A Doctor Who Scarf and knitting books

Our Good friend Bea Demarce was just mention in an article called "Christmas scarf wall" by Providence Knitting Examiner Sharon Watterson. Bea is an amazing seamstress, designer and knitter! The guy in the photo who is wearing Bea's scarf and who took the picture is our other good friend Matt Ficner, also a man of many talents(and who we will talk about in a later post)!

Last year Bea designed and built costumes for our whole staff to help us celebrate our 5th year anniversary, the year before that she made us Haileybury Hammer Quidditch uniforms to help us celebrate our Harry Potter Book release party and just a few months ago she helped us again with post production work with a costume, makeup and staging for the photo for our Monster Mash up window display contest(which we didn't win, but we had lost of fun with). Not every book store can brag that they have their very own wardrobe and makeup depart! So when we get a chance to bragg about our friends we take advatage of it! Check out the slideshow on this article.


you can check out Bea's work at www.matchfactory.ca, her blog at www.matchfactory.blogspot.com/ and Bea's Etsy shop.

Christmas scarf wall

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Might as well post a few gift ideas for you knitters out there while I am at too.

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Kids Knitting: Projects for Kids of All Ages (Paperback)
Melanie Falick Chris Hartlove Kristin Nicholas
Juvenile Nonfiction / Crafts & Hobbies / Crafts & Hobbies / Needlework - Knitting

Book Description

Think you're too young? Think you're too old? Author Melanie Falick teaches kids of all ages how to knit with fifteen easy projects, from bouncy beanbags to a rolled-edge sweater. Using straightforward language, step-by-step instructions, and bright candy-colored illustrations, beginners learn the basics, including finer knitting, casting on and binding in the round and shaping. Phototgraphs feature finished projects modeled by a delightful case of young knitters. Best of all, kids get to have fun creating things they can actually usebookmarks, backpacks, bracelets, and more.

About Melanie Falick

Melanie Falick is a writer and editor with a passion for the textile arts and travel. Her writings on knitting and other subjects have appeared in Travel & Leisure, Vogue Knitting, Family Circle Knitting, Piecework, Knitters, Fiberarts, Rowan Knitting Magazine, and Bon App??tit. She is the co-author of Restaurant Lover's Companion.

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2-at-a-Time Socks: The Secret of Knitting Two at Once on a Circular Needle(Hardcover)
Melissa Morgan-Oakes
Crafts & Hobbies / Needlework - Knitting / Business & Economics / Skills / Gardening / Ornamental Plants

Book Description

Sock knitters everywhere know the frustration of Second Sock Syndrome. It goes something like this: A cute new sock pattern and soft, foot-warming yarn lead to many happy knitting hours, resulting in . . . ONE sock. The first sock is done (and it's adorable!) but pattern distraction sets in. Who wants to knit the same project all over again? There are so many new projects waiting to be discovered.

Melissa Morgan-Oakes ends the drudgery of the second sock by showing knitters how to cast on and knit two socks at one time on one long circular needle! Her method is captured in step-by-step photographs, clearly showing knitters how to turn out two socks at the same time. Goodbye to lonely, abandoned single socks. Hello to unlimited pretty pairs, knit on one needle (often finished on the same day), and worn with pride and that gratifying sense of accomplishment.

Oakes is a dedicated knitter, knitwear designer, and knitting instructor who has known the frustration of Second Sock Syndrome. Her easy-to-learn technique enables sock stitchers to adapt any pattern to her two-at-a-time method. But before experimenting with other patterns, readers will want to try Morgan-Oakes's 15 original designs. Fun and creative, they include simple to complex choices, a variety of yarn weights, and designs for women, men, and children.

Socks are small, relatively inexpensive, and interesting to knit a favorite portable choice of busy knitters. Keep the fun in sock-stitching with the innovative new technique that produces two socks yes, that's one sock for each foot at the very same time!

Consumer testimonial

"I am a new knitter and purchased 2-at-a-time Socks. Perfect! This is a book is the best investment I've ever made! I have a lovely pair of socks ... for the first time! Very comprehensive instructions, as well as a very easy-to-understand glossary in the back. I recommend this book to anyone interested in knitting socks. So much easier than the double pointed needles! Deborah, Colorado Springs, CO

Review quotes

Not only can you learn how to knit socks on a circular needle, you will learn how to knit them at the same time, ensuring they are exactly the same when finished. No more second-sock syndrome! The hardcover book has a wire binding so that it lies perfectly flat when open. As if all the great instructions weren t enough, there are 17 patterns included for men, women, and children. Once you try a single 40 needle, you might just give up your dpns forever! April 2008

About Melissa Morgan-Oakes

Melissa Morgan-Oakes learned as a child to crochet, tat, and sew without commercial patterns. When her children were small, she created award-winning sewn and crocheted garments. Melissa later taught herself to spin and knit, so she brings the perspective of a self-taught knitter to her innovative methods. She now teaches and designs patterns for WEBS, America's Yarn Store. Melissa lives in western Massachusetts with her family.

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Big Girl Knits: 25 Big, Bold Projects Shaped for Real Women with Real Curves (Paperback)
Amy R Singer Jillian Moreno
Crafts & Hobbies / Needlework - Knitting / Fashion

Book Description

Big Girl Knits features twenty-five unique patterns for women size 14 and up. From flattering pullovers and sexy tees to sleek skirts and fun accessories, this book is overflowing with options for knitting up an entire wardrobe to compliment your shapely shape.

Part knitting instruction, part fashion guide, Big Girl Knits is packed with expert advice to help you make the most of the three Bs: Boobs, Belly, and Butt. All the garments and accessories featured in the book are proportioned to fit and flatter a big girl’s body. Learn two fabulous adaptations to add to your knitting toolbox that you can apply to any sweater pattern. The book also features an easy-to-use measurement guide and tips to help you choose the right yarn, colors, and styles for you.

Review quotes

"Thanks to Jillian Moreno and Amy R. Singer’s collection of clever, figure-flattering patterns, you’ll no longer need to struggle to resize patterns that weren’t designed with you in mind. With their guidance on how to choose the best designs for your shape, and how to modify patterns that are intended for someone else’s, they guarantee that you’ll never again knit a sweater that makes your big top look like The Big Top."

—Debbie Stoller, author of the Stitch ’n Bitch series and editor-in-chief of BUST magazine

"I can’t sing enough praise for Big Girl Knits. More than a collection of beguiling knitwear for the curvy lady, more than a good read (and a good read it is), this book is full of information that might change your attitude about knitting, dressing, and (dare I say it) simply being!"

—Pam Allen, editor-in-chief of Interweave Knits magazine and coauthor of Wrap Style

"Big Girl Knits is one small stitch for woman, and one big, beautiful sweater for womankind."

—Wendy Shanker, author of The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life

"Big Girls don’t cry, and why would they when they can knit kick-ass, curvalicious projects like those in Big Girl Knits?! No matter what size you are, you’ll appreciate the beauty and attention to detail that is paid to each and every design in this book. Jillian Moreno and Amy R. Singer have proven that big girls not only knit, but also look hot doing it!"

—Vickie Howell, host of DIY’s Knitty Gritty and author of New Knits on the Block

"I love this book! It brought tears to my eyes—both with its delicious humor and its loving attention to the subject. The technical stuff is handled wonderfully—with intelligence and clarity and a big heart. The variety in the patterns that follow is a delight. Jillian, Amy, the contributing designers, and the bodies this work will adorn are to be celebrated."

—Sally Melville, author of The Knitting Experience books (Knit, Purl, and Color) and of Sally Melville Styles

"If you want to learn how to make garments that fit and flatter your body and you like to laugh while you’re learning and knitting, this smart, witty book’s for you."

—Melanie Falick, author of Handknit Holidays and Weekend Knitting

About the Author

Big Girl Jillian Moreno (right) was formerly marketing director with Interweave Press, and helped launch magazines like Interweave Knits, Beadwork, and Natural Home Magazine. She’s the catalyst for Knitty.com and a frequent contributor. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her husband, two adorable children, a basement full of yarn, and more books than the local library. This is her first book.

Big Girl Amy R. Singer (left) is the founder and editor of the web-only magazine Knitty.com. She is also a columnist for Interweave Knits and a professional editor and proofreader in the advertising industry. She lives in Toronto, Ontario, with her husband and two rabbits, who are eating the house one piece at a time. This is her second book.

Visit them at knittingfrau.blogspot.com.

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Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off: The Yarn Harlot's Guide to the Land of Knitting (Paperback)
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Crafts & Hobbies / Needlework - Knitting

Book Description

From the best-selling author of At Knit's End and Knitting Rules! comes yet another hilarious book of tongue-in-cheek observations on the world of knitting. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off invites knitters of all ages, levels, and persuasions to embark with her on a journey deep into the land populated by those who are obsessed with yarn, needles, and whats on their needles now.

Using a travel guide format as her launching pad, Pearl-McPhee acts as tour guide extraordinaire, displaying her trademark razor-sharp wit as she describes and critiques every aspect of this land she knows so well its people, native language, familiar phrases, strange beliefs, etiquette, and cultural customs. Readers will love her timeline of notable dates in knitting history and rarely celebrated knitting heroes, from the samurai warriors of Japan to the Ter-rible Knitters of Dent. And, while the land of knitting is a peaceful place, it does have its political arguments, such as the acrylic versus natural fi bers and circular versus straight needles debates.

As she's toured (and knit) her way across North America during the past two years, Pearl-McPhee's smart, perfectly timed banter has captured the hearts, minds, and funny bones of thousands of knitters far and wide. No fan is going to want to be left behind as Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off on her latest yarn-bound expedition.

Review quotes

"Her insights into the workings of a yarn-a-holic's mind are charming."

About Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee has become the irreverent spokesperson for today's knitting revival through her popular blog (www.yarnharlot.com), and her best- selling books, At Knit's End, Knitting Rules!, and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off. She shares a home with her admirable yarn stash (and her family) in Toronto.

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a target="blank" title="Order online at Chat Noir Books" href="http://bookmanager.com/7600798/?opt=kw&q=h.ts&tsf=y&so=oh&qs=9780761154594">Never Not Knitting Page-A-Day Calendar 2010 (Calendar)
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Calendar / Crafts & Hobbies / Needlework - Knitting / Humor

Book Description

Never not knitting? You know who you are. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Never Not Knitting! is the calendar for obsessive knitters, chock-full of advice, observations, ideas, and inspiration all delivered with the author's signature humor and wit. How to control your urges in a yarn shop. Tuesday Tips, including taking care of your tools. Plus Purls of Wisdom, You Know You Knit Too Much When..., and: Knitting folklore says that if you knit a strand of hair into your work, you will be forever bound to the person who receives that work. In my life, this means that a lot of people are forever bound to my cat.

About Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee has become the irreverent spokesperson for today's knitting revival through her popular blog (www.yarnharlot.com), and her best- selling books, At Knit's End, Knitting Rules!, and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off. She shares a home with her admirable yarn stash (and her family) in Toronto.

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Stitch 'n Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook (Paperback)
Debbie Stoller Adrienne Yan John Dolan
Crafts & Hobbies / Needlework - Knitting

Book Description

Knitting is hot, with 4 million newcomers in the last few years joining a core group of 38,000,000 knitters nationwide. And these are primarily young, creative, connected chicks with sticks who are coming together in living rooms, knitting cafes, and chic yarn stores, and making everything from funky hats to bikinis.

In Stitch 'n Bitch, Debbie Stoller-founder of the first Stitch 'n Bitch knitting group in New York City-covers every aspect of knitting and the knitting-together lifestyle: the how-to, the when-to, the what-to, the why-to. Writing with wit and attitude (The Knitty-Gritty, Blocking for Blockheads), she explains the different types of needles and yarns (and sheep, too) and all the techniques from basic to fancy, knit to purl to cast-off. She also shares her special brand of corrective surgery for when things go wrong, and offers fun and informative sidebars on such topics as how to find the best yarn for less, how to make a buttonhole, knitting etiquette, and what tools to keep in your knitting bag. At the heart of the book are forty stylish patterns: Alien Scarf, Big Bad Baby Blanky, Mohair Hoodie, Kitty and Devil Hat, Cell Phone Cozy, and Wonder Woman Bikini. And for anyone interested: how to start a Stitch 'n Bitch group.

About Debbie Stoller

Debbie Stoller is the bestselling author of the Stitch'n Bitch series of knitting books and calendars. She comes from a long line of Dutch knitters, has a Ph.D. from Yale in the psychology of women, and is the editor-in-chief of Bust magazine. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.


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Reasons For Buying Books

I just finished reading this post from litlove.wordpress.com and thought it needed to be shared! I also wanted to say thanks to Litlove for posting it, I couldn't have said it better!!

Reasons For Buying Books
by Tales from the Reading Room blog
November 17, 2009

I see that my blog friends Dorothy and Stefanie have both been talking about this of late, and I can never resist joining in on their discussions. They have been wondering why a reader might feel guilty about buying books, but I’m approaching this from the angle of being a reader who thinks it’s important to buy them. If you simply cannot afford books at present, that’s fine; we’ve all been there at one time or another. Go read a different post because I’m not addressing you. But if you have a small portion of your disposable income set aside for leisure pursuits, then here are my reasons why you should spend it on books:

1. Reading is extremely good for you. It focuses the mind, hones concentration and improves memory, all in scientifically proven ways.* It is also a way to open your mind to other cultures, other perspectives, other ways of life. Reading on screen, listening or watching television and/or films does not bring the same mental benefits as the slow, in depth, contemplative exercise of reading on the page. It also teaches problem solving and lowers stress. If you think it is important to do a sport or take exercise for the body, it’s equally essential to work out the brain, or else we risk becoming insular, forgetful, restless and opinionated.

2. If you already enjoy reading then it’s important at this particular juncture of history to be evangelical about it. Numbers of young people reading are dropping fast. Half of the American population between 18-24 has never read a book. On average an American citizen reads four books a year (and those are not necessarily fiction). I couldn’t find online statistics for other countries, alas, but I’m sure they are similar. It’s essential that we promote reading as much as we possibly can as there is a genuine risk of it becoming an eccentric hobby, and as I mentioned above, there are essential personal reasons why we do it.

3. But there are also cultural reasons. Buying a book is like placing a vote for a certain way of life. Books ask us to think deeply about the reasons why we do things, they challenge us and they reflect back to us the kind of society we create for ourselves. A culture with a strong literary component is one that considers contemplation, critique and creativity essential factors in the life of its citizens. It’s a culture that is not afraid to question what it does, and that welcomes subversion as being essential to vitality and growth. It’s a culture that doesn’t want to encourage sheep-like compliance or self-centred, short-sighted demands. It’s the culture I’d like to live in.

4. It isn’t necessarily the culture we do live in, and the atrocious state of the publishing industry is testimony to that. Publishing is currently in crisis and much as that may in part be due to the industry’s own excessive expectations following the creation of all those huge multi-media companies in the 90s, we have to support it if we want it to continue, and therefore gain the benefits of a vibrant book culture. Cutbacks in publishing do not lead to only the best-written books making it onto the marketplace, as we know. Instead, frightened publishers churn out celebrity biographies and Dan Brown-alikes. So, support the industry before we lose it, or lose any chance of intervening in its future. Buy the books you would most like to see published. Buy the kind of books you would like to write, if you feel that way inclined. Buy wall-to-wall Jilly Cooper and children’s annuals, if that’s what pleases you; bestsellers make it possible for publishers to risk other types of books and maintain a diverse list.

5. It’s important to support libraries too, for all those people who simply cannot afford books. But the only way to show that reading remains important, to governments, to industries, to advertisers, is to buy a book. Only the market with its cold, hard statistics has real, uncontentious power at present.

6. Books are relatively cheap. A full price book still costs less than a cinema, theatre or concert ticket, a meal out or half a tank of petrol. The problem with book buying is that it tends to be small amounts spent regularly, which become more noticeable to the consumer than a large amount spent infrequently. You could buy a book a week for a whole year and spend less than you would on a couple of nights at a mid-range hotel. Other consistent expenditure on non-necessities – on snack foods, on alcohol, on cigarettes, on clothes shopping, on travel – adds up to much more than book buying and is generally worse for you or the environment. I’m not quite sure why it is, but people tend to be more tenacious about indulging their vices than their virtues. If books could be proven to be bad for you, sales would start to increase, I suspect.

7. So you already have books on the shelves? Well, the good news is that books do not have use-by dates. Have a look in the fridge instead and see what ought to be thrown out, calculate the cost of those items and compare it to the price of a book. Books sit around and wait for the right time for you to read them. There have been periods of stringent economy in my household when my husband was out of work, or when I’ve been ill with chronic fatigue, when I’ve been extremely glad of having a stack of books laid in. And being able to choose exactly the right book for the moment contributes a lot to the quality of my reading life, I think.

8. So you are running out of space on the shelves? Well, think first of all how wonderful your house looks, packed full of gorgeous books. And how it reflects back to you the life of your imagination over the past few decades. And how it says you’re the kind of contemplative, thoughtful, open-minded person I mentioned in the first point. And then either, a) squeeze in another bookcase or b) have a bit of a cull and give books to the friends who can’t afford them, or the charity shops, or even sell them at a car boot sale for a book slush fund.

9. Finally, I rather liked this article about spending money, which claims that 80% of people who suddenly come into a great deal of money run through it in the first year, whilst 12% end up committing suicide. Sudden wealth isn’t necessarily an advantage, then. But the article suggests that the most worthwhile expenditure is on education, and books at all levels, whether text books or guides or even mind-expanding fiction, are an education waiting to happen. Buying books is always an investment – in my own mental development, and in the healthy, vibrant life of my culture. I think that’s worth it.

* Writing this post made me order (!) Maryanne Wolf’s book, Proust and the Squid, which is all about reading and neuroscience – so in time I might have more precise details on this topic.

CBC Canada Read 2010!!

CBC announces the Canada Reads 2010 books and panelists on Tuesday, December 1st!!

Giller Prize Runner Ups!

I know we announced that The Bishop's Man was the Giller Prize Winner, but we forgot to mention the four amazing books that were also the runner ups! So without further ado here they are:

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The Golden Mean
Annabel Lyon
Fiction / Historical

Book Description

What would it have been like to sit at the feet of the legendary philosopher Aristotle? Even more intriguing, what would it have been like to witness Aristotle instructing the most famous of his pupils, the young Alexander the Great?

In her first novel, acclaimed fiction writer Annabel Lyon boldly imagines one of history’s most intriguing relationships and the war at its heart between ideas and action as a way of knowing the world.


As The Golden Mean opens, Aristotle is forced to postpone his dream of succeeding Plato as the leader of the Academy in Athens when Philip of Macedon asks him to stay on in his capital city of Pella to tutor his precocious son, Alexander. At first the philosopher is appalled to be stuck in the brutal backwater of his childhood, but he is soon drawn to the boy’s intellectual potential and his capacity for surprise. What he does not know is whether his ideas are any match for the warrior culture that is Alexander’s birthright.

But he feels that teaching this startling, charming, sometimes horrifying boy is a desperate necessity. And that what the boy — thrown before his time onto his father’s battlefields — needs most is to learn the golden mean, that elusive balance between extremes that Aristotle hopes will mitigate the boy’s will to conquer.

Also at stake are his own ambitions, as he plays a cat-and-mouse game of power and influence with Philip, a boyhood friend who now controls his fate.

Exploring a fabled time and place, Annabel Lyon tells her story, breathtakingly, in the earthy, frank, and perceptive voice of Aristotle himself. With sensual and muscular prose, she explores how Aristotle’s genius touched the boy who would conquer the known world. And she reveals how we still live with the ghosts of both men.

Review quotes

“I absolutely loved The Golden Mean. Annabel Lyon brings the philosophers and warriors, artists and whores, princes and slaves of ancient Macedonia alive, with warmth, wit, and poignancy. Impeccably researched and brilliantly told, this novel is utterly convincing.”

— Marie Phillips, author of Gods Behaving Badly

“The Golden Mean, so full of intellect, is a pleasure to read. If excellence is our standard, then this novel will certainly flourish.”

— David Bergen, Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning author of The Time in Between and The Retreat

“An exhilarating book, both brilliant and profound. Annabel Lyon’s spare, fluid, utterly convincing prose pulls us headlong into Aristotle’s original mind. Only Lyon’s great-hearted intelligence could have imagined and achieved the brave ambition of this book. Vital, ferocious, and true, The Golden Mean is an oracular vision of the past made present.”

— Marina Endicott, author of Good to a Fault

“In Lyon’s clever hands, more than two thousand years of difference are made to disappear and Aristotle feels as real and accessible as the man next door. With this powerful, readable act of the imagination, Annabel Lyon proves that she can go anywhere it pleases her to go.”

— Fred Stenson, author of The Great Karoo

About the Author

Annabel Lyon’s first book, the short-story collection Oxygen, was nominated for the Danuta Gleed and ReLit awards. Her second collection, The Best Thing for You, was nominated for the Ethel Wilson Prize for Fiction. She lives in New Westminster, B.C., with her husband and two children.

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The Disappeared (Hardcover)
Kim Echlin
Fiction

Book Description

Book Description

Anne Greves is a motherless Canadian girl and her lover, Serey, a gentle Cambodian rebel and exiled musician. One day he leaves their Montreal flat to seek out his family in the aftermath of Pol Pot's savage revolution. After a decade without word, Anne abandons everything to search for him in Phnom Penh, a city traumatized by the Khmer Rouge slaughter.

Against all odds, the lovers are reunited, and in a country where tranquil rice paddies harbour the bones of the massacred, these two self-exiled lovers struggle to recreate themselves in a world that rejects their hopes. But when Serey disappears again, Anne discovers that the journey she must embark upon may reveal a story she cannot bear.

Haunting, vivid, elegiac, The Disappeared is an unforgettable consideration of language, justice, and memory, at once a battle cry and a piercing lament, for truth, for love.


About the Author

KIM ECHLIN's first novel, Elephant Winter, won the Torgi Talking Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the 1997 Chapters/Book in Canada First Novel Award. She lives in Toronto with her husband and daughter.


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Fall (Hardcover)
Colin Mcadam
Fiction

Book Description

A place of pressure and contradictions, St Ebury is an exclusive boarding school for the children of Canada's elite, where boys must act as men while navigating their adolescence; a mixed school with only a handful of girls.

Fall is the most beautiful. At night the bathrooms and beds hum with thoughts of her. Noel, a clever, ghostly loner, prowls the corridors on weekends, filling spare hours working on his body-building. Watching her, always knowing where she is and who she's talking to, he is certain that one day Fall will come to know him deeply. But like everyone else, she is drawn to Julius, the confident and magnetic son of the American ambassador to Canada.

At the beginning of their final year, the two boys room together and awkward Noel believes he is allowed into a new circle of friends. Julius grows physically closer to Fall, his eyes open to the moments around him, while Noel's boisterous enthusiasm shades into something darker as he imagines himself as a confidante to his popular roommate. While Julius moves through the daily joys and absurdities of adolescence, Noel recounts from a distance of several years what the consequences were of his efforts to enter Fall's life forever.

A disturbing and unforgettable story of guilt, memory and confused identity, Colin McAdam's second novel is a work of power, pitch-perfect observation and searing ambition. It confirms his status as a truly unique talent, one of the few living novelists capable of taking the modern novel and forging from it something startling and wholly new.

About Colin Mcadam

Colin McAdam grew up in Hong Kong, Denmark, England, and Barbados, as well as several cities in Canada. He studied English and Classics at McGill University and the University of Toronto, and received his Ph.D. in English literature from Cambridge University. He lives in Montreal.

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The Winter Vault (Hardcover)
Anne Michaels
Fiction / Literary

Book Description

The long-awaited novel by the internationally celebrated author of Fugitive Pieces, the debut novel that catapulted Anne Michaels into the forefront of literary superstars.

“The future casts its shadow on the past. In this way, first gestures contain everything . . .”

Anne Michaels’s first work of fiction in more than a decade, The Winter Vault is a stunning, richly layered, and timeless novel that is everything we could hope for for Michaels’s second novel — and more. Set in Canada and Egypt, and with flashbacks to England and Poland after the war, The Winter Vault is a spellbinding love story that juxtaposes momentous historical events with the most intimate moments of individual lives.

In 1964, a newly married Canadian couple settle into a houseboat on the Nile just below Abu Simbel. At the time of the building of the Aswam dam, Avery Escher is one of the engineers responsible for the dismantling and reconstruction of a sacred temple, a “machine-worshipper” who is nonetheless sensitive to their destructive power. Jean is a botanist by avocation, passionately interested in everything that grows. They met on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, witnessing the construction of the Seaway as it swallowed towns, homes, and lives. Now, at the edge of another world about to be inundated in the name of progress, much of what they most believe in is tested.

When a tragic event occurs, nearing the end of Avery’s time in Egypt, he and Jean return to separate lives in Toronto; Avery to school to study architecture and Jean into the orbit of Lucjan, a Polish émigré artist whose haunting tales of occupied Warsaw pull her further from her husband, while offering her the chance to assume her most essential life.

Breathtaking, vivid in its exploration of both the physical and emotional worlds of its characters, intensely moving and lyrical, The Winter Vault is a radiant work of fiction and contains all the elements for which Anne Michaels is celebrated.

Review quotes

"Profound loss, desolation and rebuilding are the literal and metaphoric themes of Michaels's exquisite second novel (after Fugitive Pieces)…. A tender love story set against an intriguing bit of history is handled with uncommon skill."

— Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

"Has it been worth the wait? It has. . . . Anne Michaels, in short, is back. "

— Globe and Mail

"A tender love story set against an intriguing bit of history is handled with uncommon skill."

— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A major achievement. . . . "

— NOW magazine (Four Ns)

"Literature is all the better for it."

— The New York Times

"The anticipation, more than a decade in the building, has been eager, the recent buzz intense. And if McClelland & Stewart sees The Winter Vault, its new novel from Anne Michaels, as the publishing event of the season, there is vibrant and compelling justification. . . . "

— Ottawa Citizen

About the Author

Anne Michaels’s first novel was the award-winning, internationally bestselling Fugitive Pieces. Its prizes include a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Guardian Fiction Award, and the Orange Prize for Fiction. She is also the author of three highly acclaimed poetry collections. She lives in Toronto.

Assassin's Creed Novel

Assassin's Creed 2 is due out in stores today! I know were a bookstore not a gaming store, so what up? Well Ubisoft Entertainment and Penguin have teamed up and are releasing a book based off the Assassin's Creed video game, due out on November 24, 2009.

A lot of research has gone into the Assassin's Creed game design, actually about 9 months worth, so with all that research it is no wonder they decided to put out a book as well. Corey May has posted a great look at the research of he did in order to help design the game. Check it out here: ign.com;

where and when it would take place, who our hero would be, the tone, the characters, the major events, etc. Once all of that was settled, it was time to start doing research. All told, I spent about nine months just learning about the time period – no actual script writing took place. I was jotting down notes, creating massive timelines, brainstorming set piece locations and events, listing possible historical figures; stuff like that. I am committed to historical accuracy

Assassin's Creed
Oliver Bowden

Book Description

‘I will seek Vengeance upon those who betrayed my family. I am Ezio Auditore da Firenze. I am an Assassin…’

Betrayed by the ruling families of Italy, a young man embarks upon an epic quest for vengeance. To eradicate corruption and restore his family's honour, he will learn the art of the assassins.

Along the way, Ezio will call upon the wisdom of such great minds as Leonardo Da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli – knowing that survival is bound to the skills by which he must live.

To his allies, he will become a force for change - fighting for freedom and justice. To his enemies, he will become a threat dedicated to the destruction of the tyrants abusing the people of Italy.

So begins an epic story of power, revenge and conspiracy.

Bruce Cockburn – Slice O Life - at the Classic Theatre

That is right Bruce Cockburn will be playing at the Classic Theatre this coming Monday! There still maybe tickets but call the Classic Theatre soon!

Bruce Cockburn - Folk / Rock

Date: November 16, 2009
Show Time: 8pm
Tickets - $50 Advance $55 door

Bruce Cockburn – Slice O Life

The best live albums create the illusion of being there, witnessing an artist in a memorable performance. Bruce Cockburn has recorded three previous live recordings: Circles in the Stream (1977), Live (1990) and You Pay Your Money and You Take Your Chance (1997), each critically acclaimed and featuring Cockburn in concert with a backing band. Now, the celebrated musician-activist delivers something new: his first-ever live solo album.

Recorded last spring over a series of dates in the northeastern United States and one in Quebec, Slice O Life is a double CD that showcases a cross-section of Cockburn’s finest songs and some of his most dazzling guitar work. The album, produced by longtime associate Colin Linden, also includes one new song, “City is Hungry,” three tracks recorded at sound checks on the tour and some between-song banter that shows Cockburn to be both a quick wit and an engaging storyteller.

Slice O Life features such hits as Cockburn’s controversial “If I Had a Rocket Launcher,” his classic “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” and his breakthrough “Wondering Where the Lions Are,” which he rightly quips may be the only song ever to make the Billboard chart that includes the word “petroglyph.” Originally recorded with a full band, these and other songs like “World of Wonders” have been rearranged and performed on acoustic guitar—often with stunning results. In particular, the polyrhythmic solo on “Rocket Launcher,” full of complex, cascading notes, is especially mesmerizing.

Besides the hits, the album recasts lesser-known songs such as “Wait No More” and “Celestial Horses,” both originally featured on Cockburn’s 2003 album You’ve Never Seen Everything, in a dramatic new light. The latter, full of slow, haunting reverb, now seems like an overlooked psych-folk masterpiece, while the former, played in a fast, bluesy drone on a Dobro guitar, takes on a compelling urgency. Similarly on “Tibetan Side of Town,” Cockburn’s single guitar conveys a full, rich accompaniment—fluid, jazzy treble notes and Big Bill Broonzy-style droning bass notes—for his vivid tale of sensory nights in Katmandu.

Cockburn has often cited the influence of the blues on his music, especially the work of country-blues pioneers like Mississippi John Hurt. The blues tinge shines through in several other performances on Slice O Life, including Cockburn’s gut-wrenching rendition of Blind Willie Johnson’s “Soul of a Man” and “City is Hungry,” an hypnotic urban blues number in which Cockburn warns “hear that rumbling underground/better think twice before you go downtown.”

Meanwhile, the sound checks and introductions to songs reveal another side of the award-winning artist. One sound check involves Cockburn jamming wildly on his 12-string guitar before segueing into “The Trains Don’t Go There Anymore,” a rare track he co-wrote in the 1960s with Ottawa poet Bill Hawkins. Cockburn’s humor comes across in anecdotes about panhandlers who claim to know his music and a mercenary who once offered him a summer job as a gun-runner while he was a student at Boston’s prestigious Berklee School of Music.

Fortunately for us, Cockburn turned down the job and stuck with music. Over 35 years, the Ottawa-born musician has recorded almost as many albums while earning respect for his charitable and activist work. “My job is to try and trap the spirit of things in the scratches of pen on paper, in the pulling of notes out of metal,” Cockburn said when he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2001. He was also made an Officer of the Order of Canada and has been the recipient of honorary degrees in Letters and Music from several North American universities, including Berklee and Toronto’s York University. His many other awards have included the Tenco Award for Lifetime Achievement in Italy and 20 gold and platinum awards in Canada.

As a songwriter, Cockburn is revered by fans and musicians alike. His songs have been covered by such diverse artists as Elbow, Jimmy Buffett, Judy Collins, the Skydiggers, Anne Murray, Third World, Chet Atkins, k.d. lang, Barenaked Ladies, Maria Muldaur and the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia. As a guitarist, he is considered among the world’s best. The New York Times called Cockburn a “virtuoso on guitar,” while Acoustic Guitar magazine placed him in the esteemed company of Andrés Segovia, Bill Frisell and Django Reinhardt. With Slice O Life, all of Cockburn’s formidable gifts are on full display.

CBC The Current with David Suzuki and plans to 4 lane the North

Just happened to have CBC radio on this morning to catch the new of HWY 11 being closed and low and behold David Suzuki is hosting The Current! So far the show has been really good, talking about how there has been no action on climate change on the Federal level, but great strides are being done on the Provincial level.

Which leads me into the great letter that was in last weeks The Temiskaming Speaker - Letters to the Editor. The Letter refers to CBC's Dan Lessard interviewing Judy Skidmore on Points North about a plan to spend 15 billion dollars over 25 years to four-lane the Northern Ontario highway. There was some great talk on feed back, which I think the letter below expands on. Just wish some of our local politicians and maybe the Northern Mayors would get on board with the idea of updating and expanding the ONR, which is also one of the last regional railways left in Canada!! Just imagine if we had a a modern railway in North Ontario all those students, teachers and people stuck on the South end of Latchford might of had another option to get into the City.

You can also read the letter at netnewsledger.com

No to four-laning. Yes to expanding our rail system

Dear Editor:
The Craziest Idea I heard this Century: Four-lane Highway11 Northern Ontario.
The idea I heard on CBC”s Dan Lessard show by Judy Skidmore to spend 15 billion dollars over 25 years to four-lane the Northern Ontario highway is misguided and 30 years out of date. It reminds me of the Rip Van Winkle story of the politician that went to sleep in 1990 and woke up in 2010 thinking nothing has change. Every think has changed. In Ontario, we are no longer a rich province and are operating at a significant deficit. Our manufacturing strength is depleted and our economy needs a new direction and new thinking.

The billions of dollars we are spending on imported energy and imported asphalt hurts our economy. We also have a global, climate change crises that is being confronted by world leaders next month. The result of this will be additional costs on petroleum based products in the form of a carbon tax. So, we can expect energy prices to go up more, way up. With traffic volume already headed down from energy cost increases who will be able to afford to use these expensive highways.

Why is a $15B investment in a highway expansion a bad idea for people in the North? Because, private road transportation is the most expensive form of transportation (costing up to 50 per cent of average family income when road construction costs are included). In Sweden the CEO of Volvo AB determined that the car industry will not survive in the future and sold off their car division. A $15 billion dollar road system would trap us in our communities unable to move due to high energy costs. With no alternative low cost transportation system it would stall future development in the north and worst of all, would consume huge amounts of money needed to build a smarter transportation system. While the condition of current road could use some improvement, there is no business case that could rationalize any expansion.

What is the alternative?

The transportation energy model shows us the reciprocating engines used in cars are only less than 15 per cent efficient and that electric vehicles can travel five times as far with the same energy consumed. In an energy starved future, efficient electric vehicle that produce no Green house gas will be the future and the future will be soon upon us. Are we ready?
What would a Northern Ontario Energy strategy look like? For about 1/ 10th of the cost to four- lane we could put in a regional rail system that serviced communities across the North with timely service in modern cars with reasonable costs. To build this Ontario transportation network we could use steel rail manufactured in Sault Ste. Marie, gravel and concrete from the North and passenger rail cars manufactured in Thunder Bay. We could drive this transportation system with electric locomotives that take power from our renewable hydro electric plants. To travel throughout the North we would be able to use short range electric cars to deliver us to the rail station where they would be plugged in for recharge. Studies in countries that use public rail transport show it reduces overall transportation costs down to 8 to 10 per cent from the current 50 per cent we are now paying. This saves taxpayers billions in insurance and operating costs. The result would be a low cost transportation system that would make people accessible to each other, a primary requirement in economic growth. It would spur on tourism. If we want to reduce the accident rates and the death rate on the highway, reduce the insurance rates and amount of green house gas, if we want safer more relaxing and cheaper transportation rail is the answer. Highways are dangerous, weather dependent, stressful to use, expensive to maintain, and have a net costs six times that of public rail.
Highway expansion is an idea that belongs in the previous century along with the politicians that support it.

Let’s replace our current antique rail service with a modern efficient and cheaper form of transport that can serve the North. Instead of asking for $15B for a roadway expansion that we wouldn’t be able to use in the future, lets ask for $1B for a transportations system that will serve us for the next 100 years.

Government should:
•halt all four-lane construction and redirect these funds into modernizing our rail transport system while maintaining existing roadways if, volumes support it.
•Develop a provincial transportation policy that will function with high energy prices.
•Extend the GO transportation system throughout the province to create an efficient made in Ontario transportation system by adding a passenger rail track along side existing freight routes where required.
•Halt taxpayer subsidies to private auto industries. Let the market determine who survives not the government.
Let’s support leaders who promote building for the future not those stuck in the past.
The future belongs to those that plan for it,

Sincerely,
Ambrose Raftis
Community Economic Development Specialist
Charlton,