the Book Brothel

I had to bring this up, since the The Booker Prize is my favourite literary award…to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the most prestigious literary prize in the English speaking world, a panel of judges have come up with a shortlist for the Best of the Booker - a prize that will be decided by the readers. There have actually been 41 winners since the award’s inception in 1969 owing to double winners in two years (1992 - Micael Ondaatje’s The English Patient and Barry Unsworth’s Sacred Hunger; and 1974 - Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist and Stanley Middleton’s Holiday), with the 2008 winner being decided in October. To vote, go to the website here and let them know which of the following six books was your favourite Booker Prize winner:

The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
Disgrace by JM Coetzee
The Siege of Krishnapur by J G Farrell
The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Previously, Rushdie won the Booker of Bookers with Midnight’s Children to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Booker Prize.

The Chair of the committee, biographer, novelist and critic Victoria Glendinnig, said of the process and choices: It was a great experience, revisiting all the Booker and Man Booker Prize winners, and very tough arriving at the shortlist - but we really feel that the six novels we picked represent the best fiction-writing of the past 40 years and that each one of them will stand the test of time. As to which of the six is the most important, and the most enjoyable, the Best of Booker - that is up to the readers to decide.’

Voting is open from now until July 8. The winner will be announced on July 10, 2008.

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.

Today marks the launch of a revolution in the world of books - a literary show on the internet called Titlepage.tv. Its engaging host and editorial producer is Daniel Menaker, a long-time editor for The New Yorker, an author, and until recently the Random House editor-in-chief - so you know he knows (and loves) books.

The show features groups of writers discussing their new books in a roundtable format. The debut season will include six episodes, the first of which is entitled “All Over the Map” and features Richard Price (Lush Life), Colin Harrison (The Finder), Susan Choi (A Person of Interest) and Charles Bock (Beautiful Children).

“‘Titlepage’ is the perfect way to share my enthusiasm for books and their authors - in an instantly and permanently accessible format - with as many readers as possible,” said Menaker. “I’ve always sought out literary conversations, and I think we can make them surprising and entertaining for anyone who might want to stop by. Editors, particularly editors who are also writers, like nothing more than to share their love of books with others - although the occasional royalty check is also pretty enjoyable.”

Head over to the webpage to watch the first episode (with its tv-quality production), download it as a podcast (available shortly), discuss the show and its authors, and explore even more books. The show is a fantastic idea to keep the world of books relevant and conveniently at your fingertips - expect to add a lot more books to your ‘want’ list after watching. And there’s lots more to come, according to founder and executive producer Odile Isralson:

‘Authors with new books of all kinds will appear on the program in the coming months. We are aiming for the greatest possible diversity and variety. We are looking to have poets, novelists, journalists, Americans, foreigners - we will talk to anybody, about anything to do with books, as long as it strikes us as worth talking about, timely, and deserving of a wide audience’s attention.’