the Book Brothel

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 631 pages, 2008

Rating: 10/10

Reason for Reading: I’ve never considered myself a ’sci-fi reader,’ but before Harry Potter, I never considered myself a reader who would be into children’s books about wizarding school, so I knew I had to take a chance when Stephenie Meyer and J.K. Rowling were compared as success stories (though The Host is Meyer’s first adult novel).

Synopsis: They call her Wanderer, because of how many bodies and planets her spirit inhabited before she found herself on her current home of Earth. Her species has taken over the host bodies of most of the human race, except for a few incredibly strong people like that of Melodie, her current host body. In fact, Melodie is proving so strong that she’s not vanishing, and Wanderer can feel her strongest feelings taking over her own - namely, the love of her younger sibling and of her boyfriend, Jared. Torn between these odd feelings of love and the very nature of her species to take over all humans, Wanderer decides to set out to find Jared, unsure of which urge will prove stronger - and if it will even matter when she finds some of the planets’ few remaining humans, who would kill to retain their humanity…

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Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Mass market, 277 pages, 2008

Rating: 8/10

Reason for Reading: New book in the Harry Bosch series! New book in the Harry Bosch series!

Synopsis: It’s the middle of the night when LAPD detective Harry Bosch receives a call about a murder - a doctor with access to radioactive substances was found shot in the back of the head. The entire city may be in trouble if Bosch can’t find out who killed him - all while dodging the FBI, who have their own agenda…

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The Gotta-Have-It Book of the Month: The Host by Stephenie Meyer

The Tease:

The electric bell rang, announcing another visitor to the convenience store. I started guiltily, and ducked my head behind the shelf of goods we were examining.
Stop acting like a criminal, Melanie advised.
I’m not acting, I replied tersely.

Available: May 6, 2008

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 321 pages, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: I already read and enjoyed two of the three of Crane’s previous novels, Everyone Else’s Girl and Frenemies.

Synopsis: Courtney Cassel has just gotten engaged to the most wonderful, just-right-for-her man in the world - now if only she could force her family to be equally wonderful. Her mother lives in her own world, her sister Norah is a control freak who’s been in a rage since their middle sister, Raine, ruined her wedding and fled for California - six years ago - and hasn’t been in contact since. Courtney decides to confront the past in hopes of making her wedding truly about family, but to top off all of the sisterly trouble, there’s another issue with facing her first love…

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by Lisa Yanaky

At the beginning of March, a revolution in the world of books was launched - Titlepage, a literary show made just for the internet. Its engaging host and editorial producer, Daniel Menaker, is obviously quite comfortable around books and authors - he was a long-time editor for The New Yorker, worked as the Executive Editor at Harper Collins, and recently finished a stint as Editor-in-Chief at Random House…not to mention writing several books of his own while still managing to fit in some teaching.

Titlepage, which is halfway through its debut season, features groups of writers discussing their latest books, their ideas and inspirations, and their writing methods in a roundtable format. Recently, the host that keeps them all chatting about the world of books (not to mention the world that inspires the books), Daniel Menaker, was kind enough to take time away from the show and his own writing to answer some questions about the show, some favourite authors, and how the seemingly permanent world of books is changing and evolving.
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Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 441 pages, 2004

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: I picked this up at the used bookstore because I figured anything about the 1960s tends to be interesting, and if a man could write entire (and popular) books on things like salt and cod fish, it was a good bet.

Synopsis: In 1968, everything changed - everywhere. Kurlansky examines how revolutions, both personal and political, occurred all over the world, in an odd mix of isolation and an explosion of media that made rebelling students in Germany feel a connection to protesting students in the U.S. or Czechoslovakia. While the 1960s may be better remembered for sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, all of this was born of the politics and the revolutions that Kurlansky expertly explores in this book.

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The Gotta-Have-It Book of the Month: Names My Sisters Call Me by Megan Crane

The Tease:

It occurred to me in the taxi across the hilly, windy city that I hadn’t exactly planned what I wanted to say. I’d convinced myself that even though I couldn’t manage to string sentences together to make a decent letter, I would be inspired when Raine swung open her door. Seeing her would cause the perfect words to appear on my tongue like magic. My belief that this was so had carried me across the country, and it completely deserted me as I sat, terrified, in the back of that taxi.
I was an idiot.
Norah was right - this was a stupid thing to do, and Verena was right, I was going to get hurt.
What could I possibly have been thinking?

Available: April 11, 2008

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 355 pages, 2007

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: I hadn’t yet read Crane’s first novel, Stupid and Contagious, but that’s no reason to delay reading her second book, right?

Synopsis: Jordan Landau is a pushover, and her life seems to be full of people willing to take advantage of that fact: the boyfriend that cheats, the boss that steals her marketing ideas, even her own mother can’t believe she’d do anything worthwhile without her pushy ideas. So when Jordan is hit by a car when riding her bicycle, she does the only reasonable-seeming thing: she decides to fake amnesia. A do-over. Life on her terms, with a whole new attitude. But as Jordan will start to see, ‘fake it till you make it’ isn’t so simple, and despite her dedication to keeping up the act, she may hurt a lot of people while selling herself short…

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Today marks the official launch of Extraordinary Canadians, a series of biographies featuring prominent Canadians put out by Penguin Group Canada. The first three of the twenty biographies to be released (with the rest to follow over the next three years) offer a glimpse into the life of a painter, a feminist, and a press baron: Emily Carr by Lewis DeSoto, Nellie McClung by Charlotte Gray, and Lord Beaverbrook by David Adams Richards.

The series is edited by John Ralston Saul, who has pulled together a team of writers one could argue are just as well-known as the subjects of their biographies. It’s hoped that the books, all of which will be 224 pages or less in the spirit of keeping the subjects accessible, will be followed by a series of documentaries later in 2008.

The other subjects and their biographers:

Rudy Wiebe on Big Bear
Adrienne Clarkson on Norman Bethune
Vincent Lam on Tommy Douglas
Mark Kingwell on Glenn Gould
Andrew Cohen on Lester B. Pearson
John Ralston Saul on Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin
André Pratte on Sir Wilfrid Laurier
Margaret MacMillan on Stephen Leacock
Daniel Poliquin on René Lévesque
Douglas Coupland on Marshall McLuhan
Jane Urquhart on Lucy Maud Montgomery
M.G. Vassanji on Mordecai Richler
Joseph Boyden on Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont
Nino Ricci on Pierre Trudeau

Two new episodes of Titlepage.tv, the literary show hosted by Daniel Menaker, are now available on the website.

The second episode (of six for the season) is titled “You Always Remember the First Time” and features four first-time authors discussing their works and their decisions to plunge either into fiction or non-fiction. The memoirs in the episode are I was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley and Please Excuse My Daughter by Judie Klam; the two authors who opted for the fictional route are Keith Gessen, who brings us All the Sad Young Literary Men and Ceridwen Dovey, who presents her novel Blood Kin.

The third episode, “The Horror, The Horror” focuses exclusively on non-fiction writers, and the discussions cover sex, censorship, film, race, and parenting in a world that features all of these topics and more. The four featured authors are David Hajdu (The Ten-Cent Plague); Mary Roach (Bonk); Louis Masur (The Soiling of Old Glory); and David Gilmour (The Film Club).

Menaker continues to bring together interesting guests for vibrant conversations, and the format of the show itself continues to evolve and improve, in part thanks to viewer feedback. Be sure to tune in - if you don’t mind an ever-growing to-be-read list.