Blog
An Interview with the Suspiciously Nice Hilary Davidson
by Dan
Author Q & A + Fiction + Mysteries and Thrillers / March 04, 2013
In 2011, Canadian writer Hilary Davidson won the Anthony Award for her debut novel The Damage Done. The book also earned a Crimespree Award and was a finalist for the Arthur Ellis and Macavity awards.
I met Hilary a year later when she came to back Toronto to promote her second novel The Next One to Fall. I was positively taken aback that someone quite so charming and successful spent so much time thinking about how to dramatically kill people! Appearances can be deceptive, apparently...
Now a resident of New York, Hilary is a travel journalist and the author of 18 nonfiction books and countless short stories. You can also find her all over the web, including on Facebook, Goodreads, Google+, Pinterest and Twitter.
With the release of her Evil In All Its Disguises tomorrow, Hilary (being so nice and all) kindly agreed to answer a few questions for the Raincoast blog about her writing, travel, social media and more. Just remember, however lovely Hilary seems while you're reading this, she is out there secretly plotting something dastardly. Take my word for it...
Do you remember when you first became interested in becoming a writer?
If you ask anyone who knows me, they’ll say it’s a lifelong obsession. When I was in elementary school, I won a short-story writing contest in Crackers Magazine. It was called “Ameteafear’s Tomb,” and I blame it for putting me on this dark and twisted path. That, and Nancy Drew books, or course. They’re the gateway drug to crime novels.
What was your first writing job?
Paid or unpaid? I started early, founding a newspaper at my elementary school when I was in Grade Five. In high school, I worked on the student newspaper, which was rather appropriately called The Cuspidor. At the University of Toronto, I worked on a couple of newspapers and interned at the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, writing for its newsletter. But it wasn’t until I started freelancing while I was on staff at Canadian Living magazine that I made money from writing. The first cheque I earned was for writing a travel piece about New Orleans’ cemeteries for the travel section of The Globe & Mail.
What was the appeal of travel writing?
I’ve always learned so much when I travel, and I want to share that when I come home. I remember visiting Pompeii and being amazed by the brothels there. They have some very vivid murals on their walls! That was a kind of delightful surprise, and it turned into another travel story for The Globe & Mail. A few years ago, I spent three weeks in Peru, and that gave me a tremendous amount of inspiration, both for fiction and nonfiction. I’m obsessed with Inca history and culture, and my second novel, The Next One to Fall, let me explore that in great detail. Killing a (fictional) tourist at Machu Picchu was an unusual way to show my appreciation, but I was struck by both the grandeur of the site and the danger there when I visited.
Where are you going next?
My upcoming travels are all related to my tour for Evil in All Its Disguises. I start at the Tucson Festival of Books, then hit Scottsdale, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Denver, Colorado Springs, Austin, Houston, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Toronto. After that, who knows? Last year, I did a weeklong tour of BC with Ian Hamilton, Robin Spano, and Deryn Collier, three of my favourite crime writers, and we’ve been talking about doing something similar this year, possibly in Ontario. Last year, I was lucky enough to visit Israel and Argentina. I don’t know if I’ll be able to go anytime soon, but I’m dying to visit Cambodia.
How has your journalism informed your fiction?
Being a journalist teaches how to grab your audience’s interest quickly, and it makes you shameless about asking questions to figure out how things work. Even though I’m writing fiction, my books are set in the real world, and I like to get the details right. That’s made me do things like go to a gun range to shoot targets, because I wanted to feel the weight of a gun in my hand before writing about it.
What else inspires your crime writing?
Sometimes things that have happened to me or someone I know have a way of getting into my work. Evil in All Its Disguises is the third book featuring Lily Moore, but it’s a standalone mystery about the disappearance of a journalist in Acapulco. It’s the first time that the scenario for one of my books was directly inspired by real-life events — in this case, the disappearance of a Frommer’s Travel Guides editor who vanished while on a press trip to Jamaica in 2000. The book is a work of fiction, but the circumstances around her disappearance have always haunted me, and I wanted to explore that.
Who are some of your favourite crime writers?
It’s such a long list! Some classic favourites: Jim Thompson, Patricia Highsmith, Dorothy L. Hughes, and Donald Westlake. For contemporary crime fiction, it includes Laura Lippman, Walter Mosley, Megan Abbott, Ken Bruen, Linda Fairstein, Kate Atkinson, Chris F. Holm, Dennis Tafoya, Jennifer Hillier, Louise Penny, Denise Mina, and Dennis Lehane.
What is your next book about?
It's the story of a wealthy, adulterous couple who go away together for a weekend and are abducted. The strange behaviour of their kidnappers makes one of the victims wonder who they’re really working for. After the couple’s bodies are found—apparently killed in an accident—it's up to the dead woman’s brother and one of the kidnappers to figure out what really happened that weekend.
When can we expect Lily to return? Readers are going to miss her!
I definitely have more plans for Lily! She will be back. My first three books — The Damage Done, The Next One to Fall, and Evil in All Its Disguises — follow her through a short space of time. They’re set just a few months apart. When readers see her again, more time will have elapsed.
Are you still writing short stories?
Absolutely. Short stories let me explore all kinds of characters and voices and scenarios that I wouldn’t necessarily want to follow throughout a book. I also love writing short fiction because it’s helped me reach audiences who wouldn’t necessarily have picked up my books otherwise. I’m up for a Derringer Award right now for a story about a couple whose relationship is falling apart because one of them wants to visit a dominatrix. I’ve got stories coming up in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and in a new publication from Macmillan called the Malfeasance Occasional.
When did you become interested in vintage fashion?
When I was fourteen, I started shopping in Toronto’s Kensington Market, so I got hooked on vintage early. My mom and grandmother were always very stylish dressers, so they inspired me. I love the idea of wearing clothes that have a history — it’s like they have their own stories to tell.
Who are some of your fashion icons?
A few years ago, I saw an exhibit about Elsa Schiaparelli, and I instantly fell in love. Her approach to fashion was just so irreverent and playful. For instance, she designed a pair of glamorous, elbow-length black evening gloves with pointed gold talons attached. They look like bear claws! To me, that’s the ultimate in chic.
You’re very engaged with social media. As a writer do you find being online a help or a hindrance?
The best thing about social media is that it introduces you to a lot of interesting people. The worst thing is that some people mistake it for a megaphone, and they think it’s just a means to publicize their own books. For me, it’s all about the social — I get into a lot of interesting conversations with people, and I was invited to the first-ever QuebeCrime conference thanks to Twitter. It’s definitely a help, but I have to limit myself, because otherwise I’d be online chatting with people all day instead of getting any work done!
When we’ve finished reading Evil In All Its Disguises, what should we read next?
I’m looking forward to reading Brad Parks’ latest, The Good Cop, and Andrew Pyper’s The Demonologist, which I’ve heard wonderful things about. My TBR (To Be Read) pile just keeps growing and growing. That’s true for everyone who loves books, isn’t it?
Thanks Hilary!
Hilary Davidson will be appearing at Ben McNally Books in Toronto on April 18, 2013. Details to come. Read an excerpt of Evil In All Its Disguises
Raincoast to Distribute Figure 1 Publishing
by Dan
News / February 26, 2013
Chris Labonté, Peter Cocking and Richard Nadeau, three former senior managers with D&M Publishers, have founded a new publishing house: Figure 1 Publishing. Together, they bring more than forty years of publishing experience to the new venture, as well as a national network of top-quality writers, editors, designers, and photographers.
Figure 1 will offer organizations and individuals a full suite of high quality publishing services in both print and digital formats, and will distribute their books widely throughout the North American retail market.
Labonté says: “We learned our stock in trade at a publisher that was renowned for quality, and we intend to carry on that tradition in bold and creative ways.”
Figure 1 will focus on a handful of core publishing strands: art & architecture, food & wine, lifestyle, illustrated history and business books. They are working on projects with several clients already, including museums, art galleries, restaurants, and corporations.
“Our goal is to become the premier publisher of high quality illustrated books in the country,” Cocking said. “What we’re doing is different, I think, than anyone now publishing in this country. Think Chronicle Books, or Rizzoli—certainly those are influences.”
Figure 1 is securing U.S. and international distribution and will be distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books, who will also provide sales representation and marketing. Nadeau said that, “Raincoast is a fantastic distributor and we are delighted to be working with them. With their strong nationwide sales and marketing teams, we feel we’ve got the perfect partner.” Figure 1 will publish its first list of titles in Fall 2013.
Guest Post: Cory Doctorow for Freedom to Read Week
by Dan
Guest Blogger + YA Fiction / February 24, 2013
Freedom to Read Week is an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Libraries, Hackspaces and E-waste: how libraries can be the hub of a young maker revolution
Every discussion of libraries in the age of austerity always includes at least one blowhard who opines, "What do we need libraries for? We've got the Internet now!"
Facepalm.
The problem is that Mr. Blowhard has confused a library with a book depository. Now, those are useful, too, but a library isn't just (or even necessarily) a place where you go to get books for free. Public libraries have always been places where skilled information professionals assisted the general public with the eternal quest to understand the world. Historically, librarians have sat at the coalface between the entire universe of published material and patrons, choosing books with at least a colorable claim to credibility, carefully cataloging and shelving them, and then assisting patrons in understanding how to synthesize the material contained therein.
Libraries have also served as community hubs, places where the curious, the scholarly, and the intellectually excitable could gather in the company of one another, surrounded by untold information-wealth, presided over by skilled information professionals who could lend technical assistance where needed. My own life has included many protracted stints in libraries — for example, I dropped out of high-school when I was 14 took myself to Toronto's Metro Reference Library and literally walked into the shelves at random, selected the first volume that aroused my curiosity, read it until it suggested another line of interest, then chased that one up. When I found the newspaper microfilm, I was blown away, and spent a week just pulling out reels at random and reading newspapers from the decades and centuries before, making notes and chasing them up with books. We have a name for this behavior today, of course: "browsing the Web." It was clunkier before the Web went digital, but it was every bit as exciting.
(Eventually my parents figured out I wasn't going to school, and after the ensuing confrontations, I ended up at a most excellent independent/alternative school, but that's another story)
Later, I worked as a page at North York Public Library's central branch, in the Business and Urban Affairs department. Working at a library is an unparalleled opportunity to witness the full range of human curiosity, from excited students working on school assignments together to wild-eyed entrepreneurs pursuing their dreams to careful senior citizens researching where to invest their personal savings to supplement their pensions (and lots more besides). All these people were using the library as a place, a resource, and a community. Because that's what libraries are.
And we've never needed that more than we need it today. We've run out of places. What used to be public squares and parks are now malls. Places that used to welcome kids now prohibit them (in England, where I live, some smart-aleck invented a device called "the mosquito," which plays a shrill tone only audible to young ears, used to drive children away from semi-public spaces like the benches in front of stores).
What's more, we're *drowning* in information. Pre-Internet librarianship was like pre-Internet newspaper publishing: "select, then publish." That is, all the unfiltered items are presented to a gatekeeper, who selects the best of them, and puts them in front of the rest of the world. Now we live in a "publish, then select" world: everyone can reach everything, all the time, and the job of experts is to collect and annotate that material, to help others navigate its worth and truthfulness.
That is to say that society has never needed its librarians, and its libraries, more. The major life-skill of the information age is information literacy, and no one's better at that than librarians. It's what they train for. It's what they live for.
But there's another gang of information-literate people out there, a gang who are a natural ally of libraries and librarians: the maker movement. Clustered in co-operative workshops called "makerspaces" or "hack(er)spaces," makers build physical stuff. They make robots, flying drones, 3D printers (and 3D printed stuff), jewelry, tools, printing presses, clothes, medieval armor... Whatever takes their fancy. Making in the 21st century has moved out of the individual workshop and gone networked. Today's tinkerer work in vast, distributed communities where information sharing is the norm, where the ethics and practices of the free/open source software movement has gone physical. Such hackspaces play a prominent role in my own fiction (thanks, no doubt, to the neighborly presence to the London Hackspace, which is directly over my own office in Hackney). In my new novel,
Homeland (the sequel to 2008's Little Brother), my protagonist Marcus discovers the tools of personal and social revolution through his friends at Noisebridge, a real-world makerspace in San Francisco.
At first blush, the connection between makers and libraries might be hard to see. But one of the impacts of building your own computing devices (a drone, a 3D printer, and a robot are just specialized computers in fancy cases) is that it forces you to confront the architecture and systems that underlie your own information consumption. Savvy librarians will know that our access to networked information is mediated by dozens of invisible sources, from the unaccountable search algorithms that determine our starting (and often, ending) points, to the equally unaccountable censoring network "filters" that arbitrarily block whole swathes of the Internet, to underlying hardware and operating system constraints and choices that make certain kinds of information easy to consume, and other kinds nearly impossible.
In the automobile age, everyone was expected to know the fundamentals of how their cars worked. Even if you paid someone else to change your oil, it would take an act of will to attain adulthood in the USA without learning a bit about the mechanics underpinning the signal invention of your era. There were just too many ways that a car could go wrong, and too many ways that your life revolved around cars to rely on the rest of the world to understand them for you.
Now we live in the computer age, and if we thought we relied on cars, we hadn't seen anything. Some people spend so much time in their cars that it's like they live in them. But you literally do live inside a computer -- a modern house, car, or institutional building is just a giant computer you put your body into. And modern hearing aids, pacemakers, and prostheses are computers you put inside your body.
Every part of our lives have been permeated by computers, and these computers have the power to peer into our private lives, to compromise our finances, to shape our political beliefs, to disrupt our families, and to destroy our workplaces. That is, if computers don't serve us, they can (and do) destroy us.
But for people who master networked computers and make them into honest servants, computers deliver incredible dividends. A UK study compared similar families, some with access to the net and others without, and found that the families with net access had better education, were more civically engaged, more politically informed, had better jobs and income, were more socially mobile — even their health and nutrition was better. If computers are on your side, they elevate every single thing we use to measure quality of life.
So we need to master computers — to master the systems of information, so that we can master information itself.
That's where makers come in. One of the curious aspects of computers is that they evolve so quickly that they rapidly become obsolete. That means that our communities are drowning in "e-waste," often sent to developing nations where children labor in horrific conditions to turn them back into materials to be reintroduced into the manufacturing stream.
What if, instead of shipping our communities' "dead" computers to China to be dipped in acid by unprotected children, we brought them to our libraries. What if we enlisted our makers to run workshops at the libraries, workshops where the patrons who come to the library to use the limited computers there were taught to build their own PCs, install GNU/Linux on them, and *bring them home*? People who say that it's dumb to turn libraries into book-lined Internet cafes are right.
Internet at the library should be the gateway drug for building a PC of your own, from parts, learning firsthand how computers work, what operating systems are capable of, and what locked-down devices and networks take away from their users.
Making a PC isn't hard, especially when you get the parts for free. The easiest way to get good at stuff is to make mistakes ("to double your success rate, triple your failure rate"). The best mechanic I know learned his trade by buying $100 junkers on Craigslist and destroying one after another until he got good (then: *excellent*) at it. When you're building PCs out of literal garbage, you can do no wrong. Your failures just end up back in the same dumpster they were headed for in the first place.
Look, we've got more computer junk than we know what to do with and a generation of kids whose "information literacy" extends to learning PowerPoint and being lectured about plagiarizing from Wikipedia and putting too much information on Facebook. The invisible, crucial infrastructure of our century is treated as the province of wizards and industrialists, and hermetically sealed, with no user-serviceable parts inside.
Damn right libraries shouldn't be book-lined Internet cafes. They should be book-lined, computer-filled information-dojos where communities come together to teach each other black-belt information literacy, where initiates work alongside noviates to show them how to master the tools of the networked age from the bare metal up.
My young adult novels always feature kids who build their own tools, in part because the coolest, most curious kids I know are already doing this. But it's also because this is a hobby that's available to anyone. The information is online, free. The raw materials aren't just free, they're worth *less than nothing*, a liability and a nuisance to be rid of. And the dividends are stupendous. Only through understanding the tools of information can we master them, and only by mastering them can we use them to make our lives better, rather than destroying them.
Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow will be at the Lillian H. Smith Library in Toronto on March 1, 2013 at 7:00pm (doors open at 6pm).
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Tags:
books cory doctorow freedom freedom to read information libraries reading technology
Oscar Prep: Time to Par-tay
by Megan
Film + Food & Drink / February 20, 2013
A red-carpet-ready post by Megan and Alisha
The Oscars are set to hit the screen Feb. 24, so it’s time to put your party pants on and prep for your oh-so-excellent Oscar fete, complete with games, treats, drinks, and plenty of snark (did you see what she was wearing?!).
Even if you won’t be exclaiming “You like me! You really like me!” to anyone but your cat in the immediate future (Best Supporting Snuggler: Mr. Meowsikins), you can still throw one doozy of a party with a few choice books to help. We’ve put a few books to the critics (staff), and here are the night’s big winners. Plus, check out our handy dandy flow chart for your road to Oscar party glory.
WINNER: Best friendly competition aid
Name That Movie (Chronicle Books)
This book has proven to be a hit with film newbies and movie snobs alike. With a double spread of esoteric sketches in sequential order from a particular movie, the reader has to guess the movie in question. Sure to bring out the competitive side of partygoers, get ready for some fun. And remember, if there’s one thing the Oscars are fantastic at, it’s showing how to be a graceful loser (but if you want to reign supreme, feel free to study the answers at the back of the book beforehand).
WINNER: Best Montage Avoidance Tool
Mag Mixed-Up Movie Lines (Magnetic Poetry)
If you’re like me and need an occasional break from the montage-y goodness of the show, this is your perfect tool. Mix and match famous movie lines, then giggle and glory at your cleverness. “Frankly, my dear, you’re a damned dirty ape and you can’t handle the truth!”
WINNER: Best giggle booster/conversation starter
Film Listography Journal (Chronicle Books)
Use this journal, complete with over 70 hilarious sketches, to list all your favourite movie picks. Go beyond your picks for the Oscar night alone and fill in lists from the classic (favourite films, favourite actors) to the delightfully idiosyncratic (top so-bad-it’s-good movies, scenes that made you cringe). Guaranteed to launch a conversation, especially when you find out whose favourite movie is Weekend at Bernie’s.
WINNER: Best self-esteem enhancing tool
TCM Classic Movie Trivia (Chronicle Books) and 100 Cult Films (I.B. Taurus)
Much like double-sided tape and stilettos can prop up a less than stellar Oscar dress, these books can do wonders for propping up your elite status in your circle of film buffs. Remember, we all know that the true spirit of the Oscar party is not the celebration of film, but rather proving that you know more bizarre and esoteric trivia about movies than your friends.
If the 4000 questions, including “expert only” section, of TCM Classic Movie Trivia isn’t enough to leave your movie aficionado opponents sobbing in defeat, 100 Cult Films will further help you one-up your mates by showing your superior knowledge in not just everyday cult films (scoff) but in cult sub-genres such as Italian cannibal movies and Japanese anime.
FLOWCHART FOR AWESOMESAUCE OSCAR PARTY
MUNCHABLES
+ 
The Ultimate Bar Book Seriously Simple Parties
9780811843515 9780811872577
BATTLE ROYALE FOR FILM ESOTERICA CROWN
+ 
Classic Movie Trivia 100 Cult Films
9781452101521 9781844574087
Name That Movie
9781452104973
GIGGLES
+
Film Listography Magpo Mixed Up Movie Lines
9781452106519 9781932289480
=
WINNER
HOSTESS WITH THE MOSTESS
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film movies oscars
Homeland Launch in Toronto
by Dan
Events + YA Fiction / February 20, 2013
Cory Doctorow will be back in Toronto next week for the launch of his new novel Homeland at the Lillian H. Smith Library on Friday March 1, 2013.
Cory will be discussing his new book and, knowing Cory, whatever else he feels like talking about on the night! The event will be held in the downstairs meeting room at library. Doors open at 6pm, the event will start at 7pm. Bakka Phoenix Books will be selling books.
If you haven't had chance to read Homeland yet, it picks up a few years after the events of Little Brother. California's economy has collapsed, but Marcus Yallow's hacktivist past has landed him a job working for a crusading politician who promises reform. But trouble — in the shape of a thumbdrive from his former nemesis Masha — is not far behind...
Fast-moving, passionate, and as current as next week, Homeland is every bit the equal of Little Brother — a paean to activism, to courage, to the drive to make the world a better place.
photo: Jonathan Worth
Cory Doctorow Homeland Launch
7:00pm, March 1, 2013 (doors open at 6pm)
Lillian H. Smith Library with Bakka Phoenix Books
239 College Street
Toronto, ON, M5T 1R5
416-393-7746
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Tags:
activism cory doctorow teens toronto
Marissa Meyer in Toronto
by Dan
Events + Kids + YA Fiction / February 19, 2013
New York Times bestselling author Marissa Meyer is coming to Toronto!
Marissa will be signing Scarlet, the sequel to last year's break out hit Cinder, at the Yorkdale Indigo at 12pm on Saturday March 9, 2013.
Follow @indigogreenroom and @raincoastbooks for more details.
Marissa Meyer Book Signing + Q&A
12:00pm, March 9, 2013
Yorkdale Indigo
3401 Dufferin Street Unit #29
Toronto, ON M6A 2T9
416-781-6660
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Tags:
events indigo marissa meyer teen toronto
New Nonfiction for February
by Dan
Biography & Memoir + Essays / February 19, 2013
In her new essay collection This is Running For Your Life, out this month, Michelle Orange takes us from Beirut to Hawaii to her grandmother's retirement home in Canada in her quest to understand how people behave in a world increasingly mediated — for better and for worse — by images and interactivity. Described by Publishers Weekly as a "whip-smart, achingly funny collection," the book was reviewed by Michael Redhill (author of Consolation and the Inger Ash Wolfe novels) in this weekend's National Post:
This is Running For Your Life [is] a brave, new, and sometimes thrillingly difficult collection of essays by Canadian author Michelle Orange... Orange is an acolyte of the eye — as is John Berger and Susan Sontag — and many of the attempts in this collection consider movies and images in the context of our consumption of these things in the Internet age. In the strongest of them, Orange worries the barrier between seeing and being seen; and between witness and participation.
Also out this month is James Lasdun's extradordinary Give Me Everything You Have, which chronicles the author's strange harrowing ordeal at the hands of a former student — a self-styled "verbal terrorist," who began trying, in her words, to "ruin him."
Maureen Corrigan recently discussed the book on NPR's Fresh Air:
Over the past week or so, I've mentioned James Lasdun's new book, Give Me Everything You Have to a bunch of colleagues; they've all heard about it already and they're all dying to read it. What Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was to parenting a couple of years ago, Lasdun's Give Me Everything You Have may well be to teaching: a controversial personal reflection on the professor-student relationship — except Lasdun, unlike Chua, really has no advice to offer; no certitude, nor help for pain. His memoir attests to the fact that in the confusing Age of the Internet, we are all as on a "darkling plain," at the mercy of assault by email and wiki rumor.
This is Running For Your Life and Give Me Everything You Have are in stores now. Discover more new nonfiction releases in this week's Titlewave email newsletter.
You can subscribe to the Raincoast newsletters here.
To All the Single Ladies: A Valentine’s Day Choose-Your-Own Adventure
by Megan
February 14, 2013
Love is in the air...
For the single gal or fellow, Valentine’s Day feels nothing short of a cold, hard, chocolate-covered kick to the face. While representatives of blissful coupledom go about buying candy, chocolates, barbershop quartets, and professing their love in public and frightening ways, it can feel lonely as a single on that gooiest of sacchrine holidays. Here is a choose-your-own-adventure-style formula for optimal Valentine’s Day enjoyment as a single.
Start by answering this handy dandy question and clicking on the link to set you up with your true object of affection (duh - a book) on this snuggliest of days: How would you most like to spend the upcoming Valentine’s Day?
1) Escaping on a passionate, bodice-ripping tryst with a hunky goblin warrior or strapping duke.
2) Using trickery, potions, and possibly hypnosis for luring a potential mate in for a date.
4) Pulling the curtains closed, punching a cupid, and reveling in delicious snark.
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X Marks the Scot (9781402270093)
For the Love of the Goblin Warrior (9781402262098)
Untamed (9781402258497)
This doesn’t require too much explanation, but it's the best way of I know to block the lace and candy hearts from your immediate line of sight. Goblin warriors? Scottish shirtless shenanigans? Yes and yes.
If the sight of all these strapping shirtless gentlemen makes you puzzled and all you want is some quiet and reflection, jump to #3.
If you would like practical, helpful ways to use potions and fortune-telling to lure a be-kilted gentleman into your boudoir, jump to #2.
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Fortune-telling book of love (9781452108599)
The Book of Love (9780811877206)
My motto as a single was always to turn to voodoo, witchery, or any other (some could call it) duplicitous means of charm, so these books are a godsend (don't tell my boyfriend).
If you’re looking for more psychologically sound methods of self-reinvention and mate attraction, jump to #3.
If all this sounds like too much freaking effort and all you want is a shirtless romp, head on back to #1.
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Wired For Love (9781608820580)
Relationship Saboteurs (9781572247468)
New Science of Love (9781402253751)
For those more introspective Valentine’s observers, here’s your chance to figure out what’s going on in that heart and head of yours. A little psychological reading-up on you and your potential partner's needs will go a long way towards ensuring that you are psychologically sound for a relationship.
If this isn’t your cup of tea, and what you really desire on Valentine’s Day is a man in a kilt, a possible paranormal romance, and an absence of shirts, jump back to #1.
For less… shall we say, straightforward methods of love procurement (helloooooo love potions), jump back to #2.
If the idea of studying your own heart makes you want to lash out irrationally, jump directly to #4.
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All My Friends Are Still Dead (9781452106960)—You’re still single? Well at least all your friends aren’t still dead. Next.
50 Sheds of Grey (9781250033666)—Instead of the love of a good man or woman, rejoice in the love that comes from a sturdy, well-loved garden shed (swoon).
44 Horrible Dates (9781402267475)—Schadenfreude, baby. At least this wasn’t you.
Remember, young squires, that a Valentine's Day date can be awkward and end early on February 14, but the love of a good book will keep you up on many a late night.
Best in New Health and Fitness Books
by Dan
Health & Wellness / February 11, 2013
Because it's never too late to have New Year's resolutions, we're featuring new and upcoming health and fitness titles in this week's Raincoast newsletter. New books include the New York Times and BookManager bestseller Shred: The Revolutionary Diet by Ian K. Smith M.D., Everyday Raw Detox by Matthew Kenney and Meredith Baird, and the WeightWatchers 50th Anniversary Cookbook.
Read this week's newsletter for more health and fitness releases.
Want stay up-to-date on all our new releases? Subscribe to all newsletters.
So Long, and Thanks For All The Reviews…
by Dan
News / February 01, 2013
The Canadian book industry was in uproar earlier this week.
A short online report by Susan Cole in Toronto alt weekly NOW Magazine revealed that the Globe and Mail's long-standing book editors Martin Levin and Jack Kirchhoff would be moving on, "leaving the national newspaper without a literary editor." The sadness that the two well-liked editors were departing, mixed with anger as the attention-grabbing headline 'Globe slashes book section' led many to believe that the newspaper was cutting its book section entirely—a claim furiously denied later by the Globe and Mail's Editor-in-chief John Stackhouse.
Describing the report as "hogwash," Stackhouse confirmed to the Quill and Quire (subscription req'd) that the Globe was actively looking for a new editor for the books section, but attempted to reassure readers saying, "we will continue to publish what I hope is an outstanding weekly books section but also hope to develop … the most engaging books coverage in the country."
The announcement of Martin and Jack's departure did not come as a complete shock. I had spoken to Martin a few weeks previously and he had told me, in his manner-of-fact way, that he and Jack were leaving. It was typical of Martin to tell me in person, and I'm sure many others in the industry had already heard directly from him before the news broke.
I first met Martin not long after I moved to Canada. He was, even then, an established and well-respected presence in Canadian books (he has been the books editor at the Globe for 17 years). He would regularly browse the shelves of the bookstore I worked in, stopping to chat and, if I remember correctly, buy the odd New York Times here and there.
Some years later, Martin was gracious enough to say he remembered who I was when I started to harass him in my new job as a publicist. I'm not sure how many of my books he reviewed back then. It wasn't many, that's for sure. But he was always kind about it and tolerated the pestering of a junior publicist far more than he had to (a fact I didn't appreciate until much later!).
I learnt that he had a way of finding common ground with you even if the books you were pitching didn't much interest him. With my predecessor at Raincoast it was horror movies. With me it was comics and, funnily enough, England—a country he visits more regularly than me these days I suspect. I came to look forward to our meetings, and not just because it always involved eating better than I had in days.
Jack has been working with Martin for goodness knows how long, but I didn't actually meet him in person until very, very recently. I consider myself one of the fortunate few. Not one for events, schmoozing or social media, Jack has always been... well, 'enigmatic'! There are a lot of people who have worked in publishing longer than me who still don't know what he looks like.
But if Jack wasn't at the parties, he made up for it other ways. Always quick to respond to an enquiry, and always willing to give things a second look, he helped me to get my job done more often than I can count. He never understood why I thanked him for reviews ("it's what we do"), and I will miss him more than I can say without losing all professional dignity.
Despite John Stackhouse's reassurances, the future of the Globe and Mail's book section suddenly feels much less certain than it did with Martin and Jack at the helm. Book reviews have never attracted much advertising—only the big publishers and booksellers have ever been able to afford it—and, as consequence, newspapers across North America have been greatly reducing their coverage in recent years.
But, if the death of print reviews seems inevitable at times (and it does seem strangely ironic that Martin has moved from books to obituaries), I remain cautiously optimistic. Morley Walker is a stalwart supporter of book reviews at the Winnipeg Free Press, and I'm encouraged by the recent appointment of Laurie Grassi as book editor at Chatelaine. I am also in awe of what the indefatigable Mark Medley has been able to achieve almost single-handedly at the National Post. I don't know when he sleeps, but his enthusiasm and curiousity are inspiring to behold.
And if change is scary, it brings opportunities with it as well. My hope is, of course, that the Globe and Mail is serious about its commitment to books, and whoever is appointed books editor will bring the kind of knowledge that Martin and Jack have always brought to the job. But I also hope that the new editor is encouraged to experiment and given the chance to succeed. If it is to remain relevant, the section cannot be an afterthought. Nor can it focus on 'scoops and celebrities.' It must engage with readers and become actively involved in the wider conversation about books and culture. That's defined less by the number of pages devoted to reviews, and more by kind of newspaper the Globe wants to be—and that, in the end, might be the greater challenge. I'm not saying it will be easy, but then when was it ever?
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