Canadian Booksellers Association - CBA Libris Awards.

CBA Libris Awards shortlist have been announced. From the Canadian Booksellers Association website: "Unique in their commitment to acknowledging the best among the chain of talented professionals who deliver great books to Canadian readers, and nominated and voted on by members of the Canadian bookselling community, CBA Libris Awards honour outstanding achievement by authors and editors, sales reps and distributors, booksellers and publishers."

Fiction Book of the Year:

The Bishop's Man by Linden MacIntyre
Galore by Michael Crummey
The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon



Nonfiction Book of the Year:

A Soldier First: bullets bureaucrats and the politics of war
by Rick Hillier
Just Watch Me: the life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau 1968-2000
by John English
Playing With Fire: The highest highs and lowest lows of Theo Fleury
by Theo Fleury
The Wayfinders: why ancient wisdom matters in the modern world
by Wade Davis



Halifax's own Bookmark II has been nominated for Bookseller of the Year and Woozles Ltd for Specialty Bookseller of the Year. Winners will be announced on May 29.

Library Books

I've been struck lately at the popularity of the library as a setting for books. Novels, memoirs - the library seems like the latest hot trend in popular writing. And why not? Libraries - especially public ones - are the places where everyone and anyone can meet. With all those people from all walks of life interacting in a single place - there is sure to be much worth recounting.

Thoughtful, funny -- here are a few that came across the check in desk at our library.

The Incident Report by Martha Baillie. In many libraries, when something goes awry, an incident report is filled out to keep track of what happened and to make sure that things are followed up on. Baillie's novel takes this library document and turns it into a novel. Over 140 short chapters - 140 incidents - Baillie tells the story of Miriam, and employee of the Toronto Public Library: her encounters both personal and professional and the things both small and profound that happen to her. It's a charming, thoughtful story. Our own blogger Maureen profiled this book earlier, read more about it here.

The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton. While Baillie tells us a story of libraries in our own back yard, Hamilton takes us around the world with her main character Fiona Sweeney, a librarian who travels to a remote corner of Africa to work on a bookmobile service. Fiona's intent is to bring books and literature to those who don't normally have access, but her actions have ramifications beyond what she anticipated in a novel that ultimately examines issues of literacy and conflicting cultural values.

Marilyn Johnson is the author of a nonfiction title currently getting a lot of buzz. Johnson used to write obituaries for Life Magazine - and has an older book called The Dead Beat: lost souls, lucky stiffs and the perverse pleasures of obituaries.
Her latest, library focused title is This Book is Overdue: how librarians and cybrarians can save us all. Obviously Johnson is familiar with writing about those who have been declared dead - as some have tried to say of the library in the age of the internet. Her approach in this book is one that would do Mark Twain - and Gordon Lightfoot for that matter -proud: ie. that such reports are exaggerated. She celebrates the stories of all kinds of modern librarians and other information professionals that author Christopher Buckley called "the very opposite of a ‘Shhhhh!’ It’s a very loud ‘Hooray!’"

Quiet Please, Dispatches from a Public Librarian by Scott Douglas and Free For All: oddballs, geeks, and ganstas in the public library by Don Borchert are two books of anecdotes that were published fairly near to each other in 2007 and 2008. Both are by men who have found themselves working in public libraries, and both aim to take a slightly mischievous look at the wide range of people who use - and occasionally, abuse - the library, and the sometimes surprising situations your average library worker can find themselves at the centre of.

If such stories of library misadventures don't appeal to you, than how about love stories of libraries? Former SMU University Librarian Madeleine Lefebvre is the editor of a collection called The Romance of Libraries which is "a collection of true accounts of emotional attachments formed in and with libraries and the library field" (book jacket).

Hugo Awards - Best Novel finalists

The finalists for the 2010 Hugo Awards have been announced. The Hugo Awards have been honouring the best from the world of science fiction since 1955.

Canadians Robert J. Sawyer and Robert Charles Wilson have each been nominated for Best Novel. Both writers have won previously, Robert Charles Wilson in 2006 for Spin and Robert J Sawyer in 2003 for Hominids.

Here are the 2010 finalists for Best Novel:



The City and the City by Chima Mieville

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Julian Comstock: a story of 22nd Century America
by Robert Charles Wilson

Wake by Robert J. Sawyer

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigaluni

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente (to be ordered)

Please make note that Robert J. Sawyer will be reading at our Spring Garden Road branch on May 11th @ 7:00.

Elvis Sightings

I see that a couple of Elvis impersonators are coming to town. A number of books I have read lately featured Elvis in one form or another.

The latest is The Good Humor Man or Calorie 3501 by Andrew Fox. This parody of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury takes place in the year 2041. The Good Humor men are fighting against the evils of consumption and a pound of chocolate is worth more that a kilo of cocaine. The plot involves Dr. Louis Shmalzberg trying to protect his family heirloom, the liposuctioned fat of Elvis.


Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire series has one of my favorite Elvis re-incarnations. Elvis has been renamed Bubba. He is a brain damaged, obese vampire with a fondness for cats. When the morgue attendant "turned him" he did not take into account the drugs in Elvis’s system and the amount of post death brain damage. People are very careful not to call him Elvis because it upsets him and you don’t want to upset Bubba!


In Dean Koontz’s series, Odd Thomas, the main character can see and talk to the dead. Yet the dead either chose not to or can’t talk back to Thomas. Elvis is one of the spirits that he frequently is visited by. If you want to find out why you will have to read the series.




Stephen King’s, Nightmares and Dreamscapes features the short story You Know They Got a Hell of a Band. A young couple get lost on a trip. They end up in a town where Elvis is the mayor and its citizens are other late rock and roll legends. When they try to escape they are caught and they discover; it is not so much a rock’n’roll heaven. It is more of a hell.



Douglas Adams featured Elvis in his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. The main character travels to a distant planet that has a run down café named "The King’s Domain" where Elvis sings to the patrons.




Here are some more fictional books about Elvis that you may enjoy:

Elvis in the Morning by William F, Buckley Jr.
Almost Graceland by Steve Carlson
Tender by Mark Childress
Waiting for Elvis by David Elias
The King - Rich Koslowski

Can you think of any other musician that has crossed over into the fictional realm?

From Blog to Book

Popular blogs are finding additional lives in books and film. Blogging before publishing in print seems to make perfect sense for the author. As an author you can find out right away if anyone is really interested in anything you have to say. Feedback is immediate (and from what I've seen, frank) You have a ready-made audience and promotional vehicle for your book.

But what about the reader? Why do we want to buy books whose content is pretty much available for free? Well, I assume there would be value-added content, or maybe a more intensive level of editing. Is it the format or a sense of ownership? Some people, for extended reading, will always prefer print. The issue of ownership could be both physical and intellectual. Many of us like to own books. Blogs, by their nature, are public vehicles which invite you to share your agreement/objection/opinion (yes?/no?/blather?). Print is static and it's yours.

Thankfully we have both. And here are successful blogs that you can also find in print.

Julie and Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment: how one girl risked her marriage, her job and her sanity to master the art of living by Julie Powell - "With the humor of Bridget Jones and the vitality of Augusten Burroughs, Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking"--and saved her soul. " - catalogue

Stuff White People Like: the definitive guide to the unique taste of millions by Christian Lander - ""The Preppy Handbook" meets "PostSecret," in this cultural manifesto for a new generation. Lander and his blog stuffwhitepeoplelike.com have already been profiled by NPR and "The Los Angeles Times," adding to the success of the Internet phenomenon." - catalogue

Overheard In New York: conversations from the streets, stores and subways by S. Morgan Friedman - "Updated with sixteen new pages of quips, remarks and exchanges from the creators of overheardinnewyork.com. The streets of New York are full of characters who don't mince words-or care who hears them. This collection presents some of the most outlandish real life conversations overheard on the sidewalk, in the subway, and at the next table. It's the Big Apple peeled, a hysterically unvarnished portrait of the city that never sleeps-and often neglects to think before it speaks in public." - catalogue

Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About by Mil Millington - "Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued Aboutconcerns a guy named Pel who lives with his German girlfriend, Ursula. Pel leads an uneventful life—quietly bluffing his way through his job and discovering new things to argue about with Ursula. But when his boss mysteriously disappears, Pel steps innocently into his shoes and his life spirals out of control in a chaotic whirl of stolen money, missing colleagues, and Chinese mafiosi. Its fractured thriller plot punctuated by blazingly hilarious set-piece arguments between the hapless Pel and the unflappable Ursula,Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued Aboutis a brilliant comic novel examining the unique warfare in long-term relationships. From the Trade Paperback edition."

The Greedy Bastard Diary: a comic tour of America by Eric Idle - "A stunningly witty exploration of the American landscape -- not to mention a brilliant comic's mind -- this diary is chock-full of everything you ever wanted to know about Eric Idle, Monty Python, America, and sleeping on a bus. In these pages, the sixth-nicest Python is cheeky, touching, and funny when recounting the riotous tales of his beginnings, his affectionate reminiscences of his fellow Pythons, traveling the world, and taking us backstage at the smash Broadway hit Spamalot. Fascinating, moving, at times even amusing, this book will dramatically improve your sex life, will make you feel intelligent and charming within the first several pages, and after a few chapters, will permanently eliminate all your personal or health problems. So come experience eighty days, 15,750 miles, and forty-nine cities as you never have before! " - catalogue

Cake Wrecks: when professional cakes go hilariously wrong by Jen Yates - "From the creator of the ultrapopular blog CakeWrecks.com, here are the worst cakes ever, including the ugly, the silly, the downright creepy, the unintentionally sad or suggestive, and the just plain funny." - catalogue

Good Friday Reads

Happy Easter Weekend.

Spring is in the air and it's almost warm enough to hit the deck with a good book. Why not spend your Good Friday with one of these good Friday reads, which will be of particular interest to readers who are looking for suggestions for their book club or who enjoy stories which focus on the lives of women.

Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

Georgia Walker is a single mother and the owner of a yarn store in Manhattan. The knitting group of the book's title is part of her business, but she and the regular group members also develop strong friendships, assisting each other, and particularly Georgia when her personal life takes an unexpected turn. The series is suggested for those who are fans of Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek series.


Friday Nights by Joanna Trollope

Take away the knitting from the Jacobs book, and the plot of this book starts to seem a bit similar. A group of friends meet weekly on a Friday, sharing their stories and their lives. Another novel for readers who enjoy stories that focus on women's friendships, from a popular British writer who has been compared to Maeve Binchy.



Friday Water by Linda Rogers

Written by a Canadian author and poet, a novel that examines issues of life and death. At the centre is Ariel, who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer, and who is distanced (in some cases physically, in other cases emotionally) from her closest family members. The Hamilton Spectator said that Friday Water is "a patient, painstaking and fearless novel ..."


Friday Night at Silver Star by Patricia Henley

Another poet dipping into the world of prose writing, this time in short stories. This is an early attempt at fiction from a writer whose later works include that National Book Award finalist Hummingbird House. The stories in this collection are focused on character and description, more so than plot and action but they provide thoughtful insight into the human condition.

National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month in Canada.

Reading poetry has always been a challenge for me. I tend to read too fast, often missing the lyrical flow or cadence of the poem. A good friend suggested that I read the poems aloud. What a difference that simple suggestion has made to my appreciation of poetry.

I also now limit myself to reading one poem at a sitting, rather than my typical approach of blitzing through a bunch of poems at a time.

In celebration of National Poetry Month, why not (re)discover a Canadian poet and reap the benefits:













Animals of My Own Kind: new and selected poems, by Harry Thurston

The New Blue Distance, by Jeanette Lynes

Expressway, by Sina Queyras

Asking Questions Indoors and Out, by Anne Compton

Lousy Explorers, by Laisha Rosnau

Sumac's Red Arms, by Karen Shklanka