part of history and that we'd covered "that topic" before in books like Life of Bees or The Color Purple. However, as with all bestsellers, there's more to it than just plot. We fall in love with the characters, we see raw truths in their behavior and we are reminded to be scrupulous in our own relationships and to respect the past.
The story is set in Jackson Mississippi and narrated by three voices: Abileen Clark who has spent her life raising 14 white babies with tender love and respect despite the tragic mistreatment of her only son; Minny Jackson, the chocolate pie (with that secret ingredient) baking Black housekeeper that talks back to her bosses and lands a job on the outside of town working for the good but troubled white outcast of the ladies circle. Lastly there is Eugena "Skeeter" Phelan, a headstrong young White woman who champions "the help" by teasing out their stories (with considerable risk to them, given the period) in the intension of exposing the injustices she sees in her town and her effort to break into the publishing world. She hooks her editor with the line, "These women raise white children; we love them and they love us. But they can't even use the toilets in our houses." Most poignant is the reciprocated affections between the Black nannies and the white children they raise, contrasted with the surly vindictive all-powerful Whiter matrons, a metaphor for race relations of the times.
Pick up the book in paper, digital or audio version and grab your bf's to catch the movie in theatre before summer's end. (Trailer)
I used to live in Boston on Beacon Hill and one of my favorite things to do was to cross the Charles River and head over to the Harvard University campus where the Harvard Book Store is located. Its rival was "The Coop". Recently the employees of THBS were asked to come up with a list of 100 of their all-time favorite books. The lists were compared and compiled into one master list - probably using some complex mathematical formula borrowed from MIT for weighting and placement. Here is the list. See how many you've read, want to re-read, or are planning to read for the first time and add them to your summer reading list. If you've got a digital reader it's easy to load-up and keep them on your virtual bookshelf. We've placed the list into groups of 10 so you can tally each set and keep track of your percentages:
The title of this feature should read "The Art of Aging Well". Nobody can say the gal hasn't gained in popularity over the years with the sale (to an individual) of an unfinished manuscript titled, "The Watsons" dating from 1804 at Sotheby's auction this past week, making it the only original JA manuscript or portion-there-of NOT in the hands of a public institution. Makes you wonder what the chap who bought it is going to do with it? Watsons is the story of four sisters who are the family of a widowed clergyman. The work was apparently passed on in the estate to Jane's sister Cassandra, then to her niece Caroline Mary Craven Austen (1805-1880), the younger daughter of their eldest brother James. It was in Caroline’s possession when first published in 1871 by her brother James Edward Austen-Leigh. It passed to Caroline Austen’s nephew, William Austen-Leigh, and he presented the first six leaves (a quire of two leaves and a quire of four leaves) to a charity sale in aid of the Red Cross Society at Christie, Manson, and Woods’s on 26 April 1915. Lot 1520, it sold for £65 to Lady Wernher.
The author Margaret Drabble describes the work as "a tantalising, delightful and highly accomplished fragment, which must surely have proved the equal of her other six novels had she finished it". Jane Austen died at the age of 41 in 1817. You can get the complete set of her works for only $15.15 plus shipping Complete Novels Of Jane Austen or purchase a Amazon Kindle Wi-Fi 6'' Wireless Reading Device (Graphite) and download the digital version. And then take advantage of the 99cent offer for the entire digital library of Jane Austen titles here.
Become a member of the Jane Austen North American Society (or stop in to see what kind of trouble they routinely get into... http://www.jasna.org.) I shall now invent a poolside cocktail to celebrate!
-1 part GIN, British label please
-1 part Absynthe, because it's old and previously forbidden
-dash of rose water, the essence of a proper country garden
-angostura bitters, for all the spilt tears in Jane's novels
-guava juice, to give it the perfect shade of pink-coral
Put all ingredients into a martini shaker over ice and strain into a fine crystal glass, which lends the appropriate drama for the occasion. Cheers Jane Austen book lovers!
With so many wonderful Indo-diasporan authors making waves in the fiction world over the years: Kiran Desai, Salmon Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Vikram Chandra, Rohinton Mistry, Arundhati Roy... the list goes on, here is an interesting new book by Rupinder Gill, On the Outside Looking Indian (McClelland Books, 2011) that details a spirit and insight through her own non-fiction coming-of-age story that is both laugh-out-loud funny and full of universal truths. Listen to her interview on BookLounge.ca here. And if you're intrigued, there's also this excellent in-depth interview by Allan Gregg on TVO via YouTube.
The author's blurb goes: "There's a phenomenon in Amish culture called Rumspringa, where Amish adolescents are permitted to break free from their modest and traditional lifestyles to indulge in normally taboo activities. They dress how they want, go out if and when they please, smoke, drink and generally party like it's 1899. At the end they decide if they will return and join the Amish church.
"I am 30 years old. I wore my hair in two braids every day until I was 12. I dressed more conservatively than most Amish, barely left my house until I was 18 and spent the last 12 years studying and working hard on my career like a good little Indian girl. The time has come; you are witness to the dawning of my Indian Rumspringa, a Ram-Singha if you will. But instead of smoking and drinking Bud Lights in a park while yelling 'Down with barn raising!' I plan to indulge in a different manner — by pursuing everything I wish had been a part of my youth. Things I always felt were part of most North Americans' adolescent experience...
"This is the story of the ultimate New Year's resolution, more akin to a new life resolution. Will it all be fun? Will my friends and family support my walk down memory-less lane? Will it all matter in the end? I don't know yet but much like my young Rumspringaed-out counterpart, I will decide whether or not there is any going back."
Summer for me means visiting the art galleries of the city I am traveling. The Tate Modern has an excellent exhibit of Modernist-Surrealist painter and sculptor Joan Miró (thru Sept 11, 2011) that affords a brilliant look at the artist's life, his work and the history that shaped both. It is the first major retrospective in 50 years in London. I especially enjoyed the short film with Miró's grandson giving a tour of his grandfather's two studios where you can see everything in its place. I had the pleasure of viewing the show with a Greek friend who claims she is going to make a large canvas version [in turquoise] of one of the paintings in Miró's blue series for display on the living room wall of her modern style home in Athens. "That's a lovely idea," I said. "Just call it your 'Turquoise Homage de Miro'. An original is beyond we mere mortals and a poster version is better suited to a university dorm wall."
We discussed the challenge of making a large canvas a single color; do you use wide brushes or a roller? We see from close inspection of the work that he used a combination dry brush technique at the finish. It may look like child's play, but if you try it you'll see the difficulty.
If you can't make it to the exhibit in London (or the Miró Museum in Barcelona), the next best thing is to purchase a copy of Miro (Taschen 25th Anniversary) and check out the excellent review in the The Guardian while you're waiting delivery of this book as an addition to your art book collection. More about Miró and the Surrealist movement.
I wish I had taken a photo of the timeline on the wall. If anyone does so, please send me a copy. paulas (at) bookbuffet.com —Thanks!
What would you do if you could talk to animals? What would you say? What would this discovery mean to our society? Sara Gruen’s award winning novel Ape House
is a thought provoking read, which poses several questions about how we treat our closest relatives.
Gruen holds a mirror to human culture and we can see it reflected in the engaging eyes of a great ape. Bonobos are part of the great ape family, they are less aggressive and dominant than chimpanzees and are distinguished by their long legs, pink lips, and dark faces. Their facial expressions, and hand gestures are freakishly human in nature, and it’s this human connection that intrigued award-winning writer Sara Gruen.
“Although John already knew that the bonobos’ preferences varied (for example he knew Mbongo’s favourite food was green onions and that Sam loved pears), he was surprised by how distinct, how different, how almost human, they were.”
For those of us who have forever missed meeting or hearing David Foster Wallace speak, here is an interview titled, "A Frightening Time in America" published in The New York Review of Books by Ostap Karmodi.
The following conversation is drawn from an interview I did with David Foster Wallace in September 2006 as part of a series of articles and radio pieces about important foreign writers, artists, and movie directors who were not well known in Russia at the time. (Unfortunately, Wallace’s readership in Russia is still very small.) The occasion for our talk was the tenth anniversary of the publication of Infinite Jest. I planned to talk to Mr. Wallace for fifteen minutes, but we ended up talking for
We've all met people who just can't seem to get along socially - be that an awkwardness in the workplace, inappropriate behavior in public or social settings or people who have given up interacting and become loners. A new book by Michelle Garcia Winner and Pamela Crooke titled, Social Thinking At Work: Why Should I Care? (North River Press, June 2011) is out that helps to explain how we develop social skills and why they're so important to personal and professional success. Turns out the term was coined by the author(s) over a decade ago and in the ensuing space of time they've gone on to become thought leaders on the topic, giving lectures and winning awards. Their work starts with youth and carries on up to teens and adults.
" Social thinking is a term for social cognition. Social thinking is required prior to the development of social skills. Successful social thinkers consider the points of view, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, prior knowledge and intentions of others (this is often called perspective-taking - considering the perspectives of others). This is for most of us an intuitive process. We can determine the meanings behind the messages communicated by others and how to respond to them within milliseconds to three seconds! Social thinking occurs everywhere, when we talk, share space, walk down the street, even when we read a novel and relate to our pets. It is an intelligence that integrates information across home, work and community settings - something we usually take for granted!"
You don't need to have Aspberger's Syndrome or autism to be interested in this book. It turns out, social behavior has a spectrum: some of us are better at this than others. Sounds like a useful resource to leave laying around the office coffee room, if not suggested reading in workplace orientations. Check out their website and join their Facebook page.
I've got a friend who is obsessed with weekend yard/garage sales that abound over summer. She and her husband like nothing better than to scour their neighborhood for upcoming sales during the week, then get up early on the weekend and grab a latte before they head out treasure hunting. I must tell her about the new buy & sell website called Copious.com that operates out of Facebook. It claims you can "buy from people not strangers" a dig at the faceless behemoth eBay. Since Facebook connects you to friends and friends-of-friends, one presumes there'll be things you'll want to buy or sell off the people you share interests, socio-economic backgrounds, and who are easy to track down if the item is not what you expected. The site is clean and simple. My interest was tweeked when I saw who the founders and investors are. Check this out:
MASTERPIECE celebrates 40 years of bringing high-quality adaptations of classic works to PBS on Sunday nights. For the occasion, they have revamped a full library of book-to-film discussion guides from the archive—find titles ranging from Jane Eyre to The Diary of Anne Frank and Doctor Zhivago at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/bookclub/guides.html
The Book & Film Club resources provide everything you need for your club. Over 25 guides, sorted by title or author, provide discussion questions, author bios, background essays, interviews, and even activities and recipes.
The next author to be added to the MASTERPIECE Book & Film Club collection is Agatha Christie, with book-to-film discussion resources for Poirot and Miss Marple available this June at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/bookclub/index.html
Oddly enough I have actually studied angel iconography as part of my English Language degree. I shied away from the phonetics and advanced syntax classes on offer and delved into the eclectic mix of subjects that made up the Folklore Department. We covered supernatural beliefs, place name study, and eventually we were allowed to choose a subject to research that would give us the larger portion of our marks. When I saw the cover of Danielle Trussoni’s second novel Angelology
I was immediately drawn in. The dramatic black front with a white winged figure in chains sets the tone for the book - the story is as dark as the image suggests. These are not the angels of self help books, or the ones on the front of Christmas cards, this book depicts them as more demon than angel. In a modern world obsessed with vampires, myth and legend, secret sects, and anything dark and sexy, Danielle Trussoni could be adding angels to the aforementioned list.
Almost everyone these days has a Facebook page to keep in touch with friends. Some people stop in once a day, others check their wall obsessively through out. But how many of you notice the advertisements on the side bar, and how many of you are compelled to click on them? As a book reviewer the Facebook marketing department got my attention when they served me an ad about a book with an intriguing cover written by Jim Hanas titled, Why They Cried.(Kindle version $7.95) I clicked on the ad, got to his website and saw that the book is a collection of short stories published in every digital format currently available— Kindle, iPad, iPhone Ap, and iTunes. Between the review, the cover and the savvy of marketing and distribution I decided it was time to contact Jim Hanas to ask, "How's it going with that?"
INTERVIEW
BB: Hi Jim. Thanks for taking this interview. Your book advert came up on my Facebook page and I was intrigued by both the cover and the concept of self promotion using social networking. Everyone says it works - what's your experience?
Jim Hanas: Whether or not social networks "work" depends, I suppose, on what work you want them to do. I've been a blogger for years, so there was never a moment when I calculated that using social networks could help me sell books. That would be like wondering if a telephone or e-mail would help me sell books. They might, but that's not their exclusive purpose.
The New York Public Library has a speaking series that makes you wish you lived in the Big Apple. Here's one to catch if you're planning to be in town: Billionaires Against Bull: From Charity to Justice. Ralph Nader speaks to Ted Turner and Peter Lewis.
Wednesday, May 4th at 7:00 p.m.
Celeste Bartos Forum, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.
$25 General Admission, $15 FRIENDS of The NYPL, Seniors & Students
In "Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!", Ralph Nader imagines a coalition of billionaires who join forces to answer the question: “What if several of America’s wealthiest individuals decided it was time to work for the collective good?”
On May 4th, Turner and Peter Lewis, two billionaires portrayed in Ralph Nader's fictional narrative, will appear on stage in real life for a taboo-free exchange with the author.
The two "billionaires against bull," as Ralph Nader characterizes them, will join the consumer advocate and provocateur to envision how philanthropy can spark key redirections of our society, our country, and the world.
Rhetoric has gotten a bad name lately as people associate it with politicians who are full of bluster and hot air. But the term has a much more honorable history. Broadly and rightly understood, rhetoric is the art of using words to persuade or otherwise affect an audience; for most of Western history it was viewed as a central feature of a liberal education.
Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric, published on 18 February 2011, is a return to that tradition, and is the perfect antidote to the linguistic vacuity of our age. Here, the reader exasperated by the current state of the language will find page after page of refreshment - an enjoyable and reassuring exhibition of what the English language can do at its best. Wit and great writing, presented lucidly and entertainingly, will restore hope to those driven to despair by texting and twittering.
Have you ever wondered about the best way to use erotema or litotes? Hypophora and prolepsis? Let Farnsworth show you with examples from the Anglo-American
greats - from Churchill and Lincoln, Dickens, Shakespeare,Thoreau, Shaw, Chesterton, Melville and others. These effective speakers and writers used patterns that arrange words according to principles that are elements of beauty and power - repetition and variety, suspense and relief, concealment and surprise. These examples both entertain and provide a blueprint for anyone who aspires to write and speak effectively.
Not only educational but delightful. - David Mamet
Every writer should have this book. - Erin McKean, editor Verbatim
Ward Farnsworth is Professor Law, Nancy Barton Scholar, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Boston University School of Law. He attended Wesleyan University and the University of Chicago Law School. Farnsworth has written scholarly articles on a wide range of legal topics, and is the author The Legal Analyst (2007), a guide to analytical tools for thinking about the law. He has written a treatise on chess that is available on the internet. He lives in Boston with his wife and family. More information can be found at www.wardfarnsworth.com
Fans of The Paris Review are rewarded each quarter with a new edition of works selected by the editors that introduce us to unknown and established authors alike. They also give out annual awards and prizes to writers at both ends of the spectrum: The Plimpton Prize (honors The Paris Review's longtime editor, George Plimpton, who presided over the magazine for fifty years, until his death in September 2003) is awarded to the best piece of fiction by a newcomer to appear in The Paris Review that year. The Hadada is awarded annually to a distinguished member of the literary community who has demonstrated a strong and unique commitment to literature. Past Hadada statues (a bronze replica of the Paris Review's iconic bird) have been given to John Ashbery, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, Peter Matthiessen, George Plimpton, Barney Rosset, and William Styron. Last year went to Philip Roth. Drum roll please... This year it goes to James Salter.
James Salter is an American novelist and screenwriter born in NYC June 10th, 1925. That makes him 86 years old with a lifetime of literary contributions drawn from his formative years, twelve of which were spent serving as a fighter pilot in the Korean theatre on 100 missions flying the F-86 Sabre in the renowned Mig-fighting unit. He used his Korean experience for his first novel, The Hunters (1956), which was made into a film starring Robert Mitchum in 1958 and re-published under the title Cassada. His 1961 novel The Arm of Flesh drew on his experiences flying with the 36th Fighter-Day Wing at Bitburg Air Base, Germany, between 1954 and 1957.
His writerly style was influenced by Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, Andre Guide and Thomas Wolfe.
"Widely regarded as one of the most artistic writers of modern American fiction, Salter himself is critical of his own work, having said that only his 1967 novel A Sport and a Pastime comes close to living up to his standards. Set in post-war France, Sport And A Pastime is a piece of erotica involving an American student and a young French girl, told as flashbacks in the present tense by an unnamed narrator who barely knows the student and who himself yearns for the girl, and who freely admits that most of his narration is fantasy." —Wikipedia
His introduction to Hollywood was for a production featuring the young actor, Robert Redford in "Downhill Racer" about a competive ski racer. Here is a excellent link dedicated to that 1969 film production with video clips of both the film and an older Redford talking about its making. My friends and colleagues in Whistler involved in skiing and filmmaking and film festival organization will be interested in the lessons here-in.
Shanghai Girls I have just finished Lisa See’s latest novel, and I am devastated. I turn to the next page in hope that it’s a misprint and that there must be more written – this just can’t be the end. I have been following two Chinese sisters, May and Pearl, as they embark on a journey from their home country to America. It is a story of displacement and identity. Underpinning it all is the tale of sisterly love, as well as sibling rivalry. Lisa See weaves an enthralling tale at a time in history where there were so many stories to be told.
Lisa See is the author of critically acclaimed and international bestseller, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2005). She has also written a three part mystery series, as well as non-fiction and short story works. Lisa See released her first book in 1995, On Gold Mountain: The One Hundred Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family . This is the story of her grandfather’s journey to Los Angeles, and how he became the godfather for Chinatown. Her latest novel is the third in her Chinese set, and from what I hear will not be the last.
Marshall McLuen's catch phrase "the medium is the message" coined in 1964 has never been truer for the folks at Electric Literature Company in New York who have just launched their new Broadcaster App. Key to McLuhan's argument is the idea that technology has no per se moral bent—it is a tool that profoundly shapes an individual's and, by extension, a society's self-conception and realization. How does this relate to Broadcaster App? Using your iPhone you can download free storytelling using social media and an interactive map. Access 6,000 stories (and counting) it uses your geo locator to pinpoint a story near you. There's also an upload feature if you feel the need to contribute.
No iPhone? No problem. All the stories are also available on the website. Here are some stories we think you and Electric Literature readers might enjoy:
A daughter talks about her mother’s long love affair with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jennifer Egan reads from A Visit from the Goon Squad, and one man shares his deep thoughts on Shakespeare.
For a blast from the past, you could listen to the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler from your iPhone while strolling through the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Having spent several summers doing research at the British Library I am a confessed fan of the institution. As a board member on the Vancouver Public Library Foundation I am keenly aware of the impact libraries have in our community locally. With the digitization of books transforming the way we access, borrow, read or purchase books and store them, we need each be interested in public library policy concerning the uptake of e-technology and whether we are meeting the public needs. It is the jurisdiction of the acquisition librarian(s) to decide whether a particular item is acquired in print, digital or both versions for library lending use. One would think that rapid-turnover items such as light fiction and romance titles would be a good choice for digitally stocked copies with resource books, biographies and say classics stocked in print and digital versions. It brings up interesting questions such as "how do we avoid the 'digital divide'? That's the difference between library patrons who can afford to purchase or perhaps already own a digital reader offering them the ability to download both library and retail digital books for their pleasure, and the people who cannot afford such a costly electronic device who would be left picking over whatever remains on library shelves? But the most profound debate of all facing libraries is: "Is there really a need for 'brick and motor' libraries at all?" To that I respond a resounding YES, but don't take my word for it. Here are two excellent resources to help you decide.
The first is an essay written by Philip Pullman, CBE, FRSL and author of The Golden Compass. Please read through the excellent debate raging in the comments section!
The second is this BBC tour of The British Library with journalist Spencer Kelly who addresses these issues. The BL that is one of the largest resource libraries in the world; for every book published in the UK there is at least one copy in the BL stacks. Take a look at how they're handling things. VIDEO LINK
When discussing books and examining literature we sometimes run into literary devices whose name and definition have escaped us since college and university days. Recognizing them and discussing their use elevates your discussions. Here is a test to refresh your memory.
Match these literary terms with the definitions below. 10/10: Head of the class; 8/10 Still teacher's pet; 6/10 Some review required; 4 or less: Purchase one of the reference books below.
Allegory
Metaphor
Parody
Allusion
Irony
Satire
Simile
Aphorism
Personification
Paradox
Definitions:
A. An imitation of the work of another for the purpose of ridicule that is sometimes humorous.
B. A brief reference to a person, event, or place -- real or fictitious, or to a work of art. May be drawn from history, geography, literature or religion.
C. The comparison of two unlike things using the verb "to be" and not like or as.
D. A literary device used to make fun of human vice or weakness, often with the intent of correcting or changing the subject of attack.
E. A form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. In other words it's when a story has two (or more) meanings: a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.
Now more than ever business professionals are on the go and operating virtual offices. How do you maximize efficiency and keep track of incoming calls? Meet eVoice - from the makers of eFax.com. You’re busy with clients and meetings and don’t have time to listen to every voicemail message. Now you can receive easy-to-read transcriptions of your voice messages
delivered as a text message or email. eVoice answers and routes your calls, transcribes your voicemail to text-and much more! It's like having your own personal assistant 24/7. And the best part is, eVoice works with your existing phone number, so you don’t have to deal with the hassle of changing it. Check out the demo.
Whistler Reads members have been asking for a fun piece of popular fiction and our next book will not disappoint. Abraham Varghese's Cutting for Stone is now out in paperback. WR members get a 10% discount off this title when they purchase at Armchair Books. "Not since Khaled Hosseini debuted with The Kite Runner has there been a novel that could and should capture the hearts of people around the world," writes Mike Sullivan. In fact the accolades from a long list of celebrated authors and reviewers tells us we are all in for a treat. Join us April 14th at Nita Lake Lodge in the library, 7-9pm. Nita has a wonderful wine list. We will pick a few to sample by the glass - cash bar.
Join us on Thursday April 14th 7:00-9:00 at the Nita Lake Lodge (library) in Whistler. Advance tickets $15 and $20 at the door.
Cutting for Stone takes readers from India to Ethiopia to America. The cover blurb had this to say:
Whistler Reads - the village book group - has been meeting every 8 weeks to discuss a new book since February 2005. That makes us exactly 6 years old this month. With over 30 author events under our belt we thought you might like to check our track record in picking books for the program and bringing these fresh authors to Whistler. In fact, right now, two of them, John Vaillant, The Tiger and Matthew Hooton, Deloume Road have recently won awards and are currently on the CBC Bookclub's competition for the favorite book in Canada in these categories: Best Nonfiction, Best of this Year, Best Fiction. Vote here and support them today!
As far as what the rest of the authors we've discussed are up to, here is a list chronologically. (updating as we speak!)
Dec 2010: John Vaillant, The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival: John won the BC Award for nonfiction - Canada's largest prize, is nominated for the CBC Bookie Award for Best Nonfiction and Best Overall Book. He is currently writing his first novel, which will be an interesting departure for fans of his two award-winning nonfiction books.
Oct 2010: Kerry Madden, Harper Lee: Up Close and To Kill a Mockingbird: 50th Anniversary of the publishing of TKAM.
July 2010: Matthew Hooton, Deloume Road: nominated Best Nonfiction CBC Bookies, voted Random House list of "Most Promising New Writers 2010". Presently working on his next novel which also features a child-driven narrative plot.
May 2010: Michael Pollin, Food Rules. I had no idea that Michael's sister is the actress Tracy Pollin who is married to actor Michael J. Fox. He speaks extensively (for huge fees) to groups, still teaches at Berkeley School of Journalism and will publish the next version of Food Rules fall 2011. His blog asks readers to submit their own food rules in the hopes that somebody has new catchy single sentence mantras about healthy eating that he can share. Pollin has become the figurehead for food-safety and sustainable farming practices and the stamp-out-junk-food cult.
Feb 2010: Annabel Lyon, The Golden Rule. Annabel contributed to Finding The Words, an anthology published by McLelland&Stewart used as a fundraiser for PEN Canada.
Nov 2009: David Byrne, Bicycle Diaries WR beat Vancouver's "most environmentalist mayor" Gregor Robertson (by almost a full year) to the punch when they hosted Byrne in Vancouver in October 2010 along with 2 other speakers advocating urban planning and bicycle routes. The singer-songwriter-artist Byrne continues his multimedia productivity with the Jan 20, 2011 UK premiere his film "Ride Rise Roar" simulcast across theatres in Britain and he had an important art exhibit in Tokyo.
Sep 2009: Alice Munro, Too Much Happiness was Knighted with The Order of Arts and Letters and of course won the Man Booker Prize 2009.
Sophisticated readers looking for something different from the typical fare offered on the bestseller lists and by the domestic pub houses will be excited to get their hands on 3 new translations of foreign classics not available in English before now, coming courtesy of The New York Review of Books, Classics. These Dutch, Polish and German authors introduced the genres of the confessional novel, 19th century realism and ironic modernity. All three novels are available at an incredibly low price of ten bucks and are great editions to your foreign classic library with their delicious cover art. (Yes, some of us still DO collect books and commit space in our house to display them. You can also do that old-fashioned thing with a pocket book - loan it to a friend. Quaint idea, no?)
A Posthumous Confession by Marcellus Emants is translated from Dutch. This novel is a powerful and unsettling psychological study of the relationship between hatred and desire. Translated by Nobel prize-winning author J. M. Coetzee, the novel that "won a permanent place for [Emants] in the history of Dutch literature" is now available after being out of print for many years.
Termeer, Emants's narrator and antihero, is a deeply frustrated, emotionally stunted man who finds himself continually reminded of his own worthless mediocrity. Due to a dark and condemning upbringing and his own sense of self-loathing, Termeer can only seem to live up to the low expectations of his family and community—until, that is, he successfully woos a beautiful and gifted woman. Their marriage, however, leads only to further distress, and Termeer soon decides that only in murder can he find ultimate satisfaction. Reminiscent of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, Termeer's chilling narrative will have every reader pondering the delicate nature of self.
"Since the time of Rousseau we have seen the growth of the genre of the confessional novel, of which A Posthumous Confession is a singularly pure example. Termeer, claiming to be unable to keep his dreadful secret, records his confession and leaves it behind as a monument to himself, thereby turning a worthless life into art."
As the longest-running primetime drama on American television, Masterpiece is committed to bringing viewers the best in literature-based drama, mysteries filled with eclectic characters, and groundbreaking contemporary works. Each month BookBuffet partners with WGBH Boston to give readers the inside scoop on their books to film.
One of my favorite authors is now featured having adapted one of his own novels into a 3-part Masterpiece television series starring a long and talented list of actors from the British repitory. William Boyd is a UK novelist (Scottish actually, born in Accra Ghana), screenwriter and short story writer who has won multiple awards for his fiction including the Whitbread, the Booker, Somerset Maugham to name a few and he earned his CBE in 2005. He's the lesser-known contemporary of Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Ian McEwan who writes in ironic style in settings both in the UK and Europe as well as Africa. Any Human Heart is one of my favorites. It's a diary-style novel that follows the life and internal machinations of Logan Mountstuart through his adventurous and eventful (love)life beginning with his first sexual experience while studying literature at Oxford, through several romances and marriages, mixed with extensive travel and work over a couple career paths taken before, during and after WWII. Mountstuart is a novelist, a spy, a war correspondent, an art dealer, a freelance writer and a literary agent. His very human heart experiences obsessive love, ambiguous love, filial love, petty love and enduring love. During his life he
You've got one week cupid. I recommend a confection with greater than 60% cocoa to stimulate the serotonin levels plus this new book by Stephen and Thomas Amidon, The Sublime Engine: A Biography of the Human Heart scheduled for release February 14th, Valentine's Day. (Kindle version)
These two quotes on their twitter page piqued my interest: "What we find words for is already dead in our heart." —Nietzsche. "Every kiss a heart-quake," —Lord Byron, Don Juan.
A book with the perfect blend of art and science about the very organ that makes us tick physically, emotionally and metaphorically. Written by two brothers, one a cardiologist, the other a novelist, The Sublime Engine encompasses science, religion, literature and the arts. The heart has been the symbol of humanity from the time of the Egyptians and ancient Greece through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, right up to the modern era.
“No matter how much you think you know about the heart, you will be enlightened and entertained by this fascinating book. From its image as a religious icon and the seat of thoughts and feelings, we are led through the great discoveries of its function, its diseases, and its cures, including the most up-to-date therapies and promising clinical research.”—William Parmley, M.D., former Chief of Cardiology, UCSF, past president of the American College of Cardiology.
Our heart beats an average of 3 billion times during an 80-year lifespan. We speak, feel and react with our hearts; heartaches are the viceral response to sorrow. We know and feel excitement and desire when our heart quickens and sometimes skips a beat, or when we blush - that physiologic response dilating vessels in our face and body.
As a writer and history buff I love all the literary references. But in my former life (yes ppl, there was life before BookBuffet) I worked in the Massachusetts General Hospital's critical care cardiac unit. I've saved lives, administered CPR, seen open chests with beating hearts and witnessed death. The Sublime Engine's attention to cardiac physiology and up-to-date medical knowledge on heart disease and how to maintain a healthy heart make this a truly unique tribute to this vital topic!
Better Book Titles is a blog for book snobs and avid readers seeking personal titillation (or the opportunity to poke fun with other book snobs.) You'll know you qualify when you browse Better Book Titles because you'll have 5 people in mind to send this link. That includes trade people like book reviewers, most book editors but certainly not all, and librarians who do more than shuffle the stacks. I would safely guess you also qualify if: you've been in a book club for over 5 years; you majored in lit, philosophy or even the law; you were unpopular or pudgy in school or didn't play extracurricular sports; you take a long daily commute; you work a boring job with little supervision... You get the drift.
You don't necessarily have to have a photographic memory of all the books you've ever read - it just means that you're not going to roll around on the floor as quickly as the rest of us. The top book cover is an excellent bad joke-current read example. This compelling true story was adapted into an Academy Award nominated film and it's a simple play on titles... Hemingway would approve since he was both an adventurist and a man of, er definitive action.
Books with those delicious Penguin-style art covers that scream C L A S S I C (equals Publishers lucrative backlist, forever) beg a sarcastic replacement title referencing the fustian nature of the writer or the novel, and demonstrate the smug fact that you actually read the book and "got it" (or supremely couldn't care because you were not a Lit Major.)
If you want to throw in a cover to make a dig at the amorphous "bestseller audience", then delight in this Stieg Larsson cover improvement. Better Book Titles is the brainchild of Dan Wilbur (yes, that really is his name) who claims it is a blog, "for people who do not have thousands of hours to read book reviews or blurbs or first sentences." He cuts through "all the cryptic crap, and give[s] you the meat of the story in one condensed image... [so] you can read the greatest literary works of all time in mere seconds!"
A new Better Book Title is posted every weekday. Every Friday a reader's submission will be posted. Redesign and titles by Dan Wilbur unless credited otherwise. Why not add his Twitter posts to your feed?
January is a time for renewal and self-examination. If you don't think you need to do this from time to time, you are mistaken. We go along in life taking care of pressing details: family obligations, work commitments, chores and projects, and we tend to neglect our personal well-being. We are like a root-bound plant in a pot. When the seed is planted the nutrients are plentiful, the soil soft, the plant has room to grow and thrive. As the soil nutrients deplete and the root fibers tangle, the plant chokes. This is where The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, A Toltec Wisdom Book written by Don Miguel Ruiz can help you. The slim hand-sized volume has been published by a number of entities and sells out with each reprint - a good sign that people have found the advice useful!
We are taking a week off from BB author interviews and insert instead in this column an interview with two fabulous writers who both made it onto the NYRB top 10 for 2010 list. Meet Jennifer Egan and Siddhartha Mukherjee in conversation with Sam Tanenhaus, editor for the New York Review of Books. (31:34 min)
As an interviewer it is great to listen to dialogue between authors and other reviewers. Good interviews result from asking the right questions in the right order and having an acute understanding of the book and even the body of work of the person you are interviewing. Drawing analogies to other works or other artists, setting the piece in perspective and teasing the strengths or the controversies, the illuminations or the craft of the design is what distinguishes a great interview. It helps to be talking to powerhouses. I think you will find in the authors here, a compassion for their characters that informs and infuses their writing. We "get" 70s punk rock musicians (in Jennifer's case) and patients confronting the most ominous diagnosis - the C word (in Sid's case) because of this intimacy.
Jennifer Egan is an essayist and short story writer from Brooklyn whose work has been said to be unclassifiable, though others call it a postmodern experiment that comes off brilliantly. Here she talks about her book A Visit from the Goon Squad (Knopf, 2010) a series of short stories that feature different characters and settings, indeed different styles entirely, in each with the consistent theme of rock musicians and their worlds in the 70s. It all deftly fits together into a cohesive narrative. Egan says, "There are a lot of writers who find a groove and spend a career mining that vein. I seem to be exactly the opposite. Each book is its own exploration and obsession, with a certain set of ideas and concerns. And once I have finished it, I feel that they will never be alive for me in the same again. And I can really say that for every one of my books."
Sitting in the Blenz coffee shop on Broadway and Maple in Vancouver I'm waiting to meet Canadian poet and performer Leanne Averbach. In she comes with her beehive faux fur hat, auburn tresses and a large smile. Over the bustle and noise of the baristas tamping coffee, the customer chatter and canned music we discuss her life and career. As a bi-coastal resident of New York and Vancouver with lots of stops in Toronto to keep track of family, Leanne leads an interesting life. After earning her MFA in creative writing at a New York University she traveled extensively. While studying in Florence she attended the Perugia Jazz festival and was emboldened to cobble some musicians together to accompany a sultry reading of her own poetry. The fusion performance created something of a sensation and attracted the local television media. Since then Leanne's been hooked on performing live and does so in a variety of locations from Jazz bars to book shops. What's her stuff like? Sultry, sexy, political. The title of her first book and CD derives from Peggy Lee's classic jazz standard Fever, a favorite of mine. It's track 2 of the 12 track recording and her rendition accompanied by great saxiphone makes me feel like I'm in a smoky bar in Soho sitting in a banquette drinking a very dry martini. Her 2nd book is Come Closer. Join me for this interview with Leanne Averbach then go to her website, view her award winning car wash clip and download her audio files and books. West coast and Whistler - stay tuned - for a performance by Leanne and Astrid Sars et al in May 2011! After that you'll have to catch her in Paris, Amsterdam or Barcelona. Click on http://www.bookbuffet.com/audio/Leanne_Averbach.mp3 for our interview. Enjoy!
Freshly back from the holidays I am delighted to see the publishers' offerings this January 2011. The interesting thing is prices for various print and digital versions of books at different outlets. It's mayhem out there! Do you download from iTunes to your iPad, or from Amazon to your Kindle, or from either to your Kindle App on your iPhone, what is KoBo all about? [This topic begs an upcoming feature... ] From Random House Canada I'm keen on the affordable $22 (softcover and eBook version) of Tom Rachman's Giller Prize nominated fiction title, The Imperfectionists: A Novel published by Anchor Canada. The Kindle version has been out since April and it's only $5. Reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review by Christopher Buckley who writes, "This first novel by Tom Rachman, a London-born [but raised in Vancouver] journalist who has lived and worked all over the world, is so good I had to read it twice simply to figure out how he pulled it off. I still haven't answered that question, nor do I know how someone so young… could have acquired such a precocious grasp of human foibles. The novel is alternately hilarious and heart-wrenching." The publisher continues "Set against the gorgeous backdrop of Rome, Tom Rachman's wry, vibrant debut follows the topsy-turvy private lives of the reporters, editors, and executives of an international English language newspaper as they struggle to keep it - and themselves - afloat."
The whole of January 2011 at Masterpiece is dedicated to a 4-part episode called Downton Abbey. Created and written by Oscar-winner Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park), Downton Abbey, like Fellowes other stories (Listen to an earlier BookBuffet interview with Fellowes around his novel Snobs) gives us a portrait of the intricacies of pomp, pedigree and protocol in the vanishing gentrified country estates in England. After generations have been settled in the eponymous estate, a crisis of inheritance threatens to displace the resident Crawley family. The sinking of the Titanic has taken with it Lord Grantham's heirs; both James Crawley and his son Patrick have perished. While personally agonizing (momentarily) for daughter Mary who was supposed to marry Patrick she resourcefully sets her sights on a grander scale. With all the predictable succession plans gone terribly awry, the looming questions arise — Who will be the new heir to the earldom? And what will happen to this distinguished estate, now in jeopardy? Mary's short-lived grief is redirected on another suitor, the Duke of Crowborough. It's "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" meets "Upstairs Downstairs" as the classes push boundaries and precedents in Darwinian ways. Starring notables Maggie Smith and Elizabeth McGovern along with the wonderful Hugh Bonneville, Samantha Bond (Miss MoneyPenny of Ian Flemming's 007 fame) amongst others. Be guaranteed exquisite mansion settings, various traditional hunting parties and goings-on, and attention to all details of British class hierarchy Fellowes and Masterpiece creators are known for with the stately interiors and refined accouterment of an almost bygone era. Tune in January 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th.
“Often, she paused on the porch and looked out at the blue line of Nova Scotia and the silver gleam in the southwest where the bay widened to the Gulf of Maine: the sea spread before her, thundered in her ears; and sometimes she loathed it, since Nathaniel was at its mercy. At other times, she closed her eyes, tossed back her bonnet and breathed deep of the world’s size.”
I am a sucker for historical fiction, throw a bit of swashbuckling romance in there and I’m hooked. When I imagine sea voyage back in the 1800’s I must admit to conjuring up images of impressive vessels smashing their way across the oceans, with grandeur and glamour that can’t possibly of existed. The real stories, like the one that Beth Powning relates in her latest novel The Sea Captain’s Wife, showcases the more realistic side to seamanship - illness, solitude, risk, and the heartache that inevitably follow a life amongst the waves.
I am a book snob. I am an English Major. I don’t read Oprah’s Bookclub picks. I don’t read chicklit. I don’t read Da Vinci Codes or Twilights or Dragon Tattoos, though I may reluctantly see the movies whilst maintaining an air of pretentious superiority. But it was because of a bestseller franchise and the associated films that I changed my stringent policy on popular-in-this-century fiction after a TV marathon of the Harry Potter series left me desperate for answers. “Alright,” I conceded, “what the *#&%* happened to Dumbledore.” And so I caved. I purchased the last installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) -- along with a face-saving business book on the art of negotiation, lest the one-armed clerk at Barnes & Noble judge me -- and I’m not ashamed to say it changed my life ... People, Harry Potter is bloody good.
So I’ll just come out with it: I CRIED. I cried! No spoilers, but I literally was moved to tears by the written word, which hitherto only happened in dog-related scenes in renowned pieces of literature (and one hooker scene in Murphy; when I recounted the experience and choked up again in my Professor’s office he recoiled in horror and said, quote: “this is unheard of in Beckett.”) Thus it has been ingrained in me that there are appropriate times to cry in books and life and there are not. Even most men will admit, for example, that it’s acceptable to cry in Rudy, or when your hockey team loses in the playoffs for the second year in a row to the Chicago Blackhawks, (I cried once in my living room in the presence of my mocking friends, and then, a little more privately in the bathroom). But HARRY POTTER? This was quite shocking to my system and sense of identity as a Reader. Indulge me, please, as we delve into why…
Each December I listen to a recording of "A Child's Christmas in Wales" by Dylan Thomas spoken by the great man himself. I love the scratchy quality and his booming voice with its lovely accent. Out of interest, an American writer has won a £30,000 literary award for her collection of 21st Century poetry. Elyse Fenton has been awarded the University of Wales Dylan Thomas Prize, set up to honour the Welsh poet and encourage writing among the young. Ms Fenton's collection Clamor (Cleveland State University Poetry Center New Poetry) is the first book of poetry to have won.
A Google search of Dylan Thomas turned up 2,640,000 results in 21 seconds, which proves how much the world loves the cadence of the spoken wordsmiths. Here for your enjoyment are the first two stanzas of "Child's Christmas":
One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.
All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.
President Nicolas Sarkozy announced in 2009 a €750 million fund to digitize the French national patrimony. The National Library of the Netherlands plans to digitize every book, newspaper or periodical they've produced in less than a decade going all the way back to 1470. Australia, Norway, Finland and Japan are following suit. What is the status in North America? And what happens when the books are still under copyright and providing someone an income?
Of the 30 million books in the American Library of Congress, 2 million have been digitally scanned by Google. It is estimated that it costs about 10 cents a page depending upon the quality required. Some people are proposing the creation of a Digital Public Library of American (DPLA)—a digital library composed of virtually all the books in our greatest research libraries available free of charge to the entire citizenry, in fact, to everyone in the world.
Robert Darnton of The New York Review of Books writes: "To dismiss this goal as naive or utopian would be to ignore digital projects that have proven their worth and feasibility throughout the last twenty years. All major research libraries have digitized parts of their collections. Since 1995 the Digital Library Federation has worked to combine their catalogues or “metadata” into a general network.
Rose Tremain was on Granta’s first Best of Young British Novelists list in 1983 – along with Martin Amis, Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan. Here she speaks to Ollie Brock about historial versus contemporary writing and exile - ‘freighted with possibility but also with a high degree of danger’.
OB: Was it a surprise, or the realisation of a long-held ambition, to appear on the 1983 list?
RT: I understand, retrospectively, that there was quite a scramble among publishers to get their authors on this list, but I - who was living in rural Suffolk in 1983, had published only two books and knew very few people in literary London – was blithely unaware of it, so my inclusion came as a complete surprise. I remember being very pleased that Claire Tomalin, who was one of the judges, described me as ‘an interesting and honourable writer’, but it didn’t change my fortunes. That change only came six years later when my novel, Restoration, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and was sold in 25 countries.
OB:You also won the Orange Broadband Prize for fiction by women in 2008. What do you think of the claim – made by AS Byatt, among others – that it's a sexist prize?
Behind the genius, outspokenness, and mischievous antics of the much-loved "smart Beatle," John Lennon (Christopher Eccleston, Doctor Who), is an artist whose struggle with childhood abandonment by his father shapes and nearly undermines his every relationship. Between 1967 and 1971, the tumultuous and wildly creative "studio years" for the Beatles, John Lennon is mired in an unhappy domestic life with his wife, Cynthia (Claudie Blakley, Return to Cranford), and his young son, Julian, the objects of his cruel indifference. Trying to reconcile the sudden death of Beatles manager Brian Epstein and the reintroduction of his long-estranged father, Freddie Lennon (Christopher Fairbank, Tess of the D'Urbervilles), into his life, John sees himself at once as a martyr and a gadfly. Far from being the gentle icon of world peace that he would later become, John embodies his credo that an artist has to destroy as well as create. It's only when he falls in love with avant-garde artist Yoko Ono (Naoko Mori, Torchwood) that John finds the inspiration to enact change in his and Yoko's own unique way, from a cloud of white balloons to the publicity-generating "Bed Peace." Ultimately, their partnership breaks him from the Beatles and Britain itself. Together, they leave country and family behind for New York City, starting over. Lennon Naked also stars Andrew Scott (Sherlock) and Rory Kinnear (Mansfield Park).
At long last Aung San Suu Kyi has been released from house arrest in her home country of Myanmar (formerly Burma) where she has been cloistered for 15 out the past 20 years. The first thing out of her courageous mouth was her pledge to continue to strive for democracy in her country through "a peaceful revolution" between her people and the ruling military regime. Watching the video of her first interview with BBC Correspondent John Simpson was reminiscent of Nelson Mandela's release from Robben Island after his long incarceration. The march of world progress, technology and the things people in the free world take for granted, appear new and strange to Aung. She talked on a cellular phone for the first time, and didn't much like it. For a woman of 65 she looks youthful, almost preserved in time since with beautiful skin and a serenely optimistic outlook. The ruling military power recently conducted its first election in 20 years. It has not been sanctioned by UN officials.
Each year Publishers Weekly, the trade publication directed toward people in the publishing industry, puts out its Top 100 Books list comprising several genres. Take a look for yourself to see which ones you know and which ones you might want to know. It's a great way to begin making selections for your gift list this upcoming holiday season. Here are two of BookBuffet's own lists: the ones we've read and conquer, and the ones we're aching to dig into:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot (Crown)
Medical history is grippingly told through the life of one African-American woman and her family, which begins at the "colored" ward at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s. Skloot, who hit the road in her beatup old car to relentlessly follow this story, explores issues of race, poverty, the ethics of medical research and its sometimes tragic, unintended consequences.
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
Michael Lewis (Norton)
Lewis has written the briskest and brightest analysis of the crash of 2008. Other books might provide a more exhaustive account of what went wrong, but Lewis's character-driven narrative reveals the how and why with peerless clarity and panache. When will they ever learn?
Our Kind of Traitor: A Novel
John le Carré (Viking)
Those who have found post-cold war le Carré too cerebral will welcome this Russian mafia spy thriller involving an English couple on holiday in the Caribbean.
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
Tim Wu (Knopf)
Wu dazzles in his history-cum-manifesto as he reveals how fiercely corporate empires have vied to control communication and information technology-and why we must keep the Internet free and open.
Postumous publishing of a well known author's works is a debatable predicament. Do you heed the author's dying wishes to burn his final unpublished manuscripts, or do you allow the world a chance to peek? Is publishing motivated by material gain on the part of the family member and the publisher, or are they generously allowing readers, writers and academics the opportunity to scrutinize the work for posterity?
That debate raged for three decades while Demitri Nabokov, son of Vladimir Nabokov finally wrestled his demons and agreed to publish. And we are now coming up on the anniversary of that decision. If you missed the news before, here is a recap.
It was November 10, 2009 when Playboy magazine published the serialization of Nabokov's final, unfinished work, The Original of Laura. Playboy had a long relationship with Nabokov, previously published a portion of his 1969 work Ada and ran an interview with the author before his death in 1977. On November 17, Knopf released the book version of The Original of Laura.
Before Nabokov's death in 1977, he instructed his wife to burn the unfinished first draft—handwritten on 138 index cards—of what would be his final novel. As sole executor of his literary rights, she could not, and instead placed the manuscript in a Swiss vault. Nabokov's son, Dmitri, was given sole literary executor rights at his mother's death, and indecision over whether to publish it wracked his life for over three decades.
Hailed as last year's literary highlight, the Guardian wrote: "this very unfinished work reads largely like an outline, full of seeming notes-to-self, references to source material, sentence fragments, commentary and brief flashes of spectacular prose. It would be a mistake for readers to come to this expecting anything resembling a novel, though the few actual scenes here are unmistakably Nabokovian, with cutting wordplay, piercing description and uneasy-making situations—a character named Hubert H. Hubert molesting a girl, a decaying old man's strained attempt at perfunctory sex with his younger wife.
The story appears to be about a woman named Flora...
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is Robert J Wiersema. Robert J Wiersema is the author of Before I Wake: A Novel (Reading Group Gold), a national bestseller and Globe and Mail Best Book of 2006, and the novella The World More Full of Weeping, which was shortlisted for the Prix Aurora in 2010. A respected critic and reviewer, he lives in Victoria with his wife, Cori Dusmann, and their son, Xander. His new novel is Bedtime Story.
QUESTIONS:
1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?
Bedtime Story is about fathers and sons, good and evil, and the power of a book to swallow you whole. 2. How long did it take you to write this book?
I actually try not to think about that... Start to finish, once I got going? A year. Almost to the day. The key part of that answer, though, is “once I got going” -- there was a lot of... pre-writing and not writing and writing other stuff that went on before I found my way into Bedtime Story.. 3. Where is your favorite place to write?
I’m pretty partial to the deck six port coffee bar on a transatlantic cruise (which is where the book was finished), but generally speaking, The Treasury gets the job done. (The Treasury is the writing space I rent, a basement suite just down the street from the house. The Treasury is a little more polite than The Man Cave, which some have taken to calling it...) 4. How do you choose your characters’ names?
Badly. And with great anguish. And then I get help. 5. How many drafts do you go through?
With the use of computers, that question is a bit tricky to answer. It really depends on the section of the book, the scene. Some bits come out all right in the first draft, and only need a bit of tweaking. Others I end up hitting 8, 10, 12 times. The opening of Bedtime Story took a good two dozen runs at it before I was remotely satisfied, before I found my way in.
The Sharjah International Book Fair is the largest book fair in the Middle East. It takes place Oct 26th-Nov 6th in city of Sharjah located just northeast of Dubai on the coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the United Arab Emirates. This is a spectacularly beautiful region, but don't take my word for it. Check out the mapquest link with excellent photo locators to acclimate yourself, then listen to the music track on the video at this Sharjah info site. Interested to learn more? The UAE is a federation situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman and Saudi Arabia and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Iran. The UAE consists of seven states, termed emirates, (because they are ruled by Emirs) which are Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Quwain, Ras al-Khaimah and Fujairah. The capital and second largest city of the United Arab Emirates is Abu Dhabi and Sharjah is both the third largest Emirate and the name of its city capital. It is also the country's center of political, industrial, and cultural activities. The Sharjah Book Fair is an effort not only to encourage literacy in the country but it serves as a resource for education at all levels. Browsing the 53 page English language book list (because the Arabic book list is, duh, in Arabic) is like skimming a University arts, business and sciences course book list! There are pages of accounting texts, architecture, design, business and marketing books, as well as international fiction titles on current publisher lists. This suggests a very broad spectrum purpose, not the typical offering as what you'd see at the LA Times Book Festival, for example, where mostly fiction authors and particular genre books are on display and for sale at booths. The whole SIBF is guided under the patronage of His Highness Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammad Al Qasimi and has been ongoing since 1982. How well is it attended? This 10-day annual event now draws a total of 750 publishers showcasing books from nearly 42 nations, and attracts over 400,000 GCC visitors.
A journalist friend called to set up an interview to discuss what I do. It reminded me of a speech I wrote that was intended for an audience at the opening of our town library and it has to do with the joy of reading and the place that book groups hold within that realm. In re-reading it, I decided to post it here and share it with all of you. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
"Joyce Carol Oates has said that she believes art to be the highest expression of human spirit and I have to agree. Literature in particular, enhances our perceptions and deepens our understanding of life. I treasure the solace of literature, its capacity to illuminate what is unique about an individual and what is universally human.
Stories transcend barriers --- of place, generation, class, race, faith and create gateways to understanding humankind’s endless response to life’s challenges, joys and conundrums.
Literature describes more exquisitely than any other art form what it feels like to be alive, how minds shift through memories, emotions, thoughts, and sensations. It entices us into contemplating diverse traditions and divergent viewpoints. It awakens empathy and fosters a sense of connection with others.
I am forever falling in love with books.
If reading is the most solitary of pursuits – what is the value and purpose and motivating factor of book groups?
Firstly, they create a forum to discuss the ideas and feelings and concepts brought out through literature.
Secondly, it provides a monthly goal that is not just for ourselves, but provides value to each member – our insights, experiences and perspectives are so individual that in discussing literature there is no one right answer when interpreting a book. We all bring something to the table.
Thirdly, it forces us outside our particular reading tastes and habits. Some of the most astounding books I’ve read were titles I was not particularly interested in or would have picked up on my own volition.
Fourthly, it elevates our level of examination of literature, our appreciation of writers and their craft and provides a reference point to which our own anecdotes and life experiences can be weighed."
Each week BookBuffet presents a new author in our podcast series made available here in .mp3 format either in interview with Executive Editor, Paula Shackleton or as excerpted from an event we've attended, taped and edited for broadcast. Today's podcast features acclaimed Canadian novelist Alissa York who appeared at the Vancouver Public Library to give a reading from her new novel, Fauna published by Random House Canada (2010). Alissa was introduced by Vancouver International Writers Festival Director Hal Wake who has begun a collaboration with the VPL to bring authors here from across the country and around the world. Audience members were invited to ask Alissa questions after her reading and those tended toward an interest in her writing and research techniques. Fauna is Ms York's third novel. It is a contemporary urban story set in Toronto, but as Alissa points out, it could take place in any green space in cities around the world. Alissa is a lovely speaker who interacts easily with the audience. She elicits a spontaneous chuckle with several of her anecdotes and it is not surprising to learn of the demand for her as a writing instructor. Like her protagonist Lily in Fauna who holds birds in the palm of her hands and marvels at their beating hearts, this story will capture yours. Join us today in listening to Alissa York, and then pick up a copy of this or perhaps all three of her novels: Mercy (2003) was a Canadian bestseller, Effigy (2007) was short-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Alissa has lived all across Canada, but makes her home in Toronto with her husband Clive who is a writer and film maker.
Our podcasts are available as RSS feeds and there are over 120 segements available on iTunes.com. Type BookBuffet or Paula Shackleton in the search menu.
Most people have a natural fascination for the physical world. We want to learn about the creatures that populate the earth; from near or far, minuscule or gigantic. I've had the good fortune to travel to Washington DC and tour the Smithsonian Institute's Natural History Museum where there are thousands of examples spanning every classification. If you're planning a trip to the Smithsonian be sure to wear comfortable walking shoes and map your tour route by order of personal priority - there's so much to see, you'll be disappointed if you run out of time or energy and miss a favorite. The good news is that a definitive new resource book has just come out on this topic titled, Natural History. It is produced for Penguin by DK Publishing and has 648 pages of exquisite photos and text beautifully bound in a handy 9.25 x 6.25 inch size. It catalogues 6,000 of earth's species from the simplest lifeforms of bacteria to minerals to plants and animals. Written and researched by a worldwide team of natural history experts and overseen and authenticated by the Smithsonian, it is the ultimate resource book for your home. And it will likely land a place on our "BookBuffet Holiday Gift Pick List" next month. DK has a reputation for crafting beautifully made books that are bound and stitched to make handling easy, use of quality paper stock and production values. Whether you add Natural History to your collection of resource materials on your bookshelves, keep it open on the coffee table, squirrel it away in the powder room or gift it to a budding naturalist - it's your call.
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is Samuel Sykes. At 25, Sam Sykes is one of the youngest authors to arrive on the Sci-fi scene with his novel Tome of the Undergates: The Aeons' Gate: Book One. Stop for a moment and think about what you were doing at 25. It probably wasn't conjuring up alternate worlds and characters in 450 pages to rival your chosen genre's top writers. Reviewer Alice Wybrew at www.totalscifionline.com gives "Tome" 9 out of 10, "With imaginative characters, a well-paced narrative and enough maiming, decapitation and evisceration to make '300' look tame, Sykes’s debut proves a bloody good read." Wow. Couldn't have said it better ourselves.
QUESTIONS: 1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?
“I love you, I hate myself, that man is on fire, we’re all going to die.” 2. How long did it take you to write this book?
Tome of the Undergates was something I started when I was 17 and thought all books revolved around morally unassailable heroes stopping generic forms of villainy. There was a lot of talk of “dark masters” and “righteous indignation” in those days. Eventually, after two iterations, two years of doing nothing and four years of college, I finished it when I was 24 and sold it when I was 25. It took awhile, but I’m very pleased with how it turned out. 3. Where is your favorite place to write?
I suppose if I had a greater need for attention, I would write in a coffee shop or wine bar somewhere. But seeing as I’m very easily distracted, I lock myself in a small room with my laptop and hunch over a keyboard, mouth agape and tongue lolling as I strive to hold onto any creative thought before I start thinking about looking up bear attack videos.
By now you have heard the news about this year's winner for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Peruvian born Mario Vargas Llosa is one of the most acclaimed writers in the Spanish-speaking world. He has written more than 30 novels, plays and essays and is currently teaching at Princeton University. The Swedish Academy's Peter Englund said Llosa is "a divinely gifted story-teller," whose writing touches the reader. Let us explore this 74-year-old author and review his body of work, which has been described as "a cartography of structures of power" with "trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat," by the Academy. Vargas Llosa's good friend (admittedly, it's a complicated friendship) and 1982 Nobel Laureate, the Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez tweeted upon hearing the news: "Cuentas iguales" "Now we're even". (Losa wrote his doctoral thesis on the writing of Marquez.) It has been 18 years since a Spanish language author has been selected. In the previous six years, the academy awarded the 10 million kronor (£938,000) prize to five Europeans and one Turk. This drew criticism that the prize was becoming too Euro-centric and too left wing. Wikipedia writes: "Vargas Llosa rose to fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros, literally The City and the Dogs, 1963/1966[4]), The Green House (La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in the Cathedral (Conversación en la catedral, 1969/1975). He writes prolifically across an array of literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. Several, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977/1982), have been adapted as feature films. For a complete list of available books click here.
Thank you to everyone who participated in the 31st Whistler Reads event December 11th at 7:30 PM at the Westin Resort & Spa Hotel in Whistler when our guest was Governor General award winning author John Vaillant. John's fabulous presentation was well received by a fully packed audience. For those of you who missed it, we discussed his new book The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival (Knopf, Canada 2010) is, in the author's own words, "The Golden Spruce with stripes". [video presentation to follow upon editing - stop in here again later. For those of you who attended and wish to continue to support us - please use the Donate button at the top.]
John, of course is an intrepid traveller. He's been to 5 continents and oceans in the course of his work. This book took John to the remote southeast of Russia to a region called Primorye (Pri-mor-ya), a territory about the size of Washington state by the Sea of Japan where ecosystems converge and plants and animals exist that live no place else on earth. It is also the last refuge for an endangered sub-species of Siberian tigers - the Amur tiger - a spectacular killing machine. Weighing up to 600 pounds and 10 feet long from nose to tail it has evolved into a supreme predator. In "Tiger" Vaillant tells of an injured man-eating tiger who is not just striking for food, it's stalking its prey out of vengeance. The team of conservationists is tracking her on foot deep into the Siberian forest on a heart-thumping chase to capture or kill her before she kills again. But who is stalking who? Beautifully written and deeply informative we learn about this unique eco-system and the people who subsist in a grueling lifestyle. Whistler Reads invited you to make this a weekend adventure. The Westin offered Whistler Reads members huge room discounts on Junior suites and threw in 2 dual mountain ski passes per day. With the large volume of snow that has fallen in December, it truly was an amazing weekend for all. In the interests of not spamming you with info, frequent posts to our FB page are a valuable resource of extra links, updates and member feedback.
The joy of hearing an author speak (as opposed to merely reading their words) is that you get a feel for many things about them, as people, as speakers, their creative process; the backstory of their novels as it were. Writers can be introspective people who live in a silent world of words. Getting out in front of the public is a part of the book promotion process these days, and inevitably authors develop a style to fit their public persona. They take time before readings to consider the audience when selecting particular excerpts from their books. The interplay between writer and reader can be a rewarding part of their profession. Recently I watched an interview of J. K. Rowling who became emotional when describing a chance street encounter with a girl of about 19 who told her: "Ms Rowling - your books are my childhood. Thank you."
Hearing a writer speak from their own text can be a chilling experience. You get to hear the words that took form and lived in the mind of that writer, often for years before becoming available for public consumption. The writer has agonized over every comma, every transitive verb.
Today's podcast features a reading by Richard Harvell whose novel is titled, The Bells (RandomHouse 2010). "Bells" is getting rave reviews and will likely become Random House's fall blockbuster. It has all the elements of a bestseller. In listening you may pick up on his barely discernible accent. Richard has been living in Switzerland for the past 6 years where his novel is set. The Bells captures European life in the 1200s with incredible nuance of detail.
When I met Richard he was dressed in an open collared shirt and dress pants. He's about 5'6' and slight but fit. His close cropped hair and wire frame glasses speak calculated conservative. As a former math major, it seems natural that he'd be attracted to music - a subject that intuits math and intervals. But Richard claims he is not musical; he leaves that bit to his wife.
The Whistler Readers and Writers Festival takes place Oct 14-17th. The line-up this year is all-star and award-winning, and includes: Brian Brett (winner of the Writers Trust of Canada Non-Fiction prize and BC
Bookseller's Choice Award for Trauma Farm) Kate Pullinger (2009 Governor
General's Award for Fiction winner for The Mistress of Nothing) Russell Wangersky (BC Book Award for Canadian NonFiction winner for Burning Down the
House) Wayne Grady, Merilyn Simonds, Jenn Farrell, Kathy Page, Terence
Young, Patricia Young, Caroline Adderson and Leslie Anthony.
Note to attendees of the "Make Your Own Podcast" session given by Paula Shackleton: Here is the quickie demo podcast we made together in class. Thanks for attending, and good luck with your future podcasts. Stay in touch! paulas @ bookbuffet.com Click Here.
The Festival is an amazing chance to:
1. Give your creative self a little charge, with 10 seminars on offer on
Saturday October 16 at the Aava, under 2 streams: Where Traditional and
Digital Media Collide, and Crafting a Great Story. Young writers (12-19)
can also take a free seminar at the library on Saturday.
. Dial in your fall reading list, with 10 of Canada's best authors reading
at the Saturday October 16 Gala event at the Squamish Lil'wat Cultural
Centre, most with newly released books.
3. Dabble in the world of social media with a host of seminars on twitter,
podcasting and blogging. Find new ways to promote yourself using social
media.
4. Linger around the library for three free literary events, including the
launch of Leslie Anthony's new book, White Planet: A Mad Dash through the
Modern Global Ski Culture, Thursday October 14th at the Whistler Public
Library.
4. Hang with the hipsters, as spoken word superstar C R Avery parachutes in
to the third Pecha Kucha Night at Maxx Fish. A range of speakers are given
20 slides, 20 seconds per slides to speak about something they're passionate
about. Fast-moving, eclectic and super cool, PKN has previously unrolled at
the TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival and Crankworx.
5. Peel back the curtains on literary marriages with a free discussion at
the library on Saturday afternoon, Write, Fight, Love with Merilyn Simonds,
Wayne Grady, Terrence Young and Patricia Young.
The full program is downloadable at www.theviciouscircle.ca under the Events
Tab. People can also follow the updates and buzz building at their
WP Blog, on twitter @whistlerwriters , or on Facebook
These days a lot of people use multiple devices from different locations that they don't necessarily want completely replicated with the same functions or information. Dropbox lets you share files between devices and between others, regardless of the operating system! You might be at the office and want to access files from there after you've left for work. If you drop box them before you head out, they'll be available in your folder on your computer at home. Or say you have a project you are collaborating with a partner in another location, you want to send them a file that's too big to e-mail and you don't want to go through the hassle of uploading it to a server, or transferring via a memory stick. So Dropbox it. Unlike other programs, Dropbox doesn't have a complicated interface to learn. It's built right into your desktop!
Get started by downloading the program to your applications folder from http://www.dropbox.com. Now look for a little blue open box icon that appears on your computer screen window at the top next to date and time:
Step 1: Drag and drop any file or folder into your Dropbox folder.
Step 2: Once your file/folder is inside your Dropbox folder, the program immediately starts syncing it to our secure servers. Once this has finished, the file's icon is marked with a green check. Your file is now safely backed up online and also accessible from the Dropbox website. (http://www.getdropbox.com)
Step 3: Install Dropbox (http://www.getdropbox.com/install) on other computers you use, and they'll also receive a copy of the files you've put in your Dropbox.
That's it! Now that Dropbox is watching your file, any changes you make will sync up instantly and automatically. This gives you the freedom to work on any computer you choose. For more help adding files to Dropbox, see here: https://www.getdropbox.com/help/90
The Merriam-Webster dictionary says parody is "a literary or musical work in which the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule". It is delicious when it's done well, and can be scathing without drawing litigation. Everyone remembers National Lampoon and now we have The Onion. Almost all successful comedians use it. Jon Stewart is a master at parodying the news anchor and the news. He does it so well that statistics show most young people prefer to watch him rather than the real thing. Parody is entertaining. It makes us laugh. You have to have a sense of wit, irony and of course "get" that the piece is being satiric in the first place. I think that most kids of this generation think in parody all the time. Cervantes got it when he wrote Don Quixote mocking the knights errant novels of his time. So well that his own work has outlasted the genre. A close relative of the parody is the "pastiche" in which writers take the example of a previous work and incorporate elements into it for their own usually not to make fun but more as an homage. James Joyce's Ulysses was a hats off to Homer's Odyssey. The first film parodies I recall were Mel Brooks creations, "Blazing Saddles" and "Spaceballs". Then of course there was the "Naked Gun" and "Airplane" series of movies that parodied the Police Squad movies and disaster flicks. Who could forget the TPS reports of "Office Space", also made into a television series? Monty Python's "The Holy Grail" et al have been beacons in the genre. All bow down in prostration.
So what does it take to make a parody and are there any consequences (other than being completely misunderstood and possibly sued?) Ha ha, you laugh, nervously. You'd LOVE to write a parody of... you know, that person, that family saga scenario, that community debacle, that political insanity. Here is an article in The Guardian by Craig Brown who writes literary parodies and some of his key points: "Every child is a born parodist. The more accurate a parody is, the more it's likely to be confused with the real thing. To appreciate parody, you must be capable of holding two contradictory ideas in your head simultaneously. Parody represents a collaboration, however unwilling, between the parodist and his victim." And last but not least, of course there is The Oxford Book of Parodies to keep us all up to date. Those good Oxford people. What would we do without them?
Take October and November to discover these two great finds matched for the pleasure of Wine & Book Club members here at BookBuffet. When a book is named best work of fiction by the Texas Institute of Letters and long-listed for the Orange Prize (alongside Toni Morrison and Marilynne Robinson) and short-listed for the Orange Prize for New Writers, you can safely assume it will be a worthwhile read. I am referring to Ann Weisgarber's debut novel The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. For the feature wine we've selected a wonderful Zinfandel from Quivira Vineyards situated in a wine growing region called the "Dry Creek Valley" in California near the village of Healdsburg. We passed through this picturesque town on a drive up from LA to Vancouver-Whistler and walked the streets, toured the lovely bookstore, stopped for a delicious lunch. From there it's a short drive up to Quivira, a local family owned estate winery where they make a wonderful Zin and some up-and-coming Sauvignon Blancs as well. Add to that their fabulous estate garden, a 130 year old fig tree and estate sold honey, olive oil and preserves and you get a full terroir experience right there at the tasting room. The BookBuffet Wine & Book Club is a great way to discover new wines and touring destinations. So read the book, taste the wine at home or with friends and share your discussion/tasting notes online. You are in for an incredible reading and tasting experience. We believe in feeding the mind and the body!
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. (It is interesting to compare and contrast the full list to date at bottom.) Get exposed to authors that otherwise would not have come onto your radar. It's rather like shopping for a new tie or addition to your wardrobe, and never deviating from certain colors, patterns or styles. Jump out of your comfort zone. Today's author is Allegra Goodman. I first became intrigued by this author upon reading her biography on her website. All the reviewer accolades from admittedly reliable sources like The New York Times, said things that rang of hyperbole; "the next Jane Austen." So it is her real life that interested me when I began to scratch the surface... Daughter of a successful set of academic parents who I imagine never had boring dinner table conversation, (dad: philosophy prof, mom: women's studies prof). Mostly grew up in Hawaii (also cool, but in a hot-way). Uprooted to Nashville, Tennessee (Hello! Nashville?) when her parents took positions at Vanderbuilt University.Published her first story at age 17, and from there climbed her own ivory tower as an undergrad at Harvard. I don't think her answers to this series gives us as good a picture of her as it could. But see what you think. Her latest novel is The Cookbook Collector, and I think RH describe it well: "...a novel about getting and spending... the substitutions we make when we can’t find what we’re looking for: reading cookbooks instead of cooking, speculating instead of creating, collecting instead of living." Hmmm, sounds like the modern (wo)man. BTW - the Austen comparison is about sisters: Sense & Sensibility has them, Cookbook Collector's got 'em too. (Don't be turned off by the elaborate cover or the staging of her publicity photo, which to me seem a little precious. Jane Austen was a passionate observer who captured her time.)
You laugh and say, "Hah! What are they going to think of to celebrate next?" But the standards for everyday punctuation among the masses has eroded further than you think. It is reaching catastrophic proportions. I am in a state of apoplexy every other day, and I am not even a hardcore grammarian. It isn't just our email-ease, SMS semaphore or rampant use of smiley faces (to hedge against ambiguous rhetoric) that has replaced the proper use and understanding of punctuation. Indeed, for a while the prevailing thinking in education was that creative writing was being stifled by fussy teachers who insisted upon that nasty triad: correct spelling, grammar and punctuation. The red ink marks on papers disappeared and little star stickers were replaced, "Good job," they said. Students were told just to write, and worry about details later. Now look where it has got us. However, there is hope in site. Enclosed is a list of websites you can browse, bookmark and refer to - even take a quiz to test your knowledge or play games. We've included a short list of books you should keep beside your laptop, or better yet, beside your bed at night. Can you think of anything better for insomnia? And here are some of the most common errors we see in everyday writing. Happy Punctuation Day! Oh, here is the chap who started it all.
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is Richard Harvell. This is Richard's first novel titled, The Bells, and it's certain to become a Random House blockbuster this fall. Consider the elements: rich lush prose, intriguing characters like bell ringers and castratas, aluring settings like 17th century European opera houses, and an elegant theme - the redemptive power of music and love. Ladies will like this part - it was inspired by his wife while he was sitting in their kitchen listening to her sing, with her fine clear voice, an aria by Gluck that is based on a story about Orpheus and Eurydice. He asked her about the story and was immediately struck that this plot would form the basis of his novel. Since they live in Basel Switzerland he was already immersed in the region. "Bells" takes readers on a passionate musical journey through Europe ending in Vienna in 1762. Along with the publisher's introduction came a link to his You Tube video - a luscious tempting clip. Richard Harvell was born in New Hampshire, USA, and studied English literature at Dartmouth College. As BookBuffet had the very good fortune to hear Richard give a reading in Vancouver - we will follow-up shortly with a few audio excerpts in a separate feature. Stay tuned! In the meantime listen to Andreas Scholl sing Che Faro Senza Euridice
QUESTIONS: 1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?
Boy with preternatural hearing has his life ruined by a priest, an abbot, a choirmaster, and a doctor, and then redeemed by two gay monks, a dwarf, music, and true love. 2. How long did it take you to write this book?
Nine months until I said, “It’s finished.” Three years until others agreed with me. 3. Where is your favorite place to write?
Wherever my kids don’t bother me. These days in the attic. 4. How do you choose your characters’ names?
For the most part I look for names in historical records, for authenticity. However, I had some fun with the last names in The Bells, but you have to speak German to get that. 5. How many drafts do you go through?
With The Bells, sixteen plus lots and lots of fiddling.
I would not be the first person to admit that Graham E. Fuller is a person whose intellect, career and breadth of life experience is intimidating—I'll get to his credentials in a second. But in meeting him, one is immediately disarmed to find a soft spoken individual who stands ready to take any question, debate any point and who routinely pitches-in in his adopted community of Squamish, BC on everything from civic planning issues and the preservation of bald eagles to teaching watercolor painting classes each summer at the Whistler Art Festival.
However, in the sphere of history, world affairs and US foreign policy Fuller has been a player, not just a bystander like the rest of us. Author and co-author of at least a dozen political science books, his newest, titled A World Without Islam (published by Little and Brown Oct 2010) takes the reader on an examination of "what if's" as he lays down facts to support his thesis that the current situation in the Middle East and other hot spots around the world: Pakistan, Indonesia, the Baltics... concerning the attitudes and actions of Muslims, is far deeper and more complex than can be pinned on Islam alone, and we do ourselves a grave disservice if we choose not to consider and confront these factors.
People seem to think that you have to enter into the fray of writing early. You might be surprised to see a line-up of some people who wrote their first novels after their 40th birthday (and well beyond). Take a look at these familiar book titles and celebrate the authors who wrote them, as compiled in a slide show by Huffington Post.com correspondent Randy Susan Meyers:"41 Over 40: Authors Debuting Over Age 40" (Sept.11.2010) Annie Proulx published Postcards at age 57. Alex Haley published Roots when he was 55. Raymond Chandler debuted The Big Sleep at 59. Edward P. Jones' first book Lost in the City came out when he was 41. Henry Miller published Tropic of Cancer when he was 40. James Michener published Tales of the South Pacific when he was 40-? and went on to publish 40 more books. Julia Glass published Three Junes in her 40s. Holly LeCraw wrote The Swimming Pool when she was 43. Paul Hardy won the Pulitzer Prize with his first published book Tinkers when he was 42. Sue Monk Kid debuted The Secret Life of Bees at 54. George Eliot published Adam Bede: (now in its 150th Anniversary Edition published by Signet Classics) when she was 50. Richard Adams debuted Watership Down when he was 52. Katherine Anne Porter published her only novel Ship of Fools when she was 72. Norman McLean wrote A River Runs Through It when he was 74.
So what's stopping you? Check out these Writer Workshops and get started on your first novel.
A colleague just published his latest book in the category of Political Science. As it is a page-turner I wanted to write a review and went online to get further information. The search revealed that his stated publisher (Little and Brown) is owned by Hachette Livre, who it emerges is the second largest publisher in the world. Intrigued by this distinction, I set out to discover - who is Hachette Livre and what has contributed to their success? First, Hachette Book Group USA is a leading US trade publisher headquartered in New York, and owned by Hachette Livre. In one year, HBGUSA publishes approximately 450 adult books, 150 young adult and children’s books, and 60 audio book titles. In 2007, the company had a record 82 books on the New York Times bestseller list, with 20 of them ranked #1. In addition to selling and distributing its own imprints, HBG distributes publishing lines for Chronicle Books, Microsoft Learning, Arcade, Time Inc. Home Entertainment, Harry N. Abrams, InnovativeKids, Phaidon Press, Filipacchi Publishing, Kensington, MQ Publications, Strictly By The Book, Weinstein Books and Gildan Media. Conclusion #1: It helps to have your fingers in the pot of several successful brands that bring volume and quality.
BookBuffet is excited to announce the return of a whole new season of Wallander, Masterpiece's second series adaptation of bestselling Swedish thriller writer Henning Mankell's novels, starring Kenneth Branagh. The highly acclaimed Series I of Wallander won a BAFTA award for its gripping, surreal production standards, and gave Branagh Best Actor for 2010. He was also nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his stunning portrayal of the brooding Detective Kurt Wallander. BookBuffet is once again able to offer the first few members who register with our "Masterpiece Book to Film Group" (how to join below) copies of the novels adapted for the series. Read the books, then watch the series. Masterpiece has a number of teaser videos to pique your appetite, and online streaming of episodes in the series are available for a limited period. Check the PBS schedule for your area. Faceless Killers (October 3), The Man Who Smiled (October 10) and The Fifth Woman (October 17). Download the You Tube trailer here. See PBS Masterpiece reader resources here.
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is David Mitchell. David Mitchell is the acclaimed author of the novels Black Swan Green, which was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by Time; Cloud Atlas, which was a Man Booker Prize finalist; Number9Dream, which was short-listed for the Man Booker as well as the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; and Ghostwritten, awarded the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for best book by a writer under thirty-five and short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. His latest novel is The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: A Novel published by Sceptre in the UK and RandomHouse in NorthAmerica. He lives in Ireland.
QUESTIONS: 1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?
Honest Dutch clerk in a walled island of thieves meets a Japanese midwife at the end of the eighteenth century, and dominoes go toppling. 2. How long did it take you to write this book?
Four years. 3. Where is your favorite place to write?
My hut in my back garden. 4. How do you choose your characters’ names?
By stumbling across them, storing them on a special page in my notebook, and retrieving them when the right vacancy arises. 5. How many drafts do you go through?
'Going through' drafts in the sense of polishing is indistinguishable from 'writing'. Countless, then.
J. K. Rowling is 45, the exact age that her mother died of complications due to Multiple schlerosis (MS), a debilitating neuro-degenerative disease that strikes between 2 and 150 per 100,000 population depending on your genetic background. Research shows that people of Scottish descent have the highest incidence of this disease, so it is fitting that the money is going to the University of Edinburgh, Rowling's home town, and will be named "The Anne Rowling Centre for MS Research". Significant donations like this, with the celebrity power behind it, is a medical researcher's prayer answered. It takes away the burdon of tedious and time-consuming annual grant applications for dwindling government funding sources, and most importantly, it brings the disease and disease sufferers to the forefront of public awareness. J.K. Rowling became a billionaire off the royalties of her now famous children's Harry Potter book series, and she is at the point of giving back to society some of that bounty. "I cannot think of anything more important, or of more lasting value, than to help the university attract world-class minds in the field on neuroregeneration, to build on its long and illustrious history of medical research and, ultimately, to seek a cure for a very Scottish disease," Rowling said. There are around 100,000 MS carriers in Britain, and Scotland has one of the highest rates in the world. The new center will also look into other degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and Huntingdon's disease, which like MS are neurogenic, progressive and incurable.
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is Camilla Gibb. Camilla Gibb is the author of four novels: Mouthing the words, Petty Details of So-and-So Life, Sweetness in the Belly and the forthcoming The Beauty of Humanity Movement—as well as numerous short stories, articles and reviews.
She was the winner of the Trillium Book Award in 2006, a Scotiabank Giller Prize short list nominee in 2005, winner of the City of Toronto Book Award in 2000 and the recipient of the CBC Canadian Literary Award for short fiction in 2001. Her books have been published in 18 countries and translated into 14 languages and she was named by the jury of the prestigious Orange Prize as one of 21 writers to watch in the new century.
QUESTIONS: 1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?
It’s a story about the intersection of the lives of three very different people in Vietnam and how those relationships allow them each to reconcile themselves with aspects of the turbulent past 2. How long did it take you to write this book?
Two years. 3. Where is your favorite place to write?
At the kitchen table on a sunny day. 4. How do you choose your characters’ names?
I choose ordinary names appropriate to the culture or context. Extraordinary names draw too much attention to themselves and disrupt the reading. 5. How many drafts do you go through?
Countless. Maybe 25?
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is Alissa York. Alissa York has lived all over Canada and now makes her home in Toronto with her husband, writer/filmmaker Clive Holden. York's award-winning short fiction has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, and in the collection, Any Given Power, published in 1999. Her first novel, Mercy, published in 2003, was a Canadian bestseller. Dutch, French and US editions have appeared since. York's second novel, Effigy, was published in April 2007, short-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. International rights to the book have sold in Holland, Italy, France and the US. Her new novel, Fauna, is on sale on July 27, 2010.
QUESTIONS:
1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?
FAUNA tells the story of the love between a female federal wildlife officer and the owner of a wrecking yard that doubles as a sanctuary for injured urban fauna and other lost souls. 2. How long did it take you to write this book?
Two and a half years. 3. Where is your favorite place to write?
My desk -- in fact, it's the only place. 4. How do you choose your characters’ names?
Sometimes I come upon promising names during the research process -- Edal was like that. Darius and Lily, on the other hand, arrived from the ether already named. 5. How many drafts do you go through?
Around a dozen -- the later the draft, the finer the adjustments.
For this week's BookBuffet podcast we got to thinking about the subject of democracy. World news reports failing economies, scam elections and repressive fanatical regimes. Whatever happened to the temple of democracy? Shockingly the bastion countries around the world that we consider exemplars of this form of government are themselves facing a decline on the "Democracy Index" compiled bi-yearly by the Economist magazine research arm. It's not because of any new ultra right or left wing parties gaining power; it's due to public apathy [in the UK and USA] over their democratic rights: the right to vote as well as the "homeland security" initiatives instigated by both countries in response to terrorism. You will now be photographed over 1,000 times a day on the streets of London by closed circuit cameras, and despite President Obama's efforts to reverse the Bush administration's executive infringements to the civil rights act, a dappled cloud of paranoia remains. Since we are a literary site, we wanted to take a look at who has been writing novels that deal with this topic. I had to look no further than two-time Booker Prize winner Peter Carey. Peter talks about his latest novel Parrot and Olivier in America published by (Knopfdoubleday, 2010) which is based on Alex De Tocqueville's classic tomb on democracy, Democracy in America (Penguin Classics), which Carey says, "All my clever friends quote Tocqueville and pretend to have read all the way through America in high school or college, but they've really only skipped through the good bits. If you read through it, you see how a man of Tocqueville's background dealt with the times and reasoned how this form of government would fare through to the future." Parrot and Oliver is a riff on Tocqueville wrapped up in an imagined love story. Watch this excellent interview with GRANTA editor John Freeman. And don't forget to browse our previous podcasts, both homegrown and borrowed.
If you're like me you anticipate the moment when you turn the key on your post box, open the door to find your copy of this week's New Yorker magazine, teasingly folded over so that the new cover illustration and lineup of feature articles written by informed, entertaining and intelligent writers addressing today's events around the globe are revealed; then you won't want to miss the next New Yorker Festival. What goes on at the Festival? Well, the full program will be announced Sept 6th and tickets go on sale Sept 10th but I can tell you that your favorite staff writers and contributors will be on stages discussing their work, debating the issues, and entertaining you live. Go to newyorker.com/festival.New Yorker staff, such as the popular Malcolm Gladwell, will be live blogging during the festival to keep you updated. Come watch intelligent speakers talk about cool things. Even the speakers lament (for example) not being able to attend a session of the Mad Men creative team because they've been simu-scheduled at a forum next door. As one writer-speaker aptly put it, "It's wonderful to have the veil removed between you and your reading audience. To actually get meet your readers, who remarkably have really been paying close attention to your writing, and to hear their questions and opinions... " Satisfying all around!
At the end of a long day here on the farm (in the Interior of BC) it's great to sit on the porch surveying "the back 40" when the intense heat of the day has passed and the long shadow of our cottonwood next to the house provides a cool respite. Here I sit sipping a glass of crisp white wine while skipping through a copy of John Schreiner's The Wineries of British Columbia (Whitecap, 2009). John has been studying the subject for 30 years and this is the 3rd edition. He's mastered the art of giving just enough information to satisfy your curiosity and tempt your palate. Believe it or not there are 457 wineries in BC now, up from 14 in 1988. They're all listed in alphabetical order with the bottle label and engaging stories about each of the vintners, their properties, their methods and their successes. I go immediately to some of my favorites and see a common thread between us: people passionate about wines, not afraid to tackle the science and chemistry of its art, and determined to produce bottles that any family would be proud to serve company and any restaurant would be happy to place on their wine list alongside other worldly fare. Most often wineries are started, taken-over or completely re-vamped by people from entirely different backgrounds to the industry. Blasted Church was started by two couples who were brokerage accountants. Cedar Creek was started by a geologist and his wife. Burrowing Owl was started by a civil engineer with a business degree, and Quails' Gate was started by a distant relative of ours, the Stewart family, now the largest producer of Pinot Noir in Canada. If you want to learn the stories behind the wines you're drinking, take a mental tour through BC's award-winning and up-and-comers. Better yet, purchase a copy and head east on Highway 3 to the Okanagan where you can sample wines and visit winemakers on our own terroir. Slip in a copy of John Schreiner's Okanagan Wine Tour Guide on the dash for good measure! Now, where was I? Oh yes. I'm looking at the future terraced vineyard on our south slope. The east to west oriented valley will ensure long hours of sunlight and the rocky soil will concentrate the flavours in the grapes. Bring on the investors!
From the author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas comes a new historic fiction. John Boyne’s seventh novel, The House of Special Purpose (Doubleday, 2009) transports you back in time to a fractious Russia in the early 20th Century. Two worlds are at war; the Tsar’s days of lavish enjoyment run alongside a rebellious populous. Boyne’s talent is that when faced with a story that has death, tragedy and loss at its centre, he manages to find light in his characters that make his novels so compelling.
Whistler writers Dee Raffo and Karen McLeod are the winners of the Children's Short Fiction Contest sponsored by Whistler Reads during our 29th author event this past July. The submissions were reviewed by Canadian author Matthew Hooton who came to speak to the village-wide book group, and who agreed to vet the submissions. Both stories are featured here. The exercise was designed to stimulate thinking about the challenges of writing from this "site line", as Matthew describes it, "...where you are actually lower to the ground and view the world from a whole different angle." Dee and Karen enjoyed the process and said Matt was a sensitive editor and mentor who gave excellent advice on their writing. Here now are: "Running with Horses" by Dee Raffo, and "Mrs. Ryan's House" by Karen McLeod.
RUNNING WITH HORSES
By Dee Raffo
Her mother had been the one driving. It was icy and the bend was sharp, the paramedic said it would have been quick. The tree branch had punctured right through the windshield and struck her in the throat. Johnny was another story. He wasn’t wearing his seat belt, which was unusual, and was thrown about thirty metres before his small body had come to a stop. He suffered head injuries that caused him to die two days later, never opening his eyes again. In his five year old hand was a yellow tractor. Michelle thought this may have been the reason he wasn’t wearing his belt. She had gone over it time and time again, frame by frame as if it was a movie. Johnny taking off his belt to get his favourite toy, her mother taking her eyes off the road to make sure he put the seatbelt back on. Gone. In one morning, when there had been so many, they were gone. (continued... )
You've heard of TED talks. Now there's Pecha-Kucha Night. Pecha Kucha is the Japanese translation for the sound of the words "chit chat". It's a simple principle. Get speakers to gather 20 slides encapsulating their creative work or process and speak to each slide for 20 seconds. In the space of one evening you can learn a whole lot about the creative people around you. The presentation format was devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham architecture. The first PechaKucha Night was held in Tokyo in their gallery-lounge-bar-club or creative kitchen called the SuperDeluxe in February 2003. It has now become a global organization with events held worldwide. Klein Dytham architecture still organize and support the global PechaKucha Night network and organise PechaKucha Night Tokyo. For the second year now, it comes to Whistler BC to be held during the now famous bike festival called "Crankworx. Aug 7-15th 2010". Presenters include:
- Tyler Schramm, Schramm Vodka
- Rick Harry, Aboriginal Artist
- Keith Reynolds, Playground Builders
- Robin O'Neill - Photographer
- Peter Alder, Ecosign Mountain Resort Planners
- Leslie Anthony, Writer
- Paula Shackleton, Bookbuffet
- Carla Gutierrez, Fitness Model
My girlfriend was excoriating me the other day for not having read any novels by Swedish blockbuster crime writer, Karl Stig-Erland Larsson. On and on she went about the gripping plot, the insights into Swedish history, politics and culture. The sordid scandals and speculation over the author's sudden death at age 50. (Was it a heart attack or murder? Had he been offed by a Swedish right extremist group?) Then the fact that the first two books in the trilogy have been made into foreign feature films, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo starring a cast of people with an impossible number of consonants in their names. I admitted my guilt. I begged off with vague references to... something I refer to as "The Dan Brown Phenomenon"; as soon as I see a blockbuster novel/movie, I run the other way. I do anything I can to avoid exposing myself to mass culture and hysteria. I'm still receiving therapy over Da Vinci Code, truth be told. Then I looked up Larson's book sale statistics: He was the second best-selling author in the world in 2008, behind Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini, who admittedly I enjoyed. His Millennium Trilogy Bundle, : The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, has sold 27 million copies in more than 40 countries. And the English language version of the "Tattoo" is currently under production starring Daniel Craig, Robin Wright, Stellan Skarsgård scheduled for release in 2011. So, in deference to my dear friend who is trying to save me from turtling into an elitist literary shell, I thought I'd place the last of Larsson's trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest up for our Wine & Book Club pick over the summer. After all, don't we all love a good hornet's nest during a summer picnic? I bought the 3-book pack and my husband bought the audio book and we've been listening to it here at the ranch after our work day, with great anticipation. For all you book and wine people, we recommend some cool Ice Wine from Sweden to accompany your meeting.
People "Jailbreak" their iphone when they want to buy or use applications not sold via Apple's App store. They can also use their phone as a "tether" to their home computer and access it remotely, access files on their home computer remotely using their phone, etc. What's wrong with that? Well, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 says it's illegal. But aspects of the DMCA changed today. Need a little background? Wikipedia describes it thus:Jailbreaking is a process that allows iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users to run third-party unsigned code on their devices by unlocking the operating system and allowing the user root access. Once jailbroken, iPhone users are able to download many extensions and themes previously unavailable through the App Store via unofficial installers such as Cydia. A jailbroken iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch is still able to use the App Store and iTunes. Jailbreaking is different from SIM unlocking,
The judges for the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction today, Tuesday 27 July, announced the longlist for the prize. It is the leading literary award in the English speaking world. A total of 138 books, 14 of which were called in by the judges, were considered for the Man Booker Dozen longlist of 13 books. The chair of judges, Andrew Motion, commented:"Here are thirteen exceptional novels - books we have chosen for their intrinsic quality, without reference to the past work of their authors. Wide-ranging in their geography and their concern, they tell powerful stories which make the familiar strange and cover an enormous range of history and feeling. We feel confident that they will provoke and entertain." A glance over the list you will see some familiar authors who've won literary prizes, or nominations for the Man Booker in previous years. I'm always a little disappointed there aren't more fresh names in literary contests, however it is always a pleasure to read an author you know and can compare the progression of their work. Order one or three from the list and take your chances picking the winner. This will be announced on Tuesday 12 October at a dinner at London's Guildhall and will be broadcast on the BBC Ten O'Clock News. The prize is worth £50,000 and brings the author increased sales and worldwide recognition. The list is:
OK, you guessed it. I'm back at the farm slacking off (working my fingers to the BONE) and so this week's author podcast does not derive from moi. It is a hilarious riff from Russian born American writer, Gary Shteyngart. Who is Gary Shteyngart you ask? Well if you crossed Woody Allen with Pushkin, I think you'd be close. To prove my point, just watch this "serious video" from Random House introducing Gary's new book, Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel (Random House, July 27th 2010). It's fiction. It's a whopping 352 pages, and the video has real authors going with the schtick [including Edmond White, Mary Gaitskill, Jeffrey Eugenides.} Gary lives on the Lower East side of Manhattan and teaches at Columbia University, Princeton University and Hunter College. Check out his new book, but don't take MY word for it! Wikipedia (the source of all good journalist's information) wrote this: "Absurdistan: A Novel was chosen as one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review and Time Magazine, as well as a book of the year by the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications. The Russian Debutante's Handbook won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction, the Book-of-the-Month Club First Fiction Award and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. It was named a New York Times Notable Book and one of the best debuts of the year by The Guardian (UK). In June 2010, Shteyngart was named as one of The New Yorker magazine's "20 under 40" luminary fiction writers."
Song Over Quiet Lake is the second novel by Canadian author, Sarah Felix Burns. Her first novel Jackfish the Vanishing Village, 2007 (reviewed here) won the 2009 Northern Lit Award. This built anticipation for her next book. What shines through in her writing again is Burns' understanding of the human condition and the degree of empathy she evokes in readers for her characters. It is not surprising that she holds a degree in Women’s Studies and History from the University of British Columbia, with a masters degree in Social Work from the University of Toronto.
"One of the most anticipated new books around the Farrar, Straus & Giroux offices (and out in the Real World, I daresay) is Jeffrey Eugenides' follow-up to Middlesex. That 2003 novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize and was later selected for Oprah's Book Club, has sold over 2,000,000 copies and is on many readers' lists of their favorite contemporary novels." writes Jonathan Galassi, president of FSG. Jonathan caught up (virtually) with Jeff in his studio in Princeton, New Jersey, where he is rounding the turn on his new novel.—Work In Progress Blog
Galassi: Please tell us everything you can about your new book, starting with the title.
Eugenides: I hate to begin by withholding information, but I'd rather not divulge the title of the new book at the moment. I remember when my wife was pregnant and we were trying out different names for the baby. Anytime we told someone a prospective name, they would find something wrong with it. It rhymed with something not-nice. It was just begging to be deformed into a schoolyard epithet. The result was that we never named our child and refer to her now only by her SS#. So I'm not going to make that mistake again and tell you the title of my book.
Are you a literary snob? Take this Quiz And Find Out. Here is the very first line at the beginning of ten classic novels. See how many you can match up.
100% qualifies you in BookBuffet’s Literary Elite
75% and above means you should consider becoming a BookBuffet Moderator!
50% and up not bad, you make our Budding Bibliophile category.
Looking for a source of good literary reviews? The place to go is a trusted literary magazine, but last time we checked there are hundreds. For the ultimate web resource go to New Pages website. Here are a few of our favorites and others that piqued our interest.
1. African American Review
African American Review promotes a lively exchange among writers and scholars in the arts, humanities, and social sciences who hold diverse perspectives on African American literature and culture.
Join us Tuesday October 5th at 7:30 PM at the Whistler Public Library when Kerry Madden will join us on Skype Video. It has been 50 years since Harper Lee's novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird" came out and rocked our world. The reclusive author almost never gave interviews or speeches to accept her awards, including the Pulitzer Prize she was given in 1960. She did form a lasting relationship with actor Gregory Peck who played the lead figure, Atticus Finch in the film version of her book, a character modeled on Lee's own father who was a newspaperman and former lawyer of the highest moral standard. (Gregory Peck's grandchild is named Harper Peck Voll, in tribute to Harper Lee.) A new biography has come out on Harper Lee, written by Kerry Madden, a Professor at the University of Alabama, titled Harper Lee: Up Close.
Harper Lee, now 86, declined to be interviewed for her biography. She feels biographies are for dead people. As Madden discovered from her ample research of Lee, who despite her age, remains incredibly active; she golfs every week claiming the walk gives her time to think, and her 90-plus year-old sister still works as an attorney in town.
"Madden draws on extensive research—including trips to Monroeville, Ala., and interviews with classmates, colleagues and town residents—to explore how Lee’s life and times inspired her masterpiece. To Kill a Mockingbird has sold 30 million copies in 40 languages and continues to sell 10,000 copies per year, and Lee is 'one of the authors most read by [North]American students.' ...This biography will appeal to fans of the novel and to newcomers. Readers will find a fascinating portrait of an independent young woman stubbornly going her own way to become the one thing she wanted to be: a writer. Extensive source notes and an excellent bibliography round out this superb biography, one of the best in the Up Close series." Get your copy of Harper Lee: Up Close by Kerry Madden—Kirkus Reviews
Purchase both the novel and biography and re-visit this classic novel while learning about the author whose story shaped our views of racism and injustice. If you are in Whistler, get your copy from Armchair Books. WR members receive a 10% discount. Treat yourself to The Guardian's round-up of pics of the author.
BookBuffet is helping to spread the word about this July’s premiere of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, which headlines a trio of new Poirot mysteries on PBS MASTERPIECE MYSTERY! This long-awaited adaptation is preceded by a one–hour special taking viewers on a present-day journey aboard the iconic train. (The documentary, David Suchet on the Orient Express, airs Wednesday, July 7, 2010 on PBS.)
2010 actually marks Agatha Christie’s 120th birthday! Agatha Christie is the world's best-known mystery writer. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in over 45 foreign languages. She is outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare.
MASTERPIECE MYSTERY! is celebrating Christie and her suave Belgian detective with activities of interest to fans:
a Q&A with David Suchet at pbs.org/masterpiece/poirot
a live Twitter event during the July 11 broadcast of Murder on the Orient Express. Experts from Mystery Readers International, Mystery Scene and The Strand magazines will be tweeting. Join them and tag your posts with the hashtag, and then visit us on TweetGrid at TweetGrid, or use your own favorite aggregator.
Finally, we have a free supply of paperback copies of Murder on the Orient Express for distribution to readers. Contact us at paulas [at] bookbuffet.com
Matthew Hooton was named one of Canada's new literary talents to watch. His first novel is titled, Deloume Road published by Knopf Canada. Matthew's prose captures the Pacific Northwest in a style reminiscent of other favorite regional authors whose work shows a reverence for and understanding of the natural physical world; I'm thinking John Vaillant (The Golden Spruce), Steve Gutterson (Snow Falling on Cedars), with a bit of W.O. Mitchell thrown in for good measure. What these authors' writing share is an understanding of place and character all wrapped up in compelling suspenseful stories with intersecting characters from immigrant, native and First Nations backgrounds whose respective lives connect in touching and sometimes violent ways with each other and to nature. You will recall Vaillant's book dealt with the eco-terrorism of the giant golden spruce destroyed on the Queen Charlottes Island while Gutterson's novel was set on the small American San Juan Island community of Nordic and Japanese immigrants at conflict over a murder trial. Matthew's novel takes place on Vancouver Island on the titular rural road and it involves several families whose lives intersect with escalating levels of suspense and mystery one hot summer.
Depending on your age and your taste in music, you may not recognize this author's name, but you will likely recognize her band, The Go-Go's. This 80's punk rock band came out of Los Angeles California and was the first all-girl band to write their own songs and play their own instruments. The members originally consisted of Belinda Carlisle (vocals), Jane Wiedlin (guitar, vocals), Margot Olaverra (bass), and Elissa Bello (drums). Their first album Beauty and the Beat went double platinum and since its release the Go-Go's have sold over 7 million records. I still remember the cover art of their 1982 album Vacation which featured 5 lovely ladies in white frilly hats, pink tops and white skorts waterskiing parallel in a single line. It was retro-bitching. In addition to their success, they had a reputation for hard partying on the A-list circuit. Belinda Carlisle has had the most successful solo career of the group. She's also just released her memoir titled, Lips Unsealed published by Crown, a division of Random House (June 1, 2010), which is getting great reviews from Kirkus and others for (in addition to the heady girl-power celebrity stuff) its unguarded honesty surrounding her drug and alcohol issues, her battle with weight loss, low self esteem and abusive relationships. Below is an excerpt from her book. Check it out along with the You Tube videos of the girls performing and some of their album cover art. It's the perfect summer read while you listen to their music on your iPod.
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is Justin Cronin. Born and raised in New England, Justin Cronin is a graduate of Harvard University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Awards for his fiction include the Stephen Crane Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. He is a professor of English at Rice University and lives with his wife and children in Houston, Texas. His newest novel, The Passage, is published by Doubleday Canada.
QUESTIONS:
1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?
Girl saves world. 2. How long did it take you to write this book?
Forty-seven years, but most of it in the last three. 3. Where is your favorite place to write?
Rome is nice. But usually I write in my office over the garage. I used to write IN the garage.. 4. How do you choose your characters’ names?
Like my children's names, they seem to come from above. 5. How many drafts do you go through?
Three at least. In the second draft, I add. In the third, I cut. Often I have to do this more than once. 6. If there was one book you wish you had written what would it be? Currently, Joseph O'Neill's NETHERLAND 7. If your book were to become a movie, who would you like to see star in it?
I think Russell Crowe would make a great Agent Wolgast.
For more than 35 years, Masterpiece has enthralled audiences with the works of the finest classic and contemporary writers interpreted by the world's foremost actors. We at BookBuffet have been partnering with them for just a short 2 years to provide our members with book give-a-ways to match the series and details on the authors and screenwriters. The Masterpiece schedule breaks the year into three “seasons”:
• In winter and spring, Masterpiece Classic features signature period dramas.
• In summer, Masterpiece Mystery! presents the best British mysteries.
• In fall, Masterpiece Contemporary shows dramas set in modern times.
Foyles War VI: This two part show airs June 8th and June 15th.
It is June 1945 and while VE Day has been celebrated in Britain, the war continues elsewhere in the world. The immediate aftermath of war was not a time of jubilation and optimism, as had been expected. The country was exhausted and poverty-stricken, families torn apart and rations tighter than ever before. Like everyone else, Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle needs to feel his way in this new world as he faces some of his toughest challenges and gripping plots to date. Keen to retire, but bound to his old job by the steep rise in violent crime that swept the country, Foyle is thrust into the dangerous worlds of international conspiracy and execution, military racism and national betrayal.
The Russian House
CS Foyle stumbles upon an international cover up, which, if exposed could bring down the British government, and reveal the War Office’s darkest secret yet.
Killing Time
Foyle goes head to head against the might of the US army, as racial prejudices erupt when a local girl is found murdered, and the finger of suspicion points to a black GI at the US military base.
The Hide
The newly retired Foyle battles to save a young man accused of high treason from the executioner's noose, in a case that will shatter his personal world to the core...
If you crossed T.C. Boyle's Tortilla Curtain with Kem Nunn's surf noir trilogy novels and added breasts you would almost get this book, Point Dume written by Los Angeles author Katie Arnoldi (published by Overlook Press, May 28, 2010). Katie grew up in a tiny beach enclave just north of Malibu called Point Dume, popular among surfers. Sounds like she may have been the bad-ass version of Gidget, that is if she bears any similarity to her novel's saucy protagonist, Ellis Gardener. Somewhere between hanging up her own surf board, a short body-building stint and obtaining a degree in art history, Katie learned to write. She likes obsessive and damaged characters from dysfunctional families set in throbbing plots within issue-related themes. This is her third novel. The first thing that intrigued me was the rave review printed on the back cover by one of my literary icons, Joan Didion in praise of her first novel Chemical Pink a story about the weight lifting culture. It's written from Arnoldi's real life experience as an amateur competitive weight lifter. Point Dume is also a real place, and like all idyllic locations within close proximity to a thriving metropolis, it has been invaded by the rich: film directors, A-list actors, successful business types all looking for that fresh salt air, unobstructed sun and wide-open space. They've bulldozed the surf shacks and built mansion compounds verily driving out the original residents and their way of life. The beat-up pickup trucks along the beach loaded with short boards tacky with layers of thick bumpy wax are being crowded out by the BMW-driving wanna-be's who ride squishy 7-9 footers enabling them to take up the sport and in Ellis's opinion, fake the lifestyle. Yuppy yoga practicing housewives exchange psychologist referrals and drink soy-chai lattes while their hispanic nannies, gardeners and pool boys enable their privileged lifestyles. With the Pacific Ocean in the front yard, there's a whole big back yard consisting of miles of hills covered in tall wild scrub brush made accessible by a crisscross network of trails and fire access roads. Add a little water via an illegal tap into state water pipes and domestic irrigation systems, and you've got a thriving local industry of clandestine grow-ops run by various drug cartels looking to avoid the post 9-11 border hassle importing las herb. Point Dume the novel, could be on the bibliography list for a college degree in hydroponic canibisology. That seems to be Arnoldi's forte - capturing the underbelly of her subject with...
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is Holly LeCraw. Holly lives outside of Boston with her husband, who is a journalist, and three kids. Her short fiction and book reviews have appeared in a range of publications, including the
Edge City Review and the Boston Book Review. Her short fiction was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Though a newcomer as a novelist, she grew up in the book industry. For more information on her newest novel, The Swimming Pool, please visit her website www.hollylecraw.com
1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?
It’s the story of a young man and an older woman who are mourning the same person--his father, who was her lover--and who, to their great surprise, begin an affair of their own, leading to crises and revelations they never could have imagined. 2. How long did it take you to write this book?
I tried not to keep track. Three or four years. 3. Where is your favorite place to write?
Alone on Cape Cod. 4. How do you choose your characters’ names?
They just come to me and I use them as placeholders, because at the beginning I am always in a hurry; later I go back to change them and they’ve affixed themselves to the characters like barnacles, and I can’t think of anything better. 5. How many drafts do you go through?
One draft flows into the other, so I’m not sure. They aren’t discrete manuscripts. Four? Five? Twenty? I did do an edit/polish for both my agent, before we submitted, and then my editor. 6. If there was one book you wish you had written what would it be?
Too many to choose from--but on the other hand, I can’t imagine writing any books but my own. 7. If your book were to become a movie, who would you like to see star in it?
Hmmm...maybe Robert Pattinson for Jed, and Juliette Binoche for Marcella. We could make her French. [8-20 cont'd]
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom.
Today we feature Joan Thomas. Joan Thomas's debut novel, Reading by Lightning, won the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book (Canada/Caribbean) in 2009, was a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book, was shortlisted for three Manitoba Book Awards, is the 2009 Manitoba Reads pick and on the shortlist for the Amazon Best First Book Award. Her short stories and creative non-fiction have been published in journals and magazines across the country, and she is the writing and publishing program consultant for the Manitoba Arts Council. Her newest novel is Curiosity from McClelland & Stewart.
Questions 1. How would you summarize Curiosity in one sentence?
Forty years before Darwin, a 19th century gentleman and a fossil-collecting working-class woman meet each other, and their way of thinking about the world changes.
2. How long did it take you to write this book?
I read for about a year and then I wrote for three.
3. Where is your favorite place to write?
I wrote part of this book in a desk in the bedroom, part in the basement facing a cement wall, the rest in my current light-filled office. Really, I don’t care, as long as it’s quiet. I’m not a Starbucks kind of writer.
4. How many drafts do you go through?
With word processors, it’s impossible to say. I’m always tinkering with what’s there, adding layers. But if you consider it a separate draft every time you say, “Okay, this is done,” print it off, and give it to someone to read—maybe 8. It’s amazing how often you finish a book! [4-10 continued]
NEW VENUE INFO. The next Whistler Reads discussion takes place this summer on July 10th from 5:00-6:15 pm at the Whistler Public Library community room. Admission is free with donations accepted at the door. We'll be heading down the village stroll directly after to reserved patio tables at a restaurant location for a lovely 3-course dinner to take advantage of two Whistler "greats: great food and great conversation. Enjoy cocktails and wine, fine dining and laughter as we carry on the festivities into the summer evening and watch the alpenglow over the mountain tops. (Cost is your bar bill added to price fix menu of two choices over a three course meal.)
There's still time to purchase your copy of Deloume Road published by Knopf Canada. This is our 30th book selection and you're going to love it. It is written by first-time Vancouver Island author, Matthew Hooton. Matthew was named one of Canada's new literary talents to watch. Matthew's prose captures the Pacific Northwest in a style reminiscent of other favorite regional authors whose work shows a reverence for and understanding of the natural physical world; I'm thinking John Vaillant (The Golden Spruce), Steve Gutterson (Snow Falling on Cedars), with a bit of W.O. Mitchell thrown in for good measure. What these authors share is an understanding of place and an understanding of character all wrapped up in a compelling, suspenseful read. They combine the immigrant and native perspective as it intersects the relationships between men and within nature. You will recall Vaillant's book dealt with the mystery surrounding the eco-terrorism of the golden spruce giant destroyed in the Queen Charlottes, and Gutterson's novel was set on a small Gulf Island community of Nordic and Japanese immigrants at conflict over a murder trial. Matthew's novel takes place on Vancouver Island on the titular rural road and it involves several families, acclimated, immigrant and native whose lives intersect with escalating levels of suspense and mystery one hot summer.
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom.
QUESTIONS: 1. How long did it take you to write this book?
The idea came to me in the form of a single image -- that of a bottle cork -- about 7 years ago, but the actual writing took three years.
2. How many drafts do you go through?
Each novel is different. For this one, I must have done about 5 drafts. Maybe more.
3. If there was one book you wish you had written what would it be?
A FINE BALANCE by Rohinton Mistry.
4. If you could talk to any writer living or dead who would it be, and what would you ask?
If I had a chance to meet someone from the past, it wouldn't be a writer; it would be the prophet of the Zoroastrians, Zarathushtra. But he did compose sacred hyms, so one can call him a poet.
5. Did you always want to be a writer?
Not at all. I didn't want to be anything. Ambition seemed like a lot of work.
6. If your book were to become a movie, who would you like to see star in it?
Johnny Depp. (But I don't have a part for him in it.)
Whenever I travel, I use Kiwi Collection to book the hotels. They always know the coolest places to stay within my budget, and offer upgrades and perks that my usual travel agent (or attempts at self-booking online) cannot. The big news is that Kiwi Collection just completed an extensive revamp of their website - check it out. Whether you are taking a business trip, planning an annual vacation, or just grabbing a quick get-a-way, this site goes beyond information - it inspires.
Started by Swedish entrepreneur Philippe Kjellgren(pronounced Shellgrenn), Kiwi Collection has a team of people around the world who find and approve new properties by staying in the rooms, exploring the environs and meeting personally with each owner/manager to establish a professional relationship. (Sounds like a dream job, right? Ya, I thought so too. ) Approval and listing with KC is maintained as long as the service equals their exacting standards. Whether you prefer well-known international brands, that funky boutique gem, a luxury camp or a classic Inn experience, you can be sure that Kiwi Collection's personal relationship with the owner/operator will ensure you are welcomed like a friend of the family or an honored guest.
I had a 5-city junket over about as many days recently, and was somewhat dreading the pace. I was so relieved to hand the address of my hotel to my driver at each stop and discover the hotel location was minutes from my business meeting, it was close to the local sites with great restaurants and potential night-vibe, and I was greeted with a huge smile upon check-in, fitted with a view-room or similar upgrade, and provided excellent personalized service.
If you are like me and tend to squirrel away the hotel booklets with suggestions of other hotels in the collection, then you'll enjoy having one - or all three - of Kiwi Collection's coffee table books with gorgeous photos of hotels from around the world and Kiwi's lively descriptions outlining the unique assets. Overnight Sensations The Americas: Hotels for the Discerning Traveler, Overnight Sensations Europe: Hotels for the Discerning Traveler, and Overnight Sensations Asia Pacific: Hotels for the Discerning Traveler. I know for a fact that Madonna has these books, but you don't have to be a Rock diva to appreciate the excellent service and ahah comfort that the Kiwi connection affords. Just book your next hotel through them and see! "It's for people who care about where they stay." Join their Facebook and Twitter pages. Canada & USA 1 800-999-0680 or Worldwide 778-331-0680
Ian McEwan came to Vancouver this past week as a stop on his book tour to promote his new climate-themed novel, Solar (published by Nan A. Talese in the USA and Knopf in Canada). I had 4 tickets, but had to give them up due to the Iceland ash cloud. Funny that an ash cloud should preclude my "solar" experience, but I suppose that's poetic irony. While I would presently be offering you an exclusive podcast, if not for the ash factor, I will instead offer you this (pronounced in Shakespearean style) swipe-ed video interview obtained from his publisher. Try not to be distracted by the people walking past the window outside behind where IM is seated. I'm still trying to work out if this indeed is his London flat or whether it's his publisher, editor or publicist's flat, in which case they have much better accommodations than NYC publishers.
Ian McEwan is one of those authors who could write about paint drying and make it seem interesting, even dramatic. He once queried whether literary authors should pay more attention to plot in their writing? The plots in his novels are clever fancies of intricacy criticized by some. For pedantic requirements we list his recent novels many of which have been adapted into memorable films: Atonement, Saturday, Amsterdam, Enduring Love- eighteen titles in total. On Chesil Beach was a charming novelette about young love. In fact one would have to say love and all its many manifestations: passionate love, childish love, incestuous love, unrequited love, tragic love are all covered in McEwan's writing. Solar is a book about planetary love, or the sufficient lack thereof.
I wish I could tell you what McEwan is like in person. I wish I could tell you if he seemed jaded by success, or feigned mock coyness despite having it. I wish I could bring you the sound of his voice echoing in the open spaces of St. Andrew's Wesley Cathedral (a location that curiously made John Irving physically uncomfortable to speak in when he appeared here). I doubt that Ian McEwan is uncomfortable in churches, or on the set of a feature film he's adapted from one of his books, or riding in a plane first class around the ash cloud that now envelopes his emerald island home. Without further adieu, please enjoy this reading by Ian McEwan and then scroll down to listen to another of our BookBuffet Author Podcast series.
Airing April 18 & 25, 2010 on PBS is Masterpiece Theater's adaptation of Andrea Levy's award-winning novel Small Island. "Born into a broken home and an impoverished life in Jamaica, Hortense (Naomie Harris) longs for a fulfilling life in England; one with a fine house and a doorbell. The door of opportunity swings open, and Hortense is married and on her way to the promised land of post-war Britain. Steadfast dreams are soon tested by hard realities as Hortense and her husband Gilbert (David Oyelowo) face racism and poverty. In the small-minded country, their only saving grace is Queenie (Ruth Wilson, Jane Eyre). But Queenie faces her own disillusionment, married to the kind but dull Bernard (Benedict Cumberbatch, The Last Enemy). Bonded by high hopes and broken dreams, these four lives fuse together in a powerful and hopeful story of love and fulfillment." (Two episodes; 90 minutes each)" This is the 10th book to film series that Masterpiece and BookBuffet has collaborated on.
The "20 Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom.
Today we feature Yann Martel, whose newest novel, which you can purchase here is Beatrice & Virgil is published by Knopf Canada (left) or the US cover version (right). Martel is the award-winning author of four previous books, including the recent What Is Stephen Harper Reading?. Yann Martel is one of Canada’s most interesting and surprising writers. Born in Spain in 1963, Yann grew up in various places as the son of diplomats. He won the Journey Prize for the title story in The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios. His runaway bestseller, Life of Pi was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. It was the winner of the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction as well as the Man Booker Prize. Yann lives with writer Alice Kuipers and their son in Saskatoon.
1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?
Writer meets taxidermist meets Holocaust.
2. How long did it take you to write this book?
With interruptions, nine years.
3. Where is your favorite place to write?
No favourite place. I just need a chair, a table, my computer and a little peace and quiet.
[4-20 continued]
Yes, I know this is about to rock your world... BBC reports that "the rules of word game Scrabble are being changed for the first time in its history to allow the use of proper nouns, games company Mattel has said. Place names, people's names and company names or brands will now count. Mattel, which brings out a new version of the game containing amended rules in July, hopes the change will encourage younger people to play. Until now a few proper nouns had been allowed which were determined by a word list based on the Collins dictionary. In Scrabble, players try to gain the highest points by making words with individual letter tiles on a grid board. Each letter tile has a points value between one and 10, based on the letter's frequency in standard English. Various coloured squares on the board can double or triple a player's points. My question is, does this mean that we are so bereft of a sizable vocabulary that we have to dumb-down our games?
A spokeswoman for the company said the use of proper nouns would "add a new dimension" to Scrabble and "introduce an element of popular culture into the game". She said: "This is one of a number of twists and challenges included that we believe existing fans will enjoy and will also enable younger fans and families to get involved." However, Mattel said it would not be doing away with the old rules altogether. It will continue to sell a board with the original rules.
Scrabble was invented in 1938 by American-born architect Alfred Butts. He later sold the rights and it was trademarked in 1948."
Technology around books just keeps getting more interesting. A California company has just come out with a hybrid between the book and a video which they call "the future of publishing". Check out VOOK. "A vook is a new innovation in reading that blends a well-written book, high-quality video and the power of the Internet into a single, complete story. You can read your book, watch videos that enhance the story and connect with authors and your friends through social media all on one screen, without switching between platforms."
Vooks are available in two formats: As a web-based application you can read on your computer and a mobile application for reading on the go. With the web-based application you don't have to download programs or install software. Just open your favorite browser and start reading and watching in an exciting new way. You can also download and install the mobile applications through the Apple iTunes store and sync them with your Apple mobile device.
Vook has an exclusive partnership with TurnHere, a leading Internet video production company. Vook and TurnHere leverage a network of more than 10,000 filmmakers around the world to create professional-quality, authentic and engaging vook videos.
The company has several dozen titles ranging from fiction to thriller to self help. While many are from the public domain, there are a few new releases by known authors. Anne Rice, the queen of vampire novels released The Master of Rampling Gatein Vook version. It costs $5.00 for the iPad version, $4.99 for the iPhone App and the online version. It has 5 chapters and 7 videos . The videos were made by Phinizy Percy Jr.
Check it out and tell me what you think! Email: paula [at] bookbuffet.com
F5, [ef-fahyv] A function key on a computer used to refresh a web browser or file manager.
A business conference for executives on changing technologies in the online space such as social media, search marketing, mobile applications, and future trends. The inaugural event will be held on April 7, 2010 in world renowned, Vancouver, Canada. Venue location, the Vancouver Harbour Conference Centre. F5 EXPO invites you to learn about social media, mobile marketing, and other emerging trends. The event converges interactive exhibits, peer idea-collaboration amongst fellow Owners, Executives and Buyers, and edge-of-your-seat sessions into one explosive day. The focus is on refreshing business strategies through captivating content and storytelling with an “AHA” factor on such topics as mobile apps, search marketing, business blogs/webinars, social media, web 2.0, etc. Speakers include: Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog Saw), Tech Linz (Blogger and CEO, Massive Media), Brad Lever (CEO, eCrypt Technologies), Michael Ferfusson (CEO, Ayogo), Darci LaRochelle (Swirl Solutions), Tom Ellis (Technological Crime Analyst, RCMP), Howie Wu (Co-Founder and CEO, LayerBoom Systems), Tris Hussey (Author of Create Your Own Blog and Using ). Sound cool. I'm going to meet Malcolm.
In the face of rapid change, who wouldn’t need to hit the refresh button?!
To celebrate its 30th anniversary—and have a little April Fool's Day fun—Tor Books recently took a tongue-in-cheek staff picture in front of its offices in the Flatiron Building, NYC. President and publisher Tom Doherty is in the center of the shot. We assume the flying saucer and serpent demon are photoshopped in. Are you surprised by the number of staff required to be a publisher? Those people are the reason why Tor has won the Locus Magazine poll for best science fiction publisher every year since 1988, and as of early 2009, they have produced 157 prize-winning novels. BookBuffet went online to learn more about this successful niche publisher. Fantasy and Science fiction are not just the reading fodder of teenaged boys. With a stable of over 100 authors they represent such notable writers as Cory Doctorow, Steven Erikson and Kathleen Ann Goonan. There are 15 editors on staff to keep up with the job of reviewing manuscript submissions, selecting and working up properties suitable to the house. Tor Books is one of two imprints of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, based in New York City. They also publish mainstream fiction, mystery, and occasional military history titles under its Forge imprint.
Canadian author Matthew Hooton spells his first name with double t's and his last name with double o's. This inherent symmetry is reflected in his prose, and who knows, may have been the subliminal force in his entire life, starting from the moment when he began to practice printing those consonants and vowels with a large diameter pencil on lined paper in primary school. After all, one of the first things we learn to print is our own name. That means that Matthew Hooton, with double t's and double o's, has been writing parallel and contrasting letters his whole life. I think that is rather a clever observation, and one that portends well for readers, because his first novel, Deloume Road (Knopf, Canada 2010) is the embodiment of sublime and subtle symmetry. Deloume Road is located on Vancouver Island on the "wet coast" of British Columbia where the dense forest grows to giants with just enough space between the trees to permit a few rays of light to penetrate down onto the forest floor and sustain a carpet of thirsty ferns and moss. It's the perfect playground for brothers Josh and Andy and their neighbourhood pal Matthew on this particularly hot August. Other folks living on Deloume Road will factor in the story as well, and their narratives, told in chapters as short as one paragraph, will skilfully lead the reader into a gentle and ominous tension that is contrasted by the pastoral setting of this country road community. Not since John Vaillant’s GG winning novel The Golden Spruce (also set on Vancouver Island) has there been a writer able to capture the essence of the Pacific Northwest and bring us a host of meaningful characters whose lives intersect in touching and disturbing ways.
The "20 Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast. Today we feature Joy Fielding. Joy Fielding is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Charley's Web, Heartstopper, Mad River Road, See Jane Run and other acclaimed novels. She divides her time between Toronto and Palm Beach, Florida. For more information on her newest novel, The Wild Zone, please visit her website www.joyfielding.com
1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?
"The Wild Zone": Three men make a bet as to which of them can be the first to seduce a mysterious young woman, with unforseen, and deadly, consequences.
2. How long did it take you to write this book?
It took approximately one year - from the time I first got the idea till it was completed - to write. About 4 to 6 months of actual writing. This is true of all my books.
3. Where is your favorite place to write?
My favourite place to write is in my office, which is a room in my downtown condominium. The room is beautiful, the view spectacular. (4-20 continued)
Michael Lewis's new book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine chronicles the 2008 financial collapse through the investors who realized what was happening to the U.S. economy — while it was happening — and then made a fortune by betting against the markets. If you compare The Big Short to his first book Liar's Poker, you could say that Liar's Poker was the bond market bomb that destroyed the Wall Street investment firm Saloman Brothers, while The Big Short, using Stanley Kubric's Strangelove reference, explodes the sub-prime nuclear device that sent up a mushroom cloud over our economy and toxic spores around the world. Several of Michael's books have been made into feature films. "Blind Side," the football flick just won Sandra Bullock an Academy Award, (Purchase DVD) and Brad Pitt is currently in production with Michael's baseball story Money Ball. But make that strike two: Pitt swings his bat for a second time, having just bought the rights to adapt The Big Short along with his buddies at Paramount. Why are Michael Lewis's books such hot properties? He writes smart, perceptive stories that capture the personalities behind the phenomenon, and he does it with clarity, heart and humor. I highly recommend you take the next 40 minutes and listen to Terry Gross at NPR interview Michael Lewis. His cast of real characters include a former neurosurgery resident with Asberger's Syndrome who starts a hedge fund, quits medicine and makes a fortune betting against the system. Then there is Ledley and Mai, two guys in their early 30s who also start their own hedge fund starting with ~ $100,000 and quickly turn it into $15 million by betting on financial events that are extremely unlikely to occur — and therefore didn't cost much to bet against. "This is a story of human perception - people see what they want to see," says Lewis. Read an excerpt of The Big Short, Chapter One inside...
"When a major writer emerges, the time for comparison ends, and the time to celebrate begins," so says The National Post about one of Canada's fresh literary voices, Rabindranath Maharaj whose forth novel, The Amazing Absorbing Boy has just been published by Knopf, Canada, 2010. But I can't help compare Maharaj's writing style and subject matter as a cross between Junoz Diaz's The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao for its liberal use of foreign slang throughout the book, and Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay for its character's obsession with comic books. It seems many talented writers of this generation refer back to comics as the portal to their protagonist's relationship-slash-coping mechanisms for the real world. It makes me wonder if anyone has ever done a study on the affect that super hero, super powers has on the socio-development of little boys. No one seems to quote Archie. It's always Spider Man, the Incredible Hulk, etc with Hugh Jackman-type actors filling in the film roles. I suppose GI Joe is the inspiration for writers like "Full Metal Jacket" or why boys become Jar Heads? Psychology aside, I read this book in three sittings. It captures the culture of Trinidad through the eyes of a 17 year-old boy whose mother has died and whose father reluctantly sends for him to come to Canada. With fantasies of reuniting with his long-lost, deadbeat dad, he soon discovers his father has no intention of making up for lost time with his son. Left to fend pretty much for himself, Samuel negotiates the strange streets of Toronto with its frigid northern temperatures and unfamiliar immigrant neighborhoods, giving the reader an incredibly fresh view of Canada's culture and the machinations of assimilation. To accompany this book we've selected an Alsace Pinot Gris as recommended for spicy Indian style foods by Decanter
Win a set of books for you book group. Join BookBuffet's Masterpiece Book to Film Group (details below) and tune into WGBH for the latest Classic adaptation for television. Airing April 11th on Masterpiece Classic is a brand new production of The Diary of Anne Frank, a story that the world has come to equate with the tyranny of Nazi Germany and its policy of oppression against the Jews and this innocent, independent spirited young woman. The trailer begins, "Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday in June 1942. The following month she and her family go into hiding in the secret annex behind her father's business in Amsterdam to escape the Nazi roundup of Jews. An unusually perceptive writer, Anne records events in the annex over the course of the next two years." Anne Frank is played by Ellie Kendrick. The production was adapted from the diary by Deborah Moggach, produced by Elinore Day and directed by Jon Jones. Watch the trailer. Masterpiece has been presented on PBS by WGBH since 1971. WGBH is one of the nation's top public television and public radio broadcasters; a leading producer of high-quality content for TV, radio, the Internet, and other media; a pioneer in access services for people with disabilities; and the source of educational multimedia used by millions of teachers and students every year. Check out the comprehensive links to information provided here and don't miss the interview with noted writer and one of my favorite literary goddesses, Francine Prose. Read her book, Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife alongside this feature. Video on sale here.
The "20 Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast. Today we feature Andrew Kaufman. Check back for upcoming authors: Joy Fielding, Drew Hayden Taylor, and John Boyne.
ANDREW KAUFMAN's critically acclaimed first book, All My Friends Are Superheroes, was a cult hit and has been translated into six languages. Kaufman is also an accomplished screenwriter and has completed a Director's Residency at the Canadian Film Centre. He lives in Toronto with his wife and their two children. His newest novel is The Waterproof Bible.
The Questions:
1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?
A woman who projects her emotions, a man who meets a woman claiming to be God, and a mermaid driving a stolen Honda Civic are forced to ask themselves which is more important – faith or fact.
2. How long did it take you to write this book?
It was a little under seven years. Or, more concretely, when I started I was single and renting a one-bedroom apartment and now I'm married with two kids and a mortgage.
3. Where is your favorite place to write?
Beside the stereo.
The next Whistler Reads meeting is SATURDAY May 1st, 4:00pm at the Whistler Public Library, in the community room. The book under discussion is FOOD RULES by Michael Pollan. Panelists are: Andrée Janyk (Olympic mom of Michael and Britt Janyk and a leader in health and fitness), Cat Smiley (Fitness Trainer and founder of the Whistler Boot Camp), Craig MacKenzie (Youth Director of WORCA) passionate about community initiatives for youth, Irene Gutteridge (Kinesiologist with a Masters in Biomedical Science) trained in Moshe Feldenkrais method of rehabilitation. Chris Shackleton, MD (former Professor of Surgery, UCLA School of Medicine) who is helping to shape health care policy to reverse obesity trends. And last but not least Anna Helmer (Whistler-Pemberton's SLOW FOOD movement) who will connect us to the local food chain. This covers all the angles and pulls local experts who, as it turns out, are also national experts from the eduction, fitness, community, health and food supply sectors. We invite you to join in and tell us your food rules, your thoughts on these trends.
How on earth did Whistler Reads pick this skinny little book? What's it got to teach (we health-conscious, fitness-obsessed) Whistlerites?
Like you I was impressed by our nation's response to the 2010 Olympics - not just in the host cities of Vancouver and Whistler but from coast to coast. Our athletes, their parents and coaches, and the people who helped fund the athletics are to be congratulated. Canada won an unprecedented number of medals. Regardless of your thoughts on the "own the podium" mantra, we also won the most gold between countries. Delirious spectators dressed in red and white hockey jerseys and all manner of Olympic swag broke into spontaneous choruses of the national anthem everywhere. Canadian flags now adorn porches and house windows, and flutter on the sides of cars confirming that a new era of uncharacteristic patriotism has swept this country. Now is the time to harness the post-Olympic spirit, take that unity of purpose and apply it toward a common goal. Let's encourage each and every Canadian to a higher standard of health and fitness. The shocking fact is that Canadians, like our neighbors to the south, are victims of a national epidemic of obesity. A full 60% of people are overweight or obese. We eat too much (of the wrong foods) and exercise too little. Don't believe me? Watch this
Each year the Whistler Writers Group offers a Writer in Residence Program for the full month of September. Twenty successful applicants who have submitted a writing sample and paid the modest $250 fee have the opportunity to attend both the group sessions and four one-on-one mentoring sessions with an established writer. The guest author gets to stay at Station House, a converted building that is owned and operated by the Resort Municipality, which is located in an idyllic, quiet location on the opposite side of Alta Lake across from the Whistler village, the ski hills and the hubbub of busy tourist activities. The fee does not include accommodation, but that's the fun part. Whistler has everything from five-star hotels like the Four Seasons to quaint Bavarian style B&B's, or if you are really on a budget, perhaps you can score one of the 101 rooms at the new 2010 Olympic Athlete Village Youth Hostel? Distractions from your homework include world class golf (3 courses in as many miles), hiking (take the new Peak 2 Peak tram and cover two mountains in one day), mountain biking (boasting the world's largest network of trails and the world's largest non profit rider's association to take you there), and then there's the village patio dining and bistro experiences and plenty of shopping. You'd better pack a whack of outdoor gear in addition to your laptop and that sharp pencil! The Whistler writers group, called Vicious Circle was launched in 2001 by Stella Harvey. It has a core of committed members who help with the organizing and creative spirit. They meet regularly throughout the year to critique each other's writing - so they can't be all that vicious. Check out their just-released video of the writer in residence program posted on the group website. www.viciouscircle.ca It's the work of Rebecca Wood Barrett and Duane Hepditch. Past writer in residence authors include: 2009 Wayne Grady and Merylin Simons; 2008 Jane Dorsey; 2007 Paulette Bourgeois. The 2010 author has not yet been announced, but counting from March to September gives you six months to work on your writing, and polish a short piece consisting of 20 double spaced pages for the submission deadline. Then plan to drop everything and come hang-out in Whistler this September. Contact Stella Harvey: stella25@telus.net. PHOTO: Alta Lake Rope Swing
The Whistler Reads initiative is fashioned on the "One Book One City" programs popular across North America. Want to be a part of this exciting community venture, meet authors, discover new books, join the biggest book group in BC? Check out the list of past books and events below. We welcome all newcomers and drop-in resort visitors alike. This is a great place to meet locals if you are new to Whistler. "Whether you live work or come to play in Whistler—read what Whistler Reads!" says WR Founder, Paula Shackleton.
Type "Whistler Reads" (without the quotes) into the book group name field
Fill in the rest of your information.
If you are already a member of BookBuffet, check that box.
You can now access the member home page, and begin receiving emails with the latest book and event details and discussion questions.
See what other members are reading and post your current books on our FaceBook Page.
Get the latest news and features via our Twitter Feed.
Jim Crace is the author of, among other books, Being Dead a novel about a middle-aged couple who sneak away for a beach picnic and spontaneous tryst among the sand dunes, who are subsequently accosted and bludgeoned (sounds gory and off-putting but it's fascinating). The reader experiences the victims' agonal death in a rather David Lynch, "Twin Peaks" hyper-real perspective from inside one of the victim's brains while the bodies become an entomology lesson in the art of decay. Coincidentally, I'd just read Being Dead when I attended a reading by Michael Cunningham at Royce Hall in Los Angeles. Cunningham admitted that he'd just read Being Dead and loved Jim Crace. I'm not calling to order a meeting of the Jim Crace admiration society, rather I am calling to your attention to the fact that a decade, yes a DECADE people, has elapsed since Jim Crace began writing his deliciously satirical literary review column for The Guardian entitled "Digested Read." It is an absolute scream. As Crace says, "The primary goal is to entertain – something the book itself has often failed to do – but it's also intended as a (semi) serious critique, for much of the fun is derived from clunky plot devices that don't work, pretentious stylistic tics, risible dialogue and an absence of big ideas. Literary criticism does not have to be dull to be serious." It's based on the premise that many books are reviewed glowingly and inadequately by people who either (gasp) haven't read the book, or worse, didn't really "get it." Jim pokes fun at the books and writers he has "digested" and regurgitates a delightful masticated blurb that will have you ruminating like a bovine on E. So celebrate a decade of critique with me by plowing through Crace's column and see how it effects your views on some of the books you've likely read and authors you likely admire. Crace says, "Satire when it's accurate isn't cruel." I for one will never look at Martin Amos or his books the same again.
The great thing about hosting the Olympics in Whistler, BC Canada this week is that we get to attract stunning literary figures like Annabel Lyon. I couldn't think of a more perfect author to feature this week as Annabel's book, The Golden Mean (published by Random House 2009) is set in 300BC Greece (and Olympia being the birth of the Olympics in 700BC... ) is about the relationship between Aristotle and his royal pupil, Alexander III of Macedon, son of King Philip II of Macedon, or as most of you know him, Alexander the Great. Don't miss this lesson in history and fiction writing as Annabel speaks to the Whistler Reads book group marking their 28th book discussion. Annabel tells us, "I didn't want to write an historic fiction - I wanted to write a modern book set 2300 years ago." This podcast is part of a growing series, the BookBuffet Author Podcast Series, with over 100 segments posted on iTunes and various other podcast aggregators. You get to listen here first! Our downloads average in the hundreds per day, and that bandwidth costs money. Consider making a donation to the site to support our efforts to bring you quality conversations with established and emerging writers. From Nobel prize laureate Orhan Pamuk to triple-prize-nominated Canadian writer Annabel Lyon, we bring you the voices and conversations of select authors that will intrigue and inspire you and your group.
BookBuffet partners with Random House Canada to offer you a writerly glimpse into the lives of authors. First up, is Beth Powning. Check back for upcoming authors: Joy Fielding, Drew Hayden Taylor, and John Boyne.
1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence? The Sea Captain's Wife takes the reader around the world on a square-rigged sailing ship in the 1860's with a young woman and her captain husband; beneath the dramatic and fast-paced events of the adventure are the small, painful, and subtle moments that constitute a marriage.
2. How long did it take you to write this book? Three years.
3. Where is your favorite place to write? In my studio, which is a big room over the kitchen in our 1870's farmhouse. The room has tiny, low doors that even I have to duck to go through. There’s a skylight and narrow east-facing windows overlooking my vegetable gardens, forests and pastures. Questions 4-10... Continued below.
"It's going to change the way we do every day things." I confess outright to being a MAC fan on most technology gadgets. I have a Mac Book Pro laptop and several iterations of iPod's (including the iPod microphone attachment which I use to digitally record interesting literary events I attend). I download music, podcast courses and movies from the iTunes Online Store, and I have 4 "pages" of Apps on my iPhone that enable me to do a variety of things: from stitching my digital iphone photos together into panoramas, to using a handy translator application for languages (including changing English into Arabic script so that I can email directly to the native speaker I'm working with), to staying on top of my stocks via the Bloomberg App, to using the Mapquest app as a geo-locator for directions or to find the London tube stop I need, or the nearest ATM's where I'm traveling. I can view the latest movie trailers and determine the closest cinema playing my choice. I can electronically call a Taxi, predetermine what my fare will be with the likely route he'll take showing on screen and even pay for my fare in certain cities. Yawn. It goes on and on. As a book reviewer, book publisher, journalist and technology bibliophile, I of course downloaded the Amazon Kindle version for my iPhone the day it became available. But I don't really use it - the screen is pretty small. So for the sake of all the book groups who frequent our website I decided to enter the market by (gasp) ordering an Amazon Kindle before Christmas. The device went through postal purgatory for 3 weeks, eventually going to a wrong address and being sent back to Amazon. I figured that was digital karma because a few days later Steve Jobs made his long awaited announcement of APPLE'S new iPad Device which is largely aimed at destroying the e-reader market. Here's why I think that APPLE will dominate the competitive field: design, design, design. It's rather like the real estate axiom: location, location, location. Why would anyone want to own a clunky Amazon Kindle II or a 5th generation but still ugly Sony Reader, or a Barnes & Noble (mad-dash attempt to catch-up) Nook ?? when they can own an elegant, slim, weightless, superior interface iPad. The list of features, cost and dates you can get yours follow...
The Golden Globes are always a pre-curser to the Academy Awards (The Oscars) and this year awards went to some actors whose careers have well deserved recognition in the past and who receive it now, as well as the expected sweep of AVATAR. Kudos to James Cameron who once again breaks box office records by making over $1 Billion USD in the fastest time from opening date. (If you're interested in the animation, get this excellent book, The Art of Avatar: James Cameron's Epic Adventure) BookBuffet was particularly pleased to see Vieneese actor, Christopher Waltz win Best Supporting Actor for "Inglorious Bastards", and also Mo'Nique, Best Supporting Actor in "Precious". Check out the list of winners and nominated to see which films and their adapted books you want to start plowing through before Oscars March 7th, as you may have heard that the Academy of Motion Pictures announced back in June '09 that the Best Picture award will list 10 not 5 movies in the running. In the 30's and 40's The Academy used to feature 8-10 nominees, so this is not a completely new concept. One assumes it's a bid to increase theatre attendance across the spectrum of films before the award ceremony, and I have to agree, when an average of 400 films are released each year it seems reasonable to allow 10 to shine in the annual spotlight. Read on for the Golden Globe list of nominees and winners with links to books, trailers and trivia.
She was the secretary of a spice company doing business in the office where Anne Frank, her sister, parents and two others stowed away in the attic in Amsterdam. She brought food and clothing to the family, as well as books and newspapers. The hide-aways were discovered late 1944 (the informer has never been uncovered) and Anne was taken to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany where she died of typhus March 1945, just two weeks before the American liberation of the facility. Anne's diary was found by Miep Gies. She kept it and gave the diary to Anne's father Otto, the only survivor. He then published his daughter's diary in 1947. It has since been translated into 65 languages and read by millions of children and adults. The Diary of Anne Frank Miep worked to promote the diary and to ensure that its legitimacy was not destroyed by Holocost-deniers who alleged it was a forgery. Until her 99th birthday when she suffered a small stroke - she continued to answer hundreds of letters from the public.
I had the good fortune while on business in snowy London, to nab a ticket to the sold out event on January 12th featuring Turkish author and Nobel Prize Laureate, Orhan Pamuk at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in the Southbank Centre. Pamuk of course is promoting his new novel, The Museum of Innocence (Published by Knopf, October 2009) which has been getting both impressive critical reviews and receiving popular acclaim. Pamuk has been working on Museum for many years and has alluded to it thus: “The story, which takes place in Istanbul between 1975 and today, is about obsessive passion and the great question: What is love, really?” Tonight, Pamuk is introduced by Hermione Lee who is herself a gifted writer and important critical reviewer. The following podcast begins with an introduction by Ms. Lee, followed by a reading by Orhan Pamuk (with amusing antidotes), then a discussion period betwee Pamuk and Lee, and finally a selection of the questions from the audience. There is an interesting segment where Pamuk explains the derivation of the cover photo art: he found the picture in a Turkish photo archive, he photoshopped out the background and added the Bosphorous Sea, he added suspenders to the man in the back seat (which he then had to describe similarly in the book). After all the work, his publishers worried they'd be sued by anyone of the people depicted in the photo. A search to discover their identities and whereabouts found that the only surviving member is the woman seated in the front seat of the car wearing the kurchief. She was contacted and completely delighted by the story. Pamuk went to meet her and has a photograph taken of himself with her - she is now in her 90's.
We're back into Classic Season at Masterpiece hosted by Laura Linney. BookBuffet partners once again with WGBH Boston to give our members free books (5 copies of the current book) from which the new series is adapted. As a television viewer you can luxuriate in the stunning performances of the actors playing the parts: Dame Judy Dench and Dame Eileen Atkins are just two of an ensemble cast of 50 playing opposite each other in the first 3-part drama titled, Cranford adapted by Heidi Thomas from 3 separate books by the Victorian author, Elizabeth Gaskell. Praised by both Dickens and Carlyle in her time, Gaskell was inspired by the changing social and economic times of the late 1800's as the classes met the challenges and opportunities of the Industrial Revolution. Raised by her Unitarian Minister father and later married to a Unitarian husband, Gaskell covers the topics of the day as diverse as: revenge of a trade unionist through murder, individual travails after the Napoleonic Wars, and the interlocking fortunes between 3 country families. (Wives and Daughters, 1864-66) adapted and aired previously by BBC-Masterpiece is considered to be her best work. Gaskell was a close friend of Charlotte Bronte and became her biographer, (The Life of Charlotte Brontë, (1857). Of the series, Director Simon Curtis says, "Treat classics like contemporary material and contemporary material like classics." Get the insider scoop on the making of the series and take advantage of the BBC production team's reverence for classic literature through the many resources available on the Masterpiece website. Limited online viewing of the series is available in the US (not Canada) and you can of course tune-in to the series on television, as well as read the book. Win copies of Elizabeth Gaskell's novels for your book group by participating in our online discussion group. Details below.
At the ripe young age of 45 John Wood was a Microsoft director in charge of business development for greater China. He had a grueling schedule. One year he decided to take a break and do a trek in Nepal. That trip changed his life. Appalled by the lack of education opportunities, where children were being sold by their parents into bonded labor in neighboring countries instead of growing up in their own communities getting an education, he began bringing books back to Nepal. Hauling them to remote mountain locations by yak, by donkey, by whatever means he could, he was able to provide the people living there with no schools or libraries a chance to learn to read. He formed a charity called Books for Nepal. It's a similar story told in the popular title, Three Cups of Tea, but in this case John Wood has transformed his vision into a multi-country organization called ROOM TO READ that operates in 8 countries with an astounding record: ROOM TO READ has built more than 750 schools, established 7,000 libraries containing five million books, and funded nearly 7,000 long-term scholarships for girls. They publish books in the language of the countries they operate in - often authored and illustrated by local people using local stories told within the culture, that have often never been published before. This is a meaningful enterprise with a stunning track record. BookBuffet has become a corporate sponsor and we invite you to invite your book group to "adopt a student" for one year. It only costs $250 to provide all the books, uniforms, and tuition for one student to attend a Room to Read school for one year. We are challenging 50 of our book group members to join. Help transform the lives of others, and take inpride your own book group's impact on literacy around the globe.
The first book event kicking off the 2010 season in Whistler is going to be a doozy. Don't miss the 28th Whistler Reads book group discussion on Febuary 7th 2010 (apres ski) 4:00-5:30pm at 3313 Peak Drive on Blueberry Hill, Whistler - the home of Chris and Angela. (Tickets: $20 at door or online below) We are thrilled to bring you BC author Annabel Lyon, whose third book The Golden Mean (Random House Canada) was shortlisted for not one, not two, but for three of Canada's literary prizes: both the 2009 Governor General the Giller Prize winning her the the Rogers Writers' Trust Prize. (The Golden Mean is currently #3 on amazon.ca) This is the fictionalized story of Greek philosopher Aristotle's unique relationship to the boy who would become Alexander the Great. The title of the book, the golden mean, is a term used to describe the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. For example courage, a virtue, if taken to excess would manifest as recklessness and if deficient as cowardice. Socrates teaches that a man "must know how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible". Buddha taught "the Middle Way" in 6th century B.C., sharing the supremely important notion that the main purpose of our existence is to lead a good life. Hence, in heralding the New Year with this book and this author, we are bringing together philosophies from many corners of the earth and from a fascinating point in history. Sound like a great way align your 2010? Purchase a copy of this book for yourself and for those bibliophiles in your world. Join us for Whistler Reads' first event of 2010. RSVP required. (OR your ticket purchase will put you on the guest list.)
Sex holds a universal fascination. From our basic limbic drive of "preservation of self and species" to the furthest extremes of sexual practice, everyone wants to know how it works and where they fit into the spectrum. Starting from our first sexual stirring and tracking behavior to the oldest fornicators, researchers are gathering information to determine what stimulates our sex drive, the mind-body connection and social-cultural differences for normal and abnormal behavior. In 1998 when Viagara came on the market for men, the push was on to discover the pink pill equivalent for women. Female sexuality, these studies show, is even more complex and nuanced than male sexuality. Researchers Cindy M. Meston and David M. Buss, both psychology professors at the University of Texas at Austin discovered some fascinating new information, which is contained in Why Women Have Sex: Understanding Sexual Motivations from Adventure to Revenge (and Everything in Between). I am particularly interested to read the section talking about the sex practices of young women today. What are these third generation feminists up to? You'd be surprised to see the frank level of experimentation and use of sex, almost as a tool in their armanentarium to get what they want. Seems like a good book to purchase for anyone who wants to understand the sexuality of women better. (Uh... who doesn't that include?)
Buy any of these technology gifts for people on your holiday shopping list and feel the ho-ho-ho; it's one-stop shopping for you and techno-bliss for them. We at BookBuffet either have or want to own one of each. Last year we bought the digital camera for our kids, our sibs and the G-parents, and smiles abounded from ear to ear. This year we're updating everyone with a new iphone and arming them with a Kindle. Canada has just gained access to the Kindle; the USA tested all the first generation models and the rest of us get to reap the benefits. What is there not to like about the Kindle? It makes sense environmentally and you can't beat it for convenience; transport hundreds of books with you, download new digital versions in minutes over 3G at a fraction of the regular book price. The killer item on this list is the tiny (fits in the palm of my hand) digital projector. It attaches to your iPod or iPhone and projects a 4 foot wide image on any white surface. Add a set of portable speakers and your next mobile presentation will impress even the board. Order all of these items in bulk from BookBuffet using the handy direct links. Tell them to giftwrap, write a custom note card, capitalize on the free delivery, et voila - Holiday Shopping completed. Now you can enjoy the parties, actually plan to ski or hit the beach before the Xmas rush, and relax throughout December. Peace, good will and happy holidays from all of us at BookBuffet!
Warning: gratuitous naked hockey player photo explained later; do NOT let your imaginations run to Bruno-like movie segments. Oh those book-wormy Canucks... Even in winter, or perhaps because of the long winters, there is a new literary related news item every week. What am I talking about? Let's take them sequentially. First, the November prizes: the Scotia Bank Giller Prize and its competitor the Governor General (aka the GG) award ceremonies. In Canada it does not suffice to wait-n-see who wins either of these awards. If you are worth your salty Canadian back bacon you are expected to have read several titles on both short lists and have an opinion on each. Phew! Then on December first, the Globe and Mail newspaper comes out with its Globe 100, staff picks for the best books of 2009, a list that features both national writers and an excellent sampling of the best books from the two other culture connections, the USA and the UK. You barely scrape through the list, reading the short summaries provided on each and circling titles targeted as gifts for holiday shopping, when the CBC Canada Reads group announces the list of 5 novelists and 5 celebrity defenders who will compete in media debates to win the public's vote for the top spot as the 2010 Canada Reads title - meant to be read by all Canadians. It's pure gladiator stuff. I liken the pairing of authors with celebs to a hockey team that has their buff defenseman shouldering opponents into the boards when they skate close to the team's goal scoring forward. Someone once complained to me that men in Canada are turning into hermaphroditic frogs (capable only of asexual reproduction) because of the strong feminist culture, and I had to counter with a hockey reference: "Where else do men willingly give up their front teeth for a sport and have the courage to wear a hairstyle known as the mullet?" Now refocus your attention from, ahem hockey, to books. Here is BookBuffet's hot pick list gleaned from all-of-the-above book lists (and a few more) in 6 easy categories for your holiday shopping pleasure. "A book is a gift you can open again and again." –Garrison Keillor
Who can resist the delicious red cover of The Winter Vault by Canadian powerhouse, Anne Michaels (McClelland and Stewart, 2009) $15.88. Her last book Fugitive Pieces launched her literary career and garnered her several literary awards including the UK's prestigious Orange Prize and Guardian Fiction Prize. Readers say they "have been aching for her next novel" ever since. Now over a decade later, it has arrived. Judging by the reviews, Michaels has not disappointed her readership. Publisher's Weekly says Winter Vault is "a tender love story set against an intriguing bit of history is handled with uncommon skill." (starred review) and the New York Times writes, "Literature is all the better for it." What could be a better read over the holidays? The story is about a couple who travel to Egypt to live on a houseboat on the Nile River just below Abu Simbel during the '60's, the period of the building of the Aswan Dam.
"Avery Escher is one of the engineers responsible for the dismantling and reconstruction of a sacred temple... Jean is a botanist by avocation, passionately interested in everything that grows. They met on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, witnessing the construction of the Seaway as it swallowed towns, homes, and lives. Now, at the edge of another world about to be inundated in the name of progress, much of what they most believe in is tested.
When a tragic event occurs, nearing the end of Avery’s time in Egypt, he and Jean return to separate lives in Toronto; Avery to school to study architecture and Jean into the orbit of Lucjan, a Polish émigré artist..." - McClelland and Stewart
What could be a better Wine & Book Group read over the holidays? To celebrate we've paired this book with a spicy delicious red, evocative of exotic locations from a stunning winemaker
In 2004 the employees of the Jonquiere Walmart store located 470 kilometers (290 miles) north of Montreal successfully organized and joined the United Food and Commercial Workers, or UFCW. Walmart famously does not allow its employees to unionize. Like other locations before this in the US, Walmart closed the store the minute union activity was initiated. In 2005 the workers sued Walmart and won their case on the grounds that closing the store violated their freedom of association rights guaranteed by Canada’s constitution. They were the first store North America-wide that had successfully won their case against the mega retailer. But Walmart fought back with a petition to the Supreme Court of Canada, who in examining the case overturned the ruling 6-3, saying that Walmart proved its reasons for closing the store were valid. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce sided with Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart, arguing that businesses ought to retain the freedom to make operating decisions. President Ken Georgetti of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLL) says this effectively hamstrings 100 workers at more than 300 stores across Canada. One can imagine Walmart in his crosshairs today, and it will be interesting to see what happens elsewhere in Canada. I first became aware of the pros and cons of the Walmart giant in a book Nelson Lichtenstien wrote titled, The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works-and How It's Transforming the American Economy that detailed the employee practices as well as the no-inventory policy which forces suppliers into just in time deadlines to meet Walmart's high-volume, low profit customer expectations. If you want to understand how founder Sam Walton's store became the largest retailer chain in America, and how his Christian-values successor, Soderquist made it onto the top Fortune 500 companies with revenues in excess of $200 billion, then read The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company (240 pgs, 2nd edition, Thomas Nelson Publisher, 2005) -Photo Credit: MindyourMind.ca
BookBuffet attended the American Jewish University, LosAngeles where Israeli author, journalist and peace advocate Amos Oz was invited to speak about his life and his books with Rob Eshman, the Editor in Chief of The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. It is all part the Third Annual Celebration of Jewish Books held this November in the city of angels.
Amos Oz, as many of you will recall, was this year’s favourite in to win the Nobel Prize for literature, according to the UK betting site Ladbrokes who rated Oz at 4-1 odds. While he lost to a reasonably obscure Romanian author, the publicity still serves to bring attention to his writing and his political advocacy for a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Turning 70 this past May, Amos Oz said “Being a 70-year-old Israeli is probably like being a 200-year-old Swede.” [He uses 300 year-old American in this talk.] He is being celebrated in his homeland with a three-day festival in his honour that includes literary, musical and cultural events with President Shimon Peres taking part.
Oz has written 18 books and 450 articles and essays. His works have been translated into 32 languages. He famously writes with two pens, one colour for his fiction and another colour for his politics. Half of his books are set within a 30-minute radius of his home in Arad where he lives with his wife Nily. His last book is a slim 117 page memoir titled, Rhyming Life and Death, published in the USA by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and translated by Nicholas de Lange, Professor at University Cambridge. The author prefers to call it one of his “tales”. He says he just tells tales. Tales are what people told each other in caves and it is what we do today. The New Yorker says Rhyming is, “A prose poem… at once melancholic and sensual.” And that is how I find Amos Oz tonight. A warm, soft but firm-speaking man who exudes the depth of experience of his life – a life spent in war and peace, with family, soldiers, politicians, artists; loving, hating, and remembering.
Whether you are a whiz at math or not, there remains a universal fascination with how applied math principals help us understand the world around us. I've just discovered of a cool new website where you can get an answer to any math or physics question you want. Despite today's access to unlimited resources on the web, nothing beats this conversation style site that makes you feel like you've reconnected to that brilliant prof you had in your 20s and can only now appreciate in your 40s. Check out askamathmatician.com Questions range from trivial to philosophic: How can we prove that 2+2 always equals 4? What is the best way to understand relativity theory? Why is it so counter intuitive? Is teleportation possible? What is monotony? What is the connection between quantum physics and consciousness? Why does math work so well at modeling the world around us? In answer to the last question, one of the things that resounded with me was that mathematics "was primarily created for practical purposes... addition is used to count possessions, multiplication for trade, and geometry to measure plots of land (or some similar purposes). Mathematicians and scientists use math to model the world by constructing mathematical objects that capture important properties of physical things. Hence, it isn’t as though math just happens to work well for analyzing the world we live in, rather, it was specifically designed for that purpose. e.g. if I have two objects in one group and I combine them with three objects in another group, then my new group has five objects, which is mimicked by 2+3=5." I used this website as a jumping off point to discover other cool sites and books. Check out these math tatoos, how to books on overcoming your math phobia, learn about the Berkeley math circles that are inspiring our youth to gain a fascination with math, and other books with insights into some of the brilliant math minds of the century.
In keeping with my newfound love affair with the short story genre, I'd like to share with you an innovative new company out of NYC called, Electric Literature Magazine. It's the brainchild of co-founders and editors, Andy Hunter, and Scott Lindenbaum. The duo seeks to revitalize the (ss) genre by employing a variety of electronic formats and digital delivery systems: Sony Reader, ebook, the Kindle, the iPhone, audio books and a POD, print on demand paper version, with of course their online digital version. The cost of an electronic subscription is $24 and $48 for paper - and they've already got over 1,000 subscribers. "In the first two issues this year, the magazine attracted some of the country’s best writers — Michael Cunningham, Colson Whitehead, Lydia Davis, Jim Shepard — and created the kind of buzz that is a marketer’s dream," says New York Times Felicia Lee (Oct 27th) "Mr. Cunningham said he allowed Electric Literature to use an excerpt from his forthcoming novel, Olympia, in the debut issue 'as a vote of confidence' for [the founders] who were his students in the M.F.A. program at Brooklyn College." Get Electric Literature: #1 here. (photo credit:Michael Appleton)
I just signed up for Mediabistro.com's two-day eBook Summit in NYC December 15-16th. If you register before November 18th it's only $345 for both days. Take a look at the heavy-hitting list of key note speakers: Brandon Badger, Product Manager, Google Books; Steve Haber, President, Digital Reading Business Division, Sony; Katty Kay, Washington Correspondent, BBC World News America Author, Womenomics; Jane Friedman, CEO & Co-Founder, Open Road Integrated Media and former CEO, HarperCollins. The program promises to "take a closer look at the changing digital publishing industry, from the perspectives of content creators and of publishers. Leaders in the field will uncover business development opportunities, and highlight the latest technological innovations currently driving the future of digital publishing." If you are a publishing professional, content creator, marketer, advertising and PR professional, business development and e-commerce leader, gather round. Get the Twitter feed with: #ebooksummit. In case you need a completely frivolous reason, take in some holiday shopping and window displays-there is no place on Earth like NYC in December. Details, details, details... here is the skinny on what's up for discussion:
The popularity of the short story genre has waxed and waned but it seems to be on a comeback. I had my suspicions about why this might be true but decided to read up on the matter while preparing for a public discussion of Alice Munro's new short story collection, "Too Much Happiness." It emerges that more novelists are turning to the short story to express themselves. There's even a new business venture coming out of NYC called Electric Literature that has people like Michael Cunningham, author of "The Hours" at the helm promoting short stories through eco-friendly electronic transmission modes. Learn about the roots of short story, how it evolved to the present form, exactly what that is, and which prominent authors use it with an example by each that you can click to purchase. Why is it popular now you ask? From the writer's perspective a novel that consists of between 100,000-250,000 words can take between 3-5 years of your life to complete. Now consider the modern reader's short attention span: (I am forever hearing from JQ Public about the lack of time to read.) We get our news in sound bites, do our social networking in 140 character tweets or through terse Facebook posts, and even text our voice messages via cell phone in preference to direct P2P conversations. The short story's time has come! We can download them onto our iphones and entertain ourselves with a complete one-sitting story during the nanosecond of free time left to us day or night. (photo credit: LA Times Blog)
Take a moment to join this "Fireside Chat With Leonard Brody and Michael Tippett at the Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour Street, Vancouver, BC) on 27 October 2009, Tuesday. Hosted by The Vancouver Enterprize Forum who write, "Leonard Brody is a highly respected entrepreneur, venture capitalist, best-selling author and Emmy nominated media visionary. He has helped in raising millions of dollars for startup companies, been through one of the largest internet IPOs in history and has been involved in the building, financing and/or sale of five companies to date. Much critical acclaim has followed him in his endeavours. At Onvia (where he was part of the initial executive), the company was voted Canada’s number one startup in 2000 and subsequently closed a $240 Million IPO on NASDAQ. In 2004, Leonard co-founded NowPublic.com which is a pioneer in the field of user generated news. The company was named by Time Magazine as one of the top 50 websites in the world, was inducted into the Newseum in Washington and was recently acquired by the Anschutz Corporation. Currently Leonard sits as the President of the Clarity Digital Group responsible for overseeing one of the largest online news conglomerates in the world including Examiner.com and NowPublic, which between them, share over 20 million unique visitors a month and over 200,000 contributors." As well at the fireside that night is his co-founder Michael Tippet, Emmy award winning...
What if you were the head of a struggling non-profit that was working for the good of humanity, to stop global hunger, and a top executive at a food conglomerate offered you $50K as a public relations gesture to counter some bad press his company had received lately. Would you accept the check? Fast forward to a meeting in Harlem you are holding that same night where a group of significantly less privileged people have gathered because of your appeal for help for the hungry people in Africa. A tear-choked woman dressed very plainly listens and then, with barely any hesitation, comes forward from the back of the room and joyfully gives the $50 she earned that day doing housework for a white woman. This sets a stream of people in the room to come forward with shouts of glee as they toss their their dollar bills and change into the basket. The gifts that evening total $500.
Remarkably Lynne Twist was that struggling non-profit representative realized at that moment in time that money has a soul. She returned the food executive’s check to him the very next day with a note that went something like, “Dear Sir, I am returning your check to you. Please use it toward a charity that has meaning for you.” Years later when the executive retired, he contacted Ms. Twist, this time to give a far more substantial monetary donation from his own personal funds toward her cause, with the comment “In all my years of business, nothing stuck with me more than your act of returning our donation. Please accept this now, from the bottom of my heart.”
That point illustrated to me the very essence of, The Soul of Money: Reclaiming the Wealth of Our Inner Resources. Money can be used for good, or it can be used to destroy hope, integrity and incentive. It doesn’t matter how much you have, it is our attitude surrounding money that determines which way the balance tips. We have the power to choose.
I enjoy listening to podcasts in the evenings, and discovered a series that I know you will love too. Professor Dreyfus is a real curmudgeon by the sounds of things. He teaches "Existentialism in Literature and Film" in the Department of Philosophy UC Berkeley. (When I took philosophy at UCLA the professor said, "I am going to teach you how to think, how to reason.") His classes are full with 200 eager students, and more on the waiting list. He started podcasting as a way to reach the people who couldn't get into class. Soon, as one LA Times correspondent pointed out, he was broadcasting to oil rigs and other remote and isolated places. He receives regular feedback from listeners in Russia on his discussion of Dostoyevsky-how enlightening that must be! Each podcast is directly recorded, with all its amateur sound quality (no false voiced intros such as you hear in Audible.com recordings) at UC Berkeley. They're are a delightful combination of lecture hall banter and didactic discourse, incorporating a select list of works of literature and film, from Plato to Present. If you're interested, tune into streaming audio or download the FREE podcasts from either itunes U or a podcast directory site called Learn Out Loud. The lectures address such questions as, "What is the similarity in sense of self between Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard?" and "How does Plato's view the universe resemble (remarkably) some modern day philosophers?” Be sure to get the handouts he references here: The last movie, Breathless, is available free on Google Video. For those of you less interested in philosophy, the lectures are well worth listening to for the method of close reading Professor Dreyfus uses. It’s really a delight. A wonderful opportunity to read or re-read the books he references and get more out of them and to apply the knowledge to your own life or gain insights into your current reading. I’ve included the links and to purchase books online. Start your home Philosophy in Literature lessons today.
What if you were a famous band member who traveled around the world? And what if you liked to take your handy fold-up bike with you when on tour, and get out into the streets and neighborhoods of cities like London, Sydney, Manila, Berlin, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Detroit, New York? And what if you kept a diary of all the landscapes and architecture you saw, the fashion, culture and art you experienced, and the people that you met? That would be kind of interesting, don't you think? Well, Talking Heads band member, David Byrne did just that. A resident of New York city who started riding his bike exclusively in the 1980s, David has also been touring, cycling, and writing about it from this unique perspective for the past two decades. His notes, photos and musings were published last month in a book titled, Bicycle Diaries. It's a "highly personal mixture of humor, curiosity, and... views on urban planning, art, culture and postmodern society in general." According to Byrne, “Our values and hopes are sometimes awfully embarrassingly easy to read. They’re right there – in the storefronts, museums, temples, shops, and office buildings and in how these structures interrelate, or sometimes don’t… Riding a bike through all this is like navigating the collective neural pathways of some vast global mind“. As candid and engaging as it is cerebral and informative. If you like the band, touring by bike, or are interested in this unique perspective of world cities from a bicycling urban-planner point of view, get Bicycle Diaries. Whistler Read founder, Paula Shackleton says, "This is our 26th book title and it's going to include: chapter readings from the book, videos of Talking Heads band in concert, and our partnered affiliation of Whistler's Off Road Cycling Association - WORCA members talking about their own adventures on bikes. Venue is the FIREROCK LOUNGE, Westin Hotel, Whistler Save the date: November 25th, 7:30-9:30 pm - That's the day before the Whistler/Blackcomb ski mountains open to the public and the beginning of the Winter Olympic Ski seasons commences. The mood will be celebratory! We invite all visitors to Whistler to drop-in, as well as those people curious to see what goes on at a village book group discussion, and extend a warm 'welcome back' to all our regulars from near and far!" (See details for joining WR)
Better than the Oscars, this week is when my favorite literary prizes are awarded. First the Mann Booker (reported here), and now the Nobel Prize for Literature. This year's Nobel goes to a rather obscure German-Romanian writer, Herta Mueller. Born in Romania in 1952 the author fled her country due to the persecution and oppression she experienced after her first novel was published, under heavy censorship by the Communist government. A non-censored version was smuggled to West Germany where it received acclaim. Her writing centers on the injustices and politics of (old Communist) Romania with a strong prose style that is "lively, poetic, and corrosive". Mueller takes home a prize of $1.4million - a sum difficult to snort at. One imagines it offers economic freedom to writers enabling them to continue their craft - so with the Wrigleys gum advertisement in mind - that's two freedoms in one. What does this say about the Nobel Prize jury, who have been criticized for judging a writer's politics as much as their prose? Nobel wrote in his will that the prize should go to a person with "a lofty and sound idealism". It is the 20th Anniversary of the fall of Communism. Previous winners have been notable for their focus on revealing the injustices within their country and within their society. Herta is only the 12th woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature. She is in good company along with Nadine Gordimer, Doris Lessing, Toni Morrison and another German language writer, Austrian Elfriede Jelinek. The Nobel Prize has been awarded since 1901, 101 times; it was not awarded in 7 years when the funds were instead applied to the trust.
Hilary Mantel is tonight, Tuesday 6 October, named the winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for Wolf Hall: A Novel, (Fourth Estate, 650 Pg) It is the story of Thomas Cromwell, a man who rose from humble beginnings as a blacksmith's son to become the 1st Earl of Essex and the chief advisor, fixer, and administrator to King Henry VIII during his reign, 1532-1540.
Says Mantel when asked what she likes about the Tudor period, "It has sex, melodrama, betrayal, seduction and violent death - what more could you want?" In interviews Hilary has said that it took her 5 years to write the book. She does not claim to be a historian, but she does careful research into the man and the times and this time she decided to choose an intimate point of view for the story, one that has captivated both her readers and the jury. Says Mantel, "I don't write historic fiction, rather I write contemporary fiction about people in history." Says a blogger, "It's a study of a politician: flawed, and prepared to do things which are questionable, even immoral, to get the result he wants. At the same time his humanity is an important part of the picture, and that's why we see him so much with his family. She even manages to make that old monster Henry VIII understandable, if not sympathetic." Learn more about the author, download excerpts to your phone and access links to author readings from the shortlist.
I use a MacBook Pro with the Mac OS X operating system. I'm on this thing so much I've had to replace the "i" key twice and my space bar has been worn down like the sandstone steps of La Seu Cathedral in Barcelona. I run tons of software such that the 40-odd miniscule icons lined up on my tool docking bar at the bottom of my screen are barely recognizable. I use a separate hard drive to store all my media: photos, audio files, movies from my own in-progress files and completed archived projects. This helps to maximize pc speed and performance, and it gives me some peace of mind against the loss of important data. So far I've had next to nil computer crashes: Unlike my friends with non-Mac PC's who experience "the blue screen of death" regularly, and are forced to spend hours upon hours reloading and re-booting their machines. However, that is not to say that I have become cavalier in my approach to some future inevitability. The reason I am telling you all of this is to illustrate how important our personal laptop computers have become, and how any temporary glitch or—yee gads—crash to our system would prove catostophique (spoken with a shrill French accent). SO, as you all nod your heads in frantic agreement, I have a juicy piece of information to ease your now troubled mind. CCC. No, it's not a hockey equipment manufacturer, or a stuttering expository text message. The letters stand for Carbon Copy Cloner, and it's FREE. In just 4 simple steps: Clone, Synchronize, Schedule, and Backup, you will never have to worry about your precious [gratuitous Gollum reference from Lord of the Rings] again!
Sign up for our RSS feeds.
A recent article from the BBC News reported that the South African 800m world champion runner, Caster Semenya has tested positive to male genetics. This not only leaves her stigmatized with the ambiguous sex label, she could be banned from competition with women. In the face of this exposure, she withdrew from a scheduled race today. Media has sided on the outrage of a disclosure that should carry rights to the patient-doctor confidentiality agreement. The knowledge brings unimaginable psychological repercussions for Caster, because she has been raised female her entire life. While this very public medical debate takes place within the media and the IAAF, it reminds me of a collection of writers who tackled the topic by giving their characters intersex qualities and describing a scenario about its effect in their lives. Not only is it fascinating to learn what science currently understands, it is interesting to see how society handled sexual identity as reflected in literature at various periods of history. Learn about the four “types of sex” that current experts use to classify us, and discover (please help us add to the list) the novels, plays and poems that deal with intersex.
With so many options available, BookBuffet asks the question, "Where do you buy your reading material these days?" Our site has a Browse Books icon at the top R corner of our home page banner that is linked to Amazon.com, .ca, and .uk. for purchases. I ask this question because I just finished speaking with two friends who told me they use Amazon exclusively to purchase "thousands of dollars worth of books and DVD's each year," and I responded, "OMG, why not buy them through BookBuffet?" They answered, "Oh, you mean I can do that and you'll get, like, a commission or something?" "YES!" was my whole hearty reply. "It's not much but every little bit helps!" I went on to explain, "The reason we use Amazon is because they've got the biggest selection of books when we did our online retailer comparison. AND the best digital support and user features that compliment our work in directing readers to good books. The more you buy, the more we benefit. When you purchase a few books at a time, the shipping is FREE. Beats driving to the local store where you may discover they do not carry what you came for, and you'll have to place an order and return a second time. As well, when you shop Amazon you can shop -the world- in the markets where books first become available. I just bought
Granta magazine is a literary quarterly from the UK that is turning 30 this year, and they’re asking you to help them celebrate by purchasing a subscription to GRANTA. Digital subscriptions fees have been wound back to 1979 for an annual cost of £3.50 – so there’s no excuse no matter where in the world you live. What’s inside?
Ian McAllister’s latest book, The Last Wild Wolves: Ghosts of the Rain Forest is a collection of photographs and stories from the Great Bear Rainforest about a family of elusive Coastal Wolves. Ian and his wife Karen live on Denny island, where they have been working tirelessly to preserve BC’s threatened forest and its inhabitants.
The book is a testament of patience as well as an urgent call to action. McAllister spent days, weeks and years building the trust of the pack and waiting for the intimate photo opportunities that read like a family album of portraits from a bygone era of raw wilderness. The Great Bear Rainforest is in fact the last remaining temperate rainforest, relatively inaccessible and therefore retaining its rare magnificence—for now.
Graphic novels are not just for kids. Manga is the Japanese version of this popular phenomenon and a Canadian duo by the name of Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki has joined forces to produce a work of art that blends poignantly funny text with award-winning graphics. SKIM (published by Groundwood Books, June 2009) has already been hailed by the NYT, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Quill & Quire and Slate as a winner. The titular character, Skim, is being compared to Holden Caulfiel as, "a clear social commentator on adult and adolescent behaviour whose ironic observations on social hypocrisy ring sharp and true.“ The artwork has, "a swooping, gorgeous pen line — expressive, vibrant and precise all at once," say the journals. We took a look and couldn't agree more. If you've never tried graphic novels, this should be your first taste. If you want to understand the gestalt of the current generation, this should help you get a handle. If you're looking for looking for something to open the barriers of discussion with your teenager, what can I say, get this book. Listen to the podcast interview here (about a minute in after the musical intro).
&creativeMore than twenty invited Canadian authors and editors will descend on Whistler this September as special guests of a weekend-long siege of word wielding and poetry slinging at the 8th Whistler Writers Festival. Guest writers include the 2009 writers-in-residence (who will spend the fall at Alta Lake Station House): Wayne GradyTree: A Life Story and Merilyn Simonds The Convict Lover: A True Story, as well as 2009 BC Book Prize winner, Lee Henderson The Man Game, Vancouver author, Annabel Lyon The Golden Mean and Claire Mulligan, long listed for the Giller Prize for her book, The Reckoning of Boston Jim. Whistler writer Sara Leach will also be celebrating the publication of her first book, Jake Reynolds: Chicken or Eagle? a children's story. Buy your books at significant discount at the links provided here, and have them ready for signing when you attend the session!
As the longest-running primetime drama on American television, Masterpiece is committed to bringing viewers the best in literature-based drama, mysteries filled with eclectic characters, and groundbreaking contemporary works. Next up is seven 90-minute mysteries starting August 30th and running through to October 18, 2009. Don't miss Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox who return as Detective Inspector Lewis and Detective Sergeant Hathaway in all seven NEW episodes. Like Sherlock and Watson, it's all about the detective relationship as the duo face an intriguing list of crimes in the picturesque village of Cambridge. Author Colin Dexter is the original creator of the Louis Series, which were taken from his Inspector Morse novels. Fourteen novels inspired the adaptation into 32 films spanning 5 years. Masterpiece is excited to continue in the tradition. The setting is not surprising as Dexter studied Classics at Cambridge and the sprinkling of clues using Latin and Greek draw on his experience as an A-level examiner in English, Latin and Greek for the Oxford Board. For all you crossword freaks, he was also a national crossword champion. For dates and episode summaries...
We've all done it. Downloaded an in theatres only movie from the net before the Oscars; nabbed a file from one of the Napster-type music sites; used a picture off of Flikr for our own web article. But now that there are so many sites offering easy, cheap pay options for copyrighted material, this should be happening less and less - right?! What happens when you take a famous image and photoshop it into something new, or parody someone on your blog? Get the latest on this issue when the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association in partnership with the UBC School of Journalism and Tyee Magazine host renowned copyright and internet law expert Dr. Michael Geist. The talk is in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia's "Wise Hall" on October 1, 2009. Dr. Geist is Canada's leading technology law expert and the guru of the Canadian movement to prevent copyright restrictions from infringing on key free speech principles including parody, artistic use, fair use, and device transferability.
A national innovator in using Web 2.0 tools like blogs and Facebook for campaigns for law reform and policy change, Dr. Geist's advocacy, in partnership with Cory Doctorow, resulted in more than 30,000 people joining a Facebook group opposing proposed Canadian copyright law changes and ended in the tabling of the proposed changes by then Industry Minister Jim Prentice.
To learn more about Dr. Geist's work, visit his website at www.michaelgeist.ca
The time of the lecture and Dr. Geist's topic will be announced by the BCCLA. Check out their website www.bccla.org for details! Here is the run down on Bill C-61, the proposed changes to Canada's copyright law.
I guess Starbucks is unintentionally to blame for the catchy name of the new one-off book machines coming to a book store near you. After all, doesn't book browsing and expresso-quaffing go hand in hand? Maybe the tagline of the new technology will be, "Sip your latté AND self-publish your own book!" POD, or Print On Demand technology is coming to Village Books in Bellingham, Washington. Yup that little store in the upscale waterfront neighborhood of Fairhaven owned by Chuck Robinson. Chuck and his team have just returned from Northshire Bookstore in Vermont. That's the book store claiming to be the first book store in North America (and only one of a few around the world) to have a POD book making machine. Chuck and his staff were toured and ostensibly tutored at the art of book making - Espresso-style. A video on YouTube shows the whole process. Just enter the book parameters, press the button (don't forget to order your latté) and voila - your self published book awaits you with full color soft cover, hot glued or perfect bound. ("And," my professional publishing friends might add "...all the original spelling mistakes, punctuation errors, style no-no's and lack of editorial vision..." You get their point.)
When Alice Munro publishes a new book of short stories, it becomes an international literary event. Too Much Happiness (available Aug 25th 2009, McClelland & Stewart/Canada; Knopf/US; and Chatto & Windus/UK) is her 14th book. Considered Canada’s most important living writer and a master of the short story genre, Munro's writing routinely receives accolades from luminaries of the literary world and she's bestowed with prestigious national and international awards: the Giller Prize twice, the Governor General award thrice, and in 2009 she was awarded the Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work. (What next, the Nobel?) She has had an international following since the 70s and is described as "Canada's Chekhov" for her style of writing. Wouldn't you agree, it’s about time we all read Alice Munro? Read my review in the Pique and get your tickets ($15) here. Bring a friend and be entered into the draw for free books.
There is perhaps no other person more renowned for the development of the electric guitar and advances to sound recording in the twentieth century than inventor and jazz musician, Les Paul. He died from complications of pneumonia today, surrounded by family and friends in White Plains Hospital, New York. Remarkably as late as last year, Les Paul age 93, played two sets every Monday night at a club in NYC. He was the inventor of mulit-track recording and the hard body electric guitar. The latter was first in commercial production by the Fender Guitar Company in a model called the Stratocaster. The following year, 1950 Fender's competitor the Gibson Guitar Company brought Les Paul on board to create their own solid body electric guitar bearing his name. Ironically, they had earlier turned him down when he first presented his design, named "the log" made with a 4 x 4 solid piece of wood, a bridge and strings mounted on top — back in 1941. A little know fact is that a near fatal car accident shattered Les Paul's left arm and elbow such that doctors said they could only repair it to a fixed position, and asked what he preferred. He told them to fix it in a 90 degree angle, and this disability is said to have contributed to the early design elements of the Les Paul guitar. Today the Gibson Les Paul is the widest used electric guitar in the industry. Paul McCartney used a "cherry burst left handed" Les Paul, Neil Young favoured his "Old Black" as did other guitar legends: Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards. An award winning musician, Les Paul and his wife Mary Ford recorded dozens of pop hits that went gold. Tunes like, "Vaya Con Dios," "How High the Moon," "Nola" and "Lover." In February 2006 at the age of 90 he won two grammies for his album, American Made World Played and his wonderful comment was, "I feel like an old building with a new flag pole on it." Join us in listening to and learning about Mr. Les Paul. Following is list of book and CD recommendations. Watch this YouTube video of Les ripping it up.
As the longest-running primetime drama on American television, Masterpiece is committed to bringing viewers the best in literature-based drama, mysteries filled with eclectic characters, and groundbreaking contemporary works. Summer is mystery season at PBS Masterpiece. It started with the award winning Wallander detective series starring Kenneth Branah, followed by the ever popular Agatha Christie. This month is another detective series that is scheduled to take viewers through to fall when Masterpiece Classic takes over. It's based on the novels by Colin Dexter. Many of you will know
We are considering keeping bees at the farm. It’s a passion I was first exposed to through literature: The Secret Life of Bees and Bee Season, with advice from the experienced beekeeper a few miles down the road. We’re currently planting a small orchard above our existing vegetable patch, and I envision a field of lavender (like the one pictured here) next to produce lavender scented honey. Bee keeping isn’t just a country thing – they’re keeping bees on the tops of skyscrapers in Manhattan, and even producing a variety of honey from them sold on Bleeker Street!
&lMaybe it's because I'm here at the farm and looking into windmill technology to harness this ample daily resource so I can pump water into our fields—because this TED story, the one that's creating such a buzz, has also caught my attention. TEDGlobal 2009 is meeting in Oxford in the UK right now. You can get all the updates on their Twitter page. The speaker who has blown everyone away (literally speaking) is William Kamkwamba from Malawai. Back at TEDGlobal 2007, he was a shy young man who'd built his family a windmill from scrap in order pump water from the ground to save his family from starvation. His story captured the world's attention. Today he walked onstage with confidence to tell his story from that point to this. It's all captured in his book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope Join me, as I compare the topic of his book with my own research, on our own farm, into wind technology here in North America. It's an interesting study in contrast and comparison.
Photo: William Kamkwamba at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 7: "Radical development," July 23, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
When I was first given this book the subject matter made my heart skip as I watched my grandmother deteriorate with Alzheimer’s and it could not have been more heartbreaking. She recounted full stories about her childhood, how her school had a netball court that was slanted, how my granddad sent letters when he was in the war which she posted in sequence all over the kitchen. At other times, in contrast, she couldn’t remember who my family was and would shout and scream, when she had previously never in our whole time together raised her voice. Alzheimer’s changes not only your memory but your behaviour and personality, and at times neither one of us recognised the other.
The Wilderness: A Novel (published by Nan A. Talese 2009) throws the reader into a tangled web of memories and emotions as we follow the protagonist into the uncertain depths of Alzheimer’s disease. An architect by trade, Jacob Jameson is a Lincolnshire born, half-Jewish widower in his 60s. We follow him as he delves into the puzzle of his past, trying to decipher fact from fiction.
"In amongst a sea of events and names that have been forgotten, there are a number of episodes that float with striking buoyancy to the surface. There is no sensible order to them, nor connection between them."
OK, you've figured out I'm at the farm and so all of my metaphors today are going to reflect that. I am curious to know what escapes you have planned for the summer? Do you make a ritual foray up to the cottage on the lake? Do you take a driving tour of the local wineries in your region? Do you hop the big pond and immerse in the cultural offerings of Europe? Or, like me, do you turn off the Internet, your cell phone and all forms of communication and just hang out? My days at the farm are jam-packed. It's up with the birds at 4:30 am (yee gad) and after morning coffee, 3 hours of weeding the farmhouse garden patch, peeling a few logs for the bedsteads we're building for guests, I'm painting the new purple martin birdhouse to convince the swallows to relocate out from under the eves, take a drive in the tractor over the front 80... and of course, when the day heats up and my outside hammock under the cottonwood calls, I relax with a good book and perhaps a tall G&T. Isn't this what the lazy days of summer are all about? It's our chance to put away obligatory professional reading matter and the newspapers that draw us into world events, and instead allow ourselves to be transported to a fictional world, followed of course with the nonfiction title we've been saving for unfettered nights. Here's what's stacked in the shade next to my hammock...
In 1965 Helen Gurley-Brown became the Executive Editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine. She earned the spot by coming up through the ranks as a secretary whose writing abilities were next scooped into the copy writing department at a prominent L.A. advertising agency. But what really tipped the scale for the position offered by Randolf Hearst's magazine was her first book, published at the unlikely age of 40, titled Sex and The Single Girl (1962) that is still in print and now labeled a cult classic. At the time, it was rare for a woman to choose a career over motherhood and a life of domestic bliss. (Yeah, yeah... we hear the criticism of those who say it was just a play at the secretary pool to seduce their bosses.) The magazine's profitability and circulation increase was as shocking as its content with its sexual preoccupation and encouragement of the emancipated woman. Heck, even I remember the stir in my young
"Is there no end to Twittermania? Last week we saw the social networking tool Twitter deployed on the streets of Tehran. This week, moving seamlessly from the sublime to the ridiculous, it is being used to aid the digestion of the world's greatest literature." So writes Guardian correspondent Ed Pikington in New York. BookBuffet is delighted that our favorite (professional) social networking site is putting its technology to good use.
"Fans of the classics will either be delighted or appalled to learn that the New York-branch of Penguin books has commissioned a new volume that will put great works through the Twitter mangle. The volume has a working title that will make the nerve ends of purists jangle: Twitterature."
In it, the authors will squish the jewels of world literature - they mention Dante, Shakespeare, Stendhal, Joyce and JK Rowling - into 20 tweets or less - that is 20 sentences each with fewer than 140 characters.
The book is the brainchild of two 19-year-old first-year students at the University of Chicago who claim to be starting a cultural revolution from their college dormitory. Bashing their heads together one evening in their university digs, Emmett Rensin and Alex Aciman asked themselves what defined the grandest ventures of their generation, and best expressed the souls of 21st century Americans?
Pretentious, maybe. Precocious, certainly. The answer they came up with was double-headed. They identified high literature as a crucial pillar for any generation.
The Contemporary Art market has been on fire and who better to talk about it than Sarah Thornton, ethnographer and author of Seven Days in the Art World published by Norton in 2008. Her book has been making waves as having the best insights into this fascinating subculture, market segment and art world phenomenon. Join BookBuffet's host, Paula Shackleton in this three-part interview with Sarah who joins us from her studio in London. The New York Times says,
“Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton is a field guide to the nomadic tribes of the contemporary art world. The book was reported and written in a heated market, but it is poised to endure as a work of sociology… Where others would be content to gawk and gossip, she pushes her well-chosen subjects to explore the questions ‘What is an artist?’ and ‘What makes a work of art great?”
Alan Yentob, creative director at the BBC says,
“It’s like having your own spy in the art world. Thornton parachutes the reader into the fascinating nitty-gritty of how it all works.”
Annalyn Swan, co-author of DeKooning: An American Master says:
“A smart, engagingly written insider’s look at the machinations and manipulations of today’s art world…. A great read.”
Grayson Perry, (artist) says:
“Seven Days in the Art World” is a great page-turner, I worry that the book demystifies things so much that the next generation of artists will be overinformed.” Join our RSS feeds to get our interviews monthly, or click on the mp3 link for this segment, or just read along with the transcript.
New out in paperback this month, Miriam Toews fourth novel, The Flying Troutmans (Vintage, June 2009) follows along the author’s well-worn path of funny-sad books about misfits who experience loss and misfortune, but somehow manage to deal with it. It is the story of two sisters, one functional, and the other eccentrically dysfunctional. All their lives the younger sister, Hattie has lived a mix of awe and dread for what spectacle or catastrophe her older sibling, Min would concoct that would either embarrass or frighten her. When Min carries the behavior over into adulthood and relinquishes her hold on life and motherhood to a paralysing depression that requires hospitalization, Hattie returns home to look after her sister’s two kids aged 14 and 11. Logan is a confused pubescent basketball-obsessed young man who writes precocious rants and his younger sister Thebes is a savant eccentric with purple hair, appalling hygiene and a penchant for quoting the dictionary and doing crafts like making giant novelty checks. Instead of facing their pathetic domestic non-routine with the spectre of their mother’s illness hanging over the household, Hattie packs the kids up for a road trip through the United States under the auspices of finding their long lost father who’d been driven out by their mother years earlier. What ensues is a poignant journey of discovery with frequent laugh-out-loud moments as they establish their fundamental bond and accept each other’s insecurities, deficiencies, and quirks. Ultimately they connect through their abiding love for Min. For anyone who doubts that an awesome road trip can't help but connect people, this book is for you. The insights into US-Canadian quirks is bonus.
This is the 3rd annual London Literary Festival held at the Southbank Centre July 2-16. Enjoy the best in international writing, performance, music and debate this summer. What I like about festivals in the UK is the diversity of participants and the scope of the topics. And of course, it's not all books! When you hang out in London you get to take in some of the greatest museums, galleries and restaurants of the world, too! Be sure to stay at the Berkeley (pronounced Bark-ley) in Knightsbridge, go for a drink at the swanky, newly renovated Coburg Bar at the Connaught in Mayfair, where the bartender makes exquisite cocktails and the patrons are always fun and interesting. Jog or walk through Hyde Park around the Serpentine under the cool of the deciduous forest canopy beside the lake where the Serpentine Gallery is showing renowned contemporary artist Jeff Koons, and for shits & giggles book a reservation on the London Eye, that huge futuristic ferris wheel right next to the Southbank Center, and view the cityscape courtesy of British Airways. Uhoh—sidetracked! Back to books. For the full programme of events visit www.southbankcentre.co.uk/londonlitfest. Tickets for the festival are still available and they range from 7-12. Here's a quick line-up of author events to mark on the calendar: Booker Prize winner, ARUNDHATI ROY, author of God of Small Things will headline the festival
2 July in discussion with Shami Chakrabarti on the topic of democracy. BUZZ ALDRIN 4 July On the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. One of the UK's poetry greats, BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH 10 July will be performing new work and favourites. PETER ACKROYD
13 July Peter Ackroyd retells The Canterbury Tales. HANIF KURESHI, DCB PIERRE, KAMILA SHAMSIE & JEANETTE WINTERSON 14 July Come together with original stories.
It is becoming increasingly hard to convince young women that feminism is relevant today. What short memories we have. Only 2 generations ago, women couldn’t vote (for women of color and native women, that right came much later) and had few rights even within the home , expected to “cater to [their] husband’s personal comfort,” “never complain” and “know [their] place.” (See Goodhousekeeping, May 19955) Our mothers’ generation was the first to “have it all” meaning they were “allowed” to have careers and families, but I’m sure any one of them will tell you being a “supermom” wasn’t a walk in the park, nor were they perceived or paid as equals for the most part. It was only a few weeks ago, after all, that Barack Obama signed the Equal Pay bill. That means that 4 months ago it was legally OK to pay a woman less based solely on her gender.
We still get called—and worse, call each other—sluts and whores. We still think certain women deserve respect, and others (prostitutes, transgender women) do not. Shockingly, 1 in 7 think it’s acceptable to hit a woman if she is “nagging or constantly annoying,” and is responsible for inviting sexual harassment if wearing provocative clothing. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5875108.ece A disturbing majority of teenage girls thought pop-singer Rhianna must have “made [boyfriend Chris Brown] really mad” for him to have beat her unconscious. Clearly, we have a ways to go.
BookBuffet and PBS Masterpiece WGBH Boston have teamed up to offer you more great book give-away tie-ins for their upcoming Mystery Series. Join our Book & Film Club (instructions follow) and be entered to win free copies of these mystery classics for your summer beach reading. Then regardless of where you are, commencing in June 21st-July 26th, you can still tune in each Sunday to PBS at 9pm ET to catch six television episodes of the world's most popular crime writer, Agatha Christie. (check local listings) "Transcending the mystery genre, Christie remains the most popular novelist in history, with her work appearing in 50 languages in over 70 countries and more than two billion of her books sold to date. Published between 1920 and 1976, her 85 volumes of detective novels and short stories include other sleuths besides Poirot and Miss Marple.
Summer is a favorite season in Whistler. The days grow long, the valley heats up, and people spread out to hike, bike, golf, canoe, dine al-fresco and participate in the village's summer art programs put on by the Whistler Arts Council. This summer Whistler Reads is adding to the fun. On Thursday July 30th, 2009 at 7:30 pm at the Whistler Public Library we'll be discussing Sarah Thornton's award-winning book about the Contemporary Art scene titled, Seven Days In The Art World. "It's a literary-art event", says Founder Paula Shackleton "that starts with delicious Cedar Creek wines and light jazz entertainment, followed by an impressive five-member panel of local to international art specialists who will gather to discuss this book from their various perspectives within the art world. If you are an artist, a collector, a gallery owner or simply interested in this fascinating subculture, ask yourself: Why is the art market thriving despite the economy? What defines art? How does an artist achieve success and even fame? How do curators determine what to collect? Join us!
Use the link to purchase the book online today and slip it into your beach bag or suitcase for summer reading. If you're a local, pick-up a copy from Armchair Books in the village. "I can't think of a better way to celebrate the fusion of art and books," says Shackleton. Listen to BookBuffet's interview with the author, Sarah Thornton. (Podcast here.)
I came upon an amazing sculpture by contemporary Spanish artist, Alicia Martin who uses books as the raw material for her works. If you love books as much as we do, you will delight in her installations. The curator at Galleria Galica who represents the artist says, "Symbols of culture, of memory and of communication, the books in her works end up being at times restless, at others ironic, poetic or even aggressive, but always intent on forcing us to think about certain central issues of contemporary life: the instability of knowledge, the fragility of memory and the need for it, the information Babel of the mass media, the difficult relationship between cultures. No longer shut away in libraries or reduced to a furnishing accessory, the books/work of this artist turn into a shapeless incumbent concretion that tenaciously clings to the walls of the gallery and seems to elude the laws of gravity.
Never repetitive, the works of Alicia Martín manage to turn books into animated objects, full of symbolisms that act as powerful but ungraspable echoes." The sculpture pictured here required 5,000 books. Watch the YouTube video as the location is stunning and the books seem to come alive as pages rustle in the breeze, and almost speak to the circling observers.—Cordoba, Spain
Canadian short-story specialist, Alice Munro has today won the biannuel Man Booker International Prize, worth £60,000. It is awarded once every two years to a living author for a body of work that has contributed to an achievement in fiction on the world stage. This is only the third time the award has been named. Ismail Kadaré won in 2005 and Chinua Achebe won in 2007. Munro's next collection of short stories, Too Much Happiness, (Douglas Gibson, McClelland & Stewart) will be published in October 2009. The judging panel for the Man Booker International Prize 2009 is: Jane Smiley, writer; Amit Chaudhuri, writer, academic and musician; and writer, film script writer and essayist, Andrey Kurkov. The panel made the following comment on the winner: "Alice Munro is mostly known as a short story writer and yet she brings as much depth, wisdom and precision to every story as most novelists bring to a lifetime of novels. To read Alice Munro is to learn something every time that you never thought of before." Wikipedia says, "Munro's work is often compared with the great short story writers. For example, the American writer Cynthia Ozick called Munro 'our Chekhov.' In Munro stories, as in Chekov's, plot is secondary and 'little happens.' As with Chekov, Garan Holcombe notes: 'All is based on the epiphanic moment, the sudden enlightenment, the concise, subtle, revelatory detail.' Munro's work deals with "love and work, and the failings of both. She shares Chekov’s obsession with time and our much-lamented inability to delay or prevent its relentless movement forward."
BREAKING WORLD NEWS… The promised US presidential pooch has been picked, US media reports say. The soon-to-be "First Puppy" is a six-month-old black and white Portuguese water dog that Mr. Obama's daughters have named Bo, The Washington Post reports. Churchill had Rufus, the Queen of England has her corgis, now America has Bo.
Why are we so in love with our dogs? What do we find so fascinating about something that slobbers, eats us out of house and home and requires us to pick up after it? And what encourages us to write about them?
Ever since my boyfriend and I got our puppy, our lives have not been the same. Before getting our little pup we borrowed books out of the library, watched training DVD’s, browsed You Tube videos and, of course, had the Dog Whisperer playing incessantly. We would discuss with each other the commands we were going to use, the techniques we would implement and we nearly blew a month's wages at Pet Smart. Now she's a fully fledged member of the family, if a bit of a hairy addition, and I can’t imagine my life without her. Like most dog owners I have a few stories to tell ranging from the funny to the cringe worthy. Most of the time whilst recounting these tales the audience either nods in agreement or cries with laughter. I recently reviewed a book called Queen of the Road
by Doreen Orion (Broadway, 2008), which is the real life story of a couple traveling the states of America with their two cats and dog in tow, which also reminded me of John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley.
"A dog, particularly an exotic like Charley, is a bond between strangers. Many conversations en route began with 'What degree of dog is that?'" Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck (Penguin: 2002).
In both accounts the dog plays a huge role in story, they are the companion, the friend, and often an ice-breaker in the most awkward situations.
Patrick French is an English writer, historian and biographer educated at the University of Edinburough. His latest book, The World Is What It Is (Random House 2008) is his second work of biography. His subject is widely considered to be one of the masters of modern English prose, the Indo-Trinidadian novelist and essayist V.S. Naipaul who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001 and subsequently knighted. People currently refer to him as Sir Vidia Naipaul. In an interesting, if not ironic twist, Patrick French was also offered the OBE for his literary contributions back in 2003. He turned it down. His comment was, "It is ridiculous that honours given in the 21st century would have the word empire in them. The motto that goes with the OBE is 'For God and the Empire'. Which God and which Empire?" He added that understanding the British Empire in history lessons is "crucially important" and that it was not "taught in enough detail in schools". But this argument about medals relates to the present. And so we have a citizen of Britain refusing the same honor that a colonialist (who he is writing about) has accepted with pride if not glee. Didn't the Duke of Edinburgh suggest, about 30 years ago, that "the word empire in the medals OBE, CBE etc should be replaced by the word 'Excellence'? 'The Order of British Excellence' has a good ring to it." At any rate, turning down the OBE hasn't stopped Patrick French from winning the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for this book, or being shortlisted for the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction 2008. BookBuffet caught up with Patrick French this past summer at the Southbank Centre on the banks of the Thames, London when he spoke about The World is What it Is and the issues of working with such a reputedly idiosyncratic personality.
OK, I must admit to having a certain soft spot for Kenneth Branagh. You too? Is it his thin lips or a lifetime of stunning acting, directing, producing and screenwriting achievements? Not surprisingly, we are not alone. PBS Masterpiece's Executive Producer, Rebecca Eaton admitted to a 20-year crush on him in Los Angeles this past April 29th when introducing Branagh at the Paley Center screening of, One Step Behind It's the first of 3 episodes in Series 1 that PBS Masterpiece Mystery airs this coming Sunday May 10th with Sidetracked and Firewall airing on May 17th and May 31st respectively. Each show is adapted from the "Wallander" mystery series written by Swedish uber-author, Henning Mankell. Kenneth Branagh produces and plays the lead character, Kurt Wallander, a a burned-out police detective in Sweden who has a deep empathy with the crime victims he comes into contact with. The show was a hit for the BBC last year and now it debuts in North America. Branagh admits he became entranced with the character after blitzing through all 9 novels in rapid succession. He later met the author in Sweden at an Ingmar Bergman Festival. With impeccable timing Branagh and the series have recently been bestowed prestigious BAFTA awards for Best Producer for Best Television Series 2009 respectively. (Check out the YouTube video Filmed on location in Ystad, Sweden where the scenery plays a big part in the fresh-otherness of the series, it uses a primarily British cast. Othe other actors include Jeany Spark as Linda Wallander, Sarah Smart as Anne-Britt Hoglund, Tom Beard as Svedberg, Tom Hiddleston as Martinsson, Richard McCabe as Nyberg, Sadie Shimmin as Lisa Holgersson and David Warner as Povel Wallander. Nicholas Hoult, star of the film "About a Boy", makes an appearance as Stefan Fredman in "Sidetracked".
Isn't it nice that the USA has a President who openly admits to reading? And isn't it nice that his choice of books matters to the reading public. That is the conclusion that the publisher of Vintage/Anchor Books announced Monday when they tallied—the Obama effect—on a book they released last June as compared to sales this Thursday May 7th. There has been double-digit increase in sales since Obama revealed he was reading Joseph O'Neill's novel, Netherland (a highly praised novel about cricket, marriage and living in a post 9/11 world.) It all came about in a New York Times interview (article is free when you register) written by David Leonhardt, who spent 50 minutes in a one-on-one conversation with Obama. The whole article is worth reading because it encapsulates Obama's daily agenda since taking office, and it is both candid and intimate. When the president disclosed how much he was enjoying the book, sales hit the roof.
Learn more about the plot, the author (a dashing barrister-cricket player) and the celebrity effect on book sales historically. Then click to purchase this book as you'll be seeing the cover frequently in hands of your fellow commuters on the buses, subways and airplanes. It is sure to be a popular book group pick, and the topic of discussion around the office water cooler. Below is a synopsis of the book, a copy of the transcript posted on Amazon with the author and a bit of biographical background—your primer for many conversations to come! Hurry, the first printing was only 70,000 copies.
Orlando Figes is one of the most distinguished historians of Russia today. He is Professor of History at University of London, having the distinction of graduating with a rare double-starred First in 1982, and completing his PhD at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a Fellow from 1984 to 1999. He was a Lecturer in History at the University of Cambridge from 1987 to 1999, before taking up the Chair of History at Birkbeck College, University of London.
All of his books on Russia are bestsellers and all are eminently readable. Figes borrows from a broad range of methodologies, including social, cultural and oral history, and his writing combines literary and academic qualities. His latest book is titled, The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia. At 784 pages you may want the hardcover version (published in the UK by Allen Lane 2008) and softcover is published in US by Picador. It is a treatise on the lives of people in Russia during Stalin's reign of terror. "One in eight people in the Soviet Union were victims of Stalin's terror—virtually no family was untouched by purges, the gulag, forced collectivization and resettlement", says Figes.
BookBuffet caught up with Orlando at the Southbank Centre in London when he was speaking, along with the 5 other shortlisted authors, on behalf of organizers for the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction in 2008. Listen to him in this podcast rebroadcast, then click to the links for the other authors' talks, and to discover the winner. This is the cream of nonfiction titles around the globe for 2008.
Brazilian author, Paul Coelho of The Alchemist gave a keynote address at the Digital Life Design 08 conference in Munich, Germany (watch the video). Why would a Portuguese author entered into the Guinness World Record Book as the most successful living author in book sales worldwide (150M copies sold in 150 countries) be a guest at a digital conference? Because he has embraced the digital era like no other writer. Coelho spoke about his experiences using peer to peer file sharing and social networking, and he gave the three conclusions he has come to as a consequence of this activity. The first was the surprising realization that by giving away his books for free via digital downloads on the internet, his printed book sales have increased remarkably.* This has led him to challenge his publishers protectionism and claim that current copyright laws are outdated. I will get to the history of copyright laws later. For now, check out Pirate Coelho. The second of his observations is how rapidly world languages are evolving with the common use of internet slang, SMS and so forth to communicate. People use "u" for "you", and "4" for "for" in French, German, Spanish—in all languages, not just English, and Coelho predicts that in 20 years our languages will be very different as a consequence. The third experience is an enriched connectedness to his readers around the world through the internet. This point he finds the most rewarding aspect of all. Coelho is a man who has embraced new technology and recognizes its power to connect people the world over. He has been named "the Googliest author"—a reference to Google's ongoing attempts to digitize the world libraries, which has posed a perceived threat to publishers and adherents to copyright laws. Listen to his story of a party invitation...
The London Book Fair takes place each spring for three glorious days offering over 100 seminars and events for over 3,000 industry professionals. It is the global marketplace for rights negotiations and the sale and distribution of content across print, TV, film and digital channels. The LBF closed today to reports of moderate attendance, compared with years past, due to the recession and publishing house cutbacks, but the people who came, did so "with a mind to doing business" was the conclusion. Checking out the big book deals in London this year, one of the biggest involved the Swedish thriller, The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler - a pseudonym, according to rumours at Earls Court, for Henning Mankell. The title, which has yet to sell in the US, was at the center of a heated auction in the UK involving some of the country's leading crime publishers. Also, the British literary agency David Godwin Associates Ltd. has sold Tiger Hills, a novel by Sarita Mandanna, to Penguin India for the largest advance the house has ever paid for a debut. Sophie Hoult of DGA did not give an exact amount but said the deal was for seven figures. Hoult called Tiger Hills “a sweeping popular novel set in India between 1878 and the second World War” and classified it as “an Indian Thorn Birds crossed with Gone with the Wind.” Mandanna is a banker in New York. HarperCollins signed Prince Charles for two books, the first about stewardship. The Free Press and Holt both ink debut authors to six-figure deals. Umberto Eco flew to London specifically to present the sixth annual LBF Lifetime Achievement Award in International Publishing to his old friend Drenka Willen, senior editor, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Just over half of publishers surveyed at the London Book Fair have put plans in place to sell books in any digital form. The British are at least three years behind Americans in adapting e-books; and American readers are much more interested in romance, while more British readers skew toward literary fiction.
Good grammar, just like good writing, is a lifelong pursuit. You can never give up! I continue to challenge myself with the intricacies of grammar and style, not merely for my own sake, (I confess to being a very late bloomer at this topic) but more particularly as the last-resort editor of this website with a responsibility for checking our contributors' writing. For reference sources I have three different books on grammar and style and two dictionaries. I often take one or another of these with me to bed—egad, I can't believe I just admitted that. But a reference book sitting on the shelf or at your bedside is of no use when most of your writing is done on your laptop or at your office computer. Hence, you can imagine my excitement in striking the motherload with the discovery of an excellent online grammar site that I now keep bookmarked at the #1 spot on my browser tool bar, (ahem, the aforementioned G spot). It's not Grammar Girl, the mainstream site for lightweight questions. It's not the pay site of The Chicago Manuel of Style, as I'm too cheap to pay when I own the book. It is a non-profit foundation out of Hartford Connecticut with a FREE site called, Guide to Grammar and Writing. More...
The news brings horrifying reports of floods in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, New Orleans and many other places. We are hit with images of people standing on top of their homes waiting for rescue while their belongings are swept away. In need of food, shelter and safety these people become refugees at the mercy of others. But what happens next? What happens to the survivors whose lives have been torn apart by this act of nature? James Runcie’s third novel Canvey Island (2006, The Other Press, NY) explores the aftermath of such a tragic event focusing on the struggles of one family over a forty-year time span in postwar England. It shows how a sound bite on the public's radar compares to the lifelong effect a tragedy evokes in the lives of the victims. It's also a book about uncommunicated truths. Secrets, both personal and political were handled differently in the '50s. Find out how. Runcie’s spare lyric style of writing makes this simple story a quiet thunderstorm on your weather map. Prepare to open the flood gates.
Spring is here and I have to confess - I've become twitterpated. No, not the Disney Bambi type, but the 140 character online social networking type. As opposed to Facebook, a site I check each morning to see what my friends and family are doing, I find that Twitter.com has become my lifeline to my professional network. It's a shout-out from friends at work telling me what they're reading of interest, what's happening in the backroom at Granta, NPBooks, and BookNet. Twitter is where all the big and small publishers, editors of fine literary blogs, a sprinkling of authors, and other people whose tweets I share, congregate off-and-on throughout the day. It's the virtual water cooler. Of course the authors I know write the best tweets. Susan Orlean cracks me up daily! Regarding Easter she writes, "Haven't told [junior] about organized religion yet but [the 6 year-old] tells me that Google has all the answers." Now that's profound! Whether you're a DJ connecting to other spinners of vinyl, or an architect keeping up with designer friends, other artisans or the textile manufacturer - Twitter can connect your network. As I become more facile with the advantages and disadvantages of the blue bird site, I have to agree with some of PC Magazine'sTop 13 Twitter Don'ts with my comments annotated with a * Oh, by the way - my Twiiter ID is BookBuffet.
Over the last 21 years, the Hay Literary Festival audience has grown from 1,000 people in Hay (near Herefordshire, England) to 250,000 visitors on three continents every year. One would think that the four locations offer UK book lovers a chance to meet authors from different locales who write, as one would expect, about their cultures, influences, and life experiences which become fictionalized or not in some form of book. However, the reality is that The Hay is a new form of British Cultural Imperialism transporting English lit and culture to warmer climates. This becomes evident when reading the line-up of events (a sampling provided below) at venues named for the sponsors: "The Guardian Stage", "The Barclays Wealth Pavilion" and "The SONY Screen". That said, it still looks like a rousing good time in locations with better weather and interesting tourist ops. The next location in the calendar year is Granada, Spain this May 7-10th, 2009. Here's their blurb, "The Andalusia is a fantastic setting to meet regional writers and readers. In the beautiful setting of the Alhambra Palace, writers and poets from Spain, the Middle East and northern Africa, as well as the UK, US and many others, share their voices and stories to make this a truly international festival of thought and word." Download the Hay Festival Program in pdf format.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the story of a family from the Dominican Republic living in Brooklyn. It is a story about immigration and immigrants, integration and alienation, family and dictatorships—and how one thing doesn’t necessarily preclude the other.
Oscar is a dorky, obese virgin obsessed with science fiction and fantasy books. He has a difficult time making friends and an impossible time getting girlfriends. In fact most of his life in the US is a string of embarrassments and disappointments, and his life is more or less insignificant.
"Our hero was not one of those Dominican cats everybody's always going on about—he wasn't no home-run hitter or a fly bachatero, not a playboy with a million hots on his jock. And except for one period early in his life, dude never had much luck with the females (how very un-Dominican of him)."
His sister Lola is fiery and rebellious, much like her apparently maligned mother Hypatia was, we learn later, in her youth. Lola marries Oscar’s one-time college roommate Yunior, the books most frequent narrator, and the story is told through his and each of the other 4 characters’ eyes variously throughout the novel. Because it’s usually Yunior, the Dominican college frat boy/jock telling the story, the language is a patois of east coast hip-hop inspired 20-something slang and Dominican expressions—you might want to have a Spanish-English dictionary handy, because asking the Spanish guy next to you on the plane what “galletazo” means resulted in a lot of blushing and awkward laughter (“bitchslap”) for this reader.
"Awaken to darkness on this place we call Earth,
One vampire's bite brings another one's birth.
A vampire wakes with blood thirsty needs
On the warm rich sensation he feels when he feeds.
He stalks in the night like a disastrous beast,
And what once was alive will soon be deceased.
So when the last bit of sunlight disappears from the sky,
You better watch out unless you want to die."
-Victoria Boatwright
What is our obsession with Vampires all about? They have been lurking in the depths of our human history for thousands of years, their popularity never diminishing; a myth that is perpetuated and reinvented throughout time with astonishing resilience. Is it the promise of eternal life that draws us in, or the sexy undertones of a stranger coming into your bedroom in the middle of the night…
Tim Butcher is a correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. When one thinks about journalists covering all the conflict hotspots: Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Algeria, Sierra Leone and Lebanon, you can think of Tim Butcher. After a four year tour of Africa for the Daily Telegraph Tim spent three years planning his solo return to the Congo retracing the river route of another Daily Telegraph journalist, Henry Morton Stanley. In part on motorbike, and in part by river barge and perugue (canoe), Butcher traveled almost 2,500 miles from the Eastern border and lake district of the DRC to the Western border on the Atlantic, thus crossing the width of the country. His resulting book, Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart (Grove Press) was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction in 2008. Here is his account of aspects of his book and of course the perspectives he gained traveling and researching the country that is at the center of the continent of Africa. A former Belgian colony that passed into shakey independence in '62 and then kleptocratic rule under Mobutu as Zaire for close to 40 more years, the DRC or Democratic Republic of Congo has at last achieved political peace with hopes for continued stability and renewed prosperity through development of its ample natural resources with the return of foreign investment and aid. This is the first speaker in a 6-part series from the Southbank Centre on the banks of another great river, the Thames, London. Please listen to Tim Butcher and then follow along with the rest of the 5 shortlisted authors via the podcast. Click on links to purchase their books. You can subscribe to our RSS feeds for this and all audio content, or click on individual mp3 files to select authors or segments.
A lovely essay in The Guardian (April 4 2009) caught my eye today, it was written by a person I did not previously know. The story is titled "The Missing Piece" and it is about how various people overcome their “black dogs,” (which could have been a direct Churchill quote, but whom she doesn’t reference). She does comment on various famous writers (Tennyson, Wharton, Henry James) who experienced periods of melancholia, and the methods they used to fight it: writing, walking. What I love about the piece is that she draws in personal anecdotes from her own family—her mother and other people’s mothers factor in there as ways not to handle melancholia, aging and the like. Read the piece and see what you think. The fact that I could think of at least 6 people to send the article to who are dealing with life issues and might take heart from an article that touches upon how not to give in, signifies to me that this is an important and inevitable part of the life process, and that from time to time we all need to be reminded that great people as well as the unwashed masses go through it. photo credit: National Portrait Gallery
What in the world does polygamous community in the early Mormon Church (and the persistent remnants of the practice in modern renegade cults which refuse to banish the practice) have to do with having it all, today? This anwer is, a great deal and very little. At first glance, we are mystified by these communities. Recent and recurring media fascination with polygamist cults in the West reveals that the allegedly private exercise of religion often includes the underage 'marriage' of girls as young as 14 to men in their forties and fifties, and the teen pregnancies that inevitably follow. We cannot understand how the women in these communities can defend so staunchly a way of life that sentences their own teen daughters to such marriages. We see a concept of community gone awry—where admirable tenets of sisterhood and faith are twisted into a practice where women are often emotionally abused and where children hunger for scraps of a father's love and attention together with dozens of siblings, resulting in mass neglect. We can only assume that the women and girls in this community know no alternatives, and have been brainwashed into believing that their eternal salvation and, perhaps more significantly to a child, that their reunion in heaven with everyone whom they hold dear, depends upon their compliance.
When Sir Ernest Shackleton was looking for men to join his expedition to the South Pole in 1914 at the outbreak of WWI, the advertisement read: "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness and constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success."
Over 5,000 people responded to fill 24 positions. What ensued was an epic journey that while a historic failure—has none-the-less become the stuff of legend. Shackleton's autobiography is required reading for every adventurer or outdoors enthusiast—be they ocean mariner, mountain climber, wilderness survivalist or just your average human being interested in epic tales and the bi-gone era of exploration on this earth. There are several versions of the story; the one told by Ernest Shackleton himself and by various historians. Movies and A&E hit television miniseries have been made, and all of them have the key elements of a gripping story: a hero, his quest, a cast of characters, the catastrophe that threatens to destroy them, and the skill, stamina, courage and perseverance required from each to deliver them to safety. This is a story whose ending cannot be spoiled.
This event is sponsored by One Ocean Expeditions with guest speaker Andrew Prossin, Ones' Managing Director who is as passionate as you could get about the polar regions, from his extensive 16 years of travel there. He is bringing along stories and stunning pictures from The South!
Pick up one of the recommended books and join local Whistlerite, Christopher Shackleton in discussion about this epic story about a fascinating man and his contribution to the 20th century. Whistler Public Library, Sunday May 31, 2009 from 3-5 pm. This is the 23rd book that the Whistler Reads public book group will be discussing. Everyone is welcome. Whether you live, work or come to play here, read what Whistler Reads!" Details on how to join, stay in touch with us, and attend follow. RSVP me if you plan to attend, and purchase one of the bulk order of books brought in to Armchair Books here in Whistler. email: paulas (@) bookbuffet.com
Driving down the Pacific Coast Highway between Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades I pass Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in his Hummer. Well, he wasn’t the California governor at that specific point in time. He was just a movie celebrity slash retired body builder and husband to broadcaster Maria Shriver, on his way home from the studio. My kids were in the car and as we passed “the Terminator” casually smoking a stogy while driving in the slow lane, the site was just too much for them. Squiggling in their seat belts trying to attract his attention from the back of the car, Arnold sees that I am attempting to negotiate traffic and deal with their minor commotion. For one brief moment his eyes lock with mine across the lanes as I pull alongside him, and he breaks into his characteristic wide, broken-tooth grin and nods to me. Then he gives my kids "the terminator good-bye wave” the one that his character makes while sinking into the molten goo at the end of the titular movie, and my kids go wild and cheer and wave. I accelerate ahead into traffic. Read on to see where this leads to The Tesla and the current state-of-the-art in electric motor cars.
Third in the Dickens Classics miniseries produced by WGBH Boston's Masterpiece and adapted by screenwriter Andrew Davies is "Little Dorrit" Dickens story about a woman, Amy Dorrit who spends her life caring for her father in the Marshalsea debtors prison. The five-part series features Claire Foy as Amy Dorrit, Tom Courtenay as Mr. Dorrit, Russel Tovey as John Chivary and the outstanding casts that WGBH Boston is known for. Check out the website's thorough resources, which include: cast and crew interviews, academic commentary by Tatiana Holway who received her Ph.D. from Columbia University, video excerpts of the films and extensive Dickens resources online. Don't miss our interview with Executive Producer, Rebecca Eaton in an earlier podcast introducing the series and BookBuffet's collaboration with Masterpiece. Join the Book and Film Club and stay in touch with other classic novel afficianados and receive updates on upcoming features. Andrew Davies and MASTERPIECE Producer, Erin Delaney also chat with Little Dorrit readers at bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/bn/board?board.id=Classics the week of March 30th and April 20th, respectively.
You can create an iPhone version of your blog or website's RSS feeds in less than a minute. Why would you do that? Because trends show that most people in a certain demographic stay on top of important news throughout the day using their mobile devices. To make your own iPhone version of your blog - do what we did - follow Jon's 1-minute videoinstructions. Go to Intersquash.com.
Enter your RSS feed URL and website title into the boxes. Then click on the ‘iPhoneize’ button. You have the option to upload a 57x57pixel avatar or photo that will appear as you button. The web application will generate a code for your weblog. Next you place this code between <> <> of your website's header code so that any iPhone or iPhone touch users will be detected and will be so directed to the appropriate version for them to view your feeds via their handheld. It is all hosted on InterSquash.com server.
The originator of the video demo jon (pictured above) uses Vimeo to post his video content. It's a video site that allows you to post and share video content - but different from youtube. It's free and if you want a channel of your own, or more bandwidth it doesn't cost a fortune. Great place to connect to other video artists and filmmakers.
OK, I'll admit it. I have been boycotting Elizabeth Gilbert. You remember her. She’s the author whose book all your girlfriends were reading and raving about two years ago. Yes raving. Like Oprah's book picks, I was highly skeptical and quite frankly annoyed. I mean, she charged over $10,000 plus first class travel expenses to come speak to a community not far from where I live, and the topic wasn’t something really very earth-shattering. Side bar: the highest paid writer-speakers are presidential biographers. Apparantly they can command $25,000 USD per talk, which is more than most authors make in royalties for the entire print-run of their book. But back to Elizabeth Gilbert and Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia (Viking 2006). I surmised that her book too easily became a popular (make that run-away) success, and was defacto best suited to the masses. The jacket blurb described a woman in pre-midlife crisis moaning about her ex-husband, traipsing around and gorging herself in Italy (Diane Lane already did that in “Under the Tuscan Sun”) and then channelling the divine in some remote cliché location, where again, the Beatles have been-there done-that, then she magically falls storybook-style in-love before the conclusion. Does that breath "fluff" to you? People were saying, “It’s so easy to read, and it incorporates travel with history and spiritualism. Oh, and it’s funny too.”
Since its launch in 1995 Picador has rapidly established itself as one of the leading literary trade paperback imprints in the country. Working closely with the esteemed hardcover houses Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Henry Holt and St Martin's Press, Picador's stable of authors include fiction and non-fiction Pulitzer Prize winners: Michael Chabon, Michael Cunningham, Marilynne Robinson and Jeffrey Eugenides; National Book Award winners Shirley Hazzard, Susan Sontag and Jonathan Franzen; and National Book Critics Circle Award winners Jim Crace and Philip Gourevitch. Picador's bestselling authors include Anita Diamant, Augusten Burroughs, Salman Rushdie, Lorrie Moore, Atul Gawande and Tom Wolfe.
The fun part is every Tuesday Picador will announce a new book pick and give readers two weeks to complete it. You could be one of the lucky people to win a free copy of the book. Book picks range from mystery to literary fiction to a work in translation. On the second Friday you'll get to correspond directly with the authors and editors of the book! Or you can submit questions before Friday to be addressed by the authors the day of the "discussion." Picador will pick books for every taste and reader. Read on to learn about Picador's Twitter program.
Michael Tamblyn, CEO of BookNet Canada, describes 6 projects/changes/initiatives that could make things better for publishers, readers, and others with an interest in the future of the book. Watch the Video BookNet is the non-profit dedicated to innovation in the book industry supply chain. The talk was given at BNC's annual technology conference, which was attended by 225 industry people in Toronto. Overall the message from the conference was: use mobile devices to disseminate news and content; seek new distribution chains such as www.shortcovers.com to distributes e-books on a fast track (not currently possible via traditional publisher streams); support the bloggers and freelance journalists [we second that]; add Web 2.0 capabilities such as hyperlinks in text to the e-books to make them more than just an electronic version of a traditional print book. For a list of video casts from the conference access the TWITTER stream from BookNet Canada and look for the series of video cast presentations upcoming on YOUTUBE and then check out their new website www.biblioshare.org.
American International Group (AIG), the faltering insurance giant, paid out $165 million in bonuses from their government bail-out check. Obama was quick to respond. (Watch the video) and the attorney general Andrew M. Cuomo of New York says that because AIG has received federal bailout money, it has to consider what is best for taxpayers. He will subpeona evidence and use every measure within his power to stop the payments. AIG says its hands are tied. They say that they are contractually obligated to pay the bonuses to their executives, including those who are part of the AIG division where the company’s crisis originated.
What if? In his extraordinary book, The World Without Us (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press 2007) Alan Weisner asks the question, "What if?" Imagine a world where suddenly humans didn’t exist, where we had suddenly vanished leaving the world as it is now. What would we leave behind? What would the world inherit from our existence? How quickly would nature take back the land we have borrowed? Do you think the Eiffel Tower would still be standing one thousand years from now, would the Panama Canal still be intact, would the Euro Tunnel have caved-in? Weisner takes the reader all over the world exploring different places and the effects we have had on them, and what effects we have set in motion for the future.
A recent post on BookFinder.com talked about their sure-fire "Stimulous Package." I clicked the link and instead of finding advice on finance or the economy, I found a selection of books on... coffee! When it comes to book-selling clever marketing still rules the day. With editor Scott Laming's permission we've posted that list of books, but I also want to share what I've discovered about the site. BookFinder.com is a blog about reading, buying and selling books. They claim to offer prices that are between 50 and 81% off list price at most stores and online venues. You can sell books to them as well, which is very handy for students wanting to off load textbooks. If you're looking to please a coffee-loving friend with a gift, one or more of these books along with a pound of organic locally roasted coffee beans, perhaps a set of those cute expresso cups and saucers and you're definitely going high-test. Throw one of those new fangled latte machines and you may never need your discount card clipped at the local java hut again! Just place her number on speed-dial.
So are we! So as an experiment in social networking using the Facebook site, I posted an invite to my "friends list", an agreed distinguished but paultry list of 110 (gloat, all you people with over 400 friends) and to my surprise 67 of them joined the eponymous BookBuffet FB group. Of those, over 20 posted a note about what they're currently reading. It's a fascinating list both in its variety, and in what your friends have say about their on-the-go book(s). Lots of ideas!! Check it out. Regardless of whether you're a FB member, go to FB homepage and type "Bookbuffet" in the search field and our group will come up. Join and we'll post new results again here in a few weeks.
I've seen "collective novels" before, but this time uber-crime writer James Patterson will be kicking things off. Patterson will write the first and last chapters of AirBorne, a 30-chapter thriller that will be released one chapter at a time beginning next month. For all the chapters in between Borders and Random House held a contest to find 28 writers who could each create a fast-paced and thrilling chapter in less than 750 words. The contest closed just last month, and the judges are in the process of selecting the winners, each of whom will receive a copy of the finished book; one lucky author will also get a one-on-one master class by phone with Patterson himself. Once completed, AirBorne will be released one chapter at a time beginning on 20 March. Readers will be able to download each chapter electronically, but the final book will be published in print only for participants in the competition. Read on, as BookBuffet explores Patterson's career and his community works, as well as the ways he's using new media to market it all.
Fans of Dickens' epic novel David Copperfield get to have a sneak preview of actors David Radcliffe and Ian McKellen who star in the two-part episode on MasterpieceMarch 15 and 22nd. In the videotaped interview hear Daniel Radcliffe talk about what it was like to audition for his debut film role at the age of 9, and subsequently shoot the drama just as he turned 10. Harry Potter would become his next role. There's a short clip of Sir Ian McKellen describing why he likes playing Mr. Creakle, who we all know to be "the bad guy" in the story. (View Clip)
Meanwhile, the good people at WGBH Boston PBS have compiled a stunning list of resources to accompany your viewing/reading of this classic. The Teacher’s Guide for Dickens and the Book & Film Club resources for Dickens are live and also accessible from the home page. Join the MASTERPIECE BOOK & FILM CLUB today, and stay in touch with like-minded readers.
It was just a matter of time, but the word is officially out - Amazon has bowed to Apple and created a FREE app for its iPhone and iPod. As an iPhone user and an avid reader who is on-the-go constantly, I am thrilled to see the collaboration in place. I've been reluctant to purchase a Kindle to download Amazon digital books, as who needs another soon-to-be-obsolete electronic device? Users can shop for books at www.amazon.com/kindlestore on a regular PC, and then transfer purchases over the air to the iPhone and iPod touch. Prices are the same whether books are purchased from a Kindle or from an iPhone, and the first chapter of every book is free. If you've already got a Kindle, you can download every Kindle purchase you've already made to the new iPhone app. The app also offers adjustable font size along with bookmarks and annotation features.
Like on the Kindle e-book, you can bookmark pages, increase the font size, and access the table of contents. You can buy a book or download a sample directly to your iPhone, be it via 3G or Wi-Fi. Turning the page is as easy as swiping the iPhone's touch screen.To compare Kindle with iPhone, read Nicole Lee's article on CNet News.
Stephen Lewis is a consummate orator, which stems as he says from his days in the trenches as a "feckless politician" when he was NDP leader of the opposition in Ontario, Canada. A strong socialist reformer, his work took on global proportions when he became the Canadian UN Ambassador and Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. Lewis has been working to help the continent since. His speeches are peppered with names, places, and people from all parts of Africa - from people in the smallest village in Malawi to the leaders and heads of state worldwide. His 2005 Massey Lecture became the basis for a best-selling book, Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa has won many awards and accolades. The following presentation was sponsored by the Whistler Social Sustainability Society as part of their speaker series. Excerpts are with the permission of Stephen Lewis and the Stephen Lewis Foundation which funds community-based initiatives in Africa. TIME magazine listed Stephen Lewis as one of the ‘100 most influential people in the world.’ He was made a Companion to the Order of Canada in 2002.
If you’re like me, you have whittled the morning rituals down such as to maximize sleep, allowing the absolute bare minimum time to shower, dress, and travel to work. If one step goes wrong; a late bus, an incognito set of keys, the entire operation is derailed and I am late. Thus the mornings are a time of great stress and panic. You can imagine, then, how delighted I was when I discovered the good people at Firefox have made an application for people like me, who can’t waste precious time by typing tedious URLs to read the morning news.
Enter “Morning Coffee,” the app that allows you to click a steaming cup of Joe icon (and hopefully I have the same in my hand at this point as well) and get all your usual websites pre-loaded into tabs in one window. For example, I usually read the NYTimes, BBC News, the Economist, the New Yorker and of course Bookbuffet every morning, so with the click of a button they are all there, awaiting my somnambular perusal. You can even customize your Morning Coffee by day, so if you like the Tuesday Science section of the Times, on Tuesdays your Morning Coffee will go directly to that page.
Enjoy! Morning people need not imbibe.
This month's Wine & Book Group pick is Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (Little Brown & Co 2008) the latest block-buster nonfiction title from the New Yorker staff writer who moonlights as a penetrating social anthropologist. His first two books, "Tipping Point" and "Blink", talked about things that combine to push us over the edge into a new paradigm, and conversely, the things that we conclude in a flash or blink of an eye based on all of our previously learned knowledge and assumptions. This time Gladwell examines success - both debunking our misconceptions and drawing upon new examples to explain why some people succeed where others do not. This should be a thought-provoking discussion and so we've paired it up with some complex, "heady" wines... Details of how to join the group and discussion points and added research enclosed. Why not discover great wines and good books together! Enjoy
Just the mention of the Kennedy family name congers four generations of fame, tragedy, controversy and an intense dedication to public service. On March 4th 2009 the AWARE (Association of Whistler Area Residents for the Environment) is hosting An Evening with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in celebration of their 20th Anniversary. Through a twist of fate RFK Jr turned a private embarrassment into a public cause. Charged with 1,500 hrs of community service for his prosecution on a heroine possession charge, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. used his environmental law degree to build his reputation as a resolute defender of the environment, stacking up a litany of successful large legal actions. The organization retained him as council after his service was discharged, and he works tirelessly for them today. Mr. Kennedy was named one of Time Magazine's "Heroes for the Planet" for his success in helping Riverkeeper lead the fight to restore the Hudson River - New York City's water supply - from polluting companies, and returning access to the shoreline by the public. The group's achievement helped spawn more than 170 Waterkeeper organizations across the globe. Most recently, he was a frontrunner with President Obama to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. He is a renowned author, inspirational speaker, and active conservationist. Learn about this passionate man, his causes and this event put on by AWARE here...
It's almost a cliché—mention heart transplant and we imagine dramatic deathbed scenarios with life-altering passion at their core. What is striking, and frankly somewhat surprising given its title, is that Stephen Lovely couches his heart-transplant story, Irreplaceable, in the lives of very ordinary and occasionally unlikeable characters. This is the February book review from the good folks at www.thenewhavingitall.com website, a source for consulting, speaking, training and mentoring women at all stages of balancing education, career, family and life.
If you haven't yet jumped on the bandwagon that is the social network revolution called Facebook, you've likely got your reasons: a stubborness toward technology or privacy issues. Well the NYT printed an article telling of the company's change in policy that has created an uproar among the Facebook community. It has caused the company to retract those changes for the meanwhile, but readers should know what they're signing on for when they create a Facebook presence and enter all that juicy information about themselves...
Perhaps a little less glamorous than a theft in the art world, book thievery hit the headlines this week in the U.K. with some rather stunningly expensive and intriguing robberies.
On average the BBC reports that shoplifters make off with around $750m worth of books a year, small change to these professionals. “Jacques is one of a handful of highly intelligent, well-educated criminals who operate in the somewhat murky world of international antiquarian book traders, collectors and curators. They successfully plunder priceless tomes, manuscripts and ancient maps, while the players in this closed world - the national and international libraries, the dealers and the victims themselves - largely remain silent about what is going on.” Photo:King George III's library collection encased in its glass temperature-controlled column at the center of the British Library, St Pancras
A new "Oliver Twist" has been adapted for television from master-storyteller, Charles Dickens' classic tale of an orphan boy's struggle amid 19th century London. The memorable characters: Oliver, Fagan, the artful dodger, Bill Sikes and Nancy (among others)are played by a stunning cast:William Miller, Adam Arnold, Timothy Spall, Tom Hardy and Sophie Okonedo. Don't miss this two-episode show, which airs Feb 15th-22nd on PBS.
On February 22nd at 5 pm Pacific Time and 8 pm Eastern Time, the 81st Oscar Awards Ceremony will go off at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, hosted by the unlikely, Hugh Jackmon. Get a list of the nominees and download the voting ballot, then catch up on some of the history, hype and trivia with us here at BookBuffet. Of course our special interest (aside from the gowns and hairdo's) are the awards for screenwriting. There are two categories: Best Original and Best Adapted. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has been organizing the annual event since 1929.
Don't miss the next Whistler Reads discussion March 19th at the Nita Lake Lodge library 2131 Lake Placid Road Whistler, British Columbia. Opening comments by John Weston MP Whistler, West Vancouver, Sea to Sky and Sunshine Coast with special guest speaker, Graham E. Fuller (bio enclosed) Tickets $10 ($15 at the door) and your first glass of wine is free. The book selection is The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Harcourt Press) by Mohsin Hamid. It's a short, provocative fiction title—a novelette actually—whose theme and deceptively funny writing style will intrigue you. It's a one-night-stand book. Easy, you think... however, it will leave you thinking long afterwards, and have all of us discussing its many facets at the next meeting!
The premise of "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is two strangers meet, and over the span of several courses at a restaurant become acquainted. However only one of the two dialogues is represented in the book. The reader is left to envision the reaction of the other guest by the comments of the single narrator. There is a growing tension between the two men, and the climactic ending will leave the reader trying to surmise what may or may not have just happened, who was responsible and how "chance" the meeting was. Interested? Thought so. This book has been optioned by Director Mira Nair of Monsoon Wedding fame. I've read several post 9/11 stories, but none have struck me as such an accurate portrayal of...
The Groom to Have Been, Saher Alam’s first novel has been lingering in my head ever since I opened its bright cover. In essence it is a story about finding love, but with a twist that makes the modern world meet a much more traditional ideal. It poses a lot of questions that are sometimes hard to debate or formulate a good argument for or against. How does traditional religion fit in with our everyday lives? Are we shifting in such a way that these ideals no longer transcend along with our modern culture? What is love and how do we decide to stay with the same person for the rest of our lives? This book intertwines the lives of several very different characters all held together by the bond of family, religion and wanting to do the right thing.
Snow. When you live in a mountain community you see a variety of it. The temperatures that precipitation falls at along with the atmospheric conditions conspire to produce magical landscapes, or like this year in the Pacific Northwest, dangerous avalanche conditions. The natural progression from just living and playing in the snow is to explore the subject from the artistic and the scientist's perspective. Caltech physicist, Kenneth Libbrecht has published several books with images of snowflakes captured by a special photo-microscope that are exquisite. He says, "The most symmetrical crystals are usually found during light snowfalls, with little wind when the weather is especially cold." Libbrecht follows upon the tradition of scientific study of ice crystals that runs back to Johannes Kepler and includes René Descartes, Robert Hooke, the Vermont farmer Wilson Bentley (who recorded 5,000 different snowflakes) and the Japanese snow scientist Ukichiro Nakaya. Lastly, there are some works of literature whose main character is snow. Join us on the subject of snow.
It has been a while since I met Jorge Pinto at the Stanford Professional Publishing course in Palo Alto, California. His distinguished looks, meticulous dress, soft-spoken nature and unassuming demeanour belied an illustrious career in academia, the law, economics, foreign relations and business. At the time, Jorge had just launched his own independent publishing house, Pinto Books specializing in his four areas of interest and expertise: the re-issue of heady out-of-print classics, art books and illustrated books, and books translated from his native Spanish language. He now adds to that an interest in translating Chinese language fiction and has been making connections to the East in both publishing directions: through acquisition and translation, and via marketing and distribution. His relationship with books began when he was on the board of Latin America’s paramount commercial publishing house: Fondo de Cultura Económica de México. Of note, hee has had great success in marketing and sales using first-adaptor technology such as applications for iPhones. Discover this unique polyglot visionary who continues to inspire with his world vision and unquenchable appetite to learn.
The Models of Yesteryear, this week:
The Best of Everything, (Reissued by Penguin, 2005) Rona Jaffe (1958)
When The Best of Everything was published in 1958 it was considered revolutionary. The book chronicles a shift in the social dynamic even as it was occurring, as young women began to enter the workforce in droves. Jaffe writes in her 2005 foreward to the reissue of the book, "I had the vision of the beginning of the book, which is all the hundreds and hundreds of girls walking to work."
Behind every successful television production is a team of hard working, talented people. For the past twenty (plus) years, the woman at helm of WGBH Boston Masterpiece has been Executive Producer, Rebecca Eaton. BookBuffet caught up with Rebecca on her recent visit to California and we've podcast and transcribed our interview for you here. Listen to Rebecca tell us what she loves about her job, what's it's been like to nurture and grow the Masterpiece brand and to work with the incredible actors, writers and directors at the BBC with whom she has collaborated, and subsequently been awarded a bookcase full of Emmy, Peabody and Golden Glob Awards as recognition for excellence from her peers. Then register with the Masterpiece Book to Film Group and be entered to win one of several promotional give-a-ways: re-issued Penguin classic editions of the four Dickens novels adapted for Masterpiece with stunning new covers, and DVD's of the Masterpiece miniseries showing on network TV and for a limited time online during the series run.
Reads has announced its five picks for the countdown to the finalist. People are encouraged to plow through these books and make their vote for this year's Canada Reads selection. The five books are: The Book of Negroes, The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant, Mercy Among the Children, and The Outlander. We've listed a summary of the books and author bios with links to purchase and to vote. See which titles interest you, purchase and share your copy and your opinions with friends. Debate airs Mar 2-6.
In Lawrence Hill’s gripping historical novel, an unforgettable heroine recounts a life story that spans more than 50 years and three continents. As Aminata Diallo moves from slavery to freedom, she fights to keep her dignity and find a place she can call home. Defended by: Avi Lewis
With the 2010 Winter Olympics coming to Whistler, BC Canada next February, listen to long-time resident, musician, journalist, author and poet, Stephen Vogler who speaks with BookBuffet today on location in his home town. Stephen is a quiet blend of determined talent. He's a two-book author who's beautiful coffee table book, Top of the Pass: Whistler and the Sea to Sky Country (Harbour Press) tells the history and shares the majesty of his mountain community, "where gravity drives the economy and the lifestyle." Whether you're an enthusiastic sports person or not, you'll be interested to hear how a remote village catering to honeymooners and hippies became the decades' top North American ski resort with an international community of residents and visitors. The bonus of course, is that you'll be ahead of the media hype on the town hosting the next Winter Olympics.
Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Social Networking sites aren't just for programmers, technology buffs or citizen journalists. The staid institution of Medicine is getting on the band wagon. The other day my husband received an email announcing his enlistment on a website designed to connect biomedical specialists the world over. BiomedExperts.com It has a lot of cool features that include the individual's research areas, their network of contributers, a mapping system to see how their life-work is linked around the world to other researchers or clinicians, and a list of their publications. The advantage is that researchers (or plain old doctors) can locate THE person in the world who is leading in a particular area of expertise. Check it out, and then find out how this and other web publications are changing how medical professionals communicate, connect and collect data. There is even a website that asks patients to give their inputs on disease symptoms and reactions to drug Rx and other treatment modalities.
The International Dateline sits in the Bering Straight. William L Iggiagruk Hensley was raised just north of the Arctic Circle on the shores of Kotzebue Sound in a sod house with an ice floor in the tradition of his people&emdash;the Inupiat. Just like Sarah Palin, he can probably see Russia from his house on a clear day. Let us not be embarrassed to say that it is because of Sarah Palin people are sensitized to know more about this frozen frontier, and the perfect book to bring you there is an autobiography called, Fifty Miles from Tomorrow: A Memoir of Alaska and the Real People (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009) It is the epic story of Alaska told through the eyes of an Inupiat elder. Hensley is to Alaska what Joseph Boyden is to Canada (only the latter writes fiction, while the former writes nonfiction-but you get my gist). In this first-person history lesson witness a people going from a virtual icy stone age to the current petrostate with the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, awarding 44 million acres of land and nearly $1 billion to the first Alaskans. making them shareholders in a series of regional corporations, some of which became Fortune 500 companies worth billions of dollars. Can you imagine that? As the Wine & Book winter selection, we've selected some delicious ice wines. So purchase this book online, gather your group beside a cozy fire while you sip the sweet elixir of the late-harvest vines, and together you will be transported to the land of the midnight sun.
You've popped the cork on the champagne to ring in the New Year, but does your 2009 resolution list include reading books and community interest? Last year we reported the alarming reading statistics from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) with a view to alerting people to this negative trend. This year I want to focus on you, the BookBuffet user, who admittedly is already an avid or at least a regular reader, to broaden your reading appetites and engage publicly in the literary arts. Ask yourself, "Do I challenge my reading palette or do I stick to similar books by similar authors?" "Do I include a provocative book on politics, history, economics or science?" "Do I reach into the list of classic literature for the best writing so I can compare all the modern novels I read with authors whose works have stood the test of time?" And finally ask yourself, "What do I do that positively effects the reading habits of others: my family , my friends, my colleagues?" Take the test below and see where you stand.
This is the list of authors and books that won awards in 2008. I find that reading these titles (or other works by these authors) helps to mark time in a way that connects me to the literary Gestalt of countries around the world. See if any appeal to you.
With the holiday season upon us, and interest turning toward some easy cultural distractions why not treat yourself to one of these stunning movies at the local theatre? Go to the late matinee when there won't be a line up and tickets are a few bucks cheaper so you can splurge on a nice bottle of wine with your take-out on the way home. Here are my picks for some thought-provoking discussions over said take-out dinner.
You'd be forgiven if you thought Hot, Flat, and Crowded is a nightmare vacation experience instead of the title of Thomas Friedman's latest book published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and rated #16 of all books on Amazon and bestseller lists everywhere. But if we don't all read this book, we may be in for conditions like this world-wide, and sooner than we think. This coming January 4th, 2009 Whistler Read's pick will be discussed by a panel of local Whistlerites and you at the Whistler Public Library 1:30-2:30. We hope you join us in tackling a serious discussion on the material brought forward in Friedman's book. The Boston Globe writes, "A compelling manifesto that deserves a wide reading, especially by members of Congress and candidates for President." Still not convinced? View this compelling video of the author speaking to Charlie Rose. See details for speakers and other resources and how to JOIN WR.
This week's author interview podcast is with the first woman on record to have crossed the Atlantic Ocean—in a row boat. She survived four hurricane class storms and documented her astounding journey in a book titled, Rowboat in a Hurricane: My Amazing Journey Across a Changing Atlantic Ocean. Named personality of the year by National Geographic, join us today as Julie recounts her incredible story and gives witness to the state of the one of the world's oceans. It will inspire you and make you think. This is the perfect gift for any adventurer or enviro-centric person in your life. Help us put Julie's book on the bestseller lists where it belongs with your purchase here today.
Having trouble getting into the spirit of Christmas, or the more politically correct holiday spirit? Then get yee down to the nearest reading of the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol and feel the "bah humbug" rattle right out of you. Ours happened at the local library with a bevy of readers lined up in their Sunday best to recite one of each of the five staves in their turn with all the flourish and sentiment they could muster. Interspersed were the voices of the children's choir singing carols and the crowd invited to join alternating songs using our best tenor voices held warbly-up to the too-high register of the children. Rather like church without the pews, we instead silently offered up our intentions to the snow god to bless our mountains so we could all get on with business-as-usual skiing and boarding in the winter wonderland. (This is Whistler, after all.) But more than anything, it is the comfort of the familiar words from the Dickens classic that thawed my icy exterior. Below are some of my favorite lines from the story, and a link to the full text online. Why not gather your family beside the fireplace amidst yuletide cheer and glogg, and do a reading together? (Full Text Online) Learn about BookBuffet's upcoming collaboration with WGBH Boston who is producing four Dickens productions for Masterpiece [Theatre] starting Feb 2009.
Stumped as to which digital technology gadget you should purchase this holiday? Check out this excellent interactive feature at the NYT by David Pogue, the technology guru and columnist. Called Pogue-o-matic. It's fun and easy. All you do is pick the category you're shopping for: cameras, camcorders, smartphones or TV's. Then check the box of a list of defining questions that cues a video-speaking David to walk you through your options using just the right amount of detail and information. Consider him your personal shopping assistant. At the end of the entertaining interactive session, you'll have a shortlist of products that you can then choose to have sent to your phone or email for ease of shopping. I had my camera stolen last summer and have been wanting to replace it with the next level up in professional quality and features. David Pogues video-chat session gave me my answer. See if he can help you through the digital product maze!
Join BookBuffet reviewer Dee Raffo in her very first author interview podcast. Dee speaks with Karen Essex (photo left), one of America's important contemporary historical fiction writers, who joins us from her home in Los Angeles. Karen is a mother, writer and we now discover, quite a feminist. She enjoys illuminating historic female protagonists with a view to educating readers on how far we've come in the pursuit of gender equality here in the West. Her captivating stories, exquisitely researched, bring history to life. The topic for discussion today is Karen's fourth novel, Stealing Athena published by Doubleday in 2008. It's a story where two characters 2300 years apart—one in ancient Greece, the other, 18th century Scotland—find themselves inexplicably linked with the Elgin Marbles, and the controversy and passion that surround them.
Following upon the American holiday of giving thanks, we bring to you two books recommended not only for their messages of gratitude but for the very differences in perspective that make them a forceful combination. At the core of these two writings is a belief in embracing one's reality that perhaps can resonate for each of us at a time when so many are anxious and fearful and experiencing the pain of dramatically altered lives. Here is the review of To Love What Is, Alix Kates Shulman Loving What Is: Four, Byron Katie
Each year I look forward to seeing which titles make it onto the NYT Top 100 List of Books in 2008. As a book reviewer I enjoy comparing notes on the books that passed my desk courtesy of the marketing departments of the publishers, and look forward to discovering the books we missed. It's interesting to tally which publishers have the strongest showing because it indicates to me the strength of their editorial departments. Publishers Farrar, Straus & Giroux and Knopf factor frequently this year. Check out these titles from the larger alphabetized 100 list. Any book club worth its salt would want to read them. There's something of interest everyone; supernatural call girls, paralyzed dissidents, Aussi surf noir characters, and whole insect colonies. —photo:The Times Skyscraper
There have been many books about the value of a good road trip. From Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (P.S.) where the author finds spiritual enlightenment to his troubles and which has been a manuel to people since, to Jack Kerourac's, On the Road(Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) from the 60s Beat generation when wanderlust was a Life Skill 101 class field trip and required reading. A new book has emerged to join them. Written by Doreen Orion Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own (Broadway Books, New York 2008) pretty much says it all. And BookBuffet reviewer Dee Raffo reports that it is "One of the best feel good books [she's] read all year." So if the financial crisis has got you down and you can't quit your job because that mortgage underwater, pick-up a little escapism and start planning your next - ROAD TRIP!
You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (Harper) by Deborah Tannen.
Lunch with your girlfriends whizzes by as you update each other on work, kids, schools, and husbands, and it feels like you barely scratch the surface. You know the names, sports and personalities of your female colleagues’ children, and where they are applying to college. You discuss their dating challenges and your mutual concerns about recent losses in your 529 and 401k accounts. The sole male in the conference room seems to dominate the discussion even though he is not leading the meeting. Your boss banters with male colleagues about NBA playoffs and free agents in baseball, but your efforts to connect with him on a personal level wither because you are not a sports fan. Your husband reads the paper over breakfast and watches the evening news when he gets home. He doesn’t ask about the details of your day, but is quick to interrupt your story before you finish telling it to offer “solutions.”
William Roberts is the founder of the Whistler Forum for Leadership and Dialogue and his connections to political, civic and humanitarian think-tanks run deep. Modeled on the Aspen Institute, the Whistler Forum just completed a weekend retreat with an interesting array of participants. The purpose was to discuss the current geo-political environment in the new Obama reign
Next year will mark the 200 anniversary of the birth of English author Charles Dickens, and all kinds of things are planned to mark the occasion. Check out 
It might seem ironic that the man considered one of this generation's best, if not most controversial, essayists and speakers, prone to a prodigious often vitriolic verbal attack on his topic or target d'moment (Mother Teresa, Henry Kissinger, the royal family—God) has died of complications of esophageal cancer. It's as though the words and the cigarettes conspired against him. He was a great friend of other great literary personalities and minds: Ian McEwan, Martin Amos, Salman Rushdie, and I watched him with great interest on all the Charlie Rose interviews. He could recite in entirety several of his favorite books and also his favorite plays by Shakespeare. A prolific writer he contributed articles to: The New Statesman, the London Evening Standard, London’s Daily Express, Harper’s, The Spectator, and The Times Literary Supplement, among others. He was an editor and writer at Vanity Fair and wrote for Slate, The Atlantic among others. His books include The Trial of Henry Kissinger (Verso, 2001), Letters to a Young Contrarian (Basic, 2001), God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Twelve, 2007), Hitch-22: A Memoir (Twelve, 2010), and Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens (Twelve, 2011), a collection of his later essays. He took pains to assure people he had not changed his views on religion after being diagnosed with cancer. The world shall miss his brilliant mind, "slashing polemicist in the tradition of Thomas Paine and George Orwell" to use a quote from William Grimes of The New York Times eulogy in today's paper.
The lists are coming out fast and furious these days and I always enjoy finding new books as recommended by sage review teams and of course noted authors. Check out the 
Cranford is the mythical setting for Elizabeth Gaskell's novels. Sue Bertwhistle has a love affair with period pieces. She adapted Gaskell's Wives and Daughters and of course the ever popular Jane Austen"s Pride & Predjudice starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle and Emma starring Kate Beckingsdale. When asked how she came upon the Carnford series she replied that it was recommended to her after the success of Pride & Predjudice and she quickly became entranced with the author who uses her characters over and over with each new work of fiction substituting different names and scenarios, but whose work remains true to her own life experiences: a brother that went off to sea at age 16, the death of an infant (her own). Like Austen these tell the minutia of women's country lives in the period, and adhere to all the details Masterpiece productions are well know for, including a repertoire of wonderful actors such as: Dame Judy Dench, Claudie Blakley, Julia McKenzie and Alex Jennings, to name but a few here. This story has the addition of curious animal behavior - a cow that is dressed up in pajamas daily that is based on a real sartorial cow in the author's hometown of Knutsford,. Oh those Brits! Get the DVD package here 
Jeffrey Sachs is a writer economist with numerous distinctions; he's on the list of the 100 most influential people in the the world, the 50 most important leaders in globalization, the 500 most influential foreign policy advisors, and he's the director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. In his previous 14 books and publications Sachs has written about the economies of the developing world and macroeconomics of the globe. He's been a champion of people in extreme poverty and as director of the UN Millennium Project he helped write the Millennium Development Goals among other groundbreaking initiatives. He's been criticized as "leftest" and "neoliberal". His latest book, 
If you have an interest in these two things; CERN and the consequences of algorithmic trading, then Robert Harris's new novel 
There has been a general trend in western society toward political apathy to the point where both the US and Britain have gone down on the "democracy index" as compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a think tank that examines information collected on countries around the world. Evidence shows poor voter turnout, bounding cynicism, young people like those of the occupy movement disenfranchised with the political system, the candidates running and disgust for the collusion between big money and big government. The US is frustrated by political gridlock and a seemingly backward mandate by fully 50% of the political combatants. The Euro debt crisis further shows government mangling our collective economic future.
PD James has a bio to knock your socks off: The author of twenty books, most of which have been filmed and broadcast on television in the United States and other countries. She spent thirty years in various departments of the British Civil Service, including the Police and Criminal Law Department of Great Britain's Home Office. She has served as a magistrate and as a governor of the BBC. In 2000 she celebrated her eightieth birthday and published her autobiography, Time to Be in Earnest. The recipient of many prizes and honors, she was created Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991. She lives in London and Oxford. —Random House
Even if you are not a design professional, there are situations when you need to come up with a palette of color swatches: you're picking wall paint or furniture fabric after a house reno, you're designing a new web site and need a set of colors - or like me, you're in publishing and need to determine colors accents for a large format coffee table style book. Check out 
Michael Lewis, author of The Big Short has a new book out that essentially takes TBS on a world tour. 
For the past three weeks, Canadians from coast to coast to coast have been nominating their favourite memoirs, biographies and literary non-fiction reads for Canada Reads: True Stories. The response has been overwhelming! Thousands of entries poured in from nook and cranny, with readers nominating everything from CanLit classics like The Last Spike by Pierre Berton to new names in non-fiction like One Bird's Choice by Iain Reid. Browse the list and cast your vote.
We all expected it, but the news still came as a shock. Steve Jobs dead at 56. He was a genius, a visionary and an aesthetic rebel. Like the products he produced and the industries he affected. He made tech cool. As the accolades pour in for him I reflect on the impact he's made in my life and the lives of my family. We bought the first MacIntosh in 1984. (In fact we only recently gave it to a computer recycling depot after storing it for over 20 years.) My husband used it in medical school and upgraded religiously as newer models came along. We've always been a Mac family and so when my son entered into the gaming world and preferred to program with a PC we took it personally. (Don't worry, he's got lotsa Mac stuff now.) There has always been a Mac/PC schism in the world of geeks which is reflective of Steve Jobs own rebel attitude in business - he twice organized a coup of his company board and regularly addled executives. But his persistence paid off. PC users loved their key commands and code, while Mac users loved our intuitive operating system and attention to design elements. We've always bragged about the "plug and play" facility of Mac products and scorned the "blue screen of death" that our PC friends endured regularly. Start an Apple product and begin work instantly. Start a PC product and you have to take a coffee break before it's ready to use. That was the old LOL.
Learning opportunities abound on the web. We've talked about iTunes University's list of ivy league podcast lectures from Stanford, Berkeley et al, to award winning math educator 
I've been looking for a novel that captures the essence of life for the citizens of Libya during the Quadafi regime, and found it in Egyptian author, Idris Ali's The Leader Gets A Haircut. Unfortunately, I cannot read Arabic. If anyone knows of an English translation - please let me know; info @ bookbuffet.com. The Sept 5th, 2011 edition of 
Fantasy isn't generally speaking "my bag" but this book came so highly recommended by people I admire that I decided to give it a try. Glad I did. Lev Grossman writes in a style that's easy to fall into within the first page. 
For Whistler Reads members, our next book discussion will be Canadian author Wayne Johnston's new novel, 
So you've been plugging away at the next great novel or perhaps that longish fiction piece based on your last trip to Turkey and you're beginning to wonder where you could get published for money, joy or fame? Look no further than 
I used to live in Boston on Beacon Hill and one of my favorite things to do was to cross the Charles River and head over to the Harvard University campus where the Harvard Book Store is located. Its rival was "The Coop". Recently the employees of THBS were asked to come up with a list of 100 of their all-time favorite books. The lists were compared and compiled into one master list - probably using some complex mathematical formula borrowed from MIT for weighting and placement. Here is the list. See how many you've read, want to re-read, or are planning to read for the first time and add them to your summer reading list. If you've got a digital reader it's easy to load-up and keep them on your virtual bookshelf. We've placed the list into groups of 10 so you can tally each set and keep track of your percentages:
The title of this feature should read "The Art of Aging Well". Nobody can say the gal hasn't gained in popularity over the years with the sale (to an individual) of an unfinished manuscript titled, "The Watsons" dating from 1804 at Sotheby's auction this past week, making it the only original JA manuscript or portion-there-of NOT in the hands of a public institution. Makes you wonder what the chap who bought it is going to do with it? Watsons is the story of four sisters who are the family of a widowed clergyman. The work was apparently passed on in the estate to Jane's sister Cassandra, then to her niece Caroline Mary Craven Austen (1805-1880), the younger daughter of their eldest brother James. It was in Caroline’s possession when first published in 1871 by her brother James Edward Austen-Leigh. It passed to Caroline Austen’s nephew, William Austen-Leigh, and he presented the first six leaves (a quire of two leaves and a quire of four leaves) to a charity sale in aid of the Red Cross Society at Christie, Manson, and Woods’s on 26 April 1915. Lot 1520, it sold for £65 to Lady Wernher.
With so many wonderful Indo-diasporan authors making waves in the fiction world over the years: Kiran Desai, Salmon Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Vikram Chandra, Rohinton Mistry, Arundhati Roy... the list goes on, here is an interesting new book by Rupinder Gill, 
Summer for me means visiting the art galleries of the city I am traveling. The 
What would you do if you could talk to animals? What would you say? What would this discovery mean to our society? Sara Gruen’s award winning novel 
For those of us who have forever missed meeting or hearing David Foster Wallace speak, here is an interview titled, 
We've all met people who just can't seem to get along socially - be that an awkwardness in the workplace, inappropriate behavior in public or social settings or people who have given up interacting and become loners. A new book by Michelle Garcia Winner and Pamela Crooke titled, 
I've got a friend who is obsessed with weekend yard/garage sales that abound over summer. She and her husband like nothing better than to scour their neighborhood for upcoming sales during the week, then get up early on the weekend and grab a latte before they head out treasure hunting. I must tell her about the new buy & sell website called 
MASTERPIECE celebrates 40 years of bringing high-quality adaptations of classic works to PBS on Sunday nights. For the occasion, they have revamped a full library of book-to-film discussion guides from the archive—find titles ranging from Jane Eyre to The Diary of Anne Frank and Doctor Zhivago at 
Oddly enough I have actually studied angel iconography as part of my English Language degree. I shied away from the phonetics and advanced syntax classes on offer and delved into the eclectic mix of subjects that made up the Folklore Department. We covered supernatural beliefs, place name study, and eventually we were allowed to choose a subject to research that would give us the larger portion of our marks. When I saw the cover of Danielle Trussoni’s second novel 
Almost everyone these days has a Facebook page to keep in touch with friends. Some people stop in once a day, others check their wall obsessively through out. But how many of you notice the advertisements on the side bar, and how many of you are compelled to click on them? As a book reviewer the Facebook marketing department got my attention when they served me an ad about a book with an intriguing cover written by Jim Hanas titled, Why They Cried.
The New York Public Library has a speaking series that makes you wish you lived in the Big Apple. Here's one to catch if you're planning to be in town: 
Rhetoric has gotten a bad name lately as people associate it with politicians who are full of bluster and hot air. But the term has a much more honorable history. Broadly and rightly understood, rhetoric is the art of using words to persuade or otherwise affect an audience; for most of Western history it was viewed as a central feature of a liberal education.
Fans of 
Marshall McLuen's catch phrase "the medium is the message" coined in 1964 has never been truer for the folks at Electric Literature Company in New York who have just launched their new Broadcaster App. Key to McLuhan's argument is the idea that technology has no per se moral bent—it is a tool that profoundly shapes an individual's and, by extension, a society's self-conception and realization. How does this relate to Broadcaster App? Using your iPhone you can download free storytelling using social media and an interactive map. Access 6,000 stories (and counting) it uses your geo locator to pinpoint a story near you. There's also an upload feature if you feel the need to contribute.
Having spent several summers doing research at the British Library I am a confessed fan of the institution. As a board member on the Vancouver Public Library Foundation I am keenly aware of the impact libraries have in our community locally. With the digitization of books transforming the way we access, borrow, read or purchase books and store them, we need each be interested in public library policy concerning the uptake of e-technology and whether we are meeting the public needs. It is the jurisdiction of the acquisition librarian(s) to decide whether a particular item is acquired in print, digital or both versions for library lending use. One would think that rapid-turnover items such as light fiction and romance titles would be a good choice for digitally stocked copies with resource books, biographies and say classics stocked in print and digital versions. It brings up interesting questions such as "how do we avoid the 'digital divide'? That's the difference between library patrons who can afford to purchase or perhaps already own a digital reader offering them the ability to download both library and retail digital books for their pleasure, and the people who cannot afford such a costly electronic device who would be left picking over whatever remains on library shelves? But the most profound debate of all facing libraries is: "Is there really a need for 'brick and motor' libraries at all?" To that I respond a resounding YES, but don't take my word for it. Here are two excellent resources to help you decide.
When discussing books and examining literature we sometimes run into literary devices whose name and definition have escaped us since college and university days. Recognizing them and discussing their use elevates your discussions. Here is a test to refresh your memory. 
is sometimes humorous.
E. A form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. In other words it's when a story has two (or more) meanings: a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. 
Now more than ever business professionals are on the go and operating virtual offices. How do you maximize efficiency and keep track of incoming calls? Meet eVoice - from the makers of eFax.com. You’re busy with clients and meetings and don’t have time to listen to every voicemail message. Now you can receive easy-to-read transcriptions of your voice messages
delivered as a text message or email. eVoice answers and routes your calls, transcribes your voicemail to text-and much more! It's like having your own personal assistant 24/7. And the best part is, eVoice works with your existing phone number, so you don’t have to deal with the hassle of changing it. Check out the 
Whistler Reads members have been asking for a fun piece of popular fiction and our next book will not disappoint. Abraham Varghese's 
As the longest-running primetime drama on American television, Masterpiece is committed to bringing viewers the best in literature-based drama, mysteries filled with eclectic characters, and groundbreaking contemporary works. Each month BookBuffet partners with WGBH Boston to give readers the inside scoop on their books to film.
You've got one week cupid. I recommend a confection with greater than 60% cocoa to stimulate the serotonin levels plus this new book by Stephen and Thomas Amidon, 
You don't necessarily have to have a photographic memory of all the books you've ever read - it just means that you're not going to roll around on the floor as quickly as the rest of us. The top book cover is an excellent bad joke-current read example. This compelling true story was adapted into an Academy Award nominated film and it's a simple play on titles... Hemingway would approve since he was both an adventurist and a man of, er definitive action.
If you want to throw in a cover to make a dig at the amorphous "bestseller audience", then delight in this Stieg Larsson cover improvement. Better Book Titles is the brainchild of Dan Wilbur (yes, that really is his name) who claims it is a blog, "for people who do not have thousands of hours to read book reviews or blurbs or first sentences." He cuts through "all the cryptic crap, and give[s] you the meat of the story in one condensed image... [so] you can read the greatest literary works of all time in mere seconds!"
January is a time for renewal and self-examination. If you don't think you need to do this from time to time, you are mistaken. We go along in life taking care of pressing details: family obligations, work commitments, chores and projects, and we tend to neglect our personal well-being. We are like a root-bound plant in a pot. When the seed is planted the nutrients are plentiful, the soil soft, the plant has room to grow and thrive. As the soil nutrients deplete and the root fibers tangle, the plant chokes. This is where 
We are taking a week off from BB author interviews and insert instead in this column an interview with two fabulous writers who both made it onto the NYRB top 10 for 2010 list. Meet 
Jennifer Egan is an essayist and short story writer from Brooklyn whose work has been said to be unclassifiable, though others call it a postmodern experiment that comes off brilliantly. Here she talks about her book 
Sitting in the Blenz coffee shop on Broadway and Maple in Vancouver I'm waiting to meet Canadian poet and performer Leanne Averbach. In she comes with her beehive faux fur hat, auburn tresses and a large smile. Over the bustle and noise of the baristas tamping coffee, the customer chatter and canned music we discuss her life and career. As a bi-coastal resident of New York and Vancouver with lots of stops in Toronto to keep track of family, Leanne leads an interesting life. After earning her MFA in creative writing at a New York University she traveled extensively. While studying in Florence she attended the Perugia Jazz festival and was emboldened to cobble some musicians together to accompany a sultry reading of her own poetry. The fusion performance created something of a sensation and attracted the local television media. Since then Leanne's been hooked on performing live and does so in a variety of locations from Jazz bars to book shops. What's her stuff like? Sultry, sexy, political. The title of her first book and CD derives from Peggy Lee's classic jazz standard 
Freshly back from the holidays I am delighted to see the publishers' offerings this January 2011. The interesting thing is prices for various print and digital versions of books at different outlets. It's mayhem out there! Do you download from iTunes to your iPad, or from Amazon to your Kindle, or from either to your Kindle App on your iPhone, what is KoBo all about? [This topic begs an upcoming feature... ] From Random House Canada I'm keen on the affordable $22 (softcover and eBook version) of Tom Rachman's Giller Prize nominated fiction title, 
The whole of January 2011 at Masterpiece is dedicated to a 4-part episode called 
“Often, she paused on the porch and looked out at the blue line of Nova Scotia and the silver gleam in the southwest where the bay widened to the Gulf of Maine: the sea spread before her, thundered in her ears; and sometimes she loathed it, since Nathaniel was at its mercy. At other times, she closed her eyes, tossed back her bonnet and breathed deep of the world’s size.”
I am a book snob. I am an English Major. I don’t read Oprah’s Bookclub picks. I don’t read chicklit. I don’t read Da Vinci Codes or Twilights or Dragon Tattoos, though I may reluctantly see the movies whilst maintaining an air of pretentious superiority. But it was because of a bestseller franchise and the associated films that I changed my stringent policy on popular-in-this-century fiction after a TV marathon of the Harry Potter series left me desperate for answers. “Alright,” I conceded, “what the *#&%* happened to Dumbledore.” And so I caved. I purchased the last installment, 
Each December I listen to a recording of "A Child's Christmas in Wales" by Dylan Thomas spoken by the great man himself. I love the scratchy quality and his booming voice with its lovely accent. Out of interest, an American writer has won a £30,000 literary award for her collection of 21st Century poetry. 
Rose Tremain was on Granta’s first Best of Young British Novelists list in 1983 – along with Martin Amis, Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan. Here she speaks to Ollie Brock about historial versus contemporary writing and exile - ‘freighted with possibility but also with a high degree of danger’.
Behind the genius, outspokenness, and mischievous antics of the much-loved "smart Beatle," John Lennon (Christopher Eccleston, Doctor Who), is an artist whose struggle with childhood abandonment by his father shapes and nearly undermines his every relationship. Between 1967 and 1971, the tumultuous and wildly creative "studio years" for the Beatles, John Lennon is mired in an unhappy domestic life with his wife, Cynthia (Claudie Blakley, Return to Cranford), and his young son, Julian, the objects of his cruel indifference. Trying to reconcile the sudden death of Beatles manager Brian Epstein and the reintroduction of his long-estranged father, Freddie Lennon (Christopher Fairbank, Tess of the D'Urbervilles), into his life, John sees himself at once as a martyr and a gadfly. Far from being the gentle icon of world peace that he would later become, John embodies his credo that an artist has to destroy as well as create. It's only when he falls in love with avant-garde artist Yoko Ono (Naoko Mori, Torchwood) that John finds the inspiration to enact change in his and Yoko's own unique way, from a cloud of white balloons to the publicity-generating "Bed Peace." Ultimately, their partnership breaks him from the Beatles and Britain itself. Together, they leave country and family behind for New York City, starting over. Lennon Naked also stars Andrew Scott (Sherlock) and Rory Kinnear (Mansfield Park).
At long last Aung San Suu Kyi has been released from house arrest in her home country of Myanmar (formerly Burma) where she has been cloistered for 15 out the past 20 years. The first thing out of her courageous mouth was her pledge to continue to strive for democracy in her country through "a peaceful revolution" between her people and the ruling military regime. Watching 
Each year Publishers Weekly, the trade publication directed toward people in the publishing industry, puts out its 
Postumous publishing of a well known author's works is a debatable predicament. Do you heed the author's dying wishes to burn his final unpublished manuscripts, or do you allow the world a chance to peek? Is publishing motivated by material gain on the part of the family member and the publisher, or are they generously allowing readers, writers and academics the opportunity to scrutinize the work for posterity?
That debate raged for three decades while Demitri Nabokov, son of Vladimir Nabokov finally wrestled his demons and agreed to publish. And we are now coming up on the anniversary of that decision. If you missed the news before, here is a recap.
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is Robert J Wiersema. Robert J Wiersema is the author of 
A journalist friend called to set up an interview to discuss what I do. It reminded me of a speech I wrote that was intended for an audience at the opening of our town library and it has to do with the joy of reading and the place that book groups hold within that realm. In re-reading it, I decided to post it here and share it with all of you. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Each week BookBuffet presents a new author in our podcast series made available here in .mp3 format either in interview with Executive Editor, Paula Shackleton or as excerpted from an event we've attended, taped and edited for broadcast. Today's podcast features acclaimed Canadian novelist Alissa York who appeared at the Vancouver Public Library to give a reading from her new novel, 
Most people have a natural fascination for the physical world. We want to learn about the creatures that populate the earth; from near or far, minuscule or gigantic. I've had the good fortune to travel to Washington DC and tour the Smithsonian Institute's Natural History Museum where there are thousands of examples spanning every classification. If you're planning a trip to the Smithsonian be sure to wear comfortable walking shoes and map your tour route by order of personal priority - there's so much to see, you'll be disappointed if you run out of time or energy and miss a favorite. The good news is that a definitive new resource book has just come out on this topic titled, 
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is Samuel Sykes. At 25, Sam Sykes is one of the youngest authors to arrive on the Sci-fi scene with his novel 
By now you have heard the news about this year's winner for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Peruvian born Mario Vargas Llosa is one of the most acclaimed writers in the Spanish-speaking world. He has written more than 30 novels, plays and essays and is currently teaching at Princeton University. The Swedish Academy's Peter Englund said Llosa is "a divinely gifted story-teller," whose writing touches the reader. Let us explore this 74-year-old author and review his body of work, which has been described as "a cartography of structures of power" with "trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat," by the Academy. Vargas Llosa's good friend (admittedly, it's a complicated friendship) and 1982 Nobel Laureate, the Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez tweeted upon hearing the news: "Cuentas iguales" "Now we're even". (Losa wrote his doctoral thesis on the writing of Marquez.) It has been 18 years since a Spanish language author has been selected. In the previous six years, the academy awarded the 10 million kronor (£938,000) prize to five Europeans and one Turk. This drew criticism that the prize was becoming too Euro-centric and too left wing. Wikipedia writes: "Vargas Llosa rose to fame in the 1960s with novels such as 
Thank you to everyone who participated in the 31st Whistler Reads event December 11th at 7:30 PM at the Westin Resort & Spa Hotel in Whistler when our guest was Governor General award winning author John Vaillant. John's fabulous presentation was well received by a fully packed audience. For those of you who missed it, we discussed his new book 
John, of course is an intrepid traveller. He's been to 5 continents and oceans in the course of his work. This book took John to the remote southeast of Russia to a region called Primorye (Pri-mor-ya), a territory about the size of Washington state by the Sea of Japan where ecosystems converge and plants and animals exist that live no place else on earth. It is also the last refuge for an endangered sub-species of Siberian tigers - the Amur tiger - a spectacular killing machine. Weighing up to 600 pounds and 10 feet long from nose to tail it has evolved into a supreme predator. In "Tiger" Vaillant tells of an injured man-eating tiger who is not just striking for food, it's stalking its prey out of vengeance. The team of conservationists is tracking her on foot deep into the Siberian forest on a heart-thumping chase to capture or kill her before she kills again. But who is stalking who? Beautifully written and deeply informative we learn about this unique eco-system and the people who subsist in a grueling lifestyle. Whistler Reads invited you to make this a weekend adventure. The Westin offered Whistler Reads members huge room discounts on Junior suites and threw in 2 dual mountain ski passes per day. With the large volume of snow that has fallen in December, it truly was an amazing weekend for all. In the interests of not spamming you with info, frequent posts to our 
The joy of hearing an author speak (as opposed to merely reading their words) is that you get a feel for many things about them, as people, as speakers, their creative process; the backstory of their novels as it were. Writers can be introspective people who live in a silent world of words. Getting out in front of the public is a part of the book promotion process these days, and inevitably authors develop a style to fit their public persona. They take time before readings to consider the audience when selecting particular excerpts from their books. The interplay between writer and reader can be a rewarding part of their profession. Recently I watched an interview of J. K. Rowling who became emotional when describing a chance street encounter with a girl of about 19 who told her: "Ms Rowling - your books are my childhood. Thank you."
The Whistler Readers and Writers Festival takes place Oct 14-17th. The line-up this year is all-star and award-winning, and includes: 
These days a lot of people use multiple devices from different locations that they don't necessarily want completely replicated with the same functions or information. Dropbox lets you share files between devices and between others, regardless of the operating system! You might be at the office and want to access files from there after you've left for work. If you drop box them before you head out, they'll be available in your folder on your computer at home. Or say you have a project you are collaborating with a partner in another location, you want to send them a file that's too big to e-mail and you don't want to go through the hassle of uploading it to a server, or transferring via a memory stick. So Dropbox it. Unlike other programs, Dropbox doesn't have a complicated interface to learn. It's built right into your desktop!
The Merriam-Webster dictionary says parody is "a literary or musical work in which the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule". It is delicious when it's done well, and can be scathing without drawing litigation. Everyone remembers National Lampoon and now we have The Onion. Almost all successful comedians use it. Jon Stewart is a master at parodying the news anchor and the news. He does it so well that statistics show most young people prefer to watch him rather than the real thing. Parody is entertaining. It makes us laugh. You have to have a sense of wit, irony and of course "get" that the piece is being satiric in the first place. I think that most kids of this generation think in parody all the time. Cervantes got it when he wrote Don Quixote mocking the knights errant novels of his time. So well that his own work has outlasted the genre. A close relative of the parody is the "pastiche" in which writers take the example of a previous work and incorporate elements into it for their own usually not to make fun but more as an homage. James Joyce's Ulysses was a hats off to Homer's Odyssey. The first film parodies I recall were Mel Brooks creations, "Blazing Saddles" and "Spaceballs". Then of course there was the "Naked Gun" and "Airplane" series of movies that parodied the Police Squad movies and disaster flicks. Who could forget the TPS reports of "Office Space", also made into a television series? Monty Python's "The Holy Grail" et al have been beacons in the genre. All bow down in prostration.
Take October and November to discover these two great finds matched for the pleasure of Wine & Book Club members here at BookBuffet. When a book is named best work of fiction by the Texas Institute of Letters and long-listed for the Orange Prize (alongside Toni Morrison and Marilynne Robinson) and short-listed for the Orange Prize for New Writers, you can safely assume it will be a worthwhile read. I am referring to Ann Weisgarber's debut novel 
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. (It is interesting to compare and contrast the full list to date at bottom.) Get exposed to authors that otherwise would not have come onto your radar. It's rather like shopping for a new tie or addition to your wardrobe, and never deviating from certain colors, patterns or styles. Jump out of your comfort zone. Today's author is Allegra Goodman. I first became intrigued by this author upon reading her biography on her website. All the reviewer accolades from admittedly reliable sources like 
You laugh and say, "Hah! What are they going to think of to celebrate next?" But the standards for everyday punctuation among the masses has eroded further than you think. It is reaching catastrophic proportions. I am in a state of apoplexy every other day, and I am not even a hardcore grammarian. It isn't just our email-ease, SMS semaphore or rampant use of smiley faces (to hedge against ambiguous rhetoric) that has replaced the proper use and understanding of punctuation. Indeed, for a while the prevailing thinking in education was that creative writing was being stifled by fussy teachers who insisted upon that nasty triad: correct spelling, grammar and punctuation. The red ink marks on papers disappeared and little star stickers were replaced, "Good job," they said. Students were told just to write, and worry about details later. Now look where it has got us. However, there is hope in site. Enclosed is a list of websites you can browse, bookmark and refer to - even take a quiz to test your knowledge or play games. We've included a short list of books you should keep beside your laptop, or better yet, beside your bed at night. Can you think of anything better for insomnia? And here are some of the most common errors we see in everyday writing. Happy Punctuation Day! Oh, 
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is Richard Harvell. This is Richard's first novel titled, 
I would not be the first person to admit that Graham E. Fuller is a person whose intellect, career and breadth of life experience is intimidating—I'll get to his credentials in a second. But in meeting him, one is immediately disarmed to find a soft spoken individual who stands ready to take any question, debate any point and who routinely pitches-in in his adopted community of Squamish, BC on everything from civic planning issues and the preservation of bald eagles to teaching watercolor painting classes each summer at the Whistler Art Festival.
People seem to think that you have to enter into the fray of writing early. You might be surprised to see a line-up of some people who wrote their first novels after their 40th birthday (and well beyond). Take a look at these familiar book titles and celebrate the authors who wrote them, as compiled in a slide show by 
A colleague just published his latest book in the category of Political Science. As it is a page-turner I wanted to write a review and went online to get further information. The search revealed that his stated publisher (Little and Brown) is owned by Hachette Livre, who it emerges is the second largest publisher in the world. Intrigued by this distinction, I set out to discover - who is Hachette Livre and what has contributed to their success? First, Hachette Book Group USA is a leading US trade publisher headquartered in New York, and owned by Hachette Livre. In one year, HBGUSA publishes approximately 450 adult books, 150 young adult and children’s books, and 60 audio book titles. In 2007, the company had a record 82 books on the New York Times bestseller list, with 20 of them ranked #1. In addition to selling and distributing its own imprints, HBG distributes publishing lines for Chronicle Books, Microsoft Learning, Arcade, Time Inc. Home Entertainment, Harry N. Abrams, InnovativeKids, Phaidon Press, Filipacchi Publishing, Kensington, MQ Publications, Strictly By The Book, Weinstein Books and Gildan Media. 
BookBuffet is excited to announce the return of a whole new season of Wallander, Masterpiece's second series adaptation of bestselling Swedish thriller writer Henning Mankell's novels, starring Kenneth Branagh. The highly acclaimed Series I of Wallander won a BAFTA award for its gripping, surreal production standards, and gave Branagh Best Actor for 2010. He was also nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his stunning portrayal of the brooding Detective Kurt Wallander. BookBuffet is once again able to offer the first few members who register with our "Masterpiece Book to Film Group" (how to join below) copies of the novels adapted for the series. Read the books, then watch the series. Masterpiece has a number of teaser videos to pique your appetite, and online streaming of episodes in the series are available for a limited period. Check the PBS schedule for your area. Faceless Killers (October 3), The Man Who Smiled (October 10) and The Fifth Woman (October 17). Download the 
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is David Mitchell. David Mitchell is the acclaimed author of the novels 
J. K. Rowling is 45, the exact age that her mother died of complications due to 
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is Camilla Gibb. Camilla Gibb is the author of four novels: 
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is Alissa York. Alissa York has lived all over Canada and now makes her home in Toronto with her husband, writer/filmmaker Clive Holden. York's award-winning short fiction has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, and in the collection, Any Given Power, published in 1999. Her first novel, Mercy, published in 2003, was a Canadian bestseller. Dutch, French and US editions have appeared since. York's second novel, Effigy, was published in April 2007, short-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. International rights to the book have sold in Holland, Italy, France and the US. Her new novel, Fauna, is on sale on July 27, 2010.
For this week's BookBuffet podcast we got to thinking about the subject of democracy. World news reports failing economies, scam elections and repressive fanatical regimes. Whatever happened to the temple of democracy? Shockingly the bastion countries around the world that we consider exemplars of this form of government are themselves facing a decline on the "Democracy Index" compiled bi-yearly by the Economist magazine research arm. It's not because of any new ultra right or left wing parties gaining power; it's due to public apathy [in the UK and USA] over their democratic rights: the right to vote as well as the "homeland security" initiatives instigated by both countries in response to terrorism. You will now be photographed over 1,000 times a day on the streets of London by closed circuit cameras, and despite President Obama's efforts to reverse the Bush administration's executive infringements to the civil rights act, a dappled cloud of paranoia remains. Since we are a literary site, we wanted to take a look at who has been writing novels that deal with this topic. I had to look no further than two-time Booker Prize winner Peter Carey. Peter talks about his latest novel 
If you're like me you anticipate the moment when you turn the key on your post box, open the door to find your copy of this week's New Yorker magazine, teasingly folded over so that the new cover illustration and lineup of feature articles written by informed, entertaining and intelligent writers addressing today's events around the globe are revealed; then you won't want to miss the next New Yorker Festival. What goes on at the Festival? Well, the full program will be announced Sept 6th and tickets go on sale Sept 10th but I can tell you that your favorite staff writers and contributors will be on stages discussing their work, debating the issues, and entertaining you live. Go to 
At the end of a long day here on the farm (in the Interior of BC) it's great to sit on the porch surveying "the back 40" when the intense heat of the day has passed and the long shadow of our cottonwood next to the house provides a cool respite. Here I sit sipping a glass of crisp white wine while skipping through a copy of John Schreiner's 
From the author of 
Her mother had been the one driving. It was icy and the bend was sharp, the paramedic said it would have been quick. The tree branch had punctured right through the windshield and struck her in the throat. Johnny was another story. He wasn’t wearing his seat belt, which was unusual, and was thrown about thirty metres before his small body had come to a stop. He suffered head injuries that caused him to die two days later, never opening his eyes again. In his five year old hand was a yellow tractor. Michelle thought this may have been the reason he wasn’t wearing his belt. She had gone over it time and time again, frame by frame as if it was a movie. Johnny taking off his belt to get his favourite toy, her mother taking her eyes off the road to make sure he put the seatbelt back on. Gone. In one morning, when there had been so many, they were gone. (continued... )
You've heard of TED talks. Now there's 
My girlfriend was excoriating me the other day for not having read any novels by Swedish blockbuster crime writer, Karl Stig-Erland Larsson. On and on she went about the gripping plot, the insights into Swedish history, politics and culture. The sordid scandals and speculation over the author's sudden death at age 50. (Was it a heart attack or murder? Had he been offed by a Swedish right extremist group?) Then the fact that the first two books in the trilogy have been made into foreign feature films, 
People "Jailbreak" their iphone when they want to buy or use applications not sold via Apple's App store. They can also use their phone as a "tether" to their home computer and access it remotely, access files on their home computer remotely using their phone, etc. What's wrong with that? Well, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 says it's illegal. But aspects of the DMCA changed today. Need a little background? Wikipedia describes it thus:Jailbreaking is a process that allows iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users to run third-party unsigned code on their devices by unlocking the operating system and allowing the user root access. Once jailbroken, iPhone users are able to download many extensions and themes previously unavailable through the App Store via unofficial installers such as Cydia. A jailbroken iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch is still able to use the App Store and iTunes. Jailbreaking is different from SIM unlocking,
The judges for the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction today, Tuesday 27 July, announced the longlist for the prize. It is the leading literary award in the English speaking world. A total of 138 books, 14 of which were called in by the judges, were considered for the Man Booker Dozen longlist of 13 books. The chair of judges, Andrew Motion, commented:"Here are thirteen exceptional novels - books we have chosen for their intrinsic quality, without reference to the past work of their authors. Wide-ranging in their geography and their concern, they tell powerful stories which make the familiar strange and cover an enormous range of history and feeling. We feel confident that they will provoke and entertain." A glance over the list you will see some familiar authors who've won literary prizes, or nominations for the Man Booker in previous years. I'm always a little disappointed there aren't more fresh names in literary contests, however it is always a pleasure to read an author you know and can compare the progression of their work. Order one or three from the list and take your chances picking the winner. This will be announced on Tuesday 12 October at a dinner at London's Guildhall and will be broadcast on the BBC Ten O'Clock News. The prize is worth £50,000 and brings the author increased sales and worldwide recognition. The list is:
OK, you guessed it. I'm back at the farm slacking off (working my fingers to the BONE) and so this week's author podcast does not derive from moi. It is a hilarious riff from Russian born American writer, Gary Shteyngart. Who is Gary Shteyngart you ask? Well if you crossed Woody Allen with Pushkin, I think you'd be close. To prove my point, just watch this 
"One of the most anticipated new books around the Farrar, Straus & Giroux offices (and out in the Real World, I daresay) is Jeffrey Eugenides' follow-up to Middlesex. That 2003 novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize and was later selected for Oprah's Book Club, has sold over 2,000,000 copies and is on many readers' lists of their favorite contemporary novels." writes Jonathan Galassi, president of FSG. Jonathan caught up (virtually) with Jeff in his studio in Princeton, New Jersey, where he is rounding the turn on his new novel.—Work In Progress Blog
Are you a literary snob? Take this Quiz And Find Out. Here is the very first line at the beginning of ten classic novels. See how many you can match up.
Looking for a source of good literary reviews? The place to go is a trusted literary magazine, but last time we checked there are hundreds. For the ultimate web resource go to 
African American Review promotes a lively exchange among writers and scholars in the arts, humanities, and social sciences who hold diverse perspectives on African American literature and culture.
"AGNI has become one of America's, and the world's, most significant literary journals"--PEN America. Now edited by renowned critic Sven Birkerts. 
Join us Tuesday October 5th at 7:30 PM at the Whistler Public Library when Kerry Madden will join us on Skype Video. It has been 50 years since Harper Lee's novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird" came out and rocked our world. The reclusive author almost never gave interviews or speeches to accept her awards, including the Pulitzer Prize she was given in 1960. She did form a lasting relationship with actor Gregory Peck who played the lead figure, Atticus Finch in the film version of her book, a character modeled on Lee's own father who was a newspaperman and former lawyer of the highest moral standard. (Gregory Peck's grandchild is named Harper Peck Voll, in tribute to Harper Lee.) A new biography has come out on Harper Lee, written by Kerry Madden, a Professor at the University of Alabama, titled 
BookBuffet is helping to spread the word about this July’s premiere of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, which headlines a trio of new Poirot mysteries on PBS MASTERPIECE MYSTERY! This long-awaited adaptation is preceded by a one–hour special taking viewers on a present-day journey aboard the iconic train. (The documentary, David Suchet on the Orient Express, airs Wednesday, July 7, 2010 on PBS.)
Matthew Hooton was named one of Canada's new literary talents to watch. His first novel is titled, 
Depending on your age and your taste in music, you may not recognize this author's name, but you will likely recognize her band, The Go-Go's. This 80's punk rock band came out of Los Angeles California and was the first all-girl band to write their own songs and play their own instruments. The members originally consisted of Belinda Carlisle (vocals), Jane Wiedlin (guitar, vocals), Margot Olaverra (bass), and Elissa Bello (drums). Their first album Beauty and the Beat went double platinum and since its release the Go-Go's have sold over 7 million records. I still remember the cover art of their 1982 album Vacation which featured 5 lovely ladies in white frilly hats, pink tops and white skorts waterskiing parallel in a single line. It was retro-bitching. In addition to their success, they had a reputation for hard partying on the A-list circuit. Belinda Carlisle has had the most successful solo career of the group. She's also just released her memoir titled, 
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is Justin Cronin. Born and raised in New England, Justin Cronin is a graduate of Harvard University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Awards for his fiction include the Stephen Crane Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. He is a professor of English at Rice University and lives with his wife and children in Houston, Texas. His newest novel, 
For more than 35 years, Masterpiece has enthralled audiences with the works of the finest classic and contemporary writers interpreted by the world's foremost actors. We at BookBuffet have been partnering with them for just a short 2 years to provide our members with book give-a-ways to match the series and details on the authors and screenwriters. The Masterpiece schedule breaks the year into three “seasons”:
If you crossed T.C. Boyle's Tortilla Curtain with Kem Nunn's surf noir trilogy novels and added breasts you would almost get this book, 
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom. Today's author is Holly LeCraw. Holly lives outside of Boston with her husband, who is a journalist, and three kids. Her short fiction and book reviews have appeared in a range of publications, including the
Edge City Review and the Boston Book Review. Her short fiction was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Though a newcomer as a novelist, she grew up in the book industry. For more information on her newest novel, 
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom.
Today we feature Joan Thomas. Joan Thomas's debut novel, 
NEW VENUE INFO. The next Whistler Reads discussion takes place this summer on July 10th from 5:00-6:15 pm at the Whistler Public Library community room. Admission is free with donations accepted at the door. We'll be heading down the village stroll directly after to reserved patio tables at a restaurant location for a lovely 3-course dinner to take advantage of two Whistler "greats: great food and great conversation. Enjoy cocktails and wine, fine dining and laughter as we carry on the festivities into the summer evening and watch the alpenglow over the mountain tops. (Cost is your bar bill added to price fix menu of two choices over a three course meal.) 
The "Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom.
Whenever I travel, I use 
Ian McEwan came to Vancouver this past week as a stop on his book tour to promote his new climate-themed novel, 
Airing 
The "20 Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast when you check the list to date at bottom.
Yes, I know this is about to rock your world... BBC reports that "the rules of word game Scrabble are being changed for the first time in its history to allow the use of proper nouns, games company Mattel has said. Place names, people's names and company names or brands will now count. Mattel, which brings out a new version of the game containing amended rules in July, hopes the change will encourage younger people to play. Until now a few proper nouns had been allowed which were determined by a word list based on the Collins dictionary. In Scrabble, players try to gain the highest points by making words with individual letter tiles on a grid board. Each letter tile has a points value between one and 10, based on the letter's frequency in standard English. Various coloured squares on the board can double or triple a player's points. My question is, does this mean that we are so bereft of a sizable vocabulary that we have to dumb-down our games?
Technology around books just keeps getting more interesting. A California company has just come out with a hybrid between the book and a video which they call "the future of publishing". Check out 
To celebrate its 30th anniversary—and have a little April Fool's Day fun—
The "20 Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast. Today we feature Joy Fielding. Joy Fielding is the author of the New York Times bestsellers 
Michael Lewis's new book 
"When a major writer emerges, the time for comparison ends, and the time to celebrate begins," so says The National Post about one of Canada's fresh literary voices, Rabindranath Maharaj whose forth novel, 
Win a set of books for you book group. Join BookBuffet's Masterpiece Book to Film Group (details below) and tune into WGBH for the latest Classic adaptation for television. Airing April 11th on Masterpiece Classic is a brand new production of The Diary of Anne Frank, a story that the world has come to equate with the tyranny of Nazi Germany and its policy of oppression against the Jews and this innocent, independent spirited young woman. The trailer begins, "Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday in June 1942. The following month she and her family go into hiding in the secret annex behind her father's business in Amsterdam to escape the Nazi roundup of Jews. An unusually perceptive writer, Anne records events in the annex over the course of the next two years." Anne Frank is played by Ellie Kendrick. The production was adapted from the diary by Deborah Moggach, produced by Elinore Day and directed by Jon Jones. 
The "20 Writerly Questions Series" is brought to you courtesy of Random House Canada who partners with BookBuffet. Look for this feature each Monday. The idea is we ask different authors the same set of questions designed to give readers a glimpse into the lives and writing mechanics of authors. It is fascinating to compare and contrast. Today we feature 
The next Whistler Reads meeting is SATURDAY May 1st, 4:00pm at the Whistler Public Library, in the community room. The book under discussion is 
Each year the Whistler Writers Group offers a Writer in Residence Program for the full month of September. Twenty successful applicants who have submitted a writing sample and paid the modest $250 fee have the opportunity to attend both the group sessions and four one-on-one mentoring sessions with an established writer. The guest author gets to stay at Station House, a converted building that is owned and operated by the Resort Municipality, which is located in an idyllic, quiet location on the opposite side of Alta Lake across from the Whistler village, the ski hills and the hubbub of busy tourist activities. The fee does not include accommodation, but that's the fun part. Whistler has everything from five-star hotels like the Four Seasons to quaint Bavarian style B&B's, or if you are really on a budget, perhaps you can score one of the 101 rooms at the new 2010 Olympic Athlete Village Youth Hostel? Distractions from your homework include world class golf (3 courses in as many miles), hiking (take the new Peak 2 Peak tram and cover two mountains in one day), mountain biking (boasting the world's largest network of trails and the world's largest non profit rider's association to take you there), and then there's the village patio dining and bistro experiences and plenty of shopping. You'd better pack a whack of outdoor gear in addition to your laptop and that sharp pencil! The Whistler writers group, called Vicious Circle was launched in 2001 by Stella Harvey. It has a core of committed members who help with the organizing and creative spirit. They meet regularly throughout the year to critique each other's writing - so they can't be all that vicious. Check out their just-released video of the writer in residence program posted on the group website. 
The Whistler Reads initiative is fashioned on the "One Book One City" programs popular across North America. Want to be a part of this exciting community venture, meet authors, discover new books, join the biggest book group in BC? Check out the list of past books and events below. We welcome all newcomers and drop-in resort visitors alike. This is a great place to meet locals if you are new to Whistler. 
Jim Crace is the author of, among other books, 
The great thing about hosting the Olympics in Whistler, BC Canada this week is that we get to attract stunning literary figures like Annabel Lyon. I couldn't think of a more perfect author to feature this week as Annabel's book, 
BookBuffet partners with Random House Canada to offer you a writerly glimpse into the lives of authors. First up, is Beth Powning. Check back for upcoming authors: Joy Fielding, Drew Hayden Taylor, and John Boyne.
The Golden Globes are always a pre-curser to the Academy Awards (The Oscars) and this year awards went to some actors whose careers have well deserved recognition in the past and who receive it now, as well as the expected sweep of AVATAR. Kudos to James Cameron who once again breaks box office records by making over $1 Billion USD in the fastest time from opening date. (If you're interested in the animation, get this excellent book, 
She was the secretary of a spice company doing business in the office where Anne Frank, her sister, parents and two others stowed away in the attic in Amsterdam. She brought food and clothing to the family, as well as books and newspapers. The hide-aways were discovered late 1944 (the informer has never been uncovered) and Anne was taken to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany where she died of typhus March 1945, just two weeks before the American liberation of the facility. Anne's diary was found by Miep Gies. She kept it and gave the diary to Anne's father Otto, the only survivor. He then published his daughter's diary in 1947. It has since been translated into 65 languages and read by millions of children and adults. 
I had the good fortune while on business in snowy London, to nab a ticket to the sold out event on January 12th featuring Turkish author and Nobel Prize Laureate, Orhan Pamuk at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in the Southbank Centre. Pamuk of course is promoting his new novel, 
We're back into Classic Season at Masterpiece hosted by Laura Linney. BookBuffet partners once again with 
At the ripe young age of 45 John Wood was a Microsoft director in charge of business development for greater China. He had a grueling schedule. One year he decided to take a break and do a trek in Nepal. That trip changed his life. Appalled by the lack of education opportunities, where children were being sold by their parents into bonded labor in neighboring countries instead of growing up in their own communities getting an education, he began bringing books back to Nepal. Hauling them to remote mountain locations by yak, by donkey, by whatever means he could, he was able to provide the people living there with no schools or libraries a chance to learn to read. He formed a charity called Books for Nepal. It's a similar story told in the popular title, Three Cups of Tea, but in this case John Wood has transformed his vision into a multi-country organization called 
The first book event kicking off the 2010 season in Whistler is going to be a doozy. Don't miss the 28th Whistler Reads book group discussion on Febuary 7th 2010 (apres ski) 4:00-5:30pm at 3313 Peak Drive on Blueberry Hill, Whistler - the home of Chris and Angela. (Tickets: $20 at door or online below) We are thrilled to bring you BC author Annabel Lyon, whose third book 
Sex holds a universal fascination. From our basic limbic drive of "preservation of self and species" to the furthest extremes of sexual practice, everyone wants to know how it works and where they fit into the spectrum. Starting from our first sexual stirring and tracking behavior to the oldest fornicators, researchers are gathering information to determine what stimulates our sex drive, the mind-body connection and social-cultural differences for normal and abnormal behavior. In 1998 when Viagara came on the market for men, the push was on to discover the pink pill equivalent for women. Female sexuality, these studies show, is even more complex and nuanced than male sexuality. Researchers Cindy M. Meston and David M. Buss, both psychology professors at the University of Texas at Austin discovered some fascinating new information, which is contained in 
Buy any of these technology gifts for people on your holiday shopping list and feel the ho-ho-ho; it's one-stop shopping for you and techno-bliss for them. We at BookBuffet either have or want to own one of each. Last year we bought the digital camera for our kids, our sibs and the G-parents, and smiles abounded from ear to ear. This year we're updating everyone with a new iphone and arming them with a Kindle. Canada has just gained access to the Kindle; the USA tested all the first generation models and the rest of us get to reap the benefits. What is there not to like about the Kindle? It makes sense environmentally and you can't beat it for convenience; transport hundreds of books with you, download new digital versions in minutes over 3G at a fraction of the regular book price. The killer item on this list is the tiny (fits in the palm of my hand) digital projector. It attaches to your iPod or iPhone and projects a 4 foot wide image on any white surface. Add a set of portable speakers and your next mobile presentation will impress even the board. Order all of these items in bulk from BookBuffet using the handy direct links. Tell them to giftwrap, write a custom note card, capitalize on the free delivery, et voila - Holiday Shopping completed. Now you can enjoy the parties, actually plan to ski or hit the beach before the Xmas rush, and relax throughout December. Peace, good will and happy holidays from all of us at BookBuffet!
Warning: gratuitous naked hockey player photo explained later; do NOT let your imaginations run to Bruno-like movie segments. Oh those book-wormy Canucks... Even in winter, or perhaps because of the long winters, there is a new literary related news item every week. What am I talking about? Let's take them sequentially. First, the November prizes: the 
Who can resist the delicious red cover of 
In 2004 the employees of the Jonquiere Walmart store located 470 kilometers (290 miles) north of Montreal successfully organized and joined the United Food and Commercial Workers, or UFCW. Walmart famously does not allow its employees to unionize. Like other locations before this in the US, Walmart closed the store the minute union activity was initiated. In 2005 the workers sued Walmart and won their case on the grounds that closing the store violated their freedom of association rights guaranteed by Canada’s constitution. They were the first store North America-wide that had successfully won their case against the mega retailer. But Walmart fought back with a petition to the Supreme Court of Canada, who in examining the case overturned the ruling 6-3, saying that Walmart proved its reasons for closing the store were valid. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce sided with Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart, arguing that businesses ought to retain the freedom to make operating decisions. President Ken Georgetti of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLL) says this effectively hamstrings 100 workers at more than 300 stores across Canada. One can imagine Walmart in his crosshairs today, and it will be interesting to see what happens elsewhere in Canada. I first became aware of the pros and cons of the Walmart giant in a book Nelson Lichtenstien wrote titled, 
BookBuffet attended the American Jewish University, LosAngeles where Israeli author, journalist and peace advocate Amos Oz was invited to speak about his life and his books with Rob Eshman, the Editor in Chief of The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. It is all part the 
Whether you are a whiz at math or not, there remains a universal fascination with how applied math principals help us understand the world around us. I've just discovered of a cool new website where you can get an answer to any math or physics question you want. Despite today's access to unlimited resources on the web, nothing beats this conversation style site that makes you feel like you've reconnected to that brilliant prof you had in your 20s and can only now appreciate in your 40s. Check out 
In keeping with my newfound 
I just signed up for Mediabistro.com's two-day 
The popularity of the short story genre has waxed and waned but it seems to be on a comeback. I had my suspicions about why this might be true but decided to read up on the matter while preparing for a 
What if you were the head of a struggling non-profit that was working for the good of humanity, to stop global hunger, and a top executive at a food conglomerate offered you $50K as a public relations gesture to counter some bad press his company had received lately. Would you accept the check? Fast forward to a meeting in Harlem you are holding that same night where a group of significantly less privileged people have gathered because of your appeal for help for the hungry people in Africa. A tear-choked woman dressed very plainly listens and then, with barely any hesitation, comes forward from the back of the room and joyfully gives the $50 she earned that day doing housework for a white woman. This sets a stream of people in the room to come forward with shouts of glee as they toss their their dollar bills and change into the basket. The gifts that evening total $500.
I enjoy listening to podcasts in the evenings, and discovered a series that I know you will love too. Professor Dreyfus is a real curmudgeon by the sounds of things. He teaches "Existentialism in Literature and Film" in the Department of Philosophy UC Berkeley. (When I took philosophy at UCLA the professor said, "I am going to teach you how to think, how to reason.") His classes are full with 200 eager students, and more on the waiting list. He started podcasting as a way to reach the people who couldn't get into class. Soon, as one LA Times correspondent pointed out, he was broadcasting to oil rigs and other remote and isolated places. He receives regular feedback from listeners in Russia on his discussion of Dostoyevsky-how enlightening that must be! Each podcast is directly recorded, with all its amateur sound quality (no false voiced intros such as you hear in Audible.com recordings) at 
What if you were a famous band member who traveled around the world? And what if you liked to take your handy fold-up bike with you when on tour, and get out into the streets and neighborhoods of cities like London, Sydney, Manila, Berlin, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Detroit, New York? And what if you kept a diary of all the landscapes and architecture you saw, the fashion, culture and art you experienced, and the people that you met? That would be kind of interesting, don't you think? Well, Talking Heads band member, David Byrne did just that. A resident of New York city who started riding his bike exclusively in the 1980s, David has also been touring, cycling, and writing about it from this unique perspective for the past two decades. His notes, photos and musings were published last month in a book titled, 
Better than the Oscars, this week is when my favorite literary prizes are awarded. First the Mann Booker 
Hilary Mantel is tonight, Tuesday 6 October, named the winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for 
I use a MacBook Pro with the Mac OS X operating system. I'm on this thing so much I've had to replace the "i" key twice and my space bar has been worn down like the sandstone steps of La Seu Cathedral in Barcelona. I run tons of software such that the 40-odd miniscule icons lined up on my tool docking bar at the bottom of my screen are barely recognizable. I use a separate hard drive to store all my media: photos, audio files, movies from my own in-progress files and completed archived projects. This helps to maximize pc speed and performance, and it gives me some peace of mind against the loss of important data. So far I've had next to nil computer crashes: Unlike my friends with non-Mac PC's who experience "the blue screen of death" regularly, and are forced to spend hours upon hours reloading and re-booting their machines. However, that is not to say that I have become cavalier in my approach to some future inevitability. The reason I am telling you all of this is to illustrate how important our personal laptop computers have become, and how any temporary glitch or—yee gads—crash to our system would prove catostophique (spoken with a shrill French accent). SO, as you all nod your heads in frantic agreement, I have a juicy piece of information to ease your now troubled mind. CCC. No, it's not a hockey equipment manufacturer, or a stuttering expository text message. The letters stand for 
A recent article from the 
With so many options available, BookBuffet asks the question, "Where do you buy your reading material these days?" Our site has a Browse Books icon at the top R corner of our home page banner that is linked to Amazon.com, .ca, and .uk. for purchases. I ask this question because I just finished speaking with two friends who told me they use Amazon exclusively to purchase "thousands of dollars worth of books and DVD's each year," and I responded, "OMG, why not buy them through BookBuffet?" They answered, "Oh, you mean I can do that and you'll get, like, a commission or something?" "YES!" was my whole hearty reply. "It's not much but every little bit helps!" I went on to explain, "The reason we use Amazon is because they've got the biggest selection of books when we did our online retailer comparison. AND the best digital support and user features that compliment our work in directing readers to good books. The more you buy, the more we benefit. When you purchase a few books at a time, the shipping is FREE. Beats driving to the local store where you may discover they do not carry what you came for, and you'll have to place an order and return a second time. As well, when you shop Amazon you can shop -the world- in the markets where books first become available. I just bought
Granta magazine is a literary quarterly from the UK that is turning 30 this year, and they’re asking you to help them celebrate by purchasing a subscription to GRANTA. Digital subscriptions fees have been wound back to 1979 for an annual cost of £3.50 – so there’s no excuse no matter where in the world you live. What’s inside?
Ian McAllister’s latest book, 
Graphic novels are not just for kids. Manga is the Japanese version of this popular phenomenon and a Canadian duo by the name of Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki has joined forces to produce a work of art that blends poignantly funny text with award-winning graphics. 
As the longest-running primetime drama on American television, 
We've all done it. Downloaded an in theatres only movie from the net before the Oscars; nabbed a file from one of the Napster-type music sites; used a picture off of Flikr for our own web article. But now that there are so many sites offering easy, cheap pay options for copyrighted material, this should be happening less and less - right?! What happens when you take a famous image and photoshop it into something new, or parody someone on your blog? Get the latest on this issue when the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association in partnership with the UBC School of Journalism and Tyee Magazine host renowned copyright and internet law expert Dr. Michael Geist. The talk is in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia's "Wise Hall" on October 1, 2009. Dr. Geist is Canada's leading technology law expert and the guru of the Canadian movement to prevent copyright restrictions from infringing on key free speech principles including parody, artistic use, fair use, and device transferability.
I guess Starbucks is unintentionally to blame for the catchy name of the new one-off book machines coming to a book store near you. After all, doesn't book browsing and expresso-quaffing go hand in hand? Maybe the tagline of the new technology will be, "Sip your latté AND self-publish your own book!" POD, or Print On Demand technology is coming to Village Books in Bellingham, Washington. Yup that little store in the upscale waterfront neighborhood of Fairhaven owned by Chuck Robinson. Chuck and his team have just returned from Northshire Bookstore in Vermont. That's the book store claiming to be the first book store in North America (and only one of a few around the world) to have a POD book making machine. Chuck and his staff were toured and ostensibly tutored at the art of book making - Espresso-style. A video on 
When Alice Munro publishes a new book of short stories, it becomes an international literary event. 
There is perhaps no other person more renowned for the development of the electric guitar and advances to sound recording in the twentieth century than inventor and jazz musician, Les Paul. He died from complications of pneumonia today, surrounded by family and friends in White Plains Hospital, New York. Remarkably as late as last year, Les Paul age 93, played two sets every Monday night at a club in NYC. He was the inventor of mulit-track recording and the hard body electric guitar. The latter was first in commercial production by the Fender Guitar Company in a model called the Stratocaster. The following year, 1950 Fender's competitor the Gibson Guitar Company brought Les Paul on board to create their own solid body electric guitar bearing his name. Ironically, they had earlier turned him down when he first presented his design, named "the log" made with a 4 x 4 solid piece of wood, a bridge and strings mounted on top — back in 1941. A little know fact is that a near fatal car accident shattered Les Paul's left arm and elbow such that doctors said they could only repair it to a fixed position, and asked what he preferred. He told them to fix it in a 90 degree angle, and this disability is said to have contributed to the early design elements of the Les Paul guitar. Today the Gibson Les Paul is the widest used electric guitar in the industry. Paul McCartney used a "cherry burst left handed" Les Paul, Neil Young favoured his "Old Black" as did other guitar legends: Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards. An award winning musician, Les Paul and his wife Mary Ford recorded dozens of pop hits that went gold. Tunes like, "Vaya Con Dios," "How High the Moon," "Nola" and "Lover." In February 2006 at the age of 90 he won two grammies for his album, 
As the longest-running primetime drama on American television, Masterpiece is committed to bringing viewers the best in literature-based drama, mysteries filled with eclectic characters, and groundbreaking contemporary works. Summer is mystery season at PBS Masterpiece. It started with the award winning Wallander detective series starring Kenneth Branah, followed by the ever popular Agatha Christie. This month is another detective series that is scheduled to take viewers through to fall when Masterpiece Classic takes over. It's based on the novels by Colin Dexter. Many of you will know
We are considering keeping bees at the farm. It’s a passion I was first exposed to through literature: 
Maybe it's because I'm here at the farm and looking into windmill technology to harness this ample daily resource so I can pump water into our fields—because this TED story, the one that's creating such a buzz, has also caught my attention. TEDGlobal 2009 is meeting in Oxford in the UK right now. You can get all the updates on their 
Join me, as I compare the topic of his book with my own research, on our own farm, into wind technology here in North America. It's an interesting study in contrast and comparison.
Photo: William Kamkwamba at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 7: "Radical development," July 23, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
When I was first given this book the subject matter made my heart skip as I watched my grandmother deteriorate with Alzheimer’s and it could not have been more heartbreaking. She recounted full stories about her childhood, how her school had a netball court that was slanted, how my granddad sent letters when he was in the war which she posted in sequence all over the kitchen. At other times, in contrast, she couldn’t remember who my family was and would shout and scream, when she had previously never in our whole time together raised her voice. Alzheimer’s changes not only your memory but your behaviour and personality, and at times neither one of us recognised the other.
OK, you've figured out I'm at the farm and so all of my metaphors today are going to reflect that. I am curious to know what escapes you have planned for the summer? Do you make a ritual foray up to the cottage on the lake? Do you take a driving tour of the local wineries in your region? Do you hop the big pond and immerse in the cultural offerings of Europe? Or, like me, do you turn off the Internet, your cell phone and all forms of communication and just hang out? My days at the farm are jam-packed. It's up with the birds at 4:30 am (yee gad) and after morning coffee, 3 hours of weeding the farmhouse garden patch, peeling a few logs for the bedsteads we're building for guests, I'm painting the new purple martin birdhouse to convince the swallows to relocate out from under the eves, take a drive in the tractor over the front 80... and of course, when the day heats up and my outside hammock under the cottonwood calls, I relax with a good book and perhaps a tall G&T. Isn't this what the lazy days of summer are all about? It's our chance to put away obligatory professional reading matter and the newspapers that draw us into world events, and instead allow ourselves to be transported to a fictional world, followed of course with the nonfiction title we've been saving for unfettered nights. Here's what's stacked in the shade next to my hammock...
In 1965 Helen Gurley-Brown became the Executive Editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine. She earned the spot by coming up through the ranks as a secretary whose writing abilities were next scooped into the copy writing department at a prominent L.A. advertising agency. But what really tipped the scale for the position offered by Randolf Hearst's magazine was her first book, published at the unlikely age of 40, titled 
"Is there no end to Twittermania? Last week we saw the social networking tool Twitter deployed on the streets of Tehran. This week, moving seamlessly from the sublime to the ridiculous, it is being used to aid the digestion of the world's greatest literature." So writes Guardian correspondent Ed Pikington in New York. BookBuffet is delighted that our favorite (professional) social networking site is putting its technology to good use.
The Contemporary Art market has been on fire and who better to talk about it than Sarah Thornton, ethnographer and author of 
New out in paperback this month, Miriam Toews fourth novel, 
This is the 3rd annual London Literary Festival held at the Southbank Centre July 2-16. Enjoy the best in international writing, performance, music and debate this summer. What I like about festivals in the UK is the diversity of participants and the scope of the topics. And of course, it's not all books! When you hang out in London you get to take in some of the greatest museums, galleries and restaurants of the world, too! Be sure to stay at the 
It is becoming increasingly hard to convince young women that feminism is relevant today. What short memories we have. Only 2 generations ago, women couldn’t vote (for women of color and native women, that right came much later) and had few rights even within the home , expected to “cater to [their] husband’s personal comfort,” “never complain” and “know [their] place.” 
BookBuffet and 
Summer is a favorite season in Whistler. The days grow long, the valley heats up, and people spread out to hike, bike, golf, canoe, dine al-fresco and participate in the village's summer art programs put on by the Whistler Arts Council. This summer Whistler Reads is adding to the fun. On Thursday July 30th, 2009 at 7:30 pm at the Whistler Public Library we'll be discussing Sarah Thornton's award-winning book about the Contemporary Art scene titled, 
I came upon an amazing sculpture by contemporary Spanish artist, Alicia Martin who uses books as the raw material for her works. If you love books as much as we do, you will delight in her installations. The curator at 
Canadian short-story specialist, Alice Munro has today won the biannuel Man Booker International Prize, worth £60,000. It is awarded once every two years to a living author for a body of work that has contributed to an achievement in fiction on the world stage. This is only the third time the award has been named. Ismail Kadaré won in 2005 and Chinua Achebe won in 2007. Munro's next collection of short stories, 
BREAKING WORLD NEWS… The promised US presidential pooch has been picked, US media reports say. The soon-to-be "First Puppy" is a six-month-old black and white Portuguese water dog that Mr. Obama's daughters have named Bo, The Washington Post reports. Churchill had Rufus, the Queen of England has her corgis, now America has Bo.
Patrick French is an English writer, historian and biographer educated at the University of Edinburough. His latest book, 
OK, I must admit to having a certain soft spot for Kenneth Branagh. You too? Is it his thin lips or a lifetime of stunning acting, directing, producing and screenwriting achievements? Not surprisingly, we are not alone. PBS Masterpiece's Executive Producer, Rebecca Eaton admitted to a 20-year crush on him in Los Angeles this past April 29th when introducing Branagh at the Paley Center screening of, 
Isn't it nice that the USA has a President who openly admits to reading? And isn't it nice that his choice of books matters to the reading public. That is the conclusion that the publisher of Vintage/Anchor Books announced Monday when they tallied—the Obama effect—on a book they released last June as compared to sales this Thursday May 7th. There has been double-digit increase in sales since Obama revealed he was reading Joseph O'Neill's novel, 
Orlando Figes is one of the most distinguished historians of Russia today. He is Professor of History at University of London, having the distinction of graduating with a rare double-starred First in 1982, and completing his PhD at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a Fellow from 1984 to 1999. He was a Lecturer in History at the University of Cambridge from 1987 to 1999, before taking up the Chair of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. 
Brazilian author, Paul Coelho of 
Good grammar, just like good writing, is a lifelong pursuit. You can never give up! I continue to challenge myself with the intricacies of grammar and style, not merely for my own sake, (I confess to being a very late bloomer at this topic) but more particularly as the last-resort editor of this website with a responsibility for checking our contributors' writing. For reference sources I have three different books on grammar and style and two dictionaries. I often take one or another of these with me to bed—egad, I can't believe I just admitted that. But a reference book sitting on the shelf or at your bedside is of no use when most of your writing is done on your laptop or at your office computer. Hence, you can imagine my excitement in striking the motherload with the discovery of an excellent online grammar site that I now keep bookmarked at the #1 spot on my browser tool bar, (ahem, the aforementioned G spot). It's not 
The news brings horrifying reports of floods in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, New Orleans and many other places. We are hit with images of people standing on top of their homes waiting for rescue while their belongings are swept away. In need of food, shelter and safety these people become refugees at the mercy of others. But what happens next? What happens to the survivors whose lives have been torn apart by this act of nature? James Runcie’s third novel 
Spring is here and I have to confess - I've become twitterpated. No, not the Disney Bambi type, but the 140 character online social networking type. As opposed to Facebook, a site I check each morning to see what my friends and family are doing, I find that Twitter.com has become my lifeline to my professional network. It's a shout-out from friends at work telling me what they're reading of interest, what's happening in the backroom at Granta, NPBooks, and BookNet. Twitter is where all the big and small publishers, editors of fine literary blogs, a sprinkling of authors, and other people whose tweets I share, congregate off-and-on throughout the day. It's the virtual water cooler. Of course the authors I know write the best tweets. Susan Orlean cracks me up daily! Regarding Easter she writes, "Haven't told [junior] about organized religion yet but [the 6 year-old] tells me that Google has all the answers." Now that's profound! Whether you're a DJ connecting to other spinners of vinyl, or an architect keeping up with designer friends, other artisans or the textile manufacturer - Twitter can connect your network. As I become more facile with the advantages and disadvantages of the blue bird site, I have to agree with some of PC Magazine's 
Over the last 21 years, the Hay Literary Festival audience has grown from 1,000 people in Hay (near Herefordshire, England) to 250,000 visitors on three continents every year. One would think that the four locations offer UK book lovers a chance to meet authors from different locales who write, as one would expect, about their cultures, influences, and life experiences which become fictionalized or not in some form of book. However, the reality is that The Hay is a new form of British Cultural Imperialism transporting English lit and culture to warmer climates. This becomes evident when reading the line-up of events (a sampling provided below) at venues named for the sponsors: "The Guardian Stage", "The Barclays Wealth Pavilion" and "The SONY Screen". That said, it still looks like a rousing good time in locations with better weather and interesting tourist ops. The next location in the calendar year is Granada, Spain this May 7-10th, 2009. Here's their blurb, "The Andalusia is a fantastic setting to meet regional writers and readers. In the beautiful setting of the Alhambra Palace, writers and poets from Spain, the Middle East and northern Africa, as well as the UK, US and many others, share their voices and stories to make this a truly international festival of thought and word." Download the 
"Awaken to darkness on this place we call Earth,
One vampire's bite brings another one's birth.
A vampire wakes with blood thirsty needs
On the warm rich sensation he feels when he feeds.
He stalks in the night like a disastrous beast,
And what once was alive will soon be deceased.
So when the last bit of sunlight disappears from the sky,
You better watch out unless you want to die."
-Victoria Boatwright
Tim Butcher is a correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. When one thinks about journalists covering all the conflict hotspots: Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Algeria, Sierra Leone and Lebanon, you can think of Tim Butcher. After a four year tour of Africa for the Daily Telegraph Tim spent three years planning his solo return to the Congo retracing the river route of another Daily Telegraph journalist, Henry Morton Stanley. In part on motorbike, and in part by river barge and perugue (canoe), Butcher traveled almost 2,500 miles from the Eastern border and lake district of the DRC to the Western border on the Atlantic, thus crossing the width of the country. His resulting book, 
A lovely essay in The Guardian (April 4 2009) caught my eye today, it was written by a person I did not previously know. The story is titled 
When Sir Ernest Shackleton was looking for men to join his expedition to the South Pole in 1914 at the outbreak of WWI, the advertisement read: "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness and constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success."
Over 5,000 people responded to fill 24 positions. What ensued was an epic journey that while a historic failure—has none-the-less become the stuff of legend. Shackleton's autobiography is required reading for every adventurer or outdoors enthusiast—be they ocean mariner, mountain climber, wilderness survivalist or just your average human being interested in epic tales and the bi-gone era of exploration on this earth. There are several versions of the story; the one told by Ernest Shackleton himself and by various historians. Movies and A&E hit television miniseries have been made, and all of them have the key elements of a gripping story: a hero, his quest, a cast of characters, the catastrophe that threatens to destroy them, and the skill, stamina, courage and perseverance required from each to deliver them to safety. This is a story whose ending cannot be spoiled.
This event is sponsored by 
Driving down the Pacific Coast Highway between Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades I pass Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in his Hummer. Well, he wasn’t the California governor at that specific point in time. He was just a movie celebrity slash retired body builder and husband to broadcaster Maria Shriver, on his way home from the studio. My kids were in the car and as we passed “the Terminator” casually smoking a stogy while driving in the slow lane, the site was just too much for them. Squiggling in their seat belts trying to attract his attention from the back of the car, Arnold sees that I am attempting to negotiate traffic and deal with their minor commotion. For one brief moment his eyes lock with mine across the lanes as I pull alongside him, and he breaks into his characteristic wide, broken-tooth grin and nods to me. Then he gives my kids "the terminator good-bye wave” the one that his character makes while sinking into the molten goo at the end of the titular movie, and my kids go wild and cheer and wave. I accelerate ahead into traffic. Read on to see where this leads to The Tesla and the current state-of-the-art in electric motor cars.
Third in the Dickens Classics miniseries produced by WGBH Boston's Masterpiece and adapted by screenwriter Andrew Davies is 
You can create an iPhone version of your blog or website's RSS feeds in less than a minute. Why would you do that? Because trends show that most people in a certain demographic stay on top of important news throughout the day using their mobile devices. To make your own iPhone version of your blog - do what we did - follow Jon's 1-minute videoinstructions. Go to 
OK, I'll admit it. I have been boycotting Elizabeth Gilbert. You remember her. She’s the author whose book all your girlfriends were reading and raving about two years ago. Yes raving. Like Oprah's book picks, I was highly skeptical and quite frankly annoyed. I mean, she charged over $10,000 plus first class travel expenses to come speak to a community not far from where I live, and the topic wasn’t something really very earth-shattering. Side bar: the highest paid writer-speakers are presidential biographers. Apparantly they can command $25,000 USD per talk, which is more than most authors make in royalties for the entire print-run of their book. But back to Elizabeth Gilbert and 
Since its launch in 1995 Picador has rapidly established itself as one of the leading literary trade paperback imprints in the country. Working closely with the esteemed hardcover houses Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Henry Holt and St Martin's Press, Picador's stable of authors include fiction and non-fiction Pulitzer Prize winners: Michael Chabon, Michael Cunningham, Marilynne Robinson and Jeffrey Eugenides; National Book Award winners Shirley Hazzard, Susan Sontag and Jonathan Franzen; and National Book Critics Circle Award winners Jim Crace and Philip Gourevitch. Picador's bestselling authors include Anita Diamant, Augusten Burroughs, Salman Rushdie, Lorrie Moore, Atul Gawande and Tom Wolfe.
The fun part is every Tuesday Picador will announce a new book pick and give readers two weeks to complete it. You could be one of the lucky people to win a free copy of the book. Book picks range from mystery to literary fiction to a work in translation. On the second Friday you'll get to correspond directly with the authors and editors of the book! Or you can submit questions before Friday to be addressed by the authors the day of the "discussion." Picador will pick books for every taste and reader. Read on to learn about Picador's Twitter program.
Michael Tamblyn, CEO of BookNet Canada, describes 6 projects/changes/initiatives that could make things better for publishers, readers, and others with an interest in the future of the book. 
American International Group (AIG), the faltering insurance giant, paid out $165 million in bonuses from their government bail-out check. Obama was quick to respond. 
What if? In his extraordinary book, 
A recent post on BookFinder.com talked about their sure-fire "Stimulous Package." I clicked the link and instead of finding advice on finance or the economy, I found a selection of books on... coffee! When it comes to book-selling clever marketing still rules the day. With editor Scott Laming's permission we've posted that list of books, but I also want to share what I've discovered about the site. 
So are we! So as an experiment in social networking using the Facebook site, I posted an invite to my "friends list", an agreed distinguished but paultry list of 110 (gloat, all you people with over 400 friends) and to my surprise 67 of them joined the eponymous 
I've seen "collective novels" before, but this time uber-crime writer 
Fans of Dickens' epic novel David Copperfield get to have a sneak preview of actors David Radcliffe and Ian McKellen who star in the two-part episode on 
It was just a matter of time, but the word is officially out - Amazon has bowed to Apple and created a FREE app for its iPhone and iPod. As an iPhone user and an avid reader who is on-the-go constantly, I am thrilled to see the collaboration in place. I've been reluctant to purchase a Kindle to download Amazon digital books, as who needs another soon-to-be-obsolete electronic device? Users can shop for books at www.amazon.com/kindlestore on a regular PC, and then transfer purchases over the air to the iPhone and iPod touch. Prices are the same whether books are purchased from a Kindle or from an iPhone, and the first chapter of every book is free. If you've already got a Kindle, you can download every Kindle purchase you've already made to the new iPhone app. The app also offers adjustable font size along with bookmarks and annotation features.
Like on the Kindle e-book, you can bookmark pages, increase the font size, and access the table of contents. You can buy a book or download a sample directly to your iPhone, be it via 3G or Wi-Fi. Turning the page is as easy as swiping the iPhone's touch screen.To compare Kindle with iPhone, read Nicole Lee's article on 
Stephen Lewis is a consummate orator, which stems as he says from his days in the trenches as a "feckless politician" when he was NDP leader of the opposition in Ontario, Canada. A strong socialist reformer, his work took on global proportions when he became the Canadian UN Ambassador and Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. Lewis has been working to help the continent since. His speeches are peppered with names, places, and people from all parts of Africa - from people in the smallest village in Malawi to the leaders and heads of state worldwide. His 2005 Massey Lecture became the basis for a best-selling book, 
If you’re like me, you have whittled the morning rituals down such as to maximize sleep, allowing the absolute bare minimum time to shower, dress, and travel to work. If one step goes wrong; a late bus, an incognito set of keys, the entire operation is derailed and I am late. Thus the mornings are a time of great stress and panic. You can imagine, then, how delighted I was when I discovered the good people at Firefox have made an application for people like me, who can’t waste precious time by typing tedious URLs to read the morning news.
Enter 
This month's Wine & Book Group pick is 
Just the mention of the Kennedy family name congers four generations of fame, tragedy, controversy and an intense dedication to public service. On March 4th 2009 the 
It's almost a cliché—mention heart transplant and we imagine dramatic deathbed scenarios with life-altering passion at their core. What is striking, and frankly somewhat surprising given its title, is that Stephen Lovely couches his heart-transplant story, 
If you haven't yet jumped on the bandwagon that is the social network revolution called Facebook, you've likely got your reasons: a stubborness toward technology or privacy issues. Well the NYT printed an article telling of the company's change in policy that has created an uproar among the Facebook community. It has caused the company to retract those changes for the meanwhile, but readers should know what they're signing on for when they create a Facebook presence and enter all that juicy information about themselves...
Perhaps a little less glamorous than a theft in the art world, book thievery hit the headlines this week in the U.K. with some rather stunningly expensive and intriguing robberies.
On average the BBC reports that shoplifters make off with around $750m worth of books a year, small change to these professionals. “Jacques is one of a handful of highly intelligent, well-educated criminals who operate in the somewhat murky world of international antiquarian book traders, collectors and curators. They successfully plunder priceless tomes, manuscripts and ancient maps, while the players in this closed world - the national and international libraries, the dealers and the victims themselves - largely remain silent about what is going on.” 
A new "Oliver Twist" has been adapted for television from master-storyteller, Charles Dickens' classic tale of an orphan boy's struggle amid 19th century London. The memorable characters: Oliver, Fagan, the artful dodger, Bill Sikes and Nancy (among others)are played by a stunning cast:William Miller, Adam Arnold, Timothy Spall, Tom Hardy and Sophie Okonedo. Don't miss this two-episode show, which airs Feb 15th-22nd on PBS.
On February 22nd at 5 pm Pacific Time and 8 pm Eastern Time, the 81st Oscar Awards Ceremony will go off at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, hosted by the unlikely, Hugh Jackmon. Get a list of the 
Don't miss the next Whistler Reads discussion March 19th at the 
Snow. When you live in a mountain community you see a variety of it. The temperatures that precipitation falls at along with the atmospheric conditions conspire to produce magical landscapes, or like this year in the Pacific Northwest, dangerous avalanche conditions. The natural progression from just living and playing in the snow is to explore the subject from the artistic and the scientist's perspective. Caltech physicist, Kenneth Libbrecht has published several books with images of snowflakes captured by a special photo-microscope that are exquisite. He says, "The most symmetrical crystals are usually found during light snowfalls, with little wind when the weather is especially cold." Libbrecht follows upon the tradition of scientific study of ice crystals that runs back to Johannes Kepler and includes René Descartes, Robert Hooke, the Vermont farmer Wilson Bentley (who recorded 5,000 different snowflakes) and the Japanese snow scientist 
The Models of Yesteryear, this week:
Behind every successful television production is a team of hard working, talented people. For the past twenty (plus) years, the woman at helm of WGBH Boston Masterpiece has been Executive Producer, Rebecca Eaton. BookBuffet caught up with Rebecca on her recent visit to California and we've podcast and transcribed our interview for you here. Listen to Rebecca tell us what she loves about her job, what's it's been like to nurture and grow the Masterpiece brand and to work with the incredible actors, writers and directors at the BBC with whom she has collaborated, and subsequently been awarded a bookcase full of Emmy, Peabody and Golden Glob Awards as recognition for excellence from her peers. Then register with the Masterpiece Book to Film Group and be entered to win one of several promotional give-a-ways: re-issued Penguin classic editions of the four Dickens novels adapted for Masterpiece with stunning new covers, and DVD's of the Masterpiece miniseries showing on network TV and for a limited time online during the series run.
Reads has announced its five picks for the countdown to the finalist. People are encouraged to plow through these books and make their vote for this year's Canada Reads selection. The five books are: The Book of Negroes, The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant, Mercy Among the Children, and The Outlander. We've listed a summary of the books and author bios with links to purchase and to vote. See which titles interest you, purchase and share your copy and your opinions with friends. Debate airs Mar 2-6. 
With the 2010 Winter Olympics coming to Whistler, BC Canada next February, listen to long-time resident, musician, journalist, author and poet, Stephen Vogler who speaks with BookBuffet today on location in his home town. Stephen is a quiet blend of determined talent. He's a two-book author who's beautiful coffee table book, 
Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Social Networking sites aren't just for programmers, technology buffs or citizen journalists. The staid institution of Medicine is getting on the band wagon. The other day my husband received an email announcing his enlistment on a website designed to connect biomedical specialists the world over. 
The International Dateline sits in the Bering Straight. William L Iggiagruk Hensley was raised just north of the Arctic Circle on the shores of Kotzebue Sound in a sod house with an ice floor in the tradition of his people&emdash;the Inupiat. Just like Sarah Palin, he can probably see Russia from his house on a clear day. Let us not be embarrassed to say that it is because of Sarah Palin people are sensitized to know more about this frozen frontier, and the perfect book to bring you there is an autobiography called, 
You've popped the cork on the champagne to ring in the New Year, but does your 2009 resolution list include reading books and community interest? Last year 
With the holiday season upon us, and interest turning toward some easy cultural distractions why not treat yourself to one of these stunning movies at the local theatre? Go to the late matinee when there won't be a line up and tickets are a few bucks cheaper so you can splurge on a nice bottle of wine with your take-out on the way home. Here are my picks for some thought-provoking discussions over said take-out dinner.
You'd be forgiven if you thought 
This week's author interview podcast is with the first woman on record to have crossed the Atlantic Ocean—in a row boat. She survived four hurricane class storms and documented her astounding journey in a book titled, 
Having trouble getting into the spirit of Christmas, or the more politically correct holiday spirit? Then get yee down to the nearest reading of the Dickens classic 
Stumped as to which digital technology gadget you should purchase this holiday? Check out this excellent interactive feature at the NYT by David Pogue, the technology guru and columnist. Called 
Join BookBuffet reviewer Dee Raffo in her very first author interview podcast. Dee speaks with 
Following upon the American holiday of giving thanks, we bring to you two books recommended not only for their messages of gratitude but for the very differences in perspective that make them a forceful combination. At the core of these two writings is a belief in embracing one's reality that perhaps can resonate for each of us at a time when so many are anxious and fearful and experiencing the pain of dramatically altered lives. Here is the review of 
Each year I look forward to seeing which titles make it onto the 
There have been many books about the value of a good road trip. From 
William Roberts is the founder of the 