Femme Fatale

Femme Fatale

In a thrilling moment of everything being right with the universe, Ladykiller by Charlotte Gill has won the prestigous Danuta Gleed Award.

Champagne and fireworks for CanLit's sexiest tree-planter!

Cinemarati

Cinemarati

Whilst impersonating an Italian film director, John read through our New Yorker subscription pile-up and alerted me to a dazzling critique of The Da Blah-Blah Blah (film & book) by the inimitable Anthony Lane.

For more on Lane, including a very Oxbridge photo of the dapper chap, check out his narrative thread interview on identity theory.

Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger Hunt

I begin with David Lodge's Guardian piece on every writer's worst nightmare, The Author's Curse. Then I wonder if I shouldn't educate myself on any and all possible curses of my profession. A quick Google search leads me to this tidbit on The Curse of the Prolific Author. Happy to report, no affliction here. However, the article's author leads me to this review of I Love You More Than You Know, a collection of essays by Jonathan Ames. And, since I'm just now finishing Ames's brilliant romp, Wake Up, Sir, this seems the perfect full-circle point at which to adjourn for tea and biscuits. But wait! What do I discover? Ames's website features a page entitled, The Mystery of Henry James's Testicle. Clearly, otherworldly forces are at work.

Ladykiller

Ladykiller

Shouts and props to Charlotte Gill, who made an honest writer of herself, and brought home the BC Book Prize for Fiction.

Is it too meglomaniacal to think that a certain back-cover blurb clinched the win? Yes. It is.

Ich bin ein Autor

Ich bin ein Autor

Dead Girls, or Warum ich dich liebe (Google tells me this translates as: Why I love You), will be released in Germany in September. Here's a peek at the cover.

I’m hoping, in lieu of Euros, royalties will be paid in luxury cars and flaky pastries.

Octopussy

Octopussy

Book launches were held in our absence. How dare they.
Oh, alright, we forgive.

Boasting the sexiest cephalopod cover of the season, screenwriter Jennica Harper delivers her highly anticipated poetry debut, The Octopus and Other Poems, while Giller-nominee, Timothy Taylor follows up chefs with architects in his already best selling, Story House.

India Daze

India Daze

Perhaps the strangest thing to happen while we were in India (yes, stranger than almost being gored by a cow for walking too slow, and having a mouse run up ones arm during an afternoon nap) was the revelation that Harvard hottie Kaavya Viswanathan not only plagarized her morsel of YA chicklit, How Blah-Blah-Blah Did Blah-Blah-Blah..., but that she was also the by-product of a bizarre book factory. I'm not sure what to say about this except, ugh, blech, retch, retch, retch.