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What the Dickens!
Feb 06, 2012 • 0 Comment(s)
A post to celebrate the birth of literary master Charles Dickens born 200 years ago- Feb 7, 2012! 
We have two wonderful books by Frances Lincoln. First up is Charles Dickens: Scenes from an Extraordinary Life by Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom. This beautifully and entertainingly illustrated 48 page picture book vividly dramatizes his life, beginning with his birth in Portsmouth and early childhood near the docks in Chatham, and follows the young Charles through the hardship of working in a blacking factory at the age of 10 to his years at school and his early career as a reporter.
"Its verve and wit are infectious... a wonderful, enduring introduction for young readers." - The New York Times Book Review
Second up is Charles Dickens At Home by Hilary Macaskill with photographs by Graham Salter. This book tracks the places Dickens lived, from his Portsmouth birthplace and childhood home in Chatham to his last home back in Kent, at Gad's Hill Place in Rochester. The book also covers his travels in England and abroad, where the locations provided the settings in his novels, such as Nicholas Nickleby's Yorkshire and in the East Anglia of David Copperfield, Charles Dickens's most autobiographical novel. Above all, it is London, where he lived in different homes for the majority of his life, which is so identified with Dickens and with his fiction.
"A tale of more than two cities, this home-bio serves up lively detail on the many homes Mr. D loved and used as inspiration for settings in his novels. Personal letters and broad research tell of a fastidious serial renovator who quickly moved up the Victorian property ladder." -The National Post
Both are available at fine bookstores everywhere.
New to Yoga? Helpful Books to Get You Started
Jan 17, 2012 • 0 Comment(s)
After being convinced by several friends that there are numerous benefits to yoga, I jumped on the New Year's Resolution bandwagon and resolved to make an effort to do a class once a week for 2012. Halfway through January, I haven’t wavered from my resolution yet, but as a yoga newbie, I’m still trying to 
get into the swing of it.
Looking to get in on the yoga fad? Here are some books I found helpful:
30 Essential Yoga Poses
For Beginning Students and Their Teachers by Judith Hanson Lasater
9781930485044 | Rodmell Press
Paperback | Price: $30.95
A comprehensive guide for beginning students and their teachers, this book provides 30 essential yoga poses, their variations, and breathing practices. This is a good guide to see what you’re getting into, and what poses you might be seeing at your classes.
Yoga for Computer Users
Healthy Necks, Shoulders, Wrists, and Hands in the Postmodern Age
By Sandy Blaine
9781930485198 | Rodmell Press
Paperback | Price: 19.50
Twenty-two illustrated poses and exercises, and breathing and relaxation techniques that can be performed no matter what your age or yoga experience. They will help you to increase range of motion and circulation and provide counter-movements to "computer slump" posture.
Stretching
By Bob Anderson
9780936070469 | Shelter Publications
Paperback | Price: 24.95
While not necessarily yoga related, stretching provided some options for what my goals are of taking yoga in the first place – staying flexible and fit. The books reflects on the idea that stretching is the simplest of all fitness activities, and can be done throughout the day – not just during a designated class.
Ashfall by Mike Mullin Makes the Kirkus Best Teen Books of 2011 list!
Dec 05, 2011 • 0 Comment(s)
"In this chilling debut, Mullin seamlessly weaves meticulous details about science, geography, agriculture and slaughter into his prose, creating a fully immersive and internally consistent world scarily close to reality."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
About the book:
Many visitors to Yellowstone National Park don’t realize that the boiling hot springs and spraying geysers are caused by an underlying super volcano, so large that the caldera can only be seen by plane or satellite. And by some scientific measurements, it could be overdue for an eruption.
For Alex, being left alone for the weekend means having the freedom to play computer games and hang out with his friends without hassle from his mother. Then the Yellowstone super volcano erupts, plunging his hometown into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence. Alex begins a harrowing trek to search for his family and finds help in Darla, a travel partner he meets along the way. Together they must find the strength and skills to survive and outlast an epic disaster.
Published by Tanglewood Books
For the full list visit: http://www.kirkusreviews.com/best-of/2011/teen/
Say Her Name and Witches on the Road Tonight Make the Globe and Mail’s Top 100!
Dec 05, 2011 • 0 Comment(s)
Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman made the best reviewed non-fiction titles of the year list. From that review: "Goldman’s sublime and heart-rending story of his marriage to Mexican writer Aura Estrada, and of her tragic death is a book about loss and grief and the attendant "guilt, shame, and dread, on an endless loop." Say Her Name is also an unforgettable love story, a testament to a great love and love’s greatness." (coming in paperback in April 2012)
Francisco Goldman was also interviewed on CBC’s Writers and Company with Eleanor Wachtel when he was in Toronto this past fall for IFOA. It aired November 27th. Catch the full interview here
Witches on the Road Tonight by Sheri Goldman made the best foreign non-fiction list. Here’s what reviewer Andrew Pyper had to say: "Holman jumps between pre-Second World War Appalachia and present-day New York in a tale of magic, love and deep, dark secrets. There is humour in her prose, but no camp, no ghoulish excess. Witches is a serious novel about America’s relationship with home grown mythologies: horror B-movies, Southern black magic and, yes, witches." (now available in paperback)
Both are published by Atlantic Monthly Press
A Thousand Sisters Book Launch and Fundraiser
Apr 27, 2010 • 0 Comment(s)
Zerofootprint Foundation Invites you to join Lisa Shannon, author of A Thousand Sisters and Dominique Bikaba of the Congolese Pole Pole Foundation for two inspirational events to fundraise for Zerofootprint Foundation projects supporting women and the environment in the Congo.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Private Reception, 5:30pm
Meet Lisa Shannon and Dominique Bikaba for an intimate reception.
Panorama Lounge, 51st Floor, Manulife Centre, 55 Bloor Street West, Toronto
For every $150 donated, one ticket and signed book will be issued.
Book Reading, 7:00pm
A special appearance by Lisa Shannon. Open to all, A free event!
Indigo Books, Manulife Centre, 55 Bloor Street West, Toronto
30% of the proceeds from book sales at the event will go towards supporting the Congo.
Contact Doree at
doree.marentette@zerofootprint.net or at (416) 365-7557 x 167.
Learn more about Zerofootprint’s projects in the Congo click here!
Award Winner!
Mar 23, 2010 • 0 Comment(s)
Sherman Alexie has won the PEN/Faulkner Award! Alexie's 2009 novel, War Dances, came out on top of a list of finalists that included literary greats Barbara Kingsolver and Lorrie Moore, along with Coleson Whitehead and Lorraine N. Lopez.
Sherman Alexie has previously won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, awarded in 2007 for "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," as well as the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 for his contribution to Native American writing. Alexie's writing, which includes four novels, three short story collections, and poetry, focuses on Native American characters and issues, though he is well known for making these topics widely accessible and relatable.
PEN/Faulkner judge Al Young commented on choosing "War Dances":
""War Dances" taps every vein and nerve, every tissue, every issue that quickens the current blood-pulse: parenthood, divorce, broken links, sex, gender and racial conflict, substance abuse, medical neglect, 9/11, Official Narrative vs. What Really Happened, settler religion vs. native spirituality; marketing, shopping, and war, war, war. All the heartbreaking ways we don't live now--this is the caring, eye-opening beauty of this rollicking, bittersweet gem of a book."
Available at bookstores everywhere.
New In Fiction
Mar 09, 2010 • 0 Comment(s)
A great early review for the playfully titled Orion You Came and Took All My Marbles by Kira Henehan
"[A] sublime and cryptic debut in the vein of Sam Lipsyte's The Subject Steve . . . At its heart, the novel is an impressionistic tale propelled by Henehan's gorgeously arch prose and a constant stream of droll humor. The ephemeral plotting will either be frustrating or fabulous, depending on the reader, but there's no doubt that Henehan is a talent." --Publishers Weekly
The book is published by Milkweed Editions and is due to hit stores May.
What Is Happiness by Deepak Chopra….NYC January 2010
Mar 01, 2010 • 0 Comment(s)
Deepak Chopra on Happiness.
Catch Deepak in Montreal!
Happening Now: An Evening with Deepak Chopra in Montreal.
Dr. Deepak Chopra will be speaking at le Theatre Maisonneuve at La Place des arts, on March 30th, 2010, 7:30pm. Tickets available through the box office at (514) 842-2112 or 1 (866) 842-2112, or online at laplacedesarts.com
Deepak's latest book The Fifth Agreement (Amber-Allen Publishing) is in stores now!
The latest arrival from McSweeney’s
Feb 23, 2010 • 0 Comment(s)
THE PANORAMA (Issue 33 of McSweeney’s Quarterly) is a one-time only, Sunday-edition-sized newspaper. It has news and sports and arts coverage, and comics (sixteen pages of glorious, full-color comics, from Chris Ware and Dan Clowes and Art Spiegelman and many others besides) and a magazine, and is basically an attempt to demonstrate all the great things print journalism can (still) do, with as much first-rate writing and reportage and design (and posters and games and on-location Antarctic travelogues) as we could fit in there. It features journalism from Andrew Sean Greer, fiction from George Saunders and Roddy Doyle, dispatches from Afghanistan, and much, much more.
Pick up a copy at your local book store or
Chapters.Indigo.ca
Amazon.ca