Man Booker Prize Winner 2014

The winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize is Richard Flanagan for his book The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Summary:

In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Thailand-Burma Death Railway in 1943, Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle's young wife two years earlier. His life is a daily struggle to save the men under his command, until he receives a letter that will change him forever. It tells a story of death, love, and family, exploring the many forms of good and evil, as one man comes of age and prospers, only to discover all that he has lost.

Richard Flanagan was born in Longford, Tasmania, in 1961. He received a Master of Letters degree from Oxford University. His first novel, Death of a River Guide, won Australia's National Fiction Award. His works include The Sound of One Hand Clapping, The Unknown Terrorist, and four history books. He has received numerous awards including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Gould's Book of Fish, the 2011 Tasmania Book Prize for Wanting, and the 2014 Man Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North. He directed a feature film version of The Sound of One Hand Clapping. (Bowker Author Biography)

We have this wonderful book in paper and as an audiobook.

Giller Prize Shortlist 2014

The Giller Prize Shortlist for 2014 was announced yesterday. The finalists are:

The Betrayers by David Bezmozgis

These incandescent pages give us one momentous day in the life of Baruch Kotler, a disgraced Israeli politician. When he refuses to back down from a contrary but principled stand regarding the West Bank settlements, his political opponents expose his affair with a mistress decades his junior. He and the fierce young Leora flee the scandal for Yalta, where he comes face to face with the former friend who denounced him to the KGB almost forty years earlier. In a mere twenty-four hours, Kotler must face the ultimate reckoning, both with those who have betrayed him and with those whom he has betrayed, including a teenage daughter, a son facing his own ethical dilemmas in the Israeli army, and the wife who stood by his side through so much. In prose that is elegant, sly, precise and devastating, David Bezmozgis has rendered a story for the ages, an inquest into the nature of fate and consequence, love and forgiveness.

Tell by Frances Itani

The bestselling author of the award-winning international sensation Deafening returns to the period following the First World War with a tour de force-an extraordinary novel of secrets withheld and secrets revealed. In 1919, only months after the end of the Great War, the men and women of Deseronto struggle to recover from wounds of the past, both visible and hidden. Kenan, a young soldier who has returned from the war damaged and disfigured, confines himself to his small house on the Bay of Quinte, wandering outside only under the cover of night. His wife, Tress, attempting to adjust to the trauma that overwhelms her husband and which has changed their marriage, seeks advice from her Aunt Maggie. Maggie, along with her husband, Am, who cares for the town clock tower, have their own sorrows, which lie unacknowledged between them. Maggie finds joy in her friendship with a local widow and in the Choral Society started by Lukas, a Music Director who has moved to the town from an unknown place in war-torn Europe. While rehearsing and performing, Maggie rediscovers a part of herself that she had long set aside. As the decade draws to a close and the lives of these beautifully-drawn characters become more entwined, each of them must decide what to share and what to hide, and how their actions will lead them into the future. With the narrative power and writerly grace for which she is celebrated, Frances Itani has crafted a deeply moving, emotionally rich story about the burdens of the past. She shows us how, ultimately, the very secrets we bury to protect ourselves can also be the cause of our undoing. Tell is stunning achievement.

Us Conductors by Sean Michaels

Us Conductors is a beautiful, haunting, brilliant novel inspired by the true life and loves of the Russian scientist, inventor and spy Lev Termen--creator of the theremin. In a finely woven series of flashbacks and correspondence, Us Conductors takes us from the glitz and glam of New York in the 1930s to the gulags and scientific camps of the Soviet Union. Lev Termen is imprisoned on a ship steaming its way from New York City to the Soviet Union. He is writing a letter to his "one true love," Clara Rockmore, the finest theremin player in the world. From there we learn Termen's story: his early days as a scientist in Leningrad, and the acclaim he received as the inventor of the theremin, eventually coming to New York under the aegis of the Russian state. There he stays, teaching eager music students, making his name, and swiftly falling in love with Clara. But it isn't long until he has fallen in with Russian spooks, slipping through the shadows of a budding Cold War, with cold-blooded results. The novel builds to a crescendo as Termen returns to Russia, where he is imprisoned in a Siberian gulag and later brought to Moscow, tasked with eavesdropping on Stalin himself. Us Conductors is a book of longing and electricity. Like Termen's own life, it is steeped in beauty, wonder and looping heartbreak. How strong is unrequited love? What does it mean when it is the only thing keeping you alive? This sublime debut inhabits the idea of invention on every level, no more so than in its depiction of Termen's endless feelings for Clara--against every realistic odd. For what else is love, but the greatest invention of all?

The Girl who was Saturday night by Heather O'Neill

A coming-of-age novel set on the seedy side of Montreal's St. Laurent Boulevard Gorgeous twins Noushcka and Nicolas Tremblay live with their grandfather Loulou in a tiny, sordid apartment on St. Laurent Boulevard. They are hopelessly promiscuous, wildly funny and infectiously charming. They are also the only children of the legendary Québécois folksinger Étienne Tremblay, who was as famous for his brilliant lyrics about working-class life as he was for his philandering bon vivant lifestyle and his fall from grace. Known by the public since they were children as Little Noushcka and Little Nicolas, the two inseparable siblings have never been allowed to be ordinary. On the eve of their twentieth birthday, the twins' self-destructive shenanigans catch up with them when Noushcka agrees to be beauty queen in the local St. Jean Baptiste Day parade. The media spotlight returns, and the attention of a relentless journalist exposes the cracks in the family's relationships. Though Noushcka tries to leave her family behind, for better or worse, Noushcka is a Tremblay, and when tragedy strikes, home is the only place she wants to be. With all the wit and poignancy that made Baby such a beloved character in Lullabies for Little Criminals , O'Neill writes of an unusual family and what binds them together and tears them apart. The Girl Who Was Saturday Night is classic, unforgettable Heather O'Neill.

All my puny sorrows by Miriam Toews

Miriam Toews is beloved for her irresistible voice, for mingling laughter and heartwrenching poignancy like no other writer. In her most passionate novel yet, she brings us the riveting story of two sisters, and a love that illuminates life. You won't forget Elf and Yoli, two smart and loving sisters. Elfrieda, a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, happily married: she wants to die. Yolandi, divorced, broke, sleeping with the wrong men as she tries to find true love: she desperately wants to keep her older sister alive. Yoli is a beguiling mess, wickedly funny even as she stumbles through life struggling to keep her teenage kids and mother happy, her exes from hating her, her sister from killing herself and her own heart from breaking. But Elf's latest suicide attempt is a shock: she is three weeks away from the opening of her highly anticipated international tour. Her long-time agent has been calling and neither Yoli nor Elf's loving husband knows what to tell him. Can she be nursed back to "health" in time? Does it matter? As the situation becomes ever more complicated, Yoli faces the most terrifying decision of her life. All My Puny Sorrows , at once tender and unquiet, offers a profound reflection on the limits of love, and the sometimes unimaginable challenges we experience when childhood becomes a new country of adult commitments and responsibilities. In her beautifully rendered new novel, Miriam Toews gives us a startling demonstration of how to carry on with hope and love and the business of living even when grief loads the heart.

The ever after of Ashwin Rao by Padma Viswanathan

A stunning new work set among families of those who lost loved ones in the 1985 Air India bombing, registering the unexpected reverberations of this tragedy in the lives of its survivors. A book of post-9/11 Canada, The Ever After of Ashwin Rao demonstrates that violent politics are all-too-often homegrown in North America but ignored at our peril. In 2004, almost 20 years after the fatal bombing of an Air India flight from Vancouver, 2 suspects--finally--are on trial for the crime. Ashwin Rao, an Indian psychologist trained in Canada, comes back to do a "study of comparative grief," interviewing people who lost loved one in the attack. What he neglects to mention is that he, too, had family members who died on the plane. Then, to his delight and fear, he becomes embroiled in the lives of one family caught in the undertow of the tragedy, and privy to their secrets. This surprising emotional connection sparks him to confront his own losses. The Ever After of Ashwin Rao imagines the lasting emotional and political consequences of a real-life act of terror, confronting what we might learn to live with and what we can live without.

You have until November 10th until the winner is crowned.  Read as many as you can before the winner is announced and see if you agree with the jury!

Alberta Culture Days 2014

Hilary Weston Prize for Non-fiction 2014 Shortlist

For all you non-fiction readers, The Hilary Weston Prize for Non-fiction announced its' shortlist. They are:

Shopping for votes: How politicians choose us and we choose them by Susan Delacourt

A witty, insightful, and provocative look at the inside world of political marketing and its impact on democracy Inside the political backrooms of Ottawa, the Mad Men of Canadian politics are planning their next consumer-friendly pitch. Where once politics was seen as a public service, increasingly it's seen as a business, and citizens are considered customers. But its unadvertised products are voter apathy and gutless public policy. Ottawa insider Susan Delacourt takes readers onto the world of Canada's top political marketers, explaining how parties slice and dice their platforms according to what polls say voters' priorities are in each constituency, and how parties control the media.Provocative, incisive and entertaining, Checked Out is The Age of Persuasion meets The Armageddon Factor .

This changes everything: Capitalism vs the climate by Naomi Klein

FINALIST 2014 - Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-Fiction Forget everything you think you know about global warming. The really inconvenient truth is that it's not about carbon--it's about capitalism. The convenient truth is that we can seize this existential crisis to transform our failed system and build something radically better. In her most provocative book yet, Naomi Klein, author of the global bestsellers The Shock Doctrine and No Logo , tackles the most profound threat humanity has ever faced: the war our economic model is waging against life on earth. Klein exposes the myths that are clouding the climate debate. We have been told the market will save us, when in fact the addiction to profit and growth is digging us in deeper every day. We have been told it's impossible to get off fossil fuels when in fact we know exactly how to do it--it just requires breaking every rule in the "free-market" playbook: reining in corporate power, rebuilding local economies and reclaiming our democracies. We have also been told that humanity is too greedy and selfish to rise to this challenge. In fact, all around the world, the fight back is already succeeding in ways both surprising and inspiring. Climate change, Klein argues, is a civilizational wake-up call, a powerful message delivered in the language of fires, floods, storms and droughts. Confronting it is no longer about changing the light bulbs. It's about changing the world--before the world changes so drastically that no one is safe. Either we leap--or we sink. Once a decade, Naomi Klein writes a book that redefines its era. No Logo did so for globalization. The Shock Doctrine changed the way we think about austerity. This Changes Everything is about to upend the debate about the stormy era already upon us.

Happy city: Transforming our lives through urban design by Charles Montgomery

Charles Montgomery's Happy City will revolutionize the way we think about urban life. After decades of unchecked sprawl, more people than ever are moving back to the city. Dense urban living has been prescribed as a panacea for the environmental and resource crises of our time. But is it better or worse for our happiness? Are subways, sidewalks and condo towers an improvement on the car-dependence of sprawl? The award-winning journalist Charles Montgomery finds answers to such questions at the intersection between urban design and the emerging science of happiness, during an exhilarating journey through some of the world's most dynamic cities. He meets the visionary mayor who introduced a "sexy" bus to ease status anxiety in Bogotá; the architect who brought the lessons of medieval Tuscan hill towns to modern-day New York City; the activist who turned Paris's urban freeways into beaches; and an army of American suburbanites who have hacked the design of their own streets and neighborhoods. Rich with new insights from psychology, neuroscience and Montgomery's own urban experiments, Happy City reveals how our cities can shape our thoughts as well as our behavior. The message is as surprising as it is hopeful: by retrofitting cities and our own lives for happiness, we can tackle the urgent challenges of our age. The happy city can save the world--and all of us can help build it.

Extreme mean: Trolls, bullies and predators online by  Paula Todd

From one of Canada's foremost investigative writers, a groundbreaking exposé on the motives and machinations behind cyberabuse - tormenting, trolling, harassment, cyberbullying, stalking, and sexual extortion - and the toll it is taking on children, youth, and adults around the world. nbsp; It seems as if each week our news broadcasts, newspaper headlines, Twitter feeds, and Facebook timelines are dominated by stories of cyberbullying and other digital abuse. This isn't the playground teasing and name-calling of generations before the Internet. This new abuse's unique characteristics - anonymity, permanence, and viral audience - can relentlessly exacerbate the humiliation, pain, and danger of its victims. nbsp; Ugly rumours that once snaked through school hallways and around the office water cooler are now delivered at lightning speed to the world, while sexual extortion and revenge-porn sites target those who've shared intimate images or had them stolen by hackers. Cyberstalkers who target adults destroy reputations and careers. And the splendid connectivity of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, also makes us vulnerable to "interpersonal terrorism," while apps that promise privacy and rapid deletion are ridden with loopholes. nbsp; With vivid reportage, Paula Todd goes deep into the world of "extreme mean," uncovering the people who use the Internet to undermine lives rather than improve them. Through exclusive personal stories of online abuse from around the world, including the suicide of Amanda Todd and the untold costs of Rebecca Black's experience as "the most hated girl on the Internet," as well as interviews with troll-tormentors, accidental abusers, victimized kids, and adults, Extreme Mean explores the often surprising roots of online abuse, challenges current academic thinking, and offers new ways of understanding the nasty and the nefarious who erode humanity andnbsp; threaten Internet freedom. nbsp; Provocative, astute and compelling, Extreme Mean is a shocking yet inspiring illustration of behaviour that affects all of us. It's a call-to-arms for change, and a search for ways to turn a moral panic into a moral possibility.

Boundless: Tracing land and dream in a new Northwest Passage by Kathleen Winter

In 2010, Kathleen Winter was offered a ride on a ship sailing through the Northwest Passage, the same route that took the lives of Sir John Franklin and his crew in 1844. On board, Winter comes face to face with the impressive beauty of Canada's north and with her unforgettable fellow passengers. She chronicles it all in Boundless, which is both a travel journal and a meditation on Canada's relationship with the North and the people who call it home.
Filled with elegance and insight, Boundless is an important contribution to the conversation about Canada's north.

Rogers Writers' Trust Prize Finalists 2014

The 2014 finalists for the Rogers Writers' Trust Prize for fiction were announced on Wednesday. They are:

Pastoral by André Alexis

There were plans for an official welcome. It was to take place the following Sunday. But those who came to the rectory on Father Pennant's second day were the ones who could not resist seeing him sooner. Here was the man to whom they would confess the darkest things. It was important to feel him out. Mrs Young, for instance, after she had seen him eat a piece of her macaroni pie, quietly asked what he thought of adultery. André Alexis brings a modern sensibility and a new liveliness to an age-old genre, the pastoral. For his very first parish, Father Christopher Pennant is sent to the sleepy town of Barrow. With more sheep than people, it's very bucolic;too much Barrow Brew on Barrow Day is the rowdiest it gets. Bu things aren't so idyllic for Liz Denny, whose fiancé doesn't want to decide between Liz and his more worldly mistress Jane, and for Father Pennant himself, who greets some miracles of nature;mayors walking on water, talking sheep;with a profound crisis of faith.

The Confabulist by Steven Galloway

To confabulate, according to Merriam-Webster, is to fill in the blanks in one's memory by fabricating. If one repeats the lie often enough, does it then become truth? In this engaging novel, based loosely on the life of Harry Houdini, Canadian author Galloway (The Cellist of Sarajevo) challenges readers to distinguish between illusion and reality through the metaphor of magic. The story centers on narrator Martin Strauss, diagnosed with a degenerative disease that affects memory, as he struggles to recall, and atone for, the fateful night that he and the great magician first crossed paths. Martin and his lover Clara were attending -Houdini's performance in Montreal when a confluence of circumstances resulted in Martin's delivering the sucker punch to Houdini's gut that would lead to his death from a ruptured appendix. Confused and guilt ridden, Martin abandons Clara and becomes obsessed with meeting Houdini's widow, Bess, to make amends. VERDICT Like a magician, Galloway embeds enough curveballs and red herrings in his narrative to keep readers on unsteady footing throughout, as they circle back to reread a chapter, trying to decipher what is real and what is illusion. This blending of fact and fiction is reminiscent of work by E.L. Doctorow or Colum McCann, ensuring interest for both history and mystery buffs.

All Saints by K.D. Miller

From the first page of All Saints, readers know they’re in the hands of a true writer. With language both rich and restrained, images both precise and evocative, Miller entices us into the lives of people who all share a connection to an Anglican church being slowly deserted. Thanks to the subtle and intricate structure of the collection, the individual stories knit into a whole, achieving the effect of a novel, offering portraits of individuals and their tenuous community that claim a permanent place in our minds, and leaving us grateful for K.D. Miller’s artistry. 

Girl Runner by Carrie Snyder

Girl Runner is the story of Aganetha Smart, a former Olympic athlete who was famous in the 1920s, but now, at age 104, lives in a nursing home, alone and forgotten by history. For Aganetha, a competitive and ambitious woman, her life remains present and unfinished in her mind. When her quiet life is disturbed by the unexpected arrival of two young strangers, Aganetha begins to reflect on her childhood in rural Ontario and her struggles to make an independent life for herself in the city. Without revealing who they are, or what they may want from her, the visitors take Aganetha on an outing from the nursing home. As ready as ever for adventure, Aganetha's memories are stirred when the pair return her to the family farm where she was raised. The devastation of WWI and the Spanish flu epidemic, the optimism of the 1920s and the sacrifices of the 1930s play out in Aganetha's mind, as she wrestles with the confusion and displacement of the present. Part historical page-turner, part contemporary mystery, Girl Runner is an engaging and endearing story about family, ambition, athletics and the dedicated pursuit of one's passions. It is also, ultimately, about a woman who follows the singular, heart-breaking and inspiring course of her life until the very end.

All my puny sorrows by Mirian Toews

In her most passionate novel yet, she brings us the riveting story of two sisters, and a love that illuminates life. You won't forget Elf and Yoli, two smart and loving sisters. Elfrieda, a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, happily married: she wants to die. Yolandi, divorced, broke, sleeping with the wrong men as she tries to find true love: she desperately wants to keep her older sister alive. Yoli is a beguiling mess, wickedly funny even as she stumbles through life struggling to keep her teenage kids and mother happy, her exes from hating her, her sister from killing herself and her own heart from breaking. But Elf's latest suicide attempt is a shock: she is three weeks away from the opening of her highly anticipated international tour. Her long-time agent has been calling and neither Yoli nor Elf's loving husband knows what to tell him. Can she be nursed back to "health" in time? Does it matter? As the situation becomes ever more complicated, Yoli faces the most terrifying decision of her life. All My Puny Sorrows , at once tender and unquiet, offers a profound reflection on the limits of love, and the sometimes unimaginable challenges we experience when childhood becomes a new country of adult commitments and responsibilities. In her beautifully rendered new novel, Miriam Toews gives us a startling demonstration of how to carry on with hope and love and the business of living even when grief loads the heart.


With all of the literary prizes coming up in November, our reading piles should be getting very high.