Denim Diet excerpted on Canadian Living.com

The Denim Diet, by Kami Gray
978-1577316619 | $19.50 pb | in stock
New World Library / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

CanadianLiving.com has posted an excerpt from The Denim Diet: “Top 10 Ways to Look Thin”.

China Safari in NYT’s Business section’s Off the Shelf

China Safari, by Serge Michel and Michel Beuret
9781568584263 | $34.95 hc | in stock
Nation Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

The Off the Shelf business book review in the New York Times featured China Safari on July 19:

China’s Wide Reach in Africa
By HARRY HURT III

AMONG Westerners, the economic partnership between China and Africa is often overlooked. But in “China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa”, Serge Michel and Michel Beuret examine the roots of this relationship — and argue that China is engaged in a conquest of Africa that will have worldwide economic implications.

As French journalists, Mr. Michel and Mr. Beuret bring an acute awareness of their own country’s colonial history to the China-Africa story. Mr. Michel, a former West Africa correspondent for Le Monde, has also reported from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Beuret, the foreign editor of the Swiss magazine L’Hebdo, has written extensively on human trafficking in China and Europe.

“China Safari” is a fascinating, provocative work of firsthand reporting that illuminates an important global economic story. The book also features a 16-page insert of color photographs shot by Paolo Woods, who puts human faces on the book’s sprawling story and highlights some of the stark juxtapositions of African laborers and their Chinese bosses.

Young Inferno reviewed in PW, starred in School Library Journal

The Young Inferno, by John Agard
9781845077693 | $26.95 hc | in stock
Frances Lincoln / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

School Library Journal has given a starred review to John Agard’s The Young Inferno:

Gr 8 Up–The narrative poems in this short book are accessible and have important things to say about the state of the human race. “Off 2 Hell with teacher Aesop” reads a text message the hoodie-wearing protagonist composes in his head for his parents. As in a scary movie, he awakens in a strange and frightening forest. A dark man appears and introduces himself as the tale-teller Aesop: he is to be the teen’s escort through Hell (much like Dante used the poet Virgil as his guide). As the pair travels through the Circles of Hell, they see the sins of mankind. They see the gluttons forced to stuff their faces for eternity and those who were indifferent stung by wasps and flies. They also see scientists and artists such as Einstein, Homer, and Euclid forced for eternity to repeat some aspect of their creation. The pair visits the city of Dis, where “everybody disses everybody.” As our hero travels through Hell, he is trying to find his Good Fairy, his Beatrice. Some British terms might make a few sections a little tricky for American students, but savvy readers should be able to figure them out. The scribbled, heavy-lined black ink and watercolor illustrations convey exactly the right mood for a book about a modern-day expedition into Hell. This will be a great book to pair with a discussion about Dante’s Inferno and/or poetic structure.–Heather M. Campbell, formerly at Philip S. Miller Library, Castle Rock, CO

And from the review in Publishers Weekly:

British poet Agard pulls off the formidable task of modernizing Dante’s 14th-century Inferno for a teenage audience . . . While this fresh take will be most appreciated by those familiar with Dante’s work, its potential to ignite curiosity about the original should not be underestimated.

Dead Silence in NYT’s nonficiton review roundup

Dead Silence, by Bob Coen and Eric Nadler
9781582435091 | $33.95 hc | in stock
Counterpoint / Publishers Group Canada

Dead Silence was featured in the New York Times nonfiction roundup on July 19:

To Coen and Nadler, TV and film journalists with an inclination for “conspiracy chasing,” the resolution of the investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks was fishy. The F.B.I., after concentrating for years on a suspect who was ultimately exonerated, announced in 2008 that Bruce Ivins, an Army scientist with mental health problems, had killed himself days before he was to be indicted for the lethal mailings. Coen and Nadler hint that the real anthrax culprit might have been someone with a “profit motive” from the bio­weapons business. The authors write that their reporting for a documentary took them and their “cameras, contacts and growing suspicions to Siberia, South Africa and London,” along a trail that always seemed to arrive at “a common landmark — the body of a dead scientist.” Coen and Nadler relish the lurid conventions of the conspiracy genre. “Dead Silence,” written in snappy spy-thriller prose, is filled with dark innuendo (like the suggestion that anthrax “may have been used by assassins aligned with” President Bill Clinton) and a cast of germ-warfare obsessives. The authors are right to call themselves conspiracy chasers rather than theorists, because they never pull together their speculative threads. The book concludes not with an unveiling of conspirators, but with a plea for policy reform: to reduce the chances of disaster through negligence or malice, Coen and Nadler believe, America’s bioweapons defense program should be smaller and less secretive. This is perfectly reasonable, but anticlimactic — and not so persuasive — after the sensationalistic buildup that precedes it.

PW reviews Unbridled Books’ Shimmer & 31 Hours

Shimmer, by Eric Barnes
978-1932961959 | $24.95 pb | in stock
Unbridled Books / McArthur and Co. (HarperCollins)

31 Hours, by Masha Hamilton
978-1-932961-83-6 | $29.95 hc | available September
Unbridled Books / McArthur and Co. (HarperCollins)

Publishers Weekly has reviewed two of Unbridled Books’ titles:

Shimmer
This topical fiction debut from Memphis news publisher Barnes is a cautionary thriller about ambition and corruption in corporate America. Robbie Case, the 35-year-old CEO (and largest shareholder) of Core Communications has managed to grow the business from 30 employees to more than 5,000 in three short years. But his $20 billion company, linking mainframe computers worldwide to the Internet backbone, is built on faulty technology, false promises and questionable finances. Weary of the day when everything inevitably unravels, Case’s slow (but accelerating) downward spiral drives the narrative through a number of timely plots, including Ponzi schemes and toxic assets: “The people who worked here, the companies we acquired, the stock we sold—all of it was an unseen disease.” Readers may find it difficult, if not impossible, to empathize with Case, but the corporate intrigue should hook anyone fascinated by the collapse of Wall Street and the crimes of Bernie Madoff.

31 Hours
Hamilton’s gorgeous and complex fourth novel tracks the 31 hours before Jonas, a sensitive young man raised by idealistic parents (now divorced), straps on a vest of explosives and enters the New York City subway system to martyr himself. The novel begins with Jonas’s mother, Carol, knowing, with a mother’s instinct, that something is very wrong with her son. Thus begins an odyssey that takes her back to her ex-husband, Jake; to Jonas’s girlfriend, Vic; and, finally to the authorities. Hamilton touches on many perspectives, including that of Vic, a dancer who is shocked that her longtime friendship with Jonas recently turned to love; Vic’s younger sister, Mara, who tries to fix their parents’ failing marriage; Sonny Hirt, an especially perceptive homeless man who senses something is very wrong on the subway where he’s panhandling. Through all of this, Jonas ritually prepares for this final act of his life, but without the single-minded fanaticism one expects. It’s a very tense narrative, vividly imagined and eerily plausible.

Wolf Brother chosen for Today Show’s book club

Wolf Brother, by Michelle Paver
978-1842551318 | $9.95 pb | in stock
Orion / McArthur (HarperCollins)

The Today Show has chosen WOLF BROTHER by Michelle Paver, the first book in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, as the next pick for “Al’s Book Club.”  Michelle’s segment will air July 30.

The information on the rest of the series is below. The sixth and final book, Ghost Hunter, will be releasing in hardcover in October.

Spirit Walker, by Michelle Paver
978-1842551134 | $9.95 pb | in stock
Orion / McArthur (HarperCollins)

Soul Eater, by Michelle Paver
978-1842551141 | $9.95 pb | in stock
Orion / McArthur (HarperCollins)

Outcast, by Michelle Paver
978-1842551158 | $9.95 pb | in stock
Orion / McArthur (HarperCollins)

Oath Breaker, by Michelle Paver
978-1842551165 | $9.95 pb | in stock
Orion / McArthur (HarperCollins)

Ghost Hunter, by Michelle Paver
978-1842551752 | $18.95 hc | available October
Orion / McArthur (HarperCollins)

Dissection, At Home With Beatrix Potter featured in Globe’s Picture Perfect

Dissection, by John Warner
9780922233342 | $67.50 hc | in stock
Blast Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

At Home With Beatrix Potter, by Susan Denyer
9780711230187 | $33.50 pb | temporarily out of stock
Frances Lincoln / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

The Picture Perfect section in The Globe and Mail has featured Dissection this week (July 24), and will be featuring At Home with Beatrix Potter the weekend of July 31.

Lance Armstrong bio in NYT

Lance, by John Wilcockson
9780306815874 | $32.95 hc | in stock
Da Capo Press / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

John Wilcockson’s new Lance Armstrong biography was featured in the New York Times on July 23:

Another Armstrong book? . . . Is there anything left to say or explain? Yes there is and Wilcockson says it and explains it meticulously, even controversially . . . Lance lets them all speak as Wilcockson blends their stories into a skillful portrait.

When Stella Was Very, Very Small gets starred reviews in Kirkus, Q&Q, School Library Journal

When Stella Was Very, Very Small, by Marie-Louise Gay
9780888999061 | $18.95 hc | temporarily out of stock
Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)

The newest Stella book has been given starred reviews in the School Library Journal, the Quill & Quire, and Kirkus. It has also been reviewed well in Publishers Weekly and Booklist.

From the School Library Journal:

Gay’s mixed-media scenes dance with the energy of scribbled butterflies on the walls, teetering objects, and a blanket-turned-turban that flaps as Stella braves the desert storm in the sandbox…Subtle and sweet, yet full of life and humor, the child’s world is a place kids will want to visit again and again.

Dave Eggers on Q, in Winnipeg Free Press, Eye Weekly

Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers 
9781934781630 | $30.95 hc | in stock
McSweeney’s / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Dave Eggers will be on CBC Radio’s Q on Wednesday, July 29th to promote Zeitoun. The book has also been reviewed in Toronto’s Eye Weekly and the Winnipeg Free Press.