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.

Crocodiles Play, by Robert Heidbreder
978-1896580890 | $16.95 hc | in stock
Tradewind Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

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

Mother Goose, by Celia Lottridge
978-0888999337 | $9.95 boardbook | in stock
Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)

Crocodiles Play, When Stella Was Very, Very Small and Mother Goose have been selected by the Toronto Public Library as First & Best books of 2009 as part of TPL’s Ready for Reading program. They promote the books in an ad for the Globe and Mail, in a TPL flyer, and in a bookmark.

Never Give Up On Your Dream, by Warren Moon
9780306818240 | $31.95 hc | in stock
Da Capo Press / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Warren Moon will be in Toronto next month, and will be a featured guest on TSN’s Off the Record and will be interviewed on CBC Radio’s As It Happens.

The Case For Books, by Robert Darnton
9781586488260 | $30.50 hc | available October
Public Affairs / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Robert Darnton’s interview with Eleanor Wachtel for Writers & Company aired on Sunday, Oct. 18, and will repeat on the afternoon of Wednesday, Oct. 21.

The Wild Things, by Dave Eggers
978-1934781616 | $24.95 hc | temporarily out of stock
McSweeney’s / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Now that the movie is in theatres, we will start seeing reviews of the Dave Eggers novelization of the film. Reviews are expected in The Toronto Star, The Globe & Mail, National Post and Chatelaine.

EYE Weekly mentioned the book in their review of the film, and will likely cover it again before the holidays. Tribute.ca has also posted an article about the book.

Coteau Books has received nine nominations in five categories for the 2009 Saskatchewan Book Awards:

Nominated in the categories Book of the Year, Regina, and Award for Publishing: Legacy of Stone, by Marg Hyrniuk, Frank Korvemaker and Larry Easton 978-1550503692 | $39.95 hc | in stock Coteau Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)
Nominated in the categories Book of the Year and Fiction: Euphoria, by Connie Gault 978-1550504095 | $21.00 pb | in stock Coteau Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)
Nominated in the category Award for Publishing: The Knife Sharpener’s Bell, by Rhea Tregebov 978-1550504088 | $21.00 pb | in stock Coteau Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)
Nominated in the category Children’s Literature: Fight For Justice, by Lori Saigeon 978-1550504057 | $7.95 pb | in stock Coteau Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)
Nominated in the category Children’s Literature: Danger in Dead Man’s Mine, by Dave Glaze 978-1550504163 | $8.95 pb | in stock Coteau Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

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

The Taqwacores, by Michael Muhammad Knight
978-1593762292 | $16.95 pb | in stock
Soft Skull Press / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

The Taqwacores, by Kim Badawi
978-1576875001 | $45.50 hc | in stock
powerHouse Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Both The Toronto Star and the CBC’s The National ran stories about the Taqwacore movement, covering both Kim Badawi’s documentary film and Michael Muhammad Knight’s novel.

From the CBC’s online article:

They’ve got bands named Vote Hezbollah and Secret Trial Five. They’re Iranian-Texans, Vancouver-based lesbian Pakistanis and the converted son of a white supremacist wife-beater. They pump their fists into the air and chant “Allahu Akbar!”

And they’re punk Muslims.

Huh?

That was Omar Majeed’s reaction, too. He’s a Montreal-based filmmaker and his new film Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam hits theatres in Montreal and Toronto this week after runs at film festivals in Vancouver and Montreal.

“It kind of blew my mind,” he said of his discovery of the sub-culture. “I kept thinking to myself, ‘Wow, if I’d only known about this when I was a teenager. What an effect it would have had on me.”‘

Majeed discovered the scene as he pondered what it meant to be a Muslim in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

He wanted to hear from different voices than the Muslim fundamentalists often seen in the media or the “mainstream Muslim organizations that were basically just saying, ‘Muslim is all good, peace and love’ and all that stuff.”

Most Muslims, Majeed believed, were somewhere in the middle and “felt that voice hadn’t been represented yet.” Enter the Islamic punk movement, known as Taqwacore.

The director said he’s never been particularly religious, but was turned on to the book The Taqwacores by American convert Michael Muhammad Knight.

Knight, who was raised by a racist father and an abused mother, created a radical bunch of Muslim misfits to populate his book only to find that a whole community of real Muslim youths had embraced it and turned fiction into fact.

Majeed hooked up with Knight and went on a voyage of discovery across the United States and Pakistan as the punks tried to spread their message and get gigs for their bands, culminating in efforts to stage a mass outdoor show in a sketchy area of Lahore, Pakistan.

War Dances, by Sherman Alexie
9780802119193 | $28.95 hc | in stock
Grove Press / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Sherman Alexie’s interview on CBC Radio’s Writers & Company was broadcast on Oct. 11 and again on Oct. 14. Reviews of his new story collection War Dances are expected soon in both The Globe and Mail and the Winnipeg Free Press.

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)