Submitted by clelia (not verified) on January 23, 2009 - 1:57pm.
Shaun Smith is a novelist and journalist living in Toronto. His young adult novel Snakes & Ladders was published in January 2009 by the Dundurn Group.
As a journalist he has published over 200 articles in such publications as the Toronto Star, Toronto Life, CBC Arts Online, Chatelaine, The Globe & Mail, Quill & Quire, Toro, Argyle, The Writer and LCBO’s Food & Drink.
A former chef who has cooked at such establishments as Scaramouche, the David Wood Food Shop, and The Senator, he is now a food writer for Toronto Life magazine and CBC.ca. He has also reviewed over forty cooking and food titles for Quill & Quire magazine, where he is a Contributing Editor. In addition, he wrote the dining chapter for the Toronto & Niagara Colourguide, published in March 2008 by Formac Publishing, providing a guided tour of the Toronto’s best restaurants.
As a literary critic, he has reviewed such titles as Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis (Toronto Star), Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris (Toronto Star) and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Toronto Star).
As a bookseller, he worked for many years at such bookstores as Pages Books & Magazines, Indigo Books & Music & Nicholas Hoare Ltd. He was the co-creator and former coordinator of the literary event series This Is Not A Reading Series.
In October 2005, NOW magazine voted him the Canadian publishing industry’s “Most Valuable Player” in their Best of Toronto edition. His website is shaunsmith.ca.
What was your first publication and where was it published?
SS:
The first thing I ever published was a recipe in a charity cookbook for the Mabin School in Toronto. I was a chef at the time and an old friend was the editor of the cookbook. The recipe was for duck liver pie. We made up a completely bogus back story about my having created it while traveling in England. I’ve never been to England. It was quite a good pie though.
OBT:
Describe a recent Canadian cultural experience that influenced your writing.
For as long as 13-year-old Paige Morrow can remember, the tree fort in the giant oak near her cottage in Ontario’s Muskoka has been her sanctuary. Now everything is changing. It’s the summer of 1971, and she and her little brother, Toby, have been at their cottage with their mother since school let out. But this year, Paige feels more alone than ever. Her father has stopped coming up from the city on weekends, while her mother buries herself in whiskey and writing.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Garden of Knowledge
There's a fascinating project happening in the Quebec forest near Grand-Métis. Designers Thilo Folkerts and Rodney LaTourelle have built a "garden" using 40,000 books and called it "Jardin de la Connaissance". It's a double joke, you see, since it refers to Eden and because the books, if left, will decompose to eventually become trees again. Knowledge is temporary; everything is cyclical. (via Galleycat)
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Beattie bashing
Whether or not you like the sort of "poetic" works of CanLit that Steven Beattie slammed a while back in his Notes & Queries essay "Fuck Books", or even if, like me, you couldn't give a rodent's buttocks about such books (sorry canon), it is still fun to see Geist magazine chuckin' rocks at Beattie's glass house.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Cultural vandal gets 8 years
Remember that bogus British playboy who actually lived with his mom and was caught in possession of a rare Shakespeare folio? Said "playboy", Raymond Scott, has now been sentenced to 8 years in prison for his role in the "vandalisation" of said folio.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
They obviously haven't been to the Hockey Hall of Fame
Remember that odd and rather interesting catch mentioned last week, regarding Tin House magazine's submission guidelines? Well, their request that submissions to the fall edition
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Did the machine on which you're reading this contribute to mass slaughter and rape in the Congo?
Nicholas D. Christoff in a NYTs op-ed drew attention to an abhorrent situation recently. We've all been hearing about e-books and the devices on which they are read. It seems some such devices — computers, cell phones, e-readers, etc... — may contain minerals that were sourced from Congolese warlords who control the Congo's mining industry by ruthless means. According
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Earthquake out, Riots in
How quickly a few riots can sweep aside memories of an earthquake. Yes, although Toronto is currently caught in the grip of the G20 riots, it was just a few days ago that we experienced an earthquake (well, tremors from a magnitude 5.0 quake that was centered up near Ottawa
How to have your pretentious writerly Ludite cake and eat it too
Who was it that once said a typewriter is superior to a computer because it has a built-in printer? The new usb typewriter puts an end to that.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Blogs? Waste of time.
Well, maybe not a complete waste of time, but literary agent Chip MacGregor presents evidence on his blog suggesting most of the energy writers expend blogging, facebooking, twittering and all that other on-line crap our publishers insist we must do if we want to sell books doesn't actually sell very many books. (Thanks to Q&Q)
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
James Ellroy will not be reading this
Not only did a cantankerous (yet still fascinating) James Ellroy tell journalists in Montreal last week that he has never used the Internet, but the bestselling crime novelist also said that he “hasn't read a book in years”. The Winterpeg Free Press has more from this seemingly bizarre press conference, held to promote Ellroy's new book Blood's a Rover.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Donald who?
Call me a Philistine, but I had to Google Donald Judd's name to find out who he was when I read this NYTs story about his personal library. Turns out he was an important American minimalist artist who died in 1994. Okay. It is not so much that I am interested in minimalism, though, but rather it was the virtual tour created by the Judd Foundation of his library that caught my eye because it provides a rather fascinating bit of snooping.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Misfortune
"Hi, can you please excerpt a book by one of our authors on your website?" asks S&S publicity monkey.
"Yeah, sure," says techcrunch.com guy, who then posts the excerpt (two, actually).
"Oh hey," says monkey after seeing excerpts, "we actually only wanted you to excerpt the excerpt." "Screw you," says guy.
"Speak to our lawyers," says monkey.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Chester Brown does Batman
Congratulations to Seth, Marc Bell and Michael DeForge, winners (as reported by the NatPo) of this year's Doug Wright Awards. The NatPo also tweaks us to a very cool eBay auction being held to raise money for the DW Awards. A handful of Canuck comics artists, such as Chester
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Having your $3-million and eating it too
Yann Martel responded to his critics in an interview with the NatPo's Marc Medley last week. As I blogged about last week, Martel's new novel Beatrice & Virgil has been receiving a savage thrashing from the critics. It is always interesting to see the rationalizations kick in when some
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
The late President
It seems George Washington owes New York City's oldest library some late fees. According to CBS news (with video), and New York's WPIX news, old wooden teeth borrowed two books from The New York Society Library and never returned them, signing them out as "President". He
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Overdue overkill
A few weeks ago, I posted about an absurd case in the United Police States of America in which an arrest warrant was issued for a teen with overdue library materials. Thankfully, not everyone close to the case was pleased with the situation. As reported last
20 greats
The Telegraph's Lucinda Everett selects her choices for "The 20 greatest children's books ever". It's a good list, but I'd kick out all the Harry Potter junk and sub with Charlotte's Web.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Out of the mouths of babes, and all that... Boingboing tweaks us to a fun new book called Tiny Art Director, born of the blog of the same name, on which artist Bill Zeman asks his precocious young daughter Rosie to critique his work. Very cute stuff.
Jumping off the page
Are you ready for books in 3D?
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Dr Peter Watts Not Found Guilty of Assault
Canadian sci-fi author Dr Peter Watts was found guilty of "obstructing/resisting" a US customs official. Watts was not found guilty of assault, asisbeingwidelyandinaccuratelyreported. Watts posted on his blog about the conviction last Friday, and he has now followed with a more lengthy post that covers a wide variety of topics related to his conviction, and which answers many questions (such as, what the heck were US customs agents were doing searching a car leaving the US?). His new post also contains some fascinating quotes from jury members. It's all well worth a read, especially for anyone planning a trip to the United Police States of America.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Library Police
Got overdue library books or fines? Some citizens of the United Police States of America are learning the hard way that such heinous crimes do not go unpunished. ABC news reports (with video) that towns across the US have begun issuing arrest warrants for people who don’t return library books or pay their fines.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
illuminati
Spanish designers luzinterruptus recently mounted a weird but haunting installation of illuminated (not in the way you think) books under the Brooklyn Bridge.
lego
Illustrator and children's book author Christoph Niemann is promoting his fun new book, called I Lego New York, on his New York Times blog. He offers a series of images for which he employed Lego blocks in somewhat unpredictable ways to depict The Big Apple.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
e-books roundup Part I
The New York Times has reported that Amazon suits tried to do an end rush around Steve Jobs while the computer exec was on stage last month debuting the iPad to media. Apparently Amazon phoned publishers to try to lock in new deals that would guarantee its pricing on e-books would be lower than Apple's, but the tactic failed. Instead, publishers have now used Apple as leverage to force Amazon to up their prices—from about $9.99 to about $14.99—and that has angered Kindle users.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
rules
Inspired by Elmore Leonard's "10 Rules of Writing", The Guardian has asked a whole gaggle of authors (29 to be precise) for their rules for writing.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
But does he know Kung Fu?
According to The Telegraph, a crackpot Scottish clairvoyant has announced to the world that author Raj Patel is the Messiah. Inundated with e-hails (that's a hail in the form on an e-mail) from the gullible, Patel has asked simply to be called Brian.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Robertson Davies long-listed for the Booker Prize!
Eh, what? That geezer is dead. The Guardian reports that Davies and others from 1971—the Booker's "lost year"—have now been nominated for a special retroactive edition of the award.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Broken spines [UPDATED]Publishers Weekly, The Bookseller and the NYTs offer articles showing the lengths Amazon is willing to go to to break the backs of publishers over e-book pricing.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Quarrington Tributes
Hockey Night in Canada aired a tribute to Paul Quarrington last night. Other tributes to the late author, who died from lung cancer last Thursday, have been pouring in all week.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Slush The Wall Street Journal's Katherine Rosman has written an article about the disappearance of the slush pile. I used to read the slush pile at Penguin Canada. You know what? The slush pile was a waste of time and paper. 99.999999999999999999999999% of it was total crap. Good riddance.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Essential Doctorow
The Varsity has published the transcript of a fascinating and vital speech given by Cory Doctorow at the National Reading Summit last November. It is essential reading for anyone with even the slightest concern for copyright—which, as Doctorow elucidates, is anyone with a computer. Read it. Seriously, just go and read it. It will change the way you think.
Arguably, it is publishing's ultimate — albeit unintentional — marketing device. Nothing sells books (or at least gets them attention) quite like a literary feud. With the New Year fast approaching, I thought it might be fun to take stock of some of the squabbles, law suits, accusations and bitter backbiting that launched the book world's 21st century. Herewith, in a special edition of my weekly column, are my picks for the top-ten literary feuds of the last decade, aka "the aughts."
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
In the realm of the thugs
It seems a classic example of two divergent mentalities coming into conflict: the police mentality of "obey" vs the authorial mentality of "question". Numerous outlets reported this week that Canadian sci-fi writer Dr Peter Watts was incarcerated by US border guards on his way back from Nebraska and now faces felony charges. Boing Boing has a decent round-up of the coverage, which includes the following from Watts' own blog: "Along some other timeline, I did not get out of the car to ask what was going on. I did not repeat that question when refused an answer and told to get back into the vehicle. In that other timeline I was not punched in the face, pepper-sprayed, shit-kicked, handcuffed, thrown wet and half-naked into a holding cell for three fucking hours, thrown into an even colder jail cell overnight, arraigned, and charged with assaulting a federal officer, all without access to legal representation (although they did try to get me to waive my Miranda rights. Twice.). Nor was I finally dumped across the border in shirtsleeves: computer seized, flash drive confiscated, even my fucking paper notepad withheld until they could find someone among their number literate enough to distinguish between handwritten notes on story ideas and, I suppose, nefarious terrorist plots. I was not left without my jacket in the face of Ontario's first winter storm, after all buses and intercity shuttles had shut down for the night.
"In some other universe I am warm and content and not looking at spending two years in jail for the crime of having been punched in the face."
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Bad Sex (brace yourself)
The annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award has been handed out by the Literary Review. The dishonour for 2009 goes to Jonathan Littell for a passage in his book The Kindly Ones. Herewith, the offending words (seriously, brace yourself):
Amazing paper engineering video #2
The LA Times book blog informs us that the granddaddy of pop-up books, Waldo "Wally" Hunt, has died. I'm not sure if the video on the blog post is of a book by "Wally", but it is nonetheless worth checking out. Tremendous fun.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Bookselling 101
Here's a classic example of the media not understanding how the book trade works and then passing on that ignorance to the general public. In the Financial Post last week Matt Hatley reported on taking the Kindle for a test drive. The Kindle, Amazon's e-reader, has just been
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Tears of a clown
The National Post has an interview with Anthony Bozza, who has written numerous books about, and with, celebrities. His latest credit is as co-writer on Tracy Morgan's autobio, I Am the New Black. Says Bozza: "People think that co-writing is just ghostwriting, you know,
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
He will be mythed
Really, who even knew that Claude Lévi-Strauss was still alive? Or rather, that he was alive up until a few days ago? The father of anthropology died on Nov 4, just shy of his 101st birthday.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
The carp played a harp
The estate of Shel Silverstein has released a new collection of the late author's children's songs. Called Shel Silverstein's Underwater Land, it comes with a book of illustrations by Silverstein. It is full of his trademark silliness and absurdity. Little ones will love it; you'll go nuts after the first 40 listenings.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Why Gen X?
In The Guardian, Douglas Coupland explains why he wrote Generation X. I just cracked open his newest novel, Generation A, the other day, so I can't say much about it, but I can say that,
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
"...books were sold, not bought."
Every so often one encounters an insightful journalist who actually sees through all the crap and understands what exactly ails the book/publishing/writing industry. Dana Blankenhorn, on smartplanet.com, has almost got it right...almost. He argues that back in the 1990s
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Getting outta here
There will be no Sundries next week, as I am heading to Spain for a week of drinking wine and eating pintxos in La Rioja. In light of that, I'll start off this week's Sundries with the London Times' new "top 20 travel books" list. There's some great stuff here for anyone looking to get
A veritable bookselling institution is celebrating it's 30th anniversary this week. This Ain't The Rosedale Library, in Toronto's Kensington Market, will be huffing out the candles and eating b.day cake (figuratively, at least) at the Harbourfront Centre on Wed, Sep 16. The tribute will feature readings and performances by a host of great writers and artists. You should go; it will be fun.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
The first iComic
It was kind of surprising to have learned this week, thanks to John Fortt on CNN, that only now is the first ever iTunes comic"book" available. I thought for sure there'd be scads of them by
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Labour Day weekend is here and that means so is the the fall book season. Below, a roundup of roundups, gathering fall book lists from media sources across the web.
Globe & Mail
Now with less content and purdy pictures the Globe's fall preview provides a slideshow scroller of book covers.
Toronto Star
Frequent Star reviewer James Grainger assembles his list of the dozen "most hotly anticipated" new novels this fall.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
The Book Brawl of the Century Znet, the NYT's Bits blog and Bloomberg (amongst others) are reporting that battle lines are being drawn for what is shaping up to be the biggest, ugliest "book" brawl ever. On one side we have Google Books, the Sony Corporation, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), and the Authors’ Guild (amongst others). On the other, we have the Open Book Alliance, representing Amazon, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Council of Literary
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Party
Charlie Huisken and his son Jesse have shown amazing commitment to the indie booktrade over the last 30 years. Faced with the forces of urban gentrification a few years back, rather than putting themselves out of business, they uprooted and moved across town to Kensington
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Teacher, educate thyself Quill & Quire (via TorStar) alerts us to a sad story of utter foolishness. Foolishness on the part of a parent. Foolishness on the part of a school principal. Foolishness on the part of a school board. The parent goes unnamed, but the principal is Kevin McGuire, of St.Edmund Campion High School, and the school board is the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board. Why are they foolish? Because they have removed To Kill a Mockingbird from the school's curriculum
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Sex and the socialites
The London Sunday Times this week has a fascinating long excerpt from Paula Byrne's forthcoming book Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead. Anyone familiar with Brideshead Revisited, or the life and other works of Waugh, will be engrossed by this piece, which lays bare (so to speak) all the delectable real-life scandal and naughtiness that gave birth to Waugh's masterpiece. Here's just a wee a snippet: Fast cars, faster women and sexual experimentation: the parties got wilder. Drug abuse — particularly cocaine and hashish
Sawing at the branch...
Continuing its breakneck book-coverage pace of...er...one article per month (or thereabouts), CBC.ca turned its attention recently to the Espresso Book Machine. You know, that lumbering mass of widgets that can bind together photocopies. The future, ladies and gents, has arrived. Remind me again, please, just how long did it take to refine the book-publishing and printing process?
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
Is COCO anti-CANUCK?
I am devoting this week's SUNDRIES to just one subject that is near and dear to my heart, and stomach.
For the last week, with the help of many others in the Canadian culinary, bookselling and journalism industries, I have been working to raise awareness about a problematic new cookbook coming from Phaidon Press this fall.
This piece isn’t about Toronto, nor is it about Canadian culture. I hope OBTO will forgive me. I’ve worked hard over the past month to keep that focus, but I wanted to stray a bit just this once to offer my review of a book by one of my favourite writers, who deserves to be better known here.
Previous Convictions: Assignments from Here and There
by AA Gill (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
On a road outside the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, while on an excursion to the suburb of Cité Soleil, the British journalist AA Gill spotted two young men "mucking around" up ahead on one of the pick-up trucks used locally for public transport.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
"drowning other people's kittens"
In the July/August issue of the Literary Review of Canada, University of Toronto scholar Linda Hutcheon has one of the most balanced, insightful and thorough assessments of the state of modern book (and arts) reviewing that I've encountered. It is well worth a scan for anyone who values such things — I know there are three or four of us left.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
DRINKING, SMOKING & READING
How much money do you spend annually on reading (not including school)? Visualeconomics.com informs us that according to the US Department of Labour (sorry, no Canadian stats) the average American spends $118 annually on reading. That's just
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
BATTLE OF THE BIG BROS
I normally avoid commenting on the whole e-book world, because it is just so dang boring and so widely covered elsewhere, but this week one item is worth mentioning because it is, oh, quite possibly the single most important lawsuit in the history of publishing. Big Brother Google is now officially under antitrust investigation by Big Brother the US Department of Justice for their proposed e-book search thingy
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
PLAGIARISM v1.0
The blog-o-sphere is abuzz with news that Wired editor Chris Anderson was called out last week by the Virginia Quarterly Review for apparently plagiarising Wikipedia content in his new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
BURNING BOOK
I would encourage readers to buy this book. Not because it is a great piece of literature. I haven't cracked it open myself, nor have I read any reviews of it. But because it seems (according to Salon.com) that some right-wing Christian wackos in West Bend, Wisconsin, are actually petitioning to burn the book.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
THE CHALLENGE
Sci-fi novelist and Wired journalist Bruce Stirling has posted a fascinating and somewhat chilling list of 18 challenges faced by contemporary literature. It is well worth a scan for anyone watching the current transformation of text into, well, whatever it is becoming.
THE SCREEN
Meanwhile at popmatters, Michael Antman takes a look at the The Screen (ie: what you are looking at right now) and how it is replacing wide swaths of human culture, including books.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
INSULTS
Here's a funny one. The Times has an interview with CanKidLit author Kenneth Oppel. It is well worth a scan though you might want to skip author Amanda Craig's backhanded compliment in the opening line: "Canada has given the world a growing number of great adult novelists, from Margaret Atwood to Robertson Davies...". Really? All the way from Atwood to Davies? Wow, what amazing growth! What tremendous range! We should feel so proud.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
GENIUSES v1.0
The NYTs chats with the likes of Ursula K. Le Guin, Cory Doctorow, and a raft of publishing MBA geniuses about digital book theft on the web. News flash: The rate of book piracy is skyrocketing driven by the popularity of e-book readers. Really? Well, there's just no way we could have seen that coming. What was it Einstein said — Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results?
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD, THE COMICS EDITION
NEIL
Sandman comics creator Neil Gaiman sits down for a video interview (viderview? intervid?) with The London Times to talk about writing his kids book Coraline — in bed.
PETER
A guy in Chicago is going to the slammer for 7 years for passing off a bad cheque to purchase a 1963 Spider Man comic.
A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
WORLD VIEW
A new project called the World Digital Library was recently launched by UNESCO. Its mission: "The World Digital Library (WDL) makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world." There are currently 13 Canadian items available for viewing, from which we learn that Canada is a nation of explorers, woodsmen, bear-hatted Parliamentary guards, and spectacular natural wonders. What, no igloos? Obviously they still have some work to do.
Usually on this blog I try to avoid repeating what others have written about on other blogs over the previous week. Not this week. On Easter Sunday, Derek Weiler, who was a friend, colleague and the editor of Quill & Quire, the Canadian book industry's trade rag, died suddenly at his home in Toronto. Derek was only 40.
AWARDS FILE 1: ALCUIN SOCIETY
Ever wonder how book awards are chosen? The folks at the Alcuin Society have posted a photo set on Flickr documenting the process of choosing this year's winners of its Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada.
AWARDS FILE 2: COMPLETELY OVERLOOKED BY THE CANADIAN MEDIA
THE LOOK OF BOOKS
Australia's Inside Out magazine tweaks us to the work of artist Victoria Reichelt, whose trompe l'oiel paintings of bookshelves are simply fascinating.
THE SMELL OF BOOKS
The good folks at DuroSport Electronics have created a lovely way to ease the nasal transition from paper books to ebooks with their new line of ereader-compatible aerosol sprays called Smell of Books .*
WEIRD WORDS
The front page of the New York Times' digital edition last Thursday heralded "Schott’s Vocab: A new blog by Ben Schott on the words of our times." Turns out the blog has actually been running since November 2008, but who's counting? To me, it's just fun to add Mr Schott, the British lexicographer and author of such collections of esoterica as Schott's Miscellany and Schott's Almanac, to my daily blog roll. Who knew, for instance, that "Sea Kittens" is "A bizarre euphemism for fish – advocated by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in an attempt to persuade children that fish are too cuddly to eat"?
BIG FATHER
Ever wonder where George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four? On April 3rd, for the first time in his life, Orwell's adopted son Richard Horatio Blair (Eric Blair was Orwell's real name), who is a retired engineer in England, will speak publicly about his father at The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival. In advance of the event, he sat down with Times literary critic and Oxford prof John Carey, to describe the years he spent as a tyke with his father on the island of Jura off the west coast of Argyll, where the masterpiece was written. His remembrances of their idyllic life there stand in sharp contrast the the bleakness of the novel.
I recently spent an afternoon trundling around Toronto with transit pass and pen visiting bookshops to sign copies of my novel Snakes & Ladders. It was my first time on such an outing and the experience led me to wonder, what is the value of a signed book? While I was in one store, a man stopped and peeked over my shoulder at the title page I was signing. By the smile on his face it was obvious he was very pleased to be witness to my actions. “Is that the author?” he’d asked the store manager moments before. In his eyes I was a what, not a who.
I have lived in Toronto all my life and have seen many changes—both good and unfortunate—to the city. When I was a teenager (I am now 46) I used to enjoy wandering the streets downtown on my own, exploring, often at unusual hours. I've always been a night owl and sometimes I would go out on my bike and ride around town in the wee, wee hours before sunrise. Today, Toronto is by no means a large or crowded city by international standards, but there are always people, always cars, no matter what day, what hour. I can remember when, at 4 a.m., you could ride your bike or walk around and see almost no one—a lone baker's truck making early deliveries, maybe a taxi cab, a cop car. Bars back then closed at 1 a.m. and there were no—or very few—homeless people.
A ROUNDUP OF RECENT INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD
In today’s Guardian newspaper MARGARET ATWOOD explains what’s up with the Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature, in Dubai. She recently withdrew from the festival because another author’s book had apparently been banned, but has since reconsidered. Is she going? Ain’t she going? Turns out, she’s still not sure.
Today, apparently, is Hockey Day in Canada. Wooo-hooo!
What is Hockey Day in Canada? Umm...well I’m not exactly sure. I’ll take the less-cynical road and say it seems to be a creation of CBC sports to promote our national winter game. On the CBC website they have a page listing all sorts of amateur hockey events across the country, which are also being covered on CBC TV. And tonight there will be three big NHL games featuring all six Canadian teams.
The sports pages of today's newspapers, meanwhile, are filled with stories about...
Over on CBC.ca I have a new article about pancakes. I used to be a chef and I do a lot of food writing. Years ago a Vietnamese cook asked me for some examples of Canadian food. Agh! That is such a difficult question. To me, it is another vein of that seemingly unanswerable "What is Canada?" question. That cook could give me all kinds of examples of Vietnamese food and she was really puzzled when I couldn't come up with much of an answer to her question. I think she thought there was something wrong with me, because to her, the idea of "a cuisine" was integral to national identity. What is Canadian food? Lobster? Blueberry pie? Rye whisky? Baked beans?
I see over on Quillblog today there's a link to a NYTs article about Scholastic’s practice of weaseling toys and “bookproduct” (as such stuff is called in the publishing industry) into classrooms under the guise of its book-club program.
I can see the Quillblog headline now. Last week it read "Kidlit goes better with Coke". This week it will likely read "Kidlit goes better with crow". I was...ahem...something of a royal turd last week posting an idiotic rant questioning the appearance Coke in Eric Walters' YA novel Black & White. (Don’t bother looking for it; it’s gone.) Eric, an astoundingly magnanimous person, gracefully corrected me on the subject by telephone this week, and now I must set things right. I'm a critic, in part, by occupation and sometimes we critics lead with our claws. Silly habit. Eric, of course, and for the record, does not receive anything at all from Coke. The young character in his novel simply likes to drink the stuff.
I found myself over on YouTube today viewing Joaquin Phoenix's not-funny-enough-if-a-parody-but-too-sad-if-real appearance on Letterman from last week, when I thought I'd plug in the words "Canadian Book" to see what the machine would regurgitate. I was pleasantly surprised to find that at the top of the second page was the above promotional interview from Waterstone's (a British bookseller) with the Canadian 1980s metal band Anvil. (Canadian Book + YouTube = Anvil, of course)
Over on Globe Books, Cormorant Books owner and publisher Marc Côté (the Globe erroneously leaves off the circumflex in his name) offers some very passionate, astute and sobering thoughts on why the average Canadian will buy an American or British novel long before they’ll buy a Canadian one.
I did my first official reading from Snakes & Ladders on Tuesday night. It was on Nik Beat's CIUT FM radio show, HOWL. CIUT is the University of Toronto's radio station and HOWL is a show that mixes spoken word with performances by singer songwriters. I was floored when I walked into the studio to find that I'd be sharing the hour with none other than Alanna Myles. For those who don't know, Torontonian Alanna Myles was once the most famous female blues-rock singer in the world. Her self-titled 1989 LP contained the track "Black Velvet" which went to #1 on pop-rock charts worldwide except for on the English charts, where it rose to #2, unable to defeat Madonna's "Vogue".
The Globe & Mail today has posted a gallery of images from Robert Bringhurst’s recent book The Surface of Meaning. Bringhurst, an American expat living in British Columbia, is one of the world’s leading authorities on book design and this volume is his loving ode to the history of book and letterform design in Canada.
Some time ago my friend the author James Grainger sent me a link to a YouTube video in which famed "speculative fiction" writer Harlan Ellison spoke quite...er...forcefully about the sort of treatment writers often get from those who want to use their work. It is an entertaining venting from Ellison, but also a sad one if you are a professional writer, because you will understand that what he is saying contains more than a grain of truth. (Try a boulder.)
I have been writing (in posts 1 & 2) about the effect coincidence can have on fiction and about the role it played while I was writing my YA novel Snakes & Ladders. In my first post I wrote about discovering the eastern hognose snake. In my second, I wrote about how I learned that my depictions of the moon’s transits were off by less than a week, as compared to the moon’s actual transits during the week in which my novel is set in 1971. In this post, I want to tell you about how that discovery about the moon led to the third, final, and strangest coincidence I encountered while writing Snakes & Ladders.
In my last post I wrote about the strange coincidence of stumbling upon information about the eastern hognose snake while I was researching my YA novel Snakes & Ladders. This time, I want to tell you about a second strange coincidence that took place while I was writing Snakes & Ladders, one which came from a highly scientific source.
Something I’ve discovered as a writer is that in creating a piece of fiction, sometimes happenstance can be as important as the ability to invent and tell a story. Sometimes you just stumble on things that simply must be put into the story and there's no explaining why you encountered that thing at that time. I had three such strange coincidences while writing my young adult novel Snakes & Ladders. Each brought crucial story elements to the novel, and each seemed like a gift from an unknown hand.
