Have you made your Oscar picks yet? Or do you really just want to see what the stars are wearing?
The 2007 Academy Awards air on February 25th, but you don’t have to wait till then to get your fix of glamour. Bronwyn Cosgrave, author of Made For Each Other: Fashion & The Academy Awards, will be a guest on CBC television’s Gill Deacon show on Friday, February 9th. The show airs at 11am and 2pm.
“If you are interested in the high-stakes interaction between the Academy Awards and fashion, you should really read a new book by Bronwyn Cosgrave, called Made for Each Other ... it was delicious.” --Andre Leon Talley, Vogue, February 2007
In Made for Each Other, Bronwyn Cosgrave, Fashion File’s London correspondant and former features editor at British Vogue, has compiled archival photos, sketches and her own commentary to create the very first complete fashion history of the Academy Awards. From the spare war-era elegance of Ingrid Bergman to hippie chic Faye Dunaway, from the arresting glamour of Marlene Dietrich to Barbra Streisand’s daring sequined Arnold Scaasi pantsuit, Made For Each Other traces the fashion trends of the Oscar ceremony.
On CBC Radio One’s Sunday Edition this weekend (January 28th) Michael Enright asked ‘Are There Too Many Books?’:
Wander into any big box bookstore these days and you’ll encounter what one writer recently described as a “cacophony of the mediasphere”. Books, thousands of them. Books on tables, walls of books, shelf after shelf to titles. In all of Canada, only three to five thousand people buy hardcover books and yet we publish 20,000 new books each year and import a whole lot more from the US and Great Britain. The Canadian book market is considered to be one of the most saturated in the world. In the United States, over 175,000 books were published in 2005, while in the UK over 200,000 hit the market. Who is reading all these books? Are there too many books being written and put into print? When it comes to publishing, is less more?
The question was apparently a response to an editorial that ran in the December issue of Poetry Magazine written by Christian Wiman entitled “In Praise of Rareness".
Michael Enright was joined on show by Christian Wiman and industry insiders David Kent, President of Harper Collins Canada, and Diane Turbide, editorial director of Penguin Group (Canada).
Their discussion is available to download from the CBC website.
Are too many books being published? What do you think?
Toronto website BlogTO posted a review of Joe Matt’s new graphic novel Spent on Sunday. Unfortunately, they were not big fans of the book:
“Spent" by Joe Matt is a little book with big problems. It’s about a self-loathing, chronic- masturbating, penny-pinching comic book artist who is writing a book about a self-loathing, chronic-masturbating, penny-pinching, comic book artist. And it does a pretty good job of encapsulating everything that is wrong with underground comics.
Ouch. Joe Matt is clearly not for everyone, and sadly not for Ryan at BlogTO. For a more positive look at Joe Matt, I’d suggest taking a look at the recent New York Times article about reprint comics discussed in this earlier post, or the Drawn & Quarterly website.
By the way, BlogTO are jumping the gun a little with their review. Spent is not published until May.
It must be at least 5 minutes since I last reminded you about the fantastic Remainder by Tom McCarthy, so it is rather timely of The Art of Fiction to post an interesting, in-depth review of a book that would make me stop a stranger in the street:
There’s a modernity to the cultural references that is both thrillingly now, and… slightly off centre. You kind of think that McCarthy might be using “remembered” experiences rather than anything more real. The Dogstar, a Brixton institution; Psion organisers; “History Repeating” by the Propellorheads, speak of a gestation period that goes back to the last century - and, indeed the dot.com crash post-millennium also is an important plot point, that is there from the moment the narrator puts his money in the speculative area of “technology” shares. Precedents for the book must include John Fowles’ iconic “The Collector” where a similarly ordinary man comes into money and uses it for less than orthodox purpose, or the re-staged car crashes of Ballard’s “Crash”.
Charlie Yu, author of Third Class Superhero, is one of the featured authors in Esquire’s Napkin Project.
Esquire sent out 250 napkins in the mail to writers from all over the country and got nearly a hundred stories in return. The stories—long and short—are available online.
Philip Shaddock of PocketCine, who partnered with Raincoast to create and run the Worst-Case Scenario Video Contest, is is featured in a video interview on on PitchPage.com. Philip talks about the “third screen”, or videos viewable on cell phones, iPods and other mobile devices.
Watch the full interview here—and get inspired to create your own short video to enter in the Worst-Case Scenario Video Contest. Enter before January 31st to win some great prizes, including a $500 shopping spree.
The Guardian Newspaper (London) asks which books would make you stop strangers on the street to share your appreciation?:
This instinct, in even the most reserved of human beings, to stop strangers when they spy one of their most beloved books can even transcend language barriers. As I routed through the dust and flies of a secondhand bookshop in New Delhi, the shopkeeper began wildly gesticulating at the dog-eared copy of Great Expectations in my hand. Then there was the long, hot summer after my A-levels, when I was sprawled in Retiro park, Madrid with a copy of The Waves by Virginia Woolf, and a boy approached to share with me how it had changed his perception of life.
When I worked in a bookstore in Toronto, any time someone bought the Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov I always told them how great it was!
Has a total stranger commented on a book you were reading? What book would make you stop someone in the street?
What’s your worst-case scenario? There’s only week left to let us know.
Create a short video based on a survival tip from the bestselling Worst-Case Scenario Handbook series, and you could win a $500 shopping spree in a participating store. The first 10 entries will also win Worst-Case Scenario books and other fun prizes. The contest closes on January 31st, 2007.
Get the all the details on the contest and how to enter your video here.
Don’t let your worst-case scenario be missing the deadline.
The Midwinter Meeting of the American Library Association (ALA) took place this past weekend in Seattle. It was a great show, full of enthusiastic, excited and inspiring librarians, teacher-librarians and other book lovers. The last day of the ALA Midwinter Meeting kicked off with the announcement of the winners of several prestigious awards for children’s and young adult literature, including the Newbery and Caldecott awards. These awards are selected by judging committees of librarians and other children’s literature experts, and encourage original and creative work. We’re thrilled to be distributing several of these award-winning books in Canada.
Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet, written and illustrated by David McLimans and published by Walker, was named a Caldecott Honor Book, an award that recognizes the distinguished American picture books for children.
“Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet” is a black-and-white iconic alphabet that is sophisticated enough to intrigue and captivate readers of any age. A contemporary interpretation of an illuminated alphabet melds animals and letters into 26 unique and elegant graphic images.
-- from the ALA press release
Move Over, Rover!, written by Karen Beaumont, illustrated by Jane Dyer and published by Harcourt, was named a Geisel Honor Book, an award that recognizes distinguished beginning reader books.
Beaumont’s patterned cumulative text in “Move Over, Rover!” is expanded by Dyer’s watercolors containing context clues to tell the story of creatures from Squirrel to Skunk seeking shelter by squeezing into Rover’s doghouse.
-- from the ALA press release
Two Raincoast-distributed books received the Alex Award. Each year, 10 books receive this award to recognize them as the best adult books that appeal to teen audiences. This year The Whistling Season, written by Ivan Doig and published by Harcourt, and Eagle Blue: A Team, A Tribe, and A High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska, written by Michael D’Orso and published by Bloomsbury were among the 10 award-winning titles.
Congratulations to the authors, illustrators and publishing houses behind all the award-winning and nominated books!
For a full list of the ALA award-winning books, visit the ALA wesbite.
We’re very excited to announce the addition of editor Tonya Martin to our children’s book publishing program. As Children’s Books Editor, Tonya is looking after young adult fiction, juvenile fiction and non-fiction, and children’s picture books.
“Raincoast’s children’s program is already thriving,” comments Associate Publisher Jesse Finkelstein. “By hiring someone with Tonya’s talent and expertise, we’re taking a great list and making it even stronger.”
Tonya has been in the publishing industry for over 20 years and is best known for her work at Scholastic in New York.
There’s no doubt that Tonya is a wonderful addition to Raincoast’s children’s publishing program, which continues to grow through cool titles like Dede Crane’s The 25 Pains of Kennedy Baines, Terry Griggs’ Cat’s Eye Corner series and Mike Leonetti’s Hockey Heroes picture books.
New books to look out for this spring include Runnerland by Georgia Straight editor John Burns, and the much anticipated Pauline btw series from award-winning author Edeet Ravel. The picture book list will include the charming The Aunts Come Marching by CBC personality Bill Richardson and award-winning illustrator Cynthia Nugent.
Congratulations Berrett-Koehler! The San Francisco-based independent publisher launched in 1992, distributed by Raincoast Books in Canada, has received the The 2006 Business Ethics Award for Stakeholder Accountability:
“In the rough-and-tumble world of book publishing, Berrett-Koehler stands out not only for its treatment of authors, but also for the manner in which it engages employees, business partners, readers and the community.”
Business Ethics gives out four awards each year: Stakeholder Accountability, Corporate Responsibility Management, Environmental Sustainability, and General Excellence. Other winners in 2006 were the global coffee retailer Starbucks Coffee Company, the outdoor clothing manufacture Patagonia Inc. and Hypertherm Inc. a company that makes equipment to cut steel.
Globe-trotting culinary guerilla Anthony Bourdain’s visit to Quebec will be featured on the January 25 episode of his show, No Reservations.
Some highlights: fois gras overload in Montreal, courtesy of his friend Martin Picard, chef at Au Pied de Cochon; a seal hunt in northern Quebec; St.Viateur Bagels vs. New York Bagels; and, as the Monteal Gazette reports, “an embarrassing try at skeet shooting”.
You can download Raincoast’s Anthony Bourdain podcasts here.
The Ottawa Citizen profiles cartoonist Guy Delisle, author of SHENZHEN: A Travelogue from China and PYONGYANG: A Journey in North Korea published by Drawn & Quarterly:
When cartoonist Guy Delisle first published his graphic novel Shenzhen: A Travelogue From China in France six years ago, he was thrilled with initial sales. His account of life in a monotonously gritty, Chinese city sold just 2,000 copies.
At the time, he says, his work was considered relatively “under-ground” and was distributed by what was then a small French publishing house.
Last September, Delisle released an English-language version of Shenzhen. This time around, the book earned at least two nods from reviewers at The New York Times.
The article puts Shenzen into the context of the new ‘serious-themed comics’, drawing comparisons with Raincoast favourite Joe Sacco and his must-read PALESTINE.
Sunday’s Arts & Leisure section of the New York Times examines the current renaissance of reprint comics, featuring Drawn and Quarterly’s WALT & SKEEZIX, and Fantagraphics KRAZY & IGNATZ and PEANUTS collections.
As the NYT notes, the collections are “refreshed by today’s top graphic novelists, who design art-book quality presentations, often contribute historical essays and cleverly rework the art into endpapers. Chris Ware, the creator of ‘Jimmy Corrigan’, designs the ‘Krazy & Ignatz’ and ‘Walt & Skeezix’ series, while Adrian Tomine designs a series of work by the Japanese cartoonist Yoshihiro Tatsumi… Jeet Heer, a historian who edits the Herriman and King sets, said: ‘They make them seem fresh and alive, not just something of antiquarian interest.’”
The NYT also looks at the role of obsessive collectors such as Joe Matt, a cartoonist in his own right (PEEPSHOW, FAIRWEATHER, POOR BASTARD and the forthcoming SPENT, available in May 2007), who are making these restored and reprinted collections of classic newspaper comic strips possible: “Their compulsion to own an artist’s every strip—sometimes 15,000 or more—and to clip, preserve and organize them all, has helped rescue a disappearing corner of American popular culture. After decades in which comic-strip syndicates and libraries have been purging themselves of paper archives for microfilm, their collections are often all that’s left.”
Read See You in the (Restored, Reprinted) Funny Papers in the NYT
Forget dieting; one of my new year’s resolutions is to spend more time in the kitchen and experiment with new recipes. A good source of inspiration to get kickstarted is Cumin & Coriander, a food blog based in Vancouver. She recently posted a delicious review of World Food Cafe, written by Chris and Carolyn Caldicott with photographs by James Merrell, published by Frances Lincoln.
Here’s a taste of what Cumin & Coriander had to say about the cookbook:
The writers are a couple from England where they actually run a small cafe serving most of these vegetarian dishes that they’ve collected during the course of their travels. With not much time or a substantial traveling budget, I figured I could live vicariously through them and if not, then atleast I’d have a great coffee table/cook book.
Visit Cumin & Coriander for the full review and for a sample recipe from World Food Cafe: Peruvian Potato Cakes with Cucumber Relish. Now that’s a good way to start the new year.
A follow-up cookbook, World Food Cafe 2: Easy Vegetarian Recipes from Around the Globe was also published in the Fall.
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Check out our NEWEST Podcast for Clancy with the Puck, a hilarious tale of hockey hubris.