Interview with Aravind Adiga

I really enjoyed Eleanor Wachtel’s June 21st interview with Aravind Adiga on Writers & Company.  Well, I always enjoy Writers & Company (not a big surprise, coming from a librarian), but this one was especially interesting.  Adiga is the author of The White Tiger, which won the 2008 Booker Prize.

Borrowing from Laidlaw Library in the summer

For the most part Laidlaw Library does not lend books during the summer because the library is closed. But there are two exceptions:

1. University College faculty & appointed staff: You are welcome to borrow any of our books during the summer. Just e-mail or call us with your request, and we will check the book(s) out to you and deliver them to your UC mailbox or UC office, usually within a couple of days.
2. Other borrowers: Although we are closed, if there’s a book you need and we have the only available library copy on the St. George campus, please e-mail us or call, as we may be able to make a special exception and lend the book to you at a mutually convenient time.

We have a book return box just outside the library doors.

Hot Docs

Today the Hot Docs audience award winner (and nine runners-up) were announced. My own favourite among the films I saw at Hot Docs this year was The Experimental Eskimos, about three Inuit men who as 12-year-old boys in the ’60s were sent away from their families and community to school in Ottawa, as part of a secret “experiment” by the federal government.

Lit City

In honour of Lit City (which “celebrates writers who find inspiration in Toronto and use the city as a setting in their work”), I’m reading Dionne Brand’s powerful novel What we all long for.  It touches on so many Toronto places and so many sides of life in Toronto.

Baxter and MacLeod

This Tuesday evening, May 5, artist Iain Baxter and writer Alastair MacLeod (author of the wonderful novel No Great Mischief) will be appearing at the U of T Art Centre, in a discussion facilitated by Nino Ricci (whose novel The Origin of Species won this year’s Governor General’s award).

Women in Canadian politics

Sylvia Bashevkin (Principal of University College) has not one but two new books out! — one which she wrote, and one which she edited (and wrote parts of):

• Women, Power, Politics: The Hidden Story of Canada’s Unfinished Democracy
• Opening Doors Wider: Women’s Political Engagement in Canada

In Women, Power, Politics she talks, among other things, about the fact that when the media write about women politicians, they tend to focus not on their policies but on things like appearance, dress, and style of speaking (which is usually judged to be either too aggressive or too passive).  She writes about lots of Canadian politicians including Sheila Copps, Belinda Stronach, Audrey McLaughlin, and of course Kim Campbell (who was interviewed on TV Ontario tonight — I’m sure she’d find the book fascinating!).

True Patriot Love

Michael Ignatieff’s new book, True Patriot Love: Four Generations in Search of Canada (from which he’ll be reading at Convocation Hall on May 8), is about his mother’s side of the family, including his great-grandfather George Monro Grant (author of Ocean to Ocean) and his uncle George Grant (author of Lament for a Nation, which Ignatieff criticizes in his new book).  We have all these books at Laidlaw Library — not to mention Ignatieff’s earlier book about his father’s side of the family, The Russian Album.

Anosh Irani

There was an interesting interview on “Q” yesterday with Anosh Irani, who lives in Vancouver and writes about Mumbai. He’s the author of the play Bombay Black and wrote a very personal article for the New York Times about last November’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

The Hemingses of Monticello

The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family won the Pulitzer Prize for history yesterday.  This is the second big American award this book has won (earlier, it won the National Book Award for non-fiction).   It sounds really interesting — here’s a review from the New York Times.

“My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors”

Perhaps, like me, you were mesmerized last week by the video of Jian Ghomeshi’s painful interview with an incredibly rude and uncooperative Billy Bob Thornton on CBC radio– which certainly raised Ghomeshi in my estimation!

If so, you might find it refreshing to watch this much less painful video featuring Jian Ghomeshi back when he was with the band Moxy Fruvous, doing a delightful song called “My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors,” which should make all book lovers smile.