Shelagh Grant becomes first Canadian woman to win the Lionel Gelber Prize

Trent University professor Shelagh Grant has become the first Canadian woman to win the $15,000 Lionel Gelber Prize, awarded annually to an international non-fiction book “that seeks to deepen public debate on significant global issues.”

The Peterborough, Ontario, author won for her book Polar Imperative: A History of Arctic Sovereignty in North America (Douglas & McIntyre). The book examines historical and contemporary issues affecting the North, including sovereignty and global warming.

Jury chair Paul Cadario praised the book as “a comprehensive account of the interplay of politics, economics, institutions, and culture that few ever experienced first-hand.” Other jury members were journalist David Frum; former World Bank chief of staff Rachel Lomax; CBC documentary programming executive director Mark Starowicz; and international relations specialist Steven Weber.

Two other Canadian entries made the shortlist: Yalta: The Price of Peace by Serhii Plokhy and Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World by Doug Saunders. The Hungry World: America’s Cold War Battle Against Poverty in Asia by Nick Cullather and Why the West Rules – For Now by Ian Morris round out the jurors’ picks.

Past Lionel Gelber recipients include Jay Taylor, who won last year for The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China and Michael Ignatieff, who received the 1994 prize for Blood and Belonging: Journeys Into the New Nationalism.

The prize is presented by the Lionel Gelber Foundation, in partnership with University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Foreign Policy magazine. Grant will accept the prize at a ceremony and lecture in Toronto on March 29.

S&S asks political commentators to “refrain from commenting” on Obama novel

O: A Presidential Novel, forthcoming from Simon & Schuster, has generated a lot of buzz around the identity of its anonymous author – perhaps too much buzz as far as the publisher is concerned.

According to The Cutline, both Joe Klein – the once anonymous author of Primary Colours – and NBC correspondent Chuck Todd were contacted by S&S publisher Jonathan Karp and asked to “refrain from commenting” on the identity of the author (though Klein has already denied writing the book). In an email, Karp wrote:

On January 25, we’ll be publishing a secret novel simply titled O, about President Obama’s campaign for re-election in 2012. The author of the novel wishes to remain anonymous. You may be asked to comment on whether or not you are the author. If so, it would be great if you refrained from commenting, in solidarity with the principle that a book should be judged on its content and not on the perceived ideology of its author.

The author, an individual with integrity and talent, is someone who has been in the room with Barack Obama and knows the political world intimately. In fact, you may know this person, or know of this person — if you are not in fact the author yourself.

Tellingly, his request coincides with the release of an excerpt on the book’s dedicated Web site, where visitors are encouraged to post comments under the heading “Who Do You Think Wrote O?”

Obama, Rumsfeld books set for winter release

Simon & Schuster unveiled the cover for O: A Presidential Novel, an anonymously authored novel about U.S. president Barack Obama. The cover features a gold “O” bookended by a pair of protruding ears against a blue background.

Set during the 2012 presidential election, the book is described by The Washington Post as:

a novel about aspiration and delusion [...] written by an anonymous author who has spent years observing politics and the fraught relationship between public image and self-regard. The novel includes revealing and insightful portraits of many prominent figures in the political world – some invented and some real.

There’s been a flurry of speculation about the identity of the author, someone Simon & Schuster says “has been in the room with Barack Obama and wishes to remain anonymous.”

A blogger at the Wall Street Journal points out the futility of such conjecture:

In addition to the 469 employees of the White House, the president had 616 visitors there in December 2010 alone, according to records released by the administration.

And since we don’t know that this “room” is the Oval Office, we should probably also include everyone who’s attended a party or town hall or fund-raiser or campaign trail event also attended by Mr. Obama, plus his classmates, students and colleagues over the years.

O isn’t the only work of fiction inspired by American political figures published this winter. Donald by Eric Martin and Stephen Elliott is a novel that publisher McSweeney’s says imagines what would happen if former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld “was abducted at night from his Maryland home, held without charges in his own prison system, denied a trial, and kept in a place where no one could find him, beyond the reach of the law.”

The novel is set for release Feb. 8, the same day Rumsfeld’s official autobiography, Known and Unknown, is launched by Sentinel. By no coincidence, the covers of both books are similar — though only one features Rumsfeld in an orange jumpsuit.

Anna Porter, Tim Cook among Shaughnessy Cohen nominees

The Writers’ Trust of Canada has announced the finalists for the $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, awarded annually to a non-fiction book that has the “potential to shape or influence Canadian political life.” This year’s nominees, as chosen by journalists L. Ian MacDonald, Rosemary Speirs, and Paul Wells, are as follows:

• Tim Cook for The Madman and the Butcher: The Sensational Wars of Sam Hughes and General Arthur Currie (Allen Lane Canada)
• Shelagh D. Grant for Polar Imperative: A History of Arctic Sovereignty in North America (Douglas & McIntyre)
• Lawrence Martin for Harperland: The Politics of Control (Viking Canada)
• Anna Porter for The Ghosts of Europe: Journeys Through Central Europe’s Troubled Past and Uncertain Future (Douglas & McIntyre)
• Doug Saunders for Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World (Knopf Canada)

The winner will be announced on Feb. 16 at the Politics and the Pen Gala in Ottawa.

Books of the Year 2010: Non-fiction

There’s no formula for choosing the books of the year. Some break ground, some tackle familiar themes with new energy. Some represent the best work from established authors, some introduce us to important new voices. And some are simply in-house favourites we feel deserve a little more attention. Here are the non-fiction books that made the most impact in 2010. (more…)

Terry Fallis releases The High Road as a podcast prior to publication

Author Terry Fallis is following up his political comedy The Best Laid Plans with a sequel called The High Road. But before publisher McClelland & Stewart releases the book this September, Fallis is publishing it as a free weekly podcast on his website. The first episode went live Saturday, May 29, and the audio series will continue even after the book is published.

While podcasting a novel isn’t new to Fallis – he released The Best Laid Plans as a podcast before self-publishing the book in 2007 – it’s something M&S has never done before. Fallis wrote on his website:

I’ve always been a firm believer in the power of podcasting to build an audience, even for literature… As I understand it, M&S has never before allowed one of its authors to do this, so I am deeply grateful. This decision reflects enlightened thinking by a traditional publisher and a willingness to test the social media waters and explore how it can help drive interest in, and sales of, a book.

M&S re-released The Best Laid Plans, about a burnt-out political aide helping an unlikely candidate campaign for Parliament, in September 2008, after the self-published version received the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. Fallis himself worked in politics, first for Prime Minster Jean Chrétien, and then as an adviser for federal and Ontario Liberal cabinet ministers.

Event photos: Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae, Margaret Atwood, John English, and more at Politics and the Pen

On March 10, The Writers’ Trust of Canada held its Politics and the Pen fundraising dinner at Ottawa’s Fairmont Château Laurier. At the event, author John English was presented with the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing (which is sponsored by CTVglobemedia) for the second volume of his Trudeau biography, Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau: 1968–2000 (Knopf Canada). This year marks the 10th anniversary of the prize. (All photos by Jake Wright/Courtesy of The Writers’ Trust of Canada)

Justin Trudeau, federal MP and, obviously, son of the late subject of English’s prize-winning bio.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and his wife, Zsuzsanna Zsohar.

CBCers (former and current) Peter Mansbridge, Senator Pamela Wallin, and Don Newman.

Politics and the Pen co-chairs Patrick Kennedy and Charles King.

Laureen Harper (wife of PM Stephen) and Liberal MP Bob Rae. (You see? Books do bring people together.)

Clare Carey, wife of the British High Commissioner, Margaret Atwood, and Jacqueline LaRocque, manager of public policy at GlaxoSmithKline.

Former deputy PM (and the evening’s co-host) Anne McLellan abandons Ottawa air-kiss protocol and moves in to hug prize-winner John English while MP Jay Hill (the evening’s other host) either awaits his turn or looks on nervously.

Terry Pratchett calls for assisted suicide “tribunals”

Terry Pratchett, U.K. author of the wildly popular Discworld series, says that special “tribunals” should be set up to allow people suffering serious medical conditions to seek help in terminating their own lives. Assisted suicide is currently illegal in the U.K., but Pratchett, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, has offered himself as a “test case” for the kind of tribunal he is proposing, which Sky News says “would include a legal expert in family affairs and a doctor who had dealt with serious, long-term illness.”

Pratchett is to deliver the Richard Dimbleby Lecture tonight, in which he will argue that being granted permission to end his life would make each day more precious. The Telegraph quotes Pratchett:

If I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as precious as a million pounds.

I certainly do not expect or assume that every GP or hospital practitioner would be prepared to assist death by arrangement, even in the face of overwhelming medical evidence. That is their choice. Choice is very important in this matter.

But there will be some probably older, probably wiser, who will understand.

Pratchett may be right about that. According to the same Telegraph article, 75% of those surveyed in a recent poll approved of making assisted suicide legal.

It’s witchcraft! Bush White House said no to J.K. Rowling

ThinkProgress has been excerpting juicy bits from Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor, a memoir by former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer. The most recent concerns the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which, though always political to some degree, was made nakedly so during the Bush years. (Another Bush speechwriter apparently objected to the idea of awarding the medal to the cancer-stricken Ted Kennedy on the grounds that the longtime senator was “a liberal.”)

But it wasn’t always politics that animated medal discussions: sometimes, the objections to potential candidates were a little more… medieval.  According to Latimer’s book, some people in the White House did not like the idea of giving one to J.K. Rowling “because the Harry Potter books encouraged witchcraft.”

There’s a lot that could be said about this, but perhaps we should give the last word to a man who was awarded the medal in 1985:

Burned holy books to be symbolically buried, maybe

In the Israel-Palestine conflict, symbolism is everything. And there is a small tussle going on right now that is so heavy with symbolism, it might as well be an Ingmar Bergman film. At issue is a set of Jewish holy books that were allegedly burned by a group of Arabs. The books were being studied by Homesh Tehila (“Homesh First”), an Israeli group looking to re-establish a settlement that had been dismantled by the Israeli government. They had been maintaining an ad hoc yeshiva (a kind of school) on the site of the former settlement.

Unfiltered information about this kind of thing is difficult to come by (hence our hedging in the title of this post), but Homesh Tehila alleges that Arabs raided the yeshiva and burned the books a few weeks ago, and plans were afoot to bury the texts as part of a, well, highly symbolic ceremony.

From the The Jerusalem Post:

According to David Ha’ivri, a spokesman for the Samaria Regional Council, one night when there was no guard, local Arabs broke into the yeshiva and “burned to ashes” the holy books studied by the students.

In a press release, Ha’ivri juxtaposed the fire created by the burned holy books with the spiritual fire kindled by the yeshiva students’ learning.

(The ceremony, by the way, appears to have been postponed after some of its leaders were threatened with arrest.)