Zoe Whittall & Bonnie Henry to be on The Next Chapter

Soap and Water & Common Sense, by Bonnie Henry
978-0887848124 | $19.95 pb | in stock
House of Anansi (Harper Collins)

Holding Still For As Long As Possible, by Zoe Whittall
978-0887842344 | $29.95 hc | in stock
House of Anansi (Harper Collins)

Authors Bonnie Henry (Soap and Water & Common Sense) and Zoe Whittall (Holding Still For As Long As Possible) will both be on CBC Radio’s The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers on December 8.

Zoe Whittall getting great reviews in the Globe, National Post & Toronto Star

Holding Still For as Long as Possible, by Zoe Whittall
978-0887842344 | $29.95 hc | in stock
House of Anansi (HarperCollins)

Zoe Whittall’s new novel has been getting great press in the print media:

“. . . Whittall is a dexterous puppeteer, and the book is unputdownable . . . Whittall’s skill as a novelist is that her interest in her characters, and in their stories, is genuine and generous.”

– The Globe and Mail

“With Holding Still, Whittall has established herself as a writer of immense vitality and courage; she stands as the voice of a lost, but thanks to her not forgotten generation: the boys and girls who will inherit the Earth.”

– National Post

“In Holding Still For As Long As Possible, the awareness of mortality intersects with the romantic restlessness of youth. It makes for a story whose vital signs are fully present and robust.”

– Toronto Star

Governor General’s Shortlists Announced

The Canada Council has announced the shortlists for the 2009 Governor General’s Awards, and I’m thrilled to have nine titles on the shortlists:

	Fiction: The Mistress of Nothing, by Kate Pullinger 978-1552787984 | $24.95 pb | in stock McArthur & Co. (HarperCollins)
	Non-Fiction: The Cello Suites, by Eric Siblin 978-0887842221 | $29.95 hc | in stock House of Anansi (HarperCollins)
	Drama: Where the Blood Mixes, by Kevin Loring 978-0889226081 | $16.95 pb | in stock Talon Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)
	Another Home Invasion, by Joan MacLeod 978-0889226227 | $16.95 pb | in stock Talon Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)
	Children’s Literature – Illustration: Bella’s Tree, by Janet Russell, illustrated by Jirina Marton 978-0888998705 | $19.95 hc | in stock Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)
	My Great Big Mamma, by Olivier Ka, illustrated by Luc Melanson 978-0888999429 | $18.95 hc | in stock Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)
	Alego, by Ningeokuluk Teevee 978-0888999436 | $17.95 hc | in stock Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)
	Translation – French to English: A Slight Case of Fatigue, by Stephane Bourguignon, translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott 978-0889225961 | $18.95 pb | in stock Talon Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)
	Empire of Desire, by Thierry Hentsch, translated by Fred A. Reed 978-0889225879 | $29.95 pb | in stock Talon Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Soap and Water & Common Sense in the Winnipeg Free Press, on CBC’s the Current

Soap and Water & Common Sense, by Dr. Bonnie Henry
978-0887848124 | $19.95 pb | in stock
House of Anansi (HarperCollins)

Dr. Bonnie Henry was on CBC Radio’s The Current on Tuesday, Sept. 8 to promote her new book,Soap and Water. The Free Press ran the first print review as well (and it’s a great one):

MD wants to put a bug in your ear

Reviewed by Brenlee Carrington

With its impressive combination of meticulous research and excellent writing, this is an invaluable handbook for anyone trying to stay healthy in a germ-infested universe.

Vancouver-based Dr. Bonnie Henry is director of Public Health Emergency Management at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control. She’s one of the point people on the H1N1 influenza outbreak.

Her book is both topical and practical. It provides in-depth insights into everything from H1N1 and hepatitis to West Nile Virus.

"Countless hours of misery are caused by bugs called viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites," she writes, (but) "much of this suffering is preventable."

The book’s title is evidence of that fact. Henry is a strong advocate of the major benefits of washing hands well with soap and water or an alcohol-based hand sanitizer to prevent a multitude of diseases.

She cautions, however, against using soap or detergent with antibacterial agents because the antibacterial agents can lead to "antibiotic-resistant bugs, which can then cause hard-to-treat infections."

Indeed, this area embodies one of Henry’s biggest concerns: "By taking unnecessary medications," she observes, "people have provided the bacteria in their bodies with a golden opportunity to determine the way the antibiotic works, thereby exerting selective pressure on bugs that can resist the drug."

Many of her recommendations are basic but bear repeating:

- Cover your mouth when you cough, preferably with a tissue, and stay at home when you have a fever.

- Get immunized.

- Don’t take antibiotics when you are sick with a virus (such as cold or flu).

- Cook foods to a safe temperature, especially meat and seafood.

- Wash foods thoroughly, especially produce that is eaten raw.

- Clean cutting boards, counters, doorknobs, toys and all surfaces where bugs may linger.

Henry also tackles myths and truths about bugs using a comprehensive Top 10 list that includes such relevant facts as: "superbugs are helpless against good hygiene."

The breadth of information covered in the book is vast. Henry explores everything from dangers lurking in our food supply to those floating in hot tubs.

Her insider’s perspective on the 2003 Toronto SARS virus outbreak makes for intriguing and sometimes alarming reading. "From the outset of the crisis," she notes, "public health officials and medical staff were frantically working blind."

Henry showcases her open-mindedness as an outstanding physician and scientist. In addition to delving into many of the major breakthroughs of modern medicine, she’s also willing to pay tribute to double Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling’s work with vitamin C.

While there’s no scientific evidence to back it up, she says, "I personally would never underestimate the healing power of chicken soup to provide comfort and relieve suffering."

Thorough, useful and accessible, Soap and Water & Common Sense belongs on bookshelves and in doctors’ offices everywhere.

Brenlee Carrington, a Winnipeg lawyer, mediator and journalist, is the Law Society of Manitoba’s equity ombudswoman.

The Cello Suites are everywhere, including on top of the bestseller list

The Cello Suites, by Eric Siblin
978-0887842221 | $29.95 hc | in stock
House of Anansi (HarperCollins)

Tons of exposure for Eric Siblin’s The Cello Suites:

Eric’s interview with Bill Richardson will aired April 5 on CBC’s Sunday Afternoon in Concert. 

The book was reviewed in the Globe & Mail by Joe Queenan on Apr. 3.

His interview with Shelagh Rogers will air on CBC’s The Next Chapter on April 11.

The Cello Suites currently sits at #1 on the Maclean’s Bestseller list for nonfiction.

Atwood’s Payback is shortlisted for business book of the year

Payback, by Margaret Atwood
9780887848100 | $18.95 pb | in stock
House of Anansi (HarperCollins)

Payback is a finalist for the National Business Book Award. The winner will be announced May 7. She’s got some tough competition with Peter C. Newman and the late Ted Rogers, not to mention Kenneth Whyte.

Two Anansi poets shortlisted for Griffin Poetry Prize

Revolver, by Kevin Connolly
978-0887847950 | $18.95 pb | in stock
House of Anansi (HarperCollins)

The Sentinel, by A. F. Moritz
978-0887847905 | $18.95 pb | in stock
House of Anansi (HarperCollins)

Anansi authors Kevin Connolly (Revolver) and A. F. Moritz (The Sentinel) are two of the three Canadian finalists for one the world’s largest poetry prizes. They are joined by Jeramy Dodds for his collection Crabwise to the Hounds (Coach House Books).

From the Judges’ Citation for Revolver:
"What sort of warning is being sounded in a book where the table of contents is fictional? Perhaps that the signs are not to be trusted; that you are going to have to find your own way. Such is the promise of the work of Kevin Connolly, one of Canada’s most profoundly engaged and rewarding poets. [Revolver is] a kind of stand-up comedy done with a flame-thrower . . . It’s a courageous poetic stance . . ."

From the Judges’ Citation for The Sentinel:
"A. F. Moritz has beautiful command of what William Empson called ‘a long delicate rhythm based on straight singing lines’. In his extraordinary collection The Sentinel, we never lose our bearing, so sure is his formal grace, even as we are carried into fabulous circumstance, get lost in places we know, are found in imaginary cities or in any ‘prosperous country’. [This is an] unsettling, superb collection of poems."

Two Anansi Authors Shortlisted for Commonwealth Writers’ Prize

The Spare Room, by Helen Garner
978-0887842245 | $24.95 hc | in stock
House of Anansi (HarperCollins)

The Withdrawal Method, by Pasha Malla
978-0887842153 | $29.95 hc | available May
aHouse of Anansi (HarperCollins)

 

Helen Garner has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for "Best Book" in the South East Asian and Pacific region for her internationally-acclaimed novel The Spare Room, the story of two friends facing illness and death together, one as patient, one as caregiver.

Pasha Malla, author of the Giller longlisted short story collection The Withdrawal Method, has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for "Best First Book" in the region of the Caribbean and Canada.

Winners will be announced in Kingston, Jamaica on March 11, 2009.

Established in 1987, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize promotes outstanding literary talent, and encourages wider readership, thereby increasing appreciation of, and understanding between cultures. Regional prizes are offered for "Best Book" and "Best First Book" in the regions of Africa; the Caribbean and Canada; Europe and South Asia; and South East Asia and South Pacific. The eight regional winners move on to the final phase of competition, two of which will emerge as winners of overall "Best Book," and overall "Best First Book." Last year’s winners were Lawrence Hill from Canada for "Best Book" for The Book of Negroes, and Tahmima Anam from Bangladesh for "Best First Book" for A Golden Age.

To view the complete shortlists, visit the official site of the Commonwealth Foundation.

Winnipeg Free Press, NYTimes review The Spare Room

The Spare Room, by Helen Garner
978-0887842245 | $24.95 hc | in stock
House of Anansi (HarperCollins)

Helen Garner’s The Spare Room has been reviewed by the New York Times and the Winnipeg Free Press. From the Free Press:

“[The Spare Room] cuts to the bone of what friendship comes to mean to two women . . . reads as memoir, or a rant of despair, frustration and blackly comic rage . . . Garner does more with this simple story in under 200 pages than many authors do with complex narratives in lengthy novels . . . not to be missed.”

And from the New York Times:

A Visit From Death

By LIESL SCHILLINGER

Published: February 12, 2009

Memories of the common run of childhood illnesses can be bittersweet. Time blunts the edge of a strep throat, muffles the pound of an earache, smooths over the bumps and itch of chicken pox, elides the infant’s croup. What remains is a shadowy, soothing recollection of being fussed over and ministered unto. Over the years, several of my friends have confided their fantasies of being “invalids.” They didn’t wish for the pain and anxiety of a grave disease; instead, they imagined themselves vaguely, pitiably under the weather, surrounded by gentle Florence Nightingales, cooing and clucking, consoling them, babying them — freeing them, at least temporarily, from the responsibility of looking after themselves or bearing the blame for what had befallen them.

But what becomes of a headstrong, solitary woman, devoted to maintaining a brave front, when she falls seriously ill? Who looks after a self-sufficient person who needs help but can’t help herself? And how do you take care of someone who refuses to admit the gravity of her condition, pigheadedly pursues crackpot cures, resists traditional medicine and resents being treated like an invalid? Should you even try? If you’re the sort of person who respects the summons of the sick bell even when the patient is too stubborn to ring it, you may not be able to resist the call. But should you? Your solicitude is a choice. What is the extent of your responsibility?

In “The Spare Room,” her first novel in 16 years, the Australian writer Helen Garner wrestles with a conscience-battering test of the limits of mercy, recounting the un-sugarcoated experience of an Australian grandmother who takes in a friend with a terminal illness. Free-spirited Nicola, a wealthy bohemian relic of the ’60s (old enough to be a grandmother but with no grandchildren — or children, for that matter), is riddled with cancer, which she believes aloe vera and vitamin-C drips may cure. In Sydney, Nicola has presumed upon the kindness and care of her niece Iris, like a sick cowbird who beds down in an alien nest. “She hasn’t the faintest clue what she asks of people,” Iris complains. Seeking the dubious treatments of high-priced quacks in Melbourne (offering ozone saunas with electrodes and coffee enemas), Nicola calls her Melbourne friend Helen — “Hel” for short — and invites herself over for a three-week stay. “You go to your family” when you’re sick, a friend of Helen’s tells her. But Nicola has no family: she “believes in freedom.” At least, in her own.

Compassionate and gracious by nature, Helen is a doting grandmother and a seasoned member of the literary community, burdened, despite her good intentions, with writerly detachment and an overly critical eye. She agrees to the visit, flattered to be relied upon, to be sought in a crisis. (“How competent I was! I would get a reputation for competence.”) To prepare for Nicola’s arrival, she puts great thought into readying her spare room, choosing sheets in a pale pink that is flattering “even to skin that has turned yellowish,” realigning the bed for good feng-shui, buying a rug patterned with “blossoms of watery green and salmon twining on a mushroom ground,” faded in color so Nicola won’t suspect the extravagance of a new purchase. And yet, like the laetrile-laden apricot kernels (part of Nicola’s bogus regimen) that Helen later stows in a glass jar, the room must have “radiated a meaningless glamour, like a photo in a lifestyle magazine.” Hospital corners may boost morale, but they can’t relieve the rigors of “lamp-lit labor” by the sickbed or prettify serious illness.

Picking up her friend at the airport, Helen realizes, too late, what she has taken on: “Her back was bowed right over, her neck straining as if under a heavy load. She was stripped of flesh, shuddering from head to foot like someone who has been out beyond the break too long in winter surf.” At night, Nicola drenches the spare room’s sheets with her sweats; time after time, Helen checks on her, providing clean linens — “stripped and changed, stripped and changed” — and priding herself on her thoughtfulness. “This was the part I liked,” she thinks, “straightforward tasks of love and order that I could perform with ease.” Helen remembers her own childhood, thinks of “my mother, how she would clean up after me when as a child I had what she called ‘a bilious attack.’ I remembered her patience in the middle of the night, the precious moments of her attention. . . . In a trance of gratitude I would watch her spread the clean sheet across my bed.” But gratitude does not occur to Nicola, who refuses to recognize her own distress. She awakens in high spirits, greeting Helen with exasperating sunniness: “ ‘Hello, darling!’ she caroled, in her blue-blood accent. ‘What a glorious morning!’ ”

Athill’s Somewhere Towards the End shortlisted for Costa Award

Somewhere Towards the End, by Diana Athill
9781847080691 | $16.95 pb | available February
Granta Books / House of Anansi (HarperCollins)

Diana Athill’s Somewhere Towards the End is shortlisted for the Costa Award (formerly known as the Whitbread Award), and the winner will be announced next week.

Anansi is taking over distribution of Granta on Mar 1., but will be bringing in copies of this book to HarperCollins to cover off orders right away. The books are being air freighted from the UK and will be in the HarperCollins warehouse next week.