Quote of the week:
From Pratt’s Nobel Collection
Any peace not built on justice and on the recognition of the rights of the peoples, would be a structure of sand which would crumble under the first blow.
Anwar al-Sadat, Peace 1978
Happenings
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Howard Engel chosen for CBC Book Club Honoured as a writer whose work transcends the mystery genre, Howard received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Jewish Book Awards. Along with Hannah Sung from the CBC, you can visit Howard at home if you click here: |
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Vermeer's Hat
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Arthur Ellis recognition for James W. NicholJames W. Nichol has done it again. His second novel Transgression has just been short-listed for the 2009 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel. In 2003, Nichol won the award for his bestselling first novel Midnight Cab. Transgression is a powerful tale that follows the life of Adele, a young French woman caught in a web of love and hate during the turbulence of World War II. When the war’s over, she believes she can begin a new life in Canada. Then the secrets of her past resurface and come back to torment her. HarperCollins US will release Transgression this Fall |
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Classic Donna MorrisseyKit’s Law, Donna Morrissey’s debut novel first published in 1999 is a certified classic. It has just been re-released in Penguin’s Celebrations edition. Its paperback cover is reminiscent of the iconic softcover editions launched by the company 60 years ago. Morrissey’s wonderful heroine Kit Pitman has attracted readers on far-flung shores, as her salty Newfoundland dialect has been rendered into German, Japanese, Swedish, and is coming soon in Italian. Donna Morrissey has gone on to write three more novels, most recently What They Wanted which has been hailed as a masterpiece. But Kit, who at age 14, has to take charge of her mentally disabled mother and keep both of them from being consigned to an institution, continues to be a literary force. To see Donna at home, click here:
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CIA Approval for Tod HoffmanThe spooks at the CIA are recommending Tod Hoffman’s book, The Spy Within (Steerforth). It is the true and alarming story of Larry Chin, a Chinese spy who infiltrated the CIA for 30 years. In his review of the book in The Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf, a CIA publication, Hayden B. Peake writes “The Spy Within is a well-told story about a spy who beat the security system and couldn’t resist telling the FBI how he did it.” Peake also notes: “The most interesting aspects of the case concern the details of his recruitment by the Chinese, how he was detected, and how he came to confess.” |
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Koppel's TravelsTom Koppel is on another journey around the Pacific, including New Zealand and Norfolk Island. He is interviewing scientists, sailors and Islanders gathering material for his work in progress, Mystery Islands: Discovering the Ancient Pacific. His new book tells one of the great unknown dramas of human history—how the ancestors of today’s Polynesians and Micronesians began settling the vast Pacific islands at the same time Ramses II ruled Egypt 3400 years ago. |
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Ken McGoogan's Arctic AdventureKen McGoogan was in the midst of a 9-day Arctic adventure cruise when he took time out to go ashore to Clyde River for a series of CBC interviews for his new book Race to the Polar Sea about Arctic explorer Elisha Kent Kane. That trip proved to be more of an adventure than Ken anticipated. He set out on a Zodiac piloted by John "Flipper" Suta. "Within minutes, in the fog and waves, we had lost sight of the ship," he says. As they pounded along at 25 kilometers and hour, they passed icebergs. Soon the ocean swells reached a height of 8 to 10 feet. "When we crested a magnificent swell and started down the other side, I heard someone laughing a wild-sounding, crazy-man laugh and wondered who it was. I glanced over at Flipper and, in that instant, with a rush of exhilaration, recognized the insane laughter as my own." |
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