HOW TO FURNISH A ROOM

Bronwyn and Dave: thumb war over Ava Lee!

2012-01-20T09:49:00.001-08:00

The Wild Beasts of Wuhan
~ Reviewed by Bronwyn

Dave and I had a thumb war when the advance copy of Ian Hamilton's third mystery arrived. He won, but somehow I finagled the book away from him and read it over the holidays. To be honest, I really had no choice because I LOVE Ava Lee, Hamilton's smart, tough, and quirky character. For those who have not read the series (and you should!) Ava is a "forensic accountant" who follows the trail of big money. She has master manipulating skills to get the money back to her client, and when those don't work she relies on bak mei, an ancient martial art.

In The Wild Beasts of Wuhan, the third book in the series, Ava is hired by Wong Changxing, “The Emperor of Hubei” and one of the most powerful men in China, after he discovers that his collection of Fauvist paintings are in fact forgeries. Ava's search for the fraudulent art dealers takes her to Denmark, Dublin, London and New York. Just as in the previous books, Hamilton has every detail pitch perfect. After finishing Wild Beasts, I wished the fourth book was already available because I am desperate to know what happens next to Ava.

Red Means Run
~ Reviewed by David

Crime fiction is full of iconic leading men who have reconciled colourful pasts, but Brad Smith has a more relaxed and less obvious character in Virgil Cain.
He's has the wild past, but for now he's happy enough just running his upstate New York farm. When police confront him over the death of Mickey Dupree, a criminal attorney found with a gold club through his chest, Virgil finds himself in jail pretty quickly. To make things right, Virgil has to find the real killer. This means breaking out of jail. Things get weird after that...
Smith's publisher is billing Red Means Run as 'country noir' and that makes perfect sense, as the title recalls a Neil Young lyric and I think this is a book that the late Warren Zevon would have loved.

Brad Smith has had success with his previous books. He shares many similarities with his character Virgil. Both have had a lot of jobs, both are decidedly blue collar, and Virgil is very easy to get to know. I'm sure the same will be true with Brad when he comes to Waterloo on Feb. 1 to join another favourite crime guy around here, Ian Hamilton.

The Perfect Gift Pt.2

2011-12-09T08:12:00.001-08:00

Got a Canoeing Fan on Your List?

Part epic adventure, part romance and part true-crime thriller, Coppermine is a dramatic, compelling, character-driven story set in 1917 in the extremes of Canada’s far north and the boom town of Edmonton. The story begins when two Catholic priests disappear in the remote Arctic region known as the Coppermine. North-West Mounted Police officer Jack Creed and Angituk McAndrew, a young Copper Inuit interpreter, are sent on a year-long odyssey to investigate the fate of the lost missionaries. On the banks of the Coppermine River, a few miles from the Arctic Ocean, they discover their mutilated remains. Two Inuit hunters are tracked and apprehended, and the four begin the arduous journey to Edmonton for the trial. The crowded, energetic city is a strange new world for the Inuit, and through their impressions as told to the press they become celebrities, while inside the courtroom the bizarre story of the killing of the priests unfolds.

Looking for Cutting-Edge Lit?

Hal is a mild-mannered IRS bureaucrat who suspects that his wife is cheating with her younger, more virile coworker. At a drunken dinner party, Hal volunteers to fly to Belize in search of Susan's employer, T. the protagonist of Lydia Millet's much-lauded novel How the Dead Dream who has vanished in a tropical jungle, initiating a darkly humorous descent into strange and unpredictable terrain. Salon raved that Millet's "writing is always flawlessly beautiful, reaching for an experience that precedes language itself." In Ghost Lights, she combines her characteristic wit and a sharp eye for the weirdness that governs human (and nonhuman) interactions. With the scathing satire and tender honesty of Sam Lipsyte and a dark, quirky, absurdist style reminiscent of Joy Williams, Millet has created a comic, startling, and surprisingly philosophical story about idealism and disillusionment, home and not home, and the singular, heartbreaking devotion of parenthood.

For Anyone who Loves Canada:

Join Will Ferguson as he travels to Yukon in search of gold, to Quebec City in search of a lost love and to PEI in search of someone—anyone—who will criticize Almighty Anne. From his days as a space cadet at the CN Tower’s “Tour of the Universe” to his encounter with a pair of burly Canadian brothers playing semi-pro hockey in Japan. From essays “On Margaret Atwood, and Other Inanimate Objects” to an “Open Letter to Women, on Behalf of All Men.” From lessons of a mini-bar ninja to his misadventures working on the Vancouver Olympics Closing Ceremonies, penning monologues for the likes of William Shatner and Michael J. Fox, to his cross-Canada quest in search of Big-Assed Objects Beside the Highway, this is Will Ferguson at his high-flying best.

Damned Nations by Samantha Nutt

2011-12-06T08:36:00.001-08:00

I just finished this the other night. I was riveted by Samantha's observations after providing hands-on care in some of the world's most violent places. She is the founder of War Child and has lots of experience to back up her intense opinions on war and aid. I was also impressed with her well thought-out solutions. Check out two interviews with her here:

First Words: River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh

2011-11-27T11:51:00.001-08:00

"Deeti's shrine was hidden in a cliff, in a far corner of Mauritis, where the island's eastern and southern shorelines collide to form the wind-whipped dome of the Morne Brabant. The site was a geological anomaly - a cave within a spur of limestone, hollowed out by wind and water - and there was nothing like it anywhere else on the mountain. Later Deeti would insist that it wasn't chance but destiny that led her to it - for the very existence of the place was unimaginable until you had stepped inside it.
The Colver farm was across the bay and towards the end of Deeti's life, when her knees were stiff with arthritis, the climb up to the shrine was too much for her to undertake on her own: she wasn't able to make the trip unless she was carried up in her special pus-pus - a contraption that was part palki and part sedan chair. This meant that visits to the shrine had to be full-scale expeditions, requiring the attendance of a good number of the Colver menfolk, especially the younger and sturdier ones.
To assemble the whole clan - La Fami Colver, as they said in Kreol - was never easy since its members were widely scattered, within the island, and abroad. But the one time of year when everyone could be counted on to make a special effort was in mid-summer, during the Gran Vakans that preceded the New Year. The Fami would begin mobilizing in mid-December, and by the start of the holidays the whole clan would be on the march; accompanied by paltans of bonoys, belsers, bowjis, salas, sakubays, and other in-laws, the Colver phalanxes would converg on the farm in a giant pincur movement: some would come overland on ox-carts, from Curepipe and Quatre Borne, through the misted uplands; some would travel by boat, from Port Louis and Mahebourg, hugging the coast until they were in sight of the mist-veiled mipple of the Morne."

In September 1838 a storm blows up on the Indian Ocean and the Ibis, a ship carrying a consignment of convicts and indentured laborers from Calcutta to Mauritius, is caught up in the whirlwind. When the seas settle, five men have disappeared - two lascars, two convicts and one of the passengers. On the grand scale of an historical epic, River of Smoke follows its storm-tossed characters to the crowded harbors of China. There, despite efforts of the emperor to stop them, ships from Europe and India exchange their cargoes of opium for boxes tea, silk, porcelain and silver. Among them are Bahram Modi, a wealthy Parsi opium merchant out of Bombay, his estranged half-Chinese son Ah Fatt, the orphaned Paulette and a motley collection of others. All struggle to cope with their losses – and for some, unimaginable freedoms – in the alleys and crowded waterways of 19th century Canton.

-Bronwyn

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

2011-11-27T11:50:00.001-08:00

Several Christmas's ago, I took a copy of Cutting for Stone home with me on Christmas Eve. My favourite memory of that holiday, is being curled up on my rocking chair with a cup of tea voraciously reading the novel. Since then, I have been on the lookout every Fall for my "Christmas Day Book" to continue the tradition.

I heard all the buzz about Sea of Poppies when it first arrived on the scene, but never gave it more than a glance. That is until the sequel, A River of Smoke, came into the store. I took one look at the beautiful blue cover and knew that I wanted to read this book on Boxing Day. Which naturally means, I need to read Sea of Poppies now!

The novel (which is actually part of a trilogy) features a glorious cast of characters that come together on a magical boat, the Ibis, just before the Opium Wars took place in China. The ship's destination across the Indian Ocean, is to fight in China's vicious nineteenth-century Opium Wars.

Some of my favourite characters include: Deeti, a widow, along with her lover, who is escaping her brother-in-law's rage. Paulette is the orphaned daughter of a French biologist who can't find a way to fit in with the British colonists, Jodu is the Indian playmate that she grew up with. Zachary is a freed mulatto American slave, now the second Captain after everyone died on the voyage to India. The diverse cast of Indians and Westerners each have an enchanting story to tell. Once they board the ship, they let go of their family ties and caste stereotypes and begin to see themselves as ship-brothers.

What I am enjoying most about this enchanting book is the different stories of the characters before they arrive on the boat, the various slang that they use, and the lush descriptions of the poppy fields by the Ganges river, the sea that has a life of it's own, and the backstreets of Calcutta and Canton.

- Bronwyn

The Perfect Gift Pt.1

2011-11-24T15:50:00.001-08:00

For the person on your list who has everything:

This book takes a dramatically original approach to the history of humanity, using objects which pervious civilizations have left behind, often accidentally, as prisms through which we can explore past worlds and the lives of themen and women who lived in them. The book's range is enormous: it begins with a chopping tool from Africa (one of the earliest surviving objects made from human hands) to a solar powered lamp and charger made in modern-day China. MacGregor (who is the director of the British Museum) shows how these objects were and still are significant. This is on of the most engrossing and unusual history books published in years.

For the history buff on your list:Award-winning author Tim Cook turns his narrative powers to the conflict between two towering Great War figures: Sir Arthur Currie, Canadian Corps commander and a brilliant, morally brave general and innovator who overcame many of the challenges of trench warfare, and Sir Sam Hughes, Canada’s war minister who accused Currie of being a butcher, a callous murderer of his own men. Set against the backdrop of Europe’s battlefields and Canada’s political tumult, The Madman and the Butcher is a powerful double biography that explores the nation’s discomfort with heroes, the need to place blame, and the very public war of reputations that raged on after the guns fell silent. Using newly uncovered sources, Cook creates a haunting portrait of our greatest battlefield general and the man who tried to destroy him.

For the grown-up Harry Potter fan: "The Magician King" is a grand voyage into the dark, glittering heart of magic--an epic quest for the Harry Potter generation. It also introduces Julia, a powerful new voice whose angry genius is thrilling. Once again Grossman proves that he is the modern heir to C.S. Lewis, and the cutting edge of literary fantasy.

Jan Brett for Christmas!

2011-11-14T09:36:00.000-08:00

Every year I look for a new Christmas book to share with my children. A book featuring magical illustrations that evoke a feeling of childhood innocence and an equally inviting story sharing the wonder of Christmas. It is now our family tradition to read this book before our kids get tucked into bed on Christmas Eve.

This year I can not decide between two Jan Brett titles: The Night Before Christmas (the 10th anniversary edition) and Home for Christmas. Both are equally lovely and fit all my Christmas book requirements. I have always enjoyed sharing Jan Brett's picture books with children. Her art work is wonderfully detailed and always features smaller pictures in a border that tell another aspect of the story.

In her version of The Night Before Christmas, two elves have hidden in Santa's sleigh and are watching Santa deliver gifts to all the homes. The side-bar illustrations of their captivated faces is precious and adds so much delight to Clement Moore's poem. The new version includes a DVD with music by the Boston Pops and narrated by Jim Dale.

The inspiration for Jan's latest, Home for Christmas, came from a trip she took to Sweden. The pictures depict a Scandinavian landscape with many of the animals and traditional clothing she discovered there. Rollo is a naughty little troll who runs away from his family because he doesn't want to do his chores. He tries to find a new family by living with different animals. First he lives with an owl family, then some bears, and finally a herd of moose that he travels with at the beginning of winter. Rollo starts to miss his family - will he be able to find them before Christmas? The side-bar pictures in this case show what his family is doing while he is away from them.

Both of these are a delight and perfect for cozy cuddling on Christmas day - or before. We love them so much that we ended up creating a beautiful window to celebrate Jan Brett's work.

- Bronwyn

Mark McEwan's FABBRICA

2011-11-10T07:39:00.000-08:00

For a few years now, Words Worth has been teaming up with Uptown 21 in throwing our “Words Worth Eating” events. We have had several memorable evenings with a variety of notable cookbook authors. None of these have been as well received as the event we did with Mark McEwan last year. Mark is the owner of several excellent Toronto restaurants: North 44, One, Fabbrica, and the upscale food store McEwan.

It was delightful to spend not one but two evenings with the man and learn about his life in food and restaurant culture. He talked about his love for Italy – it’s his favourite cuisine and favorite place to escape his hectic life and have some downtime. So it doesn’t surprise me that his newest cookbook, Fabbrica, is a celebration of all of the Italian dishes that they serve up at this restaurant.

The book is gorgeous – I love the paper quality and almost every page features a full colour photo of the recipe. And each recipe has a short introduction about what inspired it. Here is a list of the recipes that I am looking forward to creating in the coming weeks:

Pg. 32 Charred Octopus with Chickpeas

Pg. 56 Stuffed Cherry Peppers

Pg. 97 Pesto Pizza with Clams and Shrimp

Pg. 136 Ricotta Gnocchi with Heirloom Tomato Sauce

Pg. 157 Risotto with Sugar Pumpkin and Pancetta

And for dessert Pg. 245 Vanilla Panna Cotta with Streusel and Figs

MMMM…Yum! Bonne Appetite! - Bronwyn

First Words: A World Elsewhere by Wayne Johnston

2011-11-01T11:52:00.000-07:00

Lanish Druken lived in the two-room attic of a house near the end of Dark Marsh Road that was in no way remindful of any other place he'd ever lived. A mile away, in a twelve-room house, his father lived alone.

Under the terms of what Landish called the Sartorial Charter, his father had let him keep his clothes but had otherwise disowned him. When he was too hungry and sober to sleep, he walked the edge of the marsh in the dark, smoking the last of his cigars, following the road to where it narrowed to a path that led into the woods.

He had gone to Princeton, where father-made men spent father-made fortunes. Now they were back home, learning the modern form of alchemy, the transmutation of sums of money into greater sums of money. He'd told them that this was, at best, all they would ever accomplish. "Whereas," he'd said, "I will write a book that will put in their places everyone who has ever lived. It may take me as long as a month, but I will not falter." It was five years since he'd made the boast and he'd yet to write a word that he could resist the urge to burn."

Beloved author Wayne Johnston returns with this sweeping tale of ambition, remorse and hope. A World Elsewhere is an astounding work of literature with all the hallmarks of Wayne Johnston's much-loved and acclaimed novels: outsiders yearning for acceptance, dreams that threaten to overpower their makers, and romance in the unlikeliest of places. The beating heart of this story is the touching relationship between a father and his adopted son. This sweeping

tale is set in St. John's, Princeton and North Carolina at the close of the 19th century.

Landish Druken is a formidable figure: tall with a mass of curls, broader than most doorways,

quick-witted and sharp-tongued. As a student at Princeton, he is befriended by Padgett "Van" Vanderluyden, son of the wealthiest man in America. But when Van betrays Landish, causing his expulsion from Princeton, Landish renounces him. Destitute, he returns to St. John's and nightly he starts his novel, only to burn the pages. The widow of one of his father's first mate, lost at sea, asks Landish to adopt her son. Landish and Deacon quickly fall into a relationship that,

though not supported by the comforts of home, is strong in its shared intimacy. When financial burdens threaten to overpower them, Landish sees little choice but to ask Van for assistance. Van, now ensconced at a mansion, Vanderland in North Carolina, sends them tickets. The father and son learn the truth behind Van's self-constructed life and cement their commitment to one another.

20 Writerly Questions for… Ami McKay

2011-10-26T10:43:00.000-07:00

Ami McKay's work has aired on CBC radio's Maritime Magazine, This Morning, OutFront, and The Sunday Edition. Her documentary, Daughter of Family G, won an Excellence in Journalism Meallion at the 2003 Atlantic Journalism Awarsd. When she moved with her family to Scots Bay, Nova Scotia, she learned that their new home was once known as the birth house. It inspired her to write the bestseller, The Birth House. Her latest book is The Virgin Cure.

How would you summarize your book in one sentence? A Dickens meets Wharton meets the Brothers Grimm tale in which a girl on the streets of 1870's New York struggles to beat the odds.

How long did it take you to write this book? Three years (although quite a lot of that time was devoted to research.)

Where is your favorite place to write? In the loft of my barn in Nova Scotia.

How do you choose your characters’ names? I collect names from archives and gravestones and then mix and match them to suit the story.

How many drafts do you go through? Too many to count.

If there was one book you wish you had written what would it be? I can't think of a book I'd like to have written word for word, but the premise of Nabokv's "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight" is absolutely brilliant and I wish I'd thought of it first.

If your book were to become a movie, who would you like to see star in it? A yet to be discovered actress as Moth, and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Dr. Sadie.

What’s your favourite city in the world? NYC

If you could talk to any writer living or dead who would it be, and what would you ask? Shakespeare. "Did you, or didn't you?"

Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what kind? As I'm working on a novel, I create a playlist for the story and characters. The playlist for The Virgin Curehas a lot of music from the time period on it - mostly Civil War era songs and Stephen Foster tunes, like "Slumber My Darling" and "Hard Times Come Again No More."

Who is the first person who gets to you read your manuscript? My husband.

Do you have a guilty pleasure read? Not really. I don't think reading should bring on guilt. I can read just about anything and get something from it - the manual for a computer game or even the back of a cereal box can suck me in, bringing on all kinds of questions. Someone, somewhere took the time to write that copy and I often wonder what that person's life is like. Do they believe in the product? Do they use it, eat it, consume it, etc.? Do they enjoy their work?

What’s on your nightstand right now? The Immortal Life of Hennrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

What is the first book you remember reading? The Secret Garden.

Did you always want to be a writer? No, between the ages of 5-15, I thought I'd end up singing on a Broadway stage.

What do you drink or eat while you write? Green tea, popcorn, clementines, raw almonds and dark chocolate.

Typewriter, laptop, or pen & paper? I always begin with a fountain pen on paper, then I type what's on those pages into my laptop so I can move things around and edit the story.

What did you do immediately after hearing that you were being published for the very first time? I stood in the middle of my kitchen and jumped up and down. Then I called my mom.

How do you decide which narrative point of view to write from? I make an initial decision knowing that it may not be the right one and start writing. As the story unfolds, I try writing a portion of it (usually the first few pages) from different points of view. Then I read a few pages of each version out loud to see which one feels the strongest and has the best cadence.

What is the best gift someone could give a writer? Patience. Knowing that the person I love most in the world has the patience to deal with my being distracted, (day in and day out) by the world I'm building on the page means everything to me.

Tell It To The Trees

2011-10-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Anita Rau Badami's newest novel, I have a dirty house! Instead of cleaning up this weekend, I was stuck to the couch madly reading Tell it to the Trees. I have been a big fan of Badami's since her first novel, Tamarind Mem. Her previous (and timely) work, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? was a book that both Dave and I share as one of our favourites. So I have eagerly been waiting to cracking open her new one.

What I enjoy most about Badami's writing style is that she does not seem to be afraid to tackle the big subjects using real characters with cracks and crevices in their personalities. Tell it to the Trees continues in the same vein. The Dharma family is a second or third generation immigrant family originally from southern India. The now dead grandfather, J.D., moved his family to a remote community in the backwoods of B.C., much to the chagrin of his unhappy wife, Akka, and son, Vikram. J.D. supposedly dies in a drunken stupor in a snowstorm. This sets the scene for the family's unhappiness. Vikram is now a man with two children: Varsha from his first (and also dead) wife Helen, and Hemant. He is currently married to Suman, who he met in India.

Suman is clearly depressed and desperate. Vikram is both physically and verbally abusive of her and the children. She tries her best to please him but of course nothing is every good enough. Her only support is in Akka, her mother-in-law, who encourages her to leave but can not do much else to help as she suffers from unknown medical conditions.

Varsha is thirteen years old. Her mother Helen died in a car accident when she was younger and she desperately wants to make sure that Suman will not "abondon" her either. She manipulates both Suman and Hemant but also clearly loves them.

The family continues to stumble their way around each other, doing their best to avoid or deflect Vikram's rages and violence. Until Anu enters the picture. Anu is also Indian but has lived a much more modern and liberal lifestyle. She rents the cottage so that she can take some time to write, something she has always wanted to do. Anu is a breath of fresh air for the family. She brings the support and modern voice that Suman craves. She also recognizes Varsha for the troubled 13 year-old that she is.

The novel opens to police searching the family's backyard for Anu's remains, after she went missing in a snowstorm. Anymore details and I will give to much of the story away. Suffice to say that Badami has done an excellent job of exploring some very tough issues: learned behaviour in children, abusive families, issues that occur when living in a remote community, and the trouble with family secrets. I have lots of questions that I am looking forward to asking Badami about this novel when she comes to Waterloo on November 16th. For more information on her event with us click HERE.

- Bronwyn

The Virgin Cure

2011-10-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

Like many Canadian women, I adored Ami McKay's first book, The Birth House, immensely. So (also like said Canadian women), I have been waiting with bated breath to see what yarn Ami would spin next. Her newest book, The Virgin Cure, releases next week on October 25th, but I got to crack open an advance copy last week.

The novel takes place in the tenement housing on the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the early 1870's. Moth is a "girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic, and the man who broke her heart." The summer that Moth turns 12, her mother sells her to a wealthy woman as her companion. Moth thinks that she may have it made as the carriage takes her away from the squalor and poverty that is Chrystie street and pulls her closer to the wealth of the Upper West Side. However Mrs. Wentworth deflates Moth's hopes of a better life with the first of many beatings and bizarre punishments.

After fleeing from the indentured servitude, Moth ends up in the wild world of Bowery. She discovers a world of pickpockets, beggars, sideshow freaks and prostitutes. Eventually she is taken in by Miss Everett, the owner of a brothel called "The Infant School." Again Moth is attracted to a warm bed, a full belly, and the promise of a better life. Through her new friendship with Dr. Sadie, a female physician that takes care of the brothel's girls, Moth begins to question the world around her. At the same time she begins to hear rumours of a "virgin cure", for men to rid themselves of syphilis.

I found Moth's resilience and determination to live a life that she could call her own admirable and inspiring. Her journey through New York's underbelly of the time kept me reading long after I should have turned out the light. McKay has created a well-rounded character who is both strong and innocent, wise and hopeful.

Dr. Sadie's character is based on McKay's great-great-great-grandmother, one of the few female doctors during that time period. Dr. Sadie (both in the book and in life) cared for city's poor and

destitute children. Her character in the novel shows a strong woman who did not let her education or wealthier background stand in the way of her determination to offer physical and psychological care to poor women and children. She tries in many different ways to convince Moth to give up her life in the brothel. It seems that Moth was the child she never had.

Another aspect of the novel that I appreciated, was little tidbits and sidebars throughout the book that explain the customs of the day. For example: an advertisement for Dr. Godfrey's cordial, instructions for hair work crafting, descriptions of a lady's gown, and so on. This was something that McKay used in The Birth House as well. It brings the time period to life in a memorable way.

I am looking forward to asking McKay if she collects this information while doing her research for the book, or if she makes them up as she is writing the novel. To that end McKay will be joined by Wayne Johnston and Anita Rau Badami for one of our final fall events at the Princess Cinema on November 16th. Click HERE for more information.

-Bronwyn

Brian Francis is one to watch...

2011-10-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

After a huge hit with his first novel Fruit, Brian Francis has set a high bar with Natural Order and he clears it effortlessly. This novel is a generational tale set in small town Ontario, where as a young girl, Joyce has fallen for Freddy a neighbourhood boy who stands out for his love of Broadway and his effusive personality. In today's world Freddy would get on about as well as anyone, however in the 1950's he couldn't reveal who he was and leaves Balsden, Ontario as soon as he can.

As an elderly woman in a nursing home, Joyce is forced (by a secret in Freddy's past) to come to terms with her son John who more recently has died after a "sudden illness" in 1980's Toronto. This forces Joyce to traverse her unexamined early life, and the circumstances of both her childhood friend and her son, each who have struggled as gay men in different and less easier times.

The triumph in Natural Order is the interior character of Joyce, who while in her 80's has had to square attitudes born of her time with the reality that time is running out. While befriending a gay volunteer in her nursing home, Joyce's character and the novel reveal how one person who believes herself a failure reconciles her life with those she loved.

Natural Order in wonderfully nuanced and Francis makes sure that every character bears the weight of their time. It would have been easy to make any main character in Natural Order a sociopolitical stalking horse, but the author took the harder road here, and Natural Order succeeds because of it. This is a solid and assured second effort from a writer to watch.

- David

Brian Francis and Marina Endicott will be at the store for a free event on November 3rd, starting at 7pm. For more information click HERE.

Words Worth Eating with Nan Forler & Peter Etril Snyder

2011-10-14T18:17:00.001-07:00

Our Words Worth Eating event series are some of our favourite events to organize and partake in. We love working with Nick and Nat at Uptown 21. The food is always incredible and the atmosphere is so much fun. We celebrated the release of Winterberries and Apple Blossoms on October 12th with Nan Forler and Peter Etril Snyder. If these pictures whet your appetite, then call the restaurant to reserve seating. We are doing the event all over again on November 23rd! You can reach Uptown 21 at 519-883-1100. There are only a handful of seats left.

Copies of Winterberries & Apple Blossoms on display.
Each ticket includes a copy of the book.

The first course - an amazing salad that gave one patron "an out-of-this-world-experience"!

Acclaimed children's author, Nan Forler
with illustrator and celebrated painter, Peter Etril Snyder.

Pumpkin soup with pickled beet garnish - delicious!

Everyone enjoying the food and company.

Main course of pork shanks, warm potato salad and Nick's award-winning sauerkraut.
The menu was inspired by the traditional Mennonite culture depicted in the book.

And the grande finale: Apple pie and Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp.
Nick froze summer strawberries and rhubarb back in June in preparation for this event.
The desserts were from recipes included in Winterberries and Apple Blossoms.

First Words: The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott

2011-10-12T11:56:00.000-07:00

A summer evening. Moths dance in the lights outside the opera house.

A girl in a white dress slides into a seat on the aisle beside her father. The hall is crowded, many standing at the back. Ladies exclaim over the playbill while men, heads bent together, talk about the war. An older, greying soldier sits with his kind-faced wife. Her big black boot tucks out of sight behind his leg.

The curtain sways, curling along its bottom edge in a velvet wave, swept not by wind or the weight of the moon but by a company assembling backstage.

In the enfolding darkness of the wings, Aurora reaches out her hand on one side to find Clover's thin one; on the other Bella's small and strong. Their warm clasps stills her trembling.

Silver-shelled footlights snap a scalloped arc of light onto the main curtain. Fresh red velvet: crimson lake, bright blood, the colour of love. Murmurs cease as the violins come creaking into tune, their mild excitable cacophony resolving into sense and meaning, into A, the one note they all seek. In the audience, silence falls. The cessation of visiting, the folding of programmes, the last adjustment to the seats.

Tips of shoes show beneath the bobble-fringe - a quiet rumpus, that must be the girls.

The band master taps his stand.

It is about to start.

Breath in --

The Little Shadows revolves around three sisters in the world of vaudeville before and during the First World War:

Aurora, the eldest and most beautiful, who is sixteen when the book opens; thoughtful Clover, a year younger; and the youngest sister, joyous headstrong sprite Bella. The girls, overseen by their fond but barely coping Mama, set out to make their living as a singing act after the untimely death of their father. They begin with little besides youth and hope, but Marina Endicott’s genius is to show how the three girls slowly and steadily evolve into true artists even as they navigate their way to adulthood among a cast of extraordinary characters – some of them charming charlatans, some of them unpredictable eccentrics, and

some of them just ordinary-seeming humans with magical gifts.

With her gorgeous prose and extraordinary insight, Endicott lures us onto the brightly lit stage and then into the little shadows that lurk behind the curtain, and reveals how the art of vaudeville -- in all its variety, madness, melodrama, hilarity and sorrow -- echoes the art of life itself.

Kid Reviewed: The Popularity Papers by Amy Ignatow

2011-10-11T07:41:00.000-07:00

This book is about two girls, Julie Graham-Chang and Lydia Goldblatt, who are planning to start Juniour High as popular girls. They start observing the other girls in their 5th grade class and begin experimenting to find the key to being at the top of the social order.

First they try to dye Lydia's hair. Unfortunately they use bleach instead of hair dye and Lydia ends up getting a bald spot. She has to keep using her other hair to cover up the bald spot. They also try dressing fancy, but are informed by their teacher that they are dressed inappropriately. You should read this to see the other ways that they try to become popular.

This book made me feel happy because it was very funny. I am excited to read the other books in this series because this book made me laugh. I also loved the illustrations - the book is designed like a graphic novel with notes back and forth between the two friends. It felt like a scrapbook and a diary at the same time. This book is soooo good!

- by Makilda Addico

If you know a child that would like to review a kid's book for us, please email Bronwyn or Erica.

Best Crime Writers Around...

2011-10-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

Words Worth Books is delighted to welcome to Waterloo two veteran Canadian crime writers who after nurturing classic mystery series for years, have turned to standalone work, each with truly fine results. Peter Robinson and Maureen Jennings have put aside their beloved signature characters for the moment (Alan Banks and William Murdoch, respectively) and have penned a couple of great books.

Maureen Jennings' Season of Darkness opens with the murder of a British land girl in 1940. It was the job of land girls to arrange to cultivate every possible part of England during the war. Elsie Bates has been left for dead on a country road, shot by a German Luger.
Britain is recovering from the defeat at Dunkirk and dark days are upon her. The small town deputy inspector Tom Tyler has a serious crime on his hands and his job is complicated by a scared populace, a German internment camp nearby and the arrival of an old lover from the Continent.

Peter Robinson has put together a beauty of a novel.

This tale of obsession also has roots in World War Two. Before the Poison tells of Hollywood film score veteran Chris Lo

we, who returns to his native

England

after the death of his beloved wife. He wants only to grieve privately and work on music he considers more worthy. He buys a isolated house outside Yorkshire and becomes interested in a former inhabitant of the house who decades earlier, was put to death for the murder of her husband. Chris becomes interested in Grace Fox's story and the more he finds out, the more convinced he becomes that she was innocent of the murder. Threads of his own life abound and Robinson weaves everything together seamlessly.

Along with bestseller Linwoood Barclay, we promise an evening of unparalleled talent at the shop on Tuesday, October 18.

A Serious Case of Medium-ness!

2011-10-03T12:55:00.000-07:00

The Magnificent 12: The Call by Michael Grant

Mack MacAvoy suffers from a serious case of medium-ness. He has medium grades, medium looks, medium parents, and a medium school with a severe side of the bullies. Mack’s favourite hobby is to provoke bullies and then flee from them. This is surprising considering his long list of fears and phobias.

And then one day things change for Mack and he will never be medium again! A three-thousand-year-old man, Grimluk, appears to tell Mack that he is one of the Magnificent 12. It is up to Mack to track down eleven other 12 year olds to stop the evil force that is going to eat up the world. Mack must battle the wicked Princess Ereskigal…

This series will have boys (and parents) laughing at Mack’s hilarious escapades and quest. In some ways this book reminded me of early Gordon Korman books that I read in grade 5, however Mack is a character and in a situation that is totally original. Good for a laugh and especially good for reluctant boy readers.

- Bronwyn

The Bust DIY Guide to Life

2011-09-29T08:33:00.000-07:00

I remember when I was about 9 years old or so, I found a copy of a Girl Guides compendium that had belonged to my Aunt Connie when she was a girl. The book was a thick hardcover that covered many topics such as: how to play hopscotch properly (there is a method!), how to knit, when to start wearing makeup, how to clean your home. I was enthralled with the tips and ideas inside that could lead me from girlhood to being a young woman.

I felt the same sense of enthrallment when I discovered Debbie Stoller's most recent book, The BUST DIY Guide to Life. Stoller is the editor of BUST magazine and the author of the Stitch 'N Bitch series of knitting and crotcheting books. I have been reading BUST magazine since it was a quarterly zine printed on newspaper. The magazine is a new wave feminist mix of politics, funny interviews, DIY fashion, and tongue-in-cheek humour.

Just like the magazine this DIY guide runs the with the same humorous language. It's an updated Girl Guide compendium for the modern times AND the modern gal! Covering everything from funky home decorating and sewing clothes, to making your own deodorant and doing up a 50's style bouffant, to living on a budget and cleaning your home with homemade environmentally friendly cleaners. It even includes a tutorial on how to ride a skateboard - which I can assure you was not included in the Girl Guide book I used to have.

Here are some of the things I am planning on trying out in the coming months:
- Making Tye-dyed tights (this project I will be doing with my two daughters)
- Create ear-muffs (with my headphones inside!)
- Have a fizzy bath bomb creating party
- And paper mache a pinata from scratch for one of my kid's birthday parties

- Bronwyn

First Words: Our Daily Bread by Lauren Davis

2011-09-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

"Near the top of North Mountain a tumbledown shed leaned against an old lightening-struck oak at the edge of a raggedy field. Inside Albert Erkskine bent over a sprouting box and gently, methodically, planted the marijuana seeds he'd soaked last night. He placed each one half an inch deep in the soil-filled paper cups, pushing the seed down with his index finger, the nail black-rimmed. The air, hazy with dust motes, smelled of warm moldy earth mixed with the fertilizer he used in the sprouting mix. The seeds had been perfect, virile and had given off a good solid crack when he'd tested them on a hot frying pan. Once the seeds were settled in their nest of humus, soil, and fertilizer, he'd water them and leave them in the locked shed under a grow-light fueled by a small generator. Later, in a couple of weeks, he'd plant the seedlings out in the field. In the meantime he'd prepare the field with hydrated lime and a little water soluble nitrogen fertilizer.

Growing a good cash crop of marijuana took smarts and Albert was well aware of how smart he was. He knew, too, the power of his physical presence. He would have been called handsome in another place, with the cleft of his chin, and the furious shine in his brown eyes. Even as a whip-thin, lock-jawed boy there had been something about Albert, some flash of sinewy grace."

What moral ambiguities result when we view our neighbors as “The Others,” as “those people”? This is the conflict between the Erskine Clan, long-shunned by the people of Gideon, who live in secrecy and isolation on North Mountain, and whose bootlegging enterprises are expanding into methamphetamine production and the God-fearing townspeople

of nearby Gideon. For generations the clan’s children have suffered unspeakable acts of rape, child abuse, incest, and psychological torture. The intolerant, self-righteous Gideonites decline to intervene, believing their neighbors to be beyond salvation. “That’s the mountain,” they say. “What do you expect from those people?” Yet in both groups nearly everyone has a secret and nothing is as it seems.

Twenty-one-year old Albert Erskine dreams of a better life and explains to a new teenage friend from the town, Bobby Evans, the meaning of the “man’s code” on the mountain: “You keep your secrets to yourself and you keep your weaknesses a secret and your hurts a secret and your dreams you bury double deep.” Bobby’s eight-year-old sister, Ivy, suffers incessant bullying by her classmates. Her father, Tom Evans, a well-liked local

bread delivery man, struggles to keep his troubled marriage together. As rumors and innuendo about the Evans family spread, Ivy seeks refuge in Dorothy Carlisle, an independent-minded widow who runs a local antique store. When Albert ventures down from the mountain and seizes on the Evans' family crisis as an opportunity to strengthen his friendship with Ivy's brother Bobby, it sets in motion a chain of events which can only result in unexpected and dire results.

Winterberries & Apple Blossoms

2011-09-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

Naomi is a young girl who has been raised in the Old Order Mennonite community. She lives a simple life with few modern conveniences or posessions. Naomi spends her time helping her parents on their farm, playing with her siblings or going to her one room school.

This lovely book is a glimpse into a year of Naomi's peaceful, simple life. Each month of the year features a wonderful poem perfectly complimented by Peter Etril Snyder's lovely illustrations.

In the winter, Naomi is included in a quilting bee for the first time, and she discovers treasures in the general store. March brings the promise of maple syrup in the sugar bush. Spring brings the hard work of clearing the fields and learning to ride a bike. Summer promises homemade ice cream and baseball games. Autumn brings with it apple picking and selling at a road-side stand.

At the back of the book, there is a recipe for each month featuring seasonal ingrediants. These are child-friendly and easy to make. I'm looking forward to make vanilla ice cream in a can with my kids.

This book is a lovely keepsake, and would make a great Christmas gift. Nan's poetry is evocative and charming and Peter is the perfect pick as the illustrator.

- Bronwyn

Linwood Barclay does it again...

2011-09-21T12:36:00.000-07:00

Admittedly I am not the biggest mystery fan in the store - I leave that department to David. However, a few years ago we hosted Linwood Barclay after his book, No Time for Goodbye, was released, and since then I've been hooked on anything he writes.
What I enjoy most about Linwood's style is his ability to take what looks like an ordinary accident (in this novel's case) and pokes holes into it, creating domestic suspense. His pacing is superb and you can't help but keeping turning the pages to find out what happens next. I also love how he takes common everyday dilema's along with the poltics of the times to build his stories.
In The Accident, it is the new normal of tough economic times in small town USA suberbia. Glen Garber, a local blue collar contracter, is watching his business falter and shake with the earthquake of the housing crisis. His wife Sheila is taking a night course to better her chances of getting a higher-paying job. The book opens when she is late coming home from her course. Glen is waiting for her, while their eight-year-old daughter is sleeping. Turns out Sheila parked her car on an off ramp and killed not only herself, but two other people. The police say she was drunk but Glen KNOWS that she would never do something like this. As their daughter is bullied by her classmates about her mother being a drunk driver, Glen discovers that his wife (and many of their neighbors) may have been involved in more creative measures to help make ends meet.
As the twists and turns build, Glen must question everyone he has known in his community to find the truth. The surprise ending left me shocked at who was really responsible for his wife's demise. (Just be aware of knock-off designer goods!) Linwood has written another nail-biting page-turner again!
- Bronwyn

How Dave Became A Reader...

2011-09-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

I’ve admired David Gilmour and his novels for many years and dropped whatever I was reading to rip into his latest offering, whatever it was. I believe him to be one of the finest writers Canada has. His characters however, are entirely atypical to the Canadian novel.
They are complex, not easily explained, possessed of powerfully conflicting motivations and emotions, and in some cases, deeply unpleasant.

They are also a great deal more interesting than the standard.

After about twenty five years of reading the modern novel, I think one is largely able to see where the writer is going a fair amount of the time. Far from being a bore or a failed parlour trick, this can work to mutual advantage when a favourite writer mines their own life and does so with absolute honesty.

Through six novels and his bestselling memoir The Film Club, published a few years back, David Gilmour has consistently hit the sweet spot for great modern fiction. He’s a literary guy to be sure, but everything moves like a gazelle, and because Gilmour has a light touch chronicling flawed human behaviour (always more interesting than correct human behaviour) there’s a lot to like here.

In his latest novel, The Perfect Order of Things, Gilmour has mined a storied life (his own) and has fashioned a tale of literary brinksmanship, a curious amalgam of sex and romance, suicide, the Beatles, Tolstoy and finally redemption (of a sort).

He single-handedly made me a reader years ago with How Boys See Girls and I’ve been hooked since. He’s my favourite novelist, full stop, and I can't wait to introduce him to you again on October 13th!

- David Worsley

We go way back with Helen Humphreys!

2011-09-15T07:31:00.000-07:00

Helen Humphreys and Words Worth Books go back a long way. Helen read from one of her earlier novels, The Lost Garden years ago in Waterloo and I remember it to this day. Those assembled at the old Waterloo Stage Theatre hung on every word and there was a sustained moment of absolute silence followed by celebratory applause. I have seen many authors read from great books, but never have I been witness to that kind of transformative power.

I've always said that one never goes wrong setting a novel in Paris, and it's the poets who have the tools necessary to make the novels special. Helen's new book is set mostly in Paris, and she's a wonderful poet, so it follows that The Reinvention of Love is spectacular.
Set in the mid 1800's, this is a story of a love affair between Adele, the mercurial wife of Victor Hugo, and Charles Saint-Beuve, a French journalist and minor man of letters. The two gentlemen are comrades and travel in much the same circles, so there is much to conceal, but as with all of Humphrey's fiction, it's the clarity and power of the writing that carries the day.

"Who sees love arriving? Who can gauge the movements one person makes towards another? Movements so slight, so tentative that they are almost invisible. It is impossible to watch love arriving, but it is abundantly clear when it has arrived. I remember that moment perfectly." Her language is unadorned, clear and powerful.

We believed that The Lost Garden was the finest Canadian novel published in 2002, and The Reinvention of Love is in the front rank of work published thus far in 2011. This is a beautiful book. Please don't miss it!

- David

My Favourite Caterpillar!

2011-09-01T12:28:00.000-07:00

Eric Carle's delightful book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a classic children's book for a good reason. Follow along the ravenous caterpillar's path as he eats his way through a variety of fruits, the days of the week, and literally the book. Finally on Friday the caterpillar starts to eat through junk food and has a tummyache. This book shows children how to count, the days of the week, and what food you should and should not eat. The pictures are delightful collages filled with vibrant colours and simple shapes. The story repeats the same lines over and over "And he was still hungry" which is important for a child's reading development. One of my favourites that I love to share! - Bronwyn

Join us (in store) on Friday, September 30th at 10:30am for a fun-filled hour of stories, crafts, and games all centred around our favourite caterpillar! Wild Rumpus Time is suitable for pre-schoolers to older children. See our website for more details: http://www.wordsworthbooks.com/.

A New Skippy jon Jones book? Si, dude!

2011-08-25T11:38:00.000-07:00

Am I the only poor soul who has only recently discovered Judy Schachner's Skippy jon Jones books?

At the risk of sounding a little snooty, I looked past this series until now because it was so popular. (I resisted the Harry Potter series for a while, too.) Lesson learned: don't judge a book by it's popularity, hombre.

Anyway, Skippy jon Jones is a siamese kitten with big ears who thinks he's a chihuahua. He puts on a bandito mask and becomes a swashbuckling hero known as El Skippito. In Skippy jon Jones: Class Action, Skippy gets on the bus and goes to dog school. This is much to his mother's dispproval because only rambunctious, drooly dogs need to go to school to be TRAINED. But Skippy, as his alter ego El Skippito, is needed to to fight the Woolly Bully.

The best thing about these books is that they just beg (no pun intended) to be read aloud. The illustrations are full of cute animals with adorably HUGE heads and the snappy text is peppered (pun intended) with spanish words like chico, burrito and tamale.

Join us (in store) on Friday, September 16th at 10:30am for a fun-filled hour of stories, crafts, and games all centred around our favourite cat-who-thinks-he's-a-chihuahua! Wild Rumpus Time is suitable for pre-schoolers to older children. See our website for more details: www.wordsworthbooks.com.

See you there, amigos!

Takes me back to Ghana

2011-08-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

I have enjoyed discovering the new Inspector Darko Dawson mystery series by Kwei Quartey. The novels are set in Ghana (where my husband is from) and the details of this West African country are perfect. In the first novel, Wife of the Gods, Darko Dawson must leave his wife and son to travel to the small town of Ketanu to investigate a murder.

A woman's body has been discovered just outside the small town. She was a promising med student that was involved in an HIV-Aids NGO. The local police are sure they have cracked the case when they charge a teenage boy with murder. They are less than thrilled when Darko is brought in to lead an inquiry. Darko speaks the local indigenous language so he is the right man for the job. However this area is an emotional landmine for him: his own mother disappeared here twenty-five years ago.

Dawson finds that his level-headedness, and deductive insight failing as he becomes more embroiled in both mysteries. And his modern sensibilities are clashing with the age-old customs of the town, primarily a disturbing tradition where families offer their teenage girls to fetish priests as troksi, or Wives of the Gods.

The second mystery, Children of the Street, takes place in Accra, the capitol of Ghana, where teenagers are turning up dead in the slums. Dawson has seen many crimes but none as chilling as this. All of the bodies feature a different signature – though what it represents, Dawson is not sure. He must search through the ghettos that pepper Accra, in hopes of finding the killer, or even street children who will be willing to talk to him to help solve the crimes.

These novels bring both the charm and poverty of Ghana to the forefront. All the details of Ghana are here and on point: the slang, the food, and the mannerisms, along with the gorgeous scenery. These would be a good pair for a weekend away. Enjoy!

- Bronwyn

Rules of Civility

2011-08-08T07:04:00.000-07:00

by Amor Towles is my favourite book this summer, and may end up being my favourite book to the end of this year! Towles has done an incredible job creating a smart and dynamic female character in Katey Kontent and the Manhattan of the late 1930's. The novel opens with Katey at a photography exhibit at MOMA with her husband in the mid-sixties. She discovers two portraits of her old friend, the dashing Mr. Tinker Grey. She sees something in the photographs that take her back to meeting Tinker on New Year's Eve in 1937.

Tinker is part of Manhattan's elite and he introduces Katey, and her best friend Eve to a world they can only dream of: money, art, limousines and doormen. They in turn introduce him to their own little nooks and crannies of the city: down and out jazz bars, the Russian show at an underground booze tank. Everything is going along swimmingly until a car accident happens, Eve is badly injured and Tinker takes her in. Over the next few years, the world that Tinker has created for himself will fall like a house of cards, forcing Katey to discover that many of her new and sophisticated friends are a self-made mirage. She continues to rise, surviving on her bracing wit and cool nerve.

Just like Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City is a love letter to San Fransico, Rules of Civility is the quintessential snapshot of a magical Manhattan in the thirties, a love letter to a forgotten time and different place. This novel is totally fulfilling: the characters are dynamic, the descriptions are lush, and the dialogue is witty and on point. After I was finished the last page, I did something I rarely do – turn back to the first and start reading again. Do yourself a favour and READ THIS!

- Bronwyn

Forgotten is Unforgettable!

2011-08-03T07:19:00.000-07:00

I devoured this book in two days, because I was so eager to know what would happen next to London, and what her "flash-forwards" would foretell.

Imagine for moment that your short term memory is gone. You don't remember what happened yesterday, or the day before that. You must rely on notes that you write meticulously at the end of each day to know what happened in the last few months of your life. You know who your mother is, and your best friend, and which high school you go to. But you can't remember why the head cheerleader always glares at you. Or why the new boy seems to recognize you.

Welcome to London's life. She reads her notes every morning to make sure she doesn't wear the same outfit two days in a row. And to understand what is going on her life so she can appear "normal" to everyone else around her. London has no short-term memory and portions of her long term memory are gone as well. She does, however, have "flash-forwards" of what the future may hold. London is able to survive with the help of her notes, her mom and her best friend. But when Luke Henry, the new boy at school, things get complicated.

This is Cat Patrick's debut novel for teens, that was inspired by her experience of sleep deprivation and not being able to remember things properly for a day. I am looking forward to seeing what other amazing plot ideas she write in the future

-Bronwyn

TO WIN A SIGNED COPY OF THIS BOOK ~ EMAIL BRONWYN
BY AUGUST 22 WITH FORGOTTEN IN THE SUBJECT LINE!!!

When Bury Your Dead isn't enough...

2011-07-28T19:08:00.000-07:00

At the moment, I'm quite enjoying John Farrow's doorstop of a novel, River City. Citywide mayhem during the infamous Rocket Richard riots results in the murder of a slimy fellow named Roger Clement. The utterly compelling police officer investigating the case is Emile Cinq-Mars, also seen in the two previous books in the Farrow series.

He is soon on the trail of seemingly every shady character in Montreal, but more importantly up against all manner of corruption in a wonderfully drawn Montreal. As it turns out, the murder weapon is a knife that was at one point owned by Jacques Cartier, famed explorer of centuries past.

The story alternates between the earliest French settlers' arrival in the new world and a newly emerging Montreal of the mid fifties, in which a young Pierre Trudeau figures prominently! Some have noted that Farrow (nom de plume of the literary novelist Trevor Ferguson) may have tried to do too much with this novel, and at over 800 pages, there's a heck of a lot of Quebec history here, but it reads so well that I think Farrow still remembers that this is a thriller.

The more modern timeline is damn near perfect in tone and execution, however, and this is a natural next book for anyone currently enamored with Louise Penny's One Book, One Community pick, Bury Your Dead.

- David

Teen Picks for August

2011-07-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

Shooting Kabul by N. H. Senzai

This is a great choice for a younger teen or as a read-aloud for the whole family. Fadi is a 12-year old boy who is fleeing Afghanistan during the height of the Taliban's regime. His father, Habib, was a professor in the United States that brought his family back to their homeland in the hopes that they could make a difference and help rebuild the country after the Soviets left.

As Fadi, his parents and his two sisters board an illegal caravan to Pakistan, the Taliban begins to pursue them. In the chaos Fadi lets go of Mariam, his 6-year old sisters hand. Only to discover moments later that she was left behind. The family has no choice but to continue onto San Francisco, as their asylum status for the United States will soon run out. The family leaves word with all of the NGO's in the area to look out for Mariam before they head on. Of course this is an agonizing decision that depresses Fadi and the rest of his family. Not to mention the guilt that each of them feel and the self blame.

Fadi must start to pick up the pieces and begin a new life in the US. He starts a new school and slowly begins making friends, however he can not stop thinking about Mariam. He finds out that the schools' photography club is part of a photo contest and the winner can take a trip to India. Fadi is certain that this will be his ticket to find his sister and reunite his family.

But can one photo really bring Mariam home?

This is an exciting page-turner and a good way to discuss issues in Afghanistan and the immigrant experience with teens and older children. I am looking forward to reading this out loud to my kids when we go to the cottage in a few weeks.

Signs of Martha by Sarah Raymond

This is a really funny book. Martha is 16 and stuck in small-town Ontario. She feels pigeon-holed: a round peg in a square hole of her family and town's expectations on her. Martha is spending the summer picking cucumbers on her friends farm, trying to decide if she truly likes her boyfriend John, and avoiding her father's hair-brained business schemes. That is until Velvet, the newly arrived local artist and sign painter arrives on the scene.

Velvet's ideas and "worldly" experience begin to inspire and motivate Martha to follow her dreams - however much pressure she is feeling from everyone else around her. Unfortunately Martha's chosen medium, may just upset the people she cares about the most. My favourite line in the novel is: "Dreams are like cucumber blossoms: highly delicate and embarrassingly loud in colour". I laughed along with Martha's predicaments and her determination. This is a good summer pick.

Kids Picks for August...

2011-07-26T11:31:00.000-07:00

Baby Book:
I love Karen Katz's series of baby board books. They are perfect for development: bright vivid colours, and simple rhyming text. My new favourite is Ten Tiny Babies. One tiny baby starts to run. Along comes another... to have some fun! Follow along with the babies as they eat, jump, bang and shout. And more and more of them join in the merriment. Finally all ten babies fall asleep in their beds. A perfect pick for a brand-new baby basked or to share with your favourite toddler.

Picture Book:

I am so excited about this book by Frank Viva. Along a Long Road follows a bicycler through a riding adventure. Track his travels along a bold yellow road that lead him through the forest, around a town, by the sea and back again. Ride up and around, along and through, out and down. The simple graphic illustrations remind me vaguely of Charley Harper's sparse style, and of that time period. Even though the text is quite simple - I think you could have a lot of fun reading this story aloud as there are subtle objects and detail that you can discuss with your child.

AND WE HAVE ONE SIGNED COPY OF ALONG A LONG ROAD TO GIVE AWAY!!!

EMAIL BRONWYN TO ENTER.

BE SURE TO PUT "ALONG A LONG ROAD CONTEST" INTO THE SUBJECT HEADING. CONTEST CLOSES ON AUGUST 11TH AT 3PM.

Mennonite Girls SURE can Cook!

2011-07-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

There has been so much buzz around the bookstore since this cookbook came out. I have hardly had a chance to peek at the book, it's been selling so quickly!

However, I finally have taken a copy for myself and I am really impressed. My maternal grandfather was a Russian Mennonite and looking through the beautiful pictures and lovely reflections on Mennonite spirituality, I keep thinking about him.

And the recipes! Oh boy, these recipes, I can practically smell German apple pancakes, borscht, spaetzle, cinamon buns and so much more. I am excited to try out several of these recipes and bring in my favourites on August 13th when Lovella Schellenberg and Anneliese Friesen are in the store. Lovella is the creator of both the blog and the cookbook. Anneliese is one of the contributors. Come and get your copy signed, taste some of the delicious recipes and learn more about this wonderful project. - Bronwyn

First Words = Bury Your Dead

2011-07-21T01:00:00.000-07:00

by Louise Penny is this year's One Book One Community Pick.

I have read the first paragraph of more books than I have read books in their entirety! There is something that makes or breaks a first impression with a potential new read that is cushioned within the first line, paragraph or even page. The way a book begins sets up everything that comes after. Often, when I have finished a book, I will go back and read the first page again, with hindsight, and it is a great experience!

Up the stairs they raced, taking them two at a time, trying to be as quiet as possible. Gamache struggled to keep his breathing steady, as though he was sitting at home, as though he had not a care in the world.
'Sir?' came the young voice over Gamache's headphones.
'You must believe me, son. Nothing bad will happen to you."
He hoped the young agent couldn't hear the strain in his voice, the flattening as the Chief Inspector fought to keep his voice authoritative, certain.
'I believe you.'
They reache the landing. Inspector Beauvoir stopped, staring at his Chief. Gamache looked at his watch.
47 seconds.
Still time.
In his headphones the agent was telling him about the sunshine and how good it felt on his face.
The rest of the team made the landing, tactical vests in place, automatic weapons drawn, eyes sharp. Trained on the chief.

As Quebec city shivers in the grip of winter, its ancient stone walls cracking in the cold, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache plunges inot the strangest case of his celebrated career. A man has been brutally murdered in one of the city's oldest buildings - a library wher the English citizens of Quebec safeguard their history. And the death opens a door into the past, exposing a mystery that has lain dormant for centuries... a mystery that Gamache must solve if he's to catch a present day killer.

Tomorrow Night!

2011-07-18T11:13:00.000-07:00

Ian Hamilton - in store, 7pm tomorrow!
We are as excited about the new book as Margaret Cannon at the Globe & Mail is!

The Disciple Of Las Vegas

By Ian Hamilton, Anansi, 357 pages

I loved The Water Rat of Wanchai, the first novel featuring Ava Lee. Now, Ava and Uncle make a return that’s even better. Tommy Ordonez is the richest man in the Philippines. He’s lost $50-million in a land swindle and he wants Ava to get it back. There’s not just money at stake, but face and reputation as well.

Ava follows the cash from Canada to Costa Rica and, incidentally, gives us a very fine insider look at the hot world of online gambling. Off to Las Vegas, where David (The Disciple) Douglas, the world’s best poker player, is hosting a game for top spenders. But the bets turn out to be for more than money and Ava and Uncle confront an old adversary. This one is simply irresistible.

The Toronto Star loves him too!

2011-07-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

Ian got rave reviews in the Toronto Star when the first Ava Lee book, The Water Rat of Wanchai, came out. Come here about The Disciple of Las Vegas on July 19th. More info HERE

Less than a week away...

2011-07-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

Ian Hamilton Q&A with House of Anansi
Instore - 7pm - July 19

Tell me about Ian Hamilton, the author. What’s your story?

There were a couple of significant events that spurred me to write. First, I had a health crisis about 18 months ago. I had an aneurism that put me in hospital and it was a bit of a jolt. Second, I was weary of the stress of the business world.

So, I was at home recovering from a health scare and at a professional crossroads. I had some time to reflect. For my whole life, I’d wanted to write for a living. As a young man, I was a journalist, and also wrote a nonfiction book in 1968. Then I moved into government, and then into business.

I was in the business [world] from the 1980s until recently, but I never lost the itch to write. I travelled around the world on business, and spent countless hours in planes and hotels, with characters and plots bouncing around in my head.

Two days out of hospital, I started to write. Ava Lee began to take form, and Uncle and her mother and the rest of her friends began to emerge. So I kept writing. About halfway through the book, an idea for a second book came to me, and I built it into the plot of the first.

When the first book was finished, I started the very next day on the second. Again, about halfway through that, I had an idea for the third. Halfway through the third, I had an idea for the fourth. I wrote four books in eight months.

How did you write the books so quickly?

I honestly don’t know. I started writing and the books just came out. I felt connected to the characters and to the story and the writing was a natural process.

How did you conceive of writing about a Chinese-Canadian female gay forensic accountant?

I’m a novelist and I simply go where my imagination dictates, and I’m not artificially pigeon-holed by my gender, culture, and age.

I travelled and worked in China and other parts of Asia for more than 20 years. During those years, I read about and talked to scores of people about the cultures I was visiting.

One of the dynamics I saw that interested me was the emergence of a cadre of young, well-educated, talented women who pursued professional careers without sacrificing the traditions of their culture, including such things as respect for their elders, and the overwhelming importance of the family structure. These are all elements Ava Lee possesses.

What can readers look forward to in Book Two?

The next book is called The Disciple of Las Vegas and involves an Internet gambling scam that Ava is asked to solve. Her pursuit of the money takes her to Vancouver, Manila, and San Francisco.

First Words - The Story of Beautiful Girl

2011-07-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

I have read the first paragraph of more books than I have read books in their entirety! There is something that makes or breaks a first impression with a potential new read that is cushioned within the first line, paragraph or even page. The way a book begins sets up everything that comes after. Often, when I have finished a book, I will go back and read the first page again, with hindsight, and it is a great experience!
At the end of the night that would change everything, the widow stood on her porch and watched as the young woman was marched down her front drive and shoved into the sedan. The girl did not fight back, bound and tied as she was, nor did she cry out into the chill autumn rain, so surely the doctor and his attendants thought they had won. They did not know, as the car doors slammed shut, the engine came on, and the driver steered them down the muddy hill toward the road, that the window and the girl in the backseat had just defied them right under their noses. The widow waited until the taillights reached the bottom of the drive, then turned and entered her house. And as she stood at the foot of the staircase, hoping they'd show mercy to the young woman and worrying about the wherabouts of the runaway man, the widow heard the sound the doctor hadn't been seeking. It was the sound that would always connect her to the girl and forever make her remember the man. It was the sweet, deep breaths of a hidden person. A sleeping stranger. A baby.

The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon
It is 1968. Lynnie and Homan are locked away, forgotten, in an mental institution. Deeply in love, they escape, and find refuge in the farmhouse of Martha, a retired teacher and widow. But the couple is not alone - Lynnie has just given birth to a baby girl. When the authorities catch up to them, Homan escapes, and Lynnie is caught. Before she is forced back into the institution, she whispers to Martha: "Hide her." And so begins the 40-year journey of Lynnie, Homan, Martha, and baby Julia - lives divided by seemingly insurmountable obstacles, yet drawn together by a secret pact and extraordinary love.

I can't wait to take this one up to the cottage in a few weeks! - Bronwyn

Countdown to

2011-07-12T06:15:00.000-07:00

Ian Hamilton's instore event on July 19th - 7pm - Seriously DON'T MISS IT!

Kitten's Summer

2011-07-10T10:40:00.000-07:00

I love Eugenie Fernandes books. Her illustrations are always wonderful wtih vibrant colours and unique materials that create a 3D effects. Kitten's Summer continue's the simple stories of a kitten in different seasons.

"Rain falls, Kitten dashes. Rabbit races, Turtle splashes."

The simple text follows Kitten finding the way back home. The other animals in the forest squirry about to find shelter in the summer storm. I love the squirrel nest, made of crumpled paper, and the baby loon riding on its Mother's back. Children will delight in finding kitten hiding on every page. This sweet simple story is sure to delight youngsters all summer long.

Mission (un)Popular

2011-06-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

by Anna Humphrey

This is a great summer read for teenage girls.

Just days before School Year’s Eve, twelve-year-old Margot Button finds out that her best friend, Erika-with-a-K, will not be attending the same junior high school. This being the major tragedy among smaller, lesser tragedies, (no back to school shopping trip and an impromptu, disastrous DIY haircut and eyebrow tweezing) Margot’s new school year seems as if it’s shaping up to be a nightmare. But then Margot befriends Em, a new student from New York who is outspoken, daring and maybe a little bit dangerous. Soon Margot and Em are scheming against mean-girl Sarah J., ignoring Erika-with-a-K and dreaming up ways to hook Margot’s crush, Gorgeous George.

Perfect, right? Except that Em has an on-again-off-again relationship with the truth and her schemes tend to go too far…

There seems to be a lack of quality coming-of-age fiction for the middle school crowd and Mission (Un)Popular helps fill this gap. This book is one of the best portrayals of what it’s like to survive middle school that I’ve read in a very long time. Margot’s School Year Resolution is to “be more normal” and this nicely sums up the inner turmoil that many (all?) teenage girls face at one point or another.

-Erica

Oh Canada!

2011-06-29T16:30:00.000-07:00

With our country's birthday just around the corner, this is the best time of the year to read up on our history. H.V. Nelles delivers with the short and delightful A Little History of Canada. First, the vintage looking cover pulls me in. (Yes I do judge a book by it's cover!). Then the range of information written in such an informative and interesting way proves that this was a good choice. Beginning at the earliest human occupation of North America, 14'000 years ago, this captivating read takes a journey through Canada's history to the present day. Our country has certainly go through many fundemental changes, from Aboriginal occupation through French and British colonization to the rise of our distinct society. Nelles argues that Canada's theme is transformation. I think I would have payed more attention during high school history class, if I had had this little book. A quick read, and the perfect choice for the long weekend!

Enjoy - Bronwyn

The next Steig Larsson!

2011-06-28T08:08:00.000-07:00

With every publisher looking for the next Steig Larsson, I'd suggest that Toronto's Ian Hamilton fits the bill rather well. In fact, his protagonist, the resourceful and sharp forensic accountant Ava Lee is a better, more believable creation than Larsson's Lisbeth Salander.
Several of us at Words Worth were big fans of Ian's first book, Water Rat of Wanchai, and we're delighted that Ian Hamilton will be dropping by the store to read from his newly released second book, The Disciple of Las Vegas.

The second book pits Ava and her mercurial partner "Uncle" against a prideful client who is out $50 million over a complicated swindle with roots in the world of high stakes poker. The second book boasts similarly exotic locales, a quick pace and plenty of mayhem. Hamilton is a natural storyteller, his prose is lean and unadorned, and Ava is a fantastic character, charismatic, cool and capable.

The Disciple of Las Vegas is the second book in a projected series of four books for sure, perhaps more are coming. What is sure, is that Ian Hamilton is the real thing as a crime writer and we're very excited to welcome him to Waterloo on July 19th at the store.

Some of my new favourites for kids...

2011-06-27T09:06:00.000-07:00

Catch That Baby by Nancy Coffelt and illustrated by Scott Nash

This little book is a riot! I love the comic-book-like pictures and the simple text. Anyone who has spent time with a toddler can related to this story. It's time to get dressed but Rudy is gone in a flash. A chase around the house ensues, with mom and the rest of the family in hot pursuit after "Nuddy Rudy!" Finally no one can find Rudy, will he ever get dressed properly? Seriously giggle-worthy!

The Rainbow Book by Kate Ohrt

What a delightful discovery this book is. The front cover looks like bright flower petals on a black background, however looks are deceiving. Each page reveals a different colour and a beautiful, intricate paper cutout that creates the beautiful petals and designs as you read the book. This is a wonderful tool to talk about different emotions with children. How does yellow feel? Is blue peaceful? The book culminates with a bright, fold-out rainbow that lets all its colours show. I felt so joyful discovering each page and the beautiful designs it contained. - Bronwyn

On a day like today

2011-06-15T11:30:00.000-07:00

this book comes in handy!

The Gin & Tonic Gardener is a charming little book. Part memoir, part spiritual tract, part gardening how to, self described “determined compulsive gardening masochist” Janice Wells’ book is a contemplative delight from start to finish.

This year marks my first attempt at having a garden of my own, and many of Wells’ stories struck a chord with me. Her insistence on dreaming big and then just doing what you can is so reasonable and forgiving. The book is written like a journal, with anecdotes about life side by side with practical gardening tips. Plants take on personalities in Wells’ world “I don’t relate to dahlias at all… if dahlias were people we would never be close friends. It’s the way their petals are so orderly and symmetrical that puts me off.”

I’m going to try to incorporate some of this philosophy into my own gardening… the books ends with a short index of easy to grow plants, to make things even easier. A lovely little book for the fussy gardener in your life that needs to “take time to stop and smell the roses” as it were.

- Carolyn

My Pick for Father's Day

2011-06-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

Mitchell's License by Hallie Durand and illustrated by Tony Fucile is such a fun book I guarantee you will be laughing out loud! Mitchell hates going to bed. That is until, he gets his first driving license when he is 3 years, 9 months, and 5 days old. This is a very special license - a remote control Dad driver's license!

Every night Mitchell loves to drive his car. First he checks the tires, and inspects the engine, and sometimes Mitchell has to clean the windshield. Now he is ready to go. Oh careful Mitchell, don't honk the horn to hard! And make sure to not bang your car into the wall.

Fully giggle worthy and inspiring for rough-housing with Dad!

- Bronwyn

I'll Never Get Out of this World Alive

2011-05-31T10:42:00.001-07:00

by Steve Earle

I was pleasantly surprised by Steve Earle’s “I’ll Never Get out of this World Alive”. I think we’ve all been burned by reading the literary efforts of a favourite actor or musician, so our expectations are often fairly low. I’m not really familiar with Steve Earle’s music- I’m more aware of him as an actor and fellow Townes Van Zandt fan. I was drawn to Earle’s book initially by its cover design- it’s beautiful, cluttered, busy collage rife with religious iconography.

Inside the book, he combines the best parts of Tom Robbins and W.S. Burrroughs, with plenty of his own genius thrown into the mix. Writing about addiction and the seamier side of life is often tedious and rings false, but Earle’s been there, and come out the other side. Earle also has the benefit of years of practice telling stories through his music.

The protagonist Doc is a washed up physician turned addict. Doc is joined by a great cast of characters- the cranky ghost of Hank Williams, who seems doomed to follow him; a bear sized drug dealer with a heart of gold, who seems to think it’s his duty to protect him; a young Mexican woman with miraculous healing powers and an Irish priest with a serious chip on his shoulder. What amazed me about the book was how soon it abandoned its focus on junkies, and became a tale about religious hypocrisy, reproductive rights, hope and redemption

At its center “I’ll Never Get out of this World Alive” is a book about the presence of beauty and compassion in any walk of life. Highly recommended reading for anyone looking for an uplifting read with an edge. - Caroline

Divergent

2011-05-28T07:25:00.000-07:00

by Veronica Roth, will get it's hooks into you and not let go until the very end. Don't be scared off by the 487 pages, you will probably read this in a few days like I just did. Admittedly, I have not read very many of the dystopian novels that have been coming out for teens in the last few years, so I don't have much to compare Divergent too.

However I was completely captivated by Beatrice's story in a future war-torn Chicago. Society is now divided into five factions, each dedicated to fully being a particular virtue. Candor is honesty, Abnegation is selflessness (Beatrice and her family belong to this faction), Dauntless is bravery, Amity is peacefulness and Erudite is intelligence. Each faction is responsible for particular jobs in society, for example Abnegation runs the government as society because they won't be corrupt if they are selfless. Factions are recognized by their particular clothing and hairstyle, so Dauntless is known for their multiple piercings and tattoos.

The novel opens the day before Beatrice is tested to determine which faction she is best suited for. Her test shows that she does not belong to one faction, she can belong to several. This is called a "divergent" and Beatrice is warned by her tester not to share this information with anyone. Now she is even more confused by what she should do and who she is. If the faction that you choose is different than your family, you will never associate with them again. At the choosing ceremony, Beatrice surprises everyone including herself with her choice.

Beatrice renames herself Tris, during the highly competitive and brutal initiation that follows. She struggles to learn who are her friends and if anyone around her is also a divergent. She must hide her divergent identity so as not to be found out and killed. One of her trainers seems to assist her at times, and other times work against her. As the initiation continues, there are growing conflicts between the factions in the outside world, that may unravel the supposed perfect society. All of these pressures confuse and frustrate Tris as she must learn to survive her faction and become an adult.

I don't want to share anymore of the plot in case I give too much away. I will, however, share my favourite line in the book: "...I never thought I would need bravery for the small moments of my life. I do." This book had me gasping out loud with its surprising twists and turns. Divergent is the first book in the series and I wish I could read the next one right now! This as a great summer read for older teens and adults. Check out the book trailer below. - Bronwyn

Gillian Sze ~ Anatomy of Clay

2011-05-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

Gillian will be appearing at our Small Press Event on May 30th at the Starlight. For more information about the event, please click HERE

The Anatomy of Clay

Taking off from the myth of human creation, this poetic collection explores the individual as a sentient mystery. The first section examines overlooked moments with urban characters—the woman on the bus, a neighbor talking to plants, or the girl smoking after a storm. The second section takes a confessional turn towards the author’s inner life. At times reflective, instructional, playful, or strange, exception is found in the ineffable distinctions between people, selves, objects, and histories.

Gillian Sze is the author of Fish Bones and the cofounder and coeditor of Branch magazine. She lives in Montreal, Quebec.

Gerry Fostaty ~ As You Were: The Tragedy at Valcartier

2011-05-25T17:42:00.000-07:00

Gerry will be appearing at our Small Press Event on May 30th at the Starlight. For more information about the event, please click HERE

SUMMER, 1974 — Six teenaged boys died and fifty-four were injured in an explosion on a Canadian Forces Base in Valcartier, Quebec. A live grenade inadvertently made its way into a box of dud ammunition, and its pin was pulled during a lecture on explosives safety. One hundred and forty boys survived, each isolated in their trauma, yet expected to carry on with their lives. Thirty-four years later, Gerry Fostaty, who was an 18-year-old sergeant that summer and one of the first on the scene after the explosion, received an unexpected e-mail from his former sergeant-major, triggering a journey into memory, a quest for a true picture of what had happened on that day. In As You Were, Fostaty pieces together the story of how a series of preventable mistakes led to tragedy. The only full account of an event that received minor attention at the time, As You Were is the story of a normal day turned horrific, how duty, responsibility, and honour make ordinary people take extraordinary measures, and how an embarrassed military did their best to ignore this devastating incident.

Gerry Fostaty spent six years as an army cadet, climbing the ranks until he became an instructor. Leaving the cadets at 19, he became an actor, working on stage and in film and television for more than 20 years. He now works as a marketing manager at an information technology company. He lives in Aurora, Ontario.

Helen Guri ~ Match

2011-05-25T17:38:00.000-07:00

Helen will be appearing at our Small Press Event on May 30th at the Starlight. For more information about the event, please click HERE

Match
Robert Brand has given up on real women. Relationships just haven't ever worked out well for him. He has, however, found a (somewhat problematic) solution, a new feminine ideal: the 110-pound sex doll he ordered over the internet. Showing an uncanny access to the voice of the rejected, unimpressive, emotionally challenged modern male, Helen Guri''s debut collection explores Robert's transition from lost and lonely to loved, if only by the increasingly acrobatic voices in his mind.

Helen Guri graduated from the University of Toronto’s Creative Writing program, and has taught writing at Humber College. Her work has appeared in many Canadian journals, including Arc, Descant, Event, Fiddlehead and Grain. Match is her first collection. She lives in Toronto.

Sean Dixon ~ The Many Revenges of Kip Flynn

2011-05-25T17:29:00.000-07:00

Sean will be appearing at our Small Press Event on May 30th at the Starlight. For more information about the event, please click HERE

In the second novel from Sean Dixon, a rising-stakes vendetta develops between a young rose seller and a building developer, spiralling outward to envelop family, lovers, friends, landlords, wormpickers, window cleaners, Vietnamese gangsters, stand-up bass players and tour-bus guides, involving subway accidents, arson, drainpipes, buried rivers, backhoe wars, stretch limos, ultrasound technicians, poorly fitted windows and an aubergine Saab.

Sean Dixon is a novelist, playwright and banjo player. His first novel, The Girls Who Saw Everything, is about a young women’s book club in Montreal that opts to read the first book ever written, on its original stone tablets. It’s been published all over the English-speaking world and translated into Romanian. He is the author of two books for young readers, The Feathered Cloak and The Winter Drey, and many plays. Currently he is writing a new play involving Ovid and the banjo.

Tony Burgess ~ Idaho Winter

2011-05-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

Tony will be appearing at our Small Press Event on May 30th at the Starlight. For more information about the event, please click HERE

In Idaho Winter, the young title character is tormented by all who know him. When Idaho discovers that his miserable life is the creation of a cruel writer, he locks the author in a closet and takes control of the narrative. When the author emerges from the closet, he finds his story completely unrecognizable and sets out with a number of secondary characters to repair the novel.

Tony Burgess has published poetry, screenplays, criticism, and fiction. In 2009, his novel Pontypool Changes Everything was made into the award-winning movie Pontypool directed by Bruce McDonald. He is also the author of People Live Still in Cashtown Corners, The Hellmouths of Bewdley, and Caesarea, among others. Burgess lives in Stayner, Ontario.

The Oracle of Stamboul

2011-05-25T11:23:00.000-07:00

This is the story of a magical child who lives during a fascinating time in Istanboul's history, near the end of the Ottoman Empire. A mysterious pair of midwives arrive at the Cohen home. They say that the signs of a prophecy their last king gave on his deathbed has come true: a sea of horses, a conference of birds, the North Star in alignment with the moon. They attend to Eleonora's birth and shortly after the birth, the new mother dies.

Eleonora is raised by her father and her strict, bitter stepmother. Her childhood is relatively uneventful and happy for the most part. Eleonora is followed by a flock of hoopoes, the same birds that settled over the roof of her house when she was born. When Yakob, her father, teaches Eleonora to read, the girl's intelligence is revealed. She takes to reading as though she has always known how, to the delight of her father and the chagrin of her stepmother.

When Yakob announces that he must leave for Stamboul for a month on business, Eleonora is fearful of being left behind with her stepmother and decides to be a stow-away on the ship. She reveals herself to her father on the last night of his journey. They stay in Stamboul with Moncef Bey, her father's business partner. One of his servants, who attends to Eleonora, happens to be one of the midwives that delivered her. Eleonora is enchanted in the new world of mystical Stamboul.

I was fascinated with Eleonora's character and wisdom. She touches your heart and makes it hard to put this gentle, shimmering novel down. This is a good one to pick up if you want to get lost in another world, one that won't overwhelm you. - Bronwyn

Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away

2011-05-19T12:39:00.000-07:00

Looking for a good novel to curl up with during these gray rainy days? Or, perhaps you're like me, and you hoard books for Summer reading purposes all Spring? Either way Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away, is a great pick! Our Random House sales rep, Tim, recommended this book. He compared it to Cutting for Stone and Little Bee, both of which are favourites of mine. However, I think the only comparison of Blessing's story to the two other novels begins and ends at the setting, which is in Africa (Nigeria to be specific). Blessing is 12, that in-between time of girlhood and becoming a young woman. When the book opens, she is living with her older brother, Ezikiel, and her parents in a luxury apartment in Lagos. When her mother catches her father with another woman, Blessing and Ezikiel moves back to her mother's family in a small village in the Niger Delta.

Warri is a frightening place for Blessing at first. There is a cast of eccentric characters in both her maternal family and the village. The comforts that Blessing has been raised with are no longer, her mother is working day and night to support them, there is no running water or electricity. Ezikiel's asthma acts up and her kindly eccentric grandfather recommends Marmite as the solution to this and every other health problem.

It is Blessing's grandmother that begins to show her the magic of the village and rural life. Grandma is a traditional midwife and healer, who begins to apprentice Blessing. As Grandma shares her wisdom, by guiding her through a birth, or by telling traditional fables, Blessing begins to grow up and mature. She also becomes more aware of the threats to Warri's village life from the British and American oil companies, as well as threats and changes to the villages traditions.

I don't want to give much more away, however, I found this a captivating book, that is witty, wise and beautifully written. Blessing's journey into becoming a woman in a difficult life stayed with me long after I read the last page. This is a novel that will make you think deeply about life. This would also be a good choice for teenage girls.

- Bronwyn

A little something

2011-05-16T08:12:00.000-07:00

to whet your appetite for our event on Thursday night with Vincent Lam and Charles Foran.

Vincent Lam's book profiles Tommy Douglas, the founder of the NDP party.

Charles Foran writes about Maurice Richard, the great Montreal Canadian

Countdown

2011-05-10T11:49:00.001-07:00

to Robert Rotenberg and Emma Ruby Sachs on May 17th.

Thanks to all that come out to hear Elizabeth Hay and Antanas Sileika - it was an amazing night!

THIS just came across my desk:

20 Writerly Questions for…Emma Ruby-Sachs

The Water Man's Daughter

EMMA RUBY-SACHS's journalism has been published in The Nation and The Huffington Post. A graduate of Wesleyan University and the University of Toronto law school, Ruby-Sachs lived in South Africa for periods in 2003 and 2004 while studying. She has worked as a civil litigator in Windsor and Toronto and currently works with Avaaz, a progressive online organization. Emma lives in Brooklyn. Her new novel is The Waterman’s Daughter.

1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence? The story of three very different women who are thrown together when a water executive is found murdered in a South African township.

2. How long did it take you to write this book? 6 years, but going to law school kind of slowed down the process.

3. Where is your favorite place to write? Any local coffee shop.

4. How do you choose your characters’ names? They all have meanings that relate to their character – for example, Nomsulwa means purity.

5. How many drafts do you go through? Too many to count!

6. If there was one book you wish you had written what would it be? The Unbearable Lightness of Being – smart and sexy!

7. If your book were to become a movie, who would you like to see star in it? Sarah Polley

8. What’s your favourite city in the world? Toronto, my home town.

9. If you could talk to any writer living or dead who would it be, and what would you ask? Emma Goldman, how do you risk your life to break a man out of jail after he has broken your heart?

10. Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what kind?? That changes with my mood, everything from Eminem to choirboys

11. Who is the first person who gets to you read your manuscript? My girlfriend.

12. Do you have a guilty pleasure read? Mystery novels, really junky ones where someone is trying to kill the U.S. President with a new bioweapon…

13. What’s on your nightstand right now? Elizabeth Hay’s new novel.

14. What is the first book you remember reading? Lizzy’s Lion by Dennis Lee – best line: “Candy piffle, candy poo!” That always made me crack up.

15. Did you always want to be a writer? Yes – except when I wanted to be professional baseball player…. So maybe no.

16. What do you drink or eat while you write? Coffee, matte, candy, many things that aren’t good for my health. You wouldn’t catch me dead eating carrot sticks and working.

17. Typewriter, laptop, or pen & paper? Laptop - my handwriting is illegible.

18. What did you do immediately after hearing that you were being published for the very first time? I went for a bike ride at my cottage and tired myself out enough to stop shaking from excitement.

19. How do you decide which narrative point of view to write from? I write from many and then figure out which one works best. It’s a totally inefficient process.

20. What is the best gift someone could give a writer? A great book, of course (But I accept cookies and chocolate with a gracious smile…)

It will be a Zany Sunday

2011-05-09T07:33:00.001-07:00

on May 15th with kids authors Jeff Szpirglas and Danielle Saint-Onge!

Jeff Szpirglas lead an awesome session for kids at last year's Turning Pages Festival. We are super excited to be bringing him back to Waterloo, this time with his wife, Danielle Saint-Onge. The couple have written a book together that they will be sharing with us on May 15th, in the store at 2pm.

SOMETHING'S FISHY

Jamie loves sharks. He reads about them. He talks about them. Sometimes he even pretends to be a shark. Too bad no one else wants to join his Shark Club. His peers and parents are quickly growing tired of his current obsession.

When Jamie's teacher, Mr. Claxton, brings in a new class pet, Jamie is put in charge. But Jamie has an accident while feeding it, and everyone becomes upset with him. He needs to find a way to make things right. In the end, he comes up with a solution that pleases both his teacher and classmates, a solution that also gives Jamie an opportunity to share his newest obsession—lizards.

YOU JUST CAN'T HELP IT!

How many times have you been frightened and felt the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? Or been unable to hold back a laugh? Or flinched when an object whizzed by, too close for comfort? The thing is, you just can't help yourself - you're only human! This unique book provides a cultural, historical, and socio-biological perspective on human behavior. Szpirglas's goofy, kid-friendly sensibility paired with the book's look, energy, and scope is guaranteed to engage and captivate young readers. Children read about body language, birth order, staring contests, fits of laughter, crowd behavior, sniffing dirty diapers, yawning, dreaming, and the art of lying - only to realize that science is at work behind each action! You Just Can't Help It! is an enthralling and slightly zany exploration of the basic human biology that determines our reactions, social interactions, and the ways we communicate with one another.

This event is part of our Family Sunday program, a fun filled hour of story time, crafts and games for kids and their parents (or Grandparents). Each afternoon is centered around a theme or specific author.This event series is suitable for pre-school to older children.

We Promise...

2011-05-02T07:01:00.000-07:00

That this will be an astounding evening! Elizabeth Hay is back in Waterloo next week to promote her latest novel, Alone in the Classroom. Joining her is Antanas Sileika, author of Underground. David has read both novels and loved them.

Elizabeth Hay ~ Alone in the Classroom

For a crime guy like me, just about the only thing that could make an Elizabeth Hay novel better would be a murder at the centre of it. In Alone in the Classroom, Hay has gamely provided one.
The novel hinges on the relationship between Connie, a prairie school teacher, the oddly fascinating and malevolent principal Parley Burns and a student struggling with what we'd now call dyslexia, Michael Graves. Without giving too much away, a single act of violence has reprocussions through generations and provinces, as the story shifts between the Ottawa Valley and Saskatchewan. Elizabeth Hay is at the top of her game with Alone in the Classroom.
This is deftly plotted stuff, the principal characters are fully fleshed out and illustrate how we become the adults we become, and how events seldom stay frozen in their time. Elizabeth Hay has abundant gifts and she's simply one of the best writers of prose at work in the country today.

Antanas Sileika ~ Underground

Antanas Sileika is a writer I knew first as an erudite and insightful literary critic. He was unafraid to call out a lazy interpretation and his reviews were full of fine turns of phrase.
Then I read Women in Bronze a couple years ago. It was a story of an Eastern European folk artist who longed to go to Paris and become a a 'real' artist between the wars. It stuck with me, simply because he wrote great sentences and I'm a sucker for anything set in Eastern Europe.
Now the third book in a loose trilogy (Buying on Time opens things up) Underground has arrived and is getting good reviews across the country.
The story of the Lithuanian resistance to the Red Army as seen through Lukas and Elena, lovers and fellow resistance fighters in the mid to late 1940's. Lukas is a scholar tapped to translate the BBC news reports for his Partisan fighters and fashion propoganda from them. His academic leanings soon give way to the revelation that he's a crack shot. His marksmanship makes him a hero, but after a time, the Russians find him and Elena. Believing her to be killed, Lukas flees the country and ends up in Paris, writing and speaking on behalf of his comrades. He is then called back to Lithuania, and the denoument is at hand. In some ways there are similarities to Joseph Boyden, but there's a subtlety in Sileika's prose that recalls Alan Furst, the noted spy novelist. Literary to be sure, but with a shotgun blast of a plot; Underground is a great piece of writing that illuminates a war that many in the West never knew existed. My kind of stuff.

Something for Mom...

2011-04-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day is less than two weeks away. One of our favourite picks for mom is Lisa Genova's latest novel: Left Neglected. Lisa's first book, Still Alice, was a bestseller about Alzheimer's from the patients point of view. Left Neglected is just as good, exploring the world of a busy mother who suffers from a traumatic brain injury. WE HAVE A SIGNED COPY OF LEFT NEGLECTED THAT WE ARE GIVING AWAY FOR MOTHER'S DAY!

TO ENTER THE CONTEST PLEASE EMAIL BRONWYN WITH "MOTHER'S DAY CONTEST" IN THE SUBJECT HEADER.

THE CONTEST CLOSES AT 4PM ON FRIDAY MAY 6TH. THE WINNER WILL BE CONTACTED VIA EMAIL.

Robert Sawyer

2011-04-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

Loves Waterloo! The former One Book One Community author (in 2006 for Hominids) will be presenting his final novel in the WWW trilogy: Wonder on May 3rd. The free event takes place at the main branch of the Waterloo Public Library at 7pm. The trilogy is partly set in Waterloo and features Perimeter Institute prominently.

Wonder by Robert Sawyer ~ Reviewed by Tricia
I am a huge fan of Robert J.Sawyer's WWW Trilogy, which is set in Waterloo. I gobbled up the first two books in the series, Wake and Watch, and impatiently waited for the final one to be published this spring. Wonder was worth the wait. Sawyer has tied up several loose ends from the previous two books and done it in a way that is very clever. But let me back up a bit for those who have not read the first two. The books centre on Caitlin Decter, a once-blind teenager and math whiz who, with the aid of her Eye-pod computer, can not only see the world but can also see the world wide web. She discovers a "being" on the web who daily grows in the wisdom of the world. Webmind is Caitlin's christened name for this being. The people of the world welcome Webmind's presence as a boon to humanity but governments see it as a potentially dangerous interference and try to shut Webmind down. Wonder has Caitlin, her parents, and her friends trying to protect Webmind. The Chinese dissident that we met in the first book plays an integral part in saving Webmind as does Hobo, the chimpanzee-bonobo cross who is fluent in American Sign Language. I could not figure out how he would do it but in true Sawyer fashion he gives a very satistying solution to the ending. All three books were a delight to read and having read one a year for the past three years, I am now going to go back and read them again, one right after the other.

Robert J. Sawyer — called "the dean of Canadian science fiction" by The Ottawa Citizen and "just about the best science-fiction writer out there these days" by The Denver Rocky Mountain News — is one of only eight writers in history (and the only Canadian) to win all three of the science-fiction field's top honors for best novel of the year:

the World Science Fiction Society's Hugo Award, which he won in 2003 for his novel Hominids;

the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Award, which he won in 1996 for his novel The Terminal Experiment;

and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, which he won in 2006 for his novelMindscan.

Rob is also the only writer in history to win the top SF awards in the United States, China, Japan, France, and Spain. In addition, he's won an Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada as well as eleven Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards ("Auroras"). The ABC TV series FlashForward is based on his novel of the same name. He was born in Ottawa in 1960, and now lives just west of Toronto with his wife, poet Carolyn Clink.

The Water Man's Daughter

2011-04-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

Debut author, Emma Ruby-Sach, has penned a murder mystery that takes place in South Africa. The staff at the store can attest that whenever a book arrives that is connected to the African continent in any way, I grab it before anyone else can. I am especially glad I grabbed this novel!

The story is focused around three women each of whom is conected to the violent murder of a Peter Mathews, a Canadian water executive, that takes place in a township of Johannesburg.

Claire, his daughter, arrives from Canada hoping to find the answer to why this happened. Her eyes open wider each day she spends under the African sun as she learns the truth about her father, and the company he worked for.

Zembe Afrika, an up and coming policewoman in the township, is heading the murder investigation. She has deep ties to the local community and must balance that with the demands of her police work. Shound Zembe reveal what is happening beneath the surface to her superiors or protect her friends?

Nomsulwa is a local activist, who organizes protests against the water company's privitization policies. As an "enforced" favour to Zembe, she must divert Claire from the investigation. The more time Nomsulwa spends with Claire, the more she feels drawn to her, in spite of their differences.

Emma Ruby-Sachs writes like an accomplished novelist, not a debut author. The twists and turns of the story kept me hanging on and the ending was a total surprise. I am excited to meet Emma at our event with her and Robert Rotenberg on May 17th. I think she is a talented new voice on Canada's literary scene. - Bronwyn

We Love Cooking...

2011-04-18T15:04:00.001-07:00

especially when there is alcohol involved! Meet Carla Johnson, author of Cooking With Sin, on April 30th. She will be sharing samples of some of her favourite recipes from the cookbook.

“Cooking with sin, are we?” Carla Johnson's Mennonite grandmother scolded when she caught Johnson's mother “red-wine handed” pouring red wine into her pan of chicken cacciatore. That moment locked into Johnson's memory and led her to start a blog where she shared her story-recipe. Several others joined in. People from all walks of life, from professional chefs to grandmothers, share personal stories and the recipes woven through them. Each recipe has alcohol in it and was tested & beautifully photographed.

• “Stuck on Reduction” Madeira Caramel and Watermelon Salad

• “Suitcase and a Dream” Dark Stout Chocolate Cake

• “Working Past Midnight” French Toast

• “Nightmare Kitchen” Chicken and Sun-dried Tomatoes

• Milk and Cookies for the “Real” Santa

“Cooking With Sin” allows people to come together over dinner, even if they are many miles away or many years apart. The stories are wonderful, the recipes are delicious and the *sin* factor sure makes it a lot of fun.

Carla Johnson is an experienced author, long-time educator, an energetic public speaker and an avid blogger. This is her second book and she is already collecting recipes for her next edition of “Cooking With Sin.” Looking to create a book that stood out above the crowd, Carla made sure each recipe was carefully tested and extensively photographed.

One Book One Community Pick 2011

2011-04-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the annual unveiling of the One Book One Community pick. The launch was held at the new Waterloo Region Museum. The building is beautiful and fits with theme of this year's book, "Bury Your Dead" by Louise Penny. The mystery explores a portion of Canadian history as well as modern-day Quebec city. Lynn Hadrell, editor of The Record, unveiled the book. Louise Penny sent a video message to the launch and was gushing with excitement about being chosen. Tricia Siemens, former co-owner of the store and founder of the OBOC program, reminded us of the magic of the previous picks and how the program has brought together the region in sharing one special book. For more information on the program: www.oboc.ca and our website

Bury Your Dead:

As Quebec City shivers in the grip of winter, its ancient stone walls cracking in the cold, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache plunges into the most unusual case of his celebrated career. A man has been brutally murdered in one of the city's oldest buildings - a library where the English citizens of Quebec safeguard their history. And the death opens a door into the past, exposing a mystery that has lain dormant for centuries... a mystery Gamache must solve if he's to apprehend a present-day killer.

Louise Penny:

On May 1, 2010, Louise Penny's The Brutal Telling won the Agatha Award for Best Novel. Louise is not only the first Canadian winner, but she has also made history winning The Agatha Award three years in a row! Louise Penny is the author of the international bestselling Chief Inspector Gamache novels. Her books are set in Quebec and have debuted on the New York Times bestseller list and won awards internationally including the British Dagger, the Canadian Arthur Ellis and the American Agatha, Anthony and Barry awards. She was born and raised in Toronto, and now lives in a picturesque village in Quebec with her husband

Alexi Zentner ~ Touch

2011-04-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

If you have already read THIS then you know how excited we are about our upcoming event with Rupinder Gill. Joining her is Alexi Zentner, a former KW resident with his first novel Touch. I started reading this last night and I shift could end soon so that I can get home and keep reading! Sawgamet is a mining boomtown gone bust, a logging village where the cold of winter breaks the glass of the schoolhouse thermometer, where the dangers of working in the cuts are overshadowed by the dark mysteries lurking in the woods. Thirty years after his grandfather's pronouncement, Stephen, now a pastor with a wife and family, returns home on the eve of his mother's funeral, to reconnect with the stories of his mythic grandfather and to confront the losses of childhood. Introducing a world of wonder and tenderness, a world where the monsters and witches of the woods are set against singing dogs and golden caribou, Touch is a haunting tale of three generations of love and loss in a town in Northern BC.

- Bronwyn

2011-04-11T13:03:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, April 20th - Princess Cinema 7pm
$10 or free with the purchase of any of these titles from Words Worth Books. A portion of the proceeds from this event will be donated to The Record Literacy Fund

Miriam Toews ~ Irma Voth
Irma Voth entangles love, longing, and dark family secrets. The stifling, reclusive Mennonite life of nineteen-year-old Irma Voth - newly married and newly deserted - is irrevocably changed when a film crew moves in to make a movie about the community.
She embraces the absurdity, creative passion and warmth of their world but her intractable and domineering father is determined to keep her from it at all costs. The confrontation between them sets her on an irrevocable path towards something that feels like freedom as she and her young sister, Aggie, wise beyond her teenage years, flee to the city, upheld only by their love for each other and their smart wit, even as they begin to understand the tragedy that has their family in its grip.
Irma Voth delves into the complicated factors that set us on the road to self-discovery and how we can sometimes find the strength to endure the really hard things that happen. And as Gustavo, a taxi driver, says, you go on, you live and you laugh and you are compassionate toward others. It also asks that most difficult of questions: How do we forgive? And most importantly, how do we forgive ourselves?

Miriam Toews is the author of four previous novels: Summer of My Amazing Luck; A Boy of Good Breeding, the Governor General Award-winning, Canada Reads-winning, much loved bestselling novel A Complicated Kindness, and most recently The Flying Troutmans, which won the Rogers Writers Trust Award for fiction. The author also penned one work of non-fiction: Swing Low: A Life. She lives in Toronto.

Cynthia Holz ~ Benevolence
Dr. Ben Wasserman is an organ transplant psychiatrist stymied by a man who wishes to donate a kidney to a neighbour for no apparent reason beyond a wish to help. While doggedly searching for an ulterior motive, he secretly hopes the would-be donor is a bona fide altruist. At the same time, Ben's psychologist wife, Renata Moon, is treating a young phobic whose husband died in a train crash. When her client reveals that she is pregnant, Renata's own feelings of disappointment in her childless marriage are triggered anew. It doesn't help that Ben's widowed mother, Molly, wishes out loud that her eldest son had married a nice Jewish girl instead of a "barren shiksa" like Renata. As the strain on Renata and Ben's marriage grows more acute, Molly takes in a boarder, a man from her past with difficult secrets that threaten to complicate the family dynamics even more. There are disapproving questions, surprising connections–and magical, unexpected, life-changing answers–all around.

Cynthia Holz is the author of four previous novels and one collection of short fiction, all of which have been widely acclaimed. She was born and raised in New York City and has lived in Toronto since moving here as a journalist in 1976, an occupation she set aside soon thereafter in favour of writing fiction.

Jamie Zeppa ~ Every Time We Say Goodbye
As eight-year-old Dawn waits for her father early one autumn morning, at the front door of her grandparents' house, Jamie Zeppa immediately draws us into the tangled, tumultuous story of the Turner family of Sault Ste. Marie. Dawn and her younger brother, Jimmy, are the youngest generation of Turners and their unpredictable father, Dean, is finally coming to bring them to live with him in a new house with his new wife. Dawn calls this "Day One" — as in the beginning of her real life — and she is full of optimism. Her grandparents, Frank and Vera, however, are less convinced, since they know very well the ups and downs of their dear, but unreliable, son's behaviour.

Jamie Zeppa is the author of Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan, which won the Banff Mountain Book Festival Award for Adventure Travel Writing. She won the CBC Canadian Literary Award for Memoir and her essays have appeared in AWOL: Tales for Travel-Inspired Minds, My Wedding Dress: True-life Tales of Lace, Laughter, Tears and Tulle and Between Interruptions: 30 Women Tell the Truth about Motherhood. She has written articles and reviews for Chatelaine, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Literary Review of Canada and Ascent, as well as several UK newspapers. Jamie has a teenage son, and she teaches English at Seneca College in Toronto.

Kalila-Rosemary Nixon

2011-04-09T03:59:00.000-07:00

It's become abundantly clear that to navigate the thicket of novels out there with literary merit, it's always a good idea to go to those who have produced short story collections first.
The writing and structure of Rosemary Nixon's first novel, Kalila (Goose Lane Editions) takes a difficult subject and turns it into prose that is sharp, precise and beautiful.

Maggie and Brodie Solantz are the parents of Kalila, which means beautiful, though it's her misfortune to spend all of her young life in a neonatal care facility in Calgary, due to a host of medical troubles that doctors can't pin down.
Without giving away an ending, I seldom tear up at the modern novel (three times, perhaps) but the strength and structure of Kalila, combined with the author's own history gives this novel an authenticity that's easy to spot, and impossible to ignore.
There's nothing maudlin or overwrought here. Kalila is genuine, contained and nearly perfectly executed.
The characters of Brodie and Maggie are formed by images and memory, as opposed to overcooked dialogue and it informs their humanity greatly.
Nixon apparently wrote Kalila over a fifteen year period and it shows. I believe she passed up obvious avenues to broaden the books appeal, but this is too precise and fully realized to be a Jodi Picoult novel.
I appreciated the subtlety and restraint in Kalila, and it's one of the finest books I've read this year.
I'm very excited to see her when she comes to town on April 12.
Please see the website at http://www.wordsworthbooks.com/Suzanne%20Desrochers.htm

David

More Happenings in April

2011-04-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

Stephen Haff - Still Waters in a Storm Monday, April 18th - 7pm - FREE - In Store Event

Stephen Haff is an innovative educator in New York City. He runs Still Waters in a Storm, a drop-in educational centre for all ages in the Bushwick neighborhood in Brooklyn. Stephen will be discussing the importance of reading at any age and his observations of our education system. This will be a thought-provoking evening for anyone who is a lover of words or teaches in any capacity. Learn more about Still Waters HERE, read an article about Still Waters HERE, watch a BBC profile of the program HERE.

Letters of Support

What Stephen Haff is doing at Still Waters is giving inner-city kids a chance to meet with well known, artistically serious writers: Peter Carey, Richard Price, Colum McCann, Patrick McGrath, among others. That's an amazing line-up. But equally amazing is the atmosphere that Stephen has created in this alternative learning sanctuary. I've worked with lots of different literacy outreach programs, but Still Waters is unique: the love of language Stephen has instilled in his cohort of kids is wonderfully inspiring. And as a result, as a writer and a person, you meet the kids on common ground—the blank page—but nothing is common in this exchange. The enthusiasm and invention and concentration of the kids on what they write gives you the sense that the English language, in all its permutations, is in an interesting and invigorating state of repair.

Tom Sleigh
Senior Poet
Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing
Hunter College, City University of New York

My name is Peter Carey. I am the author of eleven novels, and the winner of numerous international literary prizes, including the Booker Prize (twice), the Commonwealth Prize (twice), and Australia's Miles Franklin Award (three times). I am also the executive director of the Hunter College MFA Creative Writing Program here in New York City.

I write now to encourage your support of an extraordinary writing project named Still Waters in a Storm, in Bushwick, Brooklyn. In the first instance I write in support of Stephen Haff, whom I have known for nineteen years. Stephen Haff went to Yale, so you could say he had a course set out for him, except he refused it. He left New Dramatists. He entered the public school system, not to work with the most privileged students but the least advantaged. Time and time again he earned his students' trust. Why did they give it to him? The answer is, quite simply, because they saw who he was. I believe you will, too.

I am writing today because another Stephen Haff project is being born. He, of course, would say it is not a Stephen Haff Project at all. In a sense he would say this rightly, because the project is being made by Bushwick residents of all ages, including small children, teenagers, and a wide range of adults. It is the writing group, the one called Still Waters in a Storm.

The members of the group, and there are already 20, write freely, about anything, in any style or genre. They meet over pizza. They write, read aloud and discuss their writing. If you could be a fly on the wall you'd hear complex, inspiring group discussions that would take your breath away.

The writers describe the group as "family," as "therapy." Some say it's what gets them through the week. Yet anyone who has been privileged to read their work knows that much more than this is happening--stories and poems and essays begin tentatively, but soon the rhythms become more complex and confident, the metaphors more striking, the meanings more layered.

When Stephen Haff walks through your doorway, you may not at first recognize a miracle worker, and perhaps that's his secret. He listens. He hears the voices of the street and invites them in. Almost removing himself, nearly disappearing, he makes room for others to express themselves and thereby gives them the space to show who they really are.

In traditional schooling, teachers are the stars and students must run the curriculum. Stephen Haff's method is different, not least in that it succeeds in those tough streets where the old-style game no longer works. This approach is feeding school's refugees what they need, and delivering what a whole city wishes for them.

Good news is hard to find these days. That is why we need to support Stephen Haff and Still Waters in a Storm.

Sincerely,

Peter Carey

AND THE DAY BEFORE (SOMETHING FOR THE KIDS...)

Our first event in April

2011-03-22T07:55:00.000-07:00

I am really excited about! Three dynamic authors with novels that are garnering rave reviews:

"Bride of New France is a gorgeous historical debut, in no small part because Suzanne Desrochers's superb imagination brings this period of Canada's story to vivid, vivid life."
− Joseph Boyden
The filles du roi, the impoverished girls and women of the infamous Parisian hospital and poorhouse Salpêtrière, sent to New France in the 1660’s to become the wives of soldiers and farmers. They were tasked with giving birth to a new colony. Did the filles du roi embrace the opportunity to escape the poorhouses, or were they forced into a life of servitude in a strange new land? But what happens to a woman who attempts to make her own life choices in such authoritative times? We are excited to meet Suzanne Desrochers and learn about this part of Canadian history. The Bride of New France is her first novel.

Tiger Hills, the sensational first novel by Toronto author Sarita Mandanna, has been long-listed for the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize. The novel is set on a coffee plantation in Southern India at the turn of the 20th Century. As the first girl born to the Nachimada family in over sixty years, the beautiful Devi is the object of the adoration of her entire family. Strong-willed and confident, she befriends the shy Devanna, a young boy whose mother has died under tragic circumstances. The two quickly become inseparable, until Devi meets Machu the tiger killer, a hunter of great repute, and a man of much honour and pride. When Machu and Devi fall deeply in love, a wedge is driven between Devi and Devanna. It is this tangled relationship between the three that leads to a devastating tragedy -- an event that changes their fates forever and has unforeseen and far-reaching consequences for generations to come. I am reading this right now and can't wait to go home to find out what happens next! The author, Sarita Mandanna made waves in the publishing world when she received the highest advance ever paid by an Indian publisher to a first-time author.

When Kalila is born to Maggie and Brodie, joy jostles for emotional space with devastation: their daughter has been born with a variety of medical problems doctors are unable to diagnose under a single heading. The young parents take turns sitting by the isolette, soaking up all information they can glean (which they must then decipher on their own). They watch the other babies in distress, and the other parents’ coping, or not, with the horror of those situations, comparing their own baby’s chances for recovery, their own place in this strange, bewildering universe they all inhabit. This is a book not just about parenthood and the imperative of love and responsibility for another life, but a novel about illness and death, and how we—as a society—approach this universal yet feared element of our shared existence. Told with grace, honesty, and ultimately uplifting humour, Kalila is a sensitive, nuanced account of the strange horror of being a parent to a very ill baby. Rosemary Nixon penned Kalila on two continents over fifteen years.

I hope you can attend what is sure to be an enjoyable and interesting evening with these three dynamic women! - Bronwyn

Spiritual Events in the next few days:

2011-03-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

We have something for Buddhists, Christian and

Celtic Spirituality Buffs in March:

You're Finally Here!

2011-03-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

Melanie Watt's books for children are pretty funny. Her newest features a hyperactive, enthusiastic bunny with a control problem! This zanny picture book will resonate with anyone who's ever been kept waiting (as in anyone who is friends with me and my family!). This is no ordinary picture-book character, and it will quickly become clear that this is no ordinary picture book - because you the reader are LATE! At first, this little bunny is deliriously excited by your arrival, but now that you're finally here, he wants to know: where were you? He's been waiting long enough to learn an accordion solo, among other time-consuming pursuits. After he's shown you how it feels to be kept waiting and just when he's finally satisfied that you're a good steady page-turner who's here to stay, something happens to turn the tables. The result is an off-beat ending worth waiting for!

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand By Helen Simonson

2011-03-08T11:00:00.000-08:00

What a lovely book! I’d recommend this to all the same folks I pushed The Gurensey Literary and Potato Pie Society on last year. Major Pettigrew is a retired British army man, and seemingly the last person in the seaside village of Edgecombe St.Mary’s with any sense of decorum. At a moment of grief, when his guard is down, he forges a friendship with the owner of the small local shop- a widow of Pakistani origin. The romance between these two was just so satisfying, in an unspoken but still highly emotional Jane Austen kind of way.

The main thread of romance late in life in cut with hilarious farcical scenes set at the golf club’s annual dinner dance, which has somehow become “A Night at the Mughal Court” in theme, raising the hackels of the local immigrant population who have been asked to help with the decorations and entertainment, but would never be admitted to the club as members. Another particularly hilarious scene takes place at the local Lord’s manor, where the student body of a local boarding school and a swarm of enviromental protesters somehow get unleashed during the annual shoot.

I really enjoyed the way Simonson could make you laugh, portray a touching love story and still manage to indict the casual racism that still exists in a lot of places. Best of all, the whole thing has a happy ending, which I for one think is nice for a change. - Carolyn

All Cakes Considered...

2011-03-08T10:33:00.000-08:00

This cook book caught my eye just because how beautifully designed it is, but once I opened it up I was delighted to find that it possessed great content to go along with great form! Written by a producer of the popular NPR show All Things Considered the cook book was born out of her tradition of making a cake to bring into the office every Monday.

What a lovely idea! What an easy way to get popular. I’ve decided to cook my way through the cookbook in an attempt to engender the cupboard love of the entire staff at Words Worth Books. The book is set up to be cooked through chronologically, starting with the more basic recipes like pound cake and working up to more elaborate fare like “Stephen Pyle’s Heaven and Hell Cake” which has layers of devils food cake and angel cake, all stuck together with peanut butter filling and coated in a thick chocolate ganache. Yes, please!

But it’s not just the great recipes, or the beautiful design of the book that endear it, but the great anecdotal writing style of author Melissa Gray. Each recipe comes with a hilarious rambling introduction, and lots of great side-bars.

So far I have attempted the “Man Catcher Sour Cream Pound Cake” and the “Brown Sugar Pound Cake”… and they were both huge hits! - Carolyn

Next Chapter Recapped

2011-03-03T10:44:00.000-08:00

So Saturday was an amazing celebration of the bookstore's history under Chuck and Tricia and a chance to congratulate Dave and Mandy for taking on the mantle of guiding the store into the future. Here are some great photos of the day, if you didn't get a chance to stop by:

Mayor Halloran stopped by and said a few words of congratulations.

Carolyn made the incredible cake!

I'm a sucker for good-looking cookbooks...

2011-02-23T12:45:00.000-08:00

I'm a sucker for good looking (vegetarian) cookbooks. I wouldn't consider myself a foodie, but looking through a glossy cookbook is an inspiring thing to do. Since bringing this gem home in November, my family and I have not been disappointed. We regularly gather around on Friday evenings or Saturday mornings to pick out which recipes we want to try in the coming week while Daddy prepares the grocery list.

Even though the rest of my family are not veggies, we eat vegetarian meals most nights. My kids complained about the lack of meat on their plates until we started making recipes from this Canadian Living collection. They adore Meatless Polpette in Tomato Sauce, Whipped Sweet Potatoes with Maple Pecan Topping, Thai Green Curry with Tofu & Vegetables, and Eggplant Gnocchi with Brown Butter & Pine Nut Sauce. However our all-time favourite so far (we have only cooked through half of the cookbook) is Vegetable Lentil Gardner's Pie.

It is hands-down the best comfort food I have ever tasted and I crave it regularly - probably part of the reason that we have only cooked through half the cookbook! See page 35 for the recipe and mouth-watering picture.

And for the foodies out there: ingredients featured are easy to obtain (Eating Well if you can't find it at the grocery store), length of cooking time featured is accurate for the most part (though the gnocchi takes some time if you haven't made it before) and most recipes are easy enough to whip up - even the time consuming ones. Trust me, your tummy will thank you for the extra steps!

- Bronwyn

The Next Chapter

2011-02-17T17:31:00.000-08:00

Full-on Hilariousness!

2011-02-16T07:30:00.001-08:00

In Amish culture there is a phenomenon called Rumspringa, where Amish adolescents are permitted to break free from their modest and traditional lifestyles to indulge in taboo activities. This is the story of Rupinder's Rumspringa (or as she calls it "Ram-singa") at the age of 30. Rupinder leads us through her hilarious journey to experience all the parts of her childhood that she feels she missed: summer camp, swimming and dance lessons, trips to Disney World and more.

"I am 30 years old. I wore my hair in two braids every day until I was 12. I dressed more conservatively than most Amish, barely left my house until I was 18 and spent the last 12 years studying and working hard on my career like a good little Indian girl. The time has come; you are witness to the dawning of my Indian Rumspringa, a Ram-Singha if you will. But instead of smoking and drinking Bud Lights in a park while yelling 'Down with barn raising!' I plan to indulge in a different manner — by pursuing everything I wish had been a part of my youth."

This is the story of the ultimate New Year's resolution, more akin to a new life resolution and walk down memory-less lane. The results are hilariously funny. If you need a laugh and want something light, yet intelligent, pick this one up! And Rupinder is doing an event with us on April 26th - check our website for more details www.wordsworthbooks.com - Bronwyn

TO WIN A HARDCOVER COPY OF "ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING INDIAN", PLEASE EMAIL BRONWYN (bronwyn@wordsworthbooks.com).

CONTEST CLOSES ON APRIL 15TH AT 4PM.

APRIL 15TH: THE CONTEST HAS NOW CLOSED, THANK YOU TO ALL WHO ENTERED. IF YOU ARE THE WINNER, YOU WILL BE NOTIFIED BY EMAIL.

Collect 'em all

2011-02-10T06:01:00.000-08:00

Some soothing warmth for a cold morning.

February is Black History Month

2011-02-07T19:13:00.000-08:00

I was in Ghana for the first time in 6 years, in January. It was a wonderful trip and I had the chance to catch up on some reading while there. The three titles I enjoyed the most all make for excellent Black History Month reading.

My favourite of the pile I shlepped around was The Memory of Love, a novel exploring modern-day Sierra Leone. Author Aminatta Forna tells the story through the voices of three different men whose lives intersect in surprising ways. Elias Cole, the former dean of the local university, lies in the hospital, in desperate need of a lung transplant that will never happen. He reminisces on his life before the civil war, sharing his memories Adrian Lockhart, a British psychologist, who is assisting with Post-Traumatic-Stress programs at the hospital. Adrian meets Kai, a gifted young surgeon, and the two become friends. Adrian becomes fascinated with one of his patients, a middle aged woman, who wanders the country. The three men are connected to each other by more than just memories and friendship.

As the story unfolds, they all share a relationship with the same woman. This is a richly crafted novel that took my breath away. I appreciated the delicate way that Forna shares the affects of the civil war. Instead of dripping each page in horrific memory, she explores a few disturbing situations with careful precision. If you enjoyed the masterpiece Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (one of my favourite books), then please give this a try. If you do, let me know as I am eager to hear what other readers think of this novel. Personally I think it gives Cutting for Stone some serious competition!

On a lighter note, Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin is a treat. This light-cup-of-tea-read reminds me of The No. 1 Ladies Dectective Agency series. This is a tale of baking confections and behind each cake lies a story. Baker Angel Tungaraza busies herself with her customer’s orders: Ken Akimoto, her best customer; his lovesick driver Bosco; Odile, an AIDS worker whose love life Angel has taken a keen interest in and more. Angel works her magic, helping to solve their problems as they enjoy her edible works of art. By the end of this heartwarming story all the loose ends are tied, problems mostly solved, and Angel’s heartaches put to rest. If you are eager for a light yet intelligent read, this is a good choice.

Of the three novels, Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, is perhaps the only novel that is truly “Black History”. The novel takes place in Ohio, a free territory before the Civil War. Tawawa House is an idyllic summer retreat for Southern white Massa’s and their black slave mistresses. Lizzie, Reenie and Sweet are regulars at the resort, building strong friendships and support for each other over the years. When Mawu comes, things start to change with her fearless talk of running away. To run away would mean leaving everything including their children. It also means freedom from the emotional and psychological bonds that bind them to their masters. This engaging page-turner reminded me of The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Even though The Help takes place in the 1960’s, both books explore similar issues. - Bronwyn

Unleashed works for Ruby!

2011-02-07T18:33:00.000-08:00

Brad Pattison- who you might know from his reality show At the End of My Leash couldn’t be coming to the store at a better time-- for me, anyway. Forget about the Ice Dogs festival, I’m talking about the fact that I am the proud new mamma of an adorable puppy!

We got Ruby just before Christmas, and although so far she’s fairly well behaved- I found Brad Pattison’s book Unleashed really helpful.

Brad’s book is full of step by step instructions on how to get your dog to sit, stay, stop and come on command, and eventually go off-leash, as well as a tonne of anecdotal material from his many human and dog clients to explain various training problems and how to rectify them.

Apparently I’m a bit of a soft touch… I’d been trying to train Ruby using treats as an incentive for one thing- which according to Brad is a big no-no, unless you want your dog to turn into (to use his colorful terminology) a crack head! Well, Mamma didn’t raise no crack heads, so since starting the book I’ve replaced treat rewards with a good “chest scrunch”, which is just a friendly squeeze between the front legs. The idea of cupboard love never really sat that well with me, so this feels like a positive development. The other thing I’d been doing wrong, was using baby-talk. This once has been a bit harder to stop. She’s just so cute (as you can see from the picture above), I turn into a babbling idiot around her.

It’s not only that I find it hard to speak in a calm, reasonable voice to her- but that Brad recommends not speaking to your dog at all during an initial 2-week training period! The reasoning behind this is pretty sound, as dogs communicate more through movements and body language than speech. The same way you eventually tune out an annoying barking dog, a dog that receives too many voice commands eventually is just going to start ignoring them. I’ve been trying to bite my tongue, but it hasn’t been easy.

Brad does a really good job of illustrating why you really have to take charge around your dog- for her sake and yours. I’m trying to show Ruby who’s boss, but I’m certainly glad I’m going to get to meet Brad on the 19^th to get a few extra pointers. You should drop by the store to meet him too, whether you already own a dog, or you’re thinking about getting one in the near future, his advice is invaluable.

Bookfourm

2011-02-03T18:14:00.000-08:00

The new Bookforum is out.

For those who haven't stumbled onto the magazine yet, I think it's essential stuff for intelligent, challenging and lenghy reviews across all genres.

It's not online, but Ed Park (fave) has a long piece on Jonathan Coe's upcoming novel The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim.

I'll read anything Coe writes, usually in one sitting.

Order it through the site here

Tiger Mothers

2011-02-02T09:00:00.000-08:00

I was immediately intrigued by the title and the premise of Amy Chua's book. I was also eager to read the book considering all of the controversy around her parenting style. I finished the book in a day. I found it to be hilarious (if you can catch her dead-pan humour) and inspiring. Raising four kids with a husband from a different culture, I could relate to much of the book and to many of her complaints about the "lax" parenting style in North America. I think that we have become to sensitive about children's self esteem without giving them opportunities to build said self esteem. Amy Chua is right - in many ways, we underestimate our kids, which leads to dumbing them down (my words, not hers). This is a valuable book to read and consider as a parent, teacher or grandparent. Highly recommended by Bronwyn

Words Worth Books is Changing Hands!

2011-01-31T10:27:00.001-08:00

Words Worth Books, a 26 year institution in Uptown Waterloo, is changing hands! Chuck Erion and Tricia Siemens, who founded the store in 1984, are retiring and selling the business to long-time employees, David Worsley and Mandy Brouse, as of February 1st. "It is vitally important to us that Words Worth Books continue its cultural legacy in Waterloo. We are confident that the bookstore will continue to thrive as Mandy and Dave take the helm" said Erion and Siemens.

David Worsley has been at Words Worth Books since 1999 and worked at KW Book Exchange prior to that. His prowess at connecting books and customers was recognized in 2006 with the HarperCollins Handselling Award. Mandy Brouse, also an alumna of KW Book Exchange, began at Words Worth in 2005. She is the magazine manager; school board accounts manager as well as social marketing coordinator. Mandy was awarded the Young Bookseller of the Year Award from the Canadian Booksellers Association in 2010. She was also a guest at Rideau Hall in November 2010 for the Governor General Literary Award ceremony.

Erion and Siemens, have been familiar figures on the literary scene in Waterloo Region, not only in the store but on stage for author events held in local theatres and churches. Erion notes with pride that hundreds of authors have appeared at Words Worth events, ranging from local poets to very famous writers including Timothy Findley, Jane Urquhart, John Irving, Karen Armstrong, Peter Gzowski, Christopher Moore, Sebastian Faulks, Robertson Davies, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and Jean Chrétien."Waterloo readers are an enthusiastic audience," said Tricia Siemens, "we were happy to organize author appearances as they were always well attended."

Siemens and Erion both said that spending time with book-loving customers is what they will miss most once they leave the store. "We've developed some very loyal friends, who I'm sure will continue to support Words Worth's new owners," said Erion.　
Worsley and Brouse are excited to take the store into its next chapter. "I'm honoured to be entrusted with such a legacy, a store that we've helped shape, and February 1st will be business as usual except maybe with a little more importance for Dave and me!says Brouse. "We look forward to putting into practice everything we've learned from Chuck and Tricia. Their passion for books and readers has been a defining experience for us and for all the staff at Words Worth. We're very excited and honoured to take up their mantle," adds Worsley.

Words Worth Books invites customers to celebrate the change in ownership on Saturday, February 27, at the store. This will be a time for well-wishers to greet Chuck, Tricia, Dave and Mandy!

Little House Books

2011-01-26T07:02:00.000-08:00

I grew up reading Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Eventually I started to read Anne of Green Gables (the arguably Canadian counterpart) when I was a bit older and could get through the bigger words. But I would always revisit the Wilder's books. I now enjoy sharing them with my children and watching them read the series on their own. Right now all the books in the series are on sale at the store. Each title is available for $4.99. If you would like to revisit your childhood or share these lovely books with a child this is a perfect opportunity to pick up any titles in the series that you are missing.

Some of my favourite books in the series are:

Little House in the Big Woods
Laura Ingalls's story begins in 1871 in a little logcabin on the edge of the Big Woods of Wisconsin. Four-year-old Laura lives inthe little house with her Pa, her Ma, her sisters Mary and Carrie, and theirtrusty dog, Jack. Pioneer life is sometimes hard, since the family must grow or catch all their own food as they get ready for the cold winter. But it is also exciting as Laura and her folks celebrate Christmas with homemade toysand treats, do the spring planting, bring in the harvest, and make their firsttrip into town. And every night they are safe and warm in their little house,with the happy sound of Pa's fiddle sending Laura and her sisters off to sleep.

Little House on the PrairieThe adventures continue for Laura Ingalls and her family as they leave their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin and set out for Kansas. They travel for many days in their covered wagon until they find the best spot to build their little house on the prairie. Soon they are planting andplowing, hunting wild ducks and turkeys, and gathering grass for their cows. Sometimes pioneer life is hard, but Laura and her folks are always busy and happy in their new little house.

On the Banks of Plum CreekThe adventures continue as the family leaves their little house on the prairie and ravel in their covered wagon to Minnesota. They settle in a little house made of sod beside the banks of beautiful Plum Creek. Soon Pa builds a wonderful new little house with real glass windows and a hinged door. Laura and her sister Mary go to school, help with the chores, and fish in the creek. At night everyone listens to the merry music of Pa's fiddle. Misfortunes come in the form of a grasshopper plague and a terrible blizzard, but the pioneer family works hard together to overcome these troubles.

Farmer BoyWhile Laura Ingalls grows up in a little house on the western prairie, Almanzo Wilder is living on a big farm in New York State. Almanzo and his brother and sisters help with the summer planting and fall harvest. In winter there is wood to be chopped and great slabs of ice to be cut from the river and stored. Time for fun comes when the jolly tin peddler visits, orbest of all, when the fair comes to town. This is Laura Ingalls Wilder's beloved story of how her husbandAlmanzo grew up as a farmer boy far from the little house where Laura lived.

Slowly I turn

2011-01-24T05:04:00.000-08:00

After a long period of inactivity, we're back at the controls around here, and to my mind what better kick off than the 2011 Tournament of Books sponsored by the venerable Powells.

A round robin bloodsport that's similar in some ways to Canada Reads, but on a larger scope.
And what a list!
The rules are inside the link.

The 16 Books That Will Compete in Our Seventh Annual Battle Royale

Booksellers and readers, please note that we’ll soon have a beautiful brackets poster that you can use for displays, gambling, cubicle decoration, etc. Keep an eye on TMN and Twitter.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender
Nox, by Anne Carson
Bad Marie, by Marcy Dermansky
Room, by Emma Donoghue
A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan
Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
Lord of Misrule, by Jaimy Gordon
Bloodroot, by Amy Greene
Next, by James Hynes
The Finkler Question, by Howard Jacobson
Skippy Dies, by Paul Murray
Model Home, by Eric Puchner
So Much for That, by Lionel Shriver
Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart
Kapitoil, by Teddy Wayne
Savages, by Don Winslow

Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff

2011-01-23T11:57:00.000-08:00

I picked up Cleopatra: A Life, mostly inspired by the Globe and Mail review, but also because I have a deep deep love for Liz Taylor's depiction of the Queen in the classic 1963 film. Stacy Schiff, in her new biography of the Queen, references Taylor's "limpid lilac eyes", and says that the image of Cleoptara has been overwhelmed by Hollywood's imagining (Crazy, huh? What an accusation). Specifically Schiff speaks about our traditional view of Cleopatra as a sexy, seducing man-eater. Her book, which is as much a telling of the time and about the political figures around her as it is about it's main subject, renders this woman as intellectually and politically saavy. But also a lover of the land she ruled. And compared to her family line, a breath of fresh air as a monarch. During her reign, Egypt saw a time of economic prosperity not seen in generations; Cleopatra managed the details of her land's commerce on a day-to-day basis very well. She lived and partied lavishly, but never raped her land for it's resources. Instead she was shrewd, as in most aspects of her life, and reaped the benefits.

What director Joseph Mankiewicz absolutely had right about the Queen is her deep love of lavish displays. She wore jewelry everywhere, pearls in her hair, and perfumed every part of her body as well as anything she sat on or touched. But all of the opulence also politically advantaged her. Cleopatra dressed symbolically because she knew her people respected a truly mysterious symbol. She became synonymous with the image of Isis into her adulthood, sitting next to her son, who would then be seen as the god Horus. I'm pretty sure she won over both Caesar and Anthony with her charm mostly, but also with the suggestion that she might actually be a half-god. She also claimed descent from Alexander the Great, and both men had a mancrush on this early conquerer. Both men also aspired secretly (or not so subtley) to godhood, so Cleopatra spoke to a few of their political desires.

There is not a lot of source material about the Queen and I truly enjoyed the depiction's from Cicero. His juvenile vindicitveness is hilarious and possibly mostly to blame for the Queen's notoriety, "Cicero was accustomed to being the most articulate person in the room. It was annoying that Cleopatra shared his sardonic wit. And was it really necessary for her to act regally?" Schiff asserts that even during her time, Cleopatra was the victim of gossip which eventually overwhelmed any actual truth about the woman.

But even without much source material on Cleopatra particularly, I was amazed by Schiff's ability to create this woman's life in vivid colours. The part about Cleopatra stealing herself into her own palace in a sack, hoping to speak with Caesar directly (her brother was poisoning his ear against her) was riveting. Schiff gives all this background history about Caesar explaining exactly why the leader would have been so impressed with her political deftness and bravery. Actually the whole book more or less reads like fiction, without fabricating any details. Schiff is a fabulous biographer and writer.

Although I have to admit that when I finished it, I was up for a Liz Taylor/Cleopatra rewatch!

Cleopatra: A Life
Stacy Schiff
Little, Brown and Company
2010
$33.99

- Mandy

Our last event of 2010!

2010-12-13T13:43:00.000-08:00

We are super excited to host Alexander Macleod and Sarah Selecky. Both authors were on the Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlist. This will be a treat of a night and not to be missed!

Light Lifting, Alexander MacLeod’s long-awaited first collection of short fiction, offers us a suite of darkly urban and unflinching elegies. These are elemental stories of work and its bonds, of tragedy and tragedy barely averted, but also of beauty, love and fragile understanding.
Alexander MacLeod was born in Inverness, Cape Breton and raised in Windsor, Ontario. His award-winning stories have appeared in many of the leading Canadian and American journals and have been selected for The Journey Prize Anthology. He holds degrees from the University of Windsor, the University of Notre Dame, and McGill. He currently lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and teaches at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. Read Quill and Quire's review HERE
Sarah Selecky’s first book takes dead aim at a young generation of men and women who often set out with the best of intentions, only to have plans thwarted or hopes betrayed.

These are stories about friendships and relationships confused by unsettling tensions bubbling beneath the surface. A woman who plans to conceive ends up in the arms of her husband’s best friend; a man who baby-sits a neglected four-year-old ends up questioning his own dysfunctional relationship; a chance encounter at a gala event causes a woman to remember when she volunteered for a nightmarish drug-testing clinic; another woman discovers that her best friend who is about to get married has just had an affair; a young teenager tries to escape from her controlling father and finds an unexpected lover on a bus ride home; a wife tries to overcome her dying mother-in-law’s resistance to her marriage by revealing to her own strange aural stigmata; a friend tries to talk another friend out of dating her cheating ex-boyfriend; and a superstitious candle-maker confesses to a tempestuous relationship that implodes spectacularly.

Sarah Selecky is a talented young writer who evokes a generation teetering on the shoals of consumerism and ambiguous mores. Reminiscent of early Atwood, with echoes of Lisa Moore and Barbara Gowdy, these absorbing stories are about love and longing, stories that touch us in a myriad of subtle and affecting ways. She grew up in Northern Ontario and Southern Indiana. Her stories have been published in The Walrus, Geist, Prairie Fire, The New Quarterly, and The Journey Prize Anthology. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia and has been teaching creative writing in her living room for the past ten years. She currently lives in Toronto. Read the Globe and Mail review HERE

Take Your Child To A Bookstore Day!

2010-12-02T13:37:00.000-08:00

Take Your Child To A Bookstore Day

This Saturday, December 4th. is the very first Take Your Child To A Bookstore Day. What a wonderful opportunity to share the joy of reading with a child. The doors that open in the lives of those who are turned onto reading early in life are many:
1. Reading is an active mental process
2. Improves your vocabulary
3. Improves concentration and focus
4. Builds self-esteem
5. Improves your discipline

Mandy is a Super Star!!!

2010-11-18T08:39:00.000-08:00

This was in the Record today:

There may not be a better place for a book lover from Waterloo Region.

On Nov. 25, Mandy Brouse, a bookseller at Words Worth Books in Waterloo, will be at the Governor General’s Literary Awards ceremony in Ottawa, surrounded by authors, publishers, and Gov. Gen. David Johnston.

Brouse received the invitation — which is only extended to 150 people — in an envelope with gold writing, and Rideau Hall as the return address.

“The first thing I thought was, “Oh my gosh, how am I going to get there, and what am I going to wear?’ ” Brouse said.

The Governor General’s Literary Awards — organized by the Canada Council for the Arts — are the most prestigious literary honour in the country after the Giller Prize. This year’s winners, who were announced Tuesday, include Regina’s Dianne Warren, who won the fiction prize for her debut novel Cool Water.

Brouse said she isn’t sure why she was invited to the awards gala, but thinks it might be because Johnston — the former longtime president of the University of Waterloo — used to regularly buy books from Words Worth.

Aside from travel and wardrobe, Brouse said she has to make sure she’s read all the books nominated for the prize before the ceremony.

“I’m really excited about the authors that are going,” she said.

“I’ve already contacted the authors that I love from the list and said, ‘I hope I see you that night.’ ”

Brouse admitted she could be slightly star struck rubbing shoulders with big literary names, but it’s Johnston she is most excited to meet.

“I’m excited to get some face time with David Johnston,” she said. “I think he just really supported independent, local bookstores.”

Brouse is bringing along a signed and personalized copy of the One Book, One Community selection this year, Best Laid Plans, by Terry Fallis, for Johnston.

She plans to post photos and blog about her experience at the awards on the Woods Worth Books blog at www.wordsworthbooks.com.

“It’ll be great because it will be people from publishing, writers and all different types of people,” Brouse said.

“I’m sure we’ll just talk about books all night.”

Bit quiet here, but busy in the store!

2010-11-16T09:14:00.000-08:00

We've been quiet on the blog front the last while due to lots of events and Christmas shopping in the store. On of our last events of the season takes place this evening at the Princess Cinema. We are excited to catch up with Camilla Gibb, who will be presenting her new book "The Beauty of the Humanity Movement". Camilla graced our stage previously with her bestseller, "Sweetness in the Belly". She will be sharing tonight with two other authors. Charles Foran is presenting his fascinating biography of Mordecai Richler. Charles worked with Mordecai's wife and had a access to private family documents, some of which he will be sharing tonight in a powerpoint presentation. Ruth Rakoff explores her journey with breast cancer in When My World Was Very Small.

IN other news, Tricia and Chuck were at the Giller Prize Award Dinner this year. Here are some photos:

Kenneth Oppel - in store tomorrow!!!!

2010-10-29T07:20:00.000-07:00

We are pretty excited to meet the award-winning children's author and host Kenneth in the store. Stop by - he will be here and reading to us at 10:30am!

it's like old home week, only with more drugs

2010-10-25T15:13:00.000-07:00

Slate trips down memory lane as the mother of all Doonesbury books arrives.

There's nothing I want more.

Dave

Rock and Roll Heaven

2010-10-18T06:16:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Egan (Visit from the Goon Squad) and Michael Schaub on the podcast.

Seriously Goon Squad is probably my favourite novel of the year.

via Bookslut

Starlight Starbright...

2010-10-14T07:15:00.001-07:00

We are pretty ecstatic to be part of the uber-cool Starlight literary event this coming Monday, Oct 18th. For more info on the amazing roster of authors, read this post about Evan Mundy from Coach House books.

All I want for Christmas...

2010-10-12T16:38:00.001-07:00

is a more frequent Bookforum magazine.
But most of my wants come from them, more specifically this doorstop.

H.L Mencken is what Jon Stewart would turn into in a perfect world.
Alas, the world is far from perfect so no one is in H.L Mencken's league.

David

He not only writes great books...

2010-10-12T08:29:00.000-07:00

Abraham Verghese is one of my favorite authors.

Cutting for Stone is pure masterpiece!

Check out this great article on him in the NY Times.

- Bronwyn

diary of a madman

2010-10-07T05:46:00.000-07:00

or how to make a living digging for trash

"I make a living buying and selling used books. I browse the racks of thrift stores and library book sales using an electronic bar-code scanner. I push the button, a red laser hops about, and an LCD screen lights up with the resale values. It feels like being God in his own tiny recreational casino; my judgments are sure and simple, and I always win because I have foreknowledge of all bad bets. The software I use tells me the going price, on Amazon Marketplace, of the title I just scanned, along with the all-important sales rank, so I know the book's prospects immediately. I turn a profit every time."

I guess I'm getting old, but I remember an earlier time when guile played a part in all this. You just had to know a thing or two.

The author, Michael Saviz laments that while he works eighty hours a week at his "job" he gets righteous attitude from book lovers who populate library sales, garage sales or whatever and aren't there to make money on the dross in all those boxes.

"If it's possible to make a decent living selling books online, then why does it feel so shameful to do this work? I'm not the only one who feels this way; I see it in the mien of my fellow scanners as they whip out their PDAs next to the politely browsing normal customers."

Time was the first edition game could yield a good buck doing this, but the Internet made availability of all but the bluest of blue chips a farce, so there was no longer money to be made over the long term.

Even if you allow that this guy doesn't care a whit about his inventory (and that's kinda greasy) he's just doing what a lot of people who read Booked to Die did for awhile.

And for a few years it was the most fun I've ever had in the book trade.

Scurrying around with scanners to discern the value of a chemistry textbook just doesn't have any romance or adventure in it. It begins and ends with the dollar sign rush and any addict will tell you that the first high is always the best one. Diminishing returns are part of this guy's business plan whether he cops to it or not.

The first edition game was different because most of the earlier versions of this guy worked a little purer.

We knew and read this stuff (mostly) and an emotional connection to what was, to be fair, still inventory-was part of the mix. Of course, if such a scanner were available in the late eighties/early nineties it would have been well used, but dealer catalogs and the Antiquarian Bookman worked just as well.

But first hand knowledge separated the fed from the hungry.

There's no reason to feel bad for your lot sir, because it can be a lot of fun.

But although the scanner is necessary, it marks you as a scavenger.

Alas, it was better in the old days, but then most everything was.

Giller Time

2010-10-05T08:32:00.000-07:00

Here's the list

David Bergen
Alexander Macleod
Sarah Selecky
Johanna Skibsrud
Kathleen Winter

We've got appearances in the works by Alexander Macleod and Kathleen Winter is confirmed at the St. Jerome's Reading Series.

Watch this space, yo.

David

Milestone

2010-09-27T17:31:00.002-07:00

A huge accomplishment, this.

“It’s a rarity when a book sells more than 500,000 copies in Canada, and even more uncommon when the author and book are Canadian,” said Leo MacDonald, Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “These milestones are often overlooked in our industry, but they are great achievements that deserve to be celebrated and recognized.”

Congratulations to Harper Collins and to Lawrence Hill.

We helped a bit, too.

David

No sleep 'til Fresno?

2010-09-27T17:18:00.001-07:00

Jonathan Lethem, synonymous with Brooklyn since well since Motherless Brooklyn is leaving for California.

"Lethem said he wasn’t sure if he will live here again but he does want to bring back his sons when they are older to show them the Brooklyn he knows and loves.

“[I want to give] them a sense of what Brooklyn street life is like, taking them into the neighborhood. Which, you know, Boerum Hill is kind of posh these days. To get the texture part of me craves, and that I want them to experience, it might be better advised to Astoria or some remoter part of Brooklyn where there's attention and excitement and the juxtaposition of fresh immigrants, fresh gentrification, and all that confusion and tumult that was the signature of my own coming of age.”

It's just a drag, is all.

David