Margaret Atwood has a powerful essay in the Globe and Mail on the arts in Canada and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s attitude towards art and artists. The end is especially chilling. A must read, especially with an election looming.
And now check out out John Doyle as well.
Tom Hawthorn has an excellent article in the Globe and Mail about Jim Munro and his Munro’s Books celebrating 45 years in business in Victoria with special events this coming weekend including an invitation only literary costume party. Mr. Munro will be there as Prospero.
For those of you who like lists and/or are planning a book buying trip to the U.K., The Independent lists the 50 Best Bookshops in Britain. Interesting to see that #8 on the list is Abe Books, the online bookseller from Victoria, British Columbia.
The Purdy house on Robin Lake in Ameliasburgh, Ontario, built by Al Purdy and fellow poet Milton Acorn, is being put up for sale by his widow Eurithe. Attempts to have the house preserved as a writers’ retreat have attracted little interest. From the Globe and Mail.
In the Globe and Mail, Russell Smith on the movement against ‘crapspeak’, slang used by bureaucrats and those in the corporate world.
In the Independent, a travel piece on the village of Deia on Mallorca which was the haunt of bohemian English writers, including Robert Graves. Timely, in that they also have a piece on Graves suggesting that some of his work may have been stolen from his mistress Laura Riding Jackson. Finally, a interview profiling the now mellow Irvine Welsh.
David Baddiel complains in The Times about the lack of great films on great writers.
And in the Guardian, in defense of texting and from Will Self and Lynne Truss another view.
Thirty years after the National Conference on the Canadian Novel in Calgary picked the 100 most important works of fiction in Canada, the Globe and Mail has five experts pick their top ten Canadian novels. The 1978 Calgary conference also picked their top ten. They were:
The Stone Angel (1964) Margaret Laurence.
Fifth Business (1970) Robertson Davies.
As for Me and My House (1941) Sinclair Ross.
The Mountain and the Valley (1952) Ernest Buckler.
The Tin Flute (1947) Gabrielle Roy.
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959) Mordecai Richler.
The Double Hook (1959) Sheila Watson.
The Watch that Ends the Night (1959) Hugh MacLennan.
Who Has Seen the Wind (1947) W.O. Mitchell.
The Diviners (1974) Margaret Laurence.
Writers foreseeing the future in their fiction. Who’s done it. The Times check their crystal ball.
Where do you review audio books? The Independent looks at the 10 best children’s audio books in their books pages.
Emma Brockes on Lorrie Moore in the Sydney Morning Herald. A great headline Writing’s Easier For Obsessives.
In the Guardian, a look at the London Review Bookshop turning five and how an independent book seller can survive.
The Globe and Mail on Douglas Gibson leaving M&S.
From the Guardian, why books need to be touched not just looked at although Chas Newkey-Burden begs to differ on the subject of second hand books
In the Independent, the “Espresso Book Machine” will allow you to print out a novel in seven minutes.
In the times (London), books that makes us really angry.
From the Sydney Morning Herald, literary success at 29 for Nam Le.
A slide show of classic book ads in the NY Times.
In the Globe and Mail, Andrew Pyper on the search by publishers for bestsellers.
A selection of articles from the British newspapers’ book pages.
For Fathers’ Day, in The Guardian, writers write about their fathers
In The Times, Jeanette Winterson on the value of the British Library and why we should fund culture as well Alexander Monro on the Yellow Mountain poetry festival in Cardiff, Wales. The Yellow Mountain festival is a gathering of Chinese and English poets to conduct joint translations.
In The Independent, their guide to the 50 Best Summer Reads and an extract from a new book of letters from the 1940’s by the Soho bohemian Julian Maclaren-Ross.
In The Telegraph, an article on Leonard Cohen, although Cohen the singer not Cohen the poet and their guide to summer reading.