If Only... IFOA... International Festival of Authors

I say "if only..." because I know I won't end up going to any of these readings. And, of course, I think saying the acronym out loud is kinda funny. LOL. It's a great festival though, and I thought it would be worth a post on here...

The 29th Annual International Festival of Authors runs from October 22nd to November 1st, and features readings, interviews, lectures, round table discussions and book signings with the most popular Canadian and world literature writers. It all goes down at the Harbourfront Centre.

Some of the authors we've read in our book club will be making an appearance, like David Bergen, Joseph Boyden, Austin Clarke (our fave! lol), Paul Quarrington, and David Adams Richards. Other authors I'd like to see include Farley Mowat, Roddy Doyle, Rohinton Mistry, Nino Ricci, and M.G. Vassanji.

I'd actually be interested in going to see Farley Mowat on November 1st (it's $15). Anyone wanna join me?

The Booker Prize has been announced

This is the text of the article on BBC News:

Aravind Adiga has won this year's Man Booker Prize with his debut novel The White Tiger.
The 33-year-old Indian-born writer was also the youngest author on the shortlist for the £50,000 prize. He wrote "the kind of book I'd like to read", he told the BBC. "I like books that have ideas in them and that move and entertain."

The chairman of the judges, former politician Michael Portillo, said: "In many ways it was the perfect novel." Adiga beat favourite Sebastian Barry to take the accolade as well as the other contenders, Amitav Ghosh, Steve Toltz, Linda Grant and Philip Hensher.

The White Tiger, a tale of two Indias, tells the story of Balram, the son of a rickshaw puller in the heartlands, one of the "faceless" poor left behind by the country's recent economic boom. It charts his journey from working in a teashop to entrepreneurial success.

"Making it to the shortlist on a first novel is sort of like winning and anything beyond that is quite a bonus," Adiga said. He said the book was set in today's India and "revolves around the great divide between those Indians who have made it and those who have not". "At the heart of the book it is something existential," he added. "It's a quest to break out of the circumstances you find yourself in - it's a quest for freedom."

'Perfect novel'

Announcing the winner at a ceremony in London, Mr Portillo said: "My criteria were 'Does it knock my socks off?' and this one did ... the others impressed me ... this one knocked my socks off." Mr Portillo said what set the book apart was its originality in showing "the dark side of India". He said: "The novel is in many ways perfect. It is quite difficult to find any structural flaws with it."

There were more than two contenders for the prize on the shortlist, but the winner was "absolutely not a compromise", Mr Portillo added. "There really was a decision. The judges were asked to express their satisfaction and they all did."

Adiga is the fourth first-time novelist to win the prize. Previous debut winners were Keri Hulme's The Bone People in 1985; Arundhati Roy in 1997 for God of Small Things; and Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre in 2003. Adiga is a former correspondent for Time magazine and has written for the Independent and the Sunday Times. The win means he can expect an upturn in sales and added recognition.

'Exciting winner'

According to Amazon.co.uk, the six books enjoyed average sales rises of 700% following the announcement of the shortlist last month. Booksellers Foyles said it was a "very exciting winner for bookshops" adding it could prove as popular as The Life of Pi, the Booker’s best-selling winner.

The five other shortlisted authors can also expect a rise in sales. Adiga, who had been given odds of 7/1 to win before the ceremony, dedicated the award to "the people of New Delhi". Irish writer Barry had been tipped to take the prize at 7/4 by bookmakers William Hill. The bookmakers' favourite has not won since Yann Martel in 2002.

Of the six authors in contention for this year's Man Booker, only Barry had ever been shortlisted in the past - in 2005 for A Long Long Way. Grant and Hensher had both previously been longlisted.

The award, which honours the best fiction written in English by an author from the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth, was handed out at the Guildhall in London on Tuesday.

Review of Blasted, by Kate Story

So I finished Blasted by Kate Story.


I think this book is a simple, classic example of Magic Realism, where weird or magical things happen in a "normal" setting. Ruby currently lives in Toronto, but spent her childhood in Newfoundland. The story goes from present-day Toronto to the St. John's of the early eighties or so. I cannot say much about the description of St. John's, but the current Toronto is described from the perspective of someone who lives there (I like this type of narrative, it's what got me hooked on British chick-lit, because it described London as I knew it).

In the beginning I was enjoying the setup and the descriptions of the places, though I thought that the language could have been funnier or lighter to describe some of the situations. As the story progresses, stranger and stranger things start to happen. I found these interesting in the beginning, but after a while I just got frustrated thinking "ok, I understand, get on with the story". As the story went on, the main character, Ruby, reminded me more and more of the brat girl in Elise Levine's Requests and Dedications, and I started to get annoyed.

The book is enjoyable and, as I say, I loved the description of the places. The magic realism elements were fun as well, and probably well-researched (this I have to assume, since I know nothing about Newfoundland mythology and superstitions). But I believe the situations were kept going for a bit too long. I just got annoyed by the book and by the main character. It could have ended 100 pages earlier, I believe.

New Look

So, I decided to waste some time at work today, and I picked a new design for the site. The links on the old site were just really hard to read... and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. So, I started from scratch! It's cleaner, brighter, and there's a couple of new features... a slide show of all the pics on Flickr with the tag "[werking title]", and a literary quote of the day gadget. And oh, there's an Indigo search tool near the bottom, there. Fluff, really, but neat fluff!

I hope you guys like it. :)