Suggest-a-book

You’re a reader. You’ve arrived at a reader’s page. Perhaps you’ve browsed around and see that we may share a taste in books. Well, here is an opportunity to leave me (and others) a book suggestion. The comments are open!!

Another box o’ books…

Well, it’s happened again…I’ve received another box of books to review (here’s a list of the previous batch, and the one before).

This time they look like a lovely mix: 4 books of short stories, 1 memoir, 1 poetry/novel, 2 novels.

Short Stories

Cobalt Blue by Mary Borsky (Thomas Allen Publishers) — Judging this book by its cover, I’d say it’ll be mighty good. Lovely hand-holding size, good design, a trade paper with useful jacket-flaps. (A note to the publishers — your page for the book didn’t google well.)

Silent Girl by Tricia Dower (Inanna Publications) — Wow. A quick google of this book title exposes me to something new, unexpected: A moving book trailer on YouTube.

I’m absolutely flumoxed. Tricia, me girl, that was inspired. I’m now terribly eager to read the book. (Book publishers/authors, take note: this woman knows how to market a book on the Internet!).

Out of Cleveland by Lolette Kuby (Véhicule Press) — A slim book with a very simple, unpretentious cover. I’m a sucker for short stories by women about women, so add that to the author’s background as a poet, I’m looking forward to this collection too.

I must admit, this post is turning into a “Who wins on the Internet marketing front?” — and here’s one that has almost no presence. To get anywhere, you have to put the title in quotes. Publisher — pay attention! I had to search for your site separately! (Hopeless, as web-un-savvy as this group is, they will likely not see this post. Unlike Tricia, above, who will be visiting me shortly, I’m sure!)

Red Rooms by Cherie Dimaline (Theytus Books) — Theytus Books is a small publisher, but all of the books I’ve seen are beautifully designed. I’m a little biased, as this publisher is in my town. Being from them, I do know that the author must be First Nations — and looking at the jacket, the stories are about the “urban Native people.” Another book to look forward to.

Memoir

The Way It Was: Vignettes from My One-Room Schools by Edith Van Kleek (University of Calgary Press) — Beautifully designed cover, readable text, nice heft to the book…I know I’ll enjoy this one. The author wrote notes throughout her career, and her daughter has now edited them into this book. (On the Internet marketing scale, this one doesn’t even rate. Note to authors — don’t expect a university publisher to market your book!)

Poetry/Novel

The Given by Daphne Marlatt (McClelland & Stewart) — I would expect Daphne Marlatt, who’s been writing poetry and novels for years, to have a good publisher (which she does)…and that publisher to have decent web-savvy (and they do). Even with the name of this poetry novel being rather common, the book’s page googled up on the first page. Of course, I’m looking forward to reading this offering.

Novels

The End of East by Jen Sookfong Lee (Vintage Canada – Random House) — I would expect Random House to be up-to-date on the whole web marketing issue, and they are. Search the phrase end of east and it’s the first hit. Well done! 2nd place prize to Random House. The novel itself looks lovely — a generational piece on Vancouver’s Chinatown. Can’t wait.

Living with the Dead by Kelley Armstrong (Random House) — Armstrong has a series of her Otherworld books out, and while I’ve not read any (yet), I have heard of her. Random House didn’t do as well for this author, but her own website is informative, listing her books. Bronze medal for web marketing.

I will try to post something other than my first impressions as I read the books. Please feel free to ask me directly for feedback.

And Tricia? Stop and say hi!

“We were only loggers.”

Outside of Canada, even outside of the Maritimes, not much is known about the 1959 riot in Badger, Newfoundland. It might be something that a someone might have mentioned once, maybe in a discussion of strikes gone bad, a reminiscence from your old uncle perhaps.

But get your hands on a copy of The Badger Riot by J.A. Ricketts, published 2008 by Flanker Press in Newfoundland and you will never forget that little 1950s town where the 3 rivers meet.

Now, I got my copy from my buddy who is co-owner at Flanker Press. He’d been crowing about this book all over the Internet, so I stuck up my hand and said “Hey man, throw a copy my way!” (If you’ve been here before, you know I’m always up for a free book.)  To be honest, my mouth started watering when I read the absolutely glowing review from the Globe and Mail, entitled A Lovely Labour of Death:

“The Badger Riot is, on the surface, a novel about an important event in Newfoundland labour history: a three-month loggers strike in Badger, led by the International Woodworkers of America (IWA).

But it is much more than a run-of-the-mill strike drama. The Badger Riot is also a vivid portrait, beautifully rendered, of Newfoundland in the 1950s. Ricketts fashions a scrapbook, sharing with the reader snapshots of the countryside, the people, the architecture, the smells and the history. Ricketts even captures the Newfoundland accents in the dialogue.”

So, as you can see, this is not a book to shy away because you think it’s likely to be dry history — it’s actually a riveting piece of fictionized history that will have you turning pages, caught up in the building tension. I heartily agree with the reviewer:

“A word of friendly warning: Once you start reading the last third of The Badger Riot , you will not be able to stop. Set aside plenty of time. The prose carries you from chapter to chapter like a bobsled.”

The author was one of the children who unwittingly witnessed the riot itself, standing on a snowbank at 14 years old with her friends…as the clarity of the descriptions can attest to. This is not some maudlin’, over-wrought prose — the language is spare and honest, with moving points-of-view to capture a feeling of the whole community.

A book 50 years in the making. Unfortunately, like a special dinner one slaves over for hours, it is devoured quickly.

Thank you, Jerry. It was delicious.

(*Astute readers will note that, yes, this is the first time I’ve used images in a post. I just discovered that WP has made it virtually idiot-proof!)

Some Canadian Books

I’ve bleated on enough about the last package of books I received to review, so I won’t go into that again.

Without further ado, in no particular order (other than the order they are piled on my desk), here are some Canadian books published in 2008 that you should keep your eyes peeled for:

Anything by Shauna Singh Baldwin. I have in my pile two books of short stories — the re-published English Lessons and Other Stories (with Readers’ Guide), and a new collection called We are not in Pakistan. Both are wonders of cross-cultural exploration, lovely stories of very real people. I see from her website that she has also written two novels…worth checking out.

Under the Holy Lake: A memoir of Eastern Bhutan by Ken Haigh is a highly readable introduction to Bhutan, a country that the average person knows little about. Haigh spent a soul-searching 2 years teaching in Khaling, a small village in the far eastern reaches of an already inaccessible country. This book will leave you with a lasting impression of the country and its people.

Shirin and Salt Man by Nilofar Shidmehr is a book that takes you by surprise. [By the way, a note to all authors...ensure that you or your book has its own dedicated page somewhere -- in the Internet age, you need to stand out and be linked to!] It’s a novella in poetic form, tying the legends of Iran to the modern day. I read it through the first time, fascinated by the poetry and the images; the second time, fascinated by the story; and the third time sent me to the Internet to research the legends of Shirin and the discovery of the Salt Man in the 80s.

I’ll leave you there, with more to come. Plus, I will point out a couple of books to avoid…there are days when I despair at the state of Canada’s publishing! (Do I despair or rejoice in the knowledge that anyone can get published?!?)

The Reviewer’s Plight

My faithful readers (all 3 of you!) will have noticed the lack of new posts recently. My apologies for that. It’s part laziness, part the pile of books I received for review a while ago.

Now, I’m an amateur reviewer…’amateur’ in the classic sense in that I don’t do it for money, but enjoy composing my little reviews for CBRA. Up until this last batch of books, all of the reviews I wrote sat in a hardbound annual in libraries across the country…likely very few people actually read them. Now, however, these reviews are going online, where they will (theoretically) be searchable by anyone looking for information on a given book.

And now I’m hesitant. When I blogged the list of books I received, I realized something I’d not thought about seriously before — the author may read my review of her/his book. Oh, I’m sure they did before, in the hardcover annual, but now, they truly will.

And they might respond.

In this day’n'age of tracking mentions of yourself/your book/your cause célébre online, I’m sure every single person attached to the books I received hit my blog.

Two responded.

This is exciting if you’re offering up praise. How every cool to be in touch with someone whose work you admire.

But what if the work is awful? What if it makes you cringe at the state of the book publishing industry in this country?

I will have to decide…to post my opinion, for good or for bad, as it is my opinion. Honest and true-as-I-see-it. It’s all I can do.

And I won’t ignore my blog anymore.

Thanks for listening.

Vampire Fiction: my take

NO, this is not a blog post about Twilight. Oh, spare me that agony. I did read the first book, lent to me by a co-worker, on a bus trip. It was a relatively fun, mindless 2 hours to the end of the book…but it was like eating cotton candy, absolutely no sustenance.

And it is not a post about Anne Rice, although I enjoyed her vampire books. I especially enjoyed the history of each vampire. Fun, sexy books.

Who I would like to talk about is the author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. A good friend of mine intercepted me after the above-mentioned bus trip, told me, if you want vampire fiction, here is where to go.  That was 2 months ago. She has since lent me 5 of Yarbro’s books, all of which I’ve devoured…but I’m only getting around to writing about them now. My apologies.

The website states the over-arching focus of the books much more succinctly than I ever could:

The books of the Saint-Germain Cycle combine historic fiction, romance, and horror and feature the heroic vampire first introduced in Hôtel Transylvania as Le Comte de Saint-Germain. In this initial novel, the character — cultured, well-traveled, articulate, elegant, and mysterious — appears in the court of France’s King Louis XV.

A ‘heroic vampire’ makes for a very readable series (of which I’ve only read 1/4…there are 20+ books so far!). Then, the conflict is in the human world around Saint- Germain as he maintains his life.

As Chelsea Quinn Yarbro explains:

The second level of questions arose from the relationship of vampires to humans — must the relationship be exploitative? And must humans abhor vampires? The more I thought about it, the more I thought it was worth trying to use a vampire as a metaphor for humanism: a person living an unnaturally long life might become alienated from humanity, as a means of avoiding the pain of spending most of your time saying permanent good-byes. Or it was just possible the vampire would, through his very alienation, seek to be part of human experience, which offered a great many more dramatic possibilities.

So, the books follow the efforts of the vampire Saint-Germain to live in each age. Of course, because of his accumulated wealth and knowledge, he finds himself embroiled in public life and that brings its own difficulties. The stories recount his activities in this public sphere, with any sucking of blood kept to the sidelines.

The most fascinating aspect of these books is that the horror and danger in a Saint-Germain novel come from the humans, not the vampire.

Any other Yarbro fans out there?

Next batch of review books arrived

As I have pointed out before, I’ve been reviewing books for the Canadian Book Review Annual for years. Recently, they underwent a bit of upheaval, as they closed their doors due to the prohibitive cost of putting out the annual, but then were taken over by the Dundurn Group.

So, this year was a letter telling me that CBRA was folding, followed by another saying, “No, sorry for that…we’re back on! Expect your books soon!” Yippee!

Without further ado, the books, in no particular order:

1. Universal Communicator from Ulysses — A small, itty-bitty little book to fit in your back pocket while traveling, with no words. Point to pictures to express your basic needs/desires. Actually quite brilliant.
2. Shirin and Salt Man by Nilofar Shidmehr (Oolichan Press) — I’m looking forward to this one…albeit the format is new to me. It’s a novel in poetry about Iran.
3. A Song For My Daughter by Patricia Jean Smith (Oolichan Press) — Absolutely lovely cover, if one can judge books that way. Another Oolichan press book, from Vancouver Island.
4. The Sherpa and Other Fictions by Nila Gupta (Sumach Press) — Short stories by an Indo-Canadian woman.  I do like short stories!
5. My Estruscan Face by Gianna Patriarca (Quattro Books) — Even if I didn’t know this was poetry, the cover design screams that fact. The poet, with the amazing name, is award-winning, so I’m looking forward to this one as well.
6. As Fate Decrees by Denysé Bridger (EDGE SF and Fantasy Publishing) — A truly horrible cover, with a fraught painting that more or less depicts the story. But then, I’ve already read this fantasy based in ancient Greece, and it’s quite good. Despite the cover.
7. Pretenders and Righteous Anger by Lynda Williams (EDGE) — Parts 2 and 3 of the Okal Rel Saga. Gads, do I need Part 1? Anyway, from the same publishers as #6, the covers of these are just as awful. And it looks like they have the corner on melodramatic cover artists and designers, because all three books have different people in those positions. I’m assuming they will read better than they look. I’ll keep you posted.
8. Personal History by Roo Borson (Pedlar Press) — This seems to be an artsy memoir.
9. We are not in Pakistan and English Lessons and other stories by Shauna Singh Baldwin (Goose Lane) — Two books of short stories with beautiful covers. (Not that I’m looking!)
10. Lift Up Your Hearts by Laurel Buck (Shoreline) — A slim memoir (one of many, so it seems) by a woman who appears to be a storyteller. (Keeping an open mind…)
11. Under the Holy Lake: A memoir of Eastern Bhutan by Ken Haigh (UofA Press) — Gorgeous-looking book, a possibly  substantial memoir. By its very ‘luck’ at being at the bottom of this list, I may read it next.

Well there you go. If you have any experience with any of these, if you’ve landed here because you’re tied to them in some ways, please pause and comment.

(If you are one of the cover artists at EDGE, please be aware that I can barely draw a stick figure. Your paintings are great, just not suited to book covers.)

“Literary Soup” Literature

I’m in the middle of two books, and suddenly I feel like I’m reading one of those artsy-fartsy double features at your local, non-mainstream movie house. You know the ones, where there is a connection between the films, and it is your job as the audience to find it.

The most obscure one I ever came across was where the only link was an ice cream cone in each film. The most delightful was Robert LePage’s Le Confessional (1995) shown with Hitchcock’s I Confess (1953).

So, back to books.

I’m reading two books right now:

• the always erudite, sometimes terribly obscure Umberto Eco’s The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2005), and
• a first book by a young woman in the USA, Marisha Pessl’s Specialty Topics in Calamity Physics (Astute BookNook followers will recall that I blogged about the book’s amazing website here!)

While both books are utterly different in plot, character, setting, and genre they have in common a wonderful bookyness to them…they are both a literary soup of references that verge on the border of being overwhelming, but instead are almost inspiring in their bibliophilia.

Two different books, two utterly different characters, but both texts are littered with pop culture:

Eco, being a semiologist, does not really surprise us in this. His other books have been thick with historical references, illuminating his amazing well-readness. This time however, it is a plot point, as our protagonist is an older man suffering from amnesia who uses the books of his lifetime to rebuild his lifeline. The references this time are both classical and current, albeit the focus of the current is on Italian modern history and corresponding pop culture.

Pessl, a young woman writing her first novel, holds her own in general bookyness in comparison to the towering Eco. The character, Blue van der Meer, is not quite 18 but is an astoundingly well-read genius, being the daughter of a rather eccentric, nomadic, genius professor father. As she navigates the teen hell of a yet another new school, her every thought is a literary or pop culture reference, at times against her will. Despite how ponderous that sounds, it is a delightful read, and un-put-down-able once you really get rolling.

I need more books of this genre (is it a meta- or sub-genre?). Any suggestions?

Truly comprehensive?

Wouldn’t it be utterly brilliant to have a comprehensive list of available online books?

This site seems to be a step in that direction. It is a no-frills webpage of links to so many of the online book (including audio books) locations that one would be hard-pressed to say if anything was missing. And if it is, suggest it to the website’s owner, and I’m sure it will be added.

Next, give me a book reader and I’ll be all set.

Since we’re on the subject, if you’re looking to get me a gift (”Really? For me?!?”), I’m opting for the iRex iLiad — pricey but has features that I’d love. Unlike the much-too-hyped Amazon Kindle — where they don’t tell you the fine print (I’ve read this on Cnet, in the user reviews). You know all those thousands of free books online? The ones that you already have on your computer? Well, if you want them on the Kindle, you gotta buy them from Amazon, ’cause they won’t go on otherwise! Yup, Amazon has found a way to inveigle all those book lovers into buying stuff that is otherwise free! [The moral of the story? Do your research before you buy!!]

Ah, Words…

Found a great blog post today about how this woman got a word into the OED.

Lyza, you’re my hero.

It is because of her that ‘food coma’ is in the OED:

“food coma n. U.S. a lethargic state induced by eating, esp. a large quantity of (freq. rich or unhealthy) food.”

I’ve written on dictionaries before, online and in meat space (hey, Lyza, can you talk to your buddies about that phrase?), but I thought I’d comment for a moment on the dictionary I use the most:

WordReference.com

This online beauty is beyond a doubt the resource I turn to the most on an almost daily basis. Here, you find the meanings and translations of pretty much any word and phrase to/from English, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and German. I use it almost daily at work as I am managing a couple of files with French organizations, and I often have to write emails etc. in French (and read them!). Do a quick search, and if the resulting page of options is not sufficient, scroll down a bit further to the list of idiomatic phrases. And if what you’re looking for is still not there, there’s a list of Forum posts that will help. Still no? Then post your question (follow the guidelines please!) on the forum, and Voilà! within 5 minutes, you’ll have an answer. People are always combing the forums for questions to answer…’tis very friendly, accurate and quick!