Blog
House of Anansi Announces Podcast
by monique t
News + Podcasts / November 25, 2005
House of Anansi has joined Raincoast Books as one of the first Canadian publishers experimenting with podcasting.
Anansi's first podcast features writer and critic Noah Richler interviewing Stephen Lewis, author of Race Against Time.
To subscribe to the Anansi podcast, copy and paste the below URL into the "Subscribe" function in
your podcast application or software: http://www.anansi.ca/podcast/apod.xml
The Raincoast podcast is available from iTunes by searching for "Raincoast" or the RSS feed is available from Feedburner: http://feeds.feedburner.com/raincoast
The MP3 file can also be downloaded by clicking on the below link:
Full Podcast: Listen to Jim Lynch
Jim Lynch is the author of The Highest Tide
The Walrus Magazine and Colin McAdam
by monique t
Fiction + News / November 24, 2005
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/
The issue that is on newsstands (as of this week) contains a story from none other than Colin McAdam, author of Some Great Thing.
Winner of the 2005 First Novel Award (Books in Canada/Amazon.ca)
2005 Finalist for The Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
2004 Finalist for Governor General's Literary Award
It's a good book. Check out the website.
Listen to the Raincoast Books Podcast
by monique t
Fiction + News + Podcasts / November 24, 2005
The Raincoast podcast is available from iTunes by searching for "Raincoast" or the RSS feed is available from Feedburner: http://feeds.feedburner.com/raincoast
The MP3 file can also be downloaded by clicking on the below link:
Full Podcast: Listen to Jim Lynch
Jim Lynch is the author of The Highest Tide
Whole Life Expo 2005 in Toronto
by monique t
News / November 24, 2005
Whole Life Expo 2005, The 19th Annual Showcase of Natural Health, Alternative Medicine & Green Living, takes place this weekend (Friday November 25 to Sunday November 27) at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
The Eternal Moment Bookstore will have a booth there, promoting B.K.S. Iyengar's new book Light on Life among other things.
http://www.eternalmoment.ca
Considered to be the most important living yoga master, BKS Iyengar in Light on Life shows how yogic principles can be used in the search for wholeness and harmony with the world.
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader
by monique t
News / November 22, 2005
Since 1988, the Bathroom Readers' Institute has led the movement to stand up for those who sit down and read in the bathroom. The Uncle John's Bathroom Reader series is the longest-running, most popular series of its kind in the publishing industry. Now available is Uncle John's Shoots and Scores. Full of high-scoring facts and hard-hitting trivia, Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores offers a cross-checking, cross-section of hockey's history, mythology, hagiography, psychology and pathology.
Have you seen the Bathroom Reader Blog?
http://www.bathroomreader.com/blog.asp
Raincoast Books Launches First Podcast
by monique t
Fiction + News + Podcasts / November 18, 2005
On November 16, Raincoast officially launched its literary podcast series. See original announcement.
The inaugural podcast features original interviews and readings by author Jim Lynch, recorded when he attended the 2005 Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival. Find out more about Jim Lynch's novel The Highest Tide.
The Raincoast podcast is available from iTunes by searching for "Raincoast" or the RSS feed is available from Feedburner: http://feeds.feedburner.com/raincoast
The MP3 file can also be downloaded by clicking on the below link:
Full Podcast: Listen to Jim Lynch
** CBC News offers background information on "what is podcasting."
The Making of The Color Purple
by monique t
Fiction + News / November 17, 2005
In December 2005, Alice Walker's classic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel opens as a soul-stirring new musical and landmark Broadway event. A recent BusinessWeek article by Susan Berfield "The Making of The Color Purple" talks about the producer's success and challenges in getting the blessing from Alice Walker to turn her masterpiece novel into a musical, about Oprah Winfrey's endorsement of the production, as well as the trials and tribulations of raising $11 million, casting, marketing, and getting the show ready for Broadway.
Broadway demands much of its producers. [Scott] Sanders, who is 48 and has never produced a musical before, describes the job as wrestling an octopus, keeping all the puppies in the box, the hardest thing he has ever done, more white-knuckle than he'd like, and the most fun he has ever had.
The show opens December 1. After that first performance, Sanders is hosting a party at the New York Public Library. Oprah will be there. Alice Walker will be there. Quincy Jones will be there. Will you be there?
Regardless, the masterpiece novel The Color Purple is available in any bookstore or library. Remind yourself of the sassy, tough Sofia and the literary voice who inspired a nation and now a Broadway musical, Alice Walker.
Iran Court Re-examines Kazemi Case
by monique t
News / November 17, 2005
CBC News is reporting that "an Iranian appeals court has ordered that the case involving the death of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi be reopened, lawyers said Wednesday."
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/11/16/kazemi051116.html
Nasrin Alavi in We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs discusses the Zahra Khazemi case briefly in a section called "Crime and Punishment."
"Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was arrested for taking pictures outside Evin prison during a student protest in Tehran ... Kazemi was beaten into a coma while in the custody of the judiciary and died of a brain haemorrhage on 11 July 2003 ... After a two-day trial in July 2004, her lawyers refused to sign documents which legitimized the court, stating the whole trial a farce."
The following is a brief account by an Iranian journalist of one of the court sessions, it is included in the book We Are Iran.
18 July 2004
They have finally closed down Joumhouriat and Vaghayeh Etefagieh [reformist newspapers]. So there are now no papers left that can put out uncensored reports of Zahra Kazemi's court session. Well this is exactly what Mortazavi [Prosecutor General Judge Saeed Mortazavi] wanted.The situation in court today was sinister beyond words.
The journalist goes on to describe the court scene, the accused, the statements by Kazemi's mother that her daughter's body was covered in bruises, her hands and legs were broken, there were burn marks on her chest, and the judge's pronoucements that there were no mentions of such abuse in the forensic reports.
Nasrin's further commentary focuses on the struggle from within the regime by women like Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. A defender of Islam, she has written authoratively about women and children's rights under Islamic law. Azam Talaghani is another example. She is the founder and head of the Society of Islamic Revolutionary Women of Iran, but is now one of the most outspoken critics of the present regime. Although totally committed to Islam, Talaghani challenges any interpretation of the Koran that supports male supremacy.
Nasrin Alavi's We Are Iran offers an unprecedented and uncensored look at the lives and thoughts of Iranian people. Through Alavi's commentary and that of the Iranian bloggers quoted in the book, the reader can form a better understanding of contemporary Iran, which is not the Iran presented to us by Western governments. Certainly the struggle for democracy and revolution is evident in this book, as is the conflicts with the law, the conditions of women, of repression and its subversion, but the book goes beyond the stereotypical images of thuggish militias and bearded ayatollahs to portray a highly educated, youthful and literate country searching for balance.
Raincoast Books Launches Literary Podcast
by monique t
Fiction + News + Podcasts / November 16, 2005
Raincoast Books is now offering a literary podcast for some of our top print titles. The inaugural podcast features Jim Lynch's novel The Highest Tide (published by Bloomsbury USA and distributed in Canada by Raincoast). The podcast includes original interviews and readings by author Jim Lynch, recorded when he attended the 2005 Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival.
Jim Lynch's debut novel, The Highest Tide, is about one transformative summer for 13-year-old, speed-reading, insomniac Miles O'Malley. Miles is obsessed with Rachel Carson and with the sea. One night while exploring the mudflats of Puget Sound he becomes the first person to see a live giant squid. The discovery sets in motion a media frenzy and a bizarre chain of events related to further marine discoveries. In Lynch's words, "What I was hoping to do was give a rendition of reality that felt like science fiction ... all I was essentially doing was describing things in as precise a detail as I could ... I did the research so I could do things like describe a moon snail and how it prowls along the flats and how its shell rides up high on its big fleshy body like a bulldozer."
The recordings for Raincoast's inaugural podcast were captured by Robert Ouimet of At Large Media, Ltd., who produced the podcast for Raincoast Books. Future podcasts will include interviews with bestselling authors and new talents, excerpts from Raincoast published and distributed titles, and other special features.
For more information on The Highest Tide visit www.raincoast.com/highest-tide/
The Raincoast podcast is available from iTunes by searching for "Raincoast" or the RSS feed is available from Feedburner:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/raincoast
The MP3 file can also be downloaded by clicking on the below link:
Full Podcast: Listen to Jim Lynch
Or listen to this shorter audio excerpt
Sample reading by Jim Lynch
Rare Great Lake Species
by monique t
News / November 15, 2005
CBC News is reporting on a new database that shows rare species and lands around the Great Lakes. The information will help scientists and governments decide which areas need to be conserved.
"Rare Great Lakes species mapped" article by CBC News, Nov. 14.
The map, called a Conservation Blueprint, is a database of facts, figures and maps available on the web or as a CD-ROM.
It highlights imperilled species found only in the Great Lakes basin including the aurora trout and dwarf lake iris, as well as healthy ecosystems such as sugar maple forests and coastal wetlands.
Currently 1.7 million species have been identified on Earth, but scientists estimate thae total number of species at 5 million to 10 million. The Conservation Blueprint is an interesting way of ensuring that known and unknown species are protected in Canada.
Raincoast Books and Maple Tree Press have also announced a contest related to rare species. In the Name A New Species Contest kids across Canada and the U.S. have the opportunity to name a new species that was identified in 2004 by 21 year-old college student Ashlee Allred.
Allred was working as part of a research team studying life in extreme environments. The new species is part of a group of organisms called extremophiles. Canadians and Americans have a chance to name the new species.
Contest runs: November 1 to March 31, 2006. The winner will be announced on Earth Day, April 22, 2006.
Enter the Name a New Species contest at the Maple Tree Press website.
Click here to Enter