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Sunday, June 16, 2013
Saturday, June 15, 2013
The Two Red Chairs - an evening with author Will Ferguson
Will Ferguson, author of Spanish Fly, Canadian Pie, Happiness, Beyond Belfast, Hitching Rides With Buddha, Beauty Tips From Moose Jaw, Coal Dust Kisses: a Christmas Memoir, Why I Hate Canadians (he's a Canadian author), How to Be Canadian (with Ian Ferguson), Canadian Pie, and most recently the Scotiabank Giller Prize winner 419.
Last evening a friend and I drove out to St. Albert to the Arden Theatre for the opportunity to take part in a presentation featuring award winning author Will Ferguson. Accompanying him in the other red chair, as interviewer, was Paula Simons, journalist for the Edmonton Journal.
Paula had read Will Ferguson's 419 twice, while neither my friend nor I had yet read it. Following a brief interview, Will Ferguson read from one of his books, Canadian Pie, I think; and then 419, following which he welcomed questions from the audience.
Predominately, the evening conversation focused on 419 but a noted commonality was identified between the writing of a fiction novel, 419, and his books of the humour genre. Each book, 419 and Canadian Pie, have a common thread of parenting. In 419 he asks, "If it gives the child a better life, would they? Would they die
for their child?”
The other book from which Ferguson read shares a conversation he had with his son while reading the Hardy Boys together at bedtime. Interestingly, the worst characters in the Hardy Boys series seem to be smugglers or something of similar sort and his son picked up on that after the first few books. Today's society is far different, I think.
At any rate, as Ferguson ties the concept of parenting as a common thread, not always so obvious in his books, so does he use humour. Of course his books like Canadian Pie and Why I Hate Canadians are strictly humorous, 419 does have the odd humour thrown in lest the story become too dark. (paraphrased from the author)
So, yes, an author can cross different genres and do it well. Ferguson is an example of this success. As he was introduced at the top of the evening as being three separate authors, well in a way he is. As he wrote in my copy of Hitching Rides With Buddha, he is also known as William (the intellectual author), Billy (the humour writer) and Will (the travel author). All three in one....and he does it well.
Should you have the opportunity to see him in person, I hope you will. He is as gifted on the stage, sharing humorous anecdotes, his research (how did that car come to be where it was), and offering advice (outline, outline, outline and write 10 minutes every day). Oh, and there's the question about a Pontiac Oldsmobile......he cleared that up for us but perhaps he will generously share this with you too!
It was a longer than expected evening with complimentary refreshments and a book signing to follow. We left around 10 pm. He must have been exhausted but he courteously allowed everyone the opportunity to get their book signed and to speak with him briefly. After all, he drove all the way from Calgary that very day and, as he put it, his butt was tired.
Ferguson wore a kilt to the award ceremony and toasted the written word at the close of his acceptance speech. You may watch a portion of it on YouTube. Funnily, if one of the judges had known he was going to show up in a kilt, Ferguson said, he would not have won his vote. I wonder why not? (tongue in cheek)
Friday, June 14, 2013
Sharon Short, Author: Cross-Training for Writers: Carolyn Hart
One of my very favourite mystery authors, Carolyn Hart, shares on Sharon's blog her "cross-training" tips. Check them out!
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella: Book Spotlight & Giveaway (3 copies-US/Canada)
Peeking Between the Pages is having a fabulous contest with a chance to win one of 3 copies of Sophie Kinsella's newest novel, Wedding Night. Sure to be a hoot! For a chance to win a copy visit:
Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella: Book Spotlight & Giveaway (3 copies-US/Canada)
Penguin Takes Books on the Road
Last year it was a Mini. This year it's a truck that holds 500 books on each side!
Scotiabank Giller Prize Winning Author, Will Ferguson, to Appear in St. Albert!
The author of 419, the Scotiabank Giller Prize winning novel; travelogue; and humour will be in St. Albert next Friday evening. I would love to attend!
Preview
Will Ferguson
Friday, June 14
7:30 to 9:00 p.m.
Arden Theatre
Tickets are $10 (includes refreshments)
Call the library at 780-459-1530 or visit the customer service desk.
Friday, June 14
7:30 to 9:00 p.m.
Arden Theatre
Tickets are $10 (includes refreshments)
Call the library at 780-459-1530 or visit the customer service desk.
What promises to be interesting is Will Ferguson's attempt to tie in humour with travel and fiction. “I’m going to make the case that the humorist and the literary novelist are not that far apart. Hopefully, people will see a parallel between the two,” he said.
Read the article in the St. Albert Gazette: http://www.stalbertgazette.com/article/20130605/SAG0302/306059974/-1/Sag/will-the-real-will-ferguson-please-stand-up
Friday, June 7, 2013
A A Milne in a Rare Recording of Him Reading A Winnie the Pooh Story Aloud
“In Which Pooh and Piglet Go Hunting and Nearly Catch a Woozle.”
How wonderful to hear the author's voice as he reads
what is truly a children's favourite tale!
Elizabeth the First Wife - read an excerpt now
About ELIZABETH THE FIRST WIFE
Elizabeth Lancaster, an English professor at Pasadena City College, fills her days with books, tending her garden and growing her collection of European comfort shoes. But that all changes when her ex-husband and A-list action movie star FX Fahey unexpectedly shows up with a job offer that she can’t refuse. Now, instead of grading papers, Elizabeth packs for a summer at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where her role is to provide artistic support and make sure FX doesn’t humiliate himself in an avant-garde production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s house sitter back in Pasadena is her Congressman brother-in-law’s dreamy chief of staff, whose calls regarding how to work the washing machine and stovetop slowly cross the line into much more personal territory. Witty, relatable and incredibly funny, ELIZABETH THE FIRST WIFE is about the unexpected turns that life sometimes takes and how one woman handles those turns with the cynical humor and unfaltering poise of a Shakespearean heroine.
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I am so excited to read this new novel from Lian Dolan. Unfortunately, it hasn't arrived yet but I have an excerpt to offer which will whet your appetite. If you enjoy Shakespeare, classroom drama, and humour, this one may just climb to the top of your "Must Read List!"
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This is where the class gets good, I thought. Where I, Elizabeth Lancaster, community college English teacher and theater enthusiast, feel most in my element. “Okay, let’s do this. Let’s read it together, Nico. You and me. Like I always say, Shakespeare’s words are meant to be spoken, not studied at arm’s length. It’s living, breathing dialogue. And in this scene, the sexist pig is trying to convince the cold-hearted be-yotch that the sun is actually the moon. It’s his way of exerting power, and she is employing her own manipulative techniques to shut him down. Raise your hand if you’ve done this in your own relationships. Who’s played mind games in a romantic relationship?”
All the hands went up except Sahil’s, whose closest personal relationship has probably been with his PlayStation controller. “That’s what I thought. Get up, Nico. You’re Petruchio and I’m Kate. Let’s go.”
He heaved his squat body out of the chair, as his classmates hooted. His buddy from high school, Aron, hissed, “Duuude.” Nico’s reluctance was skin deep. He was a ham at heart. “Please, don’t make me do this.”
I took a swig of Diet Coke and did my best faux-ghetto “Oh, it’s on.” The students whooped, like I knew they would.
Nico began haltingly, adding several more syllables than in the original. “Come on, a’ God’s name. Once more, um, um, toward our father’s. Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!” He inserted a dramatic hand gesture for emphasis, then gave me a triumphant look.
Oh, it was on. I tapped into my Inner Shrew, which wasn’t hard. I was a single, mid-30s woman with emerging bunions, a leaking roof, and a love life that had been in decline since the early Aughts. Not to mention that I had a mother who kept setting me up with every divorced dad in Pasadena and a sister who insisted I needed to keep “putting myself out there” even though she has no idea how rough it is “out there.” Why couldn’t they just leave me alone with my books, my vegetable garden, and my growing collection of European comfort shoes? I happened to like my life. Why didn’t my family? Oh, yes, at that particularly moment in time, I was feeling extremely shrewish. Watch out, Nico. “The moon! The sun—it is not light now.”
Nico rose to the challenge, playing his Petruchio with a touch of Jersey Shore. “I say it is the moon that shines so bright.”
The classroom door cracked as it opened. I didn’t bother to turn to see who’d arrived thirty minutes late to class. Besides, the audible gasp from a dozen young women told me it was Jordan. He was easily the best-looking boy in the room and a star baseball player who was hoping for a decent transfer offer. Jordan slid in late most days, hoping for attendance credit and a chance to flirt with Shiree. But I paid no attention to the rumble from the other students, because I was in the zone. “I know it is the sun that shines so bright.”
Nico’s jaw dropped open, apparently stunned silent by my confidence. But the scene wasn’t nearly over, so I gave him the universal “it’s your turn” sign with my hands. He stammered, unable to get out the next line. And then I heard the next lines come from behind me. “Now by my mother’s son, and that’s myself, It shall be the moon, or star, or what I list…”
I turned to face the owner of the familiar voice. Good God, just what I needed.
No wonder the girls gasped. There, resplendent in jeans and a black T-shirt that probably cost more than my car, was Francis Fahey. Or as the world knew him, FX Fahey, the third-highest-grossing action star behind Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise. His “Icarus” franchise had spawned video games, fast food tie-ins, and a legion of fans that believed the laid-back actor to actually be the futuristic cop hero. Clearly, FX was used to being the center of attention, and he owned the classroom the minute he entered. He strode up the center aisle, grinning effortlessly, like he was just returning from the grocery store with a six-pack of beer instead of invading my workplace after a decade of no face-to-face contact. Oh, he was enjoying the moment. “Or ere I journey to your father’s house. Go on and fetch our horses back again. Evermore cross’d and cross’d, nothing but cross’d.”
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About Lian Dolan
Lian Dolan is a writer, producer, talk show host, podcast pioneer and social media consultant. She writes the blog and produces the weekly podcast “The Chaos Chronicles,” a humorous look at modern motherhood. She writes for Oprah.com as a parenting expert. A decade ago, Lian created Satellite Sisters, an award-winning talk show, blog and website, with her four real sisters. Her writing has appeared in many national magazines, including regular columns in O, The Oprah Magazine and Working Mother and essays in such anthologies as Chicken Soup for the Sister’s Soul. TV appearances have included The Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. She is a popular speaker for groups and corporations, always using humor as hook. Her previous books include Helen of Pasadena and The Satellite Sisters’ Uncommon Senses.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Are You Registered to Participate in Live at Book Expo?
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Review: A Dual Inheritance by Joanna Hershon
Author: Joanna Hershon
Published: May 2013
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Genre: General Fiction
Pages: 496
Source: a complimentary copy was provided by the publisher and TLC Book Tours which in no way influenced this review. The opinions stated here are my own.
Autumn 1962: Ed Cantowitz and Hugh Shipley meet in their final year at Harvard. Ed is far removed from Hugh’s privileged upbringing as a Boston Brahmin, yet his drive and ambition outpace Hugh’s ambivalence about his own life. These two young men form an unlikely friendship, bolstered by a fierce shared desire to transcend their circumstances. But in just a few short years, not only do their paths diverge—one rising on Wall Street, the other becoming a kind of global humanitarian—but their friendship ends abruptly, with only one of them understanding why.
Can a friendship define your view of the world? Spanning from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the present-day stock market collapse, with locations as diverse as Dar es Salaam, Boston, Shenzhen, and Fishers Island, A Dual Inheritance asks this question, as it follows not only these two men, but the complicated women in their vastly different lives. And as Ed and Hugh grow farther and farther apart, they remain uniquely—even surprisingly—connected.
My thoughts:
I am really enjoying reading A Dual Inheritance and though I am not quite finished yet, it is one book that I would recommend. For readers who enjoyed The Bellwether Revivals, this novel will remind you of it very much. The writing style is somewhat similar, but it is the character development that often makes me think of The Bellwether Revivals.
The characters are complicated. Ed is from a less prominent home and is attending Harvard on scholarship, while Hugh comes from money and didn't have to worry about tuition nor getting a scholarship. Ed seeks money and status and Hugh would rather be invisible. He could care less about financial status and I believe that is what took him across the world to Africa to run a medical facility, where finances could help others but it didn't have a role in one's status.
The two of them are incredibly opposite in most ways but they seem to balance each other. Their dialogue plays out the differences as the two banter, question each other; seeing another world through a friend's eyes. When Hugh reconnects with Helen, she and Ed don't seem to hit if off very well. In fact, she reassured Hugh that she would find something to like about Ed whom she is uncertain about. That she always does. Well, she did. Was this why Ed ended his friendship with Hugh?
Later, Ed marries and has a daughter whom he dotes upon but he is not altogether happy. My question is, is Hugh? Is Helen happy? Certainly Jill, Ed's wife doesn't really seem to be. So, I am wondering, what is the connection that will forever tie these men to one another? Will it be a big "aha" moment? I am really looking forward to finding out.
In the meantime, if you are looking for a character driven novel with a few secrets, tension, and a glimpse from the sixties forward; A Dual Inheritance certainly delivers.
Joanna Hershon is the author of The German Bride, The Outside of August, and Swimming. She has received fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Edward Albee Foundation. An adjunct assistant professor in the creative writing department at Columbia University, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the painter Derek Buckner, and their twin sons.
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