Happy New Year Everyone!
Today is my last day at Raincoast. I’m joining James Sherrett as an owner and partner at Work Industries in Vancouver.
You will have noticed several new staff writers—Dan, Selina and Siobhan—who will continue posting about exciting things in the publishing industry and the great books that Raincoast publishes and distributes.
All the best for 2007.
The Do Not Disturb sign is down and JK Rowling has revealed the title.
To see the title and how to open the door, visit our friends at Muggletnet.com
AMACOM, the book publishing division of the well-respected American Management Association, offers a range of practical books for professionals that address the critical business topics and leadership challenges of today. Distributed by Raincoast in Canada, Two AMACOM titles were included in Harvey Schachter’s top ten list of the best books of 2006 for The Globe and Mail yesterday (December 13th, 2006).
At number five was LEADING LEADERS: How To Manage Smart, Talented, Rich And Powerful People, by Jeswald W. Salacuse:
“Leading Leaders (Amacom): Often leaders have to lead other leaders—people who are bright, talented, rich and who have the power to resist demands. Jeswald Salacuse, a professor of diplomacy at Tufts University, guides us through those delicate leadership situations, offering some sage advice on the strategic one-on-one conversations that are at the heart of such leadership and then setting out the seven tasks leaders must perform every day to be successful."
And at number eight was QUESTIONS THAT SELL: The Powerful Process For Discovering What Your Customer Really Wants, by Paul Cherry:
“It’s well known these days that selling depends on asking the right questions. But what questions? Sales trainer Paul Cherry has the answer, taking readers through the various stages of selling, with examples of questions that help to get your customers talking, position you as an adviser as you educate them about your service and their needs, and clarify the impact of using your offering. There’s nothing fancy about the book—just practical, helpful questions, with explanations of when to use them."
Bookshorts have posted a guerrilla video clip of the dapper graphic novelist Seth interviewing the charming and handsome Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian in a Drawn and Quarterly special at this year’s IFOA in Toronto.
Books available by Dupuy & Berberian:
Get a Life
Books available by Seth:
This AWESOME photograph of Tintin creator Hergé and pop artist Andy Warhol comes from Nicholas Lezard’s excellent post on Tintin for The Guardian today:
Tintin, the journalist who somehow never managed to file a word of copy, is, in some respects, an odd hero: almost characterless in his rectitude, he nevertheless inspires devotion across the world, even among people who are not exactly boy scouts themselves. Hergé was inspired by the boy-scout code of honour and resourcefulness, but, in a flash of genius, gave Tintin the alcoholic, pipe-smoking, imprecation-roaring Captain Haddock as a sidekick.
If you’re a fan of Tintin, or his alcoholic sidekick, but you can’t make it to Paris to see the new exhibition dedicated to Hergé at the Pompidou Centre (and frankly who can?), you should probably pick up a copy of Tom McCarthy’s Tintin and the Secret of Literature (Granta 2006) to sate your appetite. Tom’s take on Tintin is undeniably brainy and obsessive (and verging on the pathological), but that is precisely why it is a must have for serious connoisseur or the soi-disant Tintin expert.
(Read The Guardian review of Tintin and the Secret of Literature)
Books by Tom McCarthy:
Tintin and the Secret of Literature (Granta 2006)
Remainder (Alma 2006)
Read the Raincoast interview with Tom McCarthy
Featured books available on Andy Warhol from Raincoast:
Popism: The Warhol Sixties by Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett (Harcourt 2006)
I Bought Andy Warhol, by Richard Polsky (Bloomsbury US 2005)
Andy Warhol Men, foreward by Alan Cumming (Chronicle 2004)
See all the Andy Warhol books and stationery available from Raincoast here.
Smart readers of the hip Toronto website BlogTO will have the opportunity to win Empire of the Soul: Some Journeys in India, by Paul William Roberts, tomorrow. Funny, insightful, and occasionally surreal, Empire of the Soul is a remarkable portrait of India’s political, cultural and spiritual life. First published in 1994, this updated edition has a new introduction from the author.
Paul William Roberts, who lives in Toronto, writes for Harper’s, The New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, the Times Literary Supplement, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Jordan Times and the Globe and Mail. His book The War Against Truth: An Intimate Account of the Invasion of Iraq, published by Raincoast, won the 2005 PEN Canada/Paul Kidd Courage Award and was a finalist for the 2004 Charles Taylor Non-Fiction Prize.
The book will be given away as part of BlogTO‘s weekly “Humpday Giveaway” cheering up Toronto’s unfortunate literary types suffering midweek existential crises.
Praise for Empire of the Soul:
“Uniquely engaging, often profound, and beautifully written, it presents a powerful and hauntingly vital portrait of an ancient civilization in the grips of a modern economic miracle.”
-- New York Times
“Unusual… wondrous… splendidly evocative… lush.”
-- Globe and Mail
“Reminiscent of Bruce Chatwin, this soul-searching literary travelogue turns a keen and uncompromising eye toward India.”
-- Publishers Weekly
“One of the most remarkable travel books ever written. It’s brilliant, funny, moving and often profound… Empire of the Soul is the most living book about India I have ever read.”
-- Colin Wilson
I’m a little bit late on this, but the CBC Arts website has posted a profile of British author Will Self:
“Self was once better known for his use of hard drugs than for his fiction. But nowadays, he’s a family man: he has two children with his wife, journalist Deborah Orr, and two from a previous marriage. He has also narrowed his vices down to two: cigar smoking and sesquipedalianism—though he claims to be cutting down on the long words.”
Will Self’s most recent novel, The Book of Dave, is available from Raincoast.
Win a copy of Lonely Planet’s Micronations from the good folks at Sleepybrain.net.
Simply invent your own micronation and enter using this form on Sleepy Brain. The best entry wins the book.
If you need inspiration, check out the link to Micronation’s introduction on SleepyBrian.net or their other links to excerpts of the book.
If you are still searching for the perfect present for the fine art afficionado in the family, Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime, by Patricia Hampl, has received extraordinary praise in the United States, and was recently included in the New York Times “100 Notable Books of the Year” list, the LA Times “Favourite Nonfiction of 2006” list and the Chicago Tribune’s “Best books of the year” list.
A memoir and a meditation on art, Hampl explores her fascination with a strangely hypnotic painting by Henri Matisse. Taking readers to the Cote d’Azur and across to North Africa, from cloister to harem, she ponders figures as diverse as Eugene Delacroix, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Katherine Mansfield, but always returns to Matisse and his obsessive portraits of languid women.
A beautiful and enigmatic book, Blue Arabesque is sure to be treasured by any art-lover who receives it for Christmas!
Raincoast favourites Third Class Superhero, by Charles Yu and The End of Mr Y, by Scarlett Thomas have been selected as Picks of the Week by Sarah Weinman at Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind . Woo-Hoo!
The Art of Russell Patterson: Top Hats and Flappers, edited by Shane Glines and Alex Chun (Fantagraphics) was featured in this weekend’s The Globe and Mail books section annual gift-giving guide:
Fantagraphics’ Pin Up series features the works of genre artists of the first half of the 20th century, those who produced the sexy, fashionably dressed drawings of women that illustrated the covers and inside pages of the magazines of the era, as well as posters and cartoons. Nebraska-born Russell Patterson (1894-1977), who was educated at McGill University and worked as an editorial cartoonist for several newspapers in Montreal, set standards of elegance and draftsmanship as an illustrator, and was in demand as a costume and set designer in Hollywood.
Also Available:
Available in January:
Bill Ward
Bird Songs is an absolutely fabulous book. It features 250 North American birds and there’s an interactive sound panel that allows you to listen to all the bird songs.
Raincoast publicist Danielle has taken quite a liking to it and often quizzes the marketing department on bird-call identification. I can pick out the Laughing Gull but that’s about it.
The sounds are absolutely incredible, these are not the scratchy sound chips of my childhood.
Bird Songs draws from the collection of the world-renowned Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
The most notable North American birds are in this book, including the rediscovered Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Renowned bird biologist Les Beletsky provides a succinct description of each of the 250 birds profiled, with an emphasis on their distinctive songs.
The book is gorgeous and a great gift for bird lovers, but also for the curious adult or the child who likes interactive toys.
If you want to hear what the sounds are like, check out The Macaulay Library bird sounds page.
My favourite is the American Goldfinch song with “potatochip” calls. Find it under “Western US.”
7:30 pm December 13, 2006
St. Mary’s Kerrisdale Anglican Church, 37th and Larch in Vancouver
At the invitation of Reverend Kevin Dixon, journalist Hadani Ditmars, author of Dancing in the No-Fly Zone: a Woman’s Journey through Iraq, one of the Globe and Mail‘s top 100 books of 2005, will speak on the theme, “Peace on Earth: Is it Possible?”
Hadani will also read excerpts from her book and show video and photographs from her assignments in Iraq and Palestine. A question and answer session and book signing will follow.
Admission is free and open to the public.
Dancing in the No-Fly Zone
by Hadani Ditmars
published by Raincoast Books
“... touches places in the nation’s soul that horror headlines never reach.” --Boyd Tonkin, the London Independent
Drawn.ca has a nice post on the late Jim Flora, an artist whose awesomeness knew no bounds.
A new book on the art of Jim Flora, The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora, is available in February.
Raincoast podcasts are available from iTunes by searching for "Raincoast" or the RSS feed is available from Feedburner at 
Check out our NEWEST Podcast for Clancy with the Puck, a hilarious tale of hockey hubris.