Quill and Quire has an excellent podcast series. This summer Mike Shatzkin spoke at Book Summit which took place at Harbourfront. His talk was entitled Publishing into the Flood. He touches on many issues in publishing such as ebooks, Amazon and the role of publishers today.
In the NYRblog, Zadie Smith has written a great piece on bookstores and libraries. My favourite line in it is about her local bookstore who's philosophy is "giving the people the books they didn't know they wanted"...which is a big difference from giving people the books they want. Check it out.
I would have to say this book on eco-disaster tourism Visit Sunny Chernobyl was one of the sleepers on our list this season. Slowly but surely, I had more and more booksellers + librarians request ARC's. It has received rave reviews every where including a starred review in PW + Kirkus. On the Best of Q, Andrew Blackwell talks about why he visits these places and the impact pollution has had on them. The interview starts around the 26 minute mark.
Super star author Emily Giffin will be at Indigo Manulife Centre on August 30th at 7pm. Her latest book Where We Belong, has been on the Globe and NYT bestseller lists since it pubbed. For more information on the event you can click here.
The hugely popular show has spawned a cookbook: True Blood: Eats, Drinks and and Bites from Bon Temps. Food is a huge part of the show...and book has already received some serious attention.: Publishers Weekly has listed it has on of their list of top cookbooks for the Fall.
NB: No human heart recipes are included in the book!
PW's complete list of Best Cookbooks for the fall is below:
Burma: Rivers of Flavor by Naomi Duguid. Artisan, Sept.Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America by Maricel E. Presilla. W.W. Norton, Oct.
Lidia’s Favorite Recipes: 100 Foolproof Italian Dishes, from Basic Sauces to Irresistible Entrées by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali. Knopf, Oct.
The Great Meat Cookbook: Everything You Need to Know to Buy and Cook Today’s Meat by Bruce Aidells and Dennis Kelly. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Oct.
CookFight: 2 Cooks, 12 Challenges, 125 Recipes, an Epic Battle for Kitchen Dominance by Julia Moskin and Kim Severson. Ecco, Oct.
The Mile End Cookbook: Redefining Jewish Comfort Food from Hash to Hamantaschen by Noah Bernamoff and Rae Bernamoff. Clarkson Potter, Sept.
The Gluten-Free Table: The Lagasse Girls Share Their Favorite Meals by Jilly Lagasse and Jessie Lagasse Swanson, foreword by Emeril Lagasse. Grand Central Life & Style, Oct.
Thanksgiving: How to Cook It Well by Sam Sifton, illus. by Sarah Rutherford. Random House, Oct.
True Blood: Eats, Drinks, and Bites from Bon Temps by Gianna Sobol and Alan Ball. Chronicle, Oct.
The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook: Sweetness in Seattle by Tom Douglas. Morrow, Oct.
Although season 3 of Game of Thrones won't be coming out until next March, fans can bide their time reading Inside HBO's Game of Thrones; this is the official companion to the TV series which will be available October 1st. This trailer for the book had already over 90,000 hits!
The New York Times calls Tavi Gevinson The Oracle of the Girl World. At the age of 11, she started her blog Style Rookie aimed at teenage girls. In two years her blog was a huge hit and she was invited to fashion shows all over the world...Lady Gaga and Judd Apatow are fans. Not your average fashionista, Tavi is interested in feminisim and as her TED Talk shows...is "Still Figuring It Out". She launched her recent online magazine: Rookie and within six days had over one million hits. This September Drawn and Quarterly is coming out with Gevinson's first book Rookie: Yearbook One. There is as you can imagine a huge amount of buzz around this book.
There was alot of buzz about this book at sales conference. Forge
have posted a neat author interview with award-winning TV journalist Hank
Phillippi Ryan
on YouTube. In it, she talks about crime fiction, her work as a journalist
(and, yes,
her bazillion emmys) and how it has influenced the new novel, THE OTHER WOMAN. It'll be coming out in September.
CBC's Susan McRenyolds hosts a fun panel of great summer reads for kids. Guests Alice Moore, Polly Horvath, Kenneth Oppel and Melanie Watt all offer their opinion!
In the recently published book, The Complete Journals of LM Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1889-1900, the entries reveal a complex and passionate young woman.These journals follow Montgomery from age 14-25 as she develops from a school girl into a teacher, university student and eventually a confident writer. Accompanied by 226 of her own b&w photos, the journals offer an intimate look at the early life of one of Canada’s favourite writers.
How cool is this? The Little Free Library started in 2009
as the inspiration of Todd Bol, who in the fall of 2009 landed on a way to honor his late mother, a book-loving teacher. He built a miniature wooden one-room schoolhouse, mounted it outside his Hudson, Wis., home and stocked it with books. Even on rainy days, friends and neighbors would happen by to make selections, drop off books and remark on the library's cuteness. They now have quite a few in Canada!
Their mission as stated is:
To promote literacy and the love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide.
To build a sense of community as we share skills, creativity, and wisdom across generations To build more than 2,510 libraries around the world - more than Andrew Carnegie!
Shannen and the Dream for a School has been chosen as the First Nations Community Reads. This is an amazing yet tragic story about
thirteen-year-old Shannen and the other students at J.R. Nakogee Elementary who are tired of attending class in portables that smell and don’t keep out the freezing cold winter air. They make a YouTube video describing the poor conditions, and their plea for a decent school gains them attention and support from community leaders and children across the country. Inspired, the students decide to turn their grade-eight class trip into a visit to Ottawa to speak to the Canadian government. Once there, Shannen speaks passionately to the politicians about the need to give Native children the opportunity to succeed. The following summer, Shannen is nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize. Her passion and that of the other students makes politicians stand up and take notice, and becomes a rallying point for the community and for the country.
The Canadian Children's Book Centre has just announced their awards shortlist for 2012: TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, Prix TD de littérature canadienne pour l’enfance et la jeunesse, Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award, Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction, Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People, John Spray Mystery Award and the inaugural Monica Hughes Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy.
The winners will be announced at The TD Canadian Children`s Literature Awards and Prix TD de littérature canadienne pour l’enfance et la jeunesse. For a full list of the nominees you can click here to go to the CCBC website.
How cool is this! The 49th Shelf has just launched their Read Local Map. If you haven’t checked it out already or haven’t added a book, please do:
it’s really quite fun and you’ll be helping to build the largest map of
Canadian books ever assembled. If this is the first time you’ve heard of the campaign, a little
background: it’s 49th Shelf’s celebration of the places—the various
geographies—represented in Canadian books. It’s our tribute to the fact that
the Canadian books have the power of reflecting our country back to us … they
reveal new parts of it and also intensify our connection to the places we love. What a fun thing to do this summer!!!
So you think you can write a novel? How about doing it in three days! The winner gets published by Arsenal Pulp Press. Last year's winner was Terroryaki! by Jennifer K. Chung.
If you think you have the chops check out the contest details. The 35th contest takes place September 1-3, 2012...good luck!
Another home run from Type Books. Staff member Kalpna Patel recreated the cover of Michael Chos' Back Alleys and Urban Landscapes in 3-D. This stunner of a book looks at streets and alley's in downtown Toronto.
This year Moleskine partnered with Lego to produce a super cool limited edition Moleskine. To celebrate, Moleskine produced an even super cooler video.
This is a book everyone could use...and how great is it to have a book for kids on the ins and outs of money. The Secret Life of Money has been published by OWLKids who also produced this super cool video.
Julie Wilson aka "the Book Madam" has taken the best parts of her blog Seen Reading into the book Seen Reading. She describes herself as a literary voyeur. Matt Galloway interviewed her about this very unique book and talks about how it is a book about Toronto and its love of reading. The interview starts around the 8 minute mark.
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is also the day that Hana's Suitcase Anniversary Album by Karen Levine will be launched celebrating ten years since it's publication. Hana's Suitcase has had an incredible life...it is the most awarded Canadian children's book in the past 30 years, has been translated into dozens of languages used by the UN in 100's of outposts and made into several films. The CBC did a feature on Hana Ten Years Later. The 10th Anniversary edition includes:
• Commemorative letters from Karen, Fumiko, and George
• Reaction from readers around the world
• Letters and art from children
• Photographs of events and ceremonies
• Scenes from the play adaptation
• Posters from the staging of the play in over ten countries
• Awards and Tributes – lists, emblems, photos, and quotable quotes from juries and the media
• Covers from the international editions
• Images from the documentary film
and much more.
The Canadian Children's Book Centre has sent out their call for submissions for authors a illustrators for the TD Canadian Children's Book Week. The Canadian Children's Book Centre is looking for authors and/or illustrators with new children’s books being released in the fall of 2012 and/or spring 2013 who are interested in touring schools, libraries, bookstores and community centres, outside of their home province, during TD Canadian Children’s Book Week 2013.
The next Book Week tour will run from Saturday, May 4 to Saturday, May 11, 2013. Click here for more information. The deadline for applications is Friday, May 25, 2012.
With 5 of the 6 nominations, Drawn & Quarterly has pretty much swept the Doug Wright Award nominations for Best Book.
The list of nominated books is below: Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton (Drawn and Quarterly)
Lose #3 by Michael Deforge (Koyama Press) Mid-Life by Joe Ollmann (Drawn and Quarterly) Paying for It by Chester Brown (Drawn and Quarterly) Reunion by Pascal Girard for (Drawn and Quarterly) The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists by Seth (Drawn and Quarterly) For more information click here.
The hottest book of the Spring season is going to be INSURGENT by Veronica Roth, follow up to the much acclaimed DIVERGENT. It goes on sale MAY 1st and people have been dying to read it. Advance reading copies for INSURGENT were few and far between, but I've managed to secure a copy for a contest! It's a great prize- not only do you get an ARC of INSURGENT (and the chance to read it before your friends and colleagues), you'll also get an autographed copy of DIVERGENT! Contest rules:
Contest is open to librarians and teachers in CANADA only
To enter please send an e-mail to deweydivasinfo@gmail.comwith the subject 'Insurgent Contest'. You must provide the full mailing address of your library or school.
Contest begins today (April 10th) and I'll collect entries until 5pm (EST) on Monday April 16th and notify the winner via e-mail.
Only one entry per person please. However, I'm running a simultaneous contest on the HarperCollins Canada Library blog HCCLibraryLove (yes, that's right- two identical but separate prizes!), so you may want to enter both contests to increase your chances of winning!
Odds of winning are dependent on the number of entries, but still MUCH better than winning the 6/49. :)
Good luck!-Rosalyn (@rozsteele) _____________________________________________________
UPDATE- The winners of both contests have been notified, but if you'd like another chance to win, you may want to check out the HarperCollins Canada Facebook page. They are currently giving away THREE ARCs of Insurgent (ends April 22nd)...
Performed by La Shea Delaney (2nd verse) and Me (1st verse)
Directed, Produced, Written by Moi
Shot and Edited by Eliav Mintz
Song Recorded and Mixed by Stephen Galgano
Read so hard librarians tryin’ ta FINE me,
They can’t identify me,
Checked in with a pseudonym, so I guess you can say I’m Mark Twaining.
Read so hard, I’m not lazy.
Go on Goodreads, so much rated.
Fountainhead, on my just read, gave it four stars, and then changed it.
Read so hard, I’m literary.
Goosebumps series, TOO SCARY!
Animal Farm, Jane Eyre
Barnes & Nobles, Foursquare it
No TV, I read instead
Got lotsa Bills, but not bread
BURROUGHS , GOLDING, SHAKESPEARE – all dead
Read so hard, got paper cuts
On trains while you're playin’ connect the dots
All these blisters from turning pages
Read so hard, I’m seeing spots
Your Sudoku just can’t compare
Nor Angry Birds cos lookit here
My Little Birds is getting stares
(pause)
This print’s rare.
Read so hard, I memorize, The Illiad... I know lines.
Watch me spit, classic lit, epic poems that don’t rhyme.
War and Peace, piece of cake, read Tolstoy in 3 days.
Straight through, no delays.
Didn’t miss a word. Not one phrase.
Read so hard librarians tryin’ ta fineee me - That shit cray x 3
Read so hard librarians tryin’ ta fineee me – That shit cray x 3
He said Shea can we get married at the Strand
His Friday Reads are bad so he can’t have my hand
You ball so hard, OK you’re bowling
But I read so hard, I’m JK Rowling
That shit cray
Ain’t it, A? What you readin’?
AQ: DeMontaigne.
You use a Kindle? I carry spines.
Supporting bookshops like a bra, Calvin Klein.
Nerdy boy, he’s so slow
Tuesday we started Foucault
He’s still stuck on the intro? He’s a no go.
It’s sad I had to kick him out my house though –
He Mispronounced an author - MARCEL PROUST
Don’t read in the dark
I highlight with markers
While laying in the park
And wearing Warby Parkers
Marriage Plot broke my heart
And it made me read Barthes
I special ordered a
A softcover not hard- HUAH?AHEHA?!
Read so hard libraries tryin’ ta fine me x 2
I am now marking my place
Don’t wanna crease on my page
Don’t let me forget this page
Don’t let me forget this page
I may forget where I left off so I’ll use this little post it…
I hope it doesn’t fall out, I hope that it stays stickie…
I am now marking my place
Don’t wanna crease on my page
Don’t let me forget this page
I got bookmarks at home
But I forgot one for the road
AQ: I got a bookmark I can loan
La Shea: Know how many bookmarks I own?
I am now bookmarking my page x3
DON’T LET ME FORGET THIS PAGE -age-age-age-age-age.
How much fun is this! To mark the launch of the film, CBC has done their own version of which Canadian fictional character would win the Hunger Games. You can pick from 24 characters from Anne of Green Gables to Hagar Shipley. I went with Inspector Gamache...I have read the entire series this past year and just finished Trick of The Light. Vote away!
Dundurn has an amazing array of teacher's guides available online.They cover most of their teen fiction as well as a number of their great Canadian non-fiction. To see the complete list go here. They are free of charge even though it doesn't seem that way on the websites.
On March 8th join SLJ as they present OwlKids, North South, Harcourt and Candlewick for a webcast on the season's upcoming titles. To register click here.
From their webste: The 49th Shelf is a one-of-a-kind community for discovering, discussing, and indulging in Canadian books. Fuelled by the largest collection of Canadian books ever assembled, The 49th Shelf makes it easier to find your next great Canadian read.
Think of The 49th Shelf as an interactive, intimate virtual library stocked with Canadian books by authors both world-renowned and up-and-coming, writing in every genre. But not just a library: The 49th Shelf is also a community of avid readers who share the books on the site by making reading lists and book recommendations. On The 49th Shelf, you’ll find books you’ll never forget, meet people whose lists and reviews you’ll admire, and learn more about the authors who intrigue you.
It was wonderful to see on the front page of the Globe this morning that Shannen's dream for a school in Attawapiskat was finally coming to fruition...Parliment has said that they would take steps to ensure that all first nations children would have the same quality of education as all Canadian children. As mentioned before, Second Story press has published a wonderful book on this story: Shannen and the Dream for a School.
There are over 400,000 books published in the English language every year and that is a number that is not going down. Anyone can publish a book these days...all you need is a laptop + and ISBN...so why bother with a publisher at all? Ian Rankin addresses that very issue in The Bookseller. PS: Just read The Complaints...awesome!
There is a fun piece in today's NYT about books and reading on the plane. Dominique Browning talks about the pleasure of reading "low-brow" books on the plane...not junk reading but a nice balance of compelling and stimulating reads. I know I look forward to plane rides, just so I can get five hours of uninterrupted reading!
