The opening day of debates for CBC’s annual Canada Reads competition was as full of leaked information and sour grapes as a finale of The Bachelor. First, book enthusiasts reprimanded resident blogger Terry Fallis (whose novel The Best Laid Plans won last year’s competition) for tweeting a spoiler—that Marina Nemat’s Prisoner of Tehran was the first book to be ousted. Then, Nemat published a blistering Facebook post in response to the elimination, writing that “Prisoner of Tehran was just voted off Canada Reads simply because it is the most popular in Canada according to the polls.” She added, “The judges seemed to be interested in winning only and not in which book actually has more merit. Very disappointing and irresponsible I think.” Yikes! We always thought the format of Canada Reads—in which celebrities like Alan Thicke and Stacey McKenzie defend their chosen book—allowed authors to rise above the debate and avoid looking petty. If only they would.
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Canada Reads author Marina Nemat shows literary types can bring the drama
David Cronenberg is a novelist (or he would be if he finished the darn thing)
Lately, David Cronenberg seems to be the toast of the town: Viggo Mortensen loves him, the British Film Institute honoured him and TIFF is giving him a high-tech (and expensive) retrospective. Still, we’d hazard that at least one editor at Penguin Canada probably isn’t thrilled with the Toronto-based director. In an interview with Indiewire last week, Cronenberg admitted he signed on to write a novel for Penguin several years ago, but he still hasn’t finished a first draft—despite the fact that the publisher has already inked deals on the foreign rights. The novel, which would reportedly be partially set in Toronto, kept getting pushed aside—first for A Dangerous Method, then for Cosmopolis. As for Penguin, Cronenberg said they’re still waiting. “I hear novelists are often very late, so I’m banking on that.” For a rookie novelist, he’s got the “genius can’t be rushed” thing down pat.
Toronto’s well heeled celebrated The Obamas author Jodi Kantor at Victoria Webster’s Rosedale home
Gabe Gonda, Jodi Kantor and Victoria Webster have a party for The Obamas (Image: Tom Sandler)
Fabulous Rosedale homes are meant for more than just real estate porn and housing Toronto’s aristocracy—they also provide a great backdrop for parties. Toronto Life contributor Victoria Webster and her husband, Gabe Gonda, weekend editor at the Globe and Mail, opened their home Friday evening to New York Times correspondent and The Obamas author Jodi Kantor. Complete with a question-and-answer period, libations and a book signing, this party was a proper toast among friends. Find out what Kantor had to say about Michelle Obama and who took his shoes off (when no one else did) after the jump.
VIDEO: Type Books brings magic back to the written word
As children, we often wondered what fun things happened when our bedroom door closed and adults went about their activities, and we were equally curious about what kind of magic happened at toy stores and department stores when the lights went out. With interest in physical media waning, local book purveyor Type Books put together a stop-motion video showing what happens when the bookshop closes. It’s nothing short of wonderful.
Why three prominent Chinese-Canadian writers launched a $10-million plagiarism suit against Ling Zhang
A tale of death threats, tarnished reputations and literary jealousy
(Image: Daniel Ehrenworth)
The streets near Scarborough’s Confederation Park curve and loop in a vertiginous web. The neighbourhood was built in the 1970s—several blocks of low-lying split-levels and bungalows divided by neatly trimmed hedges and 20-foot pines. The 401 is just a few blocks away, but these houses are quiet and isolated, even prim. Ling Zhang lives here in a large mock Tudor. She answers the door on the first ring, a diminutive woman with full moon cheeks and a bashful smile. At 54, she wears her hair in a wispy, youthful updo and is dressed in a peacock-blue sundress, a simple cardigan and slippers. The house is immaculate. We pass through a large front hall with a formal dining and living room off either side. Matching white leather sofas sprawl across polished cherry floors. Everywhere I look, there are vases filled with flowers in pastel pink and white. They’re all fake, but the effect is cheerful.
In the kitchen, Zhang makes me a cup of tea. Her husband, Ken He, a slight man in a short-sleeved plaid shirt, pops in to say hello—but not much else. Zhang explains his English isn’t great. “Moving to Toronto was a big sacrifice for him,” she says. The couple met in Vancouver, at the church where Zhang, a born-again Christian, was baptized as an adult. They came to Toronto so Zhang could take a job at Scarborough General Hospital as an audiologist. Her husband, who was an ophthalmologist in China, now sells real estate to the GTA’s Chinese immigrant community.
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See, hear, read: our local experts share the books, music and movies they’re craving this month
They love it. We want it. Three red-hot releases
“Ever since the late 1980s, somebody has been embedding tiles displaying cryptic messages about Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 and the planet Jupiter in city streets all over the U.S. In 2005, the artist Justin Duerr began an exhaustive search for that somebody, and his quest was documented by director Jon Foy. The resulting film is a gripping investigative documentary—one of the best of the year.”
—Mark Hanson Staffer at Bay Street Video
Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles
directed by Jon Foy
(Jan. 31)
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Conrad Black Book Club: A Matter of Principle, Chapter 11 (wherein Black compares himself to Job)
After what seems like a million pages (it’s actually 310), Conrad Black has finally been indicted. Boosted by testimony from David Radler (whom Black calls “the nasty gnome from Chicago”), the U.S. government is seeking a 95-year prison sentence. Plot-wise, we expected things to pick up around now—but instead Black just returns to his favourite topics: being poor, being persecuted by the media, and being friends with Elton John.
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The Conversation: The Book of Awesome author Neil Pasricha laughs it up with Jessica Holmes
The place: Tequila Bookworm at Queen and Portland.
The people: Neil Pasricha and Jessica Holmes.
The subject: Surviving the holidays
For those who prefer not to drink themselves into oblivion over the holidays, there are other ways to survive the stress of the season. Neil Pasricha and Jessica Holmes, for example, are big believers in the power of positive thinking (though they wouldn’t necessarily turn down a strategically spiked eggnog). Pasricha is the relentlessly enthusiastic mind behind the mega-selling phenomenon The Book of Awesome and its sequels, including a new, holiday-themed volume. The books, which began life as a daily blog listing all things you-know-what, have made Pasricha a positivity guru who brings his gospel of awesomeness to conferences and corporate workshops (when he’s not working his day job as a human resources manager in Mississauga). Holmes is best known for her stint on the Royal Canadian Air Farce. Following the publication of her 2010 memoir I Love Your Laugh, she began a second career as a motivational speaker, preaching emotional healing through humour. Holmes is currently onstage in Ross Petty’s holiday panto version of The Wizard of Oz, playing (of course) the Good Witch Splenda. Read the rest of this entry »
The List: Ten things Blue Rodeo frontman and Canadian rock icon Jim Cuddy can’t live without
1| My skates
I play a lot of hockey. It’s amazing that at my age I still get thrilled about skates, but I do. These ones are by Graf, and they’re customized to my feet.
2| My Gretsch
It’s a 1948 acoustic on long-term—maybe permanent—loan from Colin Cripps, who’s in my band. I got it from him 14 years ago and used it to write my first solo record. Since then it’s become my go-to guitar for writing.
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3| My talisman
I bought these Tibetan prayer beads when my wife and I were in China for the 2008 Olympics. We got all wrapped up in the commercialism of the Games, and then we went to this rural place near the Great Wall that was beautiful and calm and run by Tibetans. The beads remind me of that tranquility.
Quoted: Mike Del Grande on Playboy, public libraries and (imaginary) men in trench coats
When I think of libraries I think of wholesome….I don’t think of men in their trench coats in the library.
That’s silver-tongued budget chief Mike Del Grande on the Toronto Public Library’s Playboy magazines and books (and those nefarious men in trench coats who apparently read them). Aspiring Rob Ford spokesperson Toronto Sun muckraker Sue-Ann Levy did a bit of digging to uncover the sordid collection, which consists of microfilm at the Toronto Reference Library and a handful of books scattered throughout the system. “It certainly gives a whole new meaning to jacking up the literacy rate,” she writes in her column. To which we say, who ever talks about “jacking up” the literacy rate? Also, ew. [Toronto Sun]
Conrad Black Book Club: A Matter of Principle, Chapter 10 (wherein Peter C. Newman’s imagination is ghoulishly prurient)
The action picks up with Conrad and Barbara enjoying the pleasant August heat on their Bridle Path terrace and engaging in some amateur nature observations (deer, foxes, raccoons, skunks) with a tipple of white wine. Meanwhile, Barbara gets her job back at Maclean’s and the pair hang with Elton John (again). Sounds like paradise.
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Literary elite gather in honour of Canadian authors for the 26th annual Writers’ Trust Gala
Writers’ Trust executive director Don Oravec and author Margaret Atwood (Image: Tom Sandler)
Forty-three of Canada’s most distinguished authors were invited to share an evening with over 400 guests last night, raising $190,000 for the Writers’ Trust of Canada. Members of the literary elite like Margaret Atwood, Lawrence Hill, Karen Connelly, Michael Lista and Jane Urquhart were presented with white medals alongside more unexpected authors, such as Fashion Television host Jeanne Beker, politician Michael Ignatieff, celebrity chef Mark McEwan, Hockey Night in Canada’s Ron MacLean and Dragons’ Den’s Kevin O’Leary. Authors were scattered throughout the space, each seated at a roundtable of paying guests—every attendee received an autographed book from their table’s author. “We’re trying to expose writers to an audience. If people meet the author, they’re more likely to not only buy the book, but also to become fans of the author,” explained executive director Don Oravec. Proceeds from the night went towards Berton House, a writers’ retreat residence, and the Woodcock Fund, an emergency fund for writers. Check out the scene in a gallery after the jump.
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Editor’s Letter, December 2011: Sarah Fulford on her 21st-century nightmare
Lately, I have become mildly obsessed with doomsday stories about cyber attacks. Perhaps illogically, I worry about the collapse of the Internet more often than I worry about other potential 21st-century catastrophes—more than terrorist attacks or superbugs or even nuclear annihilation. I blame several new books for my growing paranoia. Last February, Kevin Poulsen, an editor at Wired, published a book called Kingpin about the cyber mafia, which, it turns out, is as organized as a multinational corporation.
Poulsen’s description of illicit online stores where you can buy stolen credit card numbers illustrated convincingly how vulnerable the system is to a new wave of entrepreneurial hackers.
Then, in September, the accomplished journalist Mark Bowden came out with a book about something even more terrifying. In Worm: The First Digital World War, Bowden chronicles the spread of Conficker, the potentially ruinous malware that has infected as many as 12 million computers worldwide. The Pentagon apparently shares his concern. This worm, which appropriates the computers it infiltrates without their owners’ permission, is powerful enough to take over networks that control banking, telephones, air traffic, power grids and global communications. Luckily, Bowden thinks Conficker’s nefarious creators aren’t interested in bringing civilization to its knees; their plan is much less ambitious. Like the cyber mafia villains in Kingpin, they’d rather just drain your bank account. But the scary idea at the centre of the book is that computer criminals, if they’re bold enough, have the power to take down the entire Internet.
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The Conversation: artist-illustrators Gary Taxali and Graham Roumieu on art, wine and wolverines
(Image: Daniel Ehrenworth)
The place: The Gem on Davenport.
The people: artist-illustrators Gary Taxali and Graham Roumieu.
The subjects: art, wine and wolverines
Gary Taxali’s quirky, handcrafted illustrations, reminiscent of early 20th-century advertising and comics, have graced the pages of Esquire, Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone, as well as several book and rock album covers (his collaboration with singer Aimee Mann earned him a Grammy nomination). The high art crowd loves him, too: his work has appeared at the Whitney and the ROM, and he was a featured artist at the Made in Polaroid 50/50/50 exhibition in New York earlier this fall. Graham Roumieu (above, right) creates droll weekly editorial cartoons for the Globe and Mail and often illustrates for the New York Times and The Walrus. He’s best known, however, for his Bigfoot books—wry, raunchy tomes about a sasquatch who just wants to be understood. Both have new books out: two European publishers have assembled collections of Taxali’s work, while Roumieu recently collaborated with Douglas Coupland on Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People, which features, among other nefarious creatures, a homicidal juice box. We met the pair for drinks at The Gem and listened in as they chatted about the state of their art. Click here for Taxali and Roumieu’s conversation »
Three Toronto writers take home Governor General’s awards (two, somehow, for “bird” books)
The Canada Council for the Arts announced this year’s Governor General’s Literary Award winners today, marking the awards’ 75th anniversary. Among the 14 winners, three Torontonians took home $25,000 prizes. Erin Shields was selected as the English-language winner in the drama category for If We Were Birds, a reimagining of the myth of Procne and Philomela that examines the sexual politics of war. In children’s lit, Christopher Moore impressed with From Then to Now: A Short History of the World, whose “energetic narrative tells a story that rivals the very best fiction,” according to the G.G. judges. And in illustrated children’s lit, Cybèle Young prevailed with Ten Birds, during which, the judges note somewhat gnomically, “a disarmingly simple story becomes a complex discussion of the adjectives used to ‘pidgeon-hole’ individuals in society.” And while he’s not a Torontonian per se, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the win for sometime-Toronto Life contributor Charles Foran, whose Mordecai: The Life and Times was recognized in the non-fiction category. The full list of winners is available on the Canada Council’s website.
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