We're Thrilled. . .

. . . that in celebration of Book Blogger Appreciation Week, the CBC has chosen this blog as one of their top 10 blogs worth reading. Thank you so much! Given the excellent company of the other blogs listed, we're very honoured.  You can see the full list here.

KCP's Citizen Kid Webcast on SLJ

I have just registered for Kids Can's webcast they are doing with SLJ on September 28th 3-4pm EST. The Citizen Kid series, if you are not familiar with it, is awesome. Books like One Hen and The Good Garden are fabulous reads and really bring home,in a very palatable way, key issues around social justice and citizenship. Two of the authors from the series (Valerie Wyatt and Katie Smith Milway) will be on hand to discuss their books while School Librarian Melissa Swenson, will offer ideas on on librarians can use the series in their classrooms and libraries. Click here if you want to register.

TD National Reading Summit II: Save the Date

January 20-21, 2011 has been set as the date for the second of the three summits. The summit will be held in Montreal. The group is still looking for more voluteers. To get more details, and to see a report on the conference click this link.

King Colin. . .

It was a big thrill after yesterday's TIFF screening of Colin Firth's new film The King's Speech, when the director Tom Hooper, Firth and Geoffrey Rush came out to do a Q & A for the audience (which gave the film a deserved standing ovation).   The film focuses on the relationship between George VI and his Australian speech therapist, played by Rush, who is trying to cure him of a lifelong stammer.  The script was wonderful, the acting absolutely fantastic (both Firth and Rush deserve Oscar nods) and there's a great supporting cast including Helena Bonham-Carter, Claire Bloom and Derek Jacobi. 

If you are currently reading the Booker short-listed novel C by Tom McCarthy, which explores the early scientific experiments with radio, this movie will be of particular interest. In the 1930s, Hitler and Mussolini were using radio broadcasts to great effect; it was the key way to get your message to the masses and the film explores the very private struggle of this man who so desperately wanted to do his duty - made more imperative by his brother's abdication - amidst the fears of being publicly humiliated.

Canadian Comix

Drawn & Quarterly is one of the world's best graphic novel publishers and they are based right here in Canada. Canadian Art magazine has recently profiled the company and Canadian Comix in general. Art Spiegelman defined graphic novels best when he said they are comic books that need a bookmark. Check out the full article here! We really are in the Golden Age of Graphic Novels.

Friday Film Fest: Train of Thought. . .

Every librarian I've talked to in the last year has told me that DVD circulation is way, way up. I'm not surprised - or dismayed -  by this; after all, I'm a film buff too. But I do think that books and films can complement each other wonderfully - after all, the former is often the inspiration for the latter.  And so I thought it would be fun, every so often on a Friday, to recommend an interesting pairing for the weekend.  I'm not going to plug the obvious - the book with its own film adaptation - unless there's a particularly good reason for it, but instead I'll try to suggest book and movie combos that evoke similar themes or share a sense of place or historical period.  I promise that they'll all be films well worth seeing and I'd love to hear about your own recommendations.

In honour of the Toronto Film Festival which is currently underway, I thought I'd launch this with a bit of a mini-fest of my own.  I have an incurable train fetish. It's my favourite mode of transport and train stations, especially those in Europe, are so much sexier than any airport can ever dream of.  So when the Guardian recently posted a list of the ten best railway journeys in literature, I was immediately inspired to come up with a list of my ten favourite films featuring a train.  And here it is. Happy viewing.

A Guide to Bradbury's Short Stories. . .

Each week at his Listen to the Echoes blog, Sam Weller, who is not only Ray Bradbury's biographer, but teaches a university course entirely devoted to the writer, will offer his choice of  favourite Bradbury short stories.  As he writes: 

These stories will embody all the trademarks of vintage Bradbury: the lyrical language; the fantastic, original, and memorable ideas; and endings that sometimes surprise, sometimes sadden, always instruct and entertain. This list will be entirely subjective. These are my favorites. They will reflect a wide range, from weird tales to social science fiction to quiet and contemplative tales of contemporary literature. These tales are pure and classic Bradbury—our modern mythologist.

A great introduction to this prolific writer's work. I'm certainly following along - what's one story a week?

A Noble Nobel Challenge. . .

Here's an interesting challenge that kicks off in the 100th issue of Bookslut, the literary review of the well-know blog.  Two American authors, Ben Greenman and Pauls Toutonghi, are reading their way through at least one work by every Nobel Prize winner and writing each other letters about the experience.  In their first correspondence they discuss Imre Kertész's Union Jack and Samuel Beckett's short story "The Lost Ones".  While I hope they won't just be actively seeking the authors' shortest works to read, I think it's a cool challenge.  You can read the first installment here, and the rest of the issue is also well worth checking out.

California here I come...

Last week I had the fortune of visiting two of our publishers in San Francisco. First up was Chronicle Books. Their new(ish) office is absolutely amazing. Four floors of unbridled creativity in a very cool location. Chronicle does not publish jusr regular books and their office is a reflection of that. The top floor, is totally devoted to common space, whether it is a cafe, board room or a spot to do lunch time yoga. Every year they have Volunteer Day which means the staff get a day off to volunteer at their favourite charity...what a super cool idea!
After that hopped on the BART (their subway) to go to Lonely Planet. Their office is in Oakland.



Gary and Marc (pictured to the left) gave me a tour that included root beer floats. I have always been a fan of the LP travel guides and have used them for 20 years. I used their guide on this trip to pick my hotel: The Berkeley City Club. It is in Berkeley right beside the university and close to the BART.

It is an historic hotel designed by Julia Morgen, the architect that designed the Hearst Castle at San Simeon. While it is not what you would expect from a big chain hotel (no a/c or TV's), the architecture is amazing and there are even secret gardens! I wish I had brought my swim suit, as the pool is stunning. My room had a spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Until next time...

Booker Shortlist Announced. . .

Darn it all, David Mitchell didn't make the shortlist.  This has ruined my day.  However, I am happy to see Tom McCarthy, Damon Galgut and Emma Donaghue make the cut; I've read all three books and were impressed.

Here's the list:

Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey

Room by Emma Donoghue
In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut
The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
The Long Song by Andrea Levy

C by Tom McCarthy

The NYRB Challenge One Year Later. . .

Yikes - where did the year go?  Well, I didn't accomplish my goal, which was to read 50 NYRB Classics in one year, starting from Labour Day 2009.  I almost got there - as I write, I'm in the middle of reading my 45th.  In my defense, according to my reading diary, I did read 72 other books in that time period, both for work and pleasure. However, I'm not giving up until I hit the 50 mark - I'll just give myself until the end of 2010 which seems perfectly doable, and this will allow me to tackle some longer titles that I've been eyeing. I certainly have enjoyed this challenge so far, and I'll post a full summary when I'm done. If you want to see which books I've already read, click here.  I'll also offer another great NYRB giveaway to readers when my challenge is over, so stay tuned.

NYRB Challenge #44: In the Society of A Different Literary Guernsey. . .

Ever since being charmed - like so many other readers - by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows' The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, I've been wanting to read more about this intriguing little island and its history.  The Book of Ebenezer Le Page by G.B. Edwards completely fits the bill, and I couldn't have asked for a more charming, comic, and curmudgeonly guide than the novel's title character.

Ebenzer Le Page is one of the oldest inhabitants on the island and thoughout his life, he's barely set a foot off it. He's so old, he's outlived nearly all of his generation - and most of their offspring as well. As such, he's been a witness to the enormous changes on Guernsey, having lived through both world wars, the German occupation and  - what's almost worse - the British occupation of wealthy tax evaders and tourists, who have completely destroyed the traditional way of life and values of the island.  He decides to write the story of his life and evoke the island of his youth, because not only because of the physical changes, but the societal ones as well; people just don't talk to each other anymore:

They all make a fuss of me when I arrive, and shoo the cat off the armchair for me to sit in; but they are not really interested in anything I have to say. It is not that I want to say much; but I like to sit in a corner, and listen to people talking and put in my spoke now and then. Nowadays people don't talk among themselves around the fire like they used to. As soon as I've sat down and been made comfortable . . . I have to sit in the half-dark and look at the horrible T.V.; and you can't put your spoke in against the T.V.

NYRB Challenge #43: More Mitford Madness. . .

The famous and fascinating Mitford sisters have been amply written about, and Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford is one of the less obscure books that NYRB has reprinted. However, I'd never read it before and it truly is as delightful as its literary reputation. It covers the years of Jessica's upbringing in an eccentric British family, her frustrations at not being able to get a proper education, her early establishment of a "Running Away Fund" at her local bank, and her subsequent use of the money when at nineteen, she ran away to Spain with her second cousin Esmond Romilly - Winston Churchill's nephew - who had already fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. The two married and spent some years in America before Esmond enlisted in the Canadian Air Force and was killed over the North Sea in 1941 at the age of only 23.

Much of this ground, especially the early childhood, has been covered in the biographies and in Nancy Mitford's comic novels, such as The Pursuit of Love. Jessica points out that Nancy was "too sharp-tonged and sarcastic to be anyone's Favourite Sister for long", giving as this hilarious example, "if one had taken particular trouble to do one's hair in ringlets, she was apt to remark, 'You look like the oldest and ugliest of the Bronte sisters today.'" 

Toronto Film Festival Fever. . .

I'm feeling rather chuffed with myself.

After a frustrating four and a half hours, I finally got my hands on tickets for twenty films at this year's Toronto Film Festival. I'm packing them in, but I'm very excited about the variety. As an avid traveler and reader of literature in translation, I equally enjoy foreign films and I love the secret thrill I get when one art form references another.  I'm seeing films from France, India, Japan, Brazil, Germany, China, Hong Kong, Uruguay, Spain, Portugal, Turkey (Istanbul is this year's spotlight city) as well as a smattering of Canadian, American and British films. I generally eschew the more mainstream, Hollywood films that will be out in theatres over the next few months (although I always make an exception for Colin Firth -I've got a ticket to The King's Speech ), and most of the literary adaptations at this year's fest - Never Let Me Go, Barney's Version, Tamara Drewe - fall into that category.  But one never knows with foreign films whether they will ever get a North American distribution deal, so I made sure to nab a ticket to  Tran Anh Hung's adaptation of Haruki Murakami's novel Norwegian Wood.  I've read some Murakami, but not that one although I'll try to remedy that before the screening.

We'll also get a chance to finally see TIFF's new home, the Bell Lightbox building. Apparently it's going to contain a bookstore which I'm excited to check out. It would be so wonderful if it not only featured books on film but also had a great selection of international literature.  Meanwhile, the city is getting ready for the buzz and the celebrities. My favourite part of the whole experience is just chatting to other film buffs in the line-ups - most of whom usually have a book in their hand as well.

Fan Expo!!!

In case you missed it, Fan Expo 2010 was a total blast...the crowds were absolutely insane. At one point, they had to shut the doors for two hours as there were so many people. They have put a note on their website saying they have secured an even bigger location at Toronto's Metro Convention Centre for next year. The costumes were amazing, weird and sometimes not quite understandable (click on the picture to get a real good look at some of the best ones). As the publisher of the many Encyclopedia's (Marvel, Star Wars, Lost etc) DK's booth was packed. We like to think we know alot about our books, but the fans really had us beat. Until next year!

Bowled Over By the Brits. . .

As it happens, two of the Dewey Divas (and one former Dewey Diva), are all going to be in London at some point this fall, although alas, not at the same time. We all love to shop and I'll certainly be doing the rounds of the independent bookstores and stocking up on tights from Marks & Spencers (honestly - they last years!) Rosalyn has already discovered this amazing boot shop that will make custom boots (because one of the great mysteries of life is why so many long boots fit so few people with normal sized calves).  Today, my great find has been Bobbin Bicycles - a store that not only specializes in vintage bikes but check out all the cool, retro bike accessories here!  Okay, I'm officially in love with this Bowler Hat bicycle helmet - apparently completely certified for safety. There's also a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker helmet as well.

NYRB Challenge #41 & 42: Fighting Tyranny With Art. . .

I hadn't planned it, but reading these two complementary books - one fiction, one non-fiction - back to back was an illuminating experience. As both were tackling the problem of how best to combat an authoritarian government, it gave rise to the age old debate - is truth stranger than fiction?

Clandestine in Chile by Gabriel García Márquez, translated by Asa Zatz, is the true story, as told to Márquez through hours of interviews, of the six weeks that film director Miguel Littin spent in Chile in 1985, filming a documentary about how his country had changed under the dictatorship of General Pinochet. Littin hadn't been back to his native home in over twelve years and for a very good reason - his name was on a list of exiles forbidden entry. So his task was both dangerous and extremely complicated. He used three different international film crews who weren't aware of the full nature of his project (or of each other), and then by completely changing his physical appearance and accent to impersonate a Uruguayan businessman, complete with false passport and wife, he entered Chile, not once but several times. What made this an engaging and fascinating read, was not only the rather amazing technical planning and choreography involved to pull this project off successfully (the number of passwords and drop-off locations alone were staggering) but Littin's own wry observations on the difficulties - both comic and stressful - of having to look and become this complete stranger. So it reads partly like a spy thriller and partly like the story of an existential crisis. But Littin is a good storyteller and very humble about the arrogant mistakes he made that could have put his friends in great danger. However, the cameras roll, the film is successfully smuggled out, and the only frustration I have now, upon finishing this book, is that I can't find a copy of the documentary anywhere. Its title is Acta General de Chile, and I'll keep looking, because my interest is definitely piqued.

Fairy Tales and so much more

Now that I have a small niece and nephew, I’ve become a lot more interested in children’s books. I really love the humour of the pigeon books and I can identify with some of Scaredy Squirrel’s anxieties. I’ve also recently discovered quite a few classics that I missed as a kid.

As a publisher’s sales rep I get to work with lots of enthusiastic and knowledgeable librarians and booksellers and many of them have given me great recommendations for children’s literature. I’ve also come across a couple of wonderful reference books:

1001 Children’s Book You Must Read Before You Grow Up is a British book, but includes stories from all around the world. It’s a beautiful book that's packed full of vivid colour illustrations. The book is divided into age groups (ranging from 0-3 to 12+), and is then organized chronologically within each group. Each book title has a half page description (sometimes more), the year of publication, nationality of author and illustrator, original publisher, and many include lists of other books with similar themes. Most of the books listed also feature a colour cover alongside the description and some include inside illustrations as well. I showed this book to my co-worker and she ran out and bought a copy for herself the same day.

The editor of Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book has interviewed well known Americans and asked them to name their favorite children’s book. Included in each of the 110 selections is a brief plot description, an excerpt from the book, and an explanation of why that book is so special. The list of celebrities ranges from Dave Eggers to Judy Blume and Julianne Moore. There are a lot of children’s authors included on the list of celebrities and it’s interesting to see what books inspired them when they were young.

War, Parents and Politics. . .

One of my Dewey picks for the must-read, meaty, literary novel this fall is David Grossman's To The End of the Land, translated by Jessica Cohen. It's an incredibly moving and powerful story about contemporary war told from a mother's point of view. It's set in Israel, but is a completely universal story of pain, fear and waste that reverberates through the generations. It will be available in September but the global media is already starting. There's an in-depth interview with Grossman - who tragically lost his own son while writing the novel - in The Guardian.  You can read it here.

Creative Inc. Stop Motion

This was the first book I read on the Fall 2010 list; (mostly because it was the first advance I got) but I like reading business books and like to think I am a creative soul. So when the author of Craft, Inc. decided to write Creative, Inc., a business book for freelance creative types I was sold. Because of its target audience it is very funkily designed. I have read enough business books to see that the the content is pretty right on target. And of course, being as artistic and fun as they are, they put together a super cool stop motion trailer...enjoy!

Kenk Again

Cory Doctorow has reviewed Kenk on BoingBoing, which is frequently ranked as one of the top 100 blogs out there. I think Doctorow has really nailed it; the book was a complicated one to sell (although it sold out of its first print run in 3 weeks) in Toronto. Doctorow himself had dealings with Kenk...as the headline states, the book humanizes him without apologizing for him. Check it out.

Winners and Finalists Announced for the 2010 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing

Congratulations to the winners & finalists of the 2010 William Saroyan Prize!

• Winner for Fiction: Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen
• Winner for Nonfiction: The King Of Vodka by Linda Himelstein

Intended to encourage new or emerging writers and honor the Saroyan literary legacy of originality, vitality and stylistic innovation, the Saroyan Prize recognizes newly published works of both fiction and non-fiction.

The two finalists for each award were:

Non-Fiction:

• Trauma Farm by Brian Brett (Greystone)
• Aesop's Mirror by MaryAlice Huggins (FSG)

Fiction:

• Apologize, Apologize!by Elizabeth Kelly (Random House)
• Concord, Virginia by Peter Neofotis (St. Martin's Press)

Up We Grow!

Really how spectacular is this window...Vancouver's Kidsbooks does it again. This window is to announce the launch of Up We Grow and Stanley's Little Sister. Up We Grow is a celebration of small local farms and gives kids a sense of how wonderful and important they are. Speaking of which, this weekend we headed down to The Brickworks, Toronto's largest local farmer's market. My daughter described the peaches I bought (which were picked the day before) as a fantasy. Even though I got there at 8:30, the place was packed. If you are on the otherside of the country, you are cordially invited to the launch of Up We Grow at Kidsbooks on Thursday August 26th at 7pm. Locally yummies will be served.

NYRB Challenge #40: The Mountain Lion Roars. . .

Having read and reviewed books by Robert Lowell's second and third wives (Elizabeth Hardwick and Caroline Blackwood respectively), it would have seemed bad manners to ignore his first, Jean Stafford. And I think she was the most talented of the three.
The Mountain Lion is a rather strange and awkward coming-of-age novel, full of subtle and uncomfortable tensions between generations and siblings. Ralph Fawcett and his younger sister Molly are rebellious allies against their widowed mother, two older sisters, and everything they represent - a world based on propriety and society's moral values, and one in which almost anything noisy, fun, or actively done outdoors is frowned upon. Two worlds are represented by two grandfathers - the dead, respectable Grandfather Bonney, whose portrait and memory are prominently alive in the household, and gruff, rugged Grandfather Kenyon, Mrs. Fawcett's step-father, who visits them annually and holds a certain mystique for Ralph and Molly, if only because their mother dislikes him so much. When he suddenly dies the first day of his visit, the children meet his son, Uncle Claude,  who invites them to visit his ranch in Colorado. They ride horses for the first time, hike in the mountains and Ralph learns to shoot.  When their mother and sisters embark on a year long trip around the world, Ralph and Molly move in with their uncle. The title of the novel refers to the elusive animal that Ralph and Claude glimpse from time to time in the mountains; it becomes a competitive obsession to kill it. (This novel would actually make an interesting read alongside Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro).

It is very much a novel of diametrics. Characters and landscapes take on deeper hues against the narrative interplay with their opposites. Kathryn Davis who contributes a very good afterword, even calls the prose part Henry James and part Mark Twain. Molly is the imaginative, fearless one who wants to be a writer, who observes the world's hypocrisies and calls people to account.  Ralph is all coiled energy, revelling and sometimes reviling, his changing physicality and emerging notions of masculinity and sexuality. The sibling relationship is by turns complicit, petulant, and dangerous. It's also one of the most complicated and compelling ones I've ever encountered in fiction. This could also be a great YA crossover book for a good teen reader.

Just a note - this edition starts with an author's introduction written many years after the book's publication, in which Stafford does reveal the book's ending, so avoid it if you don't want spoilers (and it's a fairly crucial spoiler).

On the Road Movie

MTV.com announced casting informatation about the upcoming adaptation of the Jack Kerouak book On the Road. Amy Adams, Viggo Mortensen, Kristen Stewart & Kirsten Dunst- what a cast!

Check out this link to GalleyCat which talks about the movie and includes a link to a YouTube video of a 1959 interview with Jack Kerouak on The Steve Allen Show.

Library Thingy

Book cataloguing site Library Thingy has added a tool so that publishers can now catalogue their books on the site. Check it out!

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

One of the most anticipated books of the fall is Freedom, the new book by Jonathan Franzen. It's his first in the nine years since winning the National Book Award for The Corrections.

I'm not just saying this because HarperCollins is publishing the book in Canada! According to this article in PW entitled 'It's Time for Franzen', Franzen will be featured on the cover of the August 23rd issue of Time magazine- the first living author to be so featured in a decade.

PW gave it a starred review, reassuring fans of The Corrections who wondered if Freedom would be able to 'find its own voice in its predecessor’s shadow. In short: yes, it does, and in a big way.'

The book doesn't release until August 31st, but 4 lucky Dewey Diva blog readers can win a copy of the ARC ahead of time and take their names off of the holds list!

Please send an e-mail with the subject line Freedom by Jonathan Franzen to rosalyn.steele@harpercollins.com, along with the full mailing address of your library. I'll collect names until the end of day Monday August 16th and draw four winners Tuesday morning. Open to Canadian libraries only, sorry!

Good luck!

Henri Cartier-Bresson at the AIC

While in Chicago we went to the Art Institute of Chicago where we saw the exhibit Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century. We are very fortunate to represent an amazing distributor, D.A.P who represent some of the finest art publishers in the world including the MOMA who produced the book for show. Cartier-Bresson was instrumental in bringing photography to the masses and travelled all over the world honing his craft. The book and the exhibit showcase for the first time, the incredible reach he had. At the show, there was an amazing map and timeline showing how broad his travels were...very cool.

Cake Pops!

Finally Cake Pops is here! I have been totally excited about this book since I saw it listed at sales conference in April. This past weekend my daughter, niece and I made a batch. It was easier than I thought. Initally I had great expectations of making chicks and cows and such, but realised that I had better just get down the technique. The result was pretty amazing if I do say so myself. I took them to the CGTA, which is Canada's largest gift show (you can see us pictured on the right at the show). They were a big hit! Cake Pops are bite sized pieces of cake dipped in meltable chocolate or candy coating. They are a fun alternative to birthday cake or cupcakes. But they should come with a warning...the sweetness factor is off the charts!

Weekend in Chicago

Last weekend we had the pleasure of spending it in Chicago. I had been there many times for work, but not as a tourist. Of course the food was excellent and the perfect weather made it fantastic to walk around. One of my friends, Richard Bachmann, former proprietor of one of my favourite bookstores, A Different Drummer Bookstore in Burlington, grew up in Chicago's Oak Park...home of Frank Lloyd Wright and Ernest Hemingway. Richard suggested I check out The Chicago Cultural Centre which was originally Chicago's first public library. It was the absoulte highlight of the trip. For those of us who love books it is a true pilgrimage. Although the original library is no longer there, all of the stunning architecture, which is an homage to books, remains. The mosaic tiles have quotes about the love of books from authors. The dome, which is the showcase of the building (and shown above) is the largest Tiffany Dome in the world and is simply breathtaking. So if you happen to be in Chicago, make sure you stop by (admission is free). Oh and my husband met John Cusack on the street...total Chicago moment.

NYRB Challenge #39: To Each His Own. . .

Regardless of whether you want to read Leonardo Sciascia's To Each His Own, translated by Adrienne Foulk, as a detective story, or as an astute and entertaining portrait of a small Sicilian village reacting to two murders, DO NOT read the introduction by W.S. Piero ahead of time.  Darn it all - not only did it reveal the murderer, but also (more unforgivably), gave away the ending of the book.

Manna, the town pharmacist receives an anonymous letter announcing that he is going to die as revenge for something he has done in the past. As he can't think how he's offended anyone, he nervously treats the matter as a joke. Shortly afterwards he's found shot, along with Dr. Roscio, his friend and frequent hunting companion. The murders are the talk of the town - everyone has an opinion, especially about the victims, and - as is slowly revealed - knows more than they are willing to publicly admit.  The police have no clues save a cigar end found at the scene of the crime. But our curious "sleuth" Laurana, a professor of Italian and history at the local high school, can't help investigating, more for his own intellectual enjoyment than to bring the culprits to justice. Common sense, the odd question and above all chance, are what lead him to the truth.  Sort of. As Sciascia writes:

One corrollary of all the detective novels to which a goodly share of mankind repairs for  refreshment specifies that a crime present its investigators with a picture, the material and, so to speak, stylistic elements of which, if meticulously assembled and analyzed, permit a sure solution. In actuality, however, the situation is different. The coefficients of impunity and error are high not because, or not only or not always because, the investigators are men of small intelligence but because the clues a crime offers are usually utterly inadequate. A crime, that is to say, which is planned or committed by people who have interest in working to keep the impunity coefficient high.

This is not one of those mysteries where figuring out the identity of the murderer is the prime joy, or even the point; there are few suspects and it's soon fairly obvious whodunnit. Instead, the pleasure comes in the breezy, cynical style that accepts the town's apathy towards political corruption and religious hyprocrisy as a societal given. Murder is not that shocking after all; daily life continues with a shrug.  Even Laurana comes to see the case as, "detached and distant, in style, form, and also somewhat in content delineated rather in the manner of a Graham Greene novel."  In short, the narrative has a rather cool, crafted sophistication to it, enlivened by an endearing - if naive - main character and the odd, unexpected literary reference.

NYRB has fortunately published a number of Sciascia's works; I enjoyed this novel very much and am lookng forward to reading more from this author.

Send in Some Sondheim. . .

Stephen Sondheim has just turned 80! and the BBC Proms recently had a celebratory concert.  One of the performances was given by the fabulous Judi Dench singing "Send in the Clowns".  She gives such a moving and beautiful rendition, in character from the first note to the very end  - I'm sure you could have heard a pin drop in the theatre.  Treat yourself and watch it here.

And for Sondheim fans - this fall we'll be publishing a wonderful collection of Sondheim's lyrics accompanied by commentary from all phases of his career. The subtitle says it all:  Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes.

Whoa Nellie! . . .

I don't normally go for celebrity bios, but the terrific cover got me on this one!

Okay, if you don't know what animal Bunny was, and if a chapter entitled "The Infamous Wheelchair Episode" doesn't make you chuckle, then Confessions of A Prairie Bitch by Alison Arngrim is probably not for you.  However, if you grew up - like me - watching every episode of Little House on the Prairie and then repeatedly viewing them in re-runs (my brother and I had an ongoing contest to see who could guess which episode was airing, just from the guest star credits) and years later buying some seasons on DVD, well, this book is even better than getting a tin cup in your Christmas stocking.

Arngrim  played Laura Ingalls' whining, snobbish nemesis Nellie Oleson for seven seasons and her memoir is full of fascinating insights into what went on behind the scenes (her analysis of the characters is really funny - poor Carrie) and what it was like being a child star and living in Hollywood with two self-absorbed parents (they were both Canadian!) also in show business.  Her father who grew up in an orphanage in Saskatchewan was a publicity-obsessed manager who at one point had Liberace as a client; her mother hailed from a wealthy Vancouver family but became famous as the voice of numerous TV characters including Casper the Friendly Ghost and Davy (of that Saturday morning staple Davy and Goliath - now that's a blast from the past). In fact Arngrim writes that she based Nellie's "prissy voice and evil inflection" on "my mother's upper-crust Canadian accent".  But amidst all the surreality of showbiz, Arngrim also offers a sad and gutsy account of surviving her older brother's abuse (he repeatedly raped her from the age of six), and how inhabiting the character of Nellie gave her the strength to confront and speak up about her past.  She also talks honestly and movingly about her close friend Steve Tracy, who played her TV husband Percival Dalton, and his death from AIDS when he was only 32.   Post-Little House, Arngrim has been an activist for both AIDS research and helping children who have been abused. She also works as a stand-up comedienne and given how many times I laughed reading this book, I would love to see her show.

A candid, refreshing but never overly sentimental read.