Articles
A look at the book biz, from prizes to marketing and back again.
Jean Baird files her report on the 1982 Booker, which was won by Thomas Keanally’s Schindler’s List. She also has some choice remarks about Canada Reads.
Our correspondant in North Bay, Wally Hourback, tries to comfort Torontonians about having elected Rob Ford as its new mayor. He thinks there’ll be a bright side.
Brian Fawcett reports on why Toronto elected Rob Ford, and what it means.
A Propos of the time of year, Norbert Rubesaat uploads the first of a series of connected pieces about growing up German in Canada
Fall in Canada is prize season. In 2009, The Writers’ Trust of Canada changed its pattern to be part of the parade (previously the Trust awards were announced in the spring). So let’s do some comparison-shopping. The Writers’ Trust fiction prize short-list: Nicole Brossard (Susanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood, translator) Fences in Breathing Douglas CouplandGeneration A Annabel…
I think it’s now time to have a closer look at the Booker prize rules and see how they might be affecting the outcomes. Over the years the GG and Giller have had multiple—and different kinds of—winners and the prize administrators have changed the rules. That is also true of the Booker, which now has…
Toronto is electing a new mayor on October 25th, and a lot of people in the city are hysterical over the possibility that Rob Ford, a controversial councillor from North Etobicoke, one of the city’s more suburban wards, is going to be the next mayor. The people who like the tow-headed, bull-necked Ford are mostly…
Jean Baird uploads 1979, the year when V.S. Naipaul should have won, but for a lot of poor reasons, didn’t.
A friend of mine, Slobodan Drakulic, died unexpectedly a few days ago. I hadn’t seen him for almost 18 months, but I missed his company if not on a daily basis, then frequently enough that I was often dimly aware of a resented absence in my life, a hole that could only be filled by…