March 19, 2008
Library in Cartons
Here it is, our library in cartons. We packed the books up Sunday, which took up more time and boxes than we had supposed. And now we’re very grateful that we can afford to hire other people to carry that weight, as otherwise we’d be tempted to pull a Robin Pacific. Do note though that the thought of these boxes is the only reason I was able to leave the Balfour Books Half-Price Sale empty-handed on Sunday (but absolutely no reason why you should– the sale is on for the rest of the week). My prudence then negated today when I picked up my own Harriet the Spy.
Anyway the books will be unboxed in two weeks in the new house where they’ll have their own room.
March 15, 2008
Kate Christensen wins
Kate Christensen wins the PEN/Faulkner Award for The Great Man. (Also whoever wrote this headline hasn’t read the article or Kate Christensen). I am very excited about this, as I loved The Great Man. Maud Newton is also excited, and it was she who brought me to Christensen after all. I hope I can pass on that favour to one of you.
March 9, 2008
Better late than nevah-evah
I’m now reading Michael Redhill’s Consolation, the book chosen for Keep Toronto Reading One Book 2008. Which, of course, was in February. I am never terribly good at these communal reads– like Canada Reads, just barely mentioned here though it went on last week (and was very well documented by others). Though I do delight in them– bookishly saturated media and all that– and so I’m a bit ashamed to never take part.
But then not ashamed enough to start (alas the Tournament of Books will have to go on without me.) I blame the weather, mostly. I use up too much energy trudging through snow and slipping on sidewalks to be so focussed. I suspect that any Bookish Extravaganza during sunlit months might enthrall me, but now I’m just too tired. Further, I’m pretty choosy about what I read. You may notice the overwhelmingly-positive nature of my reviews, which is a product of me never ever reading books I don’t want to read, or books I think I should.
Finally, my t0-be-reads are stacked to the roofbeams (note: oh wow, in my new bedroom roofbeams will no longer just be metaphorical!). I’m pretty inflexible when it comes to said stack (someone once loaned me a book without asking and I almost had a nervous breakdown). I don’t have a lot of space to play with bookwise, my life span being limited and the number of brilliant books out there decidedly not.
So yes, I am blaming my own mortality for me not having read Consolation when I should have. And indeed, I should have read it in February, not only because The Toronto Public Library is my world favourite institution, but because the book is wonderful. I was a bit apprehensive because I’d thought it was historical fiction. (I don’t like historical fiction. This annoys people, as does the fact that I refuse to read books containing dragons. I am way more willing to bend on the historical fiction, however.)
However Consolation turns out to be about the engagement between modernity and its history– my most beloved literary pre-occupation! (The reason I love British fiction). And you get so little of that stuff, really, in CanLit, perhaps there not being quite enough history yet to go around yet. (The few exceptions I can think of are books I didn’t like). Sure we are focussed on our past here– you can’t go 5 miles without falling over a pioneer house– but only in the sense that it’s “there”, set up behind a velvet rope. Whereas in Consolation, history is right here– almost literally, in my case. Which is something I find tremendously exciting.
February 18, 2008
Zadie etc.
Another looong listing of reader comments at Bookninja. (See my post below). I find it interesting that these topics which have incited such debate are both in regards to women who other people think are much more successful than they deserve to be. Zadie Smith, in this case, who I personally believe is every bit as successful as she deserves to be for she is a legend. I heard her speak at Harbourfront two years ago, and I swear I would pay her anything to sit in my house and lecture me. She is fascinating, and oh so smart. Her books are some of the most exciting and inspiring I’ve ever encountered in literature, contemporary or otherwise. And yet there are those who’d see fit to knock her off her star.
Such as this commmenter: “… while I’ve picked up a couple of Smith’s novels to skim them, I’ve not read nor purchased one because I find them similarly lacking in quality, much less greatness.” He who could detect “greatness” in a skim? Perhaps he is the legend after all.
My friend K, who attended the Z. Smith Harbourfront reading with me, has recounted in her blog the horrible incident that took place in the Q&A. In which some jackass thought it be clever and/or polite to ask if Smith supposed she would have had the success she’s had were she not so physically attractive. It was mortifying. I mean, what this woman has to deal with. That after three novels, short stories, editing of anthologies, incredibly astute literary criticism, marvelous and generous work as a public figure, that it would all come down to her face. There is an underlying sense here that as a woman Smith is incapable of greatness on her own terms. The same sort of sense you get from a guy who’d dismiss the possibility of her greatness having not even done more than skim one of her books.
It makes me angry.
Margaret Atwood hating is exactly the same. It’s so stupidly easy, you know. Hating Margaret Atwood or Zadie Smith is not the express ticket to clever. Hating them without having read their books could possibly make you the least literary person ever, and the stupidity is only underlined by being in this position and even supposing you’ve got something to say.
December 6, 2007
Parentbooks Contest
Though I’m not a parent, the Toronto bookshop Parentbooks still has much to offer. In addition to their specialty books, they’ve got a lovely little kids book section (Corduroy! Be still my heart!) and they’re running an Olivia promotion. Stop in (on Harbord, just west of Bathurst) to enter to win a marvelous basket of Olivia tricks. Contest closes December 14th.
November 25, 2007
RR and Cake
My infinite list of favourite things about Rebecca Rosenblum includes the fact that we once decided our Serious Thursday writer meetings would involve cake in celebration of all our literary successes. A smart decision, I say now, considering the accomplishments of said Rosenblum and my love of cake. Congratulations to her on winning the 2007 Metcalf-Rooke Award for her brilliant collection of short stories.
November 6, 2007
Tenterhooks
Ooooh, tenterhooks. The Giller Prize winner is announced tonight, and we’re still endorsing Elizabeth Hay’s Late Nights on Air.
UPDATE: Late Nights on Air takes the prize. Pickle Me This is dancing merrily.
November 6, 2007
Expansion
They call it a “booktique” but I’m not frightened (yet); that Type Books is opening up a second location can only be seen as a good thing.
October 25, 2007
Point Form
Anansi‘s 40th Birthday is amusingly recapped at the Descant blog.
A new Mitford book is out today– a collection of letters between the sisters, edited by Charlotte Mosely, which I can’t wait for. Remember how much I loved Decca’s? On here for how “no one will ever write letters like this again”.
Kate Christensen, whose first novel I enjoyed last month upon introduction by Maud Newton, is interviewed by said Newton. Of the bits I loved best: “In my late teens and early 20s, when I was developing my idea of how I wanted to write, I glutted myself on twentieth-century English novelists. It seemed to me that, en masse, Drabble, Pym, Spark, Mantel, and Wesley, as well as quite a few equally brilliant Englishmen, had signed a British-Writer Pact agreeing to foreswear heavy-handedness, egotistical earnestness, and didacticism and to embrace instead black humor, deft social insights, wit, lightness, and a float-like-a butterfly sting-like-a-bee verbal dexterity. I wanted to sign that pact, join their gang and live in London and drink in their pub.”
I used to enjoy Maud Newton’s Friday Blogger Stephany Aulenback, and so I was happy to find out she was blogging again. And even happier when I saw she’d published an interview with Sara O’Leary. She is the author of When You Were Small, which is one of the most beautiful children’s books I’ve ever seen.
October 11, 2007
Descant launch, with two strings of pearls
Quite unfashionably late we were tonight for the launch of Descant 138, we being myself, my dapper husband, and Rebecca Rosenblum in gorgeous splendour. The new issue is beautiful though, and features poetry by Pickle Me This school chum LZ-V. And our lateness was really unavoidable, as there was rain to be walked home in, votes to be cast, socks to be wrung, and butternut squash pasta to be eaten. And then had to get dressed up, as the theme of the eve was the same as the issue– fashion. RR and I wore pearls. We caught readings by Andrew Tibbets and Katherine Ashenberg, heard the strains of “Take on Me” in Spanish. Ian Brown was m.c., and yes he is a bit dreamy. So a lovely night, squash and all.
