Canadian literary event round-up: Oct. 21-27

The literary scene is lively this week with many festivals underway. Here’s a sample of what’s happening across the country:

• LitFest non-fiction festival, various locations, Edmonton (until Oct. 23, tickets at litfestalberta.org)
• Vancouver International Writers Festival, various locations, Granville Island (until Oct. 23, tickets at writersfest.bc.ca)
• Ottawa International Writers’ Festival, various locations, Ottawa (until Oct. 25, tickets at writersfestival.org)
• International Festival of Authors, various locations, Ontario (until Oct. 30, tickets at readings.org)
• Gaspereau Press’s 12^th annual Wayzgoose and open house, Kentville, Nova Scotia (Oct. 22, all day, free)
• Roald Dahl Day with screening of James and the Giant Peach plus contests, Gladstone Hotel, Toronto (Oct. 23, 11 a.m., $10)
• Canzine, 918 Bathurst Centre, Toronto (Oct. 23, 1 p.m., $5)
• Psychologist Shelagh Robinson demos Mirror Read Books, Babar Books, Pointe-Claire, Quebec (Oct. 24, 2 p.m., free)
• François Cusset reads from The Inverted Gaze, Type Books, Toronto (Oct. 26, 7 p.m., free)
• Scrivener Creative Review launches its latest issue with guest reading by Jason Price Everett, Papeterie Nota Bene, Montreal (Oct. 27, 4:30 p.m., $5 for entry, a copy, and a cupcake)

Weekend reading list: top stories from around our offices

Every weekend Q&Q rounds up the highlights from other websites in the St. Joseph Media family. This week’s top stories include photos from the Signal imprint launch and street fashion from New York, Milan, and Paris.

McClelland & Stewart launches its non-fiction imprint, Signal [Toronto Life]

100 photos of fashion trends worn on the streets of New York, Milan, and Paris [Fashion Magazine]

No-bake Halloween treat: Spiderweb Pretzel Snacks [Canadian Family]

Road trip: Millers’ Farm in Manotick for pick-your-own pumpkins [Ottawa Magazine]

Staff picks: Our 10 favourite spots for an autumn stroll [Where]

Dinnertime shortcut: Five recipes using ketchup [20 Minute Supper Club]

Five cake trends that will carry on to 2012 [Wedding Bells]

Ten questions with: Silver Elvis [Torontoist]

Event photos: Nancy Hartry launches Watching Jimmy – and there’s cake!

This past weekend, author Nancy Hartry launched her YA novel Watching Jimmy (Tundra Books) at Swansea Town Hall in Toronto’s Bloor West Village. (Photos courtesy of Tundra Books.)

Hartry signs a copy of the book for a slightly out-of-the-target-age-range fan.

Cake!

Widget allows book clubs to occur anywhere on the Web

The Book Oven blog has brought to our attention a unique social networking site called BookGlutton that seeks to provide users with a new way to read online. According to the website, the application allows users to “build an experience that is simultaneously a book group, a computer, and a book” by using a free, Web-based e-book reader called the Unbound Reader that features shared and private annotations and contextual instant messaging.

Of particular interest is the site’s newly released widget, officially called the “Book Launcher,” but jokingly referred to as the “Punk Rock Widget” in the BookGlutton office (due to its total hardcore awesomeness, not its resemblance to Sid Vicious). With the help of this free application, BookGlutton users can embed the book they’re reading, as well as the community of users reading along with them, directly into their own site. A recent post on the BookGlutton blog includes a YouTube video demonstrating the widget in action.

While the idea of an easily accessible, “in-the-moment” book club does seem well-suited to the immediacy of today’s online world, this Quillblogger wonders if online book clubs really are the way of the future. After all, how can you drink wine and eat cupcakes on the Internet?

Bookmarks: inauguration edition

• Taken from Fellow Citizens: The Penguin Book of U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses, test your knowledge of the final words of former presidents’ inaugural speeches (Jacket Copy)
• Barack Obama will take the oath of office on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used, and will eat a meal modelled on some of Lincoln’s favourite dishes (including the apple-cinnamon sponge cake). For The Book Bench, Adam Gopnick and Jill Lepore recommend some Lincoln books (The New Yorker)
• Martin Levin dissects Obama’s reading list (The Globe and Mail)
• Evangelist Rick Warren (and author of The Purpose Driven Life) delivers the invocation at Obama’s inauguration (abc6.com)
• Q&A with inauguration poet Elizabeth Alexander (TIME Magazine)

American publishing took a nosedive last year

Many media outlets, including Publishers Weekly, the L.A. Times, and Yahoo! News, unveiled yesterday the drop in output the American publishing industry showed in 2005. The number of new books and new editions of old works published last year fell by almost 10%, with even the biggies – new titles from the largest houses – falling by almost 5%.

“In 2005, publishers were more cautious and disciplined when it came to their lists,” said Gary Aiello, chief operating officer of Bowker, who compiled the statistics. “We see that trend continuing in 2006. The price of paper has already gone up twice this year, and publishers, especially the small ones, will have to think very carefully about what to publish.”

Bowker consultant Andrew Grabois said, “Publishers are coming to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that the market cannot handle 200,000 books each year.” He compared the industry’s former publishing-happy tactics to “throwing spaghetti against the wall and hoping something would stick.”

Looks like their spaghetti-flingin’ days are over, folks – Bowker predicts declines in history, biography, children’s books, technology, and even religion, a category that has been selling like hotcakes recently.

Related links:
Read the Yahoo! News article