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.

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.

• David Cronenberg Reveals He’s Writing a Novel and Explains How the Comedy ‘Twins’ Helped Finance ‘Dead Ringers’ [Indiewire]

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.

Friends attending the fete included our own editor-in-chief, Sarah Fulford (who had interviewed Kantor at the Toronto Reference Library the night prior), Steve Paikin, host of TVO’s The Agenda (who removed his shoes), Zoomer’s Suzanne Boyd, Suzanne Cohon and her CFL-commissioner husband, Mark (the couple live across the street), author John Ralston Saul (he’s also Adrienne Clarkson’s husband), Victoria Jackman, Ben Mulroney, Nancy Lockhart, Murray Frum and more.

Naturally, they were all there for Kantor, and the intrepid reporter didn’t disappoint. Her book, you see, is not without controversy. Michelle Obama herself cast aspersions on the biography on CBS, though other outlets, including the Washington Post, call the complaints unjustified. For her part, Kantor kept mum on the brouhaha, simply noting that Michelle was more likely reacting to the media’s reaction to the book than to the book itself (her message to Mrs. President: “If she doesn’t want to read the book, she shouldn’t read the book”). Kantor was graceful throughout the Q and A, and she even appeared attentive as we listened to Saul boast that he knew Barack Obama would be president one day after sitting on a panel with him prior to his election. We also overheard Kantor say the best experiences of her tour were Friday night’s party and having her honour defended by Jon Stewart (bless—we love The Daily Show). Of course, party conversation shouldn’t be limited to politics, so we enjoyed listening in as Mulroney commented on gossip columnist Shinan Govani’s greying five o’clock shadow. Sadly, there were no fist bumps to report.

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.

A tale of death threats, tarnished reputations and literary jealousy
By Leah McLaren

(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.

(Image: Carlo Mendoza)

Until recently, Zhang made her living treating patients for hearing loss, but in 2010 she quit to concentrate full-time on her writing. She is the author of nine Chinese language books, including the bestseller Aftershock, about the 1976 earthquake in Tangshan. A government-sponsored film adaptation of the book brought in $100 million at the box office in China, becoming the highest-grossing Chinese movie ever. This fall, Penguin Canada released an English translation of her sprawling historical epic Gold Mountain Blues. The book is her first novel to be translated. It spans from 1872 to the present and tells the story of five generations of a Chinese family who came to work, live and eventually settle in Canada. At over 500 pages, it’s an ambitious book, both in subject matter and in heft.

The novel became a bestseller and critical hit in China and won a number of awards. The TV and film rights were optioned, and foreign rights sold in 12 countries. Its Canadian publishers are hoping it will become the first East-West crossover bestseller. Last year, a panel discussion devoted to Zhang’s books was held at an international symposium on Chinese-Canadian literature at York University. Xueqing Xu, one of the organizing professors, described Gold Mountain Blues to me as “a milestone in Chinese-Canadian literature in its scope, depth and characterization.”

Thus far, the novel has proven Ling Zhang’s personal gold mountain—a financial and reputational game changer in a literary career that had been restricted to China and Taiwan. But as the old Chinese proverb goes, if you go up the mountain too often, you will eventually encounter the tiger. In Zhang’s case, the metaphorical beast is a wave of allegations, which started in the Chinese blogosphere and made its way across the globe, that Gold Mountain Blues plagiarizes Denise Chong, Sky Lee, Wayson Choy and Paul Yee—four of this country’s most established Chinese-Canadian writers. In October, Lee, Choy and Yee launched a civil claim for almost $10 million in damages against Penguin Canada, Zhang and the book’s translator, Nicky Harman, which also demands that the book be pulled from the shelves and pulped.

Whatever happens, it’s difficult to imagine a positive outcome for Zhang. Plagiarism is the most serious professional allegation a writer can face, an accusation that produces an instant and lingering stain on even the most sterling literary reputation.

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)

“In 1703, Antonio Vivaldi was given the position of maestro di violino at the Ospedale Della Pietà in Venice. The Pietà, ostensibly an orphanage for girls, was also a centre of music and education, and Vivaldi composed some of his most famous vocal and string pieces for its talented young residents. This album features a great selection of these works sung by soprano Elin Manahan Thomas and played by the Florilegium ensemble, specialists in the Baroque repertoire.”
—John Holland Manager of L’Atelier Grigorian

Vivaldi: Sacred Works for Soprano and Concertos
(Dec. 6)

The Tender Hour of Twilight
by Richard Seaver
(Jan. 6)

(Illustrations by Mia Overgaard; bottom photograph courtesy of Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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.

Believe it or not, Conrad is even more impoverished in this chapter than he was in the last. Liens are being taken out on all his homes (weren’t those sold already?), and the ever-noble Barbara goes behind Conrad’s back to sell her jewellery to “various oily gem dealers.” Black seems to be going slightly mad: at one point he even sets up a cardboard shelter in his garden room for lost ladybugs.

Seriously, Black’s basically a member of the 99 per cent now. Yet he’s still grateful the Man hasn’t taken everything away from him: at least he still has that sprawling, ostentatious Bridle Path mansion.

Also, did you know he’s friends with famous people? This time, he gives up trying to be casual about it, rattling off an actual list of celebrity friends. No surprise, it’s a collection of daffy eccentrics, including Dame Edna, Anna Wintour, Rush Limbaugh, Joan Collins, Ann Coulter and, of course, Sir Elton and David Furnish. (We’d totally go to that dinner party.)

Meanwhile, Black’s civil trial continues with a couple of small victories: the tax evasion charges and non-competition payment allegations are thrown out. Of course, prosecutor Eric Sussman then sticks him with the new charge of laundering money from Hollinger Inc. to finance Hollinger International. Zzzzzzzzz.

Oh, and somehow amid all the trials and hobnobbing and entomology, Black finds the time to write a 400,000-word biography of Richard Nixon.

In the words of the Lord:

• On his suffering: “On Christmas day, I read the book of Job. I discovered that while Job had endured more severe oppression than I had, he had been much less patient.”

• On Richard Nixon: “I’m not a bit like Richard Nixon, though in most respects he was an admirable person with whom comparisons would be flattering.”

•  On being the most overachieving client Eddie Greenspan ever had: “I wrote a 72-page dissection of the contradictory remarks and testimony of Breeden, Thompson, Kravis, Burt, Heath and Kissinger, as well as an outline of a response to all the counts.”

• On the depths of evil: “The posturing of seedy journalists, suddenly made over as Victorian dowagers, bandying about censorious descriptions of totally innocent people, was especially odious. Being removed from Christmas card lists was particularly irritating.”

By Nathan Whitlock | Photography by Derek Shapton

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.

BOOK
The Book of (Holiday) Awesome
Neil Pasricha
Available now

THEATRE
The Wizard of Oz
with Jessica Holmes
Nov. 24 to Jan. 6 at the Elgin Theatre

Photography by John Cullen

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.

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.

5| My Dopp kit
In the late ’80s Blue Rodeo played a protest benefit for the Stein Valley in British Columbia, which was in danger of being logged. Someone there was selling this smoked deerskin bag—the smoky smell only faded in the last year or two. I keep my shaving things in it.

6| My go-to poets
Every time I start writing songs I read poetry. I like the beauty of Leonard Cohen, the ruralness of Alden Nowlan and the plain language of Al Purdy. I’ve read these books a hundred times each. It’s like reconnecting with old friends.

7| My neighbourhood hangout
The Detroit Eatery on the ­Danforth is a great family-run diner. You always see people you know there, and you can get all the gossip from the neighbourhood. The food is reliably good. My favourite day is Thursday, which is vegetable soup day.

8| My boom box
I’ve had this one for six or seven years. It’s busted on one side, so only one speaker works, but it’s great for recording demos. Digital recording is too clear—it makes things sound like a lonely guitar in a big empty room. Boom boxes and cassettes crush the sound and help me imagine what it’ll be like with a band.

9| My gig boots
They were made by a shoemaker in the neighbourhood: Nasser Vies. He replicated a pair I bought 15 years ago. I’ve never been able to indulge in a lot of rock star stuff—I mean, we’re not that big—but having custom boots is amazing.

10| My wine collection
For our first 10 years as a band, we were awash in beer. Eventually I thought: I never want to have another frickin’ beer again. So the road manager and I decided to try wine. We bought a bottle and a wine magazine and sat in the back of the bus with our plastic cups trying to taste the flavours. I now have a good-sized collection. My favourite is a 1996 Barolo.

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]

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.

Of course, the Baron is also broke and facing civil charges, and everyone in the world is out to get him (that last thing may or may not be a figment of his imagination). David Radler, Black’s former business partner, has entered into a plea bargain with the U.S. prosecutors: in exchange for his testimony, he’ll get off easy. And we do mean easy—he’s sentenced to six months at a cushy penal colony with horseback riding, theatre arts and golf. Golf!

Naturally, this grates Black’s cheese. He launches into the first of many long tirades against the American justice system (he thinks it’s corrupt). Also corrupt: lawyers, the whole lot of them (except his own). But that’s not all. Black believes his house is bugged—apparently he heard the spies after the wrong switch was activated on the other end (um, because that happens all the time).

Black, as he does in every chapter, spends a great deal of time cataloging the various books and articles published about him. Bonus: this time, there’s also mention of Shades of Black, a CBC TV movie starring Albert Schultz as Black, Lara Flynn Boyle as Barbara and Jason Priestley as a wise-guy investigator. And, once again, Black devotes many, many words to sputtering like Yosemite Sam over his hatred for Richard Breeden. But this time he also reserves some rage for Peter C. Newman, who wrote a book that apparently makes some saucy allegations about Barbara’s supposed powers of persuasion. Never one to pass up a dramatic overture, Black summons his lawyer, Eddie Greenspan, to serve Newman a libel suit at a fancy dinner for Maclean’s 100th anniversary dinner. And because the universe requires balance, that triumph keeps Black on high for exactly three days before he’s indicted on criminal charges.

In the words of the Lord:

• On the practical purposes of writing his first memoir: “I tried to reduce the number of books and articles written about me by writing a book about myself in 1992, which was quite well-reviewed and sold well.”

• On his relationship with David Radler: “I knew he often mocked my vocabulary, speeches or writing as vanity or affectation, but I took this in stride.”

• On Peter C. Newman’s Here Be Dragons: “The section about Barbara was the lowest, nastiest, most revolting piece of journalistic sewage I have read. Newman purported to be the all-seeing connoisseur of our bedroom and from his lurid imagination explained to readers and then to interviewers that Barbara hooked me with her sexual wiles, which he purported to detail, with a ghoulishly prurient imagination.”

• On lead prosecutor Eric Sussman: “When he spoke, his wrists and hands moved jerkily, as if they were being manipulated by an amateur ventriloquist. When he stopped speaking, he went to a default countenance that was gape-mouthed, punctuated by his tongue bulging against the inside of his cheek like a lingual erection.”

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.

Hill was overheard laughing about his Movember ’stache, while CBC’s Shelagh Rogers gushed over MacLean’s wife Cari, saying “I feel like I know you, especially after reading the book,” referring to MacLean’s October release, Cornered. Beker mingled with Canadian musician and new novelist Sylvia Tyson and was overheard complimenting Atwood on her printed silk jacket (esteemed author, Twitter celebrity and fashion plate). As the guests sat down to dinner, a video featuring Jane Urquhart, Yann Martel, Russell Smith, Graeme Gibson, Lawrence Hill and Anna Porter was played to illustrate why the Writers’ Trust is so important to Canadian writers, and the night ended with a literary treasure hunt with prizes from Tiffany’s, Elmwood Spa and Whole Foods. Nothing like a good treasure hunt (with gifts from Tiffany’s, no less) to quash the myth that the literary community is stuffy.

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.

Though I’ve never been a victim of identity theft, my Gmail account was hacked a few months ago. Suddenly, all my friends and family members were receiving emails from me inviting them to buy Viagra. After wrestling with my account for a few hours, attempting to change my password and put a stop to the spam, I was temporarily blocked, which left me feeling anxious, disoriented and dispossessed. How exactly would I manage without access to all the minutiae—the email addresses, the phone numbers, the three-year-old correspondence—I have stored (and have been too lazy to back up)? And that was just after being shut out for a few hours. Lord knows what would happen to us if the whole system crashed.

We are all now, deliberately or inadvertently, dependent on digital extensions of ourselves, and that fact inevitably changes how we behave. This month, Toronto Life examines the way the Internet affects some of the most intimate aspects of city living and dying. Our cover story, by Alexandra Molotkow, a 25-year-old editor at The Walrus magazine, is a vivid, confessional account of being among the first generation to grow up online. I’m only a dozen years older than Molotkow, but her relationship to chat rooms and web journals and texting is so foreign to me, we might as well be from different generations. Molotkow is clearly grateful to have grown up with the Internet, which, she claims, made her feel less lonely during her adolescent years. I envy her lack of ambivalence about living online and have resolved to stop worrying so much about global digital annihilation. In the meantime, I should probably back up my files.

—Sarah Fulford, editor@torontolife.com

(Photograph by Nigel Dickson)

(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 »

BOOKS
Mono Taxali and I Love You, OK?
Gary Taxali
Available now

BOOKS
Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People
Douglas Coupland and Graham Roumieu
Available now

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.