Raincoast Books is delighted to release the book jacket images for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K.Rowling, to be published on 21st July 2007.
The cover illustration for the children’s edition is by Jason Cockcroft, who drew the cover illustrations for the previous two Harry Potter books: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The cover design for the adult edition is from a photograph by Michael Wildsmith, who has photographed all the adult edition jackets.
These covers will be used in Canada and throughout the world on the English language editions excluding the USA. In Canada, the book will be printed on 100% ancient-forest free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper as were Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
For more information about Harry Potter, visit http://raincoast.com/harrypotter/
Our Pauline, btw T-shirt contest “Express Yourself” has taken off to a great start!
In the Pauline, btw books the protagonist is seriously into T-shirts. Pauline begins the series with a total of 72 T-shirts in her collection from the spooky, to the pretty to the hilarious. Now, the T-shirt lovers and creative types out there in the 8 to 16 age range are invited to design their own T-shirts for a chance to win free Tees for themself and their friends. See the Raincoast website for more details: http://raincoast.com/paulinebtw/index.html
If you need a little inspiration, take a look at the five early entries:
The Knack, a blog about new products, people, places and other exciting stuff, has just posted a review of The Smart Traveler’s Passport: 399 Tips from Seasoned Travelers by Erik Torkells and the Readers of Budget Travel:
Filled with actual helpful tips, this little guide will get you safely around anywhere you need to go.
The help comes the way from Torkells and readers of Budget Travel, so they are what I would call “tried and true.” Jim Citron, of West Lebanon, New Hampshire writes that “If you arrive in a foreign city after hours (and you can’t use an ATM), convert only the money you’ll need for the night. Some exchange booths offer a less favourable rate after banks close and then switch back to competitive rates when banks reopen.”
Now that’s news I can use.
The Knack’s, new side project Pan Magazine also launched last week. An online journal written for Canadians who are passionate about their food, Pan is going look at the recipes, ingredients, people and experiences that make our mouths water. The next issue will be out in June, and - for all the budding writers out there - they are looking for submissions.
In the meantime, I should mention that the Pan Magazine Blog is featuring some hot titles from our friends Gibbs Smith, including a personal favourite Faster! I’m Starving: 100 Dishes in 25 Minutes or Less. NOW THAT’S NEWS I CAN USE.
Jim Bartley, The Globe and Mail’s First Fiction Reviewer, discusses his debut novel Drina Bridge in the latest edition of The Danforth Review:
I read a lot, and I went back twice to former Yugoslavia and put a few thousand kilometres on rental cars driving to the various places and landscapes that appear in the book—Sarajevo, Belgrade, rural Bosnia and Serbia, gorgeous medieval monasteries in Serbia, ancient mosques. I met a lot of generous and accommodating people—Serb, Muslim, Croat and also Yugoslavs who don’t sport an ethnic identity—who were often a bit bewildered that this Canadian guy was writing a novel about their history and culture.
Published by Raincoast in 2006, Drina Bridge follows the story of Chris, a Torontonian traveling in Yugoslavia as civil war tears the country apart. Hoping to unearth the secrets of his dead lover’s past, Chris’ narrative becomes intertwined with the memoir of a hospitalized and embittered writer Slobodan Kusic. The result is a dark and courageous story of loss and reconciliation.
To mark Saturday’s protests against the four year war in Iraq, Toronto news blog BlogTO has reviewed Marisa Handler’s timely memoir of political activism Loyal to the Sky:
This book could be read and enjoyed for its interesting environs, its likeable writer, the political insight it offers or its striking and elegant prose.
I enjoyed it for the all of these but primarily for the questions Handler is brave enough to ask. While her answers to humanity’s problems are not entirely satisfactory, it is hard to blame her for falling short. In the full course of human history, far too many people have claimed to have solved these conundrums, while no one actually has.But Handler has the courage to look within and without, attempting to find a resolution and admitting what she does not know. The best passages are when she gropes for and is eluded by answers. For example, she writes of a New York protest:
“I watch my friends walking and chanting. They are good people, so good that they care about men and women and children they do not know and will never know. They are the conscience of this nation; they will not let these delegates forget what this administration is perpetrating. But this, what we are doing right now - is it helping? Or is it pushing us further apart? We didn’t come here to convince the delegates to change their minds, or to win their esteem. But I can see what they are thinking. Faced with hatred, they hate us right back. That’s what we’ve all learned to do. What would we risk if we tried something different?”
UPDATE!
If you would like to hear Marisa Handler talk about activism and her book Loyal to the Sky, two new podcast interviews with her are available from the Intrepid Liberal Journal and from Uprising Radio.
The Inkstuds interview with Gabrielle Bell is now online - check it out here.
...and click here for more about Lucky.
The End of Mr Y was one of those novels we were all talking about in the office when it came out last year and so it’s great to see an in-depth interview the whip-smart author Scarlett Thomas over at Bookslut:
Aristotle says that fiction should do one of two things: reflect the world as it is, or make it better. While this is a little too cheerful for where I am at the moment, there’s a lot of truth in it nevertheless. People sometimes forget that real women, even ones covered in nappies and s**t and bleach etc., do not spend all their time thinking about dresses and princesses and kisses—it’s women in stories that do that. And these are stories that make things worse. So my stories seem different because they’re not like other stories, perhaps. I don’t know.
Somewhat undefinable, The End of Mr Y is a slightly smutty adventure story about cigarettes, coffee, malfunctioning 60’s architecture, Derrida, Baudrillard, quantum physics, rogue CIA agents, sex in toilets and sitting down to chat with a mouse god. Sounds fun doesn’t it?
Help us celebrate the launch of the Pauline, btw series by Edeet Ravel.
The first book in the series, The Thrilling Life of Pauline de Lammermoor, just hit bookstores. Watch for the second book, The Mysterious Adventures of Pauline Bovary, in May, and the third book, The Secret Journey of Pauline Siddhartha, in the Fall.
These are funny, quirky books that follow Pauline as she writes the story of her life (using the example of a book called You Too Can Write a Great Novel!). Throughout the books, Pauline expresses herself through writing and drawings.
That’s where you come in. Now it’s your turn to express yourself. What better way to show the world who you are than to wear your personal expression on your sleeve ... or, um, shirt?
If you’re between the ages of 8 and 16, submit a t-shirt design or slogan for a chance to win free tees for yourself and your friends.
The contest runs March 7 to May 31, 2007.
Read all the contest details here - and enter the contest! I’ll be posting some of your entries right here on the blog as they come in.
A British poll has just revealed the books that people start but don’t finish The Guardian newspaper reports today:
It’s the literary club no author wants to belong to, but boasts the likes of Salman Rushdie, Bill Clinton, Paulo Coelho and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. A survey out today of the books Britons own but do not finish shows a surprising lack of appetite for many of the nation’s most popular titles...Fifty-five per cent of those polled for the survey, commissioned by Teletext, said they buy books for decoration, and have no intention of actually reading them. Rachel Cugnoni, from the publisher Vintage, said the apparent unpopularity of tough literary texts like Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment - all voted in the top 10 - suggests readers are purchasing “intellectual credibility for the bookshelf” rather than books they actually want to read.
I couldn’t possibly comment on all the books I’ve started and not finished, but I would LOVE to know what books you’ve discarded in disgust (or ambivalence) and why…
We have a Winner!
For our Worst-Case Scenario Video Contest (closed January 31, 2007) entrants created a video survival tip based on the bestselling Worst-Case Scenario Handbook series for a chance to win a $500 shopping spree in a participating store.
Competing with some very creative entries, Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo of Vancouver, BC have won the grand prize for their video “How to Escape from a Bear.” See it for yourself—I’m sure their tips will come in handy...
How to Escape from a Bear
by Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo
And if you liked that one, here’s the Runner-Up:
Woman on a Precipice
by Michael Boxall and Gretchen Elsner
OTHER VIDEOS
Worst Case Dating Scenario
Raincoast author Adam Lewis Schroeder has been nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for his book Empress of Asia.
“This book is just plain superb. I wish Adam Lewis Schroeder all the success he deserves.” - The Globe and Mail
“Empress of Asia is an accomplished act of historical imagination and narrative dexterity“. - The Edmonton Journal
“Anyone who has read Adam Lewis Schroeder’s short stories knows what a brave and punchy writer he can be. Still boyish enough in his prosaic swagger to avoid machismo but manly enough to be, well, manly, it’s almost as if he channels a well-travelled uncle’s devastating mix of pull-my-finger fun and fascination....Empress of Asia is an accomplished and textured tale that is both memorable and rewarding. - The Georgia Straight
The Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize is just one of the seven BC Book Prize categories. Find out more about the BC Book Prizes here, and check out Adam’s nifty website here.
The BC Book Prizes will be given out at a gala ceremony in Victoria on Saturday, April 21. Go Adam!
Happy International Women’s Day! We should all take the time today to celebrate the talents and achievements of the women in our lives - and around the world.
(And although I’m sure you don’t really need to be reminded, women know everything. 
)
With an introduction by John Perkins, author of the sensational New York Times bestseller Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, A Game As Old As Empire is sure to be controversial. Exposing how multinational corporations, governments, and financial institutions operate to enrich themselves and favoured elites whilst creating widespread poverty, debt and dependency in developing nations, A Game As Old As Empire features a dozen contributors - ‘economic hit men’, journalists and investigators - examining cases from across the globe.
A fascinating interview with the editor of the book Steven Hiatt and contributor Antonia Juhasz, visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, is available to download from Uprising Radio.
Publisher Berrett-Koehler have set up a website devoted to A Game As Old As Empire, and a fifty page excerpt and a study-guide to accompany the book are available to download.
The Reading, Writing re: Management blog also takes a look at the book and talks to Steven Hiatt.
A Game As Old As Empire is published this month.
Tony Nourmand, co-owner of The Reel Poster Gallery in London and author of James Bond Movie Posters: The Official 007 Collection, has collected together some remarkable material for his gorgeous new book Audrey Hepburn: The Paramount Years, and Monique from the So Misguided blog has kindly reviewed the book on YouTube so you can see some of the beautiful pictures for yourself. Monique Trottier and Audrey Hepburn. Two cool people in one place. What more could you ask for?
As you may have heard, Fantagraphics has been involved in a lawsuit for the past few months. Things have come to a head - click here to find out what’s going on and how you can help!
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.