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Favourite Books 2010: Jamie Broadhurst
by Dan
News / December 08, 2010
Picture This: The Near-Sighted Monkey Book
Lynda Barry
Drawn & Quarterly ISBN 9781897299647
$31.95
When Lynda Barry attended the Vancouver International Writers Festival in October she sold more books than any other author the creative director called her “a rock star”. But she doesn’t act like a rock star. Lynda is one of the warmest, funniest and interesting writers I have met during my, *gulp*, twenty years in the book business. You get a good idea of what makes her so compelling by reading Picture This. It is full of inspiring and hilarious suggestions on how anyone can create art. Anyone who teaches should read this book. A perfect follow-up to the best-seller What It Is.
Big, Bigger, and Biggest: Trucks and Diggers
Caterpillar
Chronicle Books ISBN 9780811864329
$16.95
Technically I am cheating with this recommendation as it came out in 2008, but it was huge hit in my house this year. For any parent who is trying to get up to speed on all things digger and dump truck-like this book is full of information and very good illustrations that sparks lots of discussion at bedtime. For example, Caterpillar doesn’t call its mini-diggers “Bobcats”, they have their own name. Who knew? The 30 minute DVD is riveting for the sandbox construction audience particularly the theme song; “I Love Those Cat Machines”. It is very catchy.
Big Trucks and Diggers Matching Game also came out this year and with 72 cards is the perfect memory game for kids of all ages.
Writing in the Sand: Jesus, Spirituality, and the Soul Of the Gospels
Thomas Moore
Hay House ISBN 9781401925628
$17.95
Thomas Moore is well known to readers as the Benedictine monk and Jungian therapist who through a number of New York Times bestsellers brought the traditions of the Renaissance and Pre-Renaissance sense of the self to a large modern audience. It part of our modern chauvinism to believe the past has nothing personal to teach us. Thomas Moore shows how wrong we are. In this book he turns his attention to the Gospels and to offer a new reading of the parables of New Testament that is well worth reading whether you are religious or not. When Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, he is saying that it is something right in front of us and is so nondescript we don’t notice it. It's hard to read Thomas Moore and not have your own ideological or theological preconceptions blown away like, as he says, writing in the sand.
BONUS:
Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin
Timothy Snyder
Basic Books ISBN 9780465002399
$35.95
Technically not a Raincoast book, but distributed by our sister company PGC on behalf of Basic Books, I read this book on the strength of the international reviews. Timothy Synder’s revisionist account of the politics and mass murder that saw13 million killed by starvation, bullets and gas in the death zones between Berlin and Moscow between 1933 and 1945 is not easy reading, but it is historical research, writing and analysis of the highest calibre. Bloodlands is destined to become the standard work on the subject and the conclusion will become a classic piece of historiography on what we owe the victims of history.
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Jamie Broadhurst is VP of Marketing at Raincoast Books. When not marketing books or teaching Jamie is reading or playing with his three and a half year old son or doing both.
Comments
On December 10, 2010 at 01:29 AM, Barque said:
Hi Jamie,
It’s great to see Thomas Moore’s Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels as one of your favourite books in 2010. This book won the Best Spiritual Book Award in this year’s Books for a Better Life Awards competition. Moore was a Servite monk and doesn’t identify himself as a Jungian therapist. Your last line captures Moore’s Zen-like approach perfectly. Thank you for sharing this book choice with your readers.