Look at Rare Books Without Leaving Your Desk!

If you've ever wanted to view the rare book collection at the British Library, but don't have the money for airfare, you'll want to take a look at this site! The British Library has an online gallery, and one of the features is called 'Turning the Pages'. Using this program, you can take a close up look at selected rare books, using your mouse to turn the pages. There is a 'magnify' option to view illustrations up close, and there are notes that provide further information on the spread you are viewing. Audio readings are provided for some titles. The book selections include the first atlas of Europe, Mozart's Musical Diary, William Blake's notebook (I thought my handwriting was messy!), Alice's Adventures Underground with handwritten text and illustrations by Lewis Carroll, and much more!

The Book Club that knew everything...

I love Sundays. I guiltlessly indulge in afternoon naps. I sprawl on my couch with a bowl of popcorn and catch up on movies. And if the reading that I should be doing for work or school hasn't got me completely enthalled, it's only on Sundays that I give myself full license to turn to something else. Which is how I stayed up too late last night finishing Sean Dixon's The Girls Who Knew Everything. But what an engrossing, imaginative, thrilling read. This was one of my fellow Dewey's picks and I've had the book on my to-be-read pile for a few months now. This is the story of the Lacuna Cabal Montreal Young Women's Book Club - a motley group of eccentric and intense women who nevertheless jointly tremble when one of their members pronounces, "those five most exciting words in the Lacuna Cabal lexicon: 'I've been to the library.'" They meet in unusual places and go one step further in their discussions by actually acting out scenes in the book, often with disastrous consequences. The crisis in their club comes as a group of strangers accidentally stumble on a meeting, and are reluctantly manipulated into participating with the group's latest pick - The Epic of Gilgamesh.

Now I haven't given a thought to Gilgamesh since undergrad days when I dropped Northrop Frye's famous and famously tough course on world mythology and the Bible (and why, you may be asking, would anyone drop a course taught by Northrop Frye? I know - I was young and silly. I panicked. We had to do seminars on the meaning of key words in the Bible and I had drawn the word "fire". I had left my term paper to the last minute and I was supposed to be comparing Eve to Guinevere and Helen of Troy. I was doomed. I fled. Someday, in an ideal world, tuition will be actually be affordable so that students don't have to spend so much time working part-time jobs and they can actually enjoy the courses they are working so hard to take. As it turned out, Frye died later that year. But I still did experience several unforgettable lectures, although I have yet to finish reading the Bible. But I digress.)

Back to Dixon's book. It' s full of quirky characters, has not one but two omniscent narrators with an axe to grind, contains witty footnotes, and at its core is a smart, urban tale combined with an improbable and yet irresistable adventure story. Robots, the war in Iraq, blogging and commentary on Canlit (the group particularly reveres In the Skin of a Lion and Fall on Your Knees) all play a part. It's definately a book for bibliophiles and what a great choice for a book club! Could we maybe say Giller Prize shortlist?

Pat Barker returns to WWI

I'm a bit of a WWI buff, especially when it comes to portraying the war in literature so I've been eagerly awaiting Pat Barker's latest novel Life Class. And while, I don't think the book matches anything in her Regeneration trilogy, I give her props for exploring a different aspect of the war, in this case, its effects on three young art students studying at the Slade Institute. The novel is divided into two parts, pre-war and the war itself, and essentially repeats the actions in varying permutations and with different results in both sections. Triangular relationships, a memorable trip, attitudes towards sex, jealousy and violence, and the attempts to convey something meaningful in art all become slightly distorted and confused when placed in the contex of larger events. And yet this is a novel about intensely private and individual responses to the war. Barker has created a very intricate and complex character in Elinor Brooke, (loosely based on the fascinating artist Dora Carrington) who retreats from the war as much as possible in her life and art - which is impossible for the two men she becomes involved with. I enjoyed the novel, but wish Barker had explored the artistic impact of the war in more detail. We get minute and graphic descriptions of the horrors of the war, but not in the paintings that emerge from it. My other wish is that some publisher would put out a really thick, thorough, beautifully illustrated (in colour) book of art from the First World War. There are smaller books available and ones on individual painters, but no encylopedic overview of all the styles and subject matters. It would be absolutely fascinating and haunting.

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune...

We lost one of Canada's great actors just a few weeks ago, but you catch a bit of William Hutt's greatness in the third and last (sniff, sniff) season of Slings and Arrows, that just came out on DVD. It's a bit eerie to watch Hutt (who died of leukemia) play Charles Kingman, a cantankerous, heroin-shooting, aging actor dying of cancer whose last wish is to play the title role in King Lear. But of course he does it marvellously and you also get a sense of how powerful his performance as Lear must have been a few seasons ago at Stratford (I never saw it, although I did get to see his Prospero). If you haven't seen this fantastic Canadian series that both skewers and lovingly pays tribute to the world of the theatre, then what the heck are you waiting for? Terrific writing and acting and it is so wonderfully funny and romantic. And it stars the cream of Canadian theatrical actors including the very dishy Paul Gross (whose carefully tousled hair, you just want to continually run your hands through), Martha Burns, Mark McKinney and Susan Coyne. This season also includes Sarah Polley and a war of egos and ideology between the cast of Lear and the new actors of (heavens!) a musical. I also love Don McKellar in his recurring role as the eccentric director Darren Nichols. Season One revolves around a production of Hamlet, Season Two around Macbeth.

Tour de Farce

Oh, I'm so pissed off today. As some of my fellow travelling Deweys know, I've been glued to the Tour de France for the past two weeks and within 48 hours, my two favourite riders have been kicked out - Alexander Vinokourov for blood doping (Christ, the guy was riding with stitches in his knees and elbows after a bad crash- he was ALREADY a hero for just continuing the race - why did he have to be so incredibly stupid?) and now the leader, Michael Rasmussen, an amazing climber who I have admired for the last few years, has been pulled because he lied about his whereabouts and didn't show up for a drug test - which casts suspicion of course that he has been doping too. Fortunately the top three riders left have never been suspected of doing drugs so we might still have a race worth watching, but this is what I absolutely detest about professional sports. And it's not about stress and pressure - it's about too much money and too much ego and too much corruption. And I feel so bad for the riders who are clean and have to withdraw when their team does, because of some stupid teammate. Poor Bradley Wiggins. I'm now rooting for the man in dead last - Wim Vansevenant - just to make it to Paris.

I feel I've wasted almost three weeks of prime reading time (although I've gotten a lot of knitting done). I should have re-read Tim Moore's very funny French Revolutions instead - an amusing travelogue of a non-cyclist trying to ride the route (although come to think of it, he takes drugs too). Or I should have read a biography of Eddie Merckx. And I'll be looking forward to Jeremy Whittle's new book in September, Bad Blood: The Secret Life of the Tour de France, which hopefully will help me understand this whole mess.

Summer Reading List updated

Having now read both Borderlands and In the Woods, I can heartily recommend them both.

Borderlands reminded me of the early Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus books, which I'm currently re-reading. The story opens with the discovery of a murdered teenager in the borderlands region, between the North and South of Ireland. Both the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic's An Garda Siochana respond. Jurisdiction is determined to fall in the hands of Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin after he recognizes the girl as a local named Angela Cashell. Despite evidence that her death might be drug related, the girl’s father has definite ideas about who has harmed his daughter, and his own idea of how justice should be served. Devlin finds that he’s got his hands full keeping the peace, especially when a second teenager is found murdered. As the investigation unfolds, it becomes clear that these two deaths are somehow connected to the unsolved murder of a prostitute twenty years ago. This book has it all: murder, revenge, politics, secrets, love affairs, family drama, police corruption, and enough twists to keep you guessing to the end. A very satisfying read!

In The Woods combines a straightforward police procedural with a look at the psychological impact of a case on Dublin Detective Rob Ryan. He and his partner Cassie are investigating the murder of young Katy Devlin who was found laid out on an altar stone at the edge of a wooded area. The death has ties to a horrific experience Ryan went through as a child. When he was twelve, he and his two friends disappeared while playing in this same woods. He was the only one found- standing with fingernails dug into a tree, shoes filled with blood, with no memory of what happened to either himself or his friends. Next to Katy's body a hair clip belonging to Detective Ryan's missing friend is found. Rob and Cassie have to figure out if there is a connection between the two crimes. The writing is very tense, and in retrospect, probably not the best book to read while in the middle of a forest when camping (as I was). There is a scene out in the woods at night that will give you goosebumps!

Musings On Waterfowl in Fiction

I sometimes notice the oddest similarities in books that I have recommended. Looking back at my list of book picks from the past few years, I noticed that I had recommended not one, but three fiction books that feature waterfowl. In The Highly Effective Detective by Richard Yancey, the hit and run murders of a family of goslings crossing the road is bumbling PI Teddy Ruzak's first case. A Nameless Witch by A. Lee Martinez is a comedic fantasy novel in which a cursed undead witch sets out to avenge the murder of her mentor Gastly Edna. She is accompanied by her familiar- a demonic, wisecracking, and very bloodthirsty duck named Newt. Fly By Night by Francis Hardinge is a fantasy for readers Gr. 5 and up. The book features a girl named Mosca whose passion for words and reading leads her on an adventure in which she gets caught up in a political revolution. On her journey she is accompanied and protected by (you guessed it), her fierce pet goose.

So why the fascination with waterfowl? Who knows? Maybe I watched too many Donald Duck cartoons as a child! However, they seem to have noticed me noticing them! The photo below was taken when I left work late one night and had the oddest feeling of being watched as I crossed the parking lot to my car...

Harry Potter Parties Galore!!!

Harry Potter Parties Galore!!!

At the KWAC office

Friday night was Pottermania! After an exhausting day talking to accounts about Harry Potter, who for the most part, very excited, our office went out for a well deserved dinner. However...we had to dash as one of our accounts did not have their books...we literally had to hunt for the lost truck, stop traffic and jump aboard to make sure the driver got the books to the event on time.

The lost truck

After we went up to the Indigo store at Manulife where they had a ginormous street party with magicians, a bouncy castle performers and all sorts. The store itself was 5 million degrees and was jammed packed with people in costume.

Countdown clock at Indigo

Our next stop was Mabel's Fables where the atmosphere was very different...kids and adults were lined up around the block in anticipation of the moment. Eleanor LeFave set the atmosphere with lit candles and a flute player. There was a definite hush over the crowd as they were counting down the minutes.

The lovely Witches at Mabel's Fables

Flying Dragon had a real mixture of adults + kids; who were being entertained with goodies and magic tricks provided by Cathy Francis and her crew.

Party at The Flying Dragon

First customer to get his book at Book City

Our last stop was my local book store: Book City on the Danforth, where at this point people's emotions were at a fever pitch. Not as many costumes there but the age range was the oldest I'd seen. Customers started counting down the last minute and when it got to the last ten seconds, it was pretty deafening! The folks at the beginning of the line literally screaming when they got their book.
As for me, the kid's were away for the weekend so both my husband and myself were able to spend all day Saturday reading and we both finished that day....and it is definitely worth the wait!!!

Life in the library

The Toronto Reference Library is turning 30 and wants interesting stories about your memorable moments there for a commemorative booklet. If you had a brilliant eureka moment while perusing a book on their shelves or met the perfect partner at their photocopying machine, they want to know about it. You can submit your stories here. I spent a lot of time at Toronto Ref, particularly in high school, studying up on the fourth floor and doing research with their huge collection of newspapers on microfilm. But that's hardly interesting stuff. Now the stories I could tell (but won't) about Robarts...

You'll never look at laundry the same way again

As a former librarian, I often think back to the days of the 'new book truck'. Having almost disappeared now with system collections and immediate holds fulfillment, the anticipation of finding hidden jewels to covet was truly one of the perks of the job. While presenting to one of my favourite selectors, she mentioned a title that had been making the rounds of her staff room. And THEN she followed up with a link. Librarians are the best. I offer you, The Lost Art of Towel Origami. The ultimate bathroom book!

Waiting for the DVD...

There's a reason I'm a DVD addict and it's because there are so many great independent films and documentaries that never make it to the big screens even in a big cosmopolitian city like Toronto (film festivals aside where it's often hard to get tickets). So I patiently wait and hope that eventually they'll come out on DVD. Here are two very interesting documentaries that I would love to see. The Hollywood Librarian: A Look at Librarians Through Film will be screened at libraries around the U.S. during their Banned Books week at the end of September. Let's hope it makes it over the border. And I missed Helvetica at the Toronto Hot Docs festival but it will be out on DVD this fall. This is a documentary celebrating the 50th anniversary of a font! How cool is that? (I'd write this post in Helvetica but the software doesn't offer it as an option) If you live in Vancouver, you can catch it in August at this event.

Books By the Bay

If you are in the North Bay/Callender area this weekend, check out their Books By the Bay Festival running from Friday to Sunday. The Dewey Divas will be there book talking our summer reading recommendations on Saturday afternoon. It's our third year participating and we love the wonderful venue where we can look out over the lake as we talk. People bring their portable chairs and a picnic and settle back for a day of author events for both adults and kids. This year they have a great line-up of authors including Margaret Atwood, Graeme Gibson, Barbara Reid and Lynn Johnston.

What type of summer reader are you?

The Guardian has this amusing list of summer reading recommendations based on your literary personality type. There are suggestions for the "Urban Liberal", "Yummy Mummies and Daddies", "The Great Literary Pretender", "The Comfort Reader", "The Thirtysomething Peter Pan" and "The Universal Literary Smartarse" among others. Should I be worried that I have all four books recommended to the "Twentysomething Female Ironist" currently sitting on my to-be-read pile?

Riffing on the classics

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a writer in possession of a good talent must be in want of a subject. And frequently the inspiration comes from the classics. Here are two recent but very different takes on eternal and much loved themes. For some light, summer reading I recommend Shannon Hale's Austenland. Our heroine Jane (of course) has a history of bad relationships because, in her mind, no man can ever live up to attributes of Mr. Darcy (she is obsessed with BBC Colin Firth production). Her wealthy aunt leaves her a unique vacation in her will - Jane is sent to a Georgian mansion in England for three weeks, populated by actors who dress, talk and act as though they were in Regency England (with differing levels of success). Will a dose of manufactured historical "reality" cure Jane of her Darcy blues? Will she fall for the disdainful Mr. Nobley, the congenial Colonel Andrews, the (gasp!) gardener Martin or renounce all men forever? Well, if you know your P & P you can pretty well guess the outcome but you'll encounter a few giggles along the way.

However, the book I really want to rave about is Lloyd Jones' Mister Pip which will be available in North America at the end of July. The novel was first published in Jones' native Australia where it won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best Book and it's getting rave reviews in Britain. The excellent book blog The Literary Saloon which regularly reviews books, gave this novel an A+ (a rating which it almost never gives out). You can read their review and roundup here. The novel is not so much a retelling of Great Expectations as an homage both to the book and some of the shared themes especially about the wonder and confusion of childhood. Matilda lives on an island in the South Pacific that is undergoing a civil war. The only white person left in her village is Mr. Watts, who as the children's schoolteacher, reads to them from Great Expectations. Matilda becomes entranced by the story and the characters and one day lovingly scrawls "Mister Pip" into the sand on the beach. When the soldiers see the writing and demand to know who this Mister Pip is, they aren't convinced he's just a fictional character, especially when Mr. Watts' copy of the book has disappeared. The devastating repercussions on Matilda's village and her subsequent life occupy the rest of the story. The writing is beautiful and at its core is the imaginative power of a single work of literature to influence and change lives. This is a book for those who loved Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Yann Martel's Life of Pi, or even William Golding's Lord of the Flies. And as with all these novels, this coming of age story is absolutely one to recommend to YA readers. Slip them Great Expectations as a follow-up, and hopefully they will become Dickens fans for life. For another fictional take on the novel, you could also read Peter Carey's Jack Maggs.

Faulks, Sebastian Faulks

Here's some exciting news. Sebastian Faulks, author of the bestselling WWI novel, Birdsong and the wonderful On Green Dolphin Street, will be writing the next James Bond novel set to come out next spring and entitled Devil May Care. Set in 1967, Faulks promises an ageing, damaged Bond on one last mission. You can read about it here. In the meantime, you can delve into Faulks' latest novel, Engleby, a sardonic look at a man living in Thatcher's England.

Vie Francaise

I initially picked up this novel purely on the basis of its cover which I found strangely alluring. And the title was also appealling, evoking something vaguely more exotic than say, An Ontario Life. Vie Francaise by Jean-Paul Dubois, translated by Linda Coverdale, traces the life of a French Everyman named Paul Blick by mirroring his experiences with the changing political climate of the nation - the turbulent sixties, the consumerism of the eighties, the millennial existential self-doubt (this is a French novel after all - a certain amount of philosophical introspection is expected). The chapters are even named after French presidents and their length of terms (also corresponding to the length of the chapters) from Charles de Gaulle to Jacques Chirac. Paul is a bit of a slacker, always searching for a way to avoid committing to a profession (marrying a rich wife helps) but as the comforts of his life, both personal and material are slowly stripped away from him, he is forced to confront the meaning (if any) of it all. While I probably would have benefitted more from this novel if I had a better handle about French politics, I did enjoy the writing and found myself curiously absorbed in Paul's ethical dilemmas, which often involved many humourous episodes. The book won France's prestigous Prix Femina when it was published there in 2004.

Typewriter Nostalgia

I'm desperately waiting for some company specializing in retro to start mass producing typewriters again (and easily found ribbons). I still remember the thrill of learning to properly type during high school using those old portable machines with their blank keys which you had to really push to hit the paper. And I miss the sound of the keys and the lovely ping of the return carriage. However, I am excited that they seem to be making a comeback as the coolest cultural icon around. The Royal Ontario Museum has just mounted an exhibition of early typewriters containing much of the collection of Torontonian Martin Howard (see more at his own website here). Australian writer David Malouf has just released his latest collection of poetry called Typewriter Music (alas, not yet available in this hemisphere). You can listen to an interview and a reading of some of these poems here. One of my favourite new independent bookstores in Toronto, Type Books at 883 Queen St. pays homage to the machine and its iconographic keys. And there's an interesting site that not only sells old typewriters but has a list of authors and the model of typewriter they used.
A fascinating book not only about the history of typewriters, but typewriting itself (and its use and appearance in literature) is The Iron Whim by Darren Wershler-Henry. Of course the term typewriter used to refer not to the machine itself, but to the person doing the typing (mostly women). Broadview Press has re-issued some wonderful New Woman fiction from the turn of the century that embodies the early days of typewriters. The Type-Writer Girl by Grant Allen features a woman who works in publishing and falls in love with her employer. An early prototype for Bridget Jones with less emphasis on dieting. But my personal favourite is The Girl Behind the Keys by Tom Gallon - a series of melodramatic detective tales in which our feisty typewriter heroine has to foil the criminal activities of her boss (using her typewriter of course!). Deliciously silly reading.

Coe Cravings...

Those who know me, know that Jonathan Coe is one of my favourite contemporary writers and certainly the one that I am constantly urging people to read. So even the anticipation of a new Jonathan Coe novel gets me all giddy. We will have his new novel The Rain Before It Falls next March and I can't wait. I may have to start a count-down calendar. In the meantime I will have to settle for this great interview with him about the new novel which sounds wonderful - an examination of three generations of women's lives. At the end of the piece he pays tribute to Rosamond Lehmann as an inspiration - another writer I adore.

What is it about his writing that I love? He just combines a heady mixture of comedy, pathos, contemporary British sensibility and creates wonderfully quirky yet humanly recognizable characters. Honestly, he's one of those few writers that can truly make you laugh and cry at the same time - sometimes even in the same paragraph. He's a hard writer to compare with others, but I think he's a contemporary Evelyn Waugh with a bit of Alan Bennett, Ali Smith and early Kingsley Amis thrown in. At any rate, you MUST read him. I suggest starting with The Rotters' Club that follows four school boys in 1970s Birmingham and then follow up with the sequel, The Closed Circle which continues their lives in Tony Blair's England.

Summer Reading

I saw Markus Zusak at BEA where he was speaking about The Book Thief. He was wonderful + told a hilarious story about his childhood in Australia, where he finally got his back on his brother. It may seem odd to want to curl up with a book about (and narrated by) Death; but that is what I am looking forward to reading.

Tons of Summer Reading Recommendations

As many of us head out for some much needed vacation time, we're packing our suitcases full of books and not surprisingly, we're using this time to read many of our fellow Dewey picks. If you are looking for some inspiring reading, here's what some of the Deweys are reading this summer (for more recommendations, click on their name which will link you to their picks for the best books of this spring).

Rosalyn

I am a mystery book fanatic, and often have to force myself to read other genres. So, on my holidays I get to indulge in as many mysteries as I like! I’m going to start off with two Irish crime novels. Both books are by debut authors, and both have been getting fabulous reviews on U.K. websites. The first, Brian McGilloway’s Borderlands, has just been shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Fiction Dagger 2007 . The second is Tana French’s In the Woods which was recommended by another Diva and sounds deliciously creepy…

Anne

I have a rather large stack of books that I would love to curl up with this summer. Here are just a few. The Linnet Bird by Linda Holeman is a book that I brought to my book group and we are reading it for our next meeting in September. The story takes place in India in 1839 as a respectable young wife and mother begins writing her life story. It is a tale of a young child prostitute turned social climber turned colonial wife and adventuress. I have heard the book described as a box of chocolates. Once you start it, you will not be able to put it down. Borkmann’s Point: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery by Hakan Nesser will fill the gap while I am waiting for Peter Robinson to continue the life of DCI Banks. Nesser was awarded the best novel award in 1994 for this novel plus he has won several other awards in Sweden for previous books. It will be interesting to have the Swedish perspective and a different locale. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert is the journey of a young thirty something woman, who after a divorce and debilitating depression, travels to Italy, India and Indonesia to examine three different aspects of her nature. I have started this book and felt like I was gaining poundage as Elizabeth described the luscious food and wines of Italy. I suspect I will lose some as I travel along to India. This is a wonderful, soothing type of read. Our situations may differ, but at the heart of things, our need for comfort, love and spiritual fulfillment are pretty much universal. I must admit that I'm a sucker for books that give some insight into the women behind and beside the men. Patriot Hearts: A Novel of the Founding Mothers by Barbara Hambly covers the lives of Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison, and Sally Hemings – four exceptional women who prevailed against many hardships at a time when America was in its infancy. Although it is a novel, Hambly does thorough research and if this is like her previous books, I shall be treated to fascinating characters, and many glimpses of life behind the scenes in American politics. Hambly was nominated for the Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction for The Emancipator’s Wife, the story of MaryTodd Lincoln. Blind Submission by Debra Ginsberg is a novel about a girl who loves books, reading, and anything to do with the written word. This just begs a glass of good Shiraz, a soft breeze and a comfy chair. Angel works in a bookstore that is squeezed out of business. She is forced to find a new job and ends up working for a world-renowned literary agent with a huge ego. Angel is about to discover the lengths some authors will go to to get published and when she reads a chapter from a mysterious manuscript that centers on the ambitious assistant to a successful literary agent, the lines between reality and fiction soon blur. And finally in The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys, it is spring 1941 and London is being destroyed by the Blitz. Gwen Davis, a young horticulturist, leaves her beloved city for the Devon countryside, where she will instruct a group of girls in growing crops for the home front. On a beautiful but neglected country estate, she meets two people who will change her life: Raley, a Canadian officer awaiting posting to the front and Jane, a frail but free spirit whose fiancé is missing in action. This book was recommended to me as “possibly my favourite book.” I just may have to start with this one first.

Eleanor

Family Secrets by Judith Henry Wall is an absolutely terrific read that you cannot put down!! About changing dynamics within a family once the father passes away and the secrets that are revealed - while trying to find the key to a family secret a mystery is to be solved . Are their lives in danger??? Can’t say more as I don’t want to give anything away. A great read!! The Lady in Blue by Javier Sierra is another incredible page turner with lots of action- enough to keep everyone happy with a touch of everything, including time travel, prehistoric Indians, controntation and betrayals. Great short chapters ideal for beach reading!

Ann

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. OK, I dare you to tell me you’re not going to read it too if you’ve read the other six. It would be like getting to the last stage before summiting Everest and saying “no, I don’t think so.” You just have to. The Cruellest Month by Louise Penny won't be published until October but I’ve got a galley. I really enjoy mysteries and really like this series set in rural Quebec. Cruellest… is # 3 and I’m dying to find out what Penny does with Inspector Gamache and the residents of the Town of Three Pines (i.e. which one will she kill off next, and why?). I really enjoyed The Know-It-All by A. J. Jacobs – found it smart, funny and informative – and so can’t wait to see what he does with his year-long attempt to live by the exact tenets of the Bible in The Year of Living Biblically. Next is Michael Connelly's The Overlook. For any mystery fan, a new Michael Connelly is reason to rejoice; a new Harry Bosch, doubly so. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is Michael Chabon's latest. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was, well…amazing. Any novel referred to as “a murder-mystery, speculative-history, Jewish-identity, noir chess thriller”, let alone one from as gifted a novelist as Chabon, is just too good to miss. I’ve been hooked on Jasper Fforde since I bought a very expensive imported British hardcover of The Eyre Affair in 2001, and have devoured every subsequent installment in the adventures of ‘literary detective’ Thursday Next (Lost in a Good Book, Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten). He took a three-year break, creating another series – Nursery Crimes – so the return of Thursday Next in First Among Sequels is an event for me. And finally, I first experienced the extraordinary To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee as an eleven-year-old, sitting on my grandmother’s porch one summer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Maybe it was my age, maybe it was the place, certainly, it was the novel; for me, it’s become a book that, if I don’t re-read it every few years, I start to miss. It’s been a few years. Of course, this won’t be it for the entire summer, heaven forefend, this is just what I know about so far.

Maylin

Two of my friends are vacationing in London right now and I'm jealous. So I'll be reading Michele Roberts' new memoir, Paper Houses. She details how she became a writer through chapters that are named after the various places she lived in London during the 1970s and 80s. It's also very much a story of her participation in the feminist movement during those decades (and she started out as a librarian!) In mysteries, I'll be catching up on the latest Maisie Dobbs novel by Jacqueline Winspear - Messenger of Truth. These are set in the interwar years and Maisie is a former suffragette and WWI nurse who now solves crimes that always have their root in the trauma of the First World War. For fluff, I'm turning to Austenland by Shannon Hale about a woman who is so obsessed with the Colin Firth BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (well, really aren't we all?) that her aunt sends her on holiday to a Georgian mansion filled with actors playing the roles of people from Austen's period. For something more literary, I'm intrigued by Vie Francaise by Jean-Paul Dubois. It's the life of a Frenchman (Dubois is being compared to Philip Roth, John Updike and Richard Ford) where each of the chapters are named after the French presidents at the time from de Gaulle to Chirac. I'll also be reading Patrick Hamilton's Slaves of Solitude on the recommendation of one of my colleagues at the NYRB who was raving about it. Holidays for me are also a chance to catch up on some school reading, so I've also popped into the suitcase South Riding by Winifred Holtby, Female Intelligence: Women and Espionage in the First World War by Tammy M. Proctor and the scintillating Poetry as Discourse by Antony Easthope.

And if you STILL need more recommendations, last week's Guardian had a super round-up of suggested titles by some of the world's great contemporary authors (yep David Mitchell and Jonathan Coe are in the bunch), along with an anecodote about a memorable vacation. It's in two parts which you can start reading here. This should keep you busy while we take a few days off.

Walk this way. . .

Going to sell in Oakville always gets me into trouble; I inevitably have to check out the stores on the main street. In one shoe shop window there was a display of MBT (Maasai Barefoot Technology) sandals that completely drew me in. I'd been thinking about getting a pair of these Swiss shoes for some time (a colleague of mine swears by them), because I'm so undisciplined about going to the gym; walking is really the only form of exercise I thoroughly enjoy. These MBTs promise that I'll burn three times as many calories while walking, will reduce wear on my knees, work unused leg, stomach, and buttock muscles, improve my posture and help reduce back pain (something book reps are always worried about - do you know what a full set of fall catalogues weighs? Now lug about 20 sets of them into a group presentation). They are certainly the only pair of shoes I've ever bought that comes with an instructional DVD. The basic idea is that you walk on an inner pivot that mimics walking in sand. The one thing I've had to get used to is walking with my head up straight and looking into the distance instead of at the ground (for the maximum benefit). This reminds me of my favourite bit of advice in Mireille Guiliano's bestselling lifestyle book, French Women Don't Get Fat. I'm paraphrasing, but in her section on posture, she tells you to pretend that you are in a crowded Paris train station looking for your lover in the fog. It's a great diet book - you can eat bread.

So trying to look Parisian-chic-with-a-touch-of-stately-Maasai-warrior in my baggy workout clothes, I went this morning for a one hour powerwalk. The shoes are immensely comfortable on the soles and are very quick to get used to. I got back feeling quite smug and fit, took a shower and settled on the couch with a book. And then it hit. When I got up, my butt was sooooo sore! But obviously the shoes work and it's an exercise regime I can certainly commit to. I'm determined to walk regularly in them all summer and try to lose ten pounds. Stay tuned.

If you are interested in the Maasai (yes, I really can turn any topic into a book recommendation -it's the old bookseller in me) you can turn to a recent biography of Denys Finch Hatton (the adventurer played by Robert Redford in the movie Out of Africa). Too Close to the Sun by Sara Wheeler traces his experiences in East Africa during the early part of the twentieth century, describes how the First World War was fought there, details Finch Hatton's affairs with the writer Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen and the aviatrix Beryl Markham, and looks at how the area and its inhabitants' way of life (including the Maasai) were destroyed by the encroaching Europeans.

Washington round-up. . .

Just some bits and pieces of recommendations if you are heading to Washington D.C. anytime soon. I was recently there for the American Library Association conference and could easily have spent a week just going to the museums alone.

Hotels/Shopping: Washington has a great metro system that is fairly cheap and very easy to use, so if you visit the city try and get a hotel around Dupont Circle. It's only a half hour walk to downtown but the area is teaming with all my vices - bookshops, shoe shops, tea shops, Thai restaurants, Ben and Jerry's ice cream and lots of coffee outlets. Definately check out Kramerbooks, a great independent bookstore that also has a restaurant/bar in the back. And here's a strange similarity to Sasktoon - both cities have statues of Gandhi. Here's Washington's version on Massachusetts Ave just west of Dupont Circle.

Art galleries/Museums: Oh, there are so many and most of them are free which is great for dipping into. Given my limited free time, I was powerwalking through the National Gallery of Art, The National Portrait Gallery, The Smithsonian American Art Museum and just missed the last tour of the Library of Congress. One of my favourite visits was to the Phillips Collection, America's first museum of modern art and housed in the 19th century home of the collector. I love seeing art in a domestic setting with paintings over fireplaces and in little nooks and crannies. In particular I really liked the paintings of Canadian born Maurice Prendergast and it was interesting to see some of the work of Rockwell Kent (who redesigned the Modern Library colophon, illustrated their edition of Moby Dick and was the subject of Canadian novelist Michael Winter's The Big Why.)

Restaurants: Thai food is my favourite and I had a terrific meal at Thaiphoon, located a few blocks north of Dupont Circle. It blends traditional Thai food with a bit of a modern twist. I highly recommend the honey ginger duck with mushrooms and scallions on a bed of steamed spinach. Add some steamed rice and ask for a side order of peanut sauce. Yum! For excellent lattes and breakfast pastries, Washington has several Corner Bakery Cafes. I first discovered this chain in Chicago when I used to attend Book Expos and though their selection has diminished over the years, they are still a great place to take a book and indulge in a caffeine fix.

Theatre: Check out Washington's Woolly Mammoth Theatre company. They have a great theater space right downtown with a tiny bookstore and cafe that is open on production nights. I saw Sarah Ruhl's new play Deadman's Cellphone which is having its world premiere and I loved it - witty lines, profound observations on contemporary life and beautiful and unexpected staging moments. At intermission I immediately went to buy the play and also a collection of her previous work. One of these, The Clean House will be part of Toronto's Canstage line-up this fall/winter. It was great to wander around the foyer of the theatre and look at posters of past seasons - this company has put on a number of plays by Canadians - Ann-Marie Macdonald, Daniel MacIvor and Jason Sherman just to name a few. Made me very proud.

And Julie Andrews: She's been an idol of mine ever since I was a kid so it was a bit of a thrill to attend a talk by her at ALA. It started with a video montage of various film and theatre clips which was extremely enjoyable to watch since I'm such a fan of her work, but I couldn't help feeling it was a bit out of place at a librarian conference. Especially since it was almost thirty minutes long (about ten minutes longer than her subsequent talk) and it made it hard to take her seriously when she voiced her irritation at often being dismissed as simply a celebrity author. Still, her latest children's book looks like fun. The Great American Mousical follows the adventures of a group of mice living beneath a theatre as they plan to stage their own show. Julie will be the chair for American Library Week in 2008.

Foto op...

If you are planning a trip to Washington, D.C. you MUST make time to visit the National Gallery of Art. They have a terrific exhibit looking at experimental photography in Eastern Europe during the interwar years. It contains absolutely stunning and thought-provoking images superimposed on each other, a series of very clever and surreal photo montages, a lot of fascinating photographs exploring the nature of machines in modern society, the devastation caused by the first world war and the menacing encroachment of the second. It was spectacular! Of course I bought the accompanying book, which I highly recommend if you can't make it to the exhibit in person. It's a great companion to Undercover Surrealism which I bought after seeing the exhibit in London last summer. I spend a lot of time in art galleries when I travel and this was one of the most fascinating exhibits I have ever seen. It was based on a journal created by Georges Bataille in the 1920s to comment on the contemporary post WW1 world through the most interesting and obscure juxtapositions of cultural artifacts. I spent hours in the gallery reading almost every word on every single specimen card. You can read more about the exhibit and see some of the images in the Guardian's archives here. But treat yourself and your coffee table and buy a copy of the book too.

On the road in ... Washington, D.C.

I'm here in scorching Washington D.C. at the American Library Association conference - the biggest one in terms of attendence in their 100 year history. It's been a busy show but today is the last day (usually a slow one) so we're spelling each other off for some free time away from the booth. There is going to be a huge rally by librarians (and bookmobiles) around Capital Hill this morning to promote the need for funding for librarians. I'm going to try and catch it en route to the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Despite the heat and humidity, Washington is a great city for a conference - the Convention Centre is located right downtown, the metro is terrific (half an hour after getting off my plane, I was at my hotel) and most of the museums are free which allows quick dipping into those rooms that are of interest. More to come along with photos, hearing Julie Andrews talk, the best place to buy shoes and books and the best Thai restaurant in town!

Can't see the mystery for the trees?

This article from The Rap Sheet blog really made me laugh. Book reps often groan about the covers of books and how often the same stock images are repeated by different publishers with varying success. There is no doubt that design trends run through cover treatments; for example there was a time when shoes dominated and not just on chicklit. Then eyeglasses. And then suitcases. One trend I personally loathed and which seems to have thankfully dissipated was the crop-a-person's-face-in-half (either vertically or horizontally) look. But I've never thought of trees as being particularly sinister until I read J. Kingston Pierce's clever and interesting deconstruction of the covers of numerous recent mystery novels that all use trees as their focal points. He divides the trees into four categories: anthropomorphic trees that invoke human-like monsters, bleak and desolate trees, trees as villians, and mysterious trees.
Now I'll have guilty nightmares where these scary trees gather around my bed threatening me with bad things if they get cut down for another reprint of The Da Vinci Code.

And yet another award...

Meg Rosoff has just won the Carnegie Award for children's writing for her latest novel Just in Case. This prestigious award is chosen by a panel of U.K. librarians. You can read more about the prize here. I haven't yet read Just in Case, but I absolutely loved Rosoff's first novel, How I Live Now for its originality, its complicated human relationships and the ending (which of course I won't give away). Though it was originally published as a YA novel, it's one of those crossover books that totally appeals to an adult audience. But my recommendation comes with a dire warning - once you've read it, you'll go into a bit of a reading funk, trying to find a follow-up that even comes close to being as satisfying. We'll be publishing Rosoff's new novel, What I Was next February.

Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction...

Rajiv Chandrasekaran has won this year's Samuel Johnson Prize - the largest literary prize for non-fiction - for Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone - his look at how the U.S. has surreally and ludicrously "reconstructed" Iraq and made plenty of money doing so. You can read more about his win here.

Mysteries to make you laugh

Ideal summer reading is catching up on my mysteries but this weekend I really wanted some humour as well. Lucky for me that Vintage U.K. has just re-issued three of Edmund Crispin's wonderfully droll novels featuring the eccentric Oxford Professor Gervase Fen. These were written in the 1940s and 1950s and I read his most famous, The Moving Toyshop, giggling all the way through. A poet has discovered the dead body of an old woman in a toyshop at night, but when he summons the police in the morning, the corpse is gone and the toyshop has now become a grocer's. Naturally the police think he's barmy and moreso when he teams up with Prof. Fen to try and solve the case. It's ingenious and enjoyable plotting, but it will also appeal to readers who love academic satire or bookish references. When this learned duo get themselves into tight places, such as being locked up in a cupboard, they don't panic, but instead play intellectual games such as "Unreadable Books" to pass the time. Or they'll switch to "Detestable Characters in Fiction" while discussing the case in a pub. One of the suspects is even a Janeite. Give Crispin a try - he would be a wonderful author to press on fans of Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse series, or even of Dorothy Sayer's Gaudy Night. Two other Fen mysteries - Holy Disorders and Love Lies Bleeding have also just been re-issued.

Or for something completely different, you could try Leonie Swann's Three Bags Full, in which a flock of Irish sheep - of varying levels of intellectual ability - have to solve the case of their murdered shepherd. The humour in this one resides in how the complexities of the human world are viewed through the eyes of the sheep. Certainly one of the more original mysteries you will read this summer.

And the IMPAC Award goes to...

It certainly is the year for international fiction and now Norway is in the spotlight. I love the IMPAC award because all the books are nominated by libraries from around the world. Per Petterson is not a writer I've read before (although I will do so now) but Out Stealing Horses was getting a lot of buzz even before today's announcement.

Reading Around the World

Hooray, Chinua Achebe has won the International Man Booker Prize, an award given every two years celebrating a writer's body of work. You can read more about it here. Achebe's best known work is Things Fall Apart. As the summer holidays approach and you find yourself dreaming about traveling, books are a great way to live vicariously and explore a country's history and culture. For great suggestions, check out New York Review of Books which specializes in publishing literature in translation, or check out Words Without Borders, an online site dedicated to international literature. You can also check out the blog My Tragic Right Hip - this blogger (and Canadian book industy type) has set herself a goal of trying to read 52 books from 52 different countries this year. You can follow her reviews and suggestions here (scroll down to the bottom for her full list). She's already on Book #32 which is pretty darned impressive.

Great reading online

I know I should probably be blogging about the last two days at Book Expo but I'm completely talked out. It was a busy bookfair and great to see so many librarians and library students enjoying themselves. To be honest, however, all I want to do now is flake out on my comfy sofa with a good book or pop an interesting film into my DVD player. To that effect, I steer you in the direction of BookForum which has its latest edition posted online here. The theme is Fiction into Film and there are some great articles to read, including one where several writers recommend the best film adaptions of novels. Look also for an interesting interview with Andrew O'Hagan, author of Be Near Me, and a review of the posthumously published Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski. Margaret Atwood also just wrote about this book and her friendship with Kapuscinski here. This is a book I very much hope to read over the summer.

Where we're reading now...

Sometimes we get so caught up in exploring new places that we forget to appreciate what's in our own backyard. For the last two months I've been so busy being on the road, I decided this sunny Saturday to leisurely walk around my own vibrant city - book in hand of course - and visit some new sites. First stop was down by the lake to check out Toronto's newest "beach". Okay, so it' s more like an adult sandbox, but there are these huge yellow umbrellas at regular intervals offering ample shade and since there's always a nice breeze off of the water, it's the perfect place to plunk down in the sand (or in one of the many deck chairs on hand) and read. The view is lovely and while it's hardly the French Riveria, at least one can momentarily forget about the wall of high-rise condominiums behind this beach, hiding the lake view from practically any other spot in Toronto.

I'm currently finishing up Mary McCarthy's Charmed Life about a group of pretentious, irresponsible, melodramatic, would-be artists in a small rural New England community and a woman who has just returned with her latest husband and is thrown into the company of her former husband. These characters are thoroughly detestable and I'm loving this novel as I do most of McCarthy's work. Not only is it extremely funny, but McCarthy never shies away from intellectual discussions in her work, completely at ease with having her characters sit around and discuss the differences between Racine and Corneille or the story of Berenice versus Dido with a little bit of Hamlet thrown in. Just marvellously entertaining stuff.

Next it was off to check out the new flagship store of Umbra, a Canadian design company known primarily for its distinctive trash cans and innovative picture frames. Their products have been available in houseware stores across the country, but now they've opened their own two story emporium to showcase their full line of items - they have everything from sheets to furniture to interactive clothing (one t-shirt comes complete with a needle and thread attached, to connect the various dots on the shirt). It's also partly an art gallery as well. Located on John St. just north of Queen. You can hardly miss it.



Perfect store decor for a Dewey Diva isn't it? God, I love this city!

The art and pleasures of bookselling

Last night four of us Deweys were on hand to toast the career of a dear friend of mine who is retiring at the end of the month after nearly 30 years in the book business. I worked with Nick Pashley for nine years and consider him my mentor; he taught me everything I know about the book business, showed me by example how bookselling is truly an art, and inspired a real love in me for the industry. With all of its various quirks and frustrations - uncooperative computer systems, never-ending piles of catalogues, finicky authors and rude customers, long hours and little pay (no one ever becomes a bookseller to make money), the rewards can sometimes seem few and far between. But they remain surprisingly humble: having a book in stock that a customer has desperately been searching for, or putting a great book into someone's hands and having her or him return to tell you how much they enjoyed reading it. That's truly the best feeling in the world. Nick is one of the wittiest people I know (if you are a regular reader of the U of T Bookstore Review you will be familiar with his funny and perceptive book reviews and columns) and the messiest - the tottering piles of books, catalogues and stray bits of paper in his office is legendary (and inspiring)! He is also an author -try and get your hands on a copy of his wonderful book, Notes On A Beermat. He plans to spend a good deal of his retirement reading in various pubs in Toronto. You'll recognize him when you see him - he'll be the guy in the corner with a pint and a copy of a P.G. Wodehouse or Iris Murdoch novel. It feels like the end of an era - but it was a wonderful party filled with dozens of fellow booksellers, reps, editors and other industry types paying tribute to one of Canada's most-loved trade buyers.

I was thinking of Nick while reading Lewis Buzbee's memoir The Yellow-Lighted Bookstore. This lovely little book is in part a history of bookselling and part a series of meditations on being both a bookseller and then a publisher's sales rep in the days before chain stores and internet commerce. For those already in the business, it's a timely reminder of why we love our jobs; for those curious about the industry, it's a great introductory primer and an ode to the physical bricks and mortar bookstore.

Double Orange Prize winners!

And the winner of the Orange Prize is.....

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie! I'm just thrilled - not only is she the youngest woman to win this annual award but she had tough competition on the shortlist, up against Booker winner Kiran Desai, Anne Tyler, Rachel Cusk, Xiaolu Guo (we're publishing her shortlisted novel this fall) and Jane Harris. Plus the book is fantastic. There's been a wonderful resurgence of books by African writers being published in the West in the last few years, but not that many by women. This novel deals with the Nigerian civil war in the late 1960s through the eyes of a houseboy, two sisters and their very different partners. You can read more coverage at the Guardian. Also check out Adichie's first novel, Purple Hibiscus and you can read an online Q & A where she answers questions about both books here. There's always a lot of controversy around the Orange Prize being open only to women, but I'm all for it. Of the many literary prizes out there, this consistently has the most interesting long and short lists. I'm constantly being introduced to great international writers that I would perhaps never have heard of without the attention that this prize gives them. Just check out the list of previous winners, shortlists and longlists here and see how many names are now some of your favourite writers.

Also congratulations to Karen Connelly who won the Orange Broadband Award for New Writers. Her novel The Lizard Cage was one of my Dewey picks a few seasons ago (it was published earlier in Canada) a profoundly moving novel about a man imprisoned for protesting against the government through his songs, and how he endures his solitary confinement, helped by his relationship with a young boy. One would think that not much could happen in a novel set for the most part just in a tiny cell but I found this story completely enthralling. And I promise you that after reading it, you'll never look at a simple ballpoint pen the same way again.

This is one of those days when I'm so proud to be working for the company responsible for publishing these two terrific writers.

First came the book, then the TV series...

Two series that I count among my guilty reading pleasures have been adapted and are coming to TV this Fall- James Patterson's Women's Murder Club series and Cecily von Ziegesar's Gossip Girl series. The Women's Murder Club is coming from ABC, and the Gossip Girl series will air here on CTV. Check out the trailers for each- they look great!

Too cool, or should that be hot?

I have a fascination with hotels, and this project is just so interesting. A hotel in London, England, partnered up with some design students to create interesting objects and installations to enhance a customer's hotel experience. This is my favourite - a bedtime story printed out on a blanket with several layers so as you "turn" the pages, you actually are piling extra layers on yourself. Wouldn't that work wonderfully for a ghost story? You can see more pictures of this project here.

Book Expo Canada Authors

As promised, here is the list of authors appearing at the H.B. Fenn booth (#705) during Book Expo Canada.

Sunday, June 10
11 AM–Noon: Ralph Mellanby, the man behind Hockey Night in Canada, will be signing advance reading copies of his new book Walking with Legends.
Noon–1 PM: Alafair Burke will be signing copies of Dead Connection, her latest electrifying thriller.
1 PM–2 PM: Vanessa Craft will be signing copies of her debut novel, Out of Character.
1 PM–2 PM: Chantel Simmons will be signing copies of Stuck in Downward Dog.
2 PM–3 PM: Massimo Marcone will be signing copies of In Bad Taste?
3 PM–5 PM: Don’t miss your chance to meet international bestselling author James Patterson at his first ever Book Expo appearance. He will be signing copies of his latest Women’s Murder Club mystery The 6th Target.
5 PM: Join us to celebrate H.B. Fenn and Company’s 30th Anniversary with cake and champagne.

Monday, June 11
10 AM–11 AM: Canadian duo Yvonne Collins and Sandy Rideout will be signing copies of their new book The Black Sheep.
11 AM–Noon: Join Sleeping Bear authors and illustrators Lovenia Gorman, Melanie Rose, Janet Skirving, Mike Ulmer, and Susan Tooke as they sign copies of their latest children’s picture books.
Noon–1 PM: Toronto playwright Sean Dixon will be signing copies of his new YA book The Feathered Cloak.
Noon–1 PM: Carol Matas will be signing copies of her latest book Past Crimes.
1 PM–2 PM: Canadian ER doctor Dan Kalla will be signing copies of his latest medical mystery Blood Lies.
2 PM–3 PM: Meet Hugo and Nebula Award winner Robert J. Sawyer as he signs copies of his latest bestseller Rollback.