At BookExpo Canada, some of the fall’s biggest titles step out to shine. Wondering how to burn them into the brains of your customers? Don’t worry: here’s Q&Q’s E-Z Pitch TM Guide to some of the coming season’s biggest books.
Elizabeth Hay’s Late Nights on Air (about urban transplants who work at a small Yellowknife radio station in the 1970s): “WKRP meets North of 60.”
M.G. Vassanji’s The Assassin’s Song (in which a young Indian royal seeks an ordinary life in B.C.): “Siddhartha meets The Beachcombers.”
Michael Winter’s The Architects Are Here (about two friends on a road trip from Toronto to Corner Brook, Newfoundland): “Goin’ Down the Road meets Memento.”
Roy MacSkimming’s Macdonald (about our first prime minister’s last days): “The Last Spike meets Citizen Kane.”
Douglas Coupland’s The Gum Thief (about an older man falling for a younger woman at the Staples outlet where they both work): “Office Space meets Lolita.”
Kenneth Oppel’s Darkwing (in which a prehistoric bat’s new abilities help him lead his colony): “The Land Before Time meets Batman Begins, with a twist of The Matrix.”
Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (about how big business exploits devastated areas): “The Corporation meets The Towering Inferno.”
Frances Itani’s Remembering the Bones (in which an old woman crashes her car on the way to meet the Queen and thinks over her life): “Iris meets The Fast and the Furious, but doesn’t meet The Queen.”
