The Hanging of Angelique by Afua Cooper
Marie-Joseph Angélique was a slave woman convicted of starting the fire that destroyed a large part of Montréal in April 1734. Her punishment of death by hanging was modified to an even crueler fate: she would be forced to undergo "le torture extraordinaire," a brutal leg-crushing. This true story is not simply a tale of black history, or even of Canadian history: it’s a universal story that resonates with a strong and insistent voice.
It’s not often that you hear someone saying that bottled water isn’t as expensive as it should be. But Raj Patel, author of The Value of Nothing, thinks many things cost less than they should. He wrote a list of 10 of those things.
#10 Bottled Water: Bottled water sounds like it should be cheaper -- it’s 200 to 10,000 times more expensive than tap water. But in the US, the annual energy wasted on bottled water adds the equivalent to 100,000 cars on roads and 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. And the price we pay for water doesn’t begin to address the longer term issues of global shortage for something that everyone needs to survive. Make a start: stop your local government from wasting your money on bottled water, as we did in San Francisco.
Continue reading "10 Things That Aren't As Cheap As You Think" »
It’s March Madness time again, and this year the competition is stiff. Last year saw James Rollins’ The Judas Strain take home the prize, and the year before Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River was crowned champion.
Think you know who should take the prize in 2010? It’s all up to you. Vote for your favourite at hccmarchmadness.ca, and we’ll keep you posted on the runnings until the bitter end.
And remember, it’s not just your favourite book taking a prize. If you vote for your top book, you could win all 64 March Madness books AND a 7 day vacation in the Bahamas (courtesy of our partner, itravel2000.com)!
Seriously, 64 books and a trip to the Bahamas. I don't think I need to say anything else.
Reviews have been rolling in from across the blogosphere (can I still say blogosphere?) and Our Man in Tehran has been making news all over. Even our authors have been busy, doing events and news appearances throughout Canada, and we've also got a few great contests going.
Check out the links we've culled over the last few weeks.
Read the excerpt here, or Browse Inside to read even more from Game Change!
In Game Change, a new and hotly bestselling book, authors Heilemann and Halperin pull back the curtain on the 2008 race for president, giving unrivalled access to the Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Palin campaigns. In this excerpt, we get a glimpse into Obama’s head on the morning before the fate-changing Iowa vote.
Prologue
Barack Obama jerked bolt upright in bed at three o’clock in the morning. Darkness enveloped his low-rent room at the Des Moines Hampton Inn; the airport across the street was quiet in the hours before dawn. It was very late December 2007, a few days ahead of the Iowa caucuses. Obama had been sprinting flat out for president for nearly a year. Through all the nights he’d endured in cookie-cutter hotels during the months of uncertainty and angst -- months of lagging by a mile in the national polls, his improbable bid for the White House written off by the Washington smart set, his self-confidence shaken by his uneven performance and the formidability of his archrival, Hillary Clinton -- Obama always slept soundly, like the dead. But now he found himself wide awake, heart pounding, consumed by a thought at once electric and daunting: I might win this thing.
Alanna Nash’s new Elvis biography, Baby, Let’s Play House, looks at the life of Elvis Presley from a whole new perspective. Using some exclusive interviews, Nash studies the life of The King by studying the women who knew him –- lovers, sweethearts, friends, costars, and, in this excerpt from chapter one, his mother.
Chapter One: 'My Best Gal'
Gladys.
In rock- and- roll mythology, she is the proud, all-suffering Madonna, the commoner who birthed a king and died too soon, knocking his world off its axis. Like her famous son, her first name is all that’s needed. Elvis called her “my best gal,” but in the deepest psychological sense, she was not only his best gal, but also his only one.
Forgive me, I haven't had a stitch of sleep in the past two days so I'm running on candy and empty just about now. But, I imagine first novelists to be there very own kind of gang: scrappy, independent, smart, sassy -- more The Outsiders, or The Sharks and The Jets, than those Bandidos. Yes, it's a really silly thing to say, but it's the first thing that popped into my mind as I read the lovely guest post The Day the Falls Stood Still author Cathy Marie Buchanan wrote about Catherine McKenzie's Spin, from one first novelist to another.
--Deanna
What I Like to Read: Catherine McKenzie’s Spin
I read a lot. Literary fiction. Historical fiction. Booker-prize-winners. Seriously hard stuff. And maybe that’s a mistake, because it’s been a while since I read until three in the morning, and that’s exactly what happened with Spin, Catherine McKenzie’s oh-so-wry debut. And there is a scene in the novel, when its narrator, the lovably wacky Katie Sandford, is locked outside the posh rehab facility where she is supposed to be researching a tell-all piece on the It Girl of the moment but is, instead, unwittingly becoming her friend.
I use the word unwittingly because, while the friendship might have begun as contrived on Katie’s part, it shifts to the real thing, creating the dilemma–to write the exposé or not–central to the book’s plot. But, back to the locked-out-of rehab scene: It’s nighttime. It’s cold. There is a sweet guy named Henry sitting on the ground in the woods, leaning up against a large rock:
‘Will you sit here?’ he says.
I can’t see where he’s indicating, but I know what he means. I sit down in front of him and scoot backwards. He bends his legs so his feet are flat on the ground, making a little cage around me. We’re both shivering.
As I read, I was shivering in that little cage alongside Katie, hyper-aware of the reddish-blond hairs of Henry’s arms tickling her own, desperately pulling for her not to mess up.
Spin is intelligent, poignant, and a bit of rollicking, good fun. Bravo, Catherine McKenzie. You’ve taught me a little something about what it is that I like to read.
Cathy Marie Buchanan is the New York Times Bestselling author of The Day the Falls Stood Still.
Everything that comes out regarding Toby: A Man seems to be funnier than the last thing that came out regarding Toby: A Man. Now, in addition to videos about his life in France and an advice blog written by his main character (oh, and a really hilarious book), Todd Babiak has attempted a video reading from Toby: A Man.
He doesn't get very far.
Now if that isn't a compelling book reading, I don't know what is.
--Amanda
Lindsey Kelk's I (Heart) New York was one of last 2009's feelgood hits. All the women around the offices loved the mix of romance, travel and shopping...lots of shopping. So it's no surprise that the release of Kelk's second book I (Heart) Hollywood has everyone buzzing again.
I may not be the target audience for a book like this but even I can recognize a burgeoning new rom-com talent. And to celebrate, HarperCollins has partnered with itravel2000 to give away a 7-Day Beach Vacation to Jamaica! Lindsey Kelk + Jamaica? You'll (Heart) this contest.
- Cory
