A Certain Bent Appeal

An Open Letter to Councillor Doucette Regarding the Mandated Toronto Library Budget Cut

2012-01-10T11:05:00.004-05:00

January 10, 2012

Dear Ms. Sarah Doucette,

I was alarmed to hear yesterday that Toronto's budget committee insists on a full 10% cut to the library budget, especially in light of recent news reports that the city has a $154 million surplus. I know that you were active in saving the Swansea library, and I hope that I can count on you to help fight the budget committee's decision, which I hear will force almost 20,000 hours to be cut at 59 branches, not to mention cutting literacy programs, or the collections budget. None of these options are acceptable.

I was astonished to hear the views of certain councillors that libraries are a redundancy because schools already promote literacy. Clearly, something is deeply wrong at council, and I count on your rational, intelligent voice to counter this tendency. As the library union head has mentioned, the city's budget woes (which look increasingly fictional) are not going to be fixed on the backs of the Toronto Public Library, the largest public library in Canada, and the world's busiest urban library system.

While the library has long been touted for promoting literacy, and providing programs to the disenfranchised (both of which are important), libraries should not just be viewed as glorified social programs. Libraries are community anchors that not only improve quality of life, but provide measurable benefit to surrounding businesses. A 1997 survey conducted by Fitch and Warner discovered that 75% of library patrons combined their trip to the library with purchases made at nearby retail stores and that, per year, this added up to $500-600 spent. This is in addition to the economic benefit that a library's presence provides in attracting home buyers, tourists, and businesses through perceived value, and any capital projects that the library might implement.

I am an avid library user and I am willing to help in any way possible to avoid further drastic cuts to Toronto's esteemed and essential library system. Please feel free to contact me. I sure that you are just as incensed by recent developments as I, and I am happy to lend support however I can.

All the very best,

Bronwyn Kienapple

War and Peace, and Other Jail-Like Things

2011-12-29T20:15:00.006-05:00

I decided to read War and Peace** over the Christmas holidays because it's one of my bucket list items, and these days I'm in to just doing things. Not like, hm, let's think about this, let's minutely dissect it, let's tell 100 people, let's draw a Venn diagram about it, let's break up with it, cry about it in the shower, and then humour it with flattering insinuations...

No! Do all the things!

Also, ha ha, read War and Peace over Christmas? War and Peace laughs at your pompous pet idea that you can read all 1350+ pages of its glorious wealth in two weeks!! It spits in your pretty little moonbeam face! Idiot!

The impetus to read said wrist-breaking tome is about more than my to-do list, though. I recently came to the conclusion, while plotting out my race training schedule, and sweating over how I was going to fit in Spanish lessons, and also that fun thing called my full-time job, and other lesser things like my social life, and eating, and breathing in oxygen, and exhaling carbon dioxide, when I realized that, once again, I have put myself in jail. And that I like it.

Self-imposed jail is so nice. You lock yourself into this little tight space, and you rail your little fists at its punishingly close walls for a few weeks, and you're so busy railing, and swearing, and toiling, that you don't realize that filling 24 hours of a day is sometimes very boring. You're in jail and it's all jail, all the time, and soon you're singing a merry tune "Jail! Jail!" and nothing else matters.

Anyway, I didn't really think about how much war would be in War and Peace. The battlefield scenes are a bit annoying, but also, so many duels! And balls! And courting of underage virgins! I really like this book, and I'll write a real post about it when I'm done. It really doesn't deserve this sort of treatment.

** That fat hardcover edition you see above? I do not own it. It's on my bucket list for you to buy it for me. You know what to do. My birthday is in about eleven months.

Privatization of the Toronto Public Library isn't the real issue at stake

2011-07-23T11:25:00.011-04:00

Recently, Torontonians have read and scoffed at Councillor Doug Ford's comment that Toronto has too many libraries and that Etobicoke has more library branches than Tim Horton's coffee shops (not true, by the way).

This comment comes at a time when an outside consultant has recommended to the City of Toronto that service levels should be reduced and branches closed in the Toronto Public Library (TPL).

While I can't find evidence that the city has directly recommended privatizing the TPL, Mayor Rob Ford's comment made in February 2011 that the city is going to be "outsourcing everything that is not nailed down" has caused considerable trepidation among library advocates.

Many Torontonians (perhaps prompted by Margaret Atwood's Twitter campaign) have also signed the Our Public Library petition to ask Rob Ford to keep Toronto's libraries public, and free from cuts. It should be noted that the Our Public Library website is run by the Library Workers Union Local 4948.

In a July 21 release, the union deplored the consultant's recommendation that cuts be made totaling approximately $35 million (20% of the TPL’s budget). The union says that this move would be devastating for our city as three-quarters of Torontonians are regular library patrons, that our library system ranks first in the world in terms of use (circulation), and yet has only one library for every 28,120 citizens, ranking behind such cities as Vancouver and Ottawa.

As a devoted user of the library system, my knee-jerk reaction is to support a public and well-funded library system.

I rely on the library to provide a significant portion of my daily entertainment and to provide materials for personal and professional growth. I've relied upon the library's computers when I had no personal computer of my own, I've spent afternoons at the library when I want to be social and can't afford other forms of entertainment, and I plan to use the library as a place to spend time with my Little Sister to improve her literacy and knowledge base.

It's hard to see how slashing the TPL's budget would improve anyone's experience of Toronto's libraries, especially those who depend on the library in much more essential ways (more on that later).

And yet a survey published recently in American Libraries magazine revealed that even librarians think that privatizing libraries would allow them to run more efficiently and cheaply.

Is it possible that, despite the Library Workers Union Local 4948's protestations, that, privatization aside, Toronto librarians feel that the fat could be trimmed? Perhaps we should be asking the question of whether efficiencies can be achieved, whether all existing programs are working or necessary?

As the Toronto Star reported, since LSSI, a U.S. company that specializes in private library management, has taken control of the Riverside, CA library system, “circulation, library visits, and library programs all continue to increase." And yet profit was only 1.02% and the system remains "poor."

The Riverside system functions better under LSSI, but the real issue isn't that privatization is actually helpful, or even just innocuous, it's that everything comes down to the level of (government) funding.

The key issue is the level of government support, not the possibility of private intervention.

I admit that I signed the Our Public Library petition before I had fully done my research and I feel now that my support of said petition is less in favour of keeping the library public, and more in favour of overall support of the value of a robust library system in the face of seeming distain from such politicians as Doug Ford. And I ask you, is the petition really a defense of libraries as a sacred institution or a defense of union jobs?**

Still, it's hard not to fear what might happen to less profitable, or visible, library services come privatization.

Libraries aren't just centres for literacy, they are community hubs that provide welcoming environments both for the privileged and the less privileged, the latter of whom rely on libraries for Internet access, and a warm and somewhat comfortable and safe place to hang out in.

It is doubtful that a for-profit company would be as interested in providing some of the less obvious services I just mentioned. These services are hardly lucrative, but essential none the less. Obviously, some of these services should be provided by other public institutions, though the fact that homeless shelter funding might also be on the chopping block, makes it hard to see who will be stepping up here.

Then again, the total proposed cuts could save the city $25 million, savings desperately needed in the face of the city's projected $774 million budget deficit. This is just the beginning of the austerity measures required, including raising property taxes (it doesn't look like the two are mutually exclusive, as Ford suggests).

Proposed privatization of the library system is part of a larger quagmire, one that involves juggling the massive city deficit and the issue of how to both support the disenfranchised (vital) and promote the arts (also vital for stimulating job growth and creating a strong local culture).

I'm interested to hear your impressions of this post, so please submit your comments below, and let's keep the conversation going.

**[from above] This is not to say that I don't support unions, their presence ensures an equitable, healthy society, as proved so brilliantly in The Spirit Level. But, let's be clear on what the petition really seeks to achieve.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand: In This Case, "Charming" Is a Compliment

2011-02-16T07:48:00.008-05:00

Major Pettigrew is the quintessential Englishman, living in the quintessential small English village, Edgecombe St. Mary. Despite its occasional small-mindedness and incestuousness, Major Pettigrew takes pride in his home, and in living in the regimented way to which he is accustomed.

And yet, a sudden death in the family catapults the crusty Major Pettigrew out of his comfort zone, and into the world of Mrs. Ali, a recently widowed Pakistani shopkeeper, who shares his love of reading. The two lovebirds quickly encounter difficulty, however, when faced with the real world, one that would rather see them safely confined in their respective social boxes.

I was thoroughly charmed by this tale. It's romantic, but Pettigrew is delightfully sardonic and the characters are so finely drawn. Each scene in the book is similarly drawn with care, and resonates beautifully:

The town spread down the folded valley, opening out along the coastal plain....In the sky, a rent in the fog let down pale shaft of sunlight to gleam on the water. It was as beautiful and absurd as an illustrated Victorian hymnal...the Major felt that the afternoon was somehow already a success.

Simonson has writing in her bones; it's easy to see from page one. This is a love story for adults, one acutely aware that the warm front of passion inevitably must meet and mingle with the cold front of quotidian responsibility and expectation.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand/ Helen Simonson / Random House / Paperback, 2010

**This post is part of a TLC Book Tour. Thanks to Trish for setting this up!

Lonely: Learning to Live With Solitude

2011-02-09T21:51:00.010-05:00

Toronto lawyer Emily White found herself experiencing years of intense loneliness following her graduation from law school. Desperate to claw her way out, she sought to analyze her condition, one that carried heavy stigma, and yet had barely been researched or written about.

Lonely is a well-written and well-researched book. Emily White advances the cause for loneliness being a bonafide condition, and not merely something a person should be able to "snap out of." She meticulously puts forth study after study that documents that loneliness causes ill health, can be genetic, is experienced by multitudes more than we suspect, and is not a self-indulgent state.

I'm glad that White wrote this book, as I suspect it will provide, if not relief, then a launching pad for anyone experiencing loneliness, whether long or short term. As she says, knowledge is key–knowing and accepting one is lonely is important in order to tackle it. Loneliness is not depression, is not anxiety (though those conditions can accompany it), and requires specific methods of treatment.

The book includes the words of other lonely people, but it doesn't really give the reader a sense of their experience. The book nicely incorporates both personal story and psychology, but I felt it needed other voices to be truly a definitive book on loneliness. Perhaps, selfishly, what I really wanted was to feel empowered by seeing the words of lonely people finally tacked to a page. This is more a comment, than a criticism.

Further information:

Emily White's website

**This post is part of TLC's Lonely blog tour. I received a review copy from TLC in exchange for an honest review.

The Imperfectionists: Occasionally Perfection Itself

2011-01-20T08:30:00.000-05:00

Tom Rachman sure knows how to make a story turn on a dime.

The Imperfectionists is a collection of linked short stories about the employees (and one reader) of an international newspaper based in Rome. Interspersed between these stories are short hits of the paper's history, complete with the dramas of its founders.

The Imperfectionists isn't exactly full of literary flourishes. Plot appears to be of the essence; but the real meat is in the character studies. When Rachman really ties these two elements together, his stories approach perfection. I dare anyone to tell me that the Arthur Gopal story, the tale of a lackluster obituary writer's miraculous transformation after a tragic event, isn't perfection itself. Rachman's portrait of a our public vs. private personas, the sweetness of the mundane, and our natural tendency towards pettiness, as if death's eternal presence relieves us of some level of responsibility, is sharp and exquisite.

The collection is uneven, though. Rachman's dedication towards mundane details can irritate. Rudy, the soppy copyeditor, weaves in and out of spoken and internal monologue and given the tedious workings of her brain, this is no treat. Women also do not come off well here–Rudy is the typical 40-something small-minded harpy; Abbey, the CFO, is the typical overworked, lonely, emotionally stagnant divorcee. Not that the men come off that much better, but there are definitely caricatures at play here.

The Imperfectionists does nicely showcase print's decline in the face of free online content, though without suggesting any solutions. What the book does best is show the intersection of our working and personal lives, and the tiny sadnesses, and small joys that really do make up the average existence.

"[Kathleen] wipes her nose. 'When I'm old and bent and sitting in a chair, you come and hold my hand. All right? That's your job. Okay?'

He takes her hand and kisses it. 'No,' he says. 'When you're old and bent, I'll be gone. I'll hold it now. Later, you'll have to remember.'"

The Imperfectionists / Tom Rachman / The Dial Press / PB, 2011

Making Light of Tragedy: Jessica Grant Is The Real Deal

2011-01-11T08:30:00.000-05:00

I did not hate this book.

Again: I DID NOT HATE THIS BOOK.

I know, I didn't hate The Hunger Games, but really reading that book was like being dropped into a vat of chocolate. You swim in that shit, and you enjoy it, because you are swimming in a delicious, irresistible world of chocolate.

Making Light of Tragedy is not just a testament to the capabilities of MS Paint (see: the cover), but a blinding portfolio of a young writer with considerable powers. To read this collection of short stories is to know that Jessica Grant has a natural talent for the written word, and a very distinctive voice (not to mention a biting sense of humour).

The collection is incredibly varied. You get a two page story about a second cousin lost and gained (Deep In My Heart), you get a ridiculous story about a batty woman filling out an application at Holt Renfrew (sample sentence: "The first time I heard my mother use the word 'fuck,' it was in the same sentence as the word 'Santa.'"/Della Renfrew), and a rather touching story about a literary prize juror who falls for the ugly but wonderful author whose book he lauded, but didn't actually read (Ugly And).

I read this for The Vicious Circle book club and most of us agreed that the book needed a good haircut–it read more as a retrospective of Grant's early work, and not a cohesive collection.

That aside, you must all read this book. Read it. It's occasionally twee, and insensitive, and ridiculous, but also very keen and it feels as original as a book can. I had huge, raging belly laughs while reading this, something I only experience rarely (see Corked, or Atmospheric Disturbances). Then you get stories like The Anxiety Exhibit that underscore Grant's acute understanding of the way lives collide and fall away from each other. This occasional gravity, balanced with her acerbic humour, produces a tone that veers away from being trite, or confessional, two things that young writers can fall into, and sounds like something very much her own.

Making Light of Tragedy/ Jessica Grant / Porcupine's Quill / PB, 2004.

The Hunger Games: Fully Powered Plot, Needs More Character Development

2011-01-03T08:30:00.001-05:00

North America is devastated, and the survivors are dependent upon the ruling district–the Capitol. While the Capitol is splendid and well-fed, the twelve outlying districts are constantly on the edge of starvation. To remind the districts of its control, the Capitol selects two teenagers from each area every year to participate in the Hunger Games–televised fights to the death that leave one victor standing, literally.

Spunky and resourceful Katniss Everdeen is sixteen and has supported her mother and sister for years via hunting/gathering since her father's premature death in the Panem district mines. She's chosen for the games, and she finds that her friendship with fellow Panem resident Peeta plays a pivotal part in her participation, and in her survival.

Dystopian fiction is having quite the heyday in YA literature these days, perhaps because it takes us out of our world, but without the more heavy requirements of world building of other types of fantasy. And there's nothing more thrilling, and conductive to heart-pounding romance, than a world on the brink of collapse.

The dystopian element makes for fascinating reading in The Hunger Games, but what you see is what you get. The language is plain, the emotions straightforward, and there's no attempt at hidden meaning. This is not a comment on the voyeurism of contemporary media, it is voyeurism. Katniss is a fine character–family and survival concerns her just as much as love–but the book isn't overly concerned with her. In the end, it's about the thrill of the games, and the budding romance.

I like a novel thick with plot as much as the next person, but I'd have liked to get inside Katniss' head, to really feel the conflict between decency and self-preservation. Damn fine story, but needed to be darker.

The Hunger Games/Suzanne Collins / Scholastic Press / PB, 2010 (reprint)

The Dos and Don'ts of Twitter

2010-12-14T08:30:00.001-05:00

Iam on a reading sabbatical right now. So instead you get me spouting venom about my social media peeves. I think most of you know how ironic this is, since I am a giant social media DON'T, especially when it comes to Twitter. Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes.

Let's proceed. This week I'd like to look at Twitter DON'Ts and, just to keep my world from slipping into a vortex of catty negativity, some DOs, as well.

DON'T tweet the same message from multiple accounts

I know Hootsuite is super rad because you can link up your two corporate accounts, your personal account, and the account for your cat. But pretty please, don't tweet from all of them at the same time. Chances are, if I follow one of your accounts, I follow all of them because I think you're a relevant personage. And now you're spamming my feed? This is me unfollowing you. Even your adorable cat's account.

DO tweet from as few accounts as possible

Building a voice on Twitter takes time and dedication. And by voice, I mean a distinct style. Trying to build multiple voices for the multiple "facets of your personality" is madness. Keep it simple, stupid.

DON'T ask Twitter "what's up?"

What's up with you? No really? What are you doing. Thinking. Feeling. Reading about. Who cares about me! It's your account! Tweet something!! You're eating yogurt? Super! Just give me something to go on.

DO tell me about your feelings

This is sort of a huge don't, but only really in excess. And it's definitely a don't when another person is involved. YES: I am having an existential crisis and trying to deal with my co-dependency issues. NO: Anything that starts with "my ex" or "my parents" or anything like that. Don't do it. Your account, your business. Keep it at that.

Sure, twitter is about conversation, and the best conversations always take you a little outside your comfort zone. The hard part is trying to keep it real and maintaining your dignity at the same time. Tell me when you figure that one out.

DON'T send auto DMs

This is the ultimate Twitter sin; it goes against everything Twitter stands for. Twitter is a dynamic conversation based on a give and take of information, and genuine curiosity about what other people are thinking and doing in the world we live in today.

Sure, you have something to sell, don't we all, but a robot-generated response to my follow is a slap in the face. It says to me: "I don't care about creating a dialogue with you, I just want to brand you with my agenda in as quick a manner as possible." I'm glad that you care more about your product than other people. Please go away.

DO @ reply more than you tweet

Step one: find relevant followers who are genuinely interested in your product. Look up people or companies like you and follow their followers. They will follow you back. Step two: engage in conversation. Don't talk about your product or your agenda when @ replying. I know, this is scary, but run with me here. Step three: talk about your product/agenda sometimes, but make sure this is about you providing relevant, need-to-know information, not a reflection of your desperation TO GET THE MESSAGE OUT THERE. It's like dating. Always hold something back.

Try it.

DON'T link your twitter account with LinkedIn

(Unless what you tweet about is 85% relevant to what's in your LinkedIn profile.)

I am completely guilty of this. I thought my twitter account would act as an RSS feed for book and social media related opinions and links. It didn't quite work out that way. Then I forgot that I'd linked up my accounts, and then our business manager at work started commenting on how I seemed to be obsessed with J. Crew. Link your accounts with discretion, folks. Better yet, don't do it at all.

DO tweet regularly

It's like eating your vegetables–you need to do it every day. The twitter feed is ever refreshing, and I know this is what intimidates some people, but just jump on that carousel and enjoy the ride. Not everything you write will blow minds, but as long as you're genuinely interested in what you're tweeting about, it will be OK. Don't hold back, and, in a world of fakes, you'll find that your followers will appreciate your candor.

DON'T RT (re-tweet)

Or try not to. I love RT'ing but whenever I ask myself why I RT'd a particular post, the answer is always: "SO PEOPLE WILL KNOW HOW RELEVANT I AM!"

Certified dick move. Certified twitter #fail.

Unless the tweet is that juicy, go with original content. And please RT my tweets.

DO create hashtags

Great way to get your tweets picked up in searches. Just stay away from acronyms, and don't get fancy with your spellings. When it comes to hashtags, the less creative the better, really.

DON'T circle jerk

Not to be crass, but circle jerking is a big tweet peeve of mine. So you and your five friends all love each other and want to talk on twitter all the time. Well, if I'm following all of you, it's really my fault that you're spamming my feed. But, if you five are trying to feed off of each other professionally, I hope you enjoy the tiny itsy bitsy little box you've just put yourself in. Not recommended, even when it Feels. So. Good.

DO expect to be unfollowed

If people aren't unfollowing you, you're not doing it right. Having an opinion is a polarizing situation. Don't fence sit. Opine, though try not to be a dick about it.

DON'T treat your followers as your subjects

We all want the chance to rule our own corner of the world, but Twitter is not the place for that. Throwing out comments, and then retreating, expecting others to natter over your golden words of wisdom is selfish. Engage, and expect to be taken down occasionally. If you're like me and you take everything personally, this is not fun, but then again, now is always the time to work on your control issues.

Please comment below and tell me what a jerk I am. Or keep it real and tell me your own tweet peeves.

NaNoEdMo: When The Literary Becomes Genre Fiction

2010-11-29T10:13:00.006-05:00

Thank goodness for National Novel Editing Month because I have a problem with reading lately. My bed is populated with glossy cookbooks and I'm getting a gym membership. Things are getting awfully plebeian around Casa Kienapple. Next thing you know, I'll be listening to Girl Talk on repeat because it makes me feel culturally relevant...ummm oh. Oh OK.

So let's talk about writing literature, instead of reading it. Except that I'm not writing literature, at least not anymore.

When I started to write my novel I was firmly entrenched in my third year Can Lit class at the University of Toronto. I was having heart palpitations from reading greats like Sinclair Ross, Margaret Atwood, and Joy Kogawa. I'd grown up with a healthy appreciation for Can Lit - L.M. Montgomery was like a mother to me. So of course I wanted to write the Great Canadian novel.

So I wrote one. Or, so I thought. But as it happens, being 20 and a bit flaky, I wanted to write about relationships, and in the most emo fashion possible. I think this was during my Alkaline Trio phase. There were attempts at metafiction. There were attempts at symbolism. But mostly, my characters wanted to get in bitch fights and seduce each other.

I continued to write the book, off and on, over the next five years. And it's funny for me to see how much better the writing gets as the book progresses. Because here's the crux of it: real writers read. Widely. And when you're in university, you read in a vacuum.

Perhaps U of T had a more conservative English program than most but reading Doris Lessing was as modern as I ever got. Occasionally I would spy flashy books in Chapters or the library, the kind with foil, the kind people actually read, but they barely registered in my consciousness.

It wasn't until just over three years ago that I yanked my head out the proverbial ass of Jane Eyre re-reading and crying over Lord of the Rings and started to read contemporary fiction. What a wake up call.

[Side note: it's sad to discover that not every book is at the calibre of a classic. The average writer does not sit down and spew out The Portrait of a Lady. But it is nice to know that you can meet the authors who write your books and that they would know what a blog is. Hopefully.]

When I picked my novel back up recently after a year and a half break I was delighted to find out that it was not literature, oh no, it was very much YA (young adult). I actually know what YA is now, hence I am able to make the distinction. You'd think there's be more caterwauling, because I lost my chance to write the Great Canadian Novel.

But I think the GCN is going to be just fine without me because I suddenly feel very comfortably at home with YA. I get it now: you're supposed to write your book, not the book of your heroes, not the book that wins critical acclaim, maybe not even the book that you think sells (though writing for yourself is selfish, and by God I don't mean that).

The fact of the matter is that I'm not a literary writer. I like to write about relationships in that first person, overly intense fashion that YA thrives on. I like to write long spiels of flirtatious dialogue. I like picking out my characters' outfits. OK SHUT UP. (It's fun!) And I thoroughly enjoy celebrating all my early-20's angst, that time when my personality and feelings were more mutable.

I'm laughing while I'm editing now, because I'm letting my prose be as bitchy and irreverent as it wants to be. The beast is out of the cage. And it's wearing Hot Topic.

Have any of you suddenly realized that you aren't writing X genre, but Y? How did you deal with this realization? Comment below!

I'm Tired Of Your Novel With Its Unique Understanding of the World

2010-11-22T08:30:00.002-05:00

I used to be able to read and finish almost anything. I'd push through, determined to fix my mind on whatever the author had to say. But that's no more.

My mind is determined to reject any text of late that fails to elicit a strong, immediate reaction.

The casualties so far: Pattern Recognition (William Gibson), C (Tom McCarthy).

Both novels are full of rich language, a fully-powered plot, elegant construction (or so I thought I could deduce). But every time I attempted to apply my mind to the page, my brain would begin shoveling out the information as fast as it flowed in. I absorbed nothing.

I was about to diagnose myself as the intellectual equivalent of an oafish lout but I managed to finish The Big Short, Michael Lewis' treatise on the causes behind the 2008 financial crisis (precipitated by the overextension of subprime lending).

It is easy to discern that The Big Short is a vehicle for information. This is a very clean situation.

I can't abide by fiction as pure reflection upon form, whether this is the form of the novel (meta) or the shape of the world. Verve is always nice in a novel, but I'm not quibbling over being denied a good cry. I am more than willing to bend my mind to something, but I want more than elegant packaging, intricately wrapped.

There always seems to be a quality to good writing. Hideous darkness (House of Leaves). Pure emptiness (The Outsider). Transcendent sensation (Lady Chatterley's Lover).

I used to be in love with Lady Chatterley's Lover because I believed it opened a door to my real self (I know, right). I sat inside myself while reading the book and I felt like I could see for miles.

But I'm starting to think it's not the unique quality of the book that's important, it's what the book's tapped into to unlock that quality.

Heidegger says (to the best of my memory) that humans are essentially Being-With. We exist in relation to other entities (humans, objects), in terms of possibility of interaction. Dasein, or "I," the unique self, can only exist uniquely in Being-Towards-Death. Death is the only truly individual experience a person can have.

This is terrible and unsettling, but let's say for the sake of argument that a good book gives us that feared look into the void. We want to look, but we want a good vehicle to take us there, and temporarily, and in the guise of being "literature," which is a construct saturated in Others.

A unique understanding of the world is part of this guise. Every understanding is relational, and un-owned. The true book acknowledges the packaging and uses it as a way to inch towards the void. This is why we don't read such a book, we fall into it. We live there; the disassociation from the world makes the experience of reading otherworldly. Then we're absorbed back into the public consciousness. We long for and loathe what's on the other side of the schism - I don't want to live with what can't be known either. But I still want to look, and see perhaps a little, by reading.

NaNoEdMo: Editing Is a Sobering Process

2010-11-15T08:30:00.002-05:00

Editing is not very much fun. It's like waking up after a fantastically amazing bout of drinking and having to do ridiculous things to put your life back in order like combing your rats nest of a hair do and rescuing your waterlogged shoes, the very ones you took off OUTSIDE, six feet from the door. At the time, the method was in the madness, but in the sober light of day, none of it is presentable to the outside world. Necessary, but mostly just ugh.

Here are a few more shocking things I've learned about the editing process:

I Am Not God: I pretty much assumed my novel would logically flow from my fingertips. I've read billions (disclaimer: OK scores, not billions) of novels, so it seemed the rhythm of how a novel should unfurl would be engrained in my consciousness. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I guess sometimes when you write one novel, you get excited and try to write three different novels at the same time. It happens, right? *cries*

The Reader Is Not Inside Your Head: This is a sad state of affairs because I dislike explaining details. Like why two characters already know each other, or the name of the ocean I keep referring to, or anyone's name (God, I hate naming all these stupid people that keep popping up in my book!). Though apparently I thought, at 20 years old, that meticulously detailing everyone's outfit was paramount.

Apparently Novels Should Have Structure: Ugh chapters. Ugh parts. Part the first: this novel has no narrative drive. Part the second: I think all the characters are in love with one another. Part the third: no one likes anyone else anymore. Can I use these as part titles? Are they even called "part titles"? I give up.

Emotional Depths, You Should Mine Them: I think I should be doing this, but my characters keep cracking obscene jokes and flirting with each other. This is not serious in the least and MUST be stopped. They need to start contemplating their mortality or in the least plotting to kill each other. For God's sake, they live in rural Nova Scotia. What is there to do but contemplate that good night?

Symbolism Would Be a Great Idea: What is this? Do I need to mirror inner turmoil with disorder in the natural world? Can I just have everything in a giant windstorm like in As For Me And My House? Can I have a code word, like purple elephant, that signals hidden emotion? Could this not become an awesome drinking game?

Actual book reviews are coming later this week. I promise.

Day Three/SKIP THREE/Day Seven: NaNoEdMo. More Plotting and CARNAGE!

2010-11-08T08:30:00.002-05:00

National Novel Editing Month is starting to feel like my attempts to eat real food - good intentions followed by total fail followed by punishing make-up period.

Day three was A-OK. I finished plotting my novel via post-it notes on the wall (see photo above). I don't know why I was expecting something more extensive. For a novel that's 240,000 words+, the above looks suspiciously thin. I realized, once again, that the first half of the novel is pretty bad and the second half much better. I stared at my creation, hoping some brilliant idea would click into place. Failing that, I made a mug of Ovaltine and watched Castle. It's early on yet. Brilliance cannot be forced.

Day four, five, and six involved work-related drinking, non-work related drinking, and then not drinking (and not editing either). *slaps wrist*

Day seven, Sunday, was ATONEMENT. I spent four and half hours editing. Here's what happened:

I realized, with horror, that my attempt to use regional dialect is both embarrassing and inaccurate. TRASH.
Also, novels should NOT begin with 20 page character sketches in narrative form. TRASH.
One of my lead characters is so boring I wanted to violently slaughter her. SO I DID. Muahaha! I spent an hour X'ing her out of most of the novel. That was extremely satisfying. TRASH.
A character that I think is hilarious, who is a composite of various emo-frontmen from the mid-00's (shut up, it's YA) but actually snarky and intelligent, appears 2/3 of the way through. Inexcusable. He will now be a main character. Cut and paste.
Anything I may have thought was "daring" and "controversial" (read: embarrassing and ill-informed) has been nixed. TRASH.
I decided to remove 25% of the angst in favour of what will be 50% more plot. This has not yet been actualized. But it will.
Strangely, despite the carnage, there is a lot of novel left. Not surprising, since it feels longer than the Bible.

You may notice that I'm throwing around a lot of figures in this post. This guarantees that this process will be accurate and guaranteed to succeed. No doubt.

Perfection: Moments of Dark Honesty Enliven Portrait of a Marriage Gone Very Wrong

2010-11-04T08:30:00.000-04:00

When Julie Metz's husband of 16 years suddenly passed away, her initial reaction was grief and shock. Her life with Henry has been tumultuous - he was a notorious flirt who bled money and hadn't enjoyed great career success - but they had a daughter together and had many happy memories.

Then she found out about the other women. That's right, women.

As it turns out, Henry had been engaging in multiple affairs with women both close to and unknown to Metz. His compulsive risk-taking and need for self-gratification had resulted in compulsive womanizing. In short, the happy marriage that Metz thought she was a part of was nothing more than a deception that both she and her husband had contributed to over many long years.

I've been really into the lady memoirs lately (witness my appreciation for This Is Not the Story You Think It Is). I have this need to understand the mechanics of long-term relationships, from those who have long slogged in its trenches. Metz does not disappoint - her account of her self-deception, virulent anger, and slow road to forgiveness is candid and spares no one, not even herself. Metz' report that a month after her husband died she couldn't shake how horny she was is just one of the book's brilliant little moments of dark honesty.

I did think the book a mite long. There's an investigation into whether Henry may have genetically susceptible to womanizing near the end and to me this was superfluous - Metz's story is what drives the narrative. There's also much detail on her dating life that could have been condensed.

That said, Perfection is an excellent anecdote to literature that tells us love must be full of longing and suffering. As Metz can attest, deception will result from this and we must be be vigilant in keeping our eyes open to the realities of our situation, however painful they may be.

Perfection: A Memoir Of Betrayal And Renewal/ Julie Metz / Hyperion Books / PB, 2010

**This post is part of a blog tour, as organized by BooksSparksPR. Much thanks to them for organizing this tour and for sending me a copy of this book.

More:

Perfection website

Perfection Facebook page

Author's Twitter

My Foray Into NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month)

2010-11-03T08:30:00.000-04:00

It's true, there IS nothing called NaNoEdMo, but I'm not one to colour within the lines. I contemplated, briefly, writing a Harlequin novel for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, which IS real), with help from the So You Think You Can Write e-seminars Harlequin is hosting.

However, I have an existing project that is desperately in need of being put to rest. It is a complete manuscript, born out of five years of off-and-on writing, but what with my lack of skills in the creative writing department, it is extremely unwieldy and parts of it are horrifically terrible.

No matter - this month, National Novel Editing Month, I shall be taming the beast. Whips, chains & other editorial implements will be used upon it in the least sexy manner possible. Here it is, well part of it, being the stinking mess it is:

It looks innocuous, but don't let it fool you.

Since I can't measure using word count, I'm aiming to spend two hours per day editing. If I can't edit for two hours, I have to make it up on the weekend (ugh).

November 1 was spent finishing my submission for the CBC Literary Awards (creative nonfiction), so I let that count, since it took two hours, and needed to be done. November 2 was spent outlining my plot using stickies on my wall. This was fun until it became extremely tedious, and I only got about half way. Photographic evidence:

And then the stickies started falling off the wall.

I don't feel freed by my inner creative genius yet. In fact, I feel a bit cross-eyed and angry that I can't waste as much time on Twitter as I used to. I guess I'll just have to get used to the idea of not being lazy. That and the possibility of failure. I HATE failure! It must not happen.

Book reviews etc. will be happening as per usual, but for the month of November 2010 you will get the added bonus of my NaNoEdMo updates. They will be scintillating or at least serve to keep me accountable.

I Was Lisbeth Salander For Halloween

2010-11-01T08:30:00.000-04:00

Two people crossed the street when they saw me dressed like this. That made removing the grease paint from my eyeballs later on totally worth it.

IFOA Run Down + Stealing Franzen's Pants

2010-10-31T08:30:00.015-04:00

It's that week - like exam week for publishing people, but with more booze, and just as many books. Here's how it shook down on my end (the amount of name dropping may make you ill, so keep Tums at the ready):

I went to the DBC Pierre, Dan Rhodes, and Wells Tower reading last Friday. Dan Rhodes read something he'd written when he was six years old. The story was crazy convoluted but it all ended with a giant space mouse (?) weeing on the earth's denziens. We all went to Wallymagoo's afterwards, a nautical themed bar that puts the ticky in tacky. Apparently Rhodes went there during his last visit to IFOA (seven years ago) and specifically requested to go back. I somehow ended up on the floor of the hospitality suite eating chocolate out of a bucket. The chocolate sponsor at this year's IFOA has been muchos dangerous.

Saturday was the CBC reception, held in the 205 Wellington lobby. It was very swank and my was there a lot of food (dessert buffet table, what!). I finally met Hannah Sung c/o of Trinity College's former Dean of Women, and Penguin author, Elizabeth Abbott (she presided over my res, back in the day). Sung was a MuchMusic VJ back in the early 00's and I can't help it, I still idolize VJs, something left over from my days when I lived in the sticks and thought everyone in Toronto looked like the tarts on Electric Circus.

Monday was the Hello! IFOA party. I finally convinced my co-worker to do the magazine cover shoot they had set up. It was less crowded this year and there was sushi, both excellent things. I declined going to the Anansi party, for once knowing my limit...

...But that was not the case on Tuesday night, Penguin Canada's 75th anniversary party. It was held at the Toronto Temperence Society, a new members-only club above Sidecar on College. There were fantastic drinks like the Ginger Cilantro something (ginger beer, cilantro, gin etc.) which was tangy and savory and delicious. I talked to William Gibson, who was genuine and candid and lovely, though it was almost more fun to see my friend, who is a huge fan, freak out silently about meeting him. There is photographic evidence, which I will have to procure. I saw Neil Pasricha, Joseph Boyden, John Ralston Saul, Adrienne Clarkson, and many more wonderful authors there. Headed over to the McArthur and Company party at Allen's on the Danforth where I chatted with authors Lewis DeSoto and Richard Poplak.

The Jonathan Franzen reading was on Thursday night. Franzen, the author of the critically acclaimed novels The Corrections and Freedom, neither which I have read, is an amazingballs reader. He has this deep, pensive literary voice that somehow manages to enliven the text while bravely skirting pretension. I didn't manage to steal Franzen's pants, though my co-worker did ask him to draw hearts on my copy, eliciting a quizzical look. AND NO HEARTS. Damnit!

Are you still with me? Saturday was the Jane Urquhart interview with Charlotte Gray. Bravo IFOA for setting up such a brilliant pairing. Seeing these two intelligent and well-spoken together on stage was truly inspiring. Urquhart discussed her writing habits (no living thing can be in the room or building with her while she's writing!) and methods (she rarely knows what her novels will be until she's completed them). I rounded out the day with a roundtable that included Dinaw Mengestu, Kathleen Winter, and Jack Hodgins. I had mixed feelings about Winter's Annabel, but wow is she dynamo in person. She talked about finally feeling comfortable with herself at 50, and reaching inside herself to find the stillness and peace she'd long sought externally. She just has this wondering aura of fulfillment about her! As she should, what with her triple-nom-crown.

That's all the hijinks to report, folks! Can we please please do IFOA every quarter? No really. I feel like I've become 5% smarter from being around all these literary geniuses this week. More intellectual clusterfucks, please and thanks!

IFOA: Intrigued by These Three Dude Authors

2010-10-25T08:30:00.003-04:00

I had the pleasure of attending the roundtable featuring DBC Pierre, Dan Rhodes, and Wells Tower last Friday night (as part of the International Festival of Authors currently going on in Toronto). I must admit that I haven't read these authors before. But works by all three have definitely moved to the top of my reading pile.

Lights Out In Wonderland(DBC Pierre): The first thing you need to know about DBC Pierre is that "DBC" stands for "dirty but clean." The second thing you need to know about him is that he's a former conman. And the third thing, oh yeah, he won the Booker in 2003. Never mind his wild life, the man radiates "literary genius." I'm told his Booker-winning novel, Vernon God Little, is nothing short of brilliant. Lights Out in Wonderland is his latest.

Little Hands Clapping(Dan Rhodes): Douglas Coupland called it "Totally sick and brilliant..." Plus the new Tim Burton-esque cover treatments are superb. Rhodes read from Anthropology: 101 True Love Stories, which was both shocking and gut-bustingly funny. Since I seem to be unable to finish most books that I start these days, this collection of tiny stories is just what I need.

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned (Wells Tower): Tower was recently named one of The New Yorker's "20 under 40." I hear raves about this short story collection where ever I go. Tower has Canadian roots but grew up in the U.S. and now currently resides in Brooklyn, N.Y. I told him that I'd visited Brooklyn once, but specifically to visit its resident Target department store. I suspect that this makes me deeply uncool but Tower didn't bat an eye.

The True Deceiver: Chilly Tale of Seeming Opposites in Frigid Finnish Town

2010-10-20T08:30:00.000-04:00

The thing that I love about my book club is that we tend to read books I wouldn't ordinarily pick up. I would have dismissed Galore as archaic and instead I loved it best out of the group!

This month was Finnish author Tove Jansson's The True Deceiver (originally published in 1982), another unlikely hero. Jansson was an illustrator by training, her most famous creation being the Moomin family who, to my untrained eye, look like a bizarre collection of blobs. She also began to write novels for adults later in life, and died in 2001.

The True Deceiver is a psychological novel written without flourish. There are great passions, but they are of the mind; the body does not come into play. Katri lives above a store with her simple-minded brother Mats. She is extremely good at maths and unnervingly blunt. Her cunning in practical matters (such as land deals) is much used by the townspeople, even though they dislike her.

Katri has one objective - to live at the "rabbit house" up the hill that is currently occupied by Anna, an eccentric illustrator of children's picture books, and thus provide for Mats. Katri succeeds, but in taking over Anna's house and business she finds herself just as compromised by the process.

The title is nicely indicative of the book's shifting definition of deception. Katri initially appears to be the deceiver - what with scheming to boot an old nice lady out of her house and all - yet she is upfront about her objectives. Anna appears to be the innocent - painting charming rabbits, writing sweet letters to her kiddie fans - and yet we're told that she's only known as "nice" since her benevolence has never been tested. She secretly detests writing back to children, she even detests painting bunnies; her charm is inherently false.

This is not a warm-and-fuzzies type of novel. In fact, it's sometimes just as icy as the frigid, isolated Finnish town it's set in. Its subtlety is fantasmo, though. One of our book clubbers commented that it's one of those texts that rewards even more on a second reading. And at a short and sweet 181 pages, this novel is re-readibility incarnate.

Reminded me a lot of Sinclair Ross' As for Me and My House, another B. Kienapple all-time fave.

The True Deceiver / Tove Jansson / New York Review Book / PB, 1982

This Is Not the Story You Think It Is: An Empowering Story of Saving Your Marriage By Doing Nothing

2010-10-18T08:30:00.000-04:00

Every so often a book falls into my life and rescues me. I ingest it whole - cry and laugh along with it, nod and smile, read and re-read passages, and when done, close it and think, that's exactly what I needed.

Meet This Is Not the Story You Think It Is.

Laura Munson lives in rural Montana with her children and husband. For years they'd been happy basking in the beauty of a state that birthed the term "Big Sky." They owned a house on sizable property, were financially stable, and were working towards actualizing their dreams. Munson, determined to devote herself to her writing full-time, wrote countless novels, memoirs, short stories etc. But as the years wore on, none of them were published. And then her husband dropped a bomb on her - he no longer loved her and wanted to move out.

Munson's New York Times article, Those Aren't Fighting Words, Dear, made waves when it was published and its contents spawned this book. Right at the outset of her memoir, written while she was experiencing the heartbreak of her husband's rejection, Munson says:

You might think this might find me in a place of intense pain. Panic, even. State of emergency. But I am choosing something else. I am choosing not to suffer. [italics mine]

Munson recognized that her husband was experiencing a crisis of pride. He'd started a business a few years back that was making him miserable and his lose sense of purpose had started to infect other areas of his life. He no longer felt at home with himself. This all had nothing whatsoever to do with his affection for his wife, and Munson knew it.

So she deflected his barbs, his attempts to make her react in a way that would justify his abandonment. She put aside all her pain, her indignation, her self-righteousness, and she waited for him to return to her. Because she loved him. Their marriage must survive; there could be no alternative.

Some may paint Munson's strategy as weak. But I see it as tremendously courageous. It's a tenant of Zen Buddhism that doing nothing at all is an incredibly powerful stance - to say neither yes or no, to simply be in the moment, as the moment presents itself.

Choosing not to suffer - what a powerful concept. For all of us who wrestle with love's insanity, in its various manifestations, this book must be read.

More:
Author's website
Video with the author

This Is Not the Story You Think It Is / Laura Munson / Putnam / HC, 2010

Her Mother's Daughter: Down Home Charm Well Blended With Fantasy

2010-10-14T08:30:00.000-04:00

You know how I said that The Millennium Trilogy had catapulted me into a reading slump?

Well, Her Mother's Daughtertaught me that I could love again. Or like. Or finish a book, any book. This book. After two failed attempts at reading other books, I finished this book.

I suppose you could call it a rebound relationship — ultimately I don't want to marry this book but it did teach me that I could feel for the printed page.

Her Mother's Daughteris the tale of estranged sisters Bay and Tansy. Bay has stayed at home in Louisbourg, Nova Scotia to raise her daughter after her husband and father drown at sea. Tansy fled as soon as she could and has pursued a series of sugar daddies in glittering NYC. Suddenly Tansy back and the skeletons they've buried for so long in the closet come out to do an extended song and dance number.

This novel is firmly situated in the women's fiction category, one I don't ordinarily dip into, but I still enjoyed reading it very much. It has a down home charm that very much appealed to my Maritime roots (I wonder whether if this had been set in Missouri would I had been so enthralled. Anyway). Everyone is family, neighbors and blood kin alike, and the sense of attachment to place is irresolute and therefore comforting. That aside, the plot is moves quickly — I was desperate by the end to know the real truth behind Tansy's departure.

Perhaps the real key to the novel's viability is that Crewe makes you care about the women in it. Their troubles may be ordinary but I still felt for the accumulation of years of loneliness, heartbreak, financial instability, and dishonesty they experienced. There are elements of pure fantasy in this book (how are all the men so good, so dependable and so good in bed?!) but this is balanced well enough by Crewe's honest portrait of the tortured nature of family ties.

More:
Publisher's Page
Evolution of the cover
Review from Chrisbookarama

Thank you to Nimbus for the advance review copy.

Her Mother's Daughter / Lesley Crewe / Vagrant Press / PB, 2010

Holla! The Last Month + The Girl Who Reading

2010-10-12T08:30:00.017-04:00

B is BACK! I think I've sufficiently re-screwed my head back on to start doing this thing on a regular basis again. I've moved to the West End of Toronto (now officially known as "The Best End") and have a new job. Both changes are no longer completely terrifying. Just medium fry terrifying.

So. In the past month I've managed to blitz through the rest of the Millennium Trilogy - The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Awesome! So awesome! I know that you're thinking, "But B, you have to say that, you work for the publisher." Maybe, yes, but I also read half of two books after that that I must decline to name. My love for the Larsson books is as true as Blomkvist's love for coffee and cigarettes and Lisbeth's penchant for Ikea furniture.

Caveat: I loved the first book the best because...

*SPOILER ALERT*

Why in the hell did Blomkvist and Lisbeth share virtually no scenes in the last two books? Their chemistry really made the first book pop. When I finished the third book I almost threw it across the room because I'd been eagerly awaiting their reunion for so long and that. was. it. ?? *deep breath* I've heard that Larsson meant to write 10 books in the series. Blomkvist and Lisbeth's full story died with their creator.

*END SPOILERS*

That said, the nimble pacing, the deft flipping between plots and characters, the fascinating complexity of the characters of Blomkvist and Lisbeth, the insider look at Swedish politics, the thrill of seeing journalism in top form—all glorious.

I've become so caught up in Larsson's bravado that no other novel is able to impress me. It's ruined me for other books. More on that later.

Have you ever read something that was so awe-inspiring that it catapulted you afterwards into a reading slump?

Where's B?

2010-08-30T18:48:00.000-04:00

Mostly computer-less, moving and changing jobs. I sincerely wish I could update this blog but until I have a laptop at home again, and have a more regular schedule, it's not looking likely.

Major life transition going on here. Hold on!

Often I start writing posts in my head and then think DAMN! but how am I going to write this out? *pounds fist*

I'll still be on twitter n' stuff, though.

Back soon!

One Day: A Love Story Grounded in Reality and Impossible to Resist

2010-08-24T08:30:00.001-04:00

Emma Morley's had her eye on Dexter Mayhew for years and just as they graduate from college they spend the night together. Dexter leaves to travel but over the years they keep up a friendship tinged with longing. Life sends them in opposite directions but they continue to come together (and continue to part). Author David Nicholls portrays this story of missed connections through detailing one day in their lives each year after their 1988 one night stand. Will they make it work?

The Nick Hornby blurb on the cover of One Day accurately foreshadows what's to come. Hornby's signature mix of music fetishism, mid-life angst, male dickery and relationship drama is in full force here.

This is a good thing. And in saying this in no way am I seeking to diminish the venerable Hornby, whose Juliet, Naked I much adored. But is there a formula at work here? - oh yes. There's a plot but it's secondary to all the witty dialogue and overflowing desire. Author David Nicholls is seeking not to build a novel, per say, but something wholly entertaining and relatable, to map the ordinary person's emotional landscape.

If you're obsessed, as I am, with trying to wrap your head about how people (me! you!) can be so smart and yet so emotionally incompetent, how life can trump our best intentions, then this type of book is addictive.

Nicholls is also genius at illuminating the small, yet significant, nuances of day-to-day life - its triumphs, petty jealousies, fears and such. Emma Morley, not particularly extraordinary but smart as a whip and funny as hell, comes across brilliantly here. She's relatable but not in a grossly devised way and she makes for the perfect down-to-earth heroine:

Of course there's still no boyfriend, but she doesn't mind. Occasionally, very occasionally, say at four o'clock in the afternoon on a wet Sunday, she feels panic-stricken and almost breathless with loneliness...at the best of times she feels like a character in a Muriel Spark novel - independent, bookish, sharp-minded, secretly romantic.

Dexter Mayhew comes across much worse and I spent much of the book trying to figure out why someone like Emma would be attracted to him, other than the fact that she describes him as "beautiful" (ugh). He's a classic man-child and while Emma sets about being sensible and making something of herself, he wildly flails about, trampling over everyone in his life, including her, and trying to come to terms with the fact that he's not much deeper than a millpond in the height of a hot summer.

The book ends up coming off a bit like "Dexter Mayhew's overlong story of redemption-God bless his tarnished soul," my sole criticism. I can forgive this, though, as the dialogue is so damn funny; Emma and Dexter really do have a gift for patter. It's hard to post something without context, but here's a sample:

"Dexter cracked first, sighing and placing his book on his chest: Nabokov's Lolita, a gift from Emma ...

'What's up with you?' said Emma, without looking up from Dostoyevsky's The Idiot ...

'I'm just finding it a bit dense. It's just this bloke banging on about how horny he is all the time.'

'I thought it would strike a chord.' She raised her sunglasses. 'It's a very erotic book, Dex.'

'Only if you're very into little girls.'...

'Go to sleep then.' She picked up her Russian novel. 'Philistine.'

Whatever One Day's weaknesses, I couldn't stop turning the pages. There were plenty of late nights with this one. I know a lot of you have read or are reading this book, so please do tell me your thoughts, or leave me links to your reviews.

One Day/ David Nicholls / Vintage / PB, 2010

To Be Read: The Sanctuary Line

2010-08-23T08:30:00.000-04:00

A new Jane Urquhart coming August 31, 2010? How did I miss this! Granted, I've only read Away and that was likely at least 10 years ago but...still. Want!

From the Publisher: From the #1 national bestselling author of Away, The Stone Carvers and A Map of Glass. Set in the present day on a farm at the shores of Lake Erie, Jane Urquhart's stunning new novel weaves elements from the nineteenth-century past, in Ireland and Ontario, into a gradually unfolding contemporary story of events in the lives of the members of one family that come to alter their futures irrevocably. There are ancestral lighthouse-keepers, seasonal Mexican workers; the migratory patterns and survival techniques of the Monarch butterfly; the tragedy of a young woman's death during a tour of duty in Afghanistan; three very different but equally powerful love stories. Jane Urquhart brings to vivid life the things of the past that make us who we are, and reveals the sometimes difficult path to understanding and forgiveness.

Sanctuary Line/ Jane Urquhart / McLelland and Stewart / HC, 2010

Library Holds This Week

2010-08-20T08:30:00.002-04:00

Another week, another trip to the library to pick up a zillion holds. This week was a bumper crop of good stuff that I didn't even remember requesting (I love when that happens!). Here's a sampler of what I got:

A Homemade Life(PB, 2010): When Molly Wizenberg's father died of cancer, everyone told her to go easy on herself, to hold off on making any major decisions for a while. Instead, she went to Paris, a city that held vivid memories of a childhood trip with her father, of early morning walks on the cobbled streets of the Latin Quarter and the taste of her first pain au chocolat. Like her long letters home describing the details of every meal and market, Molly's blog Orangette started out merely as a pleasant pastime. But it wasn't long before her writing and recipes developed an international following.

I Still Don't Even Know You(PB, 2010): With control, wit, and brilliance, Michelle Berry explores the hidden depths between individuals, families, and communities. Dysfunctional characters create tension in situations where they teeter on the edge of life. Psychological or situational twists pop readers’ eyes wide open and force them to pay attention. Berry uses rapid-fire dialogue to build tension and emotion. Despite the underlying dark tones, the stories carry life and hope, human kindness—and strangeness.

Country Roads: Memoirs from Rural Canada(PB, 2010): Rural people, places, and communities vary greatly in a country as geographically vast and culturally diverse as Canada. From Victoria, British Columbia, to St. John’s, Newfoundland, three generations of Canadians tell their stories of growing up in rural communities in Country Roads. The writers--including journalist Pamela Wallin, NHL coach Brent Sutter, and award-winning authors Sharon Butala and Rudy Wiebe--share one thing in common: they were all country kids whose upbringing profoundly impacted their identities.

The Ice Princess(PB, 2009): From No.1 bestselling Swedish crime sensation, Camilla Lackberg. Returning to her hometown after the funeral of her parents, writer Erica Falck finds a community on the brink of tragedy. The death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning. Her wrists slashed, her body frozen in an ice cold bath, it seems that she has taken her own life. Erica conceives a memoir about the beautiful but remote Alex, one that will answer questions about their lost friendship. While her interest grows to an obsession, local detective Patrik Hedstrom is following his own suspicions about the case. But it is only when they start working together that the truth begins to emerge about the small town with a deeply disturbing past.

Galore: Dense Multigenerational Epic Dragged Me In And Held Me Fast

2010-08-17T08:30:00.033-04:00

I read Galore (in paperback) for the The Vicious Circle Book Club. I sadly missed the meeting due to the icky virus I have been fighting off, but I hear that there was much discussion about the number of phallic symbols in Galore.

Penises in Galore...wherefore art thou?! I totally missed that. Must be my precious state of innocence.

Galore is a big sprawling old lout of a novel. Two generations. Two families. One very punishing setting (Newfoundland). The book kicks it old school in that the environment informs the characters' constitutions - everyone seems to be just as hardy, a bit stunted and by turns generous and cruel as the landscape.

King-me Sellers is the resident well-off (by local standards) resident of Paradise Deep. Devine's Widow is his long standing rival. As the book opens, a beached whale is cut open to reveal a pale, speechless man (named Judah) that somehow has managed to stay alive. Judah's presence adds further instability to a town already buffeted by the rivalry between the two families.

Crummey's novel is dense not only with story but character and I found the first 100 pages a true test of my dedication to my book club (which paid off well, mind you!). Crummey hates to dwell on anything and the book (seamlessly, to its credit) jumps about endlessly between mini-scenes between characters. No breath is wasted on description either so if you were worried that Galore would contain endless meditations on the craggy shores and roiling seas of Newfoundland, there's practically none to be found here.

No, the book is intent on the interweaving lives of its characters and the times they live in - the struggle to make a (subsistence) living from the sea, the fierce and sometimes deadly politics and the battle between the Catholic and Protestant faiths and their often abject failure to provide any relief in the hardscrabble lives of their parishioners.

Father Phelan, one of my favourite morally challenged characters (there are many), is always quick with a turn of phrase such as, "'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, he quoted drunkenly, do it with they might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave.' The priest slapped at Callum's crotch. 'With they might, you useless tit.'"

I was relieved to find Galore both hilariously ribald and poignant, but in a most unsentimental way. For example, concerning a ghost who won't leave his widow's side:

That spectral figure on the margins of their lives seemed as ancient and abiding as the ocean itself, and generations after Gallery was sighted for the last time he occupied a dark corner in the dreams of every soul on the shore.

I'm not a huge fan of magical realism but Mr. Gallery's ghost and Judah's appearance in the belly of a whale are the only two elements that qualify as such and they highlight just enough of Newfoundland's raw otherworldliness without making the whole thing hokey.

In sum, Galore may demand your full attention but it's richly rewarding in its multi-layered portrayal of the very best and worst that humans can be. It feels a bit old fashioned at times but hey, they're called classics for a reason.

Galore/ Michael Crummey / Anchor Canada / PB, 2010

I Am Stomping About. I Am Making Lots of Noise.

2010-08-16T08:30:00.003-04:00

Oh hello. I have been much remiss in posting lately and let me take the next few minutes of your life to explain my reasons. No really:

I am now happily situated in online marketing at my darling employer which is the source of much elation and joy in my life right now. This is all very self-aggrandizing to post about but then again, I am God when it comes to A Certain Bent Appeal, and today God has decided to stomp about and make a lot of noise. In the middle of other chaos (moving to a new apartment etc.) it is a very nice thing indeed. And my blogger and social media duties will remain unchanged which is even sweeter.

The above photo was taken just after I'd gotten the news (while still on vacay in Nova Scotia!) of my new position. I'm smiling. SMILING! Take note of this event! Behind me is my favorite spot in the whole wide world: the Avondale wharf.

Anyway, full steam ahead. Review of Michael Crummey's Galoreto go up tomorrow. And check out this live transcript of EYE WEEKLY's Pop Fiction chat about Kathleen Winter's Annabel that just went up today. Have a good one.

To Be Read: Hector and the Search for Happiness

2010-08-11T08:30:00.000-04:00

From the Publisher: Following on the success of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and already a worldwide sensation, Hector and the Search for Happiness finally comes to America, where readers will delight in its uplifting humor. As Hector travels from Paris to China to the United States, he keeps a list of observations about the people he meets, hoping to find the secret to happiness. Combining the winsome appeal of The Little Prince with the inspiring philosophy of The Alchemist, Hector's journey around the world and into the human soul is entertaining, empowering, and smile inducing-as winning in its optimism as it is powerful in its insight and reassuring in its simplicity.

My Take: A lot of comps in the above description and not much substance but apparently this novel has been a hit in Europe, where it's sold over two million copies. Hector is a psychiatrist who is very good at what he does for those with genuine psychiatric problems but is mystified generally by the general dissatisfaction he sees in his other clients. He then sets out across the globe to chase that elusive thing called happiness. As long as this novel stays more on the side of dry wit than cutesy, I think we're good here.

Hector And The Search For Happiness/ Francis Lelord / Penguin / PB, Aug 2010

Kathleen Winter's Annabel in EYE WEEKLY

2010-08-10T08:30:00.000-04:00

Up this month at EYE WEEKLY's Pop Fiction book club is Kathleen Winter's beautifully written novel Annabel, a tale of an intersex (formerly called hermaprodite) child born to the wilds of Labrador. Wayne (privately called Annabel by his mother and her closest friend) is brought up as a boy but struggles with the secret yearnings of his female self.

This is a fat book but it's deliciously easy to consume and chalk full of lush description of both the emotional and physical terrain the characters traverse.

And yet...did I love it? I really like what Kyle says in his post that the correlation made between nature and the human condition is a tenuous one. Though Winter brings modern elements into the text, Annabelstill hangs on this connection. So does much CanLit and it doesn't bother me overly but Wayne's gender is really cemented in the natural world by Winter, perhaps too much?

I am so tired today I can barely think. Maybe because it just took me a week to read Galore. And I loved it. But holy hell, what a slog.

So yeah, Annabel. Frankly, I'm as confused about the book as Wayne is about his gender. Hopefully we'll both find resolution. And take a long nap while we're at it.

In My Mailbox: One Day and Her Mother's Daughter

2010-08-06T08:30:00.000-04:00

Two novels have landed in my mailbox of late - one new and one upcoming. Looking forward to reading them; you should see reviews in the next few weeks.

One Day(David Nicholls, PB 2010): It’s 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met. But after only one day together, they cannot stop thinking about one another. Over twenty years, snapshots of that relationship are revealed on the same day—July 15th—of each year. Dex and Em face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself.

Her Mother's Daughter(Lesley Crewe, OTPB Sept 2010): Sisters Bay and Tansy grew up side-by-side in Louisbourg, Cape Breton, but were complete opposites. Alone ever since being widowed very young, Bay’s closest thing to a love interest is her friend Dermot, who has been trying to break through her barriers for years. Wild, beautiful, restless Tansy, on the other hand, left the town suddenly as a teenager and stayed away for years. And now, Tansy is home. Home, and unwittingly falling in love with her sister’s almost-boyfriend. Home, and befriending Ashley when all Bay can do is fight with her now-teenage daughter. Home, and desperately hiding the real reason she fled all those years ago. (Thanks to Nimbus for the advance copy!)

We Have Always Lived In The Castle: "She Told The Police Those People Deserved To Die."

2010-08-05T10:28:00.001-04:00

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.

This is a Vicious Circle book club pick but I've wanted to give We Have Always Lived In The Castleits full due here too since I think it's such a brilliant little book.

Little it is. The edition pictured clocks in at a cool 146 pages. There are only a handful of characters and many of those mentioned are already dead at the book's opening. The setting is limited to the crumbling Blackwood mansion and the outlying village. The book has the feel of the movie Pleasantville - that reality is limited to a few square miles and then drops off the face of the earth.

Mary (called Merricat) and her older sister Constance live with their ailing uncle Julian. The remainder of their family, including their mother, father and brother, have perished through poisoning. Connie stood trial but was not convicted. The three remaining family members live out their days confined to the house and surrounding property, hiding from the accusatory eyes of their neighbors.

The atmosphere is textbook creepy. Merricat is a strange blend of naiveté (her love for her sister, her sheltered life, her childish habits of collecting and burying objects) and cold calculation (she imagines the villagers dead when she walks there once a week to buy groceries, she makes quick work of an enterprising relation who looks to woo Connie and grasp ahold of their fortune) and these opposing traits drive the novel with chilling force. As a narrator Merricat may be wholly unreliable (she tries her best to keep us from the truth behind the poisoning) but as a character she ranks with the best.

For lovers of gothic literature I'm not sure it gets much better than this. Due to its brevity, engaging plot and straightforward (yet deftly written) prose, this novel would also serve as a great gateway book for anyone looking to start (or restart) reading the classics.

We Have Always Lived In The Castle/ Shirley Jackson / PB, 1962

Not That Kind of Girl: The Good English Major Gone Bad Storyline Majorly Resonated

2010-08-02T08:30:00.167-04:00

From the Publisher: Raised in evangelical churches that preached apocalypse now, Carlene Bauer grows up happy to oblige the God who presides over her New Jersey girlhood. But in high school and college, her intellectual and spiritual horizons widen, and she becomes skeptical of the judgmental God she's been given. Still, she finds it hard to let go of the ideals she's been raised with, and to rebel as she knows she should.

In her twenties, however, determined to make up for lost time, Bauer undertakes a belated and often comic coming-of-age in New York City. And yet the city and its pleasures do not distract her from another hope: that she might learn how to have a faith that she can truly call her own. Enter the Catholic Church, and a conversion. But then she falls in love, and loses her religion—which leaves her wondering just what it means to be good.

My Take: Carlene is a typical teen who struggles with both adhering to her fundamentalist Christian mother's vision and her own burgeoning ideals. She attends a series of Christian schools where anything and everything fun, up to and including The Smiths and The Bonfire of the Vanities, is banned and where films are shown with plot lines that feature hippies who doesn't take Jesus into their heart and so are left on earth during the End of Days to be pursued by the Antichrist. I'm terrified by this so I can't imagine what it would do to the psyche of a impressionable kid.

The premise of this book is promising but it can be a bit hard to get into. It's on the wordy side and Bauer's voice doesn't come across immediately and with resonance. That said, perseverance pays off.

Bauer is the typical bookish good girl with big dreams of busting out of her one horse town and making it in the arts biz in the big city - something I can really relate to. Lines like, "To describe someone as a normal girl was our lowest blow. It meant that you had no idea who Monty Python was, and did not have plans that involved art and the city" perfectly encapsulate the wistful, high-brow aspirations of the typical unworldly provincial girl, a girl I really and truly once was.

Artistic aspirations aside, figuring out the mysterious species called "boy" is also high on Bauer's bucket list and her naive fumblings are as real as it gets. There's the typical bad boy, Joshua, who says "I think you think I'm Satan" and tries to deconstruct Bauer's house-of-cards beliefs, and then there's Rebound Boy, Mark, whose outsize antics only highlight Bauer's desire to break out of her own shell, and finally there's her nameless "friend" who loves her, is rejected by her, and then marries her.

Bauer really struggles with aligning her sexual self (from all accounts, negligible) with her cerebral self, possibly a product of her strict upbringing. In the end she decides to marry her "friend" on this premise:

That was what now appalled in the middle of the night - not marraige, but the idea of a future without one friend forever by my side. And a fear that you could end up like Isabel Archer married to a vampire because you had waited too long for the arrival of the perfect decorative compement to you the exquisite object.

Practical? Yes. Romantic? Oh no! Lorri Gottlieb would be proud. But, that is Bauer's nature and all her vulnerabilities, ticks, insecurities and so on are proudly and eloquently on display here and it's a testament to her that she presents herself so baldly.

Bauer's struggle with her faith is something I can less identify with, but as an emblem of carving one's identity out from underneath the shaping of our upbringing it works for me. Who couldn't agree with this statement?:

I had thrown off the God of my childhood, but I couldn't throw off the lives of the women who raised me, who wanted me to know that there was nothing more satisfying than selflessness, and individuation was just a fancy word for wanting things that would never fulfill you the way family could. Feminism was definitely one of those things.

The book tangles near the end with the obvious (struggling to make it in a top NYC publishing house à la Emily Gould) and the less obvious (her fall from Catholic grace after a traumatic event) but it never stops being eloquent and endearingly earnest - a nice change of pace from the slightly cynical biographies of some NYC female icons. I wouldn't say it exactly swept me away but for all the good-girls-gone-bad-gone-good-again out there, it will leave you nodding and smiling in recognition.

Not That Kind Of Girl/ Carlene Bauer / Harper Perennial / PB, 2010

This post is part of TLC's book tour for author Carlene Bauer and her memoir Not That Kind Of Girl. Thank you to TLC Book Tours for supplying me with a review copy. Please do check out the reviews of the other tour hosts, as listed below:

Tuesday, June 29th: Literate Housewife
Thursday, July 1st: Tales of a Capricious Reader
Tuesday, July 6th: The Book Nest
Monday, July 12th: Drey’sLibrary
Wednesday, July 14th: As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves
Thursday, July 15th: she reads and reads
Tuesday, July 20th: Heart 2 Heart
Friday, July 23rd: Knowing the Difference
Monday, July 26th: Bookshipper
Tuesday, July 27th: Life In Pink
Thursday, July 29th: Suko’s Notebook
Friday, July 30th: A Fair Substitute for Heaven
Monday, August 2nd: A Certain Bent Appeal
Wednesday, August 4th: Sara’s Organized Chaos
Tuesday, August 3rd: my books. my life.

Liiiife Is a Hiiiighway, I Wanna Riiiide It (All Night Long) - Where's B?

2010-07-29T08:30:00.000-04:00

I am here but also not REALLY here. What a sleight of hand, you say. See I scheduled this post for today so actually I am highway driving in Nova Scotia, screaming Tom Cochrane lyrics at the top of my lungs, sauced on 10 kinds of illegal substances, having the time of my life. This is likely mostly true, except for the part where I am a neurotic square and so am probably completely sober, hands at the ten and two position on the wheel, constantly checking my blind spots. I have left you with this cow to stare you down. I don't think he likes you very much, truth be told.

Anyway, this isn't the only goody in the bag. I'm participating in the excellent TLC Book Tours' tour for Carlene Bauer's Not That Kind Of Girl so you'll see my review pop up for that on Monday, Aug 2.

Otherwise, I'll be back mid-next week. Here's a taste of what I'm bringing to Nova Scotia to read (the first is for EYE WEEKLY's Pop Fiction book club, the second for my regular book club):

Annabel (Kathleen Winter, HC 2010): In 1968, into the beautiful, spare environment of remote coastal Labrador, a mysterious child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor girl, but both at once. Only three people are privy to the secret -- the baby's parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and a trusted neighbour, Thomasina. Together the adults make a difficult decision: to raise the child as a boy named Wayne. But as Wayne grows to adulthood within the hyper-masculine hunting culture of his father, his shadow-self -- a girl he thinks of as Annabel -- is never entirely extinguished, and indeed is secretly nurtured by the women in his life.

Galore(Michael Crummey, PB 2010): An intricate family saga and love story spanning two centuries, Galore is a portrait of the improbable medieval world that was rural Newfoundland, a place almost too harrowing and extravagant to be real. Remote and isolated, exposed to savage extremes of climate and fate, the people of Paradise Deep persist in a realm where the line between the everyday and the otherworldly is impossible to distinguish.

Propelled by the disputes and alliances, grievances and trade-offs that bind the Sellers and Devine families through generations, Galore is alive with singular characters, and an uncommon insight into the complexities of human nature.

Brain Food: Orange Is The New Black, My Year In A Women's Prison

2010-07-28T08:30:00.004-04:00

Piper Kerman was fresh out of Smith College when her older girlfriend, Nora, involved her in her lucrative drug business. Nora worked for a West African drug kingpen and she orchestrated the smuggling of drugs into the country.

Piper, young, impressionable and totally unsure of what to do with her life, began following Nora to exotic locales like Bali and living in luxury, while Nora worked. Afraid of the ramifications of her actions, Kerman eventually cut all ties to Nora, met her husband Larry, and started a new life in New York City.

Ten years later, she was charged for her crime and spent 13 months in Danbury, a minimum security prison in Connecticut.

As you might imagine, Kerman was terrified of being locked up and of her fellow prisoners but despite the hardships of her stay (barely edible food, having to clean your cube with maxi pads, lack of rehabilitation opportunities of any kind, having to fly Con Air to testify against another man implicated in her drug ring) she eventually found value in the experience through her interactions with her fellow prisoners.

One of the best parts about this book is the cast of vibrant characters - Sister (a nun in for illegal activism work), Yoga Janet who serenely leads yoga sessions most days, Kerman's bunkie Natalie (who diligently works in the kitchen and never speaks of her life outside prison), Little Janet (a 20-year-old girl who had been arrested in the Caribbean as a drug mule) and of course, Pop.

Pop is a Russian immigrant who had married a gangster and spent most of her life before prison on the lam. Despite her former lax morality, Pop becomes one of Kerman's best friends and shows her how to live in prison sanely and with dignity:

She has lost everything, yet managed to take a dozen years in prison and hold it all together and make the best of it. Pop was cunning and exuberant. She as kind, but she could be ruthless. She knew how to work the system and also how not to let them break you. And they were always trying.

Prison taught Kerman that thriving (not just surviving) is an art. Whatever the crimes of her fellow prisoners, Kerman (and I too) was much taken with their acute instinct for survival and yet the often boundless generosity they showed to each other. Kerman's interaction with Carlotta is a very funny example of this (and also a great example of Kerman's dry wit). Carlotta proclaims she's getting married when she's out "so bitches can hate!":

I studied Carlotta, her pretty face bright and animated as she envisioned her future - one that included her man, some bitches, and a ring around her finger. I was fairly certain that she would get what she wanted. Among all the women at the Camp, she was one who could always figure out an angle...She was a smart cookie, with an unsentimental eye on the word. Rick, I concluded, was a lucky guy.

Carlotta may want bitches to hate, but ultimately what I noticed about the women at Danbury was their strong sense of sisterhood. And this is one of the great secrets of thriving, in Danbury or the world - you won't get there without the right people in your life.

Kerman was taught that stoicism is the best reaction to a difficult situation but prison showed her that what's really important is finding your tribe, being good to those people, finding whatever faith you can that helps you get by, and sticking by your own worth.

In prison, for the first time, I understood that faith could help people see beyond themselves, not into the abyss but into the street, into the mix, to offer what was bset about themselves to others...Rose, chatting in the midst of a pedicure one day, told me what she had learned from her faith; I thought later that hers were the most powerful words a person could utter: "I've got a lot to give."

And:

If there was one thing that I had learned in the Camp, it was that I was in fact good...I was eager to offer what I had, which was more than I had realized. Judging others held little appeal to me now, and when I did it, I regretted it. Best of all, I had found other women here in prison who could teach me how to be better. I t seemed to me that my total demonstrated failure at being a good girl was more than matched by the urgency of being a good person."

This book is so much more than a lurid prison memoir - it's a survival handbook and also an eye-opening (and empowering) account of women we might otherwise see as marginalized. I was very much moved by this book. It's safe to say it's the best I've read all year. I know I've glossed over the utter inefficiency of the prison system and its inability to prepare women for life beyond bars, but please check out the reviews below for further information. And please give this wonderful book a try.

Amy Reads
The Book Lady's Blog
Slate

Orange Is the New Black/ Piper Kerman /Spiegel and Grau / HC, 2010

Sh*t My Dad Says: More Than Just Toilet Humour, Paternal Love Is In Full (Cranky) Force Here

2010-07-27T08:30:00.000-04:00

On my first school dance: "Are you wearing perfume?...Son, there ain't any cologne in this house, only your mother's perfume. I know that scent, and let me tell you, it's disturbing to smell your wife on your thirteen-year-old son."

This book made me giggle like a Japanese school girl.

Yes, I too am wary of the blog-to-book. It smells of the cheap cash grab like a pile of week-old socks.

That said, I have to give it to Sh T My Dad Saysbecause it manages to be both uproariously funny and wonderfully heartfelt at the same time. Reading this book provided me a week's worth of laughter therapy and the best Saturday afternoon in recent memory.

Sam Halpern works in nuclear medicine. He and his second wife grew up working class and fought their way up and sacrificed to educate themselves and provide for their three boys. Justin Halpern, the know-it-all youngest son and wannabe screenwriter, was forced to move back home in his late 20's, and took to tweeting his grouchy, blunt and oddly wise father's sayings. His number of followers skyrocketed and the rest is history.

The book nicely balances Sam's caustic toilet humour, the sometimes grim realities of parenting and sacrificing for your family, and the pure joy of a father's love for his son. The last chapter is particularly affecting - I won't spoil it for you but suffice to say if only all fathers were so concerned with the self-esteem of their sons, the world would be such a better place.

I highly recommend this book for absolutely everyone (except for those who are offended by foul language, and those people shouldn't be reading this blog anyway).

My only complaint: it should have been longer. Let's hope for a sequel containing more stories of Sam Halpern, whom Justin describes as, "like Socrates, but angrier, and with worse hair."

Or maybe I'll just have to wait for the sitcom. Also, Gawker can eat sh*t for being so snide - professional jealousy sure is a b*tch.

Sh T My Dad Says/Justin Halpern / HarperCollins / HC, 2010

Thoughts on Eclipse and the Twilight Series (Warning: Team Jacob)

2010-07-23T13:47:00.005-04:00

Last week I finished the Twilight quartet. I went to see Eclipse in theatres and there was no way in hell I'd go and see it before reading the book. That completed, I had to read the final book, Breaking Dawn, to know why people felt so betrayed as to the ending (I could take or leave the final book. It was a bit off the rails but I loved the chance to get inside Jake's head).

I was planning on writing a snarky post as to how Stephenie Meyer is ruining feminism, literature and my right not to read about thinly-veiled Mormon values. But, let's be honest here, there are a few things I really love about the Twilight series and I'm just going to let myself be as teenager fandom-y as I want this time around.

[Aside: the Eclipse movie was awful. Jill tempted me into watching the first two films with commentary and I recommend it. The commentary for the first film has Robert Pattinson on board and damn he is funny! He talks the whole time about how poncy the Edward character is and that his face is strangely flat and square (true that). The second commentary made me realize how much director Chris Weitz poured into the cinematography, mood, characters etc., something which the slapdash affair that is Eclipse sorely lacks. Check out Syllabus' rundown of all that is wrong with Eclipse the film.]

Onwards.

The best part of Eclipse is the second half, full stop. The love triangle of Jacob-Edward-Bella is full steam ahead here and boy does it pop and crackle with emotion. The book is slow to gain momentum but when it does BAM, Meyer starts giving your heartstrings the puppeteering of a lifetime.

First off, I loved the scene where Edward and Jacob discuss their mutual love for Bella while she sleeps (in the tent before the big Victoria show down). I despise Edward and his humourless, mopey, constantly agonized attitude just as much as I love Jacob's snarky, balls-out one, but the two characters reach a real understanding in this scene that levels them nicely. Their honesty in expressing their love for Bella and their pained acknowledgement that they must share her heart won me over big time. Sample quote from Jake:

But...give me a year, bl- Edward. I really think I could make her happy...You love her enough that you have to see the advantages of that plan. She thinks you're very unselfish, are youreally? Can you consider the idea that I might be better for her than you are?

My favorite scene in Eclipse, nay the entire series, is when Bella capitulates to her desire for Jake. The way Meyer put it - that Jake is meant for Bella in a world where the supernatural does not exist, that Edward's fluke presence on Earth will prevent the two from ever being happy - BROKE me, people. DESTROYED me. Whoa:

The jolt of anger unbalaned my tenuous hold on self-control; his ecstatic response overthrew it entirely. If there had been only triumph, I might have been able to resist him. But the utter defenselessness of his sudden joy cracked my determination, disabled it. My brain disconncted from my body, and I was kissing him back. Against all reason, my lips were moving with his in strange, consuming ways they'd never moved before - because I didn't have to be careful with Jacob, and he certainly wasn't being careful with me.

In this moment, the life that Bella could have with Jake (and never will) flashes before her eyes. They merge together, they share their equal pain and joy, and yet, ultimately, nothing will ever change. How's that for torment?

And finally, the END of Eclipse (which they cut out of the film to my utter horror) really wrapped the book up nicely. Jake's animal despair at losing Bella was perfect in summing up the weight of loss that fills this book.

It was almost too easy to phase. I didn't have to think. My body already knew where I was going and, before I asked it to, it gave me what I wanted...If only I could stop hearing, stop seeing what they saw. My head was so crowded, but the only way to be alone again was to be human, and I couldn't stand the pain...I pushed my legs faster, letting Jacob Black disappear behind me.

In parting, I want to drop on you some mood music to go with this angst post - Silver and Cold. I was obsessed with the band AFI in university, though I think I was mostly obsessed with Davey Havok, the lead singer. And by obsessed, I mean I still have a brain-gasm every time I watch one of AFI's videos, though Havok's tried to butch it up of late, which I am not feeling.

Sample lyrics (perfect for Eclipse!):

Your sins into me,
oh, my beautiful one.
Your sins into me.
As a rapturous voice escapes
I will tremble a prayer
and I'll beg for forgiveness.
Your sins into me,
Your sins into me
oh, my beautiful one.

Five Books Set in Nova Scotia That Don't Smell of Mildew

2010-07-21T08:30:00.002-04:00

In honour of my upcoming trip to Nova Scotia next week, I've scoured my brain for five books set in Nova Scotia that don't reek of old school CanLit or that are patently obvious (though I do do love The Nymph and the Lamp, it is so wonderfully perfectly fraught). Notably NOT on this list: The Birth House, Fall on Your Knees, The Book of Negroes and No Great Mischief.

What Is Left the Daughter: This is a US-published novel but I was happy to discover that it's set in Nova Scotia. Recluse Wyatt Hillyer lost both his parents on the same day. Double suicide. The cause: they were involved with the same neighbor. Wyatt moves to Middle Economy (been there!) and upon the occasion of his (estranged) daughter's 21st birthday many years later, writes her a letter than contains the truth about his life. Includes actual historical happenings, such as the sinking of the Nova Scotia–Newfoundland ferry Caribou by a German U-boat. I very much want to read this.

Seven Ravens: I used to read Lesley Choyce's YA when I was a kid. I'm not sure if you've heard of Choyce before but he's very well known in NS. This book is his memoir and a meditation on his beloved Nova Scotian home. I am a complete sucker for any book about emotional ties to place, especially if that place is situated in a spruce stand by the sea. I'm assuming that the seven crows refers to this old saying (though in my day, three crows meant a letter, not a wedding-yikes). Thanks to The Indextrious Reader for cluing me into this book.

Migration Songs: Joan is a 30-year old loner living in Halifax, kept afloat by her Hungarian neighbor, British father and Chinese-Canadian mother. Haven't read this but love the sounds of it for two reasons A) Not populated solely by white fishermen B) Not reliant on place for atmosphere and meaning. Atlantic Canada needs more novels like this.

The Sea Captain's Wife: Now THIS is really my speed! In the 1860's, Azuba Galloway marries a veteran sea captain but becomes pregnant and cannot join him on his travels. Her loneliness embroils her in scandal but once finally out at sea with her husband, tragedy doesn't leave her side. Ah-mazing.

Falling: An act of recklessness claimed Damian's sister in her youth (during a summer spent in Nova Scotia) and as he and his mother heal, another incident threatens to seal their future once again. For fans of The Sea Captain's Wife (and indeed Falling is recommended by Powning!). Thanks to Lavender Lines for recommending this title

Whoa Dude: Cold Earth Cover, Blowing My Mind Since Two Seconds Ago

2010-07-19T13:29:00.002-04:00

Cold Earth / Sarah Moss / Counterpoint / PB, 2010

Fall 2010: What Technology Wants and Proofiness=The Ultimate Nerdalicious Duo

2010-07-19T08:30:00.003-04:00

Hey. Happy Monday. I suppose you've noticed that I haven't been reviewing any books lately. That is A) because I've been reading the rest of the Twilight series B) I've been committed to reviewing for other venues and C) I have been writing an essay for a certain literary journal that I have been obsessively (read: maniacally) crafting.

No more! Reviews to return this week. In the mean time, I'd like to get you jacked up on these two awesome nerd books set to hit stores this fall.

What Technology Wants

Kevin Kelly is the executive editor at Wired. His theory, that technology is like a living organism, is discussed in this new book. This TED video gives a better explanation than I ever could. I know the cover looks a bit off but apparently it's going to have more of a 3D effect IRL. Pubs: Oct/10

From the Publisher: This provocative book introduces a brand-new view of technology. It suggests that technology as a whole is not a jumble of wires and metal but a living, evolving organism that has its own unconscious needs and tendencies. Kevin Kelly looks out through the eyes of this global technological system to discover “what it wants.” He uses vivid examples from the past to trace technology’s long course and then follows a dozen trajectories of technology into the near future to project where technology is headed.

Proofiness

The cover, title and subtitle here are hella cool! Charles Seife is a science writer who authored the book Zero, yep a biography about the number zero. Pubs: Sept/10

From the Publisher: "Proofiness," as Charles Seife explains in this eye-opening book, is the art of using pure mathematics for impure ends, and he reminds readers that bad mathematics has a dark side. It is used to bring down beloved government officials and to appoint undeserving ones (both Democratic and Republican), to convict the innocent and acquit the guilty, to ruin our economy, and to fix the outcomes of future elections. This penetrating look at the intersection of math and society will appeal to readers of Freakonomics and the books of Malcolm Gladwell.

This Is Sort of Personal But What the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks...

2010-07-15T08:30:00.000-04:00

Last night before I went to bed I checked my cell phone. Eight voice mail messages. Eight. Quickly, I checked to see if the world was indeed crumbling away beneath my feet. Negatory.

Curious to see who had been mortally wounded in my life, and no longer distracted by watching endless reruns of Flipping Out, I checked the messages. They were from:

The library
The library
My mom (this was from a week ago, so you can see what sort of offspring I am)
The library
The library
My dad
The library
My dad's cell phone. It called me by accident. He and my mom were talking to someone. It sounded like they were having a nice time in the outside world, interacting with human beings.

Lessons I have learned from these eight messages:

I love the library
The library is very prompt about indicating I have a hold ready for me to pick up
I place a lot of holds
I do not have a life
My parents are very nice people who call me a lot
My parents do have a life
No one calls me except the library and my parents
I should just get rid of my cell phone

My Fruitful Trip To the Library

2010-07-13T08:30:00.001-04:00

I am still upset that Northern District library branch is RIP, well at least for the summer. Libraries are my happy place - the hush, the quiet, the smell of musty books with people's dirty fingerprints all over them. I spent the large part of the summer after I graduated from university (2005) in the Toronto Reference Library hiding from both my miserable roommates and my miserable part-time job. I chuckled over this article about an unemployed philosophy major in The Awl because libraries really are a great place for the underemployed to go and pretend like they're working.

Anyway, I am happy that it's finally Northern District's turn to get a reno because the old lady really does need new clothes. The whole thing is very spaceship meets brutalist architecture meets extremely sad public school classroom.

In any case, I hiked it over to Deer Park branch at Yonge and St. Clair yesterday to pick up my holds and what a smorgarsboard of excitement that was. Here's what I got (descriptions courtesy of the publishers):

Orange Is the New Black: When Piper Kerman was sent to prison for a ten-year-old crime, she barely resembled the reckless young woman she’d been when, shortly after graduating Smith College, she’d committed the misdeeds that would eventually catch up with her.Happily ensconced in a New York City apartment, with a promising career and an attentive boyfriend, she was suddenly forced to reckon with the consequences of her very brief, very careless dalliance in the world of drug trafficking.

Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes: a Year Alone in the Patagonia Wilderness: Years after losing his lower right leg in a motorcycle crash, Robert Kull traveled to a remote island in Patagonia's coastal wilderness with equipment and supplies to live alone for a year. He sought to explore the effects of deep solitude on the body and mind and to find the spiritual answers he'd been seeking all his life. With only a cat and his thoughts as companions, he wrestled with inner storms while the wild forces of nature raged around him. The physical challenges were immense, but the struggles of mind and spirit pushed him even further.

The Husbands and Wives Club: A Year in the Life of a Couples Therapy Group: For more than a year, journalist Laurie Abraham sat in with five troubled couples as they underwent the searing process of group marriage therapy. Published as The New York Times Magazine's cover story "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" the resulting article generated intense reader response and received the Award for Excellence in Journalism from the American Psychoanalytic Association. Though the article allowed Abraham to focus on only one couple, this book, which grew out of it and the reaction it inspired, tells the moving, fascinating story of all five.

Cool Water: Juliet, Saskatchewan, is a blink-of-an-eye kind of town -- the welcome sign announces a population of 1,011 people -- and it’s easy to imagine that nothing happens on its hot and dusty streets. Situated on the edge of the Little Snake sand hills, Juliet and its inhabitants are caught in limbo between a century -- old promise of prosperity and whatever lies ahead.

But the heart of the town beats in the rich and overlapping stories of its people: the foundling who now owns the farm his adoptive family left him; the pregnant teenager and her mother, planning a fairytale wedding; a shy couple, well beyond middle age, struggling with the recognition of their feelings for one another; a camel named Antoinette; and the ubiquitous wind and sand that forever shift the landscape. Their stories bring the prairie desert and the town of Juliet to vivid and enduring life.

Girl Crazy in EYE Weekly's Pop Fiction Book Club

2010-07-12T15:24:00.001-04:00

It's finally up this afternoon - Pop Fiction's take on Russell Smith's recent novel, Girl Crazy.

It's hard to describe the way I felt reading this novel. There was definitely anger there, but it started tipping into something crazy, perhaps how a rural male Midwesterner feels when they accidentally click on an Adam Lambert music video. That feeling almost scared me more than the book itself. Let's just say it was the absolute wrong time for me to be reading a novel where objectification of women is the persistent and constant theme.

Anyway, I think I managed to write something coherent and critical. Now that I've used up all my self-control for the next month, I think I'm going to stop coordinating my outfits, combing my hair or even trying to assume the guise of a a polite person for at least a week.

One more thing: I know the haters will be out in full force in the comments section so if you have something constructive to add, I encourage you to hop over and say your piece.

Fall 2010: Madame Bovary Gets a Makeover Thanks to Lydia Davis' New Translation

2010-07-08T08:30:00.002-04:00

I read Madame Bovaryfor the first time in high school and have ever since loved this full-bodied, luscious, tragic tale of a woman who dared to live on her own terms in a time when such a thing was never done. I certainly don't condone infidelity or being a crazy ass b*tch, but you have to respect a woman who busts outside of whatever feminine construct is currently fashionable.

Madame Bovaryis back this fall (Sept/10) in new fancy clothes thanks to Lydia Davis' forthcoming translation. Davis is a noted translator of French literature and an author in her own right. Check out this interview with her. The new edition will get the hardcover treatment and hopefully attract a whole new group of readers. If you haven't gotten a chance to read this classic novel, do so please. You may hate Emma Bovary but you won't be bored, I swear.

From the Publisher: Seven years ago, the incomparable Lydia Davis brought us an award- winning, rapturously reviewed new translation of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way that was hailed as "clear and true to the music of the original" (Los Angeles Times) and "a work of creation in its own right" (Claire Messud, Newsday). Now she turns her gifts to the book that defined the novel as an art form.

When Emma Rouault marries dull, provincial doctor Charles Bovary, her dreams of an elegant and passionate life crumble. She escapes into sentimental novels but finds her fantasies dashed by the tedium of her days. Motherhood proves to be a burden; religion is only a brief distraction. She spends lavishly and embarks on a series of disappointing affairs. Soon heartbroken and crippled by debts, Emma takes drastic action with tragic consequences for her husband and daughter.

When published in 1857, Madame Bovary was embraced by bourgeois women who claimed it spoke to the frustrations of their lives. Davis's landmark translation gives new life in English to Flaubert's masterwork.

Nick Hornby's Juliet Naked in Paperback

2010-07-07T12:33:00.000-04:00

I'm really digging the new paperback cover (Sept/10) for Nick Hornby's latest, Juliet Naked. I don't think I reviewed this novel here but I liked it much more than About A Boy(mostly because Juliet Naked had well-rounded female characters and great insight into the drudgery of a sloppy long-term relationship).

Here's the hardback cover:

And the paperback's:

I like how the paperback cover is indie chic without looking like a vomitous plea for hipster cash.

Fall 2010 Books: I'd Say That They Were Bringing the Heat If I Wasn't Sweating Already

2010-07-07T12:08:00.001-04:00

It's July in Toronto and that means poor air quality, 100% humidity and hair that looks like a back-combed lion's mane. No fear, I'm seeing lots of fancypants fall 2010 titles on the horizon, along with accompanying cool breezes and saner temperatures.

I'll be featuring a few titles that have caught my eye this week. Many of them are likely to be from a *ahem* certain publisher but folks, I'm lazy. I am so so lazy. I'm emailing these covers 100 times a day and now they want to give back to me in content. Oh yes they do.

How To Read The Air/ Dinaw Mengestu / HC, Oct 2010

From the Publisher: One September afternoon, Yosef and Mariam, Ethiopian immigrants who have spent all but their first year of marriage apart, set off on a road trip from their home in Peoria, Illinois, to Nashville, Tennessee, in search of a new identity as an American couple. Just months later, their son, Jonas, is born in Illinois.

Thirty years later, Yosef has died, and Jonas is desperate to make sense of the volatile generational and cultural ties that have forged him. How can he envision his future without knowing what has come before? Leaving behind his marriage and his job in New York, Jonas sets out to retrace his parents’ trip and, in a stunning display of imagination, weaves together a family history that takes him from the war-torn Ethiopia of his parents’ youth to a brighter vision of his life in the America of today, a story --- real or invented --- that holds the possibility of reconciliation and redemption.

[Fun fact: Mengestu was selected as one of The New Yorker's top 20 under 40 fiction authors worth watching]

Brain Food: Meltdown Iceland (The Volcano Wasn't the Worst of It)

2010-07-06T08:30:00.000-04:00

Last week I decided I wanted to take a crack at reading books with a bit more heft, substance, weight. Books about finance, politics, social issues...

It's OK! Don't start sweating yet. We can get through this. I know, I know. I'm worried too.

The series is now called BRAIN FOOD! Look for the walnut.

What you will not get from Meltdown Iceland: lore about Icelandic society and customs, loin-stirring descriptions of the island's natural beauty or a concrete sense of how Iceland's near-bankruptcy affected the average person.

What you will get from Meltdown Iceland: a better sense of why and how the global economic meltdown happened. Most everything that led to Iceland's economic downfall are small-scale examples of what happened globally (particularly in the United States). For example:

Ridiculous loan terms (no money down? no assessment of qualification?)
A willingness to take on debt (both by the average person and corporations)
The rise of a banking class that was allowed to operate almost autonomously from the government
The lack of an empowered watchdog
A desire to accelerate industrialization and progress, even without the backing of native capital or natural resources. The mindset that such progress is deserved, even if forged in smoke and mirrors.
Use of dated economic policies (Thatcherism=deregulation, privatization)

How accessible is the book?: Medium. It sure made me wish I'd retained something anything from my first year economics class. Stuff like: what is the correlation between inflation and rising interest rates?

Key take away: Iceland's financial meltdown was partially caused by the incestuous nature of its financial/governmental pool and a tolerance for a boom/bust rhythm (the super trendy-cool Iceland of yore was nothing but an economic bubble pushed to the max). It was also a global equivalent of a canary that pointed to the dangers of tolerating high levels of debt and a lack of regulation.

Fun fact: Did you know that Iceland's current prime minister, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, is the first openly gay head of state in the world? Nice.

Meltdown Iceland/ Rogers Boyes / Bloomsbury US / PB, 2010

I Hate Eclipse And Need Things To Get a Little More Real Around Here

2010-06-30T11:38:00.005-04:00

Last weekend Toronto was taken over by the G20 summit. A police presence, protests and destruction of property ensued.

I was uptown in Yuppie-ville reading the third book in the Twilight series, Eclipse, so what do I know about any of this? Nothing.

I'm not ever going to participate in a street protest. I don't watch or read the news. Sometimes I think the only cause I believe in is my career and when I'm finally going to be able to afford a cottage up north (sigh, some day).

I have't quite checked into the apathy hotel yet, though. I did the Myers-Briggs test last weekend and I'm the INFJ personality type. This means I have some capacity for empathy. And if I believe in anything, it's the power of books to open minds and hearts and dispel ignorance.

Yet, smarts don't necessarily equate good deeds. That's why books, especially novels and narrative non-fiction, are so important because they humanize and add dimension to raw data.

I'm going to make more of an effort to feature books that enlighten as well as entertain. Hell will freeze over before I read a book straight up about finance or politics but I've found there are creative ways to get around this problem. On my TBR pile is Meltdown Iceland, which focuses on how Iceland's financial crisis illustrates on a small scale what's happening with our global economy. I can manage this because I have a fetish for Iceland as some sort of mystic Viking colony.

Even novels can work well. The cyber thriller Freedomtouches on food politics. The Sookie Stackhouseseries champions gay rights. Blonde Rootsturns racism on its head. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoohas a feminist and political bent.

Non-fiction with a strong narrative aspect also appeals to me. Don't Sleep, There Are Snakesexplores environmental destruction and questions the emotional health of modern living. Methland, one of my favorite book ever, touches on how the meth epidemic is closely tied to America's failing economy.

I'll reveal the series name later, and also possibly a badge for those of you who also want to highlight books that host crucial knowledge. I don't care if it's A New Earthor The Ascent Of Money, I'm just interested in books that illustrate something about how the world ticks today, what matters to motivated people, how ordinary people can contribute at an ordinary level to making the world a saner, healthier, educated place, what current thinking looks like a little left of centre, and what's happening in the world outside of the radius of our morning commute, weekend retreat, and beach vacation.

Stay tuned.

It's That Certain Shade of Blue...

2010-06-28T08:30:00.000-04:00

The Temple-Goers/ Aatish Taseer / PB, 2010

Girl In Translation/ Jean Kwok / HC, 2010

Sea Change / Jeremy Page / HC, December 2010

The first cover is my absolute favorite. I think it's the font.

Because I Have Loved and Hidden It: My New Desert Island Book

2010-06-23T08:30:00.017-04:00

Put on your goggles because I'm going to start spitting from excitement.

About the Author: Elise Moser is the current president of the Quebec Writers' Federation. Her short stories have been published and broadcast in Canada, the U.S., and across the Commonwealth. After many years working as a buyer at Paragraphe Bookstore in Montreal, Elise is now familiar to many stores across the country as a sales rep with Lexa Publishers' Representatives. She is also the Literary Editor of The Rover, an electronic independent review of arts and culture. Elise lives in Montreal.

Because I Have Loved and Hidden it/ Elise Moser / Cormorant Books Inc. / OTPB, 2009

More Waxing Poetic About Anne Lindsay ('s New Light Cooking)

2010-06-22T08:30:00.001-04:00

Hi, my name is B and I'm a maximizer.

It's an illness, really. I'm barely able to buy cereal. When I look at a cereal aisle suddenly my whole life is at stake - am I a flax seed granola person (faux-healthy and delicious)? Or am I an oatmeal person (stoic and practical)? Or am I a Red Berries person (dieting and pretending I'm not sad about it)? This is hard. So trying to decide on something that's actually important is frightening.

Luckily, Anne Lindsay's New Light Cookingis almost aggressively simple to follow, even for a late-bloomer cook like myself, and sometimes prophetic. Here's a taste of what cooking a la Ms. Lindsay has taught me:

1) You Will Never Be Nigella Lawson, But You Could Be Anne Lindsay

Smoked salmon and cream cheese spirals are not difficult. Spread tortillas with cheese, salmon and watercress. Roll. Chill. Cut. Eat. They could be mistaken as classy due to the smoked salmon but you can make them in a pinch and in quantities appropriate for a party where you want to appear somewhat competent as a domestic artist.

The last summer I lived at home in Nova Scotia I was working at the local museum and we were throwing a tea party (it was a super hip job). So, I made the rolls. Suddenly I wasn't a witchy 19-year-old with black hair and a bad attitude, I was a roll-making, tea-party-hosting young lady. This just proves that Anne Lindsay is the yoga pants of cookbooks - functional, practical and hides a multitude of flaws. Amen.

2) Embrace Failure When Trying New Things...

Skillet pork curry with apples and chinese noodles sounds disgusting, right? I don't really like pork and the idea of eating that fleshy meat with slippery noodles sounds downright vile. However, I made it because the idea of eating apples and pork sounded wonderfully English and homey. And you know what? It WAS vile. So I threw that dog's breakfast out and that was that. Lesson learned.

3) ...But Always Make Time For Tried and True Favorites

Easy chocolate cake with chocolate buttermilk icing is right up the old B alley and truth be told, one of the best healthy-ish cake recipes I've ever found. The trick is in good cocoa powder and espresso powder - there is nothing like a kick of coffee to rev a chocolate cake up a notch! Ms. Lindsay doesn't stand for obscene amounts of eggs and butter in her recipes, often subbing in ingredients like buttermilk and veg oil. The result is worth scraping the sides of the mixing bowl for.

4) Try Your Best and Leave the Rest (Eat Fruit Crisp)

I hate eating healthily. I am never going to be one of those people who packs snacks like cut cukes and carrot sticks and celery. I'm not going to make a gazpacho soup and call that lunch. I really hate eating fruit because I get grossed out by the texture unless it's perfectly ripe. So here's what it boils down to for me - if you have to eat your fruit with butter and sugar, so be it. I can't read Anne Lindsay's mind but that's probably why she invented apple berry crisp. There's not too much bad stuff and the fruit gets all warm and yummy. Then, mix some greek yogurt with (real!) vanilla extract and throw a dollop on there to get that mind-bending effect of warm and cold, creamy and fruity. Yum!

Which brings me to...

5) If You're Not Enjoying Yourself What the Hell is Your Problem?

Brunch encompasses everything we aspire to - the leisure to enjoy a meal, with good company and no pressing obligations - yet rarely make time for. Not everyone's privy to my lax schedule but everyone can make lemon blueberry coffee cake. There are no surprise ingredients and the heart-clogging stuff is kept to a minimum by using yogurt in the batter. Warm, lemony and delicious, this deserves to be eaten right out of the pan. Don't eat yogurt cups. Make time for coffee cake and just go ahead and enjoy it, damn you, and stop whining about everything being wrong (I'm mostly talking to myself here).

I may be inspired to write more about Anne Lindsay but let's just call it a day for now. I just finished (and LOVED!) Because I Have Loved and Hidden it and I need to do a video to fully explain to you the ecstasy I experienced in reading it.

I Love Anne Lindsay (Day Two)

2010-06-17T08:30:00.000-04:00

And here we continue my mini-series on Anne Lindsay's fan-tabulous New Light Cooking(view the original post here) and how it's not only taught me to cook but grown up with me, as well.

Rack of Lamb With Wine Sauce and Cucumber Mint Raita

In my early 20's I was dating a guy whose mother had the most fabulous multi-million dollar Yorkville condo I'd ever laid my eyes on. As a small town Nova Scotian who'd been raised comfortably but not extravagantly, I was full-out in lust with this condo and its ever so tasteful smell of old money. It also had a fabulous kitchen complete with marble countertops, top-of-the-line appliances and every Williams Sonoma gizmo and gadget that the heart could desire. It was a dream come true (well, my lusty kitchen dream).

The relationship, well...

We were big on kind gestures and I decided that it was time to make a meal that would bring back the spark.

The meal I chose was rack of lamb with cucumber mint raita. Seeing as my budget could handle little more than beans and veg, I hadn't yet mastered the art of cooking meat (something I still haven't gotten around to conquering). Nevertheless, I purchased an insanely expensive rack of New Zealand lamb and mixed together a simple marinade, poured it over the lamb, let it sit while idly thumbing through magazines and imagining myself the princess of this palace, then roasted the thing while whipping up a simple raita of yogurt, parsley, mint, onion, cumin and finely chopped cukes.

It was too easy. I found myself serving and eating lamb that I'd prepared, an event that was almost too weird to be gratifying.

What's the lesson here? That everything is perfect in its own way? That you try and you fail and some things don't bear repeating?

I wrote this post two days ago and I can't seem to juice it to produce a coherent conclusion.

The lamb was amazing. The circumstances sucked. And let me tell you, don't try to cook your way out of an unmitigated disaster and don't fool yourself about what you really want. That's the best I can do...sorry folks.

I Love You Anne Lindsay ('s New Light Cooking)

2010-06-15T08:30:00.003-04:00

For you non-Canadians, Anne Lindsay is a national institution. A former editor at Canadian Living magazine, Lindsay is the author of such staples as The Lighthearted Cookbook(I'm betting your parent had a copy of this 80's beauty).

Lindsay's New Light Cooking was the cookbook that really grew up with me, though. I've discussed novels, such as Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series, that have had an impact upon me but food carries its own stories and New Light Cooking is like a family album in that regard.

I didn't really consider its impact until I began to read Julie and Julia this weekend, looking for some light inspiration. Julie found confidence in herself through cooking and while I'm not a top-notch cook, I find solace in the simple acts of chopping, boiling, baking, basting and um yeah, eating. No matter the ridiculous carnival of thoughts bopping about my brain, cooking brings me back to the practical act of making oneself fed and right.

So this week I'm bringing back my childhood hero, Anne Lindsay, for a week of food love. Each day I'll discuss a different recipe from New Light Cooking and what it means to me. Let's do this...

Penne with Sweet Red Peppers, Black Olives and Arugula

By the time I was 12 I could embroider, ride horses, swim, skate, give a decent speech, do a dance routine, play the piano (and flute) and bake like no other. What I couldn't do was anything practical, like chop a tomato. This would mean a very difficult first few years living on my own that resulted in burnt Pad Thai, truly disgusting sushi salad and many other failed culinary attempts.

However, the making of my first dish, penne with peppers, olives and arugula, was executed with ease.

The penne, like many of Lindsay's dishes, is wonderfully simple and straightforward. First, you broil two red peppers for twenty minutes, let them cool and then peel, core, seed and cut them into strips. Seeing as I thought roasted red peppers were things you had to buy in jars, it was a revelation that it was relatively easy to roast them all on your own.

Next you boil the penne. This was actually the hard part. I used to be terrified of a giant roiling pot of boiling water, probably because I had a tendency to boil my water until it was an angry, spitting animal that threatened to attack at whim.

The rest was a snap - wash and dry the arugula and olives and also microwave 2 tbsp of olive oil with two cloves of minced garlic. Toss with the roasted red peppers and drained penne, adding reserved pasta water if too dry, season with salt and pepper, garnish with parm and you're good to go!

I took my bowl of pasta out on our wrap around verandah and sat on one of our sagging rocking chairs, cradling my first homemade meal in my lap. It was delicious and simple and I'd made it, by jove! I used to wonder if I had a practical bone in my body but it was through cooking meals like this that I discovered that while I was a dreamer born and bred, that didn't mean I couldn't be a doer as well.

New Light Cooking/ Anne Lindsay / Random House / PB, 1998

The Pregnant Widow at EYE Weekly

2010-06-14T08:30:00.000-04:00

Pop over to Eyeweekly.com today for Pop Fiction's run down on the witty, leering, rollicking ride that is Martin Amis' latest novel, The Pregnant Widow.

This novel is literary summer reading at its best. It has the mellow air of a lazy summer day punctuated by the heightened longing of young summer love (and lust, definitely lust), with enough witty banter, generational tension and literary references to satisfy your craving for smart cottage reading.

On another note, I've been reading Julie and Juliathis weekend and it's inspired me to take a closer look at my favorite cookbook, Anne Lindsay's New Light Cooking. So check in this week for my own cooking stories (and disasters!), as they relate to the recipes in this much beloved cookbook.

Booklicious Blogs Plus Utter Computer FAIL

2010-06-09T08:30:00.000-04:00

Experiencing a little problem over here at command central called "HARD DRIVE FAILURE." Yo, this is my second Mac to die. Well, the second one is not technically mine. But now I have to be the loser who hauls over two dead Macs to the repair store so they can give me a funky look like, what do you spit in it or something? No but seriously, is Mac the new Dell? Why do mine keep crashing?? Is it because I talk serious smack to my laptops (work you stupid piece of %$&*!) and their little fragile spirits wither and die?! AGH!

So since my computer time is limited this week, I'd like to share a few of my new favorite blogs to visit:

Women Running From Houses: Showcases covers of 60's and 70's gothic romance novels, most of which display *duh* women running from houses. The jacket copy for Carol, the Pursued (1979) reads, "A captive of a nightmare religious cult - that was the fate that beautiful young Carol Ingraham fled." Yeah! So these books might have set the feminist movement back decades but hey, this kind of campy, pulpy vapid entertainment couldn't come without a price. Required reading.
Maybe Tomorrow?: Beth is Welsh (like my name!) and also a fellow Canadian. Not only does she have a great site layout, but her book blog is always chock full of the latest vamp, paranormal romance and urban fantasy news and reviews. If this sounds like your thing, you'll want to subscribe.
The Book Lady's Blog: Rebecca was one of the organizers of the BEA Blogger Convention and it was through the surrounding press that I heard about her blog. She writes real, in-depth reviews, has sass to spare, identifies as a feminist and knows all the cool people. This is a great find for me.
Hot Guys Reading Books: Yeah, I'm going there. It's a Tumblr with hot guys. Reading books. I wouldn't qualify many of these men as being strictly hot hot - like *phew* is it warm in here or is it just me hot? - but there's the odd gem. And since I wrote a series on what/how men read, I'm practically obliged to give this blog props.

To Be Read: The Petting Zoo

2010-06-08T08:30:00.001-04:00

From the Publisher: When poet, musician, and diarist Jim Carroll died in September 2009, he was putting the finishing touches on a potent work of fiction. The Petting Zoo tells the story of Billy Wolfram, an enigmatic thirty- eight-year-old artist who has become a hot star in the late-1980s New York art scene.

As the novel opens, Billy, after viewing a show of Velázquez paintings, is so humbled and awed by their spiritual power that he suffers an emotional breakdown and withdraws to his Chelsea loft. In seclusion, Billy searches for the divine spark in his own work and life.

Carroll's novel moves back and forth in time to present emblematic moments from Billy's life (his Irish Catholic upbringing, his teenage escapades, his evolution as an artist and meteoric rise to fame) and sharply etched portraits of the characters who mattered most to him, including his childhood friend Denny MacAbee, now a famous rock musician; his mentor, the unforgettable art dealer Max Bernbaum; and one extraordinary black bird.

Marked by Carroll's sharp wit, hallucinatory imagery, and street-smart style, The Petting Zoo is a frank, haunting examination of one artist's personal and professional struggles.

My Take: I haven't read Carroll's pièce de résistance, his memoir The Basketball Diaries(first published in 1978 and adapted to film in 1995). Carroll first started reading from The Petting Zoo in 1991 (this will be his first novel) and it will finally see the light of day in November 2010. For more info about Carroll check out his L.A. Times obit.

After reading about another (overly) tortured artist in Shadow Tag, I'm not sure how sympathetic I am to the troubled nuances of the creative process, however, Carroll was supposedly blessed with the ability to render prose that could make angels weep. That and this great cover have definitely piqued my interest.

A Journey Round My Skull: Unfinished But Still Love These Oddball Medical Memoirs

2010-06-03T08:30:00.002-04:00

From the Publisher: The distinguished Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy was sitting in a Budapest café, wondering whether to write a long-planned monograph on modern man or a new play, when he was disturbed by the roaring—so loud as to drown out all other noises—of a passing train. Soon it was gone, only to be succeeded by another. And another. Strange, Karinthy thought, it had been years since Budapest had streetcars. Only then did he realize he was suffering from an auditory hallucination of extraordinary intensity.

What in fact Karinthy was suffering from was a brain tumor, not cancerous but hardly benign, though it was only much later—after spells of giddiness, fainting fits, friends remarking that his handwriting had altered, and books going blank before his eyes—that he consulted a doctor and embarked on a series of examinations that would lead to brain surgery.

Karinthy’s description of his descent into illness and his observations of his symptoms, thoughts, and feelings, as well as of his friends’ and doctors’ varied responses to his predicament, are exact and engrossing and entirely free of self-pity. A Journey Round My Skull is not only an extraordinary piece of medical testimony, but a powerful work of literature—one that dances brilliantly on the edge of extinction.

My Take: Karinthy is a lively writer. He describes even the most mundane things, such as trying to solve an impossible crossword, with such wit that I was delighted to accompany him on his medical journey. I usually have a horror for descriptions of arcane medical practices (the essay describing Frances Burney's crude mastectomy gives me shivers to this day). However, Karinthy is more concerned with the process of losing his considerable creative talents and of being a patient treated more like a specimen than a human being.

I've had great luck with other medical memoirs such as My Stroke Of Insight and Still Alice(the latter is fiction, but it reads like a memoir). This one just didn't gel. As Oliver Sachs warns the reader in the introduction, Karinthy is a sucker for a lengthy tangent and I started to get impatient. Such a compact little book shouldn't be such a kitchen sink. This book requires a patient reader with a great deal of interest in early medicine and the workings of the human brain.

Also interesting for its portrayal of 1930's Hungarian intelligentsia.

Thanks to Peter for this recommendation!

A Journey Round My Skull/ Frigyes Karinthy / New York Review of Books Classics / PB, 2008

Canadian Launch for Classy / Derek Blasberg / The Room, May 19/10

2010-06-02T12:50:00.000-04:00

Classy is a style manual/etiquette guide for young females by New York style expert/man about town Derek Blasberg. Not my usual cup of tea but this launch was the best I'd been to in a while. Fancy!

Penguins

The nautical look appears to be in for men. Almost all the men in attendance were sporting boat shoes. I like it.

Shadow Tag (Louise Erdrich): And Introducing My Voice

2010-06-01T07:58:00.000-04:00

My book club is reading Louise Erdrich's Shadow Tag this month and I decided to shoot a quick intro to the book. I'm sorry.

On the bright side, I learned how to cut out ~~all~~ most of my UHMs, AHHs and HMMs. On the downside, I did zero prep for this. On the otherother, farfar away bright side, the really far side with rainbows, sunshine and leprechauns, I will get better at this.

Bear with me.

Shadow Tag: A Novel/ Louise Erdrich / HarperCollins / HC, 2010

Hylozoic: Unfinished But Too Weirdly Awesome To Be Dismissed

2010-05-31T08:30:00.002-04:00

From the Publisher: In Rucker's last novel, Postsingular, the Singularity happened. Life on Earth has been transformed by the awakening of all matter into consciousness and telepathic communication. The small bunch of Founders, including young newlyweds Thuy, a hypertext novelist, and Jayjay, a gamer and brain-enhancement addict, are living a popular live-action media life. But now alien races that have already gone through this transformation notice Earth for the first time, and begin to arrive to exploit both the new environment and any available humans. Some of them are real estate developers, some are slavers, and some just want to help. But who is to tell the difference? Someone has to save humanity from the alien invasions, and it might as well be reality media stars Thuy and Jayjay.

My Take: Rad idea, right? Imagine if a particular eddy in a stream had a consciousness and you could "teek" into (connect telepathically) that consciousness? What if each stone, leaf and air current had its own personality that you could tap into? And what if you could use that telepathic connection to move objects across space (like from LA to NYC!). Aaand, even better, what if you could tap into the whole Earth's consciousness and use it to go on crazy highs to cross the boundaries between worlds?? Hells yes!

Hylozoic is weird, sure, but Rucker's commitment to wackness pays off. Reading it is like tapping into an orgy of imagination. I'm not exactly sure why I couldn't finish this. I think it's the dialogue. There is a lot of it, not to mention a whole slew of rather undeveloped characters, and I tired of trying to keep up. I really just wanted to ride the wave of weirdness and the incessant natter really harshed my mellow. However, I urge you to give this one a try if you're a SFF fan. It's quite the trip.

Hylozoic/ Rudy Rucker / Tor Books / PB, 2010

And The Heart Says Whatever: Emily Gould Is My New Hero

2010-05-27T08:03:00.014-04:00

I loved this book.

I LOVED THIS BOOK!

It's funny because I spent an entire afternoon trash talking And The Heart Says Whatever via Twitter. I'd read her essay in New York Times Magazine (upon which this book is based) and I thought it too self-pitying. If you exploit your personal life for fame and fame exploits you right back well, who's to blame for that?

Author Emily Gould is the former editor of Gawker, the monolith online media blog. She's known for being narcissistic, overly self-aware and unafraid to lay the most intimate details of her life bare on the Internet.

It's possible I may be a mini-Emily Gould because I related to her completely throughout her new collection of essays, And the Heart Says Whatever. Narcissism, if it is that, has never been so entertaining.

Reviewers seem to feel that they enjoyed the book but they often cite reservations. The worry appears to be that Gould represents the height of the "female personal memoir" - young women getting book deals to write about their feelings. Does this extent of liberation, having free rein to expose their lives (and the people in them) to the public, paint women poorly? Or is it not liberated enough in that nothing serious is being said here?

To address the latter, I don't know what could be more serious for a young woman. Gould discusses the alcoholism and underlying sexism rampant in a Midwestern college. She talks about the low-level whoring necessary for a big take at the end of your waitressing shift (and this New York magazine article about bar hostessing as the new prostitution makes this even more relevant). She delves into the painful morass that is your first serious relationship and its decline, your first serious bout of depression/anxiety.

The essay about Gould's time spent as a junior editor at a US publishing giant was by far my favorite (this publisher is known for their celeb and blockbuster titles). As Gould says, "I was realizing that the production of book-shaped products had very little to do with "books," the holic relics that my college education had been devoted to venerating."

Gould's time at the publisher, as recounted in her essay, is by turns hilarious (her diplomatic boss's bitchy streak), disheartening (after 20 years of producing pop products, her boss has earned the right to edit the occasional work by a gay author or such) and illuminating (Gould looks at the groomed and important women above her and considers whether she really wants their life, typical of a young woman trying to establish her heroes).

"Like many people I'd come to New York City with this idea that I was somehow extraordinary," says Gould. It's her take-no-prisoners ambitiousness and naive faith in her abilities that likely polarizes people but it's what made me appreciate and relate to her.

And the Heart Says Whatever/Emily Gould / Simon & Schuster / Original Trade PB, 2010

Fireworks Over Toccoa: Escapist Fluff With a Bittersweet Tinge

2010-05-25T08:30:00.001-04:00

From the Publisher: An unexpected discovery takes eighty-four-year-old Lily Davis Woodward to 1945, and the five days that forever changed her life. Married for only a week before her husband was sent to fight in WWII, Lily is anxious for his return, and the chance to begin their life together. In honor of the soldiers' homecoming, the small Georgia town of Toccoa plans a big celebration. And Jake Russo, a handsome Italian immigrant, also back from war, is responsible for the elaborate fireworks display the town commissioned. But after a chance encounter in a star-lit field, he steals Lily's heart and soul--and fulfills her in ways her socially-minded, upper-class family cannot. Now, torn by duty to society and her husband--and the poor, passionate man who might be her only true love--Lily must choose between a commitment she's already made and a love she’s never known before.

My Take: Just so you're not confused, this is not literary fiction, this is not even literary women's fiction, we are in Nicholas Sparks territory here, one hundred percent. That said, it's a damn good read.

Author Jeffrey Stepakoff has a clear love for both the setting (Georgia) and the conceit (Jake's passion for the magic of fireworks). Stepakoff (who wrote for and produced several major TV series, including Dawson's Creek) writes in the introduction that he got the idea for the book from a man (who founded a major fireworks company) that he interviewed for a TV pilot. That man was passionate about his work and his inspiration was his wife of sixty years. Swoon.

I won't say that the character development or the plotline is particularly daring (though there's a nice twist at the end) but the emotion inherent in it rings clear and true. Lily thinks she has her life figured out but it's not until Jake crosses her path that she realized that she has denied so much of who she is in order to be the person her town, Toccoa, expects. Her agony over whether to chose duty (her husband, soon to return) or her true desire (Jake) is heart-wrenching.

And that agony isn't dealt with in a purely escapist way, either. I felt the novel did a fair job of asking whether we can be true to ourselves and still respectful of how we were raised and what people expect of us. Running off and leaving it all behind is very rarely what real life entails and Fireworks Over Toccoa engages with this reality nicely.

Fireworks Over Toccoa / Jeffrey Stepakoff / St. Martin's Press / HC, 2010

Enough About BookCamp! Let's Talk About My Week In Book Parties

2010-05-21T08:02:00.001-04:00

I had the good fortune to attend two fantastic book parties this week (and missed an even more fabulous one - the Type launch for their new location!) and I decided that if Shinan Govani can make a career out of boldfacing names, I might as well do it for free. Does that make sense? Not really. Onwards:

Tuesday, May 18 - Celebration for Howard Engel

Location: Beverly Slopen's apartment

Credit: Photos by Peter Rehak (album here)

Next week, Howard Engel will receive a lifetime achievement award from the Canadian Jewish Book Awards. His agent, Bev Slopen, hosted an intimate party at her apartment to celebrate his win and his many Benny Cooperman novels. Cynthia Good, former head of Penguin and director of Humber's Publishing Program, was in attendance as was Michael Enright and his soothing radio voice. I was most excited to talk to the iconic literary critic Philip Marchand, who I instructed on the merits and uses of Twitter. He gamely went along with it although he may have been unsure as to why I insisted on blocking his exit.

Wednesday, May 19 - Canadian Launch of Derek Blasberg's Classy

Location: The Room at The Bay's Queen Street location
Photos: I'm trying!

Have you ever walked into a room of perfect 10's and realized exactly what number you are? I'm a seven. Maybe an eight with nice clothes, heels and a blowout. You know what cures that sinking feeling? A margarita. Two of them actually, spaced 10 minutes apart. Suddenly, you're just another girl, eating bite-sized figs with honey and somewhat less awkwardly adjusting your winter-weight blazer that your mom bought from Holt's at least six season's ago and then passed along to you. Then you get New York man-about-town and stylista Derek Blasberg (his coverage here) to sign your book and he draws a big heart around your name and you think, fleetingly, maybe I belong here?

Then you see Suzanne Rogers sail by in her couture and you think, well, maybe not, but a girl can dream, right?

BookCamp Toronto: Where Do We Go From Here, My Friends?

2010-05-20T07:51:00.013-04:00

I'm ambivalent about unconferences as I feel like too little structure guarantees a quality fail. I also don't love regular conferences as I find them overly structured. Their cut-rate pastries, ridiculous games and puffed up PowerPoints are the result of corporatism and lack of imagination.

So, what's it going to be, B? I lean more towards the unconference because I like the idea that learning can be organic, participatory, unregulated and open to all but I think all this loosey-gooseyness can stand a bit of help. Think maybe an unconference where the un was 12 point font and the conference was 16.

I've come up with a list of ideas for BookCamp 2011 and yes, I am willing to help make them reality! This is just a start, let's get a conversation rolling.

Curate the programming: Approach prospective session leaders and approach them early. Require that the session hinges on innovative thinking or new data (some of the session leaders seemed unprepared to *ahem* lead the sessions). One slot per hour could be put on an open call.
Increase socializing: People love to mingle at these things and much thinking is spread and crystallized that way. Start off the day with a breakfast mixer. Invite people to bring an example of innovative publishing - a well-designed e-book, a creative cover, your favorite e-reader, a self-published masterpiece - and break people into small groups to share them. This will get the juices flowing fast and early. Lunch could be 15 mins to grab food and then 45 minutes of structured open discussion of the day so far.
Decrease the programming: Cut the day down to two sessions before and after lunch. Four hours of sitting on a Saturday is plenty. Instead, treat breakfast, lunch and post-drinks as sessions too (though obviously post-drinks would be off-site and completely unstructured).
Encourage active sessions: I saw evidence in the Flikr group of sessions where ideas were laid out (literally) on the floor, mapped on the chalkboard etc. Let's get physical! Sessions can fall into a rut if discussion is the only means of problem solving. Shake up the structure to turn the issue on its head.
Celebrate innovation: Allow for online ranking of sessions after the day so that participants can let the organizers know what sessions (and leaders) worked and what didn't. I'd also like to see awards given out to celebrate key thinkers. Sample categories: best use of new media by a publisher, best literary journalism, best new innovator.. These could be voted upon before BookCamp (online) and dolled out during.
Get a keynote: A rousing speech to kick off the day or even to jump start thinking after lunch would be sweet. A Michael Tamblyn would work well here, or we could go bigger with an author such as Amber Mac (author of Power Friending on social media) is another example. Pull strings, cash in favors, bring in a star.

What do you think? Does BookCamp need to change? Was it better than last year? What did you like/dislike?

[Edit: This is in no way an effort to snub the fantastic and hard-working organizers of BookCamp. Cheers to them for putting together this much needed meeting of the minds.]

Book Camp Toronto 2010: The Lowdown on the Publishing Event of the Year!

2010-05-18T08:41:00.005-04:00

Last Saturday I attended the second annual BookCamp Toronto. For you folks not familiar with the concept, it's an all day conference open to publishers, authors, booksellers, media and the merely curious. Anyone can propose a session (and lead one) and discussion is favored over lecture. It's one part meeting of the minds and one part, hey let's see what we all look like IRL (in real life)!

So how was the beast? Alright. I think I picked the wrong sessions. I skipped the Kobo sesison because (pardon my French) I thought it would be a giant Kobo BJ but I totally forgot that Michael Tamblyn is an amazing speaker (and serves wine in the AM!). And then I didn't go to see Ingrid Paulson's session on design because I was trying to wear my publicist hat but hey, I really like design! Word to the wise, don't pick your sessions based on topic, pick them based on the session leaders/speakers! So without further ado, here's what I learned. Comment away if you agree/disagree or if you think I was a total bonehead for skipping the amazing session you attended.

7 am: It's Saturday. It's Saturday! Tra-la-la it's Saturday! It's time...to get up for BookCamp? *cue contempt for sleeping better half*

8:30am: Hey now I'm watching Constantine. He's like Neo, but not as cool. Man, those demons are super lo-fi. I'll make another cup of coffee.

9:30am: Yeah, I'm officially late.

10:30am: Literary Publications: the Grassroots
(Led by Stuart Woods of Quill and Quire and Clelia Scala of Open Book Toronto)

Is there money to be made from expanding online? Stuart mentioned that many people know Quill through their blog, which is unusual since it's lowest on their priority list. Quill also has a paywall and this seems to have worked well for niche media such as themselves (another example is the Wall Street Journal). Woods wondered if small literary mags could get revenue from online paid content but idea seems to be that money isn't going to be made from subscriptions, it will always be government funding that will support these hyper niche publications. Indeed, Open Book Toronto (which we're told is expanding to include content from the rest of the province) is funded entirely by government sources. There was also talk of selling apps - McSweeney's charges $5 for a six month subscription and apparently the app is very well done. Web content is always a good supplement between issues, it just won't make a ton of cash.

Conclusion: I didn't feel like much came out of this session other than online is not going to be the savior of literary print publications. But since I'm tired of the web being seen as the savior of everything (marketing campaigns, careers, a boring Tuesday night) reaching that conclusion was still A-OK.

11:30am Writing, Editing and Distribution Is For Everyone
Led by Wattpad CEO Allen Lau

Wattpad is a website where you can post and read stories online for free. Advertising supports the site. They get over 10 million visitors and have over 40,000 documents uploaded per month. Wattpad has never (!) spent any marketing dollars as the authors promote their own work and thus drive traffic to the site. *salivates*

80% of visitors are female and 80% of that are under 25. Translation: tons o' vampire fic, fan fic, romance and erotica. Wattpad also lets you insert videos, art etc. in your online story. There is no DRM but copy and paste has been disabled. Lau mentioned that this model is not going to replace traditional publishing but that it will supplement and support it.

Conclusion: There was a mass exodus from this session about a quarter of the way through. It stank of brand promotion but it turned out to be fairly decent, if only to discover why I keep getting emails about this company at work.

2pm CBC Canada Reads
Led by Jen Knoch (KIRBC), Rosie Fernandez (CBC), Kimberly Walsh (CBC), Kerry Clare (Pickle Me This) and Steven Beattie (That Shakespearean Rag)

Back patting! CBC thanked the bloggers who participated for curating information and increasing participation and the bloggers praised the Ceeb for encouraging the nation to read. There was some discussion of whether the reality show-like format took away from the books or drew people into the discussion. The consensus was that it encouraged people to buy and read all five books as the format made them want to champion their favorite. The fact is that Canada Reads builds community in a way no other literary competition in Canada has managed to achieve (GG and Gillers included) and that is due to the fact that the audience is in on the selection process.

There was also talk of a need for (online) follow up programming so that the winning book can be further dicussed and debated. The idea was floated of putting ordinary people on the show (not musicians/D list celebrities) but radio needs personality, not relatability so much. August interjected, Steven Beattie demurred which made me think...

Conclusion: Is August Bourre the new Steven Beattie? Also, someone whispered to me that the Ceeb hijacked this session. The idea added a nice dramatic touch to my day. Thing is, though, that Canada Reads is the Ceeb's so I completely understand that they feel protective of it. [Edit: see Hugh's comment on how this session shaped up below.]

3pm Data-geek Extravaganza! Bibliographic Metadata
Led by Julia Horel O'Brien (LitDisCo) and Meghan MacDonald (Book Net Canada)

zzzzzz. I tried to get into another session and it was full so I had to crawl back to this one. Sorry panelists, I just had no idea what was going on. Too technical for ol' B. Que mental nap for an hour.

4pm Building and Sustaining a Community of Readers Online
Led by Tan Light (Random House), Kimberly Walsh (CBC) and Meg Mathur (Indigo)

Tan discussed the need for authors to balance their use of social media (to promote their books) and their actual writing. It can be time consuming to engage with your readers on social media but if done correctly it can deepen your audience's commitment to your writing/brand. Kelly Armstrong was cited as a good example of engaging with her community (there's a fine line between engaging with a community and selling to them. Don't cross it. Relationships must always come before business). Addressing negative comments was also mentioned - if you're an author, well, don't, but if you're managing an online community make sure you do address those customer service complaints as it humanizes the process and will ultimately decrease overall negativity in your community.

Conclusion: I am all up in this business, this is my bread and butter! In dealing with the Blogger and Books Network and my own blog I have so many ideas however speaking up in large groups is the stuff of nightmares for me. Maybe I'll do a couple of "rules for social media" posts in the future?

5pm Goodbyes and then depart

Overall, BookCamp 2010 was time well spent, mostly because I got to talk to many people I wanted to meet, including the swell folks at CBC Books. I do have a few comments as to how I'd like to see BookCamp evolve but I'll leave that for tomorrow's post!

Edit: Mark's kindly listed all the online coverage at Index//MB

Dan Clowes Event (c/o TCAF, the Toronto Comic Arts Festival)

2010-05-12T08:30:00.001-04:00

The Toronto Comic Arts Festival was on last weekend. I missed the exhibitors as I wasn't feeling so hot but I did make it to the Dan Clowes event on Friday night (check out this interview he did recently with Eye Weekly).

Dan Clowes is an American author and cartoonist. Most people (myself included) know him as the author of Ghost World, that deliciously snarky graphic novel about high school outcasts Enid and Rebecca (it was made into the film that gave Scarlett Johnansson her big breakthrough). Many chicks who possess my level of attitude say the book got them through high school. Unfortunately, I was too painfully uncool to know anything about popular fiction. However, since Dan Clowes tours NEVER and my resourceful partner in crime was successful in scoring us (free! thank you TCAF!) tickets, I wanted to be there. Please excuse my crappy iPhone photos:

This was the crowd at the new Bram and Bluma Appel Salon at the Toronto Reference Library. Nice, eh? It's a huge events space, a little warehouse-like but modern and it gets lots of light. Lots of people packed in to see Dan. The nerd quotient was extreme. I sat with the National Post's enterprising reporter, Ron, who tweeted his way through the session while his cohort, Mark Medley, interviewed Dan onstage.

Dan is on the right here and Mark Medley, the interviewer, is on the left. Dan, like many personalities who got really successful doing something that doesn't require social skills, apparently doesn't give two fiddlesticks about his public persona or being interviewed. However, the slideshow he brought (a retrospective of his work) was illuminating and he gamely recounted tidbits about illustrating a music video for the Ramones and choosing Scarlett Johansson to be cast as Rebecca.

More interesting: the chick on the far right doing the sign language translation (the facial expressions they use weird me out but also really fascinate me) and the chick in front of me with this incredible rats nest of fire engine hair. I couldn't tell whether it was in a bun or dreading. It was actually fairly awesome.

This is me (looking a bit sickly already) and G (nice glasses!). We ducked out before the signing because we're lame like that.

Can't wait to read and review Wilson, his latest! Apparently it's about a creepy sociopath. Right up my ally.

The Most Uplifting and Inspiring Books That This Curmudgeon Could Find

2010-05-11T08:30:00.000-04:00

I am pretty much ready to book a one way ticket to Nepal. Live with a Zen master in a cave. Try to find bliss by being at one with the itchiness of life (by avoiding it completely). Embrace...life. Myself. Others? Oh brother.

Anyway, I've decided to compile a list of potentially inspiring and uplifting books becomes nobody likes a perma-victim (especially not Kate Carraway, and I agree with her):

A New Earth: Don't hate, hater. I'm a quarter of the way through this baby and it is fan-tastic. Are you tired of relating to people through pre-constructed roles? Do you wish that underneath your substantial ego was a strong sense of self-knowledge and self-worth? Are you tired of being unhappy and then using that unhappiness as your primarily raison d'etre? Do you compulsively reiterate your misery tale to yourself and everyone else? Are you a human being?? Then you need this frickin' book! I want to do a post about this when I'm done and we can chat.

Savor: I was ignorant of Thich Nhat Hanh's existence until I read this recent Oprah interview with the Zen Buddhist master. And was totally taken with him. Say what you want about appropriating other culture's religions but I've always had a strong interest in Eastern philosophy. It just jives with me better than Anglicism. You can practically feel this man's positive energy just by reading the interview. That's why I'm looking forward to reading Savor, his recent book about mindful eating.

Discover The Power Within You: This is an old Oprah fave (good old Oprah!) and it's now on my library hold list. It's about discovering the abundance within you which is sort of like Tolle's deal (finding your true self, sans ego). I've noticed that these self-help books really circle around one concept but it's my belief that language is often insufficient to express truth and so it's irresponsible just to read one person's version of that truth. Hell, that's why literary writers will never run out of material.

The Authenticity Hoax: Just in case you think that being "extra authentic" (i.e. eating organic, buying bamboo flooring, using non-toxic paint and staying at an eco-resort) will cure all that ills, this book will cure you of that notion. Potter argues that our desire for authenticity is what makes us unhappy in the first place. According to May's issue of The Walrus, Potter is out to score points against lefties but his hypothesis sure contains food for thought.

Solitude:I'm still holding on to my back up plan of being a cave-dwelling Zen master (or at least booking one of these silent retreats listed in Toronto Life) so Patagonia: Seeking Widsom in Extremes, A Year Alone in the Patagonia Wilderness is right up my ally. The guy only has one leg and he lived on an island off Chile for an entire year. I know you think that's awful enough but can you imagine living alone with your demons and none of the usual distractions of modern life (TV, Internet, 30% off sales at the Gap)? Zeus! I can't wait to read this.

The Rehearsal: Pop Fiction's Pick of the Month

2010-05-10T11:48:00.000-04:00

Happy Monday folks! Head on over to Eyeweekly.com (the online component of Toronto's alt weekly paper) to see what the Pop Fiction group (myself included) though of Eleanor Catton's The Rehearsal.

Catton was born in London, Ontario and is an astounding 24 years old. She's managed to write something quite original here.

The novel focuses on a sex scandal at an all-girls school and the drama troupe that decides to turn the story into their year-end production. And yeah, it gets a little bit sexy (as I'd hoped!).

Does Reading Do More Harm Than Good?

2010-05-06T17:30:00.003-04:00

The phrase "only boring people are bored" scares the sh*t out of me.

I mention this because I often read for the express purpose of avoiding boredom. Isn't reading supposed to be one of life's simple pleasures, not a way to kill time?

The thing is that very rarely is boredom just boredom. It's actually the brain's way of pretending to be indifferent to fear. So reading could be a way to suppress fear. This sounds like a terrible coping mechanism.

It just happens, though, that a lot of the unpleasantness in life can be delightfully sidestepped or at least ignored via picking up a book. It can tell smelly people on the subway to leave you alone. It can tell your roommate to leave you alone. It can buy you time on your lunch break to be left alone. Sometimes a person just wants to be left alone! To me this is less a crutch and more a necessity of being alive.

Or maybe the problem isn't boredom so much but transitions.

I know I'm not alone here. Change is awful. But the worst part isn't the change itself, it's getting there. One of my favorite bloggers, Penelope Trunk, also wrote about she can't tolerate transitions (the difference here is that she has Asperger's and I do not). She eats to get through transitions. I read. And on the scale of vices, I have to conclude that that's pretty inoffensive. So let's also chalk this up to coping with life's insanity/inanity.

[I often wonder at how similar these words are. People often seem to say that their schedules are "insane" and I'm often sure that they mean that their lives are cluttered up with inane details. I digress.]

To top off my fears that reading might be bad for me, The Book Bench seems to think I'm wasting my life by reading about it instead of experiencing it, though perhaps the injury is lessened if I'm reading literature as opposed to self-help books? I agree that books should not be lenses through which to experience reality in a simplistic and appropriated way. They should not be crutches. They should not be addictions. They should not be a replacement for living your life.

I'm starting to paint reading like it's akin to an internet addiction where you never leave your room and start peeing in a cup and eating chips from a 20lb bag while you're murmuring sweet nothings to your wicked gaming system. Nah.

But I agree with one thing, sometimes being immersed in books can feel an awful lot like avoiding making choices. And that's one worry I think I'll heed.

Columbine: Meticulously Researched, Disturbing & Rather Open-Ended

2010-05-04T07:45:00.010-04:00

Columbine happened over a decade ago now. Either I had successfully erased the coverage from my mind or perhaps in Canada we weren't bombarded as relentlessly with the story. Either way, reading this book was almost like experiencing the tragedy for the first time and boy was it disturbing.

One of the things I really loved about Methlandwas that it skillfully balanced horrific true-life stories of meth addicts with big picture discussion of how meth came to be so ingrained in the American Midwest.

Columbine plays out more like a true crime novel. It gives a blow by blow account of the killers' plans and exactly what transpired in the school that day. I ask you - do I need to know? Do I need to know who was hiding behind a table and then saw what person shot before their very eyes? Do I need to know how the killers committed suicide?

The book does delve into how the pairing of Eric (a full blown psychopath, charming yet deceitful with no capacity for empathy) and Dylan (a suicidally depressed kid) was lethal. As for their home life, Cullen refuses to speculate as little is known (in particular about Eric's parents, who have never spoken to the press).

Columbine also briefly looks at the school's dynamics. Although it was headed up by a very capable and beloved principal, the kids tended to present their most winning sides to him, while the real truth of their lives was concealed. In a mega school of thousands this wouldn't be hard. It's also a misconception that Eric and Dylan were outcasts looking for revenge. The reality is that they had a wide circle of friends and that they tended to do the bullying.

It's also mentioned that gun laws weren't as tight in the 90's. Arms could easily be purchased at gun shows by anyone over the age of 18 and without a background check.

The book presents us with the evidence and ultimately leaves it to us to decide what went wrong. I think what I was looking for, though, was a broader discussion on why school shootings happen with such terrifying frequency in the US. Though it does mention other shootings briefly, Columbine left me with the impression that Dylan and Eric's crime was an isolated case caused largely by mental instability. I just don't believe that's all there is to it. Does there need to be more support for kids' mental health? Should high schools be smaller to allow for individual attention? I hope to find a book that addresses these questions (suggestions welcome!).

Columbine/ Dave Cullen / Twelve (Hachette) / PB, 2010

On Eschewing Intellectual Stimulation for Titillation...Sookie-Style

2010-05-03T08:30:00.001-04:00

I am very sorry that I consigned the Sookie Stackhouse series to vacation reading. I have seriously devalued the pleasure of escapist reading and for that I have read far too many books that have forgotten that they should be a pleasure to read, not just a showpiece for the author's intelligence (or ego).

I read the first novel in the Sookie Stackhouse series, Dead Until Dark, last summer when I spent five days in New York desperately trying to combat my over stimulation from snowballing into a panic attack. At night, stuffed into a tiny hotel room that looked onto a door-less courtyard, I was much taken my Sookie's feistiness, sense of humour and ability to attract buff dudes to her person. Fluffy, light, fun, full of personality and charged with eroticism, I had found a friend in the Sookie Stackhouse books.

Then I came back to Toronto and it was business at usual.

When in Tulum the week before last I gave myself full permission to tackle books two and three, Living Dead In Dallasand Club Dead. Living Dead In Dallaswas fun to read simply to spot the differences between it and season two of the show True Blood. In the book Lafayette dies, Maryanne is mentioned but her storyline is not developed, and Jason doesn't get mixed up in the scary vampire-killing church.

Club Deadis extremely thin on plot so Alan Ball's going to have to work some magic on the storyline in season three (coming this June! squeeee!). The only really good thing about this book is that Eric (hello gorgeous!) is hot and heavy on Sookie's trail and that's exactly where I want to see him.

[Have I mentioned yet that Harris writes a solid sex scene? At one point she refers to male parts as "Mr. Happy" which is atrocious but other than that you'll be wishing to take a cold shower just as many times as Sookie does.]

The shapeshifter character that Sookie gets (somewhat romantically) mixed up with in Jackson, Alcide, is a real chestnut. Sookie's insistence that she wants a real man, one that's rugged, overprotective and financially well-endowed, elicited a ton of eye rolling from me. For a series that champions the gay rights, this definition of a "real man" seemed totally backwards to me.

And now? I'm reading book four, Dead To The World. Is it amazing lazy Saturday morning reading? You damn well betcha. Escapist fluff, I thee (once again) love.

Sunshine is Happiness (I Have Six Books Read To Prove It)

2010-04-30T08:30:00.002-04:00

"Canada - all that winter! Why would you do that to yourself?" said Martin, our deeply tanned and twitchy host at Posada Luna del Sur in Tulum, Mexico. He would know. He's a native of Montreal.

We were sitting on the rooftop patio, shaded by a thatched grass roof. It was a formidable 30-something degrees celsius. The azure sky yawned above us. The air was as thick and delicious as a sun-kissed, sea-lashed soup. I had a Sol in one hand and not two connecting thoughts to rub together.

But I like winter, I reminded myself lazily. In the distance, the local deluded rooster (with questionable cicadian rhythms) belted out a sound as absurd as the idea that I love freezing my nuts off three quarters of the year.

As absurd as the idea that books should always be challenging, different, exceptional.

I read six books while away that week. I'm a little bit smug about that fact. It's not like I was reading Tolstoy but I spanked my To Read pile and it felt like nothing at all. An easy conquest. But not too easy. Perfect. Here's what I read:

Boldface Names: Shinan Govani is the National Post's gossip columnist. I got exactly what I was expecting with his first novel - tons o'name dropping, jet-setting, party attendance, frippery and general fluff. What I didn't expect was for the novel to read like an extended column - the whole thing is written in quips. This can be endearing (the term "lychee martini socialist") or infuriating (every piece of banter with his beard of a wife, Rory). There are occasional nods to Truman Capote-eque wit, like his horror at a brain dead socialite confusing Sudan with Sundance and admitting that it takes real work to keep stupidity at bay. However, the whole thing is lighter than air and a touch too saccharine. Thank God Govani keeps the plot moving, however thin it may be, and you have to give him credit for that.

Misery: Aptly named. I was miserable reading this piece of work. You can say whatever you want about its commentary on the price of fame or the changing relationship between author and reader, you can tell me that it's a brilliant portrait of a tormented mind and of the hunted becoming the hunter, you can tell me that Stephen King is a master of suspense, GO AHEAD, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't want to read a book about someone being tortured! This book succeeded only in grossing me out. There I was, in paradise, reading about a sick chick bashing some guy's kneecaps out for the fun of it! Brilliant!

An Education: Lynn Barber's story was once mine, though I wasn't conned nor was anyone else. Funnily enough, neither the film nor the book struck a chord with me. Barber's early relationship with older con man Simon takes up only the first part of the book and her attitude towards it is deliberately distant and disinterested. More attention is paid to her vibrant writing career (she wrote for Penthouse and Vanity Fair, among others) and her relationship with her beloved husband. It's inspiring to read about a woman who dedicated her life to being herself, and that alone, but the memoir is rather terse and can feel impersonal. Still, you'll read it in an afternoon and I don't think you'll regret it.

More to come....

Where's B?

2010-04-16T08:00:00.012-04:00

Don't you love that the only photo I have of myself on a beach was shot in Yellowknife, NWT??

Going from the frigid north to the sun-kissed south. Yes, I'll be spending next week in Tulum, Mexico.

I couldn't be more excited about this prospect as the past few weeks have been exceptionally busy and complicated. I'm emotionally spent. Time to refuel. Time to read some trashy-trash and just be B (albeit on a white sand beach).

On the list: my Sookie Stackhouse box set and Shinan Govani's Boldface Names. Thanks to all of you who replied to my Twitter plea for vacation reading recommendations! I loved your diverse choices, many of which made my TPL holds list.

I'm taking the week off from posting next week but expect me to be back full force April 27th!

-B

Don't Sleep There Are Snakes: The Author Loses His Faith and Gains Meaning

2010-04-13T08:30:00.004-04:00

Dan Everett originally moved to live with the Piraha, a remote Amazonian tribe situated in central Brazil, to try to convert them to Christianity. He eventually spent 30 years with them, learning their language and studying their culture. In the end he gained profound insight into their society but lost his faith and many of his friends and family in the process.

This book is divided into three sections - the first contains Everett's observations as to how the Piraha live, their world view, customs etc. This is the most interesting section. For example, the Piraha don't have words for colour! Nor do they have a number system or a creation myth and they don't talk about or believe in anything that occurs outside of their direct experience (this includes abstract concepts like numbers, colours). And it so happens that the Piraha are some of the happiest people Everett has encountered in his wide travels!

Everett postulates that because the Piraha are not culturally conditioned to concern themselves much with the past or future and also because they are culturally conservative and do not crave the experiences and objects of other cultures and also because they are so naturally confident in their their ability to survive in the jungle, they do not suffer from the worry and existential crises that plague other societies.

Ultimately Everett found religion to be nothing but "elegant theorizing" - a desire for humans to simplify their experience. The Piraha are pragmatic; they are happy without absolute truths. God for them is living, breathing, dying. Ultimately, don't you think that's all there is? And that there could be freedom in just that? I think so. I agree with Everett absolutely.

I found the section on linguistics a bit too technical for my liking but if you skim it (like I did) you'll still find much food for thought. Be prepared firstly to have your assumptions about so-called "primitive" societies vs. "advanced" societies mightily challenged.

Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle/ Daniel L. Everett / Pantheon Books / PB, 2009

To Be Read: Off the Grid, Inside the Subculture of Off-Grid Living

2010-04-12T07:30:00.000-04:00

From the Publisher: Off the Grid, Nick Rosen traveled from one end of the United States to the other, spending time with all kinds of individuals and families striving to live their lives the way they want to-free from dependence on municipal power and amenities, and free from the inherent dependence on the government and its far-reaching arms. While the people profiled may not have a lot in common in terms of their daily lives or their personal background, what they do share is an understanding of how unique their lives are, and how much effort and determination is required to maintain the lifestyle in the face of modern America's push toward connectivity and development.

My Thoughts: I spied this gem in a catalogue and was intrigued. Rosen runs the website Off-grid.net. I've been interested in downsizing and thriftiness and while I'm not sure I could live without running water and electricity I think we could all learn something from the self-reliance and resourcefulness these off-griders exhibit. Check out this video intro to off-grid living from the site. Warning: I tried to find a non-crunchy person speaking about their off-grid experience but it appears granola crunchiness comes with the territory so put your pointing finger away.

Off the Grid / Nick Rosen / Penguin / OTPB, August 2010

What Do We Think of This?

2010-04-08T08:19:00.001-04:00

I was walking through Indigo (our national bookstore chain) the other day and I spied the above cover.

"Interesting," I thought. "Who's it by? Oh. It's what....wait, what?? No...!"

I don't remember Fugitive Pieces ever getting such an upmarket chick lit makeover. This new paperback cover of The Winter Vaultis gorgeous but also hello, so so different from the jacket in hardcover.

Can't remember whether the author photo was also an upgrade. I joke.

I know that the running wisdom is that the paperback goes after a different market and so should have a different vibe. However, the running wisdom also happens to be that if the hardcover sells really well, you don't mess with a good thing and you keep the same jacket aside from a minor formatting tweak or two.

My conclusion? The hardcover didn't sell so hot. Time to get the moms and ladies who lunch on board.

Also, who is this on the cover? Jean? What is the significance - woman looks haunted while holding pretty flower? Does there need to be significance?

And what is up with the new look of these upmarket chick lit books? Add one part glossy magazine-esque shot of a woman in profile, some opulent flowers and perhaps a touch of ethnic lettering or other such reference to give it an escapist vibe.

I don't hate this cover. Quite the contrary. But if you read my review you'll know that this book is no sweet piece of romanticism. And the cover says otherwise methinks.

What do you say - yay or nay?

I'm Down: It's Black, It's White / It's Tough For You / To Get By

2010-04-06T07:40:00.011-04:00

Mishna Wolff, a former model, now a writer, had an unusual childhood. Not only did she grow up in a poor black suburb of Seattle, but her dad, white as the day is long, believed he was black as well.

Mischna was the product of two hippie parents who moved back into her father's parents former house in the Rainier Valley area. Within a year her father had cut and permed his hair, developed an obsession with sneakers and joined an all-black men's club. A divorce was not far behind and Mishna and her sister began to navigate life alone with dad.

The memoir is partly a look at the general cruelty (albeit really funny cruelty) of kids. Following the divorce Mishna is put into a summer day camp where she is the only white child. The kids torment her until she learns the essential skill of "capping" i.e. rolling off really great one-liners. An example: "Your mama's so lazy, Jesus will come back before she finishes your hair" (to a girl with only a half head of cornrows).

Mishna's experiences also highlight the specific values of these poor neighborhoods. Mishna and her friends are often left to fend for themselves. As she describes it, many parents in the neighborhood saw their kids as channel changers and beer fetchers. Mischna's sister is caught smoking by her teacher at the worldly age of five. When Mishna gets in a fight all her dad asks is, "Did you let her know?" i.e. did you take her out.

I guess the knee jerk reaction would be horror but the fact of the matter is that this is a culture where children aren't coddled by overprotective helicopter parents. The children are treated like adults, not hapless tadpoles.

However, these values can prevent "getting out." Misha, who is sent to a school for gifted children at her mother's insistence, tries again and again to get her father to take her academics and extracurricular activities seriously. Instead, he insists on enrolling her in ever sport known to man including track, basketball and swimming, which all threaten to eat into her homework time.

For the other children in the neighborhood, sports is seen overwhelmingly to be the only way to escape from the cycle of poverty (ex. basketball or hip hop dancing). Because Mischa is unable to perform well at sports she begins to suffer anxiety attacks. Even though she's intelligent, she's given no indication at home that this gift is of any use.

I can't recommend this hilarious, insightful and well-written memoir enough. I read it, no joke, in 24 hours. While Mishna's relationship with her father is aggravating as it highlights some of the more self-fulfilling values of impoverished families, his love and support for her become just as apparent. A wonderful portrayal of both family dynamics and racial prejudice.

Im Down: A Memoir/Mishna Wolff / St. Martin's Press / HC, 2009 (PB out in June 2010)

Booklicious Blogs & Other Brain Candy

2010-04-05T08:30:00.004-04:00

In honour of Jesus' resurrection I'd like to shake things up at this old popsicle stand and mention a few blogs that I really love.

A couple of weeks ago I really trimmed the fat and deleted anything on my Google Reader list that I wasn't actually reading. You know those blogs, the ones you think you should be reading because they balance out the frippery of the 10 blogs you subscribe to about flower arranging or monogrammed towels. In my mind I wasn't a philistine by virtue of my really weighty reading list. I think I've now mucked out my little hovel of ego sufficiently and from now on I'm going to pass along recs for blogs that I actually read:

The Awl: Maud Newton writes for The Awl so seriously, what are you doing reading this pile of crapola? Run by a couple of PO'd former Gawker editors, The Awl is an amazing compedium of political and pop culture commentary with some plain old wackiness thrown in, like a guide to cooking brisket like a proper self-loathing Jew.

The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee: Yeah, you read that right. This is cat porn for the uber cat lover (or lover of all things fuzzy and wuzzy). These cats are so frickin' awesome! I want to tickle their little toes until...oh wait, that's my inside voice getting out. Yeah. Sweet cat photos. Whateves.

The Book Guru: Lindsey's taste tends more towards YA and vampire-lit than mine but I look forward to reading her thoughtful commentary nonetheless. She just wrapped up a great series called Books With Impact that highlights issue-based YA titles that really resonated with her. She also features Canadian genre authors like Rob Sawyer and since genre writing doesn't get a lot of traditional press, good on her!

Sally Jane Vintage: Sally Jane (possibly her real name) runs an Etsy store that sells vintage clothes. She also runs a blog profiling her latest outfits and it's not hopelessly grabby and tacky like some home grown fashion bloggers. These lady-like outfits are timeless, muted and refreshingly laid back.

I Heart Monster: Focuses on big budget YA titles. I don't really read YA but I am secretly in love with their splashy cover art and outsized concepts. I Heart Monster profiles everything that's new and upcoming in a brilliant bite-size format. Reading this blog is my guilty pleasure. Sweet, sweet candy.

Do you have a blog recommendation for me? Comment below!

American Nerd: I'm Sick of Nerdiness Being the New Cool Thing Right Now

2010-04-01T07:42:00.010-04:00

I'm not really a textbook nerd. I'm not great with gadgets, I'm not really into video games or role playing or comics and while I'm fairly obsessed with computers, I haven't achieved nerd-level proficiency. That said, in high school I used to think that I was THE nerd. I had tragic fashion sense, I delighted in writing essays that were two or three times the assigned length and I was a member (or head!) of every club that didn't involve sports.

According to Benjamin Nugent, author of American Nerd, I'm not really one but rather because I have uncool tendancies, I've been lumped in with the nerds. The classic nerd is usually male and possesses and intellect and bodily movements that strike people as machinelike. He tends to embrace activities that don't involve emotion or physical activity and yes these do include: sex, sports, food, acting, interior decorating, knitting etc.

Nugent also argues that certain races are designated as nerdy, most notably Asians (while Africans, which are stereotyped as being a "sensual" race, are the anti-nerd). With the influx of immigrants in the early twentieth century, WASPs developed convenient racial stereotypes in order to differentiate themselves from this "other." Jews and Asians were both categorized as nerds and therefore other. Thus, American schools began to prize physical fitness (hence the rise of the phys ed class) as essential to a good education and claimed it as part of an essential WASP upbringing (hence the importance of sports at universities even such as Harvard).

As you can see, there are tons of delicious, food-for-thought tidbits in this book. I won't spoil it for you but I would like to dig into one of the chapters that really interested me, the one on The Cool Nerd, i.e. the Hipster. AGHH. The Boomer generation was defined by being eclectic, by embracing making art AND money at the same time, by being increasingly urban and worldy. How does one rebel against such a thing? The answer is purity. The hipster is pure old-school - the Pabst Blue, the plaid shirts, the facial hair, the desire to make an armoire from scratch.

The hipster often works in the media and as we all know, or at least I do, accompanying a media job is a constant fear of being IRRELEVANT. What, you don't know about that new social media trend? That hot new place to get Japanese izakaya? How to wear a belt so that it perfectly cinches your oversized shirt? You've seriously never listened to NPR's This American Life? Get with it! And hey, nice new black frames.

The nerd is anti-trend. He or she has obsessions that are viewed by hipsters as authentic i.e. no trend is going to dictate to the nerd whether to play D&D, he or she either loves it or not and plays it regardless of how hip it is. Thus, the hipster assumes the posture of the nerd (bizarre hobbies like making dioramas, clothes like shawl cardigans). But, and you could see this coming from a mile away, a hipster is not a nerd.

I won't spoil any more for you but for all you nerds and wanna be nerds out there, read this book. It's an authentic nerdy experience.

American Nerd: The Story of My People/ Benjamin Nugent / Simon and Schuster / PB, 2009

The Carnivore: Why Two People Who Hate Each Other Would Stay Together Finally Makes Sense To Me

2010-03-30T07:39:00.012-04:00

Mary and Ray Townes of Mark Sinnet's The Carnivore are happily married but in October of 1954 an event changes their lives forever (or as I see it, exposes these two for who they really are). I was not aware of this but apparently there was a hurricane, Hurricane Hazel, that really did blast through the city of Toronto in that year, resulting in flash floods that killed 81 people, destroyed possessions and left thousands homeless.

Ray is a cop and Mary is a nurse and separately they work that night to save and heal the people affected by the disaster. Ray is cheating on Mary with another woman but when push comes to shove (*wink*) he's more eager to get rid of her than his loins seem to think. Mary inevitably finds out about this transgression and when she suffers a loss soon after she blames Ray completely for her suffering.

The book flips back and forth between that fateful night in 1954 and its surrounding days and a period of time closer to the end of their lives. Yes, despite all the pain they've caused each other Ray and Mary have chosen to stick it out.

The Carnivore is not particularly strong in some areas - I found the language plain, the characters a bit stereotypical (gruff husband with the wandering eye, self-pitying wife who tries to keep the home fires burning), and the comparison between Hazel's destruction and the turbulence of their marriage too transparent. What it does do well is navigate the subtleties of a troubled marriage.

I was really skeptical as to whether The Carnivore could adequately explain to me why two people would stay together even if they hate each other, even if all they have to say upon the other's death is, "Good, he is gone." But, there's a beautiful passage at the end that really got to the heart of the matter:

No two people can hate each other continuously for fifty years and stay together. There were times when it just didn't seem worth the energy that it required. And other times when he was considerate and devoted...I also remember rare moments when Ray and I caught each other's eye across a quiet room and regarded each other knowingly, regretfully, before burying ourselves once more in a book or the television or a whiskey or a chardonnay or, more often, in the deep wormy mess our marriage had become...

The reason people stay together isn't entirely because they're afraid of risk, it's also because nothing is bad 100% of the time. A marriage, even a sub-par one, has highs and lows and Mary and Ray found they could tolerate their hatred of each other because life's inconstancy would force them away from that hatred every so often.

People have told me that they really dislike Ray but I equally disliked both of them. Adultery is unfortunate but it doesn't have to be a deal breaker; a couple, through plenty of honest communication, can move past it. The central problem of Ray and Mary's relationship is a complete lack of honesty and both are equally guilty on this count. No book before this one quite convinced me how completely unproductive the blame game is and how enmeshed love, hate, regret, despair and complacency can be in even the most ordinary of relationships.

The Carnivore / Mark Sinnett / ECW Press / HC, 2009

Note: I received a copy of The Carnivore from ECW in exchange for an honest review.

I Am Not a Target Market: Every Man Is a Snowflake...

2010-03-26T08:30:00.000-04:00

Earlier this year I reviewed The Time Traveler's Wife and tagged it "women's fiction." You, you wonderful readers, cried foul. What a crock it is that men read just hurly-burly treatises about manly men or dry tomes about the state of the global economy!

So I talked to booksellers. Regular, everyday readers. Authors. Critics. What have you. And now I've come back to you a month later and I can't say, well MEN are this, this and this. Men are not a species, they don't have some Dollhouse-esque hive mind. Each man is a snowflake, unique and special. Clearly, I've just come back from Sociable and had some wine. In all seriousness, though, the best part of this series was talking to people, not men, and hearing about the books that spoke to them, even to the point where they wanted to tattoo it on their body.

On the other hand, men are not women. They've been socially conditioned to "man up", to not share their feelings to the extent that women are and they don't face the same pressure to give and not expect to receive.

This social conditioning has ramifications for how men read. Men are less inclined to join book clubs, especially fiction book clubs, as this would involve some discussion of the inner lives of the characters and anyway, I would agree with Adam that talking about books with other guys is generally viewed as nerdy.

A large proportion of the guys I interviewed love science fiction/fantasy (Eric Roundtree, Mike Astbury, Robert Wiersema, Adam and Nick certainly did). Classic SFF tends to focus on world building, battle techniques and intellectual ideas concerning forms of society/government, not relationships. If discussed at all, it can be a safe way to communicate without seeming "weepy", if you know what I mean.

I'm reading American Nerdright now. It says that the classic Type I nerd is a man who is more comfortable functioning mechanically rather than emotionally. He wishes he could communicate in Morse Code as it is less ambiguous and more functional. And society punishes him for being less than human, even though this way of operating is comfortable and natural for him.

I'm not saying that all men who love SFF or less emotional works are Type I nerds but it does give you a sense of why men find non-fiction or genre fiction more appealing. Whether this is natural or a result of social conditioning or a little of both I don't know.

August pointed out in one of the comments that men feel pressure to be functional and since DIY culture and Thoreau-esque manliness seems to be coming back in style, this pressure will only increase. Thus, if men read they read practically and tend not to discuss it since, as Adam said, reading is perceived as "nerdy" i.e. not practical. This would explain why Brian Harvey said that boys usually only visit libraries when accompanied by girls and that a larger ratio of women borrow books than men.

However, I'm not so sure this situation is ideal, most of all for men themselves. In Norah Vincent's Self-Made Man, she describes situating herself in a monastery disguised as a man. Without the presence of women to ease conversation (and terrified about inviting homosexual advances) the men rarely discussed their inner emotional lives. They suffered crippling depression and loneliness.

Still, men don't appear to be turning to female writers, they still prefer books by male authors. As August said, "...I need a male view of maleness. Like anybody, I need to look in a book and see myself." A man has first hand experience in relating to men. It's entirely possible that with a female author a man could feel that, as Adam said about Laurell K. Hamilton, "That woman has no idea what men are really like."

It also appears that guys involved in the publishing/literary community are more likely to read fiction (Brian Harvey professed to read only 10% non-fiction). The fact is, men are more likely to read fiction and discuss it if it's their job. Talking about your job is practical, useful, necessary, dare I say manly. When I talked to men who didn't work in publishing, like Adam, well, he just didn't talk about books at all, nor did he feel he could talk to women about books.

What's the conclusion here? Well, even though I was able to tease out a couple of ideas above, what I really learned is that men are reading more broadly than I'd originally imagined and this could be a lesson for publishers. As Mike Astbury said about their gender specific marketing campaigns, "...this is a missed opportunity." Books tend to be "for chicks" or "for dudes" and then there's literary fiction, which is supposedly for both, though we're often told that few people read it.

The truth is, it takes all types, and often any one book can appeal to any one person. If publishers would think more broadly about target markets and try a more inclusive approach in their marketing efforts and if schools and parents encouraged a wide range of reading in boys, perhaps men would feel more apt to discuss fiction, to try female writers, and to wander into the library a bit more often.

I Am Not a Target Market: Questions for Nick, Age Almost-12

2010-03-24T07:44:00.005-04:00

Not only are there few men in my life but I don't know any children either. I live a fairly childless existence (my cat is all I can handle, probably ever) but the truth is, I love kids because their attitude towards life is largely BS-free. You ask a child a question and he or she gives you a straight answer. Try to find an adult who'll do that. So I thought, in our last week of the series exploring the habits of the modern male reader, that we should see how and what young men are reading.

Marci (of Serendipitous Readings) to the rescue! Her son Nick is more of a young adult than a kid and he's a voracious reader, just like his mom. Nick kindly sat down last week to answer a few of my questions and here's what he had to say:

B: Tell us about yourself!

I am 11 (almost 12) years old, I live in the Niagara Region (Ontario) with my mom who rocks. I enjoy playing my Xbox, playing soccer, road hockey, playing with my friends, and; learning about Russia (my latest obsession).

B: Are you a big reader?

Whenever I get the chance I love to read. I have my own bookshelf which is becoming filled with the books I love.

B: When do you get time to read?

I read at school, at home, traveling. I like going to bookstores looking for other books I could be interested in and wanting my mom to buy for me.

B: What types of books do you like?

I like History books, mostly nonfiction books, they talk about facts about what I am reading, and if I am passionate about (like Russia) I can talk about them to people I come into contact with. I also occasionally read fiction. Non fiction appeals more to me.

B: What's your favorite book/author and why?

Tom Clancy's End War - kind of a futuristic book, with the world collapsing between three different areas of the world, going back in time, the wording that the author uses as well as the detailing. Marci adds: War is another obsession, he wants to join the military when he is old enough and after that become a police officer, he other obsession is guns, if he watches a show on TV, a gun is shown he has this uncanny ability to know what the gun is exactly.

B: Do you go to the library to get your books, do you get them from school or do you get your mom to buy them?

I occasionally go to the library to get books, I have gotten most of them through my schools library, and also my mom buys them for me, or I receive review copies to look at, which I review on my mom’s book blog.

B: What kind of books do you not like to read at all?

That is kind of hard to say right now, I am still searching for new books all of the time that I would like or would appeal to me.

B: Why do you like reading?

I like reading because it helps me with what I need to know in class or in the future, to go to different places around the world and learn about. It makes me think, getting into what I am reading, going beyond the book, thinking about things I never thought of before.

Thanks Nick! Aaaand that's a wrap, folks. A final post will be up later this week that takes a look at I've learned from the men who've appeared here over the past month. Until then...!

I Am Not a Target Market: Questions for Mr. Adam

2010-03-23T07:44:00.009-04:00

On hiatus last week, my series on the modern male reader is back and kicking. We've heard from guys from Nova Scotia to BC, guys who are booksellers, author or critics and guys who love science fiction or literature and everything in between.

In this final week I wanted to step outside my happy but slightly insular circle of trust, yes that would be the very vocal Canadian publishing/authoring/ critiquing community, and ask a few guys who like to read but who don't work in books (and some Christly digging it took too). A note of introduction for our first installment: Adam just happens to be married to book blogger Lindsey of The Book Guru AND he is totally hilarious so please, please do yourself a favor and read this.

B: Tell us a bit about yourself!

Adam. Service Manager for a plastics auxiliary equipment/Robots/Automation company. Age: 29, location: Orillia, Ontario, Canada.

B: How often do you read and when do you find the time?

Mostly just before bed time. Books can have a strong sedative power over me and it helps me wind down from a busy day.

B: What's your favourite author/book? What do you like about it? Do you tend to read fiction or non-fiction?

My favorite author has to be Terry Pratchett. My tastes tend to run towards the cynical and he has it in spades. Accompanied by humour it makes for a good read which keeps me chuckling with smug inner satisfaction. Generally authors like Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Charles Stross resonate with me as they take common situations and cultural acceptances that we deal with every day, and by simply placing them into a sci-fi or fantasy setting, reveal how these every day occurrences and phenomena truly grind against our inner common sense.

I'm all about the sci-fi/fantasy genres. I am also a secret and somewhat guilty subscriber to the Black Library series of books which I always tell Lindsey is my "Nora Roberts" of man books.

B: Do you discuss the books you read with others (other guys, your spouse etc.)?

Guys don't discuss anything ever. We still have an inner 12 year old that thinks books are for nerds. Sorry ladies it's how it is. Exceptions can be books about surviving in a jungle on grit and steely manliness, and books about The Zombie Apocalypse.

Discussing books with Lindsey is not often particularly rewarding as she cannot find the simple beauty in genetically engineered space marines fighting for the glory of the Imperium of Man and I cannot understand why she would give a damn about sparkling angst-filled vampires.

B: What's the biggest misconception about men and reading?

Generally men tend to read about stories containing elements of conflict, strife, and vengeance as overall themes. We like stories that often focus on big ideas and the conflicts that arise from them. We like stories on a grander scale and not so much focused on one person or a personal story. While women often like stories around romance, love, forgiveness and acceptance. Men use these elements as simply a part of the overall story and not as the central element of the story itself. It still doesn't explain why she is on Team Jacob though.

Go Team Jacob! No, just kidding. I'm team Eric from True Blood. Hello! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this Q&A. Adam, you're a funny dude! OK, so this is a pretty poor wrap up so I'll just tell you that we have 11 year old Nick with us tomorrow. Be there or be octagonal.