Notes from a volcanic island or my Icelandic saga (with books of course) . . .

I'm back from my hiking holiday in Iceland and honestly, put a visit to this country on your "to-do" list. It is so incredibly beautiful - the landscape seems to change every ten minutes, you'll never breathe crisper, fresher air or drink more delicious tap water. This is an island that is completely alive; where else can you witness the earth spewing, spurting, steaming, bubbling, ripping itself apart - it's all quite sexy really. It never gets fully dark during the summer so we were taking walks in full daylight at 11pm which was an awesome experience. And it meant I didn't need to turn on a reading lamp the entire trip. I didn't sleep much, but who would want to? When I wasn't outside, I was immersed in the books I'd brought (and bought) - only Nordic literature, I decided, would do for this trip.

I began with a day in Reykjavik and took Iceland's most famous contemporary author with me to read by the sea (in the background is Mt. Esja which majestically looms above the capital city; on my last full day, I climbed it). Hallador Laxness's Independent People is the book that helped him win the Nobel Prize in 1955 and it's a moving look at the harsh and poverty-stricken lives of one farming family at the end of the 19th century and into the modern era. Bjartur of Summerhouses is so determined to be his own independent man, to own his own land and sheep, that he turns a blind eye to the needs of his family with tragic and heartbreaking results. It also turned out to be a novel that partly examined the effects of the First World War on the country. Iceland wasn't involved in a military aspect, but the war brought a period of huge prosperity to the island as the price and demand for lamb and wool rose. Alas, the economic boom didn't last forever and the last part of the novel follows the consequences of mis-timed greed. The book reminds me a little of the writing of Steinbeck and I'd also recommend it for fans of Martha Ostenso's Wild Geese for its portrayal of survival - the emotional isolation being as much of a challenge as the extreme weather conditions or the tough, physical work.

I can spend hours browsing in foreign bookstores. I love seeing which Canadian authors are stocked in other countries and it's also fun to compare the covers on different editions. In Iceland it was not a surprise to see Atwood, Munro and Ondaatje widely available, but quite nice to see Steven Galloway, Camilla Gibb, and Madeleine Thien displayed among them. There were three huge bookstores within a few blocks of each other near the downtown core of Rekyjavik. My favourite was Eymundsson which also had a cafe with delicious lattes and a lovely outside patio on its second floor (and open late!). There I picked up some more Icelandic literature - The Lodger and Other Stories by Svava Jakobsdottir and Trolls' Cathedral by Olafur Gunnarsson both of which don't seem to be available for sale in North America but a few copies are available in libraries. The Trolls' Cathedral, which was shortlisted for the IMPAC prize was a great follow-up to Independent People. Set in 1950s Rekyjavik, it is the story of a headstrong architect so determined to build his dream project - a large, modern department store complete with a "moving staircase" - that he exploits his friends, tears apart his family, particularly when his young son becomes the victim of violence, and spirals towards a second, devastating tragedy.

Next, for something a little different, I kept to a Nordic theme, but jumped countries to Finland. Tove Jansson's The Summer Book doesn't seem to be available for sale in Canada (though older editions are available in libraries), but if you are anywhere else in the world, you can probably pick up NYRB's lovely re-issue. This is a very special book. It's a series of vignettes that take place on a small island in the Gulf of Finland where six year old Sophia, who has recently lost her mother, spends her summers with her father and grandmother. The father is just a shadow character, only casually referred to, and always out fishing or working at his desk. The real relationships explored are between Sophia and her grandmother; the young child slowly discovering new life lessons and the elderly woman accepting her approaching death and reflecting on her life. However, this is definitely not a saccharine story - there are temper tantrums and grudges, pain and resentment, along with the love and learning. Jansson's beautiful prose and her minute descriptions of nature and weather as pointers towards contemplating the larger philosophical questions of life, make this great cottage reading, and is the perfect choice for a long, languorous, Scandinavian summer night.

Finally, I can't resist posting a few photos of the highlights of my trip (culled from 1200 photos taken in all - digital cameras have made snap-happy maniacs of us all). I both started and ended my trip with a visit to the Blue Lagoon, which uses natural geo-thermal heated water to create this incredibly relaxing soaking experience. That' s not chlorine that makes the water so blue, but natural minerals. You can give yourself a wonderful silicia mudmask facial.

My favourite day of hiking was in the Landmannalauger area. Stunning, surreal scenery. Honestly, why so many fans of Lord of the Rings are flocking to New Zealand is beyond me: this after all, was Tolkien's true inspiration. (And I kept expecting Viggo Mortensen or Orlando Bloom to show up on a horse). After hiking three hours in these hills and through snow at times, we got into our bathing suits and soaked in another hot spring stream. Soaking in water seems to be Iceland's national sport - an absolutely brilliant way to pass the time.

Then we did a hike to Thingvellir, the site of Icelandic gatherings for centuries (if you've read any of the sagas, the characters are always riding to it). What is incredible about the landscape around this magical place, is the rifts that you see in this picture. Our guide called them "Mother Earth's stretch marks". This is the only part of the world where the plate tectonics that separate Europe from North America are visible above the sea. These plates are still moving apart from each other a few millimetres every year, so one is literally crossing from one continent to another. Mind-boggling.

Then it was a beautiful walk along the coast on the Snaefellsnes Penisula. This photo can't convey how utterly blue and clear that water was.

I ended my trip with a few more days to explore Rekyjavik. One of the highlights was visiting The Culture House which nicely exhibited the country's past (with its display of medieval saga manuscripts - incredible how they've lasted this many centuries given the Icelandic weather), the recent present (an exhibit of Hallador Laxness's photographs), and the future (an amazing look at the continuing development of the island of Surtsey, created after a three year volcanic eruption in the 1960s).

Of course I had to check out the public library, shown here. It also houses the Museum of Photography - what should be on display, but an exhibit of photos by none other than Viggo Mortensen!

It's All About the Cats

I’m on vacation for the next two weeks and because I’ve done so much traveling this year already, I’ve decided to stay close to home, doing some day trips and working in my garden. Besides, I’ve finally convinced my cats to forgive me from ‘abandoning’ them for the ten days I spent in Vancouver recently for an academic conference, and as Arthur Miller so famously wrote in his play Death of a Salesman ‘attention must be paid’. I suspect he had cats. So in honour of the furry critters that allow me to share their house, here are a few of my favourite cat books coming out this fall. I adore Nick Bruel’s books. The original Bad Kitty picture book was one of my picks and is a favourite with many children (and librarians) across Canada. Bad Kitty Gets A Bath is an illustrated chapter book that captures all of the humour and bad behaviour of the original book and it’s follow-up Poor Puppy. The narrator takes readers through all of the steps needed to get Bad Kitty (or any cat for that matter) into the tub, including preparations (run the bath, have first aid supplies handy), where to begin the search for Kitty, what to do when you’ve got her trapped in the bathroom, a glossary of common cat sounds and their meanings and lots of fun and educational facts about cats.
The picture above is my cat Mo, who is not a bad kitty, and who humoured me by posing in the tub for this picture. My other cat, Delaney, is the one I can see reacting poorly (i.e. violently) to a bath. She was mysteriously nowhere to be found at the time the picture was taken.

It could be argued that Katie Love the Kittens is technically a ‘dog’ book, since Katie is a dog, but there are enough cats in the book that I am counting as a cat book for this posting. Katie is a little dog who is SOO excited when her owner brings home three kittens, she can’t help but howl. Unfortunately her howling scares the kittens and she is told to leave them alone.
Katie is crushed- she has the best of intentions, and just wants to play after all. John Himmelman is the author of one of my favourite picture books from last year, Chickens to the Rescue. He has the ability to write a story kids will love, and also create detailed illustrations that capture in the simplest lines the emotions of the characters- the kitten’s fear, Katie’s dejection, and (my favourite) the page that depicts Katie trying to fight the urge to howl. This urge starts as a tail wag, and then moves to a full body wag before breaking through Katie’s clenched teeth. All ends well and the last page is hilarious- showing Katie playing with the kittens, who are no longer afraid and are showing that they’ve picked up Katie’s enthusiasm for playing.
I am confident that Wabi Sabi, a stunning new picture book by Mark Reibstein and Ed Young is going to win awards. Written in a mix of haiku and short text, it tells the story of a cat named Wabi Sabi, who sets off on a journey to discover the meaning of his name. Wabi Sabi is a Japanese phrase describing a view of finding beauty in imperfection, the impermanent and incomplete. This is a difficult concept to understand or describe, but Reibstein does so beautifully and simply through his text. The collage illustrations by Ed Young are incredible- I found myself touching the paper as the images are so clear the book feels as though the pages should be three dimensional. The illustrations and text are complemented by haiku written by famous Japanese poets, and are translated and explained in the author’s note at the end of the book. The book is done in a calendar style layout (the binding is at the top of the book and you flip the pages up rather than side to side) and the cover and interior pages are done in rough paper. Gorgeous!

O.K.- now back to the vacation! The kitties have already started...

Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears Wins Another Award!

For the second time in three years Emily Gravett has won the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal for outstanding illustration in a children's book! The book in question is Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears, which was also awarded the 2007 Nestle Children's Book Prize Bronze Medal.

Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears is set up like a journal in which a timid little mouse has recorded all of his fears-from loud noises and the dark, to getting lost (whereamiophobia). The book features a 'nibbled' die cut on the cover, a few (sturdy) flaps, and a great fold out map (The Visitors' Map of the Isle of Fright- which is an island in the shape of a mouse with such features as Mount Apprehension, Drymouth Bay and the town of Little Quiver and Great Wimp). Each time you look at the book you discover another detail in the illustrations.

Gravett is just brilliant, and I've loved each and every one of her books (pictured below). She is able to alternate between simple picture books (Orange, Pear, Apple, Bear, Monkey & Me, The Odd Egg ) and more complex picture books that are packed with innovative and detailed illustrations (Wolves, Meerkat Mail, Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears and the forthcoming Spells).

If you are an Emily Gravett fan, do check out her official website for some fun activities and downloads!

Greetings from Iceland

Only have a few moments online, but this is where I was today - hiking to an ancient glacier behind a glacial lake of deliciously cold, cold water. I'll post more photos later, but this is an extraordinary country, unlike any I´ve ever visited. I've been to Middle Earth and back today and the constantly changing topography is so incredible. Today we drove through the landscape of Njal's Saga and it gave me chills. Tomorrow we hike up to a snowfield in hats and mitts and then change into bathing suits to take a dip in geo-thermal pool.

Two delicious tales of marriage. . .

One of my favourite small presses is Other Press which has a great eye for spotting and publishing really good contemporary international writers and spending the time and money to translate them. We just became their new Canadian distributor this spring and I've really been impressed with the range and talent of their authors. I've been reading many of the new books that I have to sell, but a lot of their backlist is so tempting that I've been steadily making my way through it as well. Here are two wonderful summer reads - one old, one new - that make a really nice pairing as they both tackle the secrets, lies and betrayals within a marriage, although in very different ways.

I knew I would enjoy Françoise Dorner's The Woman in the Row Behind , translated by Adriana Hunter, when one of the quotes on the cover described the book as feeling, "like a riff on an early '60s film starring Catherine Deneuve". The book also won the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman - one of France's prestigious literary awards. But accolades aside, this is just a charming, comical read - even though it traces the destruction of a marriage. Nina helps run a newspaper kiosk with her humdrum husband Roger on the shady side of a Parisian street. She can't help but be intrigued as she watches her male customers furtively reading x-rated magazines, wondering what the appeal is . One day she buys a wig, a black trench coat and douses herself with an exotic perfume. She follows her husband into a movie theatre, sits behind him and, pretending to be a mysterious stranger, flirts with him provocatively. The trouble starts when Roger begins to fall in love with Nina's alter ego and as her jealousy (in essence of herself), grows, she procrastinates on telling him the truth. Nina's predicament is only enhanced by a neurotic mother, a self-obsessed friend going through a divorce with Nina's brother-in-law (who Roger suspects her of having an affair with), and an aching need to connect with the father she has never known. The novel is also very much about coping with death - but honestly, it's extremely funny.

Elizabeth Subercaseaux is a bestselling Chilean writer. Her first novel to be published in English is A Week in October, translated by Marina Harss, and coming out in early August. The novel is narrated in alternating chapters between the thoughts of Clara, a woman dying of cancer, who is reflecting on her life in a notebook, and the reactions to those journal entries by her husband who finds it tucked in a kitchen drawer and can't stop reading it. Among the surprises, he discovers that Clara has been having an affair with one of his colleagues and even more disconcerting - she knows all about the long-term affair he has been having. And then certain details in the journal pop up that he knows can't be true. So what is Clara up to? Is she playing mind games with him? Is this her form of revenge for his affair? And why is she leaving her journal in a kitchen drawer anyways? This compelling mystery drives the plot as the novel calls into question how little we know about the people closest to us and poignantly examines the nature of marriage and what really remains after so many years.

Read the first novel for a private chuckle and perhaps as a warning against taking personal fantasies too far; the second novel would make a fabulous bookclub choice.

#1 on my list of favourites

I first got hooked on the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series after hearing the author, Alexander McCall Smith, being interviewed on CBC Radio several years ago. Nine books later, I’m still a huge fan, and the lastest in the series, The Miracle at Speedy Motors, doesn’t disappoint. In fact I enjoyed it so much, I decided to go back to the beginning and read the whole series all over again, which I highly recommend doing. I think the books are even funnier the second time around.
It’s been almost ten years since the series began and I had forgotten many of the details about Precious Ramotswe’s childhood, her first marriage to jazz musician Note Makoti, and how she came to own a detective agency. I certainly hadn’t remembered that Mr. J.L.B Matekoni was married, and then widowed, before he met Mme Ramotswe.
My favourite character has always been Grace Makutsi, with her large spectacles, “difficult complexion”, crookedly braided hair, and 97% from the Botswana Secretarial College. Sometimes she can be quite tactless, but that’s why she’s so funny. I can also appreciate Mma Makutsi’s love of shoes, although I’ve never actually had a conversation with mine.
One of the things I enjoy most the about the books is the warm and supportive friendship between Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi, and my enthusiasm for The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency has also launched a wonderful friendship. One day I was in my local health food store contemplating their very large selection of tea and a woman standing close-by suggested that I try the bush tea. This comment led to a conversation about Precious Ramotswe, who absolutely loves bush tea. It turned out that my new acquaintance, Nancy, lives right across the street from me and now, a few years later, we’re still getting together to drink tea and talk about books. (P.S. Nancy loves The Miracle at Speedy Motors too).

1. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
2. Tears of the Giraffe
3. Morality for Beautiful Girls
4. The Kalahari Typing School for Men
5. The Full Cupboard of Life
6. In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
7. Blue Shoes and Happiness
8. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
9. The Miracle at Speedy Motors

Canadian WWI movie coming this fall. . .

This is my little souvenir from Book Expo Canada. I had a tiny Judy Garland moment, but singing "Dear Mr. Gross" doesn't have quite the same ring as "Dear Mr. Gable..." And of course I'm cherishing this signed photo purely out of my long-abiding interest in the various cultural and literary representations of WWI, and nothing at all to do with the actor in the uniform...

But seriously, Paul Gross was at the show to promote his fall movie Passchendaele which has just been chosen to open the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Gross stars in the movie which he also directed, produced and wrote the script for. It's a story close to his heart as his grandfather fought at Passchendaele and the movie is based on his experiences. You can read more and see scenes from the film at the movie's website. It looks very beautiful, haunting and powerful. The novelization of the movie will also be out in September.

But neither the movie poster or my black and white photo do justice to how very blue his eyes are. Just an observation. . .

Literary travel companions. . .

If you've got a vacation coming up to an exotic place, or you're just heading up to the cottage dreaming of exotic elsewheres, the Guardian has a great article in which writers suggest companion books to take to a variety of great travel spots around the world. You can read it here. It includes David Mitchell picking his favourite books for Japan, Julian Barnes evoking Sicily, Dave Eggers exploring literary Chicago and Colm Toibin taking on South America. Great summer reading suggestions abound.

As for me, I'm shortly taking off for a walking holiday in Iceland. And in preparation for the trip, here's what I'm currently reading/stuffing into my backpack:

I've long been wanting to read the novels of the Nobel prize-winning author Hallador Laxness - I'm in the middle of the wonderful Independent People a novel outlining in stark detail, the many decades in the life of a stubborn sheep farmer. I'm also going to try to read Iceland's Bell - an update of the traditional Icelandic sagas, some of which I studied in school.

For a frequently funny, and completely charming and original take on Iceland, I'm also reading Letters From Iceland by W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice. It's an engaging mishmash of poetry, prose, history and travel pieces, originally published in 1937. I'm on the hunt for a copy of Moon Country: Further Letters from Iceland by Simon Armitage and Glyn Maxwell, which is an updated homage to Auden and MacNeice, published in the 1990s, but it seems to be out of print.

When I chatted with Alberto Manguel at the recent CLA, he recommended Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth which takes place in an ancient Icelandic volcano. So it too goes into the pile.

And we've just signed up the terrific Icelandic crime writer Arnaldur Indridason. I've read and loved his previous book Silence in the Grave and next on the list is his latest, The Draining Lake.

One of things that attracted me about Iceland apart from all of its physical beauty, is its literary culture. It has the highest rate of literacy in the world and a thriving cultural and literary heritage. The country publishes more books per capita than even the United States. I've read that they are also huge coffee consumers too (maybe the two go hand in hand). Can't wait to check out the bookstores and libraries in Reykjavik. Stay tuned. . .

Canadian writer takes the IMPAC prize. . .

Congratulations to Rawi Hage and his novel De Niro's Game for winning one of the richest literary awards - the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, whose longlist comes from nominations by libraries around the world. (Hage's novel was originally championed by the Winnipeg Public Library). You can read more about the award, the shortlist and the longlist (great reading recommendations) at the IMPAC website. Here's a bit from the judges's citation:

Hage offers an explosive plot that is also effective as a meditation on war and its psychological cost. There is no easy resolution, no redemptive ending in this visceral account. There is, however, an uplifting and original lyricism to the writing, one where Hage’s imaginative flair fuses the present horror into passages of poetic intensity. The cadences of the Old Testament are there, as are angry Ginsbergian litanies as well as strong European echoes, especially of Camus’ The Outsider. Remarkably, a dark but rich sense of humour also surfaces in the narrator’s self-deprecating reflections.

Another book to add to the bedside table. . .

Trolling the aisles of the ivory bookfair. . .

For the last eight days I've been working a bookfair at the Congress - Canada' s largest academic conference - this year held at the University of British Columbia. Apart from getting a bout of food poisoning (I was trying to eat healthy, only to be felled by an organic fruit smoothie - what are the chances?), the conference went extremely well and I had many interesting conversations with professors and students from across Canada and around the world. One of the perks about working this gig is that I essentially get to live in a huge academic bookstore for a week and it's fun to troll the aisles and examine books you don't normally see on the shelves of your local independent.

Books published by academic presses (and small presses too - many of which were also on hand) are certainly not just for readers with multiple degrees. Yes, there are still a lot of books published on esoteric topics with titles and prose that are migraine-inducing, but university presses are also acquiring and marketing many of their books towards a general audience of inquisitive and intelligent readers and are just as likely to publish a book on graphic novels or innovative garden design as they are about the theories of Foucault. And these presses also have some of the best book and jacket designers in the industry - even some of their catalogues feel like works of art. It's worth checking them out if you like to read odd and quirky books. If you live in a city with a good university bookstore - browse their shelves. Or check out the websites of academic presses - many of them have regular e-mail newsletters that you can sign up for to learn about new books in the areas you are interested in. As a small example of the many treasures that are available, here's what I picked up this week:

My first stop at the Congress is always to Broadview Press. They publish very good scholarly editions of classics with great supplementary essays and historical appendixes. They are also terrific at finding long-lost gems, particularly of women's writing. I will always be grateful to them for bringing Francis Marion Beynon's First World War novel, Aleta Dey, back into print. This year I picked up a new edition of Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies, edited by Richard Kelly. I've long wanted to read this Victorian children's book, which according to one of the book's blurbers is for, "everyone who has an interest in the exuberant, eclectic, ecological and erotic aspects of Victorian literature". I also bought Suffragette Sally, a 1911 novel written by Gertrude Colmore and edited by Alison Lee. The novel follows three British women, each from a different class, as they fight for the right to vote.

Over to Playwrights Canada Press where I added to my obsessive collection of literature about the First World War with a new anthology of Canadian war plays. Canada and the Theatre of War: Volume 1 edited by Donna Coates and Sherrill Grace contains the full text of five contemporary plays about the Great War (The Lost Boys by R. H. Thompson, Soldier's Heart by David French, Mary's Wedding by Stephen Massicotte, Dancock's Dance by Guy Vanderhaeghe - my favourite - and Vimy by Vern Thiessen) and three contemporary plays about World War II (Ever Loving by Margaret Hollingsworth, None is Too Many by Jason Sherman and Burning Vision by Marie Clements). I'm not familiar with any of the WWII plays and it will be interesting to compare them with the others. At the time of writing this, Playwrights Canada Press hadn't yet updated their website - but keep checking back and I'm sure they will post information about this book soon; it's hot off the press. I spoke to one of the editors of this collection and she told me a second volume is in the works which will showcase Canadian plays tackling more recent wars.

I am a fan of the prolific academic writer Marjorie Garber who seems to be published by everyone. I've enjoyed dipping into her previous book Shakespeare After All, which is an engaging examination of each of the plays. So over at the Routledge booth, I picked up her latest, Profiling Shakespeare, a collection of essays that explores how previous scholars and biographers have pieced together what they think they know about Shakespeare. It's hard to resist a book with chapters such as, "Shakespeare as Fetish" and "Shakespeare's Laundry List". This should keep me going until we publish yet another new Garber book, Shakespeare and Modern Culture, in December. Also on the lit-crit front, I am always looking to add to my extensive collection of books about Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group and Palgrave has helpfully complied with Virginia Woolf Studies, edited by Anna Snaith. This collection of essays is a guide to all the different critical approaches one can use when thinking about Woolf's work; it should help me navigate all the other scholarly books on her that are crowding my shelves.

The book I'll be taking on the plane with me tomorrow is from McGill-Queen's University Press. Mr Charlotte Brontë: The Life of Arthur Bell Nicholls by Alan H. Adamson (a Concordia professor but also a descendent of Nicholls) promises not only interesting biographical detail, but also a look at Arthur's protection of Charlotte's literary reputation after she died.

And finally, the book I was most excited to find was one I actually picked up at the university bookstore. Published by Verso, Red Velvet Seat: Women's Writing on the First Fifty Years of Cinema, edited by Antonia Lant and Ingrid Periz, is a thick, meaty anthology covering every aspect of going to the movies and includes pieces by some of my favourite writers - Virginia Woolf, Rose Macaulay, Elizabeth Bowen, Janet Flanner, H.D., Rebecca West, Winifred Holtby, Katherine Mansfield and so on. There are pieces from women as diverse as Emily Post, Colette and Marie Stopes, and also articles written by women screenwriters, actresses (Lillian Gish), directors, cinematographers and film critics. There is a whole section on women, film and war. I literally squealed with delight when I came across this book - all nine hundred pages of it.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to somehow get all of these books plus the pile of novels (used and new) I bought in Seattle and Vancouver into my two bags and hope they don't exceed the airline weight restrictions. Oh yeah, and I also have to shove in the three new pairs of shoes, some new clothes, a new bag, a box of deluxe tea, a pound of coffee beans, several balls of yarn, the metres of amazing fabric I found at a quilting store today . . .

What the reviews of the movie Sex and the City fail to mention . . .

. . . is the crucial, and let's face it, rather sexy role that library books play in the plot. There's also an important scene at the New York Public Library. Two Deweys saw the flick last night and were probably the only ones in the audience nudging each other whispering, "that's our book". It wasn't as good as some of the best TV episodes, but it was an extremely enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours after standing on your feet all day at a book fair.

Rose Tremain takes the Orange Prize. . .

. . . for The Road Home. I haven't read this, her latest novel, but I loved The Way I Found Her. And she's been nominated for so many awards over the past few years. Nice to see her win. Inglorious by Joanna Kavenna took the Orange Prize for New Writers.

Book Expo Events- H.B. Fenn and Company

Greetings from Vancouver!

The flowers are blooming, the food is fabulous, but more on that later! I thought I should post a list of the authors coming to Book Expo Canada so that anyone planning on attending the show can time their visit correctly to the H.B. Fenn Booth (booth #705).

Listed below are the authors we've got scheduled to sign. I don't know if it is co-incidence or clever planning, but there seems to be a few authors appearing on Sunday whose books would make great Father's Day presents...

On Sunday June 15th

10.00 am- Irene Gammel will be signing her book 'Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic'
11.00 am -Nalo Hopkinson will be signing copies of Brown Girl In the Ring (Canada Reads)

12.00 noon-Sleeping Bear Event - Matt Napier (author of the forthcoming 'I Spy With My Little Hockey Eye') will be signing his book 'Z is for Zamboni'. Todd Chapman will be signing 'D is for Dinosaur: A Prehistoric Alphabet'
1 pm Rebecca Eckler will be signing copies of 'Toddlers Gone Wild: Rants from A Mommy Brain'

2 pm -Peter Edwards will be signing copies of 'Delusion: The True Story of Victorian Superspy Henri Le Caron'
3 pm – Fenn Publishing Event- Scott Morrison will be signing 'By The Numbers'. Johnny Bower will be signing a poster for his forthcoming book 'The China Wall' (Fall 08)
4pm – Mary Swan will be signing copies of 'The Boys in the Trees'

On Monday June 16th:

10 am - Sidura Ludwig will be signing 'Holding My Breath'
11 am - Rachel Manley will be signing copies of the Governor General's Award-winning memoir Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood
12 noon - Claire Delacroix will be signing advance reading copies of her new book 'Fallen' and Gregory Lamberson signing copies of Johnny Gruesome
1 pm - Tina Burke will be signing 'Sophie’s Big Bed'
2 pm – Emily Giffin- will be signing 'Love The One You're With'