Ah, the smell of leaves and awards in the air…Yup, still fall.

The winners of this year’s Governor General’s Literary Awards have been announced, and congratulations are due to Linda Spalding for English Fiction (The Purchase) and Julie Bruck for English Poetry (Monkey Ranch).

There are numerous other categories of winners for works in both English and French, and hearty congrats to them as well! See the full list of winners and the short lists here.

Happy 25th birthday to The Beguiling! Here’s how they did it.

• The Canada Reads 2013 long list has been pared down to the top 5 books in each region.
• Shawn Micallef on the changing suburbs, and why cities need them.
• Why college students should study porn.
• In other news, the UN rightly calls access to contraception a universal human right.
• The intersection between books and video games.
• On the gendering of “geek” and what’s really at stake.
• Objectifying women misses the point entirely, media.
• Want to be like Sherlock Holmes? Here’s how.
• Writers are twice as likely to commit suicide as the general public.
• In other news, did you know our planet has a pink lake?

A  new dinosaur has been named after Sauron from Lord of the Rings. Reports say X-Man villain Sauron was disappointed the new dino wasn’t named after him.

Yeah, I’d be kind of cheesed too. Wither the Nicosaurus imperatrix, I ask you?⁽¹⁾

Footnotes:

1. And no, the Nicosaurus imperatrix is not named after, you know, that other, much more famous Nico… [↩]

Though it can seem like it sometimes, the world’s not all bad. Apparently whales are learning to speak human, or at least trying, and that’s pretty awesome. Maybe once they get the hang of it they can advise us how to live better.

Canadian publishing is about to get smaller with Douglas & McIntyre filing for bankruptcy protection. Shortly before that announcement, the co-founder Scott McIntyre was announced as the recipient of the first-ever Ivy Award. John Barber comments in The Globe and Mail, and Matt Williams of House of Anansi responds.

Not to mention the impending merger of two of the world’s largest publishing houses, Penguin and Random House. See Quillblog’s poll for their merger name. I like House of the Random Penguin best, myself.

And, while we’re at it, the Toronto Women’s  Bookstore is closing at the end of November. You can read a great tribute on here.

At least some of us are still reading (though, that said, people have been ringing death knells for the book pretty much since they started to print them) . The Canada Reads 2013 long list has been announced (though none of my suggestions made the list). You can vote for your pick in each region until November 5th, so get your vote on.

• Here’s a postcard from Ernest Hemingway sent to Gertrude Stein.
• Santa’s pipe is to be sanitized from a new edition of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, sparking censorship debates. Which is just silly.
• Ok, this is pretty awesome: The Best of Book Spine Poetry.
• And here you’ll find poets touching trees.
• The Al Purdy a-frame has been saved, though donations are still needed.
• The rules of WRITE CLUB to not match those of Fight Club, but it still sounds intense.
• EB White on being a writer.
• A poet talks about the power of poetry and why it should be taught more from a young age.
• Book Riot on what your book pile says about you. I’m not sure I agree (of course I’ll read all these books one day…) but I can’t turn down good book porn.
• Sylvia Plath would have been fifty this year. Hear her read “Daddy” here.
• Though readings, as in those things you go to where the author reads from hir book, are changing. Apparently, there’s a lot less actual reading.
• There’s a new literary prize for Canadian women.
• Female lions can rock manes too.

I’m going to assume you’ve already seen the trailer for Iron Man 3, and that you think it’s “dark.” But if you haven’t, there’s the link.

Happy weekend, kids.

Novels, graphic novels, children’s books and non-fic, but no poetry? How did that happen?

23. The Game, by Ken Dryden
(Wiley, 1983, 2005)

Continuing reading the Canada Reads 2012 shortlist in reverse order of elimination,⁽¹⁾ I read The Game despite my complete lack of interest in hockey. And loved it.

I have little idea who most of the players are, and fortunately lists of statistics are kept to a minimum. What you get with that the jacket copy calls “the best hockey book ever written,” is a surprisingly well-written and thought-provoking overview of the industry from the perspective of an insider, Ken Dryden being, of course, a former goalie for the Montreal Canadiens.⁽²⁾

I can see why this was in the top five, and further, I can see why it almost made it as this year’s pick. It’s definitely worth the read. Continue reading »

Footnotes:

1. See Shelf Life: February 2012 for more. [↩]
2. I saw “of course,” as if I knew that before. I didn’t. But I assume most people know more about hockey than someone who’s spent her childhood trying to ignore that team sports exist outside the classroom. [↩]