Show Rob Ford and TPL some love this holiday season

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has not been terribly successful on the literary front. From his under-the-breath insult to author Vikki VanSickle during this summer’s marathon executive committee hearing to his brother Doug’s very public spat with Margaret Atwood over cuts to library funding, Ford’s not been viewed as the most book-friendly mayor Toronto has ever known.

People feeling that the embattled mayor might need a bit of holiday cheer can now send him seasons greetings while also helping the Toronto Public Library retain its service levels in the face of calls for cutbacks from the city. A cheeky website called the Rob Ford Book Club has appeared, suggesting that users make a minimum $10 donation to TPL in the mayor’s name; they can then take advantage of an option to have a card sent to the person in whose name the donation has been made. “The effect is two-fold,” says the rubric on the Rob Ford Book Club. “[G]ive the library a hand, and have your voice heard.”

The site offers detailed instructions for making a donation to TPL on behalf of a third party, then instructs users on how to have a card or e-card forwarded to Mayor Ford. Users are also encouraged to include a personal message for the mayor, but are cautioned against any inappropriate commentary:

Use your real name or an alias such as “Toronto citizen,” but please keep the message respectful and do not make any slurs, attacks, or threats toward the Mayor. We want you to express your desire to see libraries remain an important part of the city in a constructive and peaceful way.

Quillblog applauds this clever approach to civic activism, and wonders whether one of the cards the mayor receives will be from Atwood.

In the September 2011 issue of Q&Q: Guy Vanderhaeghe completes his iconic Western trilogy

Q&Q speaks to Governor General’s Literary Award–winning Saskatoon author Guy Vanderhaeghe about the final book in his Western trilogy, the ambitious A Good Man.

Also in September, rekindling interest in history with high-profile political biographies, a look at independent U.S. bookstore e-book sales, and touring the country with Doug Gibson. Plus reviews of new books by Brian Francis, David Gilmour, Marina Endicott, and more.

FEATURES
A good guy
After nearly two decades, Guy Vanderhaeghe has completed his iconic Western trilogy – and now he’s ready to move on

Raising the dead white men
Can a handful of high-profile political biographies rekindle interest in Canadian history?

E-reading’s awkward embrace
If the experience of U.S. indies is anything to go by, Canadian booksellers gearing up to begin selling e-books should expect some bumps along the road

FRONTMATTER
Orphaned Key Porter authors take back control of their work
How digital technology has put audiobooks within reach of small presses
In memoriam: Robert Kroetsch
Montreal violin-maker Tom Wilder turns publisher
Snapshot: Knopf Random Canada executive vice-president and publisher Louise Dennys
Cover to cover: R.T. Naylor’s Crass Struggle
Touring the country with Doug Gibson
Guest opinion: Rolf Maurer on rethinking the role of the arts

REVIEWS
Natural Order by Brian Francis
The Perfect Order of Things by David Gilmour
The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott
Our Daily Bread by Lauren B. Davis
Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill

PLUS more fiction, non-fiction, and poetry

BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
Starfall by Diana Kolpak; Kathleen Finlay, photog.
No Ordinary Day by Deborah Ellis
First Descent by Pam Withers
The Busy Beaver by Nicholas Oldland
Once Every Never by Lesley Livingston

PLUS more fiction, non-fiction, and picture books

Q&Q/BOOKNET CANADA BESTSELLERS

THE LAST WORD
Greenpeace International’s Tzeporah Berman on finding a balance between her own voice and that of the organization she represents

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Borders gives up the fight: UPDATED

The embattled U.S. book chain Borders has run out of options in its attempts to find a buyer and will begin the process of liquidating, according to the Detroit Free Press. The liquidation plan, which was presented to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court last Thursday, is the only option left to the big-box bookstore chain after it failed to meet Sunday’s deadline for finding a buyer.

From the Free Press:

“Following the best efforts of all parties, we are saddened by this development,” said Borders Group President Mike Edwards, in a statement. “We were all working hard towards a different outcome, but the headwinds we have been facing for quite some time including the rapidly changing book industry, eReader revolution and turbulent economy have brought us to where we are now.”

An article on Paid Content.org states that Borders is closing all of its 399 remaining stores and laying off close to 11,000 employees. Paid Content includes Borders’ official statement, which reads in part:

Subject to the Court’s approval, under the proposal, liquidation is expected to commence for some stores and facilities as soon as Friday, July 22, with a phased rollout of the program which is expected to conclude by the end of September. Borders intends to liquidate under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and, as a result, Borders expects to be able to pay vendors in the ordinary course for all expenses incurred during the bankruptcy cases.

UPDATE: In the face of Borders’ liquidation announcement, the Canadian e-book company Kobo has voiced objections to the procedure, according to Bloomberg. Creditors filed official objections in bankruptcy court in Manhattan on Monday.

From Bloomberg:

“The debtors are proposing a hurried and confusing sale process that leaves parties such as Kobo uninformed as to precisely what will be sold or how the debtors intend to proceed,” lawyers for Kobo wrote.

Kobo, a Toronto-based maker of electronic books, said it should have the right of first refusal for any transfer of Borders’ 11 percent stake in its equity, and Borders shouldn’t be allowed to sell information that Kobo has licensed to Borders.

In the July/August issue of Q&Q: 2011 fall preview

The busy season for publishers has no shortage of big new releases, with novels from Ondaatje, Vanderhaeghe, and Endicott, the Massey Lectures from Adam Gopnik, and kids’ books from Kenneth Oppel and Kit Pearson. In the July/August 2011 issue, Q&Q takes a look at the fall season’s top titles.

Also in this issue, QR-code marketing, novelist Esi Edugyan’s sophomore blues, and publishers’ reactions to Indigo’s new co-op program. Plus reviews of new books by Lynn Coady, Nicole Lundrigan, Cary Fagan, and more.

FEATURES
Fall preview
A sneak peek at the season’s top fiction, non-fiction, children’s, and international titles

The CBA’s balancing act
The Canadian Booksellers Association looks to new digital partnerships – and old-school member outreach – to regain its place as the united voice of booksellers

After the collapse
Canadian book distributors remain optimistic following the bankruptcy of H.B. Fenn and Company

FRONTMATTER
Esi Edugyan finds an unlikely inspiration for her sophomore novel, Half-Blood Blues
Winnipeg’s Aqua Books revinvents itself as a popular community hangout
Joshua Knelman’s art-theft investigation landed him a book deal
Best short stories: Michael Christie on David Bezmozgis’s “Tapka”
Indigo’s new co-op program faces mixed publisher reaction
Is QR-code marketing just a fad, or can it sell books?
Cover to cover: Caitlin Sweet’s The Pattern Scars
Snapshot: eBound Canada CEO Robert Hayashi

REVIEWS
The Water Man’s Daughter by Emma Ruby-Sachs
Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay
Glass Boys by Nicole Lundrigan
The Antagonist by Lynn Coady
How Shakespeare Changed Everything by Stephen Marche
PLUS more fiction, non-fiction, and poetry

BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
Dear Baobab by Cheryl Foggo; Qin Leng, illus.
Nini by François Thisdale
The Summer of Permanent Wants by Jamieson Findlay
Testify by Valerie Sherrard
Born Ugly by Beth Goobie
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes by Jonathan Auxier
PLUS more fiction, non-fiction, and picture books

THE Q&Q/BOOKNET CANADA BESTSELLERS

THE LAST WORD
Authors who borrow from historical events face real ethical issues, writes novelist D.J. McIntosh

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Books of the Year 2010

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. Together, these 20 books made the biggest impact in 2010.

(more…)

Scott Griffin brings poetry into Canadian schools

Canadian literary benefactor Scott Griffin is taking his passion for poetry – in particular, the live recitation of poetry – into schools across Canada with a new bilingual recitation contest that will award $10,000 to students and school libraries.

Griffin announced the initiative, known as Poetry in Voice, at a press conference in Toronto on Tuesday. A pilot program is currently underway at a dozen Ontario high schools, and the plan is to expand to Quebec in 2011–12 and across the country in 2012–13.

Griffin, who recites a favourite poem from memory at each annual Griffin Poetry Prize shortlist announcement, spoke of the importance of recitation in discovering poetry. “The best way to know a poem short of writing it is to memorize it,” he said. “It’s amazing how different emotional settings or scenes will resurrect that particular poem because it strikes exactly what you’re experiencing at the time.”

Griffin wants to change the negative attitude many people have toward the rote memorization of poetry. “We hope this program … will excite students to want to memorize [poetry], and then they will discover the value of the poem,” he said.

Students participating in the pilot program can choose three poems from an online anthology that currently comprises more than 100 English-language and 25 French-language poems in the public domain, as selected by Poetry in Voice director Damian Rogers (author of the collection Paper Radio, published by ECW Press) and three-time Governor General’s Literary Award–winning poet Pierre Nepveu.

According to Rogers, the contest will serve as a platform for bringing Canadian literature and contemporary poets into schools. “I want students to make the connection that poetry is part of the Canadian cultural landscape across the country,” said Rogers, who added that the group is currently in the process of securing rights to contemporary and Canadian poems.

Competing students will be judged according to a variety of criteria, including physical presence, voice and articulation, accuracy, and dramatization. Griffin says students who choose to recite at least one poem in their non-native tongue will have a slight advantage over other competitors.

The province-wide finalists will face off on April 12 at Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre, with the winning student receiving $5,000, plus an additional $2,500 for the student’s school library. The runner-up will receive $1,000 (plus $500 for the library), while the third-place student will receive $500 (plus $500 for the library).

In addition to the $10,000 earmarked for the Poetry in Voice program, the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry will hand out $200,000 to the nominees of the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize.

Vonnegut, Jr. memorial library opens in Indianapolis

When Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died in 2007, American literature lost one of its most idiosyncratic and beloved voices. That voice is now being honoured with a new library in the author’s hometown of Indianapolis. The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library opened last week in an historic downtown building. Several of the rooms were paid for by donations from a local law firm, which is somewhat ironic given Vonnegut’s often cutting barbs about the legal profession. Among the items on display are Vonnegut’s typewriter and an unopened package of Pall Mall cigarettes.

As to why the library is located in Indianapolis and not the east coast, where Vonnegut lived for most of his life, The New York Times has this to say:

As the library welcomed the public for the first time last week, the author’s friends and family said that it belonged in Indianapolis, with which he had a complicated and not always complimentary relationship. Despite his criticism of the traditionally conservative city, this is where he developed his voice as a writer and learned the values expressed in his books.

“All my jokes are Indianapolis,” Mr. Vonnegut said at a speech here in 1986. “All my attitudes are Indianapolis. My adenoids are Indianapolis. If I ever severed myself from Indianapolis, I would be out of business. What people like about me is Indianapolis.”

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?

Daily book biz round-up: Oprah’s arrow points to Franzen again; Google mangles your literary faves; and more

Today’s book news:

• MobyLives says that Oprah is picking Freedom (We don’t know who to trust anymore!)
• President Obama to write dull-looking children’s book
• Amazon attacks iPad for being too shiny
• David Foster Wallace archive debuts today
• How Google Voice mangles literature’s most famous opening lines

Daily book biz round-up, July 27

• Survey says … 41% prefer old-timey realness
• “I don’t care what an audience thinks of me” and other lies
• Faulkner’s voice online
• Larsson … one million Kindle copies … blah blah blah
• A boycott of Wylie authors?