Book Camp Vancouver

Over the past few days, I’ve been trying to synthesize my thoughts about Book Camp Vancouver into some cohesive post that captures everything that happened over the couple of days. Beyond the networking and the bookish talking, I met some really great people who seem to be just as passionate about dealing with the issues within our industry and moving forward. As a friend tweeted, we just want people to read books and figure everything else out as we go along. In my case, I don’t care where or how people are reading books, just that they are reading. In short order here are the talking points (some from my own session on Content Would be King and some that arose from others) that have consumed me in the wee hours of the morning as my body stubbornly refuses to adjust to West Coast time:

1. As an industry on the whole we need to start separating our selling tools, our B2B assets from the messages we’re sending out D2C. We can’t keep using the same messaging for both and expecting the consumer to be thrilled. The audiences are different. These differences are crucial to creating content both around authors and books. We need to imagine strategy and technique to talk to both camps effectively and accurately.

2. Everyone is so panicked about losing traditional book sales and the impending ebook revolution that they’re focusing all their energy in the wrong direction. We shouldn’t be sitting up complaining that the physical book is disappearing. Let’s move beyond the fear and decide to push in the direction of having our content available cross-platform. This isn’t revolutionary; it’s just common sense. In my session, when a woman held up a notebook and proclaimed her deep love and affection for the format, I held up my blackberry. It’s not one or the other. I read books, ebooks, web content, web books, and once we can figure out a way to have all of these devices talk to each other, we’ll be golden. From commute to bedtime, you’ll be able to enjoy the same content — just because we want more options doesn’t mean we want the book to go away. This is a common misconception that just means we do more and more arguing and defending one position against the other. How about we meet in the middle and find a solution?

3. The internet/online/digital is not marketing’s slushpile. It’s not something you should be doing just because you think you have to but because you think it has value. It also can’t be an afterthought. It has to have clean, concise and effective strategy behind it. It’s another argument I can’t believe we’re all still having. It’s cache (cash) — not cache (cash-shay). Traditional marketing has the cache; big full-page ads in the Globe and Mail are incredible, but they don’t have the cache — the sticky power of the internet to hold on to every bit of information that gets posted. We need to push the power of the cache and keep driving as much content as possible. Eventually we’ll get to conversion, which is what everyone wants.

4. We have a problem with revenue, not audience. This was revolutionary with me; it’s almost as if it freed my mind to accept the fact that the seismic shift needs to encompass new business models.

5. More and more the truly brilliant people I come into contact with, whether they work at the chain or for an independent bookstore, whether they’re readers, bloggers or writers, whether they’re in the press or starting up an online business, are open to saying good-bye, and in shocking ways, to the way things have always been done. Some of the most interesting conversations I had weren’t just about what wasn’t working but about what we can do within the confines of the business itself.

There’s so much more that I’m sure I’ll be talking about as the days go by and my brain keeps mulling over and over how to truly move forward in a way that gets everyone paid. Holler back your thoughts and let me know if I’m truly crazy or if you think, like I do, that we can get there too.

#55 – Serena

After being on vacation for almost five days, one would have thought I’d have gotten further through the stack of books I brought with me, bought at the sale at the Vancouver Public Library, and purchased on Granville Island. Not so. I managed to finish Ron Rash’s Serena, and am about halfway through The Tipping Point (and I have read Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crush It!, which is technically #56, but I’m going to talk about it and the Gladwell in the same post).

Annnywaay. This is the first book that I’ve read from American writer Rash, and not to be cliched but it certainly won’t be the last. Set in the Appalachians during the Depression, Serena tells the story of an ambitious lumber baron who marries an enigmatic, determined young woman who changes his life irrevocably. When Pemberton arrives back to the logging settlement with his new wife, Serena, in tow, he’s met at the station by Rachel Harmon and her father. The former there at the behest of her father, out to protect her dignity, as Pemberton has gotten the young girl pregnant.

A fight ensues, and Harmon ends up overpowered by the tall, powerful Pemberton. Estranged from her former lover and about to give birth, Rachel heads back to their cabin to make her way on her own while Pemberton and his new bride are similarly disposed to making their mark on the landscape that surrounds the community of Waynesville. Serena’s driven by money and success. She sees natural resources as simply a means to gain more and more power and status. She’s cold, calculating and focussed. Yet, it’s this focus and intensity that attracted Pemberton to her in the first place. As the relationship grows more complex, their attachment suffers from the stress of her ambition, and the lengths to which she’ll go to achieve her goals. The results are deadly, not just for the trees, but for anyone who might stand in her way — and that includes young Rachel and her little baby boy.

The idea that human beings are inescapably tied to their environment runs throughout the narrative. As Serena destroys the forests, their workers suffer more and more accidents. As they drive further and further to clearcut the entire area of its trees, there’s a movement to create a national park and save the environment. Of course, Serena and Pemberton stand on the side of progress, remark upon the size and structure of the forest in terms of a profit and loss statement. There’s a particularly poignant scene where Pemberton and his wife pose for a photograph in front of a raw, clearcut field proud of their accomplishment. However, what they’ve left behind is a crew of maimed, injured and, in many cases, deceased men who gave their lives for their profit.

The novel truly picks up about two-thirds of the way in. The further Serena will go to get what she wants, the more intriguing and active the story becomes. In some ways, the beginning of the novel is a bit muddled — and there are sections that switch point of view to some of the loggers themselves that I think would have been more effective if they hadn’t the Rosencrantz and Gildenstern-type, Waiting for Godot-esque dialogue that felt a little affected. That said, there’s nothing I like more than a truly intriguing female lead character who refuses to be defined in any true way, and Serena more than fits this bill. Not unlike Catherine Land in Robert Goolrick’s equally excellent A Reliable Wife, Serena’s lack of a moral compass more than makes up for any of the novel’s shortcomings. In parts, especially the more shocking scenes, there were moments that I actually physically gasped over her actions. You can’t ask more from a novel than to that, can you?

There’s a reading group guide, Browse Inside, and a really interesting article Rash wrote for the P.S. section about the interesting places his research took him.

Holy Crap

Time seems to be escaping me on so many levels. It’s like a balloon with a leak — all of a sudden it’s completely deflated and you don’t really know what happened. So, here’s a rundown of me over the last little while:

1. I saw Whip It and it was 100 kinds of awesome: sweet when it needed to be, subversive enough to make the cynic in me satisfied and exactly the kind of film I needed to see with my girlfriends. I’m sad that it failed so miserably at the box office. I’d recommend it. Fame, on the other hand, insulted me as a human being. And considering the kind of movies that I watch on a regular basis, that’s really saying something.

2. I’m heading to Vancouver tomorrow for a whirlwind vacation of sorts that includes: participating in Vancouver Book Camp, visiting my cousins who have just had a baby, hopping over to the island and staying with my aunt and uncle and squeezing in some time with a pal who lives in the city. Vacation sounds AS busy as my life. Wha?

3. Six minutes to go until I leave work and go swimming. Can I finish two blog posts and all my other work by then? Probably not.

4. It was minus 4 with the windchill this morning. That sucked balls.

5. I need new books to read. Anyone have suggestions?

#54 – Mathilda Savitch

I wasn’t expecting to read or even review Mathilda Savitch. But I was lucky enough to interview the author, Victor Lodato, for Experience Toronto, which meant that I obviously had to read the book. So the night before I was furiously (in between a rock show and a houseguest, indeed!) reading as much of the novel as I could while trying to come up with half-way intelligent questions.

“I want to be awful.” Mathilda Savitch declares as the novel opens. She’s ballsy, self-deprecating, intelligent and more than a little odd. In many ways, she’s a semi-typical teenager, but in many ways she’s also not — she’s sharper and has been through something traumatic enough to effect her for the rest of her life. In fact, the tragic death of her sister has marked her entire family: her mother refuses to get dressed, drinks, and acts a little like Mathilda’s not even there; her father’s barely holding the family together. And to make sense of the tragedy, Mathilda acts out in many different ways. It’s a complex thing, finding yourself in the world, being okay with yourself. This act of individuality that’s so much a rite of passage when you’re an almost teenager becomes even more complicated when you add impossible situations to the mix.

Her prepossessed nature questions everything naturally, and this comes through clearly in the story. She’s been damaged by the loss of her sister and needs to work through it — even if the process is destructive to herself, to her family, to her friends. The author, in his interview with me, mentioned that the voice of Mathilda was so strong that he just gave in and let her take him where she wanted to go. As a playwright, Lodato seems comfortable with listening to the voices that invade his head, and it’s truly Mathilda that drives this novel. You can’t seem to get her out of your head, kind of like Owen Meany, she’s that strong of a character. One part Goldengrove and more than one part The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mathilda Savitch also stands on its own simply for this incredible sense of voice.

What a nice surprise.

#53 – Drop City

When I bought my second-hand copy of Drop City by TC Boyle, I knew nothing about the book except for the fact that it’s on the 1001 Books list. My copy cost $3.99 and I bought from a now-defunct bookstore in Stratford, Ontario one snowy winter day my RRHB and I were out exploring my Irish roots in Millbank, Ontario. It was a great day. Then, like so many of my books, it sat on the shelf, and sat on the shelf, and sat on the shelf.

But once I started this book I resented anything taking time away from the reading of it. Drop City provides a refuge for anyone who wants to drop of out of society. A commune on an idyllic plot of land in California where hippies of all sorts call home, Drop City’s inhabitants don’t go for the Man’s version of how they should live their lives. But when he comes calling in the form of an injunction (coupled with some back taxes and compounded by more than one run in with the law), their fearless leader decides that the only free place left on earth is Alaska, and “Let’s go!”

Interspersed within the story of the caravan of hippies abandoning their commune (complete with a few goats strapped to the top of a merry-making old bus), is the other side of “dropping out.” The very real people who already make a life in Alaska by truly living off the land. There are benefits to both ways of life, but to say that the hippies are prepared for the harsh Alaska winter would be an understatement.

Ronnie (aka “Pan”) and Star had travelled across the USA to get to Drop City. They abandoned their education and their livelihoods (she was a teacher) for a chance to live a real life among truly free people. And they do find free love and a free life, if only for a fleeting moment before the reality of life, and their disparate personalities gets in the way of their idealism. Star’s soon left Ronnie behind for Marco, a violent drop out who is on the run from the law and from his entire identity (it seems), who represents a different kind of life and love for her by the time the novel reaches its conclusions.

Interspersed with the idealistic, even indiotic (at times), hippies, are the real societal “drop outs.” The people who live on the cold, permafrost borders of Alaska hunting, trapping and camping in cold wooden houses not meant for much more than a temporary stop along the way. The dramatic difference, not necessarily in idealism, but in common sense, between the Drop City band of ragtag, Ken Kesey-like bus people and the actual Alaskan settlers causes the necessary friction the book needs.

I can’t stress enough how engrossing this novel is from beginning to end. It’s one of those books whose narrative drives along at such a breakneck speed that you barely even register the fact that you’ve already read 150 pages, the sun’s gone down and you’re fingers are freezing from holding the book so tight. T.C. Boyle has a way of slowly building steam that will eventually boil, both within characters and situations, that overshadows the entire work with a sense of forboding. This isn’t a bad thing — it’s more that the novel knows its outcome already and you, as the reader, need to catch up as quickly as possible. Parts of this novel just made me cringe too — the idea of free love equalling the utter objectification of some of the women, that the mother among the bunch openly gives her children acid to prove they’re “turned on,” and the asumption that you can simply head to Alaska with little more than the goats on top of your broken down bus and expect to survive, all of which add to the dramatic tension of the most basic themes found in literature: humanity versus their environment.

I know I say this a lot but the 1001 Books list hasn’t let me down with Drop City. I’d highly recommend it. I’d loan you my copy, but I’m sending it to a friend as we speak.

#52 – Corelli’s Mandolin

Many, many years ago my friend Kathleen handed me a copy of Corelli’s Mandolin and told me I had to read it. It’s a favourite of many friends of ours and it’s been sitting on my shelf for probably close to a decade (wow that’s frightening to admit). I don’t know what made me pick it up a couple weeks ago when I was on my way into the hospital to get a post-surgery check up, but I’m glad I did. It’s a lovely, flawed, novel.

At first, it was hard for me to get into the narrative. Louis de Bernières has an interesting writing style. It’s dense and worthy of your concentrated attention but it’s also whimsical and a little magical (reminding me of Allende and Garcia Marquez). Interspersed with the stories of two of the main characters, father and daughter Iannis and Pelagia, are stories of the Italian dictator, Greece rebels, Italian soldiers (including Antonio Corelli of the aforementioned mandolin), and various other people. It all comes together to create a rich and layered book that presented one of the most gruesome, terrifying portraits of war I’ve ever read. The scenes where Francesco (an Italian soldier) finds himself knee-deep in the fighting were as deeply affecting as Saving Private Ryan was when I watched it for the first time all those years ago.

The love story between Corelli, an Italian invader of the Greek island where Pelagia and her father live, is complicated by her previous relationship to a foolish, troubled boy named Mandras. War also divides them. The impossibility of the situation heightens their emotions but the impossibility of the situation refuses to abait, especially when both Italy and Germany are found to be on losing sides of the war. De Bernières plums the depths of human nature as it relates to society in this novel. It’s always up for discussion, whether it’s men forced to obey the orders of war or of humanity; for women forced into situations because of their gender; for the pressures that social justice sets upon a person, the larger themes to the novel go on and on. And like many novels that explore, these larger philosophical discussions are set against the very real situation of human suffering. Rape, murder, theivery, you name it, people do awful things to one another, but at the same time it’s the idea of love that keeps the idea that there’s a reward to life, even if it takes years to realize.

The end of the novel sort of fell down for me. To discuss it in too much detail would spoil the entire novel, so I’ll just say that it was flat and somewhat cliched, tired and a little bit implausible. Yet, the strength of this book for me was the gruesome, realistic and utterly terrifying sections about the men suffering through the harrowing days of combat. My heart ached for them.

READING CHALLENGES: 1001 Books baby!

Monday Rambles

The best part about Word on the Street, for me anyway, is talking to avid readers about the books they’ve read and then giving them recommendations. One of the books I was talking about to anyone who’d listen yesterday was Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin. My favourite part of the day was pitching the book to a couple while a fellow was listening (I wasn’t even talking to him!) who said, “Sold! I wouldn’t have picked up that book based on the cover but you’ve got me now.” He walked away with my favourite book of the season under his arm.

For the most part, I have convinced myself that I’m not a “marketing” person. When I first started my career, while I was finishing up my schooling, I worked in circulation. I hated it. In fact, I would even go so far as to say I despised it. For years I tried to get into magazine editorial and no one would give me a job. Not even an assistant’s job. Nothing. And so I gave up. I found writing work elsewhere (on the web) and have always been a little disappointed in myself for not knowing how to find that work in any other way.

I’m rambling, I know.

There were things that I loved about being a content producer (back in the day). But I’ve only ever wanted to write about what I want to write about. But that sits in direct conflict with one of the goals I’ve set out for myself — which is make a living by my pen (me and Aphra Behn; natch). The thing is, I’m not sure I’ll ever get there. I’m too old to start a whole new career, too young to give up on finding fulfillment at work, and too tired to put much effort into the whole freelance racket. And let’s face it, I’m too shy and also too insecure to be any good at pitching.

But here’s the rub — once a year I love (at Word on the Street) being in “marketing.” Most of the time I’ll deny the designation. I have a love/hate relationship with the term. I’ve never wanted to have much to do with the idea of it as a career. It’s tangential to working with books online. The companies aren’t big enough to have digital departments proper (here in Canada anyway) and there are marketing elements to what we do online. If you want to do online and be in books, you have to at least accept the fact that you will also be in marketing.

For me, however, it’s always been about the words. Until I’m forced into a crowd and made to stand up and shout. And once a year I discover that I absolutely adore talking to strangers about books. I love being asked what I’ve read and what I thought. I love finding kindred spirits in terms of reading habits. And I get over my whole-hearted fear of crowds and people and talking in public and all the normal insecurities that have me generally communicating by written instead of spoken words.

I don’t know what the point of this post really is beyond a couple of observations. I sat down at home on Saturday and wrote for the first time in months. I felt like myself. And then I felt angry that I had committments that took me away from those words I wrote. I finished two articles that I adored writing for ExperienceTO and wondered, again, if I shouldn’t just take the plunge and try to make a living solely from my pen.

These last few month have seen me be so utterly conflicted about so many different elements in my life. I guess I’m just waiting for the universe to show up and give me a little direction. What say you Astrology Zone?

#51 – Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

It seems I’m starting every book review off with a confession of sorts. Well, today is no exception. The only reason I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (P+P+Z) was for work — we’ve been running a fun Undeath Match with my friend Dan at Raincoast, which pits our HarperCollins book The Strain against their Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Dan’s taking the side of zombies and I’m defending vampires. So trust that the review I write about P+P+Z here will be a little more balanced than the one I’ll probably post over there.

Let me just say that I enjoyed Seth Grahame-Smith’s literary mash-up more than I thought I would. When the book exploded over the summer, like many other literary snobs, I sort of poo-pooed the whole idea. Who would want to read a ruined version of Austen’s timeless classic? Thousands upon thousands of readers, it turns out, myself included. The novel doesn’t take itself too seriously, it basically follows the plot of the original, and tosses in more than a few awesome (and funny) scenes of Elizabeth battling the “unmentionables” (the zombies) throughout.

For all its clever humour, there is an underlying respect, I hope, for the original text because there’s more of a film adaptation feeling to the book than anything else. Entire sections of dialogue read almost verbatim to the Keira Knightley version (yes, I’ve seen it enough times to know), which sort of made the whole enterprise a little more palatable for me. Grahame-Smith got quite a few things wrong too — the shrill nature of his Mrs. Bennett doesn’t have any of the savvy humour from the original, and Elizabeth seems to share a lot of her inner thoughts in ways that would have made the original Lizzie cringe.

The success of P+P+Z has spawned a sequel, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Creatures, which I probably won’t read only because the original is still on my 1001 Books Challenge (shameful, I know), and I don’t want to ruin the utter perfection of reading a Jane Austen novel along the way. But if you’re looking for a bit of escapist, oddly engaging, and definitely funny words to pass a weekend, I’d recommend the book, even if it’s just for the last fight scene. I’m not going to spoil it, but it’s awesome.

TRH Movie – The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

There are few times in my life when I’m honestly star struck. I’m sure that if I was in the same room as George Clooney, I’d be tongue tied and shaking in my boots, but for the most part I’ve met some very cool people in my time working in both television and publishing. However, last night, at the gala premiere of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, I have to admit I was a little gaga over Rebecca Miller, Keanu Reeves and Robin Wright Penn. They were all just so luminous, humble, appreciative and lovely (and I didn’t even get to actually meet them).

Rebecca Miller’s film, adapted from her novel of the same name, remains hard to describe. Simply, it’s a solidly good film with great characters, an interesting story, and fantastic performances. It’s everything a movie should be, and then some. I know I’m a little biased because I really enjoyed the book and have been a fan of Miller’s writing ever since I saw Personal Velocity. I still remember this line every time I think of that film: “Delia Shunt was 34. She had fine, dirty-blond hair and a strong, heavy ass…which looked excellent in blue jeans.”

For girls with heavy asses, it was a revelation of sorts.

But back to Pippa Lee, the titular main character who finds herself marooned in a retirement community after her much older husband suffers from three separate, serious heart attacks. The consumate wife, Pippa spends her days planning meals and raising her kids. She’s paying penance, it seems, for her earlier, wilder years. Suffering from what she calls a quiet mental breakdown, Pippa starts walking, eating, even driving, in her sleep. The sleepwalking is just the beginning. Pippa’s carefully constructed life crumbles down around her but it’s not a bad thing. It’s surprisingly, enlightening, even fabled, in a way.

The press point that Robin Wright Penn keeps mentioning, both in the conference yesterday and her red carpet interview, is how there are so few roles like this for women in Hollywood. It’s a familiar theme: women of a certain age getting cast aside for younger, fresher models. Maybe we need more auteurs like Miller, women who not only write, but also direct, intelligent films that present complex, honest, flawed characters like Pippa Lee. Wright Penn inhabits the role in ways that brought it to life beyond the book. She has a range and depth of emotion that displays a tenderness toward life, for her kids, for her husband, even when they’re being utterly shitty to her. When everything changes and she does something so out of character (although not necessarily so when you look at her actions in the context of her entire life), it’s hard not to cheer her on. You’re utterly on Pippa Lee’s side and that’s entirely because of Wright Penn’s performance.

There’s a lovely chemistry between Keanu Reeves and Wright Penn. Equally troubled in his own life, Reeves’ character finds himself in his mid-thirties, divorced and back living with his parents. Their friendship remains the most honest relationship (for a point) in Pippa’s life. With all new friendships, what’s nice is finding out the other’s story without any judgment. That’s biggest difference between Chris and Pippa’s husband Herb (Alan Arkin). So it’s easy to see why and how their relationship develops. Plus, there’s a point in the movie where Chris says, “Hi there,” to Pippa and I must admit, swoon.

Also, Winona Ryder, Alan Arkin and Mike Binder do well as the supporting characters, and Blake Lively’s even passable as the young Pippa (but her “bite my lip” equals “emotion” style of “Serena” acting gets a little tired). I was surprised by Reeves’ casting but, like everyone in the film, he’s really good. I can’t say much else — it’s just a good film. That might sound trite but I honestly mean it. Usually, I’ll say that one should just read the book, forget about the movie; it’ll only pale in comparison. But here the film is an amazing complement to the novel — so I’m happily suggesting one should do both.

#50 – Shutter Island

I am this-close to being all caught up with my book reviews. I’ve got two more after Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island, and then I’m almost current. What a shock to my system that’ll be: actually talking about my life in real time. Like The Best of Everything, Shutter Island was another book that I read in pretty much one sitting.

Here comes the confessional. [whispers] I cheat and sometimes read the endings of books first. I know. It’s terrible. But it’s something I started doing when I was a kid and can’t control. So, after I started Shutter Island, I just had to know what happened. Like, HAD to know. Like, COULDN’T wait until I actually got to the end, and I resisted. Oh, I resisted until early evening when everyone else was playing cards and I was still reading. And then I couldn’t stop myself. Flipping the book over I scanned the last few pages and said, “WHAT? No, that can’t be right. I don’t understand.”

Serves me right.

Back to the traditional old-school read it from beginning to ending. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, arrive on Shutter Island for a routine missing persons case. Except, is it really all that routine when the island, separated from the mainland by high tides, rocky outcrops and cold water, is home to a prison for some of the country’s most disturbed and dangerous offenders? So, one of them has gone missing — she’s utterly disappeared from her cell (not unlike Andy in The Shawshank Redemption only without the giant poster and the actual explanation) and no one knows what’s happened. But when Teddy and Chuck step off the ferry, nothing is as it seems. The staff are cryptic and unhelpful. The clues are confusing and don’t make sense. And soon Teddy’s not only lost his partner but he’s on the verge of losing his mind too. He can’t get off the island. No, wait, let’s rephrase that, they won’t let him off the island.

Let me tell you: I did not expect the ending. It came out of left field for me so much that I had to re-read the prologue AND the last few pages more than once. Lehane’s such a convincing writer that you get swept away in Teddy’s story the moment he tosses his cookies on the ferry ride over. That’s a part of why the novel’s so masterful too — that for a twist of this magnitude to work, you need to be with the main character from the very beginning. You need to sweat when he sweats, so to speak, and sweat you do.

I’m stoked for the movie, even if they’ve delayed its opening until next winter. Here’s the trailer in case you’ve been living under a rock these last few months:

Is it just me or is it totally terrifying? Trust me when I say that the book throws the same kind of punch.