Toronto mayor Rob Ford knows lots of B words

Although Margaret Atwood didn’t attend Thursday night’s marathon Toronto city council executive meeting to address the city’s budget deliberations, she was there in spirit and in swag (scroll down the Torontoist’s impressive live blog to see an Atwood button and references to photocopied face masks of the author). Although Atwood has become a symbol for library-devoted Torontonians thanks to councillor Doug Ford’s stated inability to recognize the country’s most recognizable author – even the Guardian mentioned it – several other authors waited patiently for their turn to speak to city council.

NOW magazine reports that Thom Vernon, author of The Drifts (Coach House Press) told the room, “We are not for sale … The KPMG report is a work plan to transfer public wealth to the private sector.”

Children’s author Vikki VanSickle expressed her concerns about the budget at around 4:30 a.m. After being asked the title of her book, Words That Start with B (Scholastic Canada), mayor Rob Ford is heard on video muttering, “I can think of another B word for her.”

This morning, the Twitterverse was filled with support for VanSickle, who tweeted, “Rob Ford thinks I’m a bitch, but I think he’s a bully.” There’s no response yet from the mayor, although joke account Hulkmayor tweeted, “WAIT! HULKMAYOR NO CALL LADY B-WORD! IS MISUNDERSTANDING.”

U.K. poets band together to protest cuts

It’s National Poetry Month here in Canada, an annual initiative by the League of Canadian Poets to bring public attention to poetry. But across the Atlantic, the beginning of April more closely resembles T.S. Eliot’s characterization as “the cruellest month.” On March 30, Arts Council England (ACE) announced cuts to over 200 arts organizations, including the Poetry Book Society, which Eliot himself established in 1953. Responding to the cut in funding, British poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy said that it was “a national shame and a scandal” that “goes beyond shocking and touches the realms of the disgusting.”

In response to the denial of funding for the Poetry Book Society, a letter of protest has been signed by more than 100 poets. The Poetry Book Society claims it will have to shut down entirely if the proposed cuts kick in as of April 2012.

This reaction is to some extent predictable; what is less predictable is the reaction in opposition to proposed funding for British publisher Faber. In light of cuts to the Poetry Book Society and certain smaller publishers, the decision to give money to a relatively well-off publisher such as Faber has ruffled some feathers. From the Guardian:

Former Faber director Desmond Clarke, also a former chair of the board at the Poetry Book Society, said he found ACE’s decision to favour the publisher over the Poetry Book Society “extraordinary.”

“As a commercially profitable publisher, Faber is more than capable of investing in a small number of poets each year,” he said. “The reality is that Faber has made enormous amounts of money by publishing poetry, and out of the royalties of Cats which has provided it with many millions over the years.” T.S. Eliot, author of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, which inspired the musical, left his literary estate to Faber.

Clarke added: “If I were still a director of Faber I would actually be embarrassed that we should take money when the Poetry Book Society has lost funding.”

The broader picture shows that literature is actually the biggest winner in ACE’s new budget, seeing a 10 per cent increase in funding, while all other cultural arenas experience a net loss. The same article quotes Rachel Feldberg, director of the Ilkley Literature Festival (one of the organizations that will benefit from ACE’s allocation of funds) as feeling “torn” between her own elation and sadness for those who lost out:

“It’s exciting for us but for our colleagues the outlook may be bleak,” she said. The increased funding will enable the festival to continue and expand projects including work with young people in Leeds and Bradford schools.

Book biz round-up: The revolution will be tweeted, and more

• New York-based OR Books will publish Tweets from Tahrir, a compilation of Twitter dispatches from Egypt’s recent political revolution
• The nominees for Quebec’s best French-language comics include Jeff Lemire’s Essex County (trans. Sidonie Van den Dries)
• In the midst of World Book Day’s teen love-in, the Guardian launched a new site made for (and by) young readers
• Break out the loaves and fish, we’ve got ourselves a party: the Bath Literature Festival celebrates the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible by staging a public marathon reading

REDgroup insolvency a further challenge for Kobo

It’s been a dismal 24 hours for global bricks-and-mortar booksellers. A day after U.S. chain Borders entered bankruptcy protection, Australia’s largest bookstore chain, Angus & Roberts, entered administration, putting in question the future of its 180 stores. The Australian Borders (which is entirely separate from the U.S. Borders) and New Zealand’s Whitcoulls chain are also in jeopardy.

All three booksellers are owned by REDgroup Retail, which was placed into voluntary administration by the private equity fund Pacific Equity Partners, which has owned the retail conglomerate since 2004.

While the news is a further sign of instability for print books, it could also cause some disruption for Canadian e-book retailer Kobo. Both Borders U.S. and REDgroup are part owners of Kobo and sell the Kobo eReader in their stores; in the short term, it seems inevitable that the device will be sold in fewer physical retail outlets. Kobo, meanwhile, has assured customers in the affected countries that the insolvency of REDgroup and Borders will have no impact on the availability of Kobo e-books.

The Australian cites “a massive downturn in consumer discretionary spending” as the cause of REDgroup’s insolvency, but that isn’t the whole story. Tax-free e-retail and the search for cheaper online products – described by The Sydney Morning Herald as “the Australian consumer’s love affair with online shopping” – was also a major factor, with Australian Publishers Association CEO Maree McCaskill pointing to the impact of the strong Australian dollar. “While the Australian dollar is high, a lot of Australian consumers determine that they will buy whatever they need online and from overseas suppliers,” she commented in the Guardian.

REDgroup chairman Steven Cain also pointed to restrictions on parallel importation – the practice of retailers buying around local suppliers with exclusive territorial rights – as a cause. The Australian parliament recently shot down a proposal to lift restrictions on parallel importation, a move the Canadian Booksellers Association has also called for.

The insolvency of REDgroup does not come as a surprise to Australian publishers after the retail conglomerate reported a $43 million loss last year and laid off several senior staffers.

Harry Potter, Dan Brown dominate U.K. list of best-selling books

The stereotype has it that England is filled with recondite literati ensconced in mahogany-lined libraries reading leather-bound volumes of Romantic poetry and plump Victorian novels. This as compared to the beer-swilling philistines in America, gorging themselves on a diet of Dan Brown and Tom Clancy (if they read at all). Well, newly released data indicates that this conception is flawed. Readers in the U.K., it would seem, have every bit as much devotion to Dan Brown as their counterparts across the Atlantic.

As noted in the Guardian over the weekend, Brown took the number one spot on Neilsen Bookscan’s list of the U.K.’s best-selling books released since the company began collecting data in 1998. According to the service, which tracks 90 per cent of book purchases in the U.K., The Da Vinci Code moved 4,522,025 units between 1998 and 2010, which accounted for a staggering £22,857,837.53 in revenue. Angels and Demons, Brown’s prequel to The Da Vinci Code, took the fourth spot on the list, with 3,096,850 units sold, accounting for sales of £15,537,324.84.

Not surprisingly, the bulk of the top 10 is devoted to Harry Potter: all seven of J.K. Rowling’s books about the boy wizard are featured, with the first in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, taking the number two spot. The only place in the top 10 not devoted to Brown or Rowling goes to Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight, which clocks in at number nine. In fact, one has to make it to number 13 before a title by an author not among the three already mentioned appears: Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones.

Perhaps surprisingly, Stieg Larsson does not crop up on the list until number 17, although the three novels in the Swedish author’s Millennium Trilogy came in at numbers one, two, and three respectively on the list of U.K. bestsellers for 2010.

Unpublished Philip Larkin poem found in a shoebox

An unpublished poem by Philip Larkin has been discovered 25 years after the British poet’s death. A producer working on a documentary about Larkin’s romantic relationship with his secretary, Betty Mackereth, spotted the poem, entitled “Dear Jake,” in a shoebox. The piece was written the year Larkin started seing his secretary outside of work and, according to the Guardian, it sheds light on their relationship:

[T]he manuscript was enclosed with a card from Larkin saying, “This is for you. You can sell it later on,” and explaining that it should be read in conjunction with “Posterity”, his 1968 poem imagining a cynical biographer misunderstanding his life.

The former poet laureate, Andrew Motion, who first revealed the relationship in a biography of Larkin published in 1993 … said that while the poem is “not absolutely premier division Larkin”, it is a marvellous discovery.

“It’s a little, new piece of the jigsaw,” he said, “which gives a very sweet and touching picture of this episode of his life.”

Daily book biz round-up: Obama’s kids book hits shelves; Chelsea Handler gets own imprint; and more

Today’s book news:

• Barack Obama’s children’s book released while his predecessor faces plagiarism accusations for his own memoir
• Chinese website apologizes for selling pirated e-books
• Grand Central Publishing launches imprint for comedian Chelsea Handler
• The Guardian calls U.K. author’s sentence in Singapore “a disgrace”
• Diarmaid MacCulloch wins McGill University’s history book prize

Two views of Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy, the Booker Prize–winning author of The God of Small Things, has been in the news recently for her outspoken comments about Kashmiri secession from India. Last week, rumours began circulating that the author might be charged with sedition for a speech in which she said, in part, “Kashmir has never been an integral part of India. It is a historical fact.”

Although the Indian government appears to have backed away from charging Roy with sedition, on Sunday a mob gathered at the author’s Delhi home to demand she retract her statements. From the Guardian:

Around 150 members of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s women’s organisation surrounded the house chanting slogans such as: “Take back your statement, else leave India.” The BJP is fiercely opposed to Kashmiri independence.

Although Roy has received support from left-leaning commentators at the Guardian and on other websites (notably that of fellow author Hari Kunzru), Leo Mirani, also writing in the Guardian, feels the author’s overheated rhetoric has made her statements “irrelevant in Indian public discourse.” Mirani writes:

Who would want to live in Arundhati Roy’s India? Who would even want to read about Arundhati Roy’s India? The government of India has many faults, but even Roy has to admit that living in this country isn’t entirely intolerable. Confronted with the relentlessly bleak picture she paints, one in which the only good guys are murderers and mercenaries, who can blame middle India for retreating into their iPods and tabloid newspapers?

Roy has important things to say, but her tone and bluster ensure the only people listening are those who already agree with her. She is preaching to the converted. To the left-leaning publications of the west, she is an articulate, intelligent voice explaining the problems with 21st-century India. For the university lefties in India, she confirms their worst fears of a nation falling apart. But to any intelligent readers who may be sitting on the fence or for anyone from middle-class India taking their first tentative steps towards greater political involvement, her polemic serves to terrify and alienate.

Clearly, the 150 people who stormed Roy’s house on Sunday don’t feel that her statements are irrelevant. As for Roy herself, she has issued a press release in which she insinuates possible collusion between the protestors and the media (TV vans had appeared in the neighbourhood prior to the demonstrators descending upon her house):

What is the nature of the agreement between these sections of the media and mobs and criminals in search of spectacle? Does the media which positions itself at the “scene” in advance have a guarantee that the attacks and demonstrations will be non-violent? What happens if there is criminal trespass (as there was today) or even something worse? Does the media then become accessory to the crime?

Happy birthday, John le Carré

John le Carré, known for spy thrillers such as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, turned 79 this Tuesday. According to MobyLives:

He’s since gone on to write some of the finest thrillers in the literature. And now, in his eightieth year, he’s still going strong. His new book, Our Kind of Traitor, is receiving rave reviews. In a review in The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani called it, “a bullet-train of a thriller”, saying it’s “the author’s most thrilling thriller in years.”

Matthew Hooton wins Not the Booker Prize

Okay, so winning the Not the Booker Prize is not like, well, winning the Booker, but we’re sure Victoria, B.C. author Mathew Hooton is pleased as punch anyway. His debut novel, Deloume Road, published by Knopf Canada last spring, was just named co-winner of the Guardian‘s annual consolation prize (determined by online vote), tying with U.K. author Lee Rourke’s The Canal. According to Guardian blogger Sam Jordison:

Deloume Road is a novel with real, haunting power. I’m still puzzling over its strange, unsettling conclusion, still delighted by its evocation of the Vancouver Island wilderness. Alone on our shortlist, it has been greeted with warmth by almost everyone who has read it.