Showing posts with label Forget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Forget. Show all posts

23 December 2021

Just in Time for Christmas!


The new issue of Canadian Notes & Queries arrives at a busy time of year, which suits me just fine. I usually race through each issue, reading it from cover to cover, but am now forced to slow the pace and savour.

And so, all I've read thus far is Seth's regular column 'The Landscape.' The beginning raised a smile of self-recognition:

There are still a few places in Ontario where one can find shelves (or piles) of old second hand books for sale that have not been curated. Randomly acquired, roughly heaped into sections, and priced not by author and title but by paperback or hardcover status alone. These places are dwindling fast but I still know a few prime spots. Don't expect me to name them or tell you where they're located though. s if. I don't want you going there. These are my secret places. My old books! Keep out.

Seth's focus this time is The Canada Permanent Story, 1855-1955. "These corporate books weren't really meant to be perused," he writes, yet Seth has done just that, sharing this endpaper illustration:


My own contribution concerns Garnett Weston, whose books and film work consumed much of my summer. They also consumed a fair amount of my income. I've yet to find a Weston in any of my secret places.

Garnett Weston
1890 - 1980
RIP

It's not entirely true that I've only read Seth's column. Among the other contributions is 'Telling the Story,' in which Susan Mayse remembers her father Arthur Mayse's writing career. I commissioned the  piece as the forward to the forthcoming Ricochet Books reissue of Arthur Mayse's 1949 novel Perilous Passage.


There's so much more to look forward to, including writing by:
Stephanie Bolster
Alex Boyd
Kornella Drianovaki
Megan Durnford
Stacey Easton
André Forget
Stephen Fowler
Alex Good
Ronald L Grimes
Brett Joseph Grubisic
Luke Hathaway
David Huebert
Mark Anthony Jarman
Kate Kennedy
Aris Keshav
M Travis Lane
Rohen Maitzen
Dancy Mason
David Mason
Jeff Miller
Nofel
J R Patterson
Shazia Hafiz Ramji
Patricia Robertson
Naben Ruthnum
Cal Sepulia
Drew Tapley
Rob Taylor
Carl Watts
Bruce Whitman
Given that it's the season... Anyone looking for a last minute Christmas gift can't do much better than a subscription to Canadian Notes & Queries. I bought a couple. You can, too!

30 January 2021

Erring on The Terror of the Tar Sands



A 1968 children's book, one of the most obscure novels I've read since beginning the Dusty Bookcase, The Terror of the Tar Sands came under fire at the 2012 International Symposium on the History of the Oil and Gas Industry.

I was not invited.

The criticism originated with oil historian Joyce Hunt, who took issue with the use of "tar sands" in its title:
Contemporary rhetoric creates fear in the minds of those unfamiliar with today’s vital energy industry as it puts on hold construction jobs and the economic hopes of thousands. The media and those opposing oil sands development constantly refer to Alberta’s oil sands as tar sands, a technically incorrect term.
Does that not seem a bit unfair? After all, "oil sands" is also technically incorrect. And let's not forget that "tar sands" was used for decades by the industry itself. Still is:


Hell, I grew up with ads for the tar sands, like his one, which featured in the 31 October 1977 issue of Maclean's:

cliquez pour agrandir

(Am I alone in thinking that a sitting MLA shouldn't be on Syncrude's payroll, never mind serve on its Management Committee?)

I'm not a fan of The Terror of the Tar Sands either, but my criticism has nothing to do with the title. You can read all about it in the new issue of Canadian Notes & Queries. My copy arrived today. You're a subscriber, right? If not, here's some of what you're missing, beginning with this cover by Seth:


Dan Wells' Publisher's Note introduces a new series, Shelf Talkers, bringing together recommendations from independent booksellers (among them, my old friend Ben McNally).


Rod Moody-Corbett writes on Percy Janes, whose House of Hate is both one of this country's most controversial and most neglected novels. Only in Canada is such a thing possible.


We have a fable from Pauline Holdstock and a short story by Shaena Lambert.


Bruce Whiteman contributes a memoir.


Other contributors include:
Ho Che Anderson
Michel Basilières
Steven W Beattie
Juliane Okot Bitek
Andreae Callanan
Laura Cameron
Sally Cooper
Steacy Easton
André Forget
Alex Good
Brett Josef Grubisic
Tom Halford
Jeremy Luke Hill
Mikka Jacobsen
River Kozhar
Allison LaSorda
David Mason
John Metcalf
James Grainger Morgan
Nick Mount
Shane Neilson
Rudrapriya Rathore
Patricia Robertson
Mark Sampson
Richard Sanger
Souvankham Thammavongsa
Phoebe Wang 
It all ends on page 88 with Stephen Fowler's remarks on this book:


But wait, what's this?

The same envelope containing the latest CNQ brought the very first issue of Bibliophile, which features the latest news from CNQ mothership Biblioasis. 


Subscriptions to Canadian Notes & Queries can be got through this link.

One last thing: It was through reading The Terror of the Tar Sands that I first learned of Project Cauldron, a 1958 proposal which would have seen nuclear bombs used to separate bitumen from the sands. Why were we not taught this in school? After reading up on it all, this illustration from The Terror of the Tar Sands doesn't seem so insane.


29 January 2020

Published in the Age of Unravelling



Can it be? Not four weeks into the New Year and already a new Canadian Notes & Queries? A theme issue – "Writing in the Age of Unravelling" – it makes for some uncomfortable reading. Catherine Bush contributes an essay on representations of the climate crisis in fiction. Jacky Sawatzky writes on her memorial to the endangered giraffe. Jennifer Ilse Black and Waubgeshig Rice are interviewed. Andrew Forbes presents a cli-fi primer.


Credit goes to Guest Editors Patricia Robertson and Sharon English.

The issue's Dusty Bookcase concerns Hotter Than Hell, the 1974 Kiss album produced by Kenny Kenner and Richie Wise.

I jest. It's about the 2005 dystopian novel of the same title.


Political animals will remember Hotter Than Hell as the small press book the newly-elected Harper Conservatives made famous by silencing its author, government scientist Mark Tushington.

What intrigued me is that for all the coverage – The Globe & MailThe New York Times, The Scientist, et al – no one appeared to have taken the time to read the damn thing.

Well, I've read it. And now you don't have to.

Here's a typical passage:
The Eighteenth Guard (Pennsylvania) and Eighth Guard (New York) divisions, supported by the 1st Marine and 57th Urban brigades were attacking, The First Guard Division was being badly defeated in every sector. The 28th and 29th regiments were quickly pushed out of Abany and up the length of the Mohawk Valley. It was only then that we retreated into Utica that my forces could hold. Because of the inactivity of the IV Corps, I took a supreme gamble and withdrew elements of the 6th Armored Brigade from covering Montreal.
You're welcome.

Other contributors include:
Madhur Anand
Peter Anson
Nicholas Bradley
Yuan Changming
Stephen Fowler
Lise Gaston
Roger Greenwald
Mahak Jain
Joanna Lilley
JF Martel
David Mason
Catherine Owen
Seth
Roz Spafford
Erika Thorkelson
RM Vaughan
Mary Lou Zeitown
The issue also features the annual Book Review supplement.


Thirty-two pages of goodness, provided by:
Michel Basilières
Steven W. Beattie
Jeff Bursey
Andreae Callahan
Laura Cameron
Paige Cooper
Trevor Corkum
André Forget
Monique Giroux
James Granger
Brett Josef Grubisic
Katia Grubisic
Stephen Henighan
Dancy Mason
Rohan Maitzen
Rod Moody-Corbet
Rudrapriya Rathore
Patricia Robertson
Matthew D. Rodrigues
Mark Sampson
Jonathan Valelly
Derek Webster
Bruce Whiteman
Apparently, there's a sequel to Hotter Than Hell.

I'll leave it to others to explore.

Related post:

17 April 2019

Canadian Notes & Queries in Springtime



Behold, Canadian Notes & Queries #104 has arrived! Here it is on the hood of our aging Jeep Liberty.

I look forward to each and every issue, but am particularly keen on this one because it features "No Country for Old Books," my essay on Canada Reads. I think it's important, not so much for my opinions, but for exposing what our "literary Survivor" has hidden from CBC listeners. The show's letter to publishers, sent this past fall, is revelatory – and is printed in full. CNQ made the essay available online last month:
No Country for Old Books
But wouldn't you rather subscribe?

Of course you would. You can do so through this link.

I've also been looking forward to Ian Coutts' article on James Moffatt, the boozy middle-aged Canadian expat behind the bestselling skinhead novels of 'seventies Great Britain.


And then there's Michel Basilières' piece on the great Émile Nelligan in translation.


As he often does, Seth surprises; this time with a spread on The Children's Book about Pulp and Paper and other "little marvels of design and illustration" by Jacques Gagnier and Leonard L. Knott.


Also featured is a new short story by Cynthia Flood!

Other contributors include:
Myra Bloom
Andreae Callanan
Paige Cooper
Jason Dickson
André Forget
Stephen Fowler
Alex Good
Brett Josef Grubisic
Cynthia Holz
Ben Ledoucer
Dancy Mason
David Mason
Marko Sijan
Fiona Smyth
Pablo Strauss
Souvankham Thammavougea
Joshua Whitehead
and
Bruce Whiteman
My Dusty Bookcase column for this issue looks at The Arch-Satirist by Frances de Wolfe Fenwick. Regular readers of this blog may remember mention of this book in a previous post and on Facebook (yeah, I'm on Facebook). "How is it that a 1910 Montreal novel that begins with the ramblings of a drunken, drug-addicted teenage poet disappoints?" I asked my Facebook "friends."


Those who think I've been unfair to Miss Fenwick may wish to consider this from the July 1910 issue of Canadian Magazine:


Related posts:

01 August 2018

Mrs Lowry's West Coast Murder Mystery



"Malcolm Lowry has an entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia, so why not wife Margerie?" This is the question I pose in reviewing Margerie Bonner's 1946 novel The Shapes That Creep for the new Summer edition of Canadian Notes & Queries. As I point out, Bonner lived in Canada just as long as her husband, and published three novels during the couple's Canadian years. The Shapes That Creep, the first, is set in motion by the discovery of a murdered recluse in a community modelled on Deep Cove, British Columbia.


My review of The Shapes That Creep – with argument for Bonner's inclusion in the Encyclopedia – is the subject of my Dusty Bookcase column. Over at the What's Old feature, I recommend reissues of two Canadian classics, Hugh MacLennan's Two Solitudes and The Black Donnellys by Thomas P. Kelley; along with Jimmie Dale, Alias the Gray Seal, a new Gray Seal adventure written by fan Michael Howard.


This being the Genre Issue, Deborah Dundas writes on her relationship with romance novels, Rui Umezawa looks at Enter the Dragon, and Robert J. Wiersema considers Stephen King's It as a work of empathy. Gemma Files, Sandra Kasturi, David Nickle, Andrew Pyper, and Robert Rowe dare revisit their first monsters.


Seth provides a cover that can double as a Halloween mask.

All is overseen by guest editor James Grainger, who also contributes an excellent piece on the disturbing 1972 horror/comedy Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things. Other contributors include:
Myra Bloom
Daniel Donaldson
Justin Donnait
André Forget
Chris Gilmore
Alex Good
Camila Grudova
Sandra Kasturiit
Sibyl Lamb
Annick MacAskill
David Mason
Patricia Robertson
Keven Spenst
Jay Stephens
JC Sutcliffe
Drew Hayden Taylor
and
Bruce Whiteman

As always, things wrap up with Stephen Fowler. This issue he exhumes the Civil Defence Health Service's Casualty Simulation (Ottawa: Department of National Health and Welfare, 1955).

The horror! The horror!

Related post:

22 February 2018

Not to Be Confused with Bust Planet



The new issue of Canadian Notes & Queries has arrived, bringing with it my long promised review of W.E.D. Ross's Lust Planet (1962), Canada's very first work of science fiction erotica. I found the novel every bit as good as expected.

Collectors of Canadian literature are advised to pick up this France' Book – oddly-named imprint of Hollywood's International Publications – while they still can. As I write, I see just one copy listed for sale online. To those requiring further enticement, I offer this: something I neglected to mention in the review is that Lust Planet features three intriguing illustrations. Intriguing because they have no connection at all with the text.


The other two are even better.

As I say, get it while you can. Better yet, subscribe to CNQ... easily done through this link at the magazine's website.

This issue's contributors include:
Madhur Anand
Jason Dickson
Jesse Eckerlin
André Forget
Cecil Foster
Stephen Fowler
Alex Good
Dominic Hardy
Ann Ireland
Penn Javdan
Samuel Johnson
Colette Maitland
Dominic Martinello
David Mason
Dakota McFadzean
Rebecca Rosenblum
Kate Sherren
JC Sutcliffe
Derek Webster
Bruce Whiteman

In addition to the cover and design, Seth reflects on CANADA official handbooks of days gone by (including this one): "I find these books fascinating, in a doctor's office kind of way. They have a sort of sublime dullness about them. A quality hard to put into words. Pleasing. Comforting. Sleep-inducing."

Editor Emily Donaldson not only put the whole thing together, she contributed a review of  David Chariandy's Brother.

This issue marks the second time I've shared pages with John Metcalf. Friends will recognize how much this means to me. Coincidentally, it was through John that I first learned of W.E.D. Ross.


Related post: