June 11, 2012
The best literature this country has ever produced
From my letter to my Member of Parliament and Minister James Moore regarding the federal government’s cessation of funding to the Literary Press Group of Canada:
“Canadian presses are right now publishing some of the best literature this country has ever produced. If you aren’t already familiar with titles such as Darcie Hossack’s Mennonites Don’t Dance (Thistledown Press, also nominated for Commonwealth Writers Prize), Billeh Nickerson’s Impact: The Titanic Poems (Arsenal Pulp Press), Madeleine Sonik’s Afflictions and Departures (Anvil Press, also nominated for Charles Taylor Prize), Daniel Griffin’s Stopping for Strangers (Vehicule Press, shortlisted for Frank O’Connor and Danuta Gleed awards), Mad Hope by Heather Birrell (Coach House Press), Mnemonic: A Book of Trees by Theresa Kishkan (Goose Lane Editions), The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrud (Gaspereau Press, winner of the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize), I’m a Registered Nurse… by Anne Perdue (Insomniac Press), and Monoceros by Suzette Mayr (Coach House Press, nominated for 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize), which are only some of the best books I’ve read lately, then I suggest you seek them out. And then you will understand my concern about the LPG funding cut, and about how much we all stand to lose as a result.”
The matter is urgent. If you support Canadian readers, Canadian books, and Canadian writers, please write your MP and tell her/him so.
February 21, 2012
Big Day: Welcome to The 49th Shelf!
Canadian Bookshelf launched in beta last June, and officially arrives today with a whole host of new features and a brand new name: The 49th Shelf. The selection of books on our front page this week is blowing my mind (including Madeline Sonik’s Afflictions & Departures, which I just finished yesterday and loved), our new I Love Books campaign is excellent, and you can find out more about what’s going on in our latest blog post (and we’re talking giveaway!). We’ve also got an interview with Maggie Helwig whose Girls Fall Down has just been selected for the One Book Toronto program (and which Stuart is currently reading and enjoying).
It’s good news all around and so inspiring to see so much love and support for Canadian books. I’m so thrilled to be a part of it and hope you’ll be a part of it too.
January 31, 2012
New Featured Ad: Great Plains Publications
I’m pleased to welcome Great Plains Publications to our sidebar. I’d enjoyed reading Nerys Parry’s Man & Other Natural Disasters last month, and so was happy when they approached me about placing an ad on the site. My posts and reviews at Pickle Me This are never paid for and opinions expressed are ever my own, but it is definitely nice to be featuring an ad for a book whose goodness I can stand behind and can recommend wholeheartedly.
January 11, 2012
The Canadian Publisher as "important component of civilization"
Here’s what sprang to my mind when I heard about Random House’s takeover of McClelland & Stewart:
“I arrive in Toronto on the day that Coach House Press goes out of business. (Coach House’s recent revival could not be foreseen at the time.) More startling than Coach House’s death is the reaction to its demise. Where past politicians, even those ill-disposed towards the cultural sector, would have felt it expedient to play lip-service to Coach House’s achievements, Ontario Premier Mike Harris launched into an attack on the press’s ‘history of total government dependence.’ Though Harris’ characterization isn’t strictly accurate, I am struck by how many of the writers and commentators who respond to Harris argue from the same set of assumptions: they defend Coach House’s accounting and marketing strategies, arguing for the press as a viable business rather than an important component of a civilization… Canadian public debate has changed in ways that make it increasingly difficult to justify, or even imagine, the sense of collective endeavour that fuelled the writing community only a few years earlier.” –Stephen Henighan, “Between Postcolonialism and Globalization”
(As you can see, I got a lot out of Henighan’s book, which I picked up just after the death of Josef Skvorecky, whose work he addesses in the essay “Canadian Cultural Cringe” and which certainly provided a counterpoint to the Skvorecky obits. And then this Random House news yesterday afternoon. Seems Henighan’s ideas are very relevant at the moment.)
January 5, 2012
Books I'm looking forward to in 2012
I’ve posted my Winter/Spring 2012: Most Anticipated Books of the Season post for Canadian Bookshelf, which I think is impossible to read through without being overwhelmed with some serious book lust. I’m looking forward to so many of these books, which will certainly be enough to carry us through the winter to the spring. In addition to the Canadian picks, I’m longing for Arcadia by Lauren Groff, who is perhaps my favourite American author of the moment– I loved The Monsters of Templeton and Delicate Edible Birds. I’ve already pre-ordered a copy of the latest Penelope Lively, How It All Began— she is wonderful, as is everything she touches. I know that Ali Smith’s There But For The came out last year, but I missed it, a mistake I will be fast to rectify. Can’t wait for Emily Perkins’ The Forrests, her latest book since Novel About My Wife. I’m also looking forward to finally reading Douglas Gibson’s Stories About Storytellers, about Gibson’s adventures in editing some of Canada’s greatest writers (which I’m particularly in the mood for after reading the terrific interview with Robert Gottlieb in The Paris Review Interviews Vol. 1). And then The New Republic by Lionel Shriver, which apparently is a reissue of a book from early in her career, and I will read it because Shriver is such a good writer, even if her novels themselves (save …Kevin) are not always altogether satisfying.
December 19, 2011
Blogging course makes the news
Much of this Fall was consumed by the adventure my first round of teaching The Art and Business of Blogging at through UofT’s School of Continuing Studies. An article on the course was included in The Toronto Sun‘s recent continuing education supplement, and is available for your reading here. And just a reminder that the course will be offered again in the spring!
August 8, 2011
Every little bit of the story is true
I’m sure I’m not the only person who is watching the riots unfolding in London, and thinking about Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English (but not the part about the pigeon). Also about the riots in Vancouver, and how books are the opposite of mob mentality. That these things are just as much about people being idiots (and how) as they are about a profound level of broadbased spiritual poverty and systemic discrimination– every little bit of the story is true. I think that it’s by reading fiction that I’ve learned to process events in the world with reactions that aren’t totally knee-jerk.
June 2, 2011
Slave Lake Library
Slave Lake Library Staff
As many people already know, when much of Slave Lake Alberta was destroyed by wildfire a couple of weeks ago, the town lost its library. The tragedy of this is underlined by the fact the library was less than two years old, and had been built after years of local fundraising efforts. And because we’re library enthuasiasts around here, and because we’ve been delivered much good fortune of late, we decided to pass some of that fortune along with a donation to the library and its reconstruction. I’d like to encourage the library-lovers amongst you to do the same, or perhaps make a bid in the Slave Lake Book Auction, which is a fantastic campaign run by Lavender Lines.
March 22, 2011
Feature Ads at Pickle Me This
After ten years of blogging, I’ve decided to take a chance and try to sell an ad or two here at Pickle Me This. Though not ads nauseum, no; you’re not going to see much more sidebar clutter around here than the usual. Instead what I have in mind are Feature Ads, just one or two, providing my household with a bit of extra income, and providing authors, publishers and literary events with the chance to promote their products boldly. You can learn more about Feature Ads and read my spiel over here.
I am excited for this– I think it has something good to offer to everybody involved. I also look forward to using my new third column to support some of my favourite causes. And many thanks to Create Me This for reworking my site in such a speedy fashion.
June 29, 2010
Good news about bedtime reading
Though I’m not sure I qualify as a “busy parent”*, I am excited that Harriet and I appear (with a picture!) in this lovely piece by Andrea Gordon in The Toronto Star about bedtime reading. The article was written in response to a recent study showing that 88% of parents with kids under twelve read regularly to their children at bedtime. Which is good news, in addition to the news that all of us knew already– that bedtime reading is one of parenthood’s great pleasures.
*I am not being self-deprecating. Most of this morning has been spent either in a slanket or lying on the floor.
