Banned on BC Ferries

taken from guardian.co.uk

Alexander the Great novel gets bum rap in Canada

Annabel Lyon's novel of Alexander the Great's childhoood banned from BC Ferries bookshops in Canada on grounds that jacket features a naked man on horseback

by Alison Flood 

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 August 2010 12.31 BST

Alexander the Great's bare bottom is keeping a highly-praised debut novel off shelves in Canada.

Annabel Lyon's The Golden Mean is the story of Alexander's childhood, told through the eyes of his tutor Aristotle. Praised as "a triumph of erudition and story-telling" by The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas author John Boyne and shortlisted for Canada's top literary award, the Giller prize, it was published last year in Canada and is just out in the UK where the Financial Times has admired its "eerie earthiness".
But apparently its jacket – featuring a naked man lying on the back of an equally naked white horse – is offensive to some. Although stores across Canada and the UK are selling the book, Lyons revealed on her blog that British Columbia ferry company BC Ferries is not stocking it "since the trade paperback still features a bare bum on the cover".

BC Ferries said it had told the book's publisher, Random House Canada, that it would carry the book if it featured a "belly band" wrapped around the offending parts "because we're obviously a 'family show' and we've got children in our gift shops". But Random House refused, and the transportation company decided against stocking the title.

"While some people might think it's art or appropriate or whatever, parents of young people might not think it's appropriate for young children to view," BC Ferries spokesperson Deborah Marshall told Canadian paper the Province.

Lyon, the author of two previous short story collections, has refused to take the decision to heart. "Oh, BC Ferries. You have one too, you know you do!" she wrote on her blog.

 

INHERENT VICE by Thomas Pynchon

taken from the Wall Street Journal

By Steven Kurutz

Last Tuesday, long-suffering fans of the reclusive writer Thomas Pynchon received a double gift. Pynchon’s latest book, “Inherent Vice,” a stoned-out detective story set in early-‘70s L.A., was released by Penguin Press (read the Journal’s review). And to promote it, the publisher put out a cool video trailer featuring a narrator whose slow, lazy cadence sounds suspiciously like that of Pynchon’s, as evidenced by a guest appearance on “The Simpsons” and this clip from what appears to be a German TV spot. Inquiries by GalleyCat and others as to whether Pynchon is the guy channeling the novel’s main character, beach bum private eye Doc Sportello, have been met with “no comment” from Penguin Press and the video’s producers, Meerkat Media. And, of course, the man himself is mum (Would Pynchon fans expect anything else?).

READ MORE....

Ethan Anthony and Anthony

Great Summer reads for anyone

He was another kind of other.

Here are two fine young adult vampire series and a great summer reads for anyone:

from vampirelibrarian.com

MARKED by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast


Enter the dark, magical world of The House of Night, a world very much like our own, except here vampires have always existed.  Sixteen-year-old Zoey Redbird has just been Marked as a new vampire and is sent off to the House of Night, a school where she will train to become an adult vampire.  It sucks to begin a new life, especially away from her friends, and on top of that, Zoey is no average vampire-in-the-making. She has special powers. To add to her stress she discovers that the leader of the Dark Daughters (the school’s stuck-up elitist group), is misusing her powers. Zoey must look deep within herself for the courage to challenge those that do harm to others.

and from susanhubbard.com

THE SOCIETY OF S by Susan Hubbard

What if everything you knew about your family was a lie?

What if, when the lies began to crack, beneath them lay a truth so dark and deep, yet so compelling, that it pulled you inside?

Ariella Montero is seeking the true identities of her mother and father--and of herself. She's been taught literature, philosophy, science, and history, but she knows almost nothing about the real world and its complexities. Her world is one wherein ghosts and vampires commune with humans; Edgar Allan Poe and Jack Kerouac are role models; and every time a puzzle seems solved, its last piece changes the entire picture.

When the last piece is murder, Ari goes on the road in search of her mother, who disappeared at the time of her birth. The hunt nearly costs Ari her life, and, in finding her mother, she loses her father. But gradually she uncovers the secrets that have kept the family apart, and she begins to come to terms with her own nature and its chances for survival.

Set in upstate New York, England, and the American South, The Society of S explodes stereotypes--of the homeschooled, vampires, monkeys, FBI agents, and academics. In this strange new world, vegetarianism, environmentalism, biomedical research, and the abiity to disappear are options for those who drink blood and face the prospect of eternal life.

A taut, character-driven literary mystery, The Society of S is the future of vampirism, told in a voice that will haunt you-and make you think.
 "One of the really good reads of the year...Any Stephenie Meyers fan would enjoy The Society of S." --Charlaine Harris

 "One of the really good reads of the year...Any Stephenie Meyers fan would enjoy The Society of S." --Charlaine Harris

DOGHEAD by Morten Ramsland

Winner of the book of the year in Denmark.

taken from macmillan.com 

Doghead is a highly imaginative, exuberant saga that follows three generations of a wildly dysfunctional Norwegian family. When Asger, the narrator, visits his dying grandma, he learns that contrary to popular belief, Grandpa was not a war hero. Instead, his nickname was “Crackpot,” and both before and after he escaped from a Nazi concentration camp, he was, to put it bluntly, a cheat and a liar. From there the real family history unfolds, and like all great stories, it is a tale that will stay with the reader forever.

Fresh details surface about fourth book in Stieg Larsson's Millennium series

from the guardian.uk

A friend of Stieg Larsson's has revealed new details about the fourth book in the late Swedish author's bestselling Millennium series, which he said is set in a remote area of northern Canada in September.

John-Henri Holmberg told the Associated Press that he was sent an email by Larsson about the book shortly before the novelist's death in November 2004. "The plot is set 120 kilometres north of Sachs Harbour, at Banks Island in the month of September ... According to the synopsis it should be 440 pages," wrote Larsson in the email, which Holmberg showed the news agency.

"Did you know that 134 people live in Sachs Harbour, whose only contact with the world is a postal plane twice a week when the weather permits?" continued the author. "But there are 48,000 musk-ox and 80 different types of wild flowers that bloom during two weeks in early July, as well as an estimated 1,500 polar bears."

READ MORE....

Why Lee Siegel is wrong to declare the novel dead

by Robert McCrum, taken from the guardian.co.uk

Every few years, some columnist in Britain or America pops up to declare the novel dead, or at the very least in the ICU.

From memory, the last time anyone in the UK got any traction from flogging this elderly nag was in 2001 when Andrew Marr told readers of the Observer that the novel was deader than a dozen doornails. Sure enough, the ensuing debate ran on for days.

Now, this seasonal ritual has been revived by the US critic Lee Siegel, writing in the New York Observer. Contemporary fiction, says Siegel, has become "a museum piece genre". The real creative energy today lies with non-fiction.

Siegel and his editors will have been delighted at the ink generated by this unexceptional opinion. In the US, from the LA Times to the Huffington Post, everyone has weighed in. The last time this topic was so comprehensively ventilated was in 2003, when Harold Bloom denounced Stephen King as unworthy of a National Book Foundation award.

READ MORE....