Blog
Category: Current Affairs
Pity the Billionaire
by Natalia
Current Affairs + Politics / January 12, 2012
Thomas Frank burst onto the political scene back in 2004 with the publication of What's the Matter with Kansas? which, it's fair to say, became one of the iconic political books of the last few years, much discussed and widely reviewed. With the US Republican primaries in full swing and a new book just out on the shelves, Tom is back in the spotlight.
The presidential primaries matter in Canada: with the Liberals floating a proposal for US-style primaries at this week's upcoming convention, following the American primaries is both entertaining and a topical refresher on the politicals of our southern neighbour.
"Thomas Frank is the thinking person’s Michael Moore." -New York Times
"You ought to read this book" -The Huffington Post
"[T]he fact that the right could be furious with anyone but itself is an astonishing story and one that Thomas Frank was born to cover." -The Guardian
Check out Tom's recent appearance on Democracy Now!
Shakespearian conspiracy theories
by Natalia
Current Affairs + Film + History / October 31, 2011
I was pretty excited over the weekend to hear that Roland Emmerich's new movie Anonymous is out. I love me a good Elizabethan costume drama—the clothes, the language, the political intrigue! If you haven't heard of it, the film dramatizes the Oxfordian theory of authorship—the idea that Shakespeare's plays were written by Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford (who, as various people have pointed out, died several years before the publication of The Tempest).
The film has triggered a positively apoplectic response from the scholarly community; the New Yorker's David Denby calls it a story "so rotten that, as Shakespeare, or, rather, Oxford, might put it, the kites wheel and shriek rather than batten on so foul a carcass."
Personally, I find the authorship question rather silly—I prefer to read the plays for themselves rather than scan them Da Vinci Code-style for hidden clues to their composition. And why fabricate conspiracy theories when so much historically accurate skulduggery exists? If you like your Shakespeare spiced with criminal intrigue yet still backed up by rigorous scholarship, may I suggest:
The Shakespeare Thefts
Stealing the World's Most Famous Book
Click on the cover for more info!
Power: Portraits of World Leaders
by Danielle
Art & Photography + Current Affairs / June 30, 2011
It is undeniable that the worldwide political landscape has seen a good deal of unrest and historic change this year. Award-winning photographer Platon knows that landscape well. He’s photographed world leaders since the fall of 2009 when nearly all heads of state were in New York for a meeting of the United Nations.
Platon’s photographs, Portraits of Power, appeared in the Dec. 7th issue of the New Yorker that year. Many are of icons of our age, such as his image of Gaddafi, which was featured earlier this year on the cover of Time Magazine.
Power, Platon’s new book with Chronicle, provides a comprehensive historical record of our time. It’s a “yearbook” that captures a truly unique moment.
“If you put all of the pictures together,” says Platon, “you get a sense of the global personality of the power system. It allows us to stand back and to start to analyze what happened, who was in control—that is what this book is about.”
You can hear Platon speak about his experiences photographing this amazing roster of world leaders in the video below.
Power features over 100 stunning portraits along with an introduction by New Yorker editor David Remnick. Here are a few I am sure you’ll recognize.
Barack Obama, President, United States
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President, Iran
Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister, Russia
Tony Blair, Prime Minister, United Kingdom May 1997-June 2007
Robert Mugabe, President, Zimbabwe
Special thanks to Patti Quill for this blog posting!
(Marketing and Publicity for Chronicle Books)
And Platon was interview by the BBC. Please take a look at the video linked here and scroll through to approx. 09.08 (just after the weather report from Wimbledon.)
Chester Brown Tour Dates
by Dan
Current Affairs + Graphica / April 13, 2011
Chester Brown's controversial new book Paying For It is published later this month and Chester will be on the road to launch it in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in May:
TORONTO: Sunday, May 1st at Goodhandy's with Sasha
TORONTO: Saturday & Sunday, May 7th–8th at TCAF
MONTREAL: Saturday, May 14th at Librairie D+Q
VANCOUVER:Wednesday, May 18th at Vancouver Public Library with Lucky's
In Paying For It, Chester Brown calmly lays out the facts of how he became not only a willing participant in but a vocal proponent of one of the world's most hot-button topics—prostitution.
Power
by Dan
Art & Photography + Current Affairs / March 07, 2011
Platon is staff photographer for The New Yorker, and recipient of the prestigious World Press Photo Award and National Magazine Photo Portfolio Award.
In Power, available from Chronicle Books next month, Platon turns his lens on 150 international leaders from across the political spectrum.
Shot over 12-months at the United Nations, the photographs offer an intimate glimpse of the world's most powerful decision-makers.
With text by New Yorker editor and Pulitzer Prize winner David Remnick, the book is a comprehensive historical record of our time and a must-have for anyone interested in world politics.
Gratitude
by Siobhan
Current Affairs + Health & Wellness / October 06, 2009
This morning on my way to work, I walked by about a dozen people, scattered along the sidewalk, who were holding handwritten cardboard signs. They said things like “I have a home”, “I was warm and dry last night” and “I have a people who support me”. It’s all part of Gratitude Week, an effort to end homelessness in Vancouver.
The campaign is well-timed, with Thanksgiving coming up this weekend. Just this morning, in fact, I was thinking about what Thanksgiving books I might blog about this week—and the first one that came to mind (yes, even before the mouthwatering Thanksgiving cookbooks!) was Chronicle Books’ Gratitude Journal. It’s a place to keep a daily record of life’s little blessings; the small things that are so easy to take for granted—but really are so very important and meaningful. Here’s an explanation on eHow.com about how to keep a gratitude journal. It seems like a great way to take the time to really appreciate what you have—and also to reflect on what others may not.
In that spirit, please visit the Gratitude Week website to learn more or to get involved.
The Essence of Managing
by Crystal
Business & Careers + Current Affairs / September 24, 2009
The phone has been ringing off the hook with press inquiries about the the new book MANAGING by Henry Mintzberg. It's no wonder with the global economic crisis that is weighing so heavily on everyone's mind.
From the Toronto Star:
The outspoken professor reckons the country has been brought to its knees by decades of short-term management on Wall Street and the likes of Nortel and GM, which inflated the importance of CEOs and reduced others to a replaceable commodity.
“The banks and other U.S. corporations were managed by egocentrics who ran companies into the ground. Human resources are downsized at the drop of a share price. What a monumental failure of management.”
From Canadian Business Magazine:
Mintzberg's latest book, Managing, published this month, just a day before his 70th birthday, promises to be as divisive as ever. It argues that companies are over-led and under-managed; it calls for the elimination of leadership as a separate discipline since good leadership is part of good management; and it says middle managers should help hire top execs. It was a failure to grasp some of these fundamentals that helped trigger the global banking crisis. “How could anyone buy those mortgages? That stuff was obviously junk,” he says. As such, the path to economic recovery won't be achieved through top-down or bottom-up management strategies, but by middle managers--the very level that has long been gutted by companies struggling to cut costs.
Why are good managers so hard to find? Anyone learning to be a manager should start with this book. From the Globe and Mail:
Managing is sprawling, complicated, contradictory stuff, and Prof. Mintzberg, to his credit, approaches it in that manner. If you're looking for quick, easy answers, don't look here. He has spent a decade ruminating over those 29 days he spent following managers, and delights in sharing his thoughts with those who like him admire managers and want some clues - but understand they will never get certainty - on how to do it better. This will be an important textbook in classrooms bringing together not only his own research and thoughts but also weaving in a century of writings by others. It will also reassure individual managers that what they do is important and not easy, and no doubt provoke some changes in their thinking.
So what does it take to be a good manager?
Should we do away with all email?
Has management changed at all in the last 100 years?
What variety of manager are you?
Watch this interview from Karl Moore at The Globe and Mail online where these questions are posed.
MANAGING is just that! managing--pure if not simple. It is the essence of managing. This book is a must read for anyone taking on a management role in life.
Image courtesy of globeandmail.com
Dry Spring is a Finalist for the BC Book Prize
by Dan
Current Affairs + Environment / March 13, 2009
After being pipped to the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing by James Orbinski's AN IMPERFECT OFFERING: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century earlier this month, Chris WoodÂ's contrarian DRY SPRING: The Coming Water Crisis of North America, published by Raincoast in Spring 2008, is now a finalist for the BC Book Prizes 2009 in the non-fiction category!
Established in 1985, the BC Book Prizes, celebrate the achievements of British Columbia writers and publishers. The winners of this year's prizes will be announced on April 25th.
Congratulations Chris! Fingers crossed!
And congratulations to all the authors shortlisted. Here's a complete list of finalists for the 2009 BC Book Prizes:
Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize:
* Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo (Knopf Canada)
* Paul Headrick, That Tune Clutches My Heart (Gaspereau Press)
* Lee Henderson, The Man Game (Penguin Canada)
* Patrick Lane, Red Dog, Red Dog (McClelland & Stewart)
* Andreas Schroeder, Renovating Heaven (Oolichan Books)
Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize:
* Karen Hofmann, Water Strider (Frontenac House)
* Daphne Marlatt, The Given (McClelland & Stewart)
* Elise Partridge, Chameleon Hours (House of Anansi Press)
* Nilofar Shidmehr, Shirin and Salt Man (Oolichan Books)
* George Stanley, Vancouver: A Poem (New Star Books)
Hubert Evans Non-fiction Prize:
* Tim Lilburn, Going Home: Essays (House of Anansi Press)
* Gabor Mat'ˆ, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction (Knopf Canada)
* Rex Weyler, The Jesus Sayings: The Quest for His Authentic Message (House of Anansi Press)
* Chris Wood, Dry Spring: The Coming Water Crisis of North America (Raincoast Books)
* Ronald Wright, What Is America? A Short History of the New World Order (Knopf Canada)
Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize (for contribution to the enjoyment and understanding of British Columbia):
* Daphne Bramham, The Secret Lives of Saints: Child Brides and Lost Boys in a Polygamous Mormon Sect (Random House Canada)
* Brad Cran, Gillian Jerome, Hope in Shadows: Stories and Photographs of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (Arsenal Pulp Press)
* Margaret Horsfield, Voices From the Sound: Chronicles of Clayoquot Sound and Tofino 1899 - 1929 (Salal Books)
* Stephen Hume, Simon Fraser: In Search of Modern British Columbia (Harbour Publishing)
* Don Pettit, The Peace: A History in Photographs (Peace PhotoGraphics)
Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize (for a non-illustrated book for children):
* Sarah N. Harvey, The Lit Report (Orca Book Publishers)
* Polly Horvath, My One Hundred Adventures (Groundwood Books)
* Iain Lawrence, The S'ˆance (Delacorte Books)
* Graham McNamee, Bonechiller (Wendy Lamb Books/Random House)
* Robin Stevenson, A Thousand Shades of Blue (Orca Book Publishers)
Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize (for an illustrated book for children):
* Linda Bailey, Bill Slaven (illustrator), Stanley at Sea (Kids Can Press)
* Robert Bateman, Polar Worlds: Life at the Ends of the Earth (Scholastic Canada)
* Katarina Jovanovic, Philippe B'ˆha (illustrator), The King Has Goat Ears (Tradewind Books)
* Chieri Uegaki, St'ˆphane Jorisch (illustrator), Rosie and Buttercup (Kids Can Press)
* Irene N. Watts, Kathryn E. Shoemaker (illustrator), Good-bye Marianne: A Story of Growing Up in Nazi Germany (Tundra Books)
BC Booksellers' Choice Award:
* Jean Barman, British Columbia: Spirit of the People (Harbour Publishing)
* Stephen Bown, Madness, Betrayal and the Lash: The Epic Voyage of Captain George Vancouver (Douglas & McIntyre)
* Cathy Converse, Following the Curve of Time: The Legendary M. Wylie Blanchet (TouchWood Editions)
* Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Flight of the Hummingbird: A Parable for the Environment (Greystone Books)
* Andrew Nikiforuk, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent (Greystone Books)
Dry Spring Finalist for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize
by Dan
Current Affairs + Environment / February 09, 2009
The Writers' Trust of Canada have announced that Chris Wood's DRY SPRING: The Coming Water Crisis of North America (Raincoast Books) is a finalist for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing 2009.
Now in its ninth year, the prize--established in honour of the outspoken and popular member of Parliament from Windsor, Ontario, who died on December 9, 1998--is awarded to a non-fiction book that captures a political subject of interest to Canadian readers and enhances understanding of the issue.
According to the organizers, the winning work “will be one that combines compelling new insights with depth of research and is of significant literary merit.†The jury will give strong consideration to books “that have the potential to shape or influence Canadian political life.â€
The prize is sponsored by CTVglobemedia and is supported by the Politics and the Pen Gala.The jury of Toronto Star national affairs writer and author Chantal H'ˆbert, author and journalist William Johnson, and Globe and Mail deputy managing editor David Walmsley selected this year's finalists. Each finalist will receive $3,500.
In the tradition of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Jared Diamond's Collapse and Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers, Chris Wood's DRY SPRING is both a fascinating account of what is happening to our environment and a heart-felt call-to-action.
“Climate change isn't an abstract scenario for the distant future,†says the award-winning Canadian journalist. “It is upon us now.â€
But DRY SPRING is not just another book about ‘climageddon'--it's about the very real effects of climate change and about protecting our water.
As Wood notes: “An extreme enough change in the climate could alter almost everything we know about our planet, but we'll feel even a very small degree of change most personally and acutely in its effect on the distribution of fresh and ample water.â€
After three decades of reporting natural phenomena for magazines like Maclean's and The Walrus, Wood's research took him across North America to record scores of personal interviews with ranchers, vintners, fishermen, ship captains, families who have fled their homes - all so readers could “experience the impacts of climate change today through people like themselves.â€
DRY SPRING also looks at what will happen over the next 25 years, suggesting realistic solutions and offering guidance to policy makers, resource managers - and, of course, us.
Unafraid to court controversy, Wood challenges lobbyists who oppose the so-called ‘commodification' of water. They are not saving the environment, Wood asserts, but instead setting it on a path to destruction. “Nothing inspires innovation faster than a problem that can be solved profitably,†he argues. “Once we shed our fear of mentioning water and markets in the same breath, a panoply of inexpensive, effective and adaptive solutions begin to recommend themselves.â€
Ultimately DRY SPRING is about what we can all do to ensure that we survive the changes in our climate: “There are many reasons to be apprehensive about the quarter-century ahead. Many things could go terribly wrong! Water, however, is at the heart of solving all these other problems. If we can get the water part right, we will have the chance to apply our astonishing collective ingenuity and adaptive capacity to all the rest.â€
Congratulations Chris!
David Korten: Let Wall Street Fail
by Dan
Business & Careers + Current Affairs + Environment / February 03, 2009
The economic crisis is the worst since the Great Depression.
But, in his new book AGENDA FOR A NEW ECONOMY, David Korten, author of WHEN CORPORATIONS RULE THE WORLD and THE GREAT TURNING, says that the measures taken to address it will not to deal with the reality of a failed economic system. And worse--the consequences of the system's social and environmental failures may ultimately be even more destructive than the current financial collapse.
Our hope lies not with Wall Street institutions that have perfected the art of creating “phantom wealth†without producing anything of real value, argues Korten--it is with a new kind of economy that is locally based, community oriented, and devoted to creating a better life for all.
In this recent interview with David Brancaccio of PBS's NOW, David Korten explains why he believes the Obama Administration should completely reinvent the financial sector:
AGENDA FOR A NEW ECONOMY: From Phantom Wealth To Real Wealth is published later this month.