CURRICULUM VITAE

Vish Puri, P.I.

Personal Details

• Born: 1951
• Birthplace: Punjabi Bagh, Delhi
• Nickname: Chubby

 Family

• Wife: His wife, Rumpi, is the daughter of a retired Brigadier in the Indian army. They have three daughters.
• Mother: Puri’s mother, known to all as “Mummy-ji,” is a retired head teacher with a keen interest in the affairs of others. A capable detective in her own right, she often becomes embroiled in minor cases, despite Puri’s disapproval: “Women are not detectives and detectives are certainly not Mummies,” as Puri points out. But when the father of a star Pakistani cricketer is poisoned in The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken, she realizes that she alone has unique insight into the case.
• Father: Puri is the son of a deceased Delhi police officer, framed for corruption.

Career

• Current title: Chief Operating Officer, Most Private Investigators Ltd.
• Profession: Private investigator (former Military Intelligence)
• Company: Most Private Investigators Ltd.
• Credo: “Danger is my ally.”
• Service Awards: Winner of six National Awards

Vish Puri’s company, founded in 1981, is India’s number one private investigation agency. From their HQ above Bahri Sons bookshop in Khan Market, South Delhi, Puri and his team of operatives handle all manner of problems plaguing modern Indian society – from exposing the secret affairs and devious lies of prospective brides and grooms to the alleged murder of a lowly maidservant. Puri has recently solved a most unusual dilemma: namely, who would want to steal the world’s longest moustache off the face of its owner while he was sleeping.

Known Associates

• Flush: So named because his was the first house in the village to have a “western-style” toilet, Flush is a young computer and electronics geek who can hack networks and build his own bugs, many of which look like real insects. His greatest claim to fame is having secreted a bug inside the Pakistani ambassador’s dentures. But what he’d like most in life is a girlfriend. Preferably one featured on the annual Kingfisher swimsuit calendar.
• Facecream: Puri’s most versatile and enigmatic operative is a steely and comely Nepali woman who ran away from home as a teenager to join the Maoist insurgency. What led to her disillusionment with the movement and her subsequent flight from her homeland remains something of a mystery, even to Puri. With an innate ability to blend into any situation – from servant girl to spoiled society siren – Facecream often plays a valuable role in Puri’s unique approach to investigative work.
• Tubelight: Puri’s chief operative was born into a clan of thieves, is blind in one eye and often disguised as an auto rickshaw driver. His nickname is derived from the fact that he takes a while to “flicker on in the morning.” However, Baldev Pawar, as he’s known outside professional circles, knows every brothel, illegal cricket-gambling den and cockerel-fighting venue in the city – not to mention most of its best forgers, fencers, smugglers, safe crackers and purveyors of everything from used Johnnie Walker bottles to wedding-night porn. He also maintains a team of snoops and informers – his “boys.”

Misc

• Weapon of choice: A .32 IOF revolver produced in India by the Ordnance Factories Organisation in Kolkata. It’s a six-shot, break action, self-extracting weapon based on a Webley design and uses the Smith & Wesson Long cartridge. India’s 1959 Arms Act gives Indian citizens the right to bear arms and Puri has been known to carry his piece when danger is near.
• Vehicle: Puri owns a white Ambassador. Manufactured since 1948 by Hindustan Motors and based on the Morris Oxford III, it was, until roughly a decade ago, the most popular car in India . . . not that there was much choice!

Bad Habits

• Puri is a capsicum junkie: he likes to eat raw chillies with a little salt, sometimes for breakfast. To ensure that he has a ready supply, the detective has several species growing on the roof of his house. Often he goes up there to think over a case and wipe the dust and pollution from the leaves. He has proven most successful at growing Naga Jolokias, generally regarded as the hottest in the world.

Of Note

• Puri has a collection of a dozen tweed Sandown flat caps, most of them supplied by Bates of Piccadilly in London, England. His other chosen attire is a Safari suit, a style once popular in India amongst bureaucrats and corporate employees, but now regarded as somewhat passé.

To learn more about Vish Puri, please visit VishPuri.com.

Antigonick, a translation of Sophokles’ Antigone, is worth a trek to your local bookstore just to see in person. Bianca Stone’s illustrations are set on translucent vellum stock, creating intruiging effects when overlapped with the hand-lettered text below.

Carson’s work is entrenched with a sense of play and wonder that seems almost childlike at times, and the sarcastic tone of the chorus feels wonderfully adolescent and indulgent. “You’re late to learn what’s what aren’t you” they tell Theban king Kreon, in a moment of “I told you so” that had me laughing out loud. The playfulness of Carson’s work almost tricks you into having fun with Antigone the way she does, and in Antigonick Carson brings you into a world that feels current, even though the story dates back nearly three thousand years. Her playful energy is not limited to the comic, as she easily captures moments that seem to luxuriate in cynicism — “Look here comes hope/wandering in/to tickle your feet/then you notice the soles are on fire”. These tonal peaks and valleys are what gives Antigonick its unsettling resonance.

As Carson writes of Aphrodite “you play with us, you play deeply”, I’d suggest that, Anne Carson, so do you — you play deeply. And your readers thank you!

But we can be pretty sure that her husband, Hank, is excited and proud. In honour of the forthcoming publication he wrote an adorable, and catchy, tune!

You can listen to it here: Suko Wrote A Book

Here are the lyrics:

Suko Wrote A Book
Well, take a look, take a look, Suko wrote a book
Take a look, take a look, Suko wrote a book
Take a look, take a look, Suko wrote a book
Bless my soul, Suko wrote a book

We’re gonna throw a rockin’ party to celebrate
April 3rd, man and I can’t wait
Drinkin’ wine and a rockin’ band
Down in old Chinatown by the ol’ FanTan

Take a look, take a look, Suko wrote a book
Take a look, take a look, Suko wrote a book
Take a look, take a look, Suko wrote a book
Holy smokes my soul, Suko wrote a book

Take a look, take a look, Suko wrote a book
Take a look, take a look, Suko wrote a book
Take a look, take a look, Suko wrote a book
Bless my soul, Suko wrote a book

A book of short fiction called Floating Like The Dead
Anita read it and went out of her head
McClelland and Stewart is puttin’ it out
Read the galley and it made me wanna jump and shout
Denise Bukowski says it’s really great
Gonna get my copy I can hardly wait

Take a look, take a look, Suko wrote a book
Take a look, take a look, Suko wrote a book
Take a look, take a look, Suko wrote a book
Holy smoke , Suko wrote a book

Take a look, take a look, Suko wrote a book
Take a look, take a look, Suko wrote a book
Take a look, take a look, Suko wrote a book
Bless my soul, Suko wrote a book

Presumably, you are a reader, the kind of person for whom reading is a big enough part of their life that your friends and family take notice… Let me guess… overflowing bookshelves? The occasional hardcover avalanche?

Welcome to the world of eBooks! You have quite the next month in store for you, building your digital library book by book (or as it were in my case, books by books by books). Soon enough, you will be converting your lists of “BOOKS TO READ SOMEDAY” into eBooks on your device, patiently awaiting a line up, or a hockey practice or that elusive distraction-free afternoon in which to dig in. So let me give you a preview of what you are in for…

Doorstoppers No More!

Perhaps you are a fan of Haruki Murakami and have been eyeing up 1Q84 every time you have been in a book store. Take it easy on your triceps and read it digitally. The latest Murakami masterpiece tips the scales at almost three pounds in hardcover versus the eight to fifteen ounces from your favourite eReader. 1Q84 is not the only book that benefits from being read digitally, all of these amazing reads are slightly on the plump side and work really well as eBooks. No longer must you choose between your lunch and your book.

1. 1Q84 – Haruki Murakami
2. Into the Silence – Wade Davis
3. The Scottish Prisoner – Diana Gabaldon
4. The Passage – Justin Cronin
5. Inheritance – Christopher Paolini

Guilty Pleasures Hidden

Have you been snooping through your children’s bookshelves ever since Twilight and Harry Potter? Have you been eyeing up Kelley Armstrong’s young adult series? The eReader is a real boon to those of you reticent to share your love of young adult fiction with the rest of the lunchroom. Not that you should be self-conscious (there are a lot of Young-Adult Adults out there), but in case you are your new eReading device will be perfect cover as you dive into these titles:

1. Blood Red Road – Moira Young
2. Dearly Departed – Lia Habel
3. The Forest of Hands and Teeth – Carrie Ryan
4. The Summoning – Kelley Armstrong

The holiday season can be stressful. Between the gravy and red wine, all you want is some nice light fare to take a load off, ideally on a couch. The perfect companion for these moments is the celebrity biography. One need not be ashamed at tucking into the latest celebrity biography, but in case you like to leave them guessing (Amis, Atwood, and Achebe rather than Arden, Adkins and Agassi), your eReader is the perfect cover. These juicy bios of the stars ought to do the trick.

1. Then Again – Diane Keaton
2. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) – Mindy Kaling
3. Falling Backwards – Jann Arden
4. All That is Bitter and Sweet – Ashley Judd
5. Official Book Club Selection – Kathy Griffin
6. Le Freak – Nile Rodgers
7. Open – Andre Agassi

Instantaneous Delivery – Books You Didn’t Get for Christmas

Receiving this nifty eReader means you probably did not get the traditional bumper crop of bestsellers under the tree. Now with the magic of eBooks you can get them, right now, even though the stores are closed. Everything you have been eyeing in the bookstore window, but holding off until after the presents have been unwrapped, is available at your fingertips now. Might we be so bold as to suggest a few bestsellers from 2011?

1. The Litigators – John Grisham
2. The Cat’s Table – Michael Ondaatje
3. The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern
4. The Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes
5. The Marriage Plot – Jeffrey Eugenides

When the conversation turns to books around the dinner table, you will want to be prepared to scoop that pesky brother-in-law on all the hot reads from this past year. Here are a few favourites.

1. When the Gods Changed – Peter C. Newman
2. Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
3. The Leopard – Jo Nesbo
4. Nation Maker – Richard Gwyn

Are you ready for the holiday edition of your book club? Pick up some of these soon to be sensations and be a hero to your fellow readers.

1. Blue Nights – Joan Didion
2. The Virgin Cure – Ami Mckay
3. Irma Voth – Miriam Toews
4. The Thirteen – Susie Moloney
5. Midwife of Venice – Roberta Rich
6. Paris Wife – Paula McLain

A Portable Library

One of the changes brought about the revolution in digital reading is the ability to carry a library in your pocket. Think how far we have come from the era where books were only available to the extraordinarily wealthy. Not only are the civilization’s vast stores of knowledge available to everyone, now they fit in your pocket. The books you have returned to over and over again are available, anytime, anywhere and without the tape holding the spine together. Start off with these wonderful books that will keep on giving and giving throughout a lifetime of reading.

1. Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
2. The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank
3. Wealth of Nations – Adam Smith
4. Shake Hands with the Devil – Romeo Dallaire
5. Last Night in Twisted River – John Irving
6. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

To stay up to date on all of the latest eBooks from Random House of Canada and McClelland & Stewart, click here to sign up for our eBooks newsletter.

Excerpt from Trudeau Transformed:

His new professors bore little resemblance to the ones back home. At Harvard, most professors already were – or would become – leading experts on the world stage. They were often of European origin, some having fled the Nazi threat. The views they vigorously defended in one course were sometimes attacked, just as convincingly, in another. This dichotomy could undermine the self-assurance of students indoctrinated to believe in the monolithic nature of Truth and the Good.

How did Trudeau react to this new situation? The standard answer is that he felt liberated from the stifling climate that had oppressed him in Quebec, heaved a huge sigh of relief, and triumphantly posted a sign on his door announcing he was “Pierre Trudeau, Citizen of the World.” Most biographers see in this gesture the birth of a new man. By proclaiming that the world was now his country, Trudeau distanced himself from his French-Canadian origins. Thus, for example, in 2005, André Burelle, a former speech writer to Prime Minister Trudeau, saw this name tag as a sign of “community uprooting.” But, wrote Burelle, in wanting to “conceive of man without the community,” Trudeau discovered that “becoming a citizen of the world meant being a citizen of nowhere.” The image of the newly liberated Trudeau, proclaiming that he rejected his French- Canadian identity, has been repeated so often that it has become a cliché.

This interpretation was plausible as long as the Trudeau of our first volume remained unknown. But now that it has been established that the young man who arrived at Harvard was a nationalist, corporatist, and revolutionary who had wanted only two years previously to make Quebec an independent country, this transformation seems a little drastic, to say the least. Which is why we ask two questions: Did the sign on the door really exist? And if so, how should it be interpreted? We were intrigued by the fact that the best-known biographies take for granted that the sign on the door really existed, without providing the source of their information. We tried to track it down and believe we have found it. In a rarely quoted book, Trudeau Revealed by His Actions and Words, David Somerville writes: “In Trudeau’s second year, an associate from the Université de Montréal law faculty, Pierre Carignan, arrived at Harvard and looked him up. ‘I went to his room in a student dormitory there. On the door was written ‘Pierre Elliott Trudeau – Citizen of the World.’” So it is thanks to Carignan, quoted by Somerville, that we know about the sign on the door. How long did it remain posted on the door? Nobody knows. Carignan’s visit is nonetheless confirmed by Trudeau, who noted in his diary that the two met on Saturday, May 11, 1946, at 6 p.m.

Want to read the first chapter of Trudeau Transformed? Click here.

Get more fun facts like this! Download our free Conversation Starters App from iTunes! Visit www.conversationstarters.ca to learn more.

We are deeply saddened by today’s news announcing the death of Christopher Hitchens. McClelland & Stewart has had the great fortune of working with Christopher as his Canadian publisher for his most recent books, including the #1 international bestseller god is Not Great; Hitch-22: A Memoir; Arguably: Essays, named one of the 10 Best Books of 2011 by the New York Times, and a #1 Canadian bestseller; and a forthcoming memoir to be published in 2012, Mortality, based on a series of award-winning essays published in Vanity Fair about his ordeal with cancer. Christopher dealt with his illness as he did his life leading up to it: with wit, insight, incredible intellectual productivity, and extreme courage. We are all terribly saddened by his passing—his was an incredible life cut short and we send his family our heart-felt regrets and sympathy. We are honoured to be his publishers, and in that role to have brought and continue to bring his work to Canadian readers. He will be missed but his great and inspiring legacy will live on.

Facing The Hunter (Doubleday Canada)
Designed and illustrated by Andrew Roberts
David Adams Richards (DAR in design shorthand) gets an original look for his non-fiction. A near-perfect combination of great production values and deftly rendered illustration. The subject matter could have sent this cover in some nasty directions, but understatement and elegance win the day.

Folk (McClelland & Stewart)
Designed by Leah Springate
At the best of times, wrapping a poetry book is a tough nut to crack. The design needs to be evocative, intelligent, subtle and still represent what are often multiple (more often disparate) themes, styles, and metaphors. And all on a non-existent budget. This one succeeds, gracefully. Much like the poetry within.

The White Ballets (Tundra Books)
Designed by Jennifer Lum, illustrated by Rajka Kupesic
If the art and text are the prima ballerinas, then a good designer knows their role is to dance the chorus: enhance the choreography, support those at centre stage, deepen what is already a stellar performance. Herewith a great design allowing the spotlight to fall where it should.

Wingfield’s World (Vintage Canada)
Designed by Kelly Hill, illustrated by Risto Turunen
The challenge: create a fresh look for a veritable publishing icon. Through the years, the various editions and permutations of the Wingfield franchise could fill a library. But none are as charming, eye-catching, and just plain fun as this. A terrific partnership of design, typography, and illustration. And who could resist that dog?

Hope Is Better Than Fear (Knopf Random Canada)
Designed by Terri Nimmo
For our money the perfect cover. From the colour palette to the type choice to the iconic bicycle-built-for-Jack-and-Olivia, everything works; everything respects the man and his legacy. What could have been maudlin, garish, or at worst opportunistic comes off as eloquent tribute. The ultimate irony? It’s not a printed cover at all. It’s an e-book.

The language of flowers ladies (who were around in the 1800s) got peonies wrong—hopelessly wrong. They decided that these plants denoted “bashfulness,” because of a Greek myth about mischievous cherubs hiding themselves in the flowers’ voluminous petals.

Okay, it’s a cute image. But bashful? You’ve got to be kidding. No one in their right mind would describe peonies that way. Flashy, yes. And flirty. And flamboyant. And flouncy. And flagrant. And . . . A trowelful of adjectives beginning with an f comes immediately to mind when picturing how these flowers look, yet “bashful” doesn’t figure in the equation. Not at all. Those upper-class females who sat around in their hoop skirts, dreaming up symbols for flowers, had perhaps got into the laudanum by the time they’d moved down the alphabet to peonies. So they goofed.

Because far from being shy and retiring, these flowers are surely among the most shameless exhibitionists ever created by Mother Nature. In reality, with their blowsy, D-cup blooms strutting atop those precarious chicken-leg stems they are (to modern eyes at least) the Dolly Partons of the garden. Like the country singer, they can come across as a tad vulgar and over the top, yet that’s the secret of their indefatigable charm too. People seem to love Dolly’s outrageous sense of chutzpah and it’s surely the same with peonies—which are, when you think about it, ridiculous, exasperating, and pointless flowers, because they often collapse at the drop of a hat. Those thin stems never seem to be able to prop up the too-weighty blooms for very long, even with the newer, less top-heavy single varieties, and the mess they leave behind can severely test our patience. Yet, despite this defect, you will rarely meet anyone who dislikes peonies. On the contrary. To most gardeners, they are heaven-sent objects of adoration.

Why? Just take a look at a big clump of peonies, resplendent with blooms, on a June day. Even the most abundant of roses pale beside prolific peonies. Their very extravagance is surely unmatched by anything else we grow—so many opulent petals on each huge flower head, and, often, such an amazing number of flower heads, all popping open from their odd gobstopper buds at once. Reliably as clockwork every year too, with no prodding at all from us. (Hard winters don’t—what bliss!—faze their hulking great roots. Nor do they demand fussing with fertilizers.) Then bend over a bloom. Breathe in deeply. Their scents can be delicious—delicate, light, sweet, yet strong enough to waft all over the garden—and their colours are equally mouthwatering. Froths of pure white, creamy vanilla or lemon, sugary pink shot through with ripples of raspberry, tangerine touched with a tease of orange, luminous cherry red, and a deep, delicious plum that positively shimmers. Ornamented at their centres with tangles of twirly, golden threads, our voluptuous peonies float atop their handsome dark green foliage like luscious cut-open peaches and dishes of delectable ice cream. They look almost good enough to eat.

Yet like any delicious treat, the sensory pleasure is tantalizingly short, over almost as soon as it starts. Peony petals start dropping within a week, often less. And inevitably, infuriatingly, a rain or wind storm will roll in when the blooms are going full blast, causing the stems underneath to immediately collapse in an untidy heap, transforming our objects of worship into wads of wet Kleenex, nasty and slippery, piling up on the garden path. If you’re quick enough, you can rush around like crazy with a pair of secateurs, frantically cutting blooms off to bring them indoors before the full force of the rain or wind wreaks this destruction. (And it’s worth doing, because peonies make the most elegant and classy cut flowers in the world.) But usually, we’re too late. Once the realization hits that the show’s over for another year, all that’s left to do is sigh, recall how breathtakingly beautiful Mother Nature’s short burst of munificence was, then sweep up the heaps of sodden petals, hoping, a bit grimly, perhaps, for drier, calmer days next June.

But who would be without peonies? Not many northern gardeners, if they’re familiar with their spectacular allure and have the space to grow them. (They require lots of sun, an open aspect, and good drainage.) This is, after all, a love affair that has lasted for thousands of years.

Excerpted from The Untamed Garden by Sonia Day. Copyright © 2011 by Sonia Day. Excerpted by permission of McClelland & Stewart. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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CANADIAN FICTION

• A Good Man by Guy Vanderhaeghe
• A World Elsewhere by Wayne Johnston
• Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay
• By Love Possessed by Lorna Goodison
• Dogs at the Perimeter by Madeleine Thien
• Don’t Be Afraid by Steven Hayward
• Every Time We Say Goodbye by Jamie Zeppa
• The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje
• The Guardians by Andrew Pyper
• The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott
• The Thirteen by Susie Moloney
• Vital Signs by Tessa McWatt

FOREIGN FICTION

• 1Q84 by Haruki Murikami
• A Dance with Dragons by George RR Martin
• Bullfighting by Roddy Doyle
• Disaster Was My God by Bruce Duffy
• Ragnarok by AS Byatt
• The Cardboard Valise by Ben Katchor
• The Empty Family by Colm Toibin
• The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
• The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst
• The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips

NON-FICTION

• Arguably by Christopher Hitchens
• Blue Nights by Joan Didion
• In The Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
• Metamaus by Art Spiegelman
• Nation Maker by Richard Gwyn
• The Beautiful and The Damned by Siddhartha Deb
• The Immortalization Commission by John Gray
• The Information by James Gleick
• The Measure of a Man by JJ Lee
• Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• When the Gods Changed by Peter C Newman

POETRY

• Folk by Jacob McArthur Mooney
• Origami Dove by Susan Musgrave

What were your best books of 2011? What are you still hoping to squeeze onto your reading pile in December?

ABOUT THIS BOOK: David Bidini, rhythm guitarist with the Rheostatics, knows all too well what the life of a rock band in Canada involves: storied arenas one tour and bars wallpapered with photos of forgotten bands the next. Zit-speckled fans begging for a guitar pick and angry drunks chucking twenty-sixers and pint glasses. Opulent tour buses riding through apocalyptic snowstorms and cramped vans that reek of dope and beer. Brilliant performances and heart-sinking break-ups.

Bidini has played all across the country many times, in venues as far flung and unalike as Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto and the Royal Albert Hotel in Winnipeg. In 1996, when the Rheostatics opened for the Tragically Hip on their Trouble at the Henhouse tour, Bidini kept a diary. In On a Cold Road he weaves his colourful tales about that tour with revealing and hilarious anecdotes from the pioneers of Canadian rock – including BTO, Goddo, the Stampeders, Max Webster, Crowbar, the Guess Who, Triumph, Trooper, Bruce Cockburn, Gale Garnett, and Tommy Chong – whom Bidini later interviewed in an effort to compare their experiences with his. The result is an original, vivid, and unforgettable picture of what it has meant, for the last forty years, to be a rock musician in Canada.

AUTHOR BIO: Winner of the 2006 F.G. Bressani Award, DAVE BIDINI is the author of nine books, all of them critically acclaimed and widely read, including On a Cold Road, Tropic of Hockey, Around the World in 57 1/2 Gigs, and Home and Away. He has made two Gemini Award-winning sports films and has several films in development, including Baseballissimo and a children’s animated series based on a short story. Dave has written for a number of newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Village Voice and the Globe and Mail. For twenty-five years, he was a founding member of the Rheostatics, Canada’s most beloved independent band. His newest book is Writing Gordon Lighfoot

You can also find Dave Bidini on Twitter and his website