Book News: Week of February 2-7

Overly paranoid fiction fans might think the plot of An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England is threatening to spill over into real life (and more southern states). The childhood home of American author Cormac McCarthy was destroyed by fire this week. The house - in Knoxville, Tennessee - had fallen into disrepair over the years, although recently local activists had begun efforts to try and preserve it. McCarthy is a multi-award winning author of The Border Trilogy and The Road (which will be released as a film this year).

I have to sheepishly admit I hadn’t even heard of this book award before noticing a story on its winner this week, but the British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-fiction is apparently the richest non-fiction prize in Canada. This year the prize went to an east coast writer for a memoir of his time spent as a volunteer fire fighter. Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing Myself by Russell Wangersky has been praised for its emotional impact and accurate depiction of the stress and turmoil face by those working on the front lines of emergency response work.

And finally, something that is more news to me rather than actual news: a cool blog that I stumbled upon this week. It’s called Roughing It in the Books and belongs to two friends who have decided to read all of the McClelland and Stewart New Canadian Library titles. The series was started in 1958 as an imprint devoted solely to Canadian literature, and includes a number of Governor General's Award winners and other CanLit classics. The blog writers feel that a lot of these books don’t get read that much anymore, so they are trying to fill a gap in the web world by getting people talking about them again. A neat idea I think. So far they’ve read and reviewed:

Of those, I’ve only read The Tin Flute myself (which I loved): perhaps I’ll be joining them on their Canadiana quest.

Friday, February 6, 2009