My Booky Wook by Russell Brand

I now know WAY too much about Russell Brand. ( My Booky Wook: a memoir of sex, drugs and stand-up)

I don't normally read celebrity memoirs, and I really didn't know who Russell Brand was when I picked up this book. However, since the title made me laugh and my new favourite movie is St. Trinian's, mood dictated that this was the right book.

Brand came of age in Essex in the 1980's. His childhood was marked by his parents' early divorce and a chronic lack of resources. Parental guidance seemed to be a bit lacking with his mother's recurring illness and his father's somewhat inappropriate influence. What he did not lack was a family that loved him despite everything. He really did have that soft place to land. Despite his behaviour, which was often hair-raising and icky, his family and friends supported him. Once when the police were chasing him through the neighbourhood, his neighbour says, "Bleepin' heck [my paraphrase] it's only Russell." He dedicates the book to his mother, then implores her not to read it.

Brand craves attention and doesn't seem to have an off-switch inside to tell him when he has gone too far. He habitually abused drugs,alcohol and sexual activity from about the age of 15 until he learned to live a sober life twenty years later. As a young man he, in addition to the alcohol, drugs and sex, discovered performing as an outlet. He pursued this with single-minded determination. He became very popular in the UK with his sold-out stand-up shows and has won numerous awards for his innovative and boundary pushing projects and performance art. His charm carried him through his tough years.

He is a proud Brit who, up to the time this book was published was not overly well-liked in the US. He made the curious choice to dress up as Osama Bin Laden on September 12, 2001 and was an unpopular host at the MTV video awards. This present edition of his book was carefully annotated to explain his many British references to the American audience. The pop culture references were useful, but I ask you, did we need it explained that a "cupboard" in England is a "closet" in the US?

Overall, Brand is a very good writer with an entertaining command of language and dialogue. His anecdotes flow rapidly, one into the other, with dizzying speed. With a little editorial help, I bet he could write quite good fiction.

Do comedians ever come from a comfortable, well-fed middle class existence? Brand's book brought to mind Billy by Pamela Stephenson. "Whatever your opinion of Billy Connolly, his life has been an epic tale of controversy and hilarity, tragedy and comedy. From his working class roots in Glasgow he has worked his way to the top, and now enjoys huge worldwide acclaim and lives a dream lifestyle. From welding to folk singing to comedy to writing to acting, Billy has proved beyond doubt his versatility and sheer determination. And if anyone knows that better than him, it's his wife, Pamela, who will give us an insiders view of this hugely talented musician, singer, tv presenter, comdedian and actor. We will hear about the highs and the lows, the good times and the bad and she will take us behind-the-scenes of the films and tv shows he has been in and the sell-out tours that are so unmissable so that we get to see something of the real Billy Connolly." ~ publisher

Sometimes, unfortunately, the excessive life does not end well. In The Chris Farley Show: a biography in three acts by Tom Farley Jr. "No one dominated a stage the way Chris Farley did. For him, comedy was not a routine; it was a way of life. He could not enter a room unnoticed or let a conversation go without making someone laugh. Fans knew Chris as Saturday Night Live's sweaty, swaggering, motivational speaker; as the irresistible Chippendales stripper; and as Tommy Callahan, the underdog hero of Tommy Boy. His family knew him as sensitive and passionate, deeply religious, and devoted to bringing laughter into others' lives. But Chris did not know moderation, either in his boundless generosity toward friends or in the reckless abandon of his drug and alcohol abuse. For ten years, Chris cycled in and out of rehabilitation centers, constantly fighting his insecurities and his fears. Despite three hard-fought years of sobriety, addiction would ultimately take his life and the tragically young age of thirty-three. Fame on SNL and three straight number-one box office hits gave way to a string of embarrassing public appearances, followed by a fatal overdose in December 1997. Here is Chris Farley as remembered by his family, friends, and colleagues-the true story of a man who lived to make us laugh and died as a result. The Chris Farley Show is an evocative and harrowing portrait of a family trapped by addiction, a father forced to bury a son, and a gifted and kindhearted man ultimately torn apart by the demons inside him." ~ publisher

Canadian Cash

How does a person get (and stay) rich? In some cases they inherit it, but that does not always mean that you continue being rich. Lots of people have lost family fortunes. There are rags to richest stories out there, but they are few and far between. If you are like me, the only way I can imagine becoming rich is by winning the lottery. Just in case we get lucky and win the lotto, here are some books by or about successful Canadians that may be interesting (and instructional?) to read.

Outliers : the story of success by Malcolm Gladwell.

Debuting at # 1 on the bestseller lists for the Globe and Mail and the New York Times this is an interesting study of success. The word outlier is a term meaning things that are outside of normal experience. This book showcases people who, for one reason or another, are outliers in life. Lots of people are really smart and/or really ambitious but not all of them are successful. There are tons of self-help, motivational, get rich quick guides out there but which one is "the one"–or at least "the one" for you? Gladwell states that it is not just the individual who is the cause of their own success but the time period, culture, community and family that they grew up in. Gladwell even points out one nine year period that produced more outliers than another period in history. Read his book to see if you were born in that period and you never know what may happen!

Ken Thomson: Canada’s enigmatic billionaire by Vic Parsons.

Ken Thomson was a chairman of Thomson Corp., a famous art collector and one the world’s wealthiest men. Ken’s first job was reporting for the Timmins Daily Press, a paper his father owned. He was a private man wearing shoes with holes in their soles and flying economy class. Yet he saw his company grow into a global electronic-publishing giant. One of the most public showing of his wealth came when he donated his 2,000 piece collection of art , estimated at $300 million to the Art Gallery of Ontario along with $50 million to expand the gallery and $20 million as an endowment fund.

Twenty-first Century Irvings by Harvey Sawler.

If there is anyone who has not heard of the Irving family in the Maritimes they must have been living under a rock. I grew up in New Brunswick at a very weird time in Canada’s history. Richard Hatfield and Pierre Trudeau had been in power forever The Irvings and the McCains owned the province, or so it seemed. K.C. Irving started out with a general store and gas station. Irving Oil is one of today’s leading regional energy companies, ship-building and newspaper companies. Arthur Irving, his son, would have made old KC proud.

Favorite Funny Fantasy series

If anyone has read any of my other blog posts they may have realized that I have a "warped sense of the bizarre", as one of my favorite patrons has described me. This blog post will only prove him right once again.

This is a novel that I picked up because of the title: The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin. After all how can you miss with a title like that! In it, Jack sets out to discover his fortune in the city. Once there he gets the shock of his life. He discovers himself in Toy City, where he becomes the sidekick of Eddie Bear, private detective. Someone is killing the PPPs: Pre-adolescent Poetic Personalities who become rich from the royalties of the poems written about them. The methods of murder are quite gruesome. For example: Humpty Dumpty is boiled by a lens above his swimming pool and Little Boy Blue is staffed - quite literally. This epic adventure involves heavy drinking, bad behaviors , car theft, sex, violence and cross-toy fetishism. If this isn’t enough for you try the sequel, The Toyminator.

Continuing with the theme of poking fun at literary characters are the series by Jasper Fforde. He has written two series, the Thursday Next novels and the Nursery Crimes stories. The first novel in the Thursday Next series is The Eyre Affair. Fforde won the Wodehouse prize for comic fiction for The Well of Lost Plots. Like Robert Rankin, Fforde has a private detective, DCI Jack Spratt, investigating crimes against beloved literary characters like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. A bit of trivia here: none of Fforde’s books have a chapter 13 except in the table of contents. Check it out for yourself by picking up one of his books.

While this book is not part of a series, I am going to cheat and include this book because its authors have written other series. Good Omens: the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter, witch : a novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman is a World Fantasy Award nominated novel. It concerns the final judgement, the birth of the son of Satan, the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale. Crowley and Aziraphale have become comfortable with their lifestyles in the human world and even have become friends. When the four horsemen of the apocalypse ; War, Famine, Pollution (since Pestilence retired in 1936 with the discovery of penicillin) and Death come looking for the anti-Christ, they join forces to prevent this. Being a comedy there are, of course, misunderstandings and mix-ups. The child everyone thinks is the child of Satan, Warlock, is a perfectly normal 11 year old boy. The real Anti-Christ is Adam, who lives a normal life with typical English parents due to a switch at birth. I love the part about choosing a pet dog. I won’t spoil it here but I never imaged a hound of hell to look like this one! While parts of the novel are dated (whenever Crowley switches on music in his car it always plays Queen’s greatest hits) it still managed to make me laugh out loud.

So what are your favorite fantasy series that made you laugh? I would be interested in finding out. I can always use a tickle to my funny bone.

Immigrant experience

An Immigrant Story

The big news of the summer festival scene is that the Multicultural Festival is leaving Dartmouth and going over to Halifax this year. They are changing the date and place. It will be taking place July 2nd, 3rd and 4th on the Halifax Waterfront, Marginal Road opposite Pier 21. Given that many of our immigrants arrived through Pier 21 it seems like a proper place for the event but Dartmouth surely will miss it.

There are a number of immigrant stories around, both non-fiction and fiction. I have chosen to focus on the fiction since that is what I am currently reading.

The Amazing Absorbing Boy by Rabindranath Maharaj

Seventeen year old Samuel is forced to leave Trinidad after his mother dies. In Toronto Samuel joins his father, whom he has not seen since he was 6. His father is not welcoming and has not been successful in this new land. His innocent wide-eyed experience and view of the big city ways of Toronto are both tender and comical. What I found great was how he survives this foreign country and his emotional distant father with wisdom he culled from reading super-hero comic books.

No New Land: a novel by M.G. Vassanji

The Lalanis family moves from Dar, East Africa to the suburbs of Toronto. As soon as they arrive in the snowy airport the family realizes that the clothes they wear are not appropriate for this new country. The theme of ill-fitting continues throughout the book to describe both the outfits and the family itself. What clothing defines a person as a Canadian. Is it the flannel shirt, jeans and a t-shirt? So where does a sari, burka or a kimono (and the people who wear them) fit into Canadian society. Does the pressure to fit in have to mean the loss of traditions and culture? These are the questions that the Lalanis family face.

The Young Icelander: the story of an immigrant in Nova Scotia and Manitoba by Johann Magnus Bjarnason

The author has earned the reputation as one of Iceland’s leading writers. The Parliament of Iceland awarded him its highest honor, The Order of the Falcon, on his 70th birthday. As the subtitle states this is a fictional account of a young Icelandic boy who is stranded on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia at the end of the 19th century is hardly the same place as the Toronto of present day that the previous novels feature. Bjarnason writes wonderfully about the immigrant experiences in rural Nova Scotia and Manitoba. An Immigrant Story

Atlantic Canada Reads? Of course we do!

Salty Ink, Atlantic Canada's bookish booster is proposing a competition in the style of Canada Reads and Canada Also Reads. You have until May 28 to nominate your favourite Atlantic Canadian book, so time is ticking people! There is a catch, however. You must be willing to defend your choice with a persuasive essays in the 500 word range. There will be a long list, and a short list and finally the big reveal on Canada Day.

Another book blog I've been enjoying is That Shakespearean Rag, see here for an interview with That Shakespearean Rag and Salty Ink's Chad Pelley.

Perhaps to get your literary juices flowing you might want to consult Atlantic Canada's 100 Greatest Books

We've enjoyed this book before. Or the Atlantic Books Awards.The choices are many. Which Atlantic Canadian book do you believe every Canadian should read?

Danuta Gleed Award

The Danuta Gleed Literary Award celebrates the best debuts in Canadian short fiction.

Administered by the Writer's Union of Canada: "The Danuta Gleed Literary Award for best first collection of short fiction in the English language was initiated by John Gleed in honour of his late wife to promote and celebrate the genre of short fiction, which she loved.

A $10,000 prize will be awarded to a Canadian writer, for the best first collection of published short fiction in the English language. The award also carries second and third prizes in the amount of $500 each."

This year's nominees include Halifax's own Joey Comeau. (see also: Maureen's post earlier this month.)

Here are the 2009 shortlisted titles:

Wax Boats, by Sarah Rogers

"In Sarah Robert's debut collection Wax Boats, a rural island community comes to life in action-packed, evocative tales. Cougar ladies fight the BC wilderness and the inevitable extinction of their peaceful island lives. An expectant mother turns to Native traditions to guide her through a safe delivery. A Boy Scout troupe rescues their own leader, and learns to welcome someone "from away." Wax Boats introduces thought-provoking characters caught between the encroaching modern, industrial world and the hard truths of lives lived at the edge of everything." ~ publisher

Vanishing and Other Stories, by Deborah Willis

"Vanishing and Other Stories explores emotional and physical absences, the ways in which people leave, are left, and whether or not it's ever possible to move on. Readers will encounter a skinny ice-cream scooper named Nina Simone, a vanishing visionary of social utopia, a French teacher who collects fiancés, and a fortune-telling mother who fails to predict the heartbreak of her own daughter. The characters in this collection will linger in the imagination, proving that nothing is ever truly forgotten." ~ publisher

Overqualified, by Joey Comeau

"Cover letters are all the same. They're useless. You write the same lies over and over again, listing the store-bought parts of yourself that you respect the least. God knows how they tell anyone apart, but this is how it's done.And then one day a car comes out of nowhere, and suddenly everything changes and you don't know if he'll ever wake up. You get out of bed in the morning, and when you sit down to write another paint-by-numbers cover letter, something entirely different comes out.You start threatening instead of begging. You tell impolite jokes. You talk about your childhood and your sexual fantasies. You sign your real name and you put yourself honestly into letter after letter and there is no way you are ever going to get this job. Not with a letter like this. And you send it anyway" ~ publisher

A few past winners for your consideration:

Pardon our Monsters: stories,
by Andrew Hood

Indigenous Beasts, by Nathan Sellyn

Ladykiller: stories, by Charlotte Gill

Natasha and Other Stories,
by David Bezmozgis

Book Awards Roundup - [mostly] Canadian Edition

The nominees for the National Business Book Award sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers have been announced:

Laying It On the Line: driving a hard bargain in challenging times
by Buzz Hargrove

Coal Black Heart: the story of coal and the lives it ruled
by John Demont

Gravity Shift: how Asia's new economic powerhouses will shape the Twenty-First Century
by Wendy Dobson

Why Your World Is About To Get a Whole Lot Smaller: oil and the end of globalization
by Jeff Rubin

Manulife: how Dominic D'Alessandro built a global giant and fought to save it
by Rod McQueen

2010 Finalists in the Independent Publisher Book awards. For the full list of finalists see here. In various categories (not Canadian):

Patience Stone
by Atig Rahimi

Matterhorn
by Karl Marlantes

Appassionata
by Eva Hoffman

Once the Shore: stories
by Paul Yoon

Factory Voice
by Jeanette Lynes

Personal Demons
by Gregory Lamberson

and the delightfully titled So Punk Rock: and other ways to disappoint your mother
by Micol Ostow and David Ostow

The Independent Publisher Book Awards also has a Canadian category. In Canada-East-Best Regional Fiction and Nonfiction we find February by Lisa Moore,
By the Rivers of Brooklyn by Trudy Morgan-Cole, and
The Island Doctor: memories, myths and musings of a country doctor by J. Cameron MacDonald.

And finally amongst the winners of the 2010 Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards we find The Winterhouse by Newfoundlander Robin McGrath -

“My father has married me to a mad old man.” These words, written on a slip of paper inside a fading brocade collar, are a clue to the unlikely marriage of a Jewish remittance man and a 14-year-old orphan in a remote Newfoundland fishing station. More curious still are the connections that entangle a retired schoolteacher and an Israeli scholar almost two centuries later. When the bereaved Rosehannah Quint and her mysterious “mister” retreat into winter quarters at the back of Ireland’s Eye, the two begin to develop an understanding based on curiosity as well as upon need – an understanding that works its way down the years. The Winterhouse is a compelling novel about finding oneself and creating one’s own community." ~ publisher

South African Crime Thrillers

Perhaps it's World Cup Fever, or the result of the Oscar nomination for District 9, but according to Library Journal, South Africa is the next hot setting for crime thrillers. A recent article called Passport to Mystery highlighted several popular authors who have new and upcoming titles set in the cities and countryside of South Africa.

In particular, interest in a book called Mixed Blood - a debut novel that features four men - two on the wrong side of the law and two on the right, but none of whom are immune to the secrets from their pasts. According to Library Journal, the book is set to become a movie, with filming starting this fall (spring if you're in South Africa) with Samuel L. Jackson in one of the main roles.

The last few years have seen Scandinavian authors take a prominent place in the world of international fiction - think Henning Mankell and Steig Larsson and others.

Is South Africa next? Time will tell, although it's not like this predicted trend represents the first South African set crime novels to hit our shelves. Check out one of these titles so you can impress you can be ahead of the game if this trend gains strength:

Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn
Blood Safari and Devil's Peak by Deon Meyer
Bloody Harvests by Richard Kunzmann
Cape Greed by Sam Cole
The Innocents by Tatamkulu Afrika

May Author Birthdays - the International Edition

I thought it might be fun to look beyond the shores of North America for this month's installment of our author's birthdays post. Celebrate a world of reading with one of these authors - all born in May.

Born on May 3, 1469, Niccolo Machiavelli would have had a lot of candles on his birthday cake this year. Wikipedia describes him as "a diplomat, political philosopher, musician, and a playwright, but foremost, he was a civil servant of the Florentine Republic." I've been reading Salman Rushdie's 2008 novel The Enchantress of Florence, which is partially set in the Florentine Republic - Machiavelli is briefly mentioned, along with a large number of other historical figures. In modern times, Machiavelli is probably best known for his political treatise The Prince.

Australian author Peter Carey celebrated his birthday on May 7th. In a writing career spanning almost 30 years, Carey has frequently focused on the history of his mother country. His 2000 novel, The True History of the Kelly Gang offered a fictionalized account of the life and exploits of Ned Kelly an Australian outlaw and folk hero. His 1988 novel Oscar and Lucinda told a story of love and gambling, richly set, in part, in 19th century Australia. Both books won the Booker Prize. Recently Carey has turned his descriptive eye and pen to Asia, in a 2005 memoir called Wrong About Japan.

Two British authors of note with birthdays in May - one modern day and one from not so long ago. Graham Swift celebrated his birthday on May 4th and Daphne du Maurier would have celebrated hers on May 13th. A Booker Prize winner for his 1996 novel Last Orders, Swift is a frequent chronicler of life in modern Britain, although he has been known to branch into historical writing and even into something akin to Noir fiction in his 2003 The Light of Day. That book makes a decent segue to Daphne DuMaurier, who didn't write Noir fiction, but was known for her Gothic Thrillers - including Jamaica Inn and Rebecca.

Born May 20, 1882, Sigrid Undset is perhaps the most international of our international authors. Born in Denmark, raised in Norway, she traveled and studied throughout Europe in her twenties and lived in the United States for a period during the German invasion of Norway in the Second World War. She wrote fiction of historical Scandinavia and then modern day Norway and in 1928 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Best in Canadian Cartooning - The Doug Wright Awards

The winners of the 2010 Doug Wright Awards have been chosen.

The Doug Wright Awards were established in 2004 to honour the legacy of the late, great Doug Wright by recognizing the best in Canadian comics and graphic novels.

Best Book:

The prize is awarded annually to the author of the best Canadian work and the most promising talent published in English in the cartooning medium. Nominated works must be published in Canada in the calendar year for which the awards are presented. To be eligible, a work must be a first edition full length or collection, written by a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada

George Sprott (1894 - 1975) by Seth

"Celebrated cartoonist and New Yorker cover artist Seth gives us the fictional life of George Sprott. On the surface, George seems a charming, foolish old man--but who is he? And who was he? Told as a patchwork tale, we come to know George, piece by piece, in a series of "interviews", flashbacks and personal reminiscences. It is a story about time, identity, loss, and the pervasiveness of memory. Though ultimately this is the story of a man's death, Seth leavens it with humor, restraint and a light touch." ~publisher

Pigskin Peters Award:

The annual award recognizes the experimental and non-narrative efforts of Canadian cartoonists, including sketchbook material and single-panel works. As with the two major awards, eligibility is limited to a first edition full length or collected work, written by a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada.

Hot Potatoe, by Marc Bell

"Marc Bell’s HOT POTATOE seamlessly combines decade-plus comics activities with a lifelong devotion to, as Bell calls it, "Fine Ahtwerks." Part art monograph, part comics collection, HOT POTATOE is filled with mixed media cardboard constructions, watercoloured drawings, altered found texts and Bell’s most intense, dizzying comics from the contemporary avant-garde comics anthologies – Kramers Ergot and The Ganzfeld. Bell’s works have their roots in draftsmanship, typography and old-fashioned gags, but morph into assemblages that connect his images into real space. His comics are funny, seat-of-the pants narratives that give the characters an inner-life.

Represented by the Adam Baumgold Gallery in Manhattan, Bell is one of the leading lights in the new emphasis on drawing in the art world. He comes on like a stepchild of R. Crumb, Ray Johnson and Basquiat; armed with a dashing and looping rapidograph." ~publisher