The year in Quillblog

We are officially on holiday as of yesterday, but we thought we should end the Quillblog year with a look back at our ten most popular posts of the year.

They are:

• Secrets of the Canadian literary cabal (January 23)
• Event Photos: George Jonas launches book with a little help from Conrad Black (March 29)
• Fun with blurbs (Rebecca Eckler edition) (April 2)
• Eckler vs. Hollywood (June 4)
• Harry Potter and the Online Leak (July 18)
• Lawyers are not rats, say lawyers (July 30)
• CanLit hates youth, says young author (October 22)
• Bill O’Reilly outs J.K. Rowling as a “provocateur” (October 24)
• The Golden Compass banned by Catholic school board (November 22)
• The most influential people in the Canadian book-biz are….? (November 26)

What these posts say about our readership we wouldn’t presume to say.

All we can do is hope that all you scandal-loving, muckraking, conspiracy-minded booklovers who delight in the misfortune of others have some very happy holidays.

See you in the new year for more of this kind of thing.

Feel free to tell us in the comments what your favourite books of the year were, what books you hope to be given as presents, what books you plan to give yourself as presents, and what books you are looking forward to next year.

Oh, and tell us how you think the industry should handle the issue of pricing differentials – you know, Christmasy stuff.

Kick him when he’s down, Conrad Black edition

In case you missed it, The Globe and Mail, amid its post-sentencing Conrad Black coverage, took a look at the American reception for future inmate 0783124′s Richard Nixon bio – turns out there isn’t much of a reception. The Globe‘s James Adams seems to take a certain glee in the story at hand: “A Life in Full has not been entirely neglected. The New Yorker accords it a review in its Dec. 10 issue, but only as a ‘Briefly Noted’ and a critical one at that.” And later: “Far more sympathetic (but almost as brief) is a pre-publication review found in the Sept. 24 Publishers Weekly.”

Quillblog’s favourite thing about the story is the headline: “Tome gets few U.S. reviews.” Stop the presses!

Nixon biographer gets 6 to 8 6 1/2 years for fraud

From The Globe and Mail:

Conrad Black will be sentenced to between 6.5 and 8.1 years in prison, the judge presiding over the case said Monday.

Judge Amy St. Eve said she is considering a sentence of between 78 and 97 months for media mogul Conrad Black, and is now hearing arguments on what penalty to ultimately impose in his fraud and obstruction case.

Black, for those who don’t recognize the name, is a respected political biographer whose most recent book is The Invincible Quest: The Life of Richard Milhouse Nixon (McClelland & Stewart), published earlier this fall.

[Update: 6 1/2 years and a US$125,000 fine.]

Black via LongPen

As had been predicted, convicted fraudster Conrad Black has made use of Margaret Atwood’s LongPen again, to promote his new Richard Nixon bio overseas. Lord Black, who is barred from leaving the United States as he awaits sentencing, made a surprise “appearance” at a London Waterstone’s yesterday, signing books electronically from the calm and quiet of his Palm Beach, Florida mansion. The Guardian described the event as follows:

Rehabilitation has to start somewhere, and for the former owner of the Telegraph it began between the “true crime” and “black interest” shelves, where he sold “about 20″ copies of his biography of Richard Nixon to 22 paying guests. At £30 per book, his evening’s work at least began rebuilding a fortune that once exceeded £175m.

[...]

Black admitted he would have to be “brain dead” not to be contemplating the four walls of a prison cell, although he refused to say whether he would attempt any more money-spinning LongPen signings from prison.

No word yet on how Peggy feels about all this, but we’re thinking she’s probably not one of Black’s bigger fans, even if she did virtually interact with him during a LongPen publicity event in Toronto recently. Maybe she can express her displeasure with him once he’s in prison by appearing on his LongPen monitor every day during dinner, eating bag lunches with husband Graeme Gibson and impugning the quality of the prison food.

Hello, Newman *

Peter C. Newman has had a long and storied career, but he continues to rack up new achievements. His latest? Getting Robert Fulford and Conrad Black on Jean Chretien’s side.

It all stems from Newman’s now-infamous Globe and Mail review of Chretien’s memoir, My Years As Prime Minister. That slam prompted the former PM’s publisher, Louise Dennys of Knopf Canada, to take out a pricey rebuttal ad in the Globe.

Then Fulford came out in support of Dennys and Chretien in his National Post column.

She made excellent points. Newman reviewed not the book but the Chrétien era, and discussed that subject in eccentric terms. He called it an “interregnum,” an odd term for a period lasting a decade. Against all evidence, he considers Chretien a Joe Clark-like figure on the margins of history.

Dennys hinted that Newman didn’t read the book, and his review, on the face of it, supports that idea. Naturally, Chretien boasts of bringing a dangerous deficit under control. A hostile critic might claim this was achieved by careless and harmful budget-cutting or perhaps should be credited to Paul Martin, Chretien’s finance minister and eventual usurper. But Newman doesn’t even mention the word “deficit.” He neglects many of the book’s other major topics but focuses on Chretien’s mangled English, not an issue in the book. His review is less than adequate.

(In passing, Fulford also mentions that Chretien ghostwriter Ron Graham helped Dennys write her ad.)

An even more unlikely defender, also writing in the National Post, is Conrad Black. Of course, Black has a long history with Newman – capped by the latter’s recent Toronto Life story on the Black trial – so there may be an enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend feeling at work.

It is well-known that for some years there has been a lack of rapport between Jean Chretien and me. I have not read his recently published memoirs, and if there are references to me in them, I doubt if they are complimentary or even accurate. But Newman reviewed this book for The Globe and Mail so acidulously that the book’s publisher, the gracious and equable Louise Dennys, took a paid advertisement in that newspaper debunking Newman’s review.

Newman confers credit on Chretien for the Clarity Act, which contributed importantly to the resolution of Canada’s greatest problem in the preceding 30 years, Quebec separatism. Yet he fails to comment on Chretien’s 40-year battle against the separatists, not from a safe constituency as a parachuted notable, like Pierre Trudeau, but in the trenches of St. Maurice. He dismisses Chretien’s 10 years as prime minister as a “baleful interregnum” between Mulroney and Stephen Harper.

“Banal” perhaps, but the primary meanings of “baleful” are evil or calamitous or extremely sad. Chretien’s time wasn’t baleful and wasn’t an interregnum. Newman is often reckless with words, as he is with the truth.

And Black kicks it up a notch, going after Newman’s fashion choices. (Oh, and he’s also really old!)

Now 78, shambling about in his ridiculous sailor’s cap, bilious and at least verbally incontinent, Newman is pitiful, but not at all sympathetic. Canada and Canadian letters and journalism would benefit from his subsidence.

That led to more fighting, with Newman responding and Black responding again. Now all that’s left is for Brian Mulroney to weigh in and trash the offending review. But as much as there’s no love lost between Mulroney and Newman, that does seem like a longshot.

* (Yes, we’re aware that 1995 just called and wants its Seinfeld gag back.)

Conrad Black, cyborg, vs. Jean Chretien, memoirist

At a book signing in Toronto last night, Conrad Black appeared “relaxed and smiling” from his home in Palm Beach, where Black is spending time ahead of sentencing next month in Chicago. Sitting at the other end of one of Margaret Atwood’s famous LongPen devices, Black joked with reporters, signed books, and responded to reports that former prime minister Jean Chrétien’s leaked memoir impugns his good name.

[Black] said that, despite affirmations to the contrary in Chrétien’s new autobiography, it was Chrétien who suggested Black try to become a senator while attempting to become a member of Britain’s House of Lords.

Though the “he said/he said”-type dispute must seem academic to a man facing hard time, Black’s eagerness to engage with the Canadian public seems to confirm one thing: even cyborgs love the limelight.

Conrad Black: he haunts us still

Former media baron and author Conrad Black has not been allowed to return to Canada following his conviction on fraud and obstruction of justice charges in the U.S., but he is finding other ways to reach out and touch the citizens of the country he once renounced.

Last night, Black appeared on CBC’s Rick Mercer Report doing a Martha Stewart-style celebrity tip on the proper techniques for waxing brightly coloured fall maple leaves. In the sketch filmed at his home in Palm Beach, Florida, he wryly suggested that it is necessary to press the leaves in books first, using weighty volumes such as his biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt or his latest of Richard Nixon, The Invincible Quest, for instance.

Showing off the results of his efforts, he added:

Here we have a perfectly waxed maple leaf, a great solace to everyone and especially to those who, for complicated reasons, can’t at first-hand observe the changing of the seasons this autumn in Canada. (Canadian Press)

Black is scheduled to make another appearance in Canada via Margaret Atwood’s LongPen at Toronto’s World’s Biggest Bookstore on the evening of Oct. 15 to autograph copies of The Invincible Quest.

Depending on how many books Black might write if he is incarcerated, the LongPen may be a useful tool for any future book tours.

Bookmarks – Quick links

Some book-related links:

• Adam Gopnik on Philip K. Dick (The New Yorker)
• What’s N0am Chomsky into? (The Christian Science Monitor)
• Ivan E. Coyote freaks people out (Maisonneuve)
• Neil Young in graphic-novel form (CBC)
• Gunter Grass on tour in America (The Washington Post)
• Conrad Black not on tour in America (Toronto Star)

Quote of the day:

“It’s hard not to acknowledge [Richard Nixon's] sleazy side, which I do not have,” [Conrad] Black said. “Nixon was in many ways, a morose and very solitary figure, and I’m not.”

Too much information from Lady Black

Quillblog assumes you’ve heard about that Conrad Black fellow by now; it seems he’s somewhat guilty. But amid the deluge of media coverage, we missed a little morsel from Barbara Amiel that the New York media and gossip blog Gawker has kindly highlighted for everyone. Because we had to think about it, you must too.

The Times, which carried a fairly solid timeline/analysis piece this weekend, wonders if Lady Black’s imperious image may have hurt her husband with the jury and contains this absolutely horrifying passage:

“In her last column written before the verdict, Ms. Amiel wrote about her pending move out of her temporary Chicago home – a five-room suite at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. She noted that her husband was already well into a manuscript for a new book, having just published a biography of Richard M. Nixon, but that she had not used her spare time during the four-month trial productively.

‘Give him another four months – and fewer nights of love – and he’ll have two finished manuscripts,’ she noted.”

Please excuse this Quillblogger; she has to go scrub her brain with steel wool.

Q&Q gets Franked

The newest issue of Frank magazine has, as part of its coverage of the trials and tribulations of one Conrad Black, a set of oddly familiar-looking photos from Black’s recent surprise appearance at a Toronto book launch in late March.

Take a look:

(Go here for the originals.)

You’re welcome, guys. (Not that you asked….)

Do we at least get a free subscription?