Book Mark: And There Goes the Apostrophe

I came across this article a few days ago by Lindsay Johns for The Daily Mail and had to share.

Waterstones: O apostrophe, where art thou?...
So another one bites the dust. Yesterday the high street bookshop chain Waterstone’s announced that, as part of its re-branding, it has decided to move with the times and officially change its name to Waterstones, sans apostrophe. O tempora, o mores!

Apparently the company’s decision has something to do with web filtering for ease and convenience in our digital age of URLs and email addresses, but if I'm honest, I find that a poor excuse.

How sad that yet another business chooses to blow an uncouth raspberry in the face of grammatical convention? For me, this committing of ritualistic grammatical hari kari is nothing other than wanton stupidity.

It is a great article, if you enjoy debates over grammar and linguistics as I do. To continue reading, head on over to The Daily Mail.

Book Mark: 2011 Costas Book of the Year

English author Andrew Miller has won Britain’s $47,000 Costa Book Award for his sixth novel, Pure. Set in 18th century Paris, just four years before the French Revolution, Miller's novel is a historical thriller involving seduction, murder and suicide. A young engineer is tasked with cleaning out the congested medieval cemetery of Les Innocents, the stink of which taints the air of the surrounding neighbourhood. Before long, he begins to suspect that the cemetery's destruction might be a prelude to his own.

Miller beat out the award winners in the other categories to claim the Book of Year prize:

Best first novel: Christie Watson, Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away
Poetry award: Carol Ann Duffy, The Bees
Biography award: Matthew Hollis, Now All Roads Lead to France
Children's Literature award: Moria Young, Blood Red Road (Dustlands)

The Costa Book Awards aim to name the "most enjoyable books of the year" by writers living in the U.K. or Ireland. 

Table of Contents: Your Voice In My Head

Author: Emma Forrest
Publisher/Year: Random House, 2011
Synopsis: Emma Forrest, a British journalist, was just twenty-two and living the fast life in New York City when she realized that her quirks had gone beyond eccentricity. In a cycle of loneliness, damaging relationships, and destructive behavior, she found herself in the chair of a slim, balding, and effortlessly optimistic psychiatrist—a man whose wisdom and humanity would wrench her from the dangerous tide after she tried to end her life. She was on the brink of drowning, but she was still working, still exploring, still writing, and she had also fallen deeply in love. One day, when Emma called to make an appointment with her psychiatrist, she found no one there. He had died, shockingly, at the age of fifty-three, leaving behind a young family. Reeling from the premature death of a man who had become her anchor after she turned up on his doorstep, she was adrift. And when her all-consuming romantic relationship also fell apart, Emma was forced to cling to the page for survival and regain her footing on her own terms.

Reviews:

The Guardian
"Who knows whether it would have helped but, as she moves on to new psychiatrists and (presumably) new men, you can't help hoping she'll find what she really needs: someone who'll see straight through her and not fall for her oh-so-plausible lines on everything. And then, chillingly, you worry that the very existence of this book will provide her with the one thing she needs like a hole in the head: an audience."

The Globe and Mail
"Being a “messed-up girl” is an experience of being too much: too smart, too sexy, too crazy, too broken, too demanding. And Forrest's memoir succeeds by including the discursive too-much-ness of all that love and sanity. Her story is crushing and complicated, and entirely common."

The New York Times
"[a]protracted meditation on the blessing of self-­transformation — “You’ve struggled,” the rabbi says, “and now you can change” — is profound. Forrest didn’t write it, but through these words we share her insight: there’s something to be said for occasionally listening to a voice other than your own."

The Sunday Times
"Her style is more honest and witty than harrowing… It's difficult to write a convincing tale of depression that's also an entertaining romp, but Forrest has done it."

First Chapter First Paragrah Tuesday

Every Tuesday Diane at Bibliophile by the sea posts the opening paragraph (maybe two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening paragraph (s). This is the First Chapter First Paragraph meme.


My entry this week comes from Paul Auster's Oracle Night: A Novel:

I had been sick for a long time. When the day came for me to leave the hospital, I barely knew how to walk anymore, could barely remember who I was supposed to be. Make an effort, the doctor said, and in three or four months you'll be back in the swing of things. I didn't believe him, but I followed his advice anyway. They had given me up for dead, and now that I had confounded their predictions and mysteriously failed to die, what choice did I have but to live as though a future life were waiting for me?

I've wanted to read this for awhile, and now that is the January read for The Rory Gilmore Book Club there is no excuse for not pulling it off the shelf. I'm intrigued as why the protagonist was given up for dead and, of course, why that route "didn't take."

Line By Line: Téa Obreht, The Tiger's Wife

“Come on, is your heart a sponge or a fist?”

“Suddenness," he says. " You do not prepare, you do not explain, you do not apologize. Suddenly, you go. And with you, you take all contemplation, all consideration of your own departure. All the suffering that would have come from knowing comes after you are gone, and you are not a part of it.”

“Everything necessary to understand my grandfather lies between two stories: the story of the tiger’s wife, and the story of the deathless man. These stories run like secret rivers through all the other stories of his life – of my grandfather’s days in the army; his great love for my grandmother; the years he spent as a surgeon and a tyrant of the University. One, which I learned after his death, is the story of how my grandfather became a man; the other, which he told to me, is of how he became a child again.”

“I felt my voice had fallen through and through me, and I couldn't summon it back to tell him or myself anything at all.”

“When your fight has purpose—to free you from something, to interfere on the behalf of an innocent—it has a hope of finality."

Book Mark: Words Create Worlds T-Shirt

I always keep an eye open for cool t-shirts related to books and reading, and friend brought the following to my attention over the weekend.

This awesome "Words Create Worlds" design and t-shirt is available through Threadless Causes:

25% of the sale of this tee benefits 826 National's nonprofit writing and publishing workshops and tutoring programming for kids ages 6 to 18. 826 National was founded in 2002 by award-winning author Dave Eggers and educator Ninive Calegari. All the programs are completely free for all students and steeped in the simple idea that celebrating creativity is key to engaging and assisting youth. 

There are not many sizes left (probably 'cause it is on sale) so hurry hurry hurry! 

There are many other awesome designs available (not supporting any organization). I also bought "Word!" because it made me giggle:

Book Trailer: Julie Cross, Tempest

The year is 2009. Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy .. he's in college, has a girlfriend ... and he can travel back through time. But it's not like the movies—nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there's no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors—it's just harmless fun.

That is ... until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he's stuck in 2007 and can't get back to the future.

Desperate to return to 2009 and to save Holly, he learns what he can about his abilities and it's not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these "Enemies of Time" will stop at nothing to recruit him.

Book Mark: Canada Reads 2012

Started in 2001, Canada Reads is CBC's annual battle of the books, where five Canadian personalities each select a book they want Canadians to read. They defend their chosen title in a series of debates, and the books are eliminated one by one until a winner is declared. The debates air on CBC Radio One, CBC TV and are livestreamed online through CBC Books.

In 2012, Canada Reads turns to non-fiction for the first time ever. Canada Reads: True Stories is about finding the memoir, biography or work of literary non-fiction for the entire country to read. The contenders this year are:

• The Game by Ken Dryden, defended by Alan Thicke
• On a Cold Road: Tales of Adventure in Canadian Rock by Dave Bidini, defended by Stacey McKenzie
• Prisoner of Tehran: A Memoir by Marina Nemat, defended by Arlene Dickinson
• Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter by Carmen Aguirre, defended by Shad
• The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant, defended by Anne-France Goldwater

The panelists will determine Canada’s must-read non-fiction title for 2012 during four hour-long debates, Feb. 6-9. The shows will air live on CBC Radio One and will be live-streamed on CBC Books.

I have not read all of the books, or really any of them...yet. I tried The Tiger but it just didn't work for me. I am much more a fiction lover so a non-fiction book has to be outstanding to warrant a full read through for me.

Past Canada Reads Winners