Misery Memoirs and Cosy Catastrophes
Another weekend, another virtual pile of book reviews, author profiles and 2009 Best Books round-ups gathered from around the Internet. A couple of books pieces stood out for us, including a thoughtful review of American journalist, author and teacher Ben Yagoda’s Memoir: A History in the Washington Post. Yagoda’s book couldn’t be more timely, given that it traces the memoir’s emergence from its long run as a respectable sub-genre to become the “central form of (our) culture: not only the way stories are told, but the way arguments are put forth, products and properties marketed, ideas floated, acts justified, reputations constructed or salvaged.” Reviewer Jonathan Yardley summarizes Yagoda’s central thesis – that the genre’s prominence stems from “more narcissism overall, less concern for privacy, a strong interest in victimhood, and a therapeutic culture” – and makes some interesting points about the unreliability of memory, an issue that have always undermined the memoir’s claim to “truth.” (Salon also gives the book the must-read treatment here.)
Guardian books blogger David Barnett looks at a sub-sub-genre that hasn’t gotten much play lately: the “cosy catastrophe,” a phrase coined by sci-fi author Brian Aldiss to describe a particularly British form of apocalyptic fiction that dramatizes the planet’s demise in largely non-violent increments. Such novels and stories, Barnett writes, often hinge of ecological collapses that, unlike the lurid planetary end games churned out by Roland Emmerich (2012), leave enough survivors (and habitable land) to rebuild civilization. Barnett quotes Canadian author Jo Walton, who wrote summed up the genre in this pithy quote: ”In the classic cosy catastrophe, the catastrophe doesn’t take long and isn’t lingered over, the people who survive are always middle class, and have rarely lost anyone significant to them. The working classes are wiped out in a way that removes guilt. The survivors wander around an empty city, usually London, regretting the lost world of restaurants and symphony orchestras. There’s an elegiac tone: so much that was so good has passed away. Nobody ever regrets football matches or carnivals. Then they begin to rebuild civilization along better, more scientific lines.”
Stuff to Do (Not at the Mall)
Monday, November 30
Just in time to remind you that you’re already behind on your Christmas shopping, The Haunted Hillbilly author Derek McCormack reads from the new paperback version of Christmas Days, a fun primer on secular Christmas traditions illustrated by Seth. McCormack will be reading and signing at McNally Robinson at Don Mills, 1090 Don Mills Road, 8 p.m., FREE.
Tuesday, December 1
It’s a busy night in town, with Toronto’s own Mercury Press launching their fall list at Supermarket (268 Augusta Avenue) with a group reading from authors Stuart Broomer, Guy Ewing, Rob McLennan, Mark Miller and Mobashar Qureshi (7:30 p.m., FREE). Rose Cullis, Jasmine D’Costa and Aisha Sasha John read at Zoots Cafe (1438 Dundas Street West) as part of the Brockton Writers Series, a monthly event that showcases the Brockton area’s local authors (7 p.m., FREE). Jared Bland from The Walrus will be interviewing journalist and non-fiction author Brian Payton (The Ice Passage) on stage at The Pilot Tavern (22 Cumberland Street), a free event that organizers recommend you call ahead to book a seat for (7 p.m., call 416-361-0032). Poetry aficionados have two events to choose from. The weekly Art Bar Poetry series hosts Clara Blackwood, Dane Swan and Andrea Jarmai at its usual venue, Clinton’s (693 Bloor Street West, 8 p.m., FREE), while the erudite and always entertaining George Elliott Clarke holds court and reads at McNally Robinson at Don Mills (1090 Don Mills Road, 8 p.m., FREE).
Wednesday, December 2
Born to Kvetch author Michael Wex is giving a free reading at the North York Central Library (5120 Yonge Street, 7 p.m., FREE). Wex is a specialist in Yiddish and has written novels and plays and worked as a translator, performer and lecturer.
Thursday, December 3
The Toronto Reference Library continues its Eh List reading series with a visit from Jade Peony and All That Matters author Wayson Choy (789 Yonge Street, 7 p.m., FREE), while up at McNally Robinson at Don Mills (1090 Don Mills Road), Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente talks about her book You Can’t Say That in Canada with National Post managing editor Jonathan Kay (8 p.m., FREE).
Black Friday: The Books Edition
Slate writer Farhad Manjoo has a cautionary tale for shoppers lured into their local retail outlet by the annual Black Friday price slash (a practice now replicated in some Canadian stores): keep your hands off those new tech gadgets, especially those sleek new e-readers. Even with the price cut, Manjoo warns, e-readers are still overpriced at $260-400 (US). At those prices, he writes, “an e-reader makes sense only for commuters and frequent travelers—yes, e-books are cheaper than print books, but you’ll only make up the difference if you buy at least a dozen or so books a year.” There’s also the problem of what Manjoo calls the “classic early-adopter format dilemma,” i.e. what happens if the capabilities of the e-book model that catches your eye this season are rendered obsolete by another model’s specs next year, leaving you with an e-reader that publishers decide is not worth creating content for.
The campaign to colonize the British book retail market by American chain Borders has probably come to an end. As reported in the Guardian, Borders UK, the British subsidiary of the now multinational retail brand, has been placed in administration, a procedure in which a court-appointed administrator tries to save a company before taking the more radical step of dividing the assets among creditors. Borders UK, which owns 41 stores and employs 1,150 people, has apparently come under “severe pressure” from Internet and supermarket competitors as well as suffering from the country’s general economic downturn.
Books Are Evil and Other Lessons
Oprah Winfrey photo by Alan Light from Wikimedia Commons.
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This Books@Torontoist editor is glad someone finally told her the truth. Books suck! And they’re bad for you! Both these pieces (the first from New York Magazine, the second from Vanity Fair contributor Michael Wolff) raise interesting points, but all this “book publishing is dead!” stuff is becoming a bit like the boy who cried wolf.
But then I think maybe book publishing is dead after all. Oprah announced that her talk show will end in 2011. She made no mention about what that means for her book club, but the Daily Finance suspects bad, bad things. Considering Oprah immediately announced her plan to take over the world of cable television with her own network – OWN – her book club is probably going to be all right.
Library Thing put together a list of the 100 most cited books on Wikipedia. Canadians make a splash at #17 with The Canadian Directory of Parliament, 1867-1967.
In honour of the release of Fantastic Mr. Fox, Slate wonders if Roald Dahl would even like the film.
Thursday We Still Care About Books
The Toronto Public Library system continues its Eh List Reading series with two events, the first in a west end neighbourhood that tends to be under served by the lit world. Catherine Gildiner, author of Too Close to the Falls and Seduction, reads at the TPL’s Richview Branch (1806 Islington Avenue) at a free afternoon event at 2 p.m., with the series picking up at 7 p.m. at the Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street), where Scotiabank Giller Prize-nominated author Kim Echlin reads from her latest novel, The Disappeared (FREE).
For those readers who like a little booze with their books, two licensed venues host multi-author readings. The Livewords series inaugurates its new residence at the Black Swan Pub (154 Danforth Avenue) with poets Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, A. F. Moritz, Robyn Sarah and Zach Wells reading from new and old works (8 p.m., FREE). The event includes an open-mic segment. The essay form is given its proper due at Revival (783 College Street) with the launch of The Best Canadian Essays 2009 (8 p.m., FREE), with readings from contributors Nathan Whitlock, Alison Lee, and Kamal Al-Solaylee.
Check with Torontoist’s Urban Planner for more events.
A Conversation with Jonathan Lethem
This morning, Books@Torontoist editor Erin Balser sat down with Brooklyn-based writer Jonathan Lethem. The author of the bestselling The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn discussed his most recent project, Chronic City, a largely plotless tale of two men navigating an alternate Manhattan – one where The New York Times publishes a war-free issue, the city smells of chocolate, it snows in the summer and a tiger freely terrorizes the streets.
Torontoist: How does it feel to be back in Toronto?
Jonathan Lethem: Well, I just got in this morning, so I haven’t had the chance to take it all in. But I lived here from 1999-2001, perhaps as late as early 2002. I wrote a whole lot of The Fortress of Solitude at the Victory Café, next to this amazing comic book store, the Beguiling. It was near that giant colourful store…Honest Ed’s. I used to imagine that I lived in Honest Ed’s or at least in the shadow of Honest Ed’s. I spent my time eating a lot of Korean food along Bloor Street. I was very fond of a couple of used book stores in that area and was in and out of them all the time. I did a lot of good writing during that time.
Literary Hump Day
Even if a lit lover could be in six places at once he or she still wouldn’t take in all the public readings and book events in town tonight. Poets Wayne Clifford, Shane Neilson, Robyn Sarah and Zachariah Wells, all published with Biblioasis press, do a group reading at Ben McNally Books (366 Bay Street), 6 p.m., FREE, while House of Anansi Press authors Shani Mootoo, Emily Schultz, Karen Solie and Zoe Whitall gather for an all-female reading at at The Ossington (61 Ossington Avenue), 7 p.m., FREE. Brooklyn’s Jonathan Lethem is interviewed on stage for the fall season’s last Authors at Harbourfront Centre (235 Queens Quay West) event (7:30 p.m., $8), while up at the Indigo Manulife store (55 Bloor Street West) Margaret Atwood speaks about her latest novel, The Year of the Flood, with the bookstore chain’s CEO Heather Reismann. And if you’re heading to parts north, poet’s poet A.F. Moritz is reading and discussing his work at the North York Central Library (5120 Yonge Street, 7 p.m., FREE) while author and ubiquitous media commentator Hal Niedzviecki reads from The Peep Diaries at the McNally Robinson at Don Mills Store (1090 Don Mills Rd, 8 p.m., FREE). See today’s Urban Planner for even more book events.
Annabel Lyon Takes Home Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize
With three nominations for major literary prizes this year, Annabel Lyon deserved to go home a winner at least once! After being shut out by the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Awards, The Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize didn’t disappoint. Lyon’s historical novel about Aristotle and Alexander the Great, The Golden Mean, took home the $25,000 prize.
The other finalists were Douglas Coupland for Generation A; Alice Munro for Too Much Happiness; Nicole Brossard for Fences in Breathing; and Andrew Steinmetz for Eva’s Threepenny Theatre.
Brian Brett’s Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life won the $25,000 Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize. The finalists in this category included Trevor Harriot for Grass, Sky, Song: Promise and Peril in the World of Grassland Birds; Erika Ritter for The Dog by the Cradle, the Serpent Beneath: Some Paradoxes of Human-Animal Relationships; Wade Davis for The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World; and Eric Siblin for The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece.
The evening’s other winners included Yasuko Thanh, who took home the $10,000 Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize for her short story, “Floating like the Dead;” David Bergen, who was awarded the $25,000 Writers’ Trust Notable Author Award; and Marthe Jocelyn, who won the $20,000 Vicky Metcalf Award for Children’s Literature.
Today’s lit listings
Billed as the “the longest running poetry-only reading series in Canada,” the Artbar Poetry Series continues its run at Clinton’s tavern (693 Bloor Street West) tonight with three poets strutting their stuff: Barbara Myers, Jacob Scheier and Jason Guriel (8 p.m., FREE).
Novelist, critic and editor Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer reads from her latest novel, Perfecting, at the renovated and expanded Bloor Gladstone Library (1101 Bloor West) at 7 p.m., FREE.
And because all genres are our friends here at Books@Torontoist, we would be remiss to not mention a double reading and signing by memoirists Jane Christmas and Deirdre Kelly at McNally Robinson at Don Mills (1090 Don Mills Road), 8 p.m., FREE. Christmas will be reading from Incontinent on the Continent: My Mother, Her Walker, and Our Grand Tour of Italy, while Kelly shares the experiences in her memoir, Paris Times Eight.
Cookin’ with Coolio and Influential Criminals
It’s that time again – the end of the year means plenty of Books of the Year lists. This year is extra-annoying special, as the end of 2009 marks the end of a decade. While these lists can often be unimaginative, two caught this Books@Torontoist’s editor’s eye: Paste‘s top ten debut novels of the decade and one of the Guardian‘s books of the year list, compiled by notable people like Nick Hornby, Malcolm Gladwell, Kazuo Ishiguro, Vivenne Westwood, and Sam Mendes.
Shaka! Actors, musicians and those famous-for-being-famous types love dabbling in industries like fragrances, fashion and publishing. Only a brave few step up to the plate (pun intended) and publish a cook book. Cookin’ with Coolio includes culinary delights like “Cold Shrimpin’,” “Banana Ba-ba-ba-bread” and “Pasta Like a Rasta.”
Meet the 101 most influential people who never lived. Santa Claus deserves top-five props (he’s #3), but how does Buffy the Vampire Slayer peak at #44? She could easily take Alice in Wonderland (#34) and Prince Charming (#20).
Forensic artist Barbara Anderson sketched eight scary literary criminals for the November/December issue of Believer magazine. You have to pick up their latest issue to see all the sketches, but Boston.com teases us with sketches of McCarthy’s Judge Holden and Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov.