Booker jury to be chaired by Edugyan

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/01/2023 (717 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Whatever the long and short lists look like, there’s guaranteed to be some Canadian content in the 2023 Booker Prize. Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan will chair the five-member prize jury.

Calgary-born Edugyan was shortlisted for the award, the world’s leading prize for English-language fiction, in 2018 (for her novel Washington Black) and 2011 (for Half-Blood Blues).

She’ll be joined on the jury by British actress Adjoa Andoh, British poet Mary Jen Chan, American Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro and British actor/novelist Robert Webb.

***

After a career in government and the private sector that included time as cabinet secretary to the Manitoba government and Ontario’s deputy minister of health, Winnipeg-born Michael Decter turned novelist this year with the publication of Shadow Life (Cormorant Books).

Buy on mcnallyrobinson.com

Decter will read from the novel — the story of a politician who finds his life and sense of self unravelling after serving on a jury in a child murder case — at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location on Wednesday at 7 p.m.

The author of books on health care and finance and a collection of political stories entitled Tales From the Back Room, Decter intends Shadow Life to be the first of a trilogy. Decter will discuss the novel with Free Press journalist Eva Wasney.

***

Winnipeg writer Gabrielle Goldstone draws from her mother’s story of two years in a Soviet labour camp in her new young adult novel Crow Stone (Ronsdale Press).

Buy on mcnallyrobinson.com

Goldstone launches the novel Friday at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location. The novel focuses on a German girl in January 1945 who is captured by the Soviet Red Army during their offensive that ultimately ended the war, and sent to a labour camp at a mine in the Ural Mountains.

***

Montreal independent publisher Guernica Editions is launching a new imprint for experimental books, to be edited by poet and fiction writer Stuart Ross.

The name of the imprint, 1366 Books, refers to the date of the founding of the Spanish/Basque town Guernica, which is best known as the location of one of the world’s first aerial bombardments, carried out by Francisco Franco’s Nazi allies in 1937 and immortalized in Pablo Picasso’s famous painting of the same name.

***

A fascinating story on American bookseller Barnes & Noble offers hope to book lovers everywhere.

Author and music historian Ted Gioia writes about the recent turnaround of the once-moribund American retailer, which has bounced back since British executive James Daunt took over as CEO in 2019. Daunt used the same strategies he employed to save Britain’s Waterstones bookstore chain, including giving store staff the power to promote books they love.

As a result stores at both chains are no longer cluttered with huge displays of the small number of titles pushed by publishers. Instead, they offer a more diverse array of books and are no longer, as Daunt put it, “crucifyingly boring.” His approach has allowed the chain to open 16 new U.S. locations in 2022 and plan for 30 more in 2023.

Gioia’s article can be found at wfp.to/SX6.

***

Winnipeg writer David Alexander Robertson’s middle-grade fantasy The Barren Grounds, the first book in his Misewa Saga, was one of the 10 best-selling Canadian books at some 300 independent booksellers in 2022.

Michelle Good’s 2020 debut novel Five Little Indians is holding down the top spot on the list, compiled by the CBC from sales data at Bookmanager. Two of the titles on the list, Emily St. John Mandel’s time travel novel Sea of Tranquility and Kate Beaton’s graphic novel memoir Ducks, were also on the list of Barack Obama’s favourite books of 2022.

The full list of bestsellers can be found at wfp.to/SXj.

booknewsbob@gmail.com