The Economist reviews Bring Me My Machine Gun

Bring Me My Machine Gun, by Alec Russell
9781586487386 | $31.00 hc | in stock
PublicAffairs / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Alec Russell’s book was reviewed alongside two other recent books on South Africa in Review in The Economist, April 17th, and comes out the favourite:

It is a relief to view South Africa’s past two decades through Alec Russell’s gentler, insightful, sometimes humorous, sometimes bleak, but always kaleidoscopic prism. He robustly addresses the same doleful issues of governance as the other two. It would have been better, he writes, if both Mr Mbeki and Mr Zuma had stepped aside to let a new man take the presidency next month.

But his portrait of South Africa, alive with delicious vignettes across a range of humanity, is more nuanced—and more readable—than those of his two counterparts. Perhaps, as an outsider (who now edits world news for the Financial Times in London) he could more easily step back, after two stints as a correspondent in Johannesburg, and still enjoy the beloved country in all its contradictions.

earthgirl in National Post, on CBC Metro Morning

earthgirl, by Jennifer Cowan
978-0888998903 | $12.95 pb | in stock
Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)

A great piece on earthgirl by Jennifer Cowan was in the National Post and went out nationally in CanWest papers on Apr. 22. The same day, Jennifer was also on Toronto’s CBC Metro Morning with Andy Barrie.

From the CanWest article:

Eco-engaging the iGeneration

Social Media; Reaching out to a younger audience

Julie Beun-Chown, Canwest News Service 
Published: Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Jennifer Cowan cheerfully admits she’s been hearing voices for years. And she couldn’t do without them. Some talk to her, some talk to each other.

Whatever they say, they eventually end up as material for the Toronto-based television writer’s latest project.

These days, the loudest voice belongs to Sabine, a funny and self-righteous 16-year-old with a budding environmental conscience and a smart mouth who first ’spoke’ to Ms. Cowan as a blogger in 2003.

"I was walking around Lost Lake [at Whistler] when I first heard Sabine’s voice. At first she was blogging about things that were senseless. Then," Ms. Cowan recalls, "she decided someone should be talking about ‘all the everything going on in the world.’ "

That ‘everything’ — from recycling and pollution to rampant consumerism — has now formed the basis not just of Ms. Cowan’s first novel, earthgirl — a teen love story/ green manifesto — but also a blog featuring Sabine herself.

As part of Ms. Cowan’s multi-media marketing effort, ‘Sabine’ regularly updates her blog (sabinetheearthgirl. wordpress.com),with links, videos and posts on everything from her environmental interests (wild foxes, Earth Hour) to her eclectic musical tastes (think indie Canadian bands). Ms. Cowan, who draws on her own green thinking and musical repertoire to fill the blog, admits that while using social media and posing as her character to engage the so-called iGeneration in environmental issues is an unusual step, she suspects it’s just the start of what the future holds.

Ali Velshi to be on The View

Gimme My Money Back, by Ali Velshi
9780981453569 | $16.95 pb | in stock
Sterling and Ross / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Ali Velshi is scheduled to appear on The View on April 30th.

Catching Fire author interviewed in NYT Science section

Catching Fire, by Richard Wrangham
9780465013623 | $31.00 hc | available May
Basic Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Author Richard Wrangham was interviewed for the The New York Times science section, April 21st:

A Conversation With Richard Wrangham

From Studying Chimps, a Theory on Cooking

By CLAUDIA DREIFUS

Published: April 20, 2009

Richard Wrangham, a primatologist and anthropologist, has spent four decades observing wild chimpanzees in Africa to see what their behavior might tell us about prehistoric humans. Dr. Wrangham, 60, was born in Britain and since 1989 has been at Harvard, where he is a professor of biological anthropology. His book, “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human,” will be published in late May. He was interviewed over a vegetarian lunch at last winter’s American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago and again later by telephone. An edited version of the two conversations follows.

Q. In your new book, you suggest that cooking was what facilitated our evolution from ape to human. Until now scientists have theorized that tool making and meat eating set the conditions for the ascent of man. Why do you argue that cooking was the main factor?

A. All that you mention were drivers of the evolution of our species. However, our large brain and the shape of our bodies are the product of a rich diet that was only available to us after we began cooking our foods. It was cooking that provided our bodies with more energy than we’d previously obtained as foraging animals eating raw food.

I have followed wild chimpanzees and studied what, and how, they eat. Modern chimps are likely to take the same kinds of foods as our early ancestors. In the wild, they’ll be lucky to find a fruit as delicious as a raspberry. More often they locate a patch of fruits as dry and strong-tasting as rose hips, which they’ll masticate for a full hour. Chimps spend most of their day finding and chewing extremely fibrous foods. Their diet is very unsatisfying to humans. But once our ancestors began eating cooked foods — approximately 1.8 million years ago — their diet became softer, safer and far more nutritious.

And that’s what fueled the development of the upright body and large brain that we associate with modern humans. Earlier ancestors had a relatively big gut and apelike proportions. Homo erectus, our more immediate ancestor, has long legs and a lean, striding body. In fact, he could walk into a Fifth Avenue shop today and buy a suit right off a peg.

Our ancestors were able to evolve because cooked foods were richer, healthier and required less eating time.

Quinn Bradlee on The View

A Different Life, by Quinn Bradlee
9781586481896 | $29.00 hc | temporarily out of stock
PublicAffairs / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Quinn Bradlee appeared on The View on Tues, April 21st to promote his new book A Different Life: Growing Up Learning Disabled and Other Adventures.

Dread author on The Daily Show

Dread, by Philip Alcabes
9781586486181 | $31.00 hc | in stock
PublicAffairs / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Author Philip Alcabes was on The Daily Show Wed April, 22nd to promote his new book Dread: How Fear and Fantasy have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Death to the Avian Flu.

PW review of Life-Size Zoo

Life-Size Zoo, by Teruyukie Komiya
9781934734209 | $25.00 hc | in stock
Seven Footer Press / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Life-Size Zoo has been given a great review by Publishers Weekly:

The claim to fame for this oversize collection of animal portraits is that each animal is shown at “actual size.” The striking photographs, taken at Japanese zoos, provide a rare opportunity to see animal faces up close (for bigger animals, like the elephant, the pages fold out) from the tiger’s pink tongue to an armadillo and hedgehog, shown in profile, as well as rolled up tight. Animal facts are provided in side panels that feature stick figures who engage readers (“Can you see that this zebra has… long hairs underneath her eyes?”) and cute cartoon versions of each creature. The stellar photographs, playful format and informative content create a highly appealing package.

Smart Girls Marry Money on Oprah

Smart Girls Marry Money, by Elizabeth Ford and Daniela Drake, MD
9780762435173 | $20.95 hc | available April
Running Press / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

The authors of Smart Girls Marry Money: How Women Have Been Duped into the Romantic Dream – and How They’re Paying for It were "Skype" guests on Oprah last Friday during the "Hot Topics" segment.

The book just released in the US last week and stock is on the way to Raincoast now.

Nicholas Stern promoting The Global Deal with Canadian media blitz

The Global Deal, by Nicholas Stern
9781586486693 | $31.00 hc | in stock
PublicAffairs / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Nicholas Stern’s tour to Toronto is coming together nicely for Friday May 1. He will be interviewed live on CBC Radio “The Current” and on BNN’s evening business program. He will also do an interview with The Globe & Mail to run on May 1 and will tape an interview with Evan Solomon for CBC News Sunday.

The Purity Myth on the Today Show, in Toronto Star

The Purity Myth, by Jessica Valenti
9781580052535 | $34.95 hc | in stock
Seal Press / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Jessica Valenti (Full Frontal Feminism, Yes means Yes!) was on The Today Show on Apr. 23 to promote her new book, which is also to be excerpted in the Toronto Star this weekend.