Bookninja

I wish more papers had the space to do this sort of general question and answer stuff. It can draw out some interesting nuggets. To wit:

Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

Every time I try to read a Jane Austen novel it feels like a terrible slog to me. I’m not engaged by books which I think of as “parlor people” literature. Austen and Henry James are the two literary greats whose books I just don’t like at all.

Three Canadians, including former VWF head Hal Wake, named to Frankfurt 2020 literary programming committee.

I can’t remember anymore. Did I used to ridicule Rowling in the early days? Dumb ass. She’s sort of amazing. Here she is donating a metric crapton of cash to MS research. Way to go, Harry’s mom.

Oooh. This looks like a good jury. I am familiar with two of the three of these authors. The third I am about to head down a Google rabbit hole on. Hopefully I don’t get sidetracked into a long YouTube wormhole about chiropractic adjustments, like I did last time I tried to research a poet. Wish me luck.

Michael Ondaatje has taken his brand of inscrutable squinting into his 77th year. All blessings to him. And here’s a bunch of stuff about him to read this morning.

As opposed to, you know, Brexit reality. I imagine Ian McEwan’s novella will have to dig pretty deep to get to satire.

What is TIFA? Is it like TIFF, but with Authors instead of Films? I don’t know. A list of great authors on this landing page from the mass email, though the poets mainly seem to be included in the “….and more” part.

For discussion: charging emerging writers $25+ to enter a contest, ESPECIALLY when they don’t get something in return like a subscription to a magazine (which they should have probably already subscribed to if they wanted to publish in it — but that’s for another post…), is shitty and chintzy. ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY when the nation’s public broadcaster and the Canada Council for the Arts, both of which everyone already funds with their taxes, are running it. See you in the yelling box! (translation: comments section.)

(After 7 years off, I suppose I should catch up on awards. Let’s see… Wait, there are how many now?? Crikey.)

It’s that time of year. The leaves are getting ready to turn, the lattes are spiced up with pumpkins, the kids are morosely back in school, and all attention turns for a hot minute to a few hundred grand in awards for like 10 writers. Enjoy!

• $50G Canadian Children’s Literature award list includes a someone who is from where I live
• Esi Edugyan sits atop pile of everything you ever wanted
• As I try to tell my kids… don’t be a dick. Things you say and do now can come back to haunt you in unexpected ways later. For instance, lets say you were drawing antisemitic things when you’re little and then you grow up and want to live among sane people and win awards and stuff… As the French say, “Tough merde, Yann.”)
• Hey, I’ve been gone for a long time… we all accept self-published people, right? They’re, like, real people now? Amazon seems to, anyway. I know they accept them because if there’s one thing Amazon likes to do with real people, it’s make money off them…
• What the frig is a Ballie Gifford Prize?

And they also have opinions about books, I’m told. You want a survey of those opinions? Loanstars is your place to go. (via Quill)