Last night I went on a guided literary tour with host and author Michael V. Smith. As one friend put it, “I’d follow Michael V. Smith anywhere.” The Literary Tour was part of BC’s Book and Magazine Week.

Fun and prizes were involved.

Destination 1 was Pulp Fiction. Talon Books presented bill bissett, Jamie Reid and George Bowering.

Destination 2 was Lark. Raincoast Books presented Karen X. Tulchinsky. Whitecap Books presented Julie Van Rosendaal. And apparently delectable finger foods were provided. I joined the tour a little late.

Destination 3 was Burcus’s Angels. Event Magazine presented a reading.

Destination 4. Enter Monique. Soma Coffee House. Anvil Press and Nightwood Editions presented Fiona Tinwei Lam — I liked her poems, Matt Rader — he was good too, but the music from Monsoon was rattling off the window I was sitting against and I got distracted, but his new book looks beautiful, and last was Lyle Neff whose son was in the audience. Lyle read a poem about his son’s death. He did, of course, make a joke about the darkness of his work, “there are happy poems in the book.”

Destination 5. I got my second event punch, one more and I was on my way to winning prizes. Our Town Cafe, my most favourite haunt and home of Henry’s Americano. Dance International Magazine presented a dance and a dance critic introduced the soloist. It was a modern piece that moved around the room. And I won a prize for knowing that Bournonville worked with the National Ballet of Denmark. Oh it was my good fortune to have a copy of the Spring 2005 issue on my table, with the headline “Bournonville’s Legacy — Danish Dance and Beyond.” Denmark was fed to me.

Destination 6 was in THE most interesting building, home of FRONT Magazine. There was a sign on the stairwell that said “denouement” and at one point everyone at my table upstairs passed around a sign “Climax.” I had a Lager and another chance at prizes. There was also a stack of Tylenol on my table.

It was pretty fun, essentially we followed Michael V. Smith around. He was dressed as a ringleader with pink and red knee high socks, black suit and top hat. Under the top hat was a frog.

And people think the arts are unaccessible?

Here’s a random round-up of book news:

Grumpy Old Bookman is talking about the UK publishing industry’s support or denunciation of Google Print. The comments can be extended to the North American publishing industry. Are we for or against? It depends what day it is and who’s asking. Here’s the post.

On The Tyee, Lisa Richardson comments on “The Art of Book Dropping.” In particular she talks about BookCrossing.com. Let your books wander. Read the article.

Paul Kennedy of CBC fame is quoted in John Mullan’s column in the Guardian, regarding a movement to make Leonard Cohen the next recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Quote: “Now one of the best-known radio broadcasters on the CBC, the Canadian equivalent of the BBC, is leading a campaign to have MontrÈal’s own bard given this year’s Nobel prize for literature.”
Get the full meal deal, read the Guardian article or just listen to The Man, leonardcohen.com.

Seems everyone’s favourite wizard was put in his place on Thursday. The German version of Amazon had three of the Pope’s books in the top spots on the charts, pushing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (coming July 16) to fourth place.

Fourth place. Outrageous! Well, outrageous really that an unpublished book has sat at #1 since its publication was announced in December.

From Regular Joe to JO. Both JOs have gone from unknown to superstar. Both JOs have a small empires. Both JOs have book deals. It is nice that someone is making money in publishing.

My favourite independent US bookstore, Powells, has posted a Green Press Initiative section in recognition of publishers who support the forest-friendly paper initiative. Read about Green Press Initiative.

I was also pleased to see mention of Alice Munro on the wire today. Canadian Press is reporting “The fictional wizard Harry Potter and real-life renowned writer Alice Munro are helping to spearhead a made-in-Canada environmental campaign designed to save the world’s endangered old-growth forests.” Go team!

Markets Initiative is the Vancouver-based environmental group who is working with the Canadian publishing industry to shift from printing on paper that originates from ancient forests to more ecologically sound alternatives, like 100% post-consumer recycled paper.

I’d like to point out that recycled paper is not what it was originally. It is not grey or brown or trashy like newspapers. High-quality recycled paper is out there, and it makes a lot of sense to support the publishers and authors who take a stand–Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Farley Mowat, Barbara Gowdy, Alice Munro, McClelland & Stewart, Raincoast Books, 35 Canadian mags including Canadian Geographic, Walrus, Harrowsmith Country Life, Owl and Cottage Life. I know I’m missing people and I apologize. The point is the economies of scale, the more demand for this paper, the more the printers will source it, the less it will cost, the better it will be for the world.

Here are some of the facts from the CP story:
ï 80% of the world’s large tracts of old-growth forest have already been logged.

ï Canada, Russian and Brazil hold the vast majority of what’s left

ï Northern Canada is home to 25% of the world’s remaining frontier ancient forests

ï Globally, 71% of the world’s paper comes from ecologically valuable forests, rather than from tree farms.

Check the back cover or the copyright page for the tag line on forest-friendly books. It usually something like “This book is printed on acid-free paper that is 100% recycled, ancient-forest friendly (100% post-consumer recycled).”

It’s Earth Day on Thursday. Love the rock you live on.

The Litblog Co-op was all over the news this week. I love it. I’ve been following the progress on Bookdwarf and Elegant Variation.

What is it? The Litblog Co-op: “Uniting the leading literary weblogs for the purpose of drawing attention to the best of contemporary fiction, authors and presses that are struggling to be noticed in a flooded marketplace.”

Ya, so what is it? On May 15, the 20 participating litblogs will announce the 5 titles they think everyone should read. Apparently this will happen 4 times a year.

What I like is that the objective is to give little-known books more attention. Like my favourite book, Up In Ontario.

Happy 553rd Birthday Da Vinci. Google’s got a Da Vinci illustration today. Yahoo.

Da Vinci was a man after my own heart. He was good at a lot of things but not great. Well, ok, that Mona Lisa was pretty great, but it was only one of six finished paintings. Now I like to complete tasks, but what I admire is that Da Vinci could do a little bit of everything. I aspire to that kind of wide-spread brilliance.

I often engage in conversations about thematic convergence so let me tell you the Da Vinci connection.

I woke up this morning wondering about that damn Da Vinci Code and why it’s so popular. I have read it, and have bought it as a gift, so I’m not slamming the book. I’m just interested in pinpointing its tipping point. As I was mulling over the Code, I turned on the computer and Google popped up with the Da Vinci banner. I look up Da Vinci Code in amazon and saw that the publication date was March 18, 2003. The book has been on bestseller lists for two years. How does this happen? Then I found this article on PopMatters.

Read the article on PopMatters, which, by the way, comments on the many trees “felled to print the billions of pages demanded by hungry readers.”

Why don’t publishers print books on 100% post-consumer recycled paper and stop clearing the world of its old growth forests. Maybe Da Vinci Code is? I don’t know. But wouldn’t it be great to demand that any book being mass produced be printed on old-growth free paper, preferrably something recycled? 18 million copies is a lot of trees.

The Shaughnessy Cohen prize is award annually to the most outstanding political book based on literary merit and enhancement of one’s understanding of political and social issues in Canada.

If you liked Ronald Wright’s A Short History of Progress, you’ll like Jane Jacob’s Dark Age Ahead. It has sat on the bestseller list for awhile, but aside from that the book is described as a grave warning to a society losing its memory. I quite frequently talk about “collective memory” and its fallibility regarding politics. But Jane and Ronald truly outperform in terms of hammering that message home.

Jane’s book is her reflection on society and her lessons on how to avoid decline. And we’re not talking physical body decline (although Jane is 88), we’re talking society’s decline. She looks at North American culture and compares it to European culture before the fall of the Roman Empire. And those who remember history will recall the “Dark Ages” followed.

I’m humming “The Imperial March” from the Empire Strikes Back. I would like to believe civilization continues, but I could do with a little less empire.