This is Halloween
This is Halloween
Pumpkins growl in the dead of night …
Page 57 of 123
Thank you daylight savings time for giving me an extra hour to find fluff on the internet. (Thanks for the link Sio!)
Kate Trgovac‘s wise words are now part of the Age of Conversation, a book written by an international team of 237 bloggers from 16 different countries.
Way to go Kate!
Wow, the new Whitecap Books website is awesome. I am bias because I’ve worked with Paschal on Trading in Memories. But this is a really cool redesign. I think his specialty is Drupal sites that don’t look like Drupal sites. Love it. Looks very yummy and friendly. I want to spend time looking around.
http://whitecap.ca/
Latest News
April 29, 2009: Justice Dept. Opens Antitrust Inquiry Into Google Books Deal
Quote: The inquiry does not necessarily mean that the department will oppose the settlement, which is subject to a court review. But it suggests that some of the concerns raised by critics, who say the settlement would unfairly give Google an exclusive license to profit from millions of books, have resonated with the Justice Department.
October 29, 2008: Google Settles Suit Over Book-Scanning by MIGUEL HELFT, New York Times
Quote: Google said Tuesday that it had agreed to pay $125 million to settle two copyright lawsuits brought by book authors and publishers over the company’s plan to digitize and show snippets of in-copyright books and to share digital copies with libraries without the explicit permission.
Well that has taken a long time! The lawsuits were originally launched in September and October 2005.
According to the NYT article, the money will be used for a book registry and to resolve existing claims. The settlement still has to be approved but if it goes ahead then, I think, it means all those books will be available online and the money just goes to settling claims.
The lawsuits were brought about because Google worked with libraries to scan millions of copyright and non-copyright books. The scanning became an issue for the copyright-protected material, in particular material that the publishers or authors did not want digitized and made available.
Background as per the NYT article:
The settlement agreement resolves a class-action suit filed on Sept. 20, 2005, by the Authors Guild and certain authors, and a suit filed on Oct. 19, 2005, by five major publisher-members of the Association of American Publishers: the McGraw-Hill Companies, Pearson Education, Penguin Group, John Wiley & Sons and Simon & Schuster. It is subject to approval by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
In the long run $125 million is probably worth it. Steep and dear now, but to have digitized and to have available for in perpetuity all that content … woah!
While I was away, award season started.
The BC Achievement Foundation’s 2008 Award for Early Literacy went to author Bill Richardson and illustrator Cynthia Nugent for The Aunts Come Marching (Raincoast Books), a singalong story about a procession of musical aunts who drop in on a family for an unexpected visit. This is a very fun book and I even had the pleasure of listening to Bill read/sing it.
The Time to Read Award is a national book award honouring the author and the illustrator of a children’s book suitable for kindergarten students. The winning book is distributed to all kindergarten children in British Columbia by the Ministry of Education.
Way to go Aunts!
The Thirteenth Tale is one of those wildly popular books that I failed to read when it was first published. I wanted to but I also wanted to wait until I had only the vaguest recollections of what reviewers said. And what I recall is only that the book was considered a success in North America but not so in Britain. It was too British for the British, or some such rubbish.
It is a fine novel. Margaret Lea, book shop clerk and amateur biographer, is commissioned by Vida Winter, famous British novelist, to write her biography. Why? It’s all unclear until the end so I won’t spoil it for you.
I was pulled into the plot twists of the biography Winter was detailing for Lea, who insisted on only writing the truth. The truth is always fascinating, especially when given in autobiography.
The setting is Angelfield, a small town where twins are born to Isabelle, who’s not quite right. It’s a story of abandonment: the abandonment of children by parents who are unable to care for them, it is the abandonment of children by carefree parents who don’t understand children, and it’s the separation and reunification of the twins and their caregivers.
Lots of interesting loops and very much like a fairy tale.
As Vida Winter says, “my gripe is not with lovers of the truth but with truth herself. What succour, what consolation is there in truth, compared to a story? What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney? What you need are the plump comforts of a story. The soothing, rocking safety of a lie.”
The Outlander by Gil Adamson has won this year’s Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award.
At some point in my trip, I read, and loved this book, wrote a lovely review, then carried on with my day. I cannot for the life of me find that review so let me tell you, there is no doubt in my mind that this book deserves the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award. The writing is brilliant and very smart. I love books that craft images so clearly that it’s as if you are there. Gil’s writing is really tight and smart. It’s rare that I get the sense that the author is smart, clever maybe, entertaining always, but smart, wow. Gil is smart, her choice of words is wonderful.
The Outlander is the story of a young widow desperate to flee her brother-in-laws, who are out to revenge the death of their brother–the death of their brother by her hand.
It’s 1903 and not easy for a woman to travel alone. She is definitely saved by the generosity of others, but her fate is always in question. Gil Adamson’s novel is heart-pounding, gripping, and full of grief, love and wild characters.
Perhaps my favourite book this year.
Thank you to John MacKenzie and Selina Rajani–John for saying go ahead and Selina for packaging it up so nicely.
The Idea of Beauty is one of my most favourite poems (and it’s featured in Sledgehammer, published by Polestar). I heard John read this in the hallway at Raincoast Books and it has stuck with me.
The Idea of Beauty (Spoke Itself) by John MacKenzie
I have been waiting here for you since
the stars first leapt into the sky
since before there was water sprung from fresh rock
(its first & longest music a metronome —
beat after unvaried beat falling like hammers of zombied blacksmiths)
I have been waiting here where
there were no flowers & the rocks were sharp
the soil odorless & dense,
no air pockets, no tunnels of worms winding
under roots of grass
I have waited here as minerals & salts turned to algae & coral
in the factory din of water & wind
as the assembly-line sun flung super-cooled windsurfing dimetrodons
among giant treeferns & monochrome blossoms,
as prototype blood shifted towards red & DNA began its fall
from beautiful flux into fixity and self-replication
I have waited here glacially for you
as the whispery respiration of trees built air
while whole forests fell into peat bogs, became stones
while the beaded sweat of ancient lives accreted into diamonds
& the idea of beauty spoke itself in the lush green syllables of your eyes
Kitty Lewis is one of the publishing folks that I love talking with and following online. She is the phenom behind the Brick Books Facebook page and a tireless promoter of the press’ titles.
And, now they have a new website:
Good work Kitty!