Posted by: Jennifer Herman - National Accounts Marketing Manager, Random House of Canada

In my work in national accounts marketing, I help organize and attend tons of author events - especially at this time of year. I was thrilled to finally meet tennis great Andre Agassi who was in town last week promoting his new book Open. I have been raving about him since the summer, and now you can see what I was prattling on about.

Also a lot of fun to meet, and proudly Canadian, was Paul Shaffer who was in Toronto to promote his book We’ll be Here for the Rest of Our Lives. I loved all the musical connections this man possesses and he shared his newfound knowledge with anyone at the office who would listen.


I had the pleasure of being in Ottawa with Anne Murray earlier this week for her last event as part of her book tour in the Nation’s Capital and the place I call home. Over six hundred people came out to show their love for Canada’s first lady of song. She signed copies of her autobiography, All Of Me, and took pictures.


You’d never guess it was the last event of a fifteen city tour! That woman has more energy than I do!

From the event trail,
Jennifer

Posted by: Trena White - Associate Editor, McClelland & Stewart

Last night I attended a This Is Not a Reading Series event at the Gladstone Hotel with Bryan Prince, author of A Shadow on the Household: One Enslaved Family’s Incredible Struggle for Freedom, and interviewer Rachel Harry.

Prince has been studying slavery and the Underground Railroad for about thirty years, and his knowledge is vast. It was an important and timely conversation that looked at black history from the days of slavery up to Obama’s win.

The audience was intrigued to learn that Prince’s hometown, Buxton, started as 9,000 acres in southwestern Ontario dedicated to fugitive slaves and free black people. For people who had been so beaten down, the settlement offered a chance to raise families, own property, build community, and receive a high-level classical education at the local school. Prince is a farmer and is himself a descendant of slaves, as are many in the community. His book tells the story of the Weems family, who were torn apart in the mid-19th century when their slave master died, and then their long journey to reunite in freedom.

Posted by: Heather Sanderson - Manager, Digital Sales and Business Development

I’ll admit it. I never really cared for hockey when I was growing up. I remember being angry that there was a Leafs game on at my sixteenth birthday party and that everyone wanted to watch it (except for me, that is). My disregard was so high that I can vividly remember the key moments when hockey slowly started to infiltrate my life - the most important being that the NHL playoffs coincided precisely with our scheduled exam timetable at University. I remember walking down the streets of Kingston, watching people pull couches and TVs out on their porches to sit back and watch the game together. What better way to spend time when trying to avoid studying? That’s when I first started to understand. I began to get the sense of community that this game instilled and wanted to be a part of it.

Once my younger brother started playing, I was a lost cause. I loved going to his games to watch him in net. I became a complete and utter hockey fan, watching Hockey Night in Canada and starting to become acquainted with, and to really love Don Cherry.

That’s why when I found out we were publishing Don Cherry’s Hockey Stories and Stuff I was instantly excited that not only would I get to learn more about him and to hear more of his stories in the book, but that I might get to meet him in person. And last night was that night.

I was fortunate enough to attend Don Cherry’s only book signing event this Fall where I met five lucky (and all very excited) BookLounge VIP event winners and their guests. Each pair not only won a copy of Don’s book but also the chance to meet him in person, to get their book signed, and to have their photo taken with him before the rest of the crowd had their chance. They were stoked and completely got into character. One, Matthew Smith, even dressed the part - in a suit worthy of appearing on Coaches Corner.

And other VIP winner brought his nephew from a town about an hour and a half away just for this. 10 year old Aidan Buckley could rhyme off the name of pretty much every hockey player and knew all of the stats (and was even interviewed by The Toronto Sun ). He was very excited to meet Don in person and told him that he’s been waiting 10 years for the Leafs to win the Stanley Cup.

The energy for the night only grew from there as over 200 people met Don Cherry and had their books signed. My favourite part was that a few kids from a local hockey team all came together, wearing their jerseys. The sparkle in their eyes and excitement was infectious. For me, it was fascinating to see two communities - hockey lovers and book lovers - come together. And appropriately so - Don Cherry is a fascinating story teller and with such a life, he has a lot of stories to tell. And what better way to tell us, then in his own words and straight from the heart in the aptly named Don Cherry’s Hockey Stories and Stuff.

Posted by: Jessica Scott - Marketing Assistant, Digital Specialist, Random House of Canada

Last week I got to help out at a Debbie Travis event at Indigo Yonge and Eglinton. She was there as part of her cross country tour to support her new book Not Guilty: My Guide to Working Hard, Raising Kids and Laughing through the Chaos. I was there to look after our BookLounge VIP winners, making sure they had great seats, complimentary books and a special gift from Debbie.

She was hilarious and so down to earth. I already knew that she had a number of successful television decorating shows, plus a line of products at Canadian Tire but I had no idea the number of other shows she produces with her husband but doesn’t star in. Debbie mentioned that given the current economic situation she’ll be back on the air with a new DIY show. The whole in-store audience (me included) wanted to know more but it’s top secret until the summer.

Even though this new book is a departure from her regular area of expertise, it has some great stories in it, including her whirlwind romance of 2 weeks with her now husband of decades and how she balances a thriving business while parenting her two sons. Plus she shared with us a story that didn’t make the book, something about her sister in a cemetery, with a boy and a missing pair of knickers…

Posted by: Randy Chan - Associate Marketing Director, Random House of Canada Ltd

Runway models, a world-famous fashion journalist, oysters, and a custom cocktail called the Jeannetini—these are not elements you’d find at just any book launch. But to celebrate Jeanne Beker’s new book for young adults, Passion For Fashion: Careers in Style, the glamour dial was turned up several notches. The launch coincided with L’Oreal Fashion Week where Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square—normally a bastion of double-breasted suits and pleated trousers—was transformed into a tent-covered fashion runway over-spilling with fashionistas. My Tundra Books colleagues and I enjoyed the Diesel Kids fashion show where adorable children and tweens strutted their stuff (it was rumoured that Canadian model Stacey McKenzie’s niece was among them). Jeanne Beker then came blazing onto the runway, dressed in black mini-skirt and jacket (looking identical to the new Bratz Fashion Reporter doll made in her likeness). You know her moment has come when, after more than twenty years as the face of Fashion Television, she is immortalized as a Bratz doll!

After a few gracious words (where she gave a nod to Tundra publisher Kathy Lowinger), Jeanne was whisked away to interviews with international media and I was left admiring the fashion do’s and don’ts (trust me, a beaver fur hat should never be paired with shorts). My colleagues and I then feasted on oysters at Rodney’s Oyster Bar before proceeding to the after-party. Jeanne brought her closest friends and family together (including her adorable and elegant mother, and her two daughters) at swanky Atelier on King Street West where we sipped on Jeannetinis (vodka, Cointreau, lemon and orange juice—delicious) and watched performances by young dancers and singers. But by 10:30pm, this decidedly unglamorous publishing type had had his share of hobnobbing and so I jumped into a taxi for bedtime. Three lasting impressions from my wonderful evening: 1) my wardrobe needs a re-vamp; 2) book launches are so much better when they feature swag bags and satay beef skewers; and 3) Jeanne Beker is truly an inspiration. Passion for fashion indeed!

Posted by: Erna Paris - Author of The Sun Climbs Slow

The strong response to The Sun Climbs Slow has truly surprised me. Like every author I hoped there would be interest in my book, but I hadn’t anticipated the Macleans bestseller list, especially a week in the top spot. Much of this is due to the topicality of my subject. The new International Criminal Court, which will open its doors for the first time this year, is a break-through for justice and the rule of law in a world made weary by war and the machinations of power politics. Imagine that the powerful of the world might be brought to account for their major crimes, such as fomenting genocide and crimes against humanity? This would never have happened in the past. Now, almost by chance, there is an independent tribunal to do this work.

That such a court came to be at the end of the violent 20th century was pretty much a fluke, since the world’s most powerful countries didn’t want it, for obvious reasons. (To learn more about this intriguing story you’ll need to read the book!) Like it or not, the ICC, as it is called, is now a reality. It is the newest institution in the international galaxy—and what it offers is cautious hope.

Canada has played a prominent role in bringing international criminal justice to the world stage. We have a right to be proud.

Posted by: Martha Kanya-Forstner - Editorial Director, Doubleday Canada

Four and a half years ago, on a sunny afternoon in June, my life changed. That day, on the back patio of a cafe in Toronto, I met Dr. James Orbinski. I had learned a lot about this remarkable man before that first meeting. I knew he had been active in Doctors Without Border/ Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) for over a decade; that he had been a humanitarian doctor in Somalia, Afghanistan, and during the genocide in Rwanda. I had read the eloquent and uncompromising speech he had delivered when, as international president of MSF, he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the organization. Still no amount of research could have prepared me for the man I would meet that day. James’s empathy, intelligence, generosity and warmth know no bounds. He embraces the world with a genuine passion that can’t help but inspire those around him. Yet behind the kindness of his eyes are memories of unfathomable human suffering and unimaginable human courage. It is these memories that James brings to life in his book An Imperfect Offering. These were difficult places for James to return to, and the book was not one that could be rushed.

In the time that it took for James to realize his story on the page, my colleagues were forced to listen to me rave about what I was reading and how James’s words were cutting me to the bone. Still I knew nothing I could tell them would come close to capturing the force of James’s work. There is a glorious intimacy that can exist between a writer and an editor, a private space where the possibilities of the text can be explored free from the expectations of others. I often experience a moment of sadness when a book is released from this secret world, but in the case of An Imperfect Offering that sadness was tempered by a deep desire to have as many people as possible know the importance of James’s message. Book publishing is a collective enterprise, so many people— from copy editors to designers, publicists to sales reps—invest their energy and talent in seeing a book through to publication. Imagine my joy when my colleagues began sharing with me their powerful reactions to James’s book. I am proud to share these impressions with you below. An Imperfect Offering will not only change the way people see the world, but the way they act within it. My colleagues no longer have to take my word for it, and come April 22nd neither will you.

“As I was working on James’s text, I was completely moved. I am proud to be involved in whatever way I can be with this book.” —Scott Richardson, Creative Director, Random House of Canada Limited

Posted by: Richard J. Gwyn - Author of John A

Winning a prize of the calibre of the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction, the premiere prize in its category, is like having an epiphany. You’ve spent weeks, months, scribbling and writing and re-writing, and staring out of the window and stabbing at the Delete button and then, suddenly, you’re told that you’ve actually done it—written a book that has something to say and says it pretty well, and that perhaps even says it better than have all other Canadian non-fiction writers through the past year.

There’s of course the 15 minutes of fame in the form of media interviews and the flashes of the cameras. And there’s the cash, that so far, has served to cover the cost of a splendid, if extravagant, dinner.

Neither will last, though I’ll always remember the congratulations, quick and generous, of the other four finalists.

What will last, for at least a decent length of time, is the knowledge that my peers—the jurors—judged that John A: The Man Who Made Us had actually done what I hoped it would do—to tell Canadians about our most interesting and important Prime Minister, and so to tell Canadians about themselves.

If the result will be to turn on more Canadians to their own history, and most especially so younger ones who are now taught so little about how our past remains part of our present and future, and also encourages more writers to set out to bring that past alive for today’s readers, then I just won’t be a happy guy today but a contented one for quite a while. Or at least I’ll stay that way until my research on Volume Two, which will go up to Macdonald’s death in 1891, is completed and I’ll go back to again staring out of the window and fingering the Delete button.

Posted by: Erna Paris - Author of The Sun Climbs Slow

George Bernard Shaw once told a friend that he was sorry to have written him such a long letter, but he just didn’t have time to write a short one. I remembered that great line when I learned that my first speaking engagement about my new book, The Sun Climbs Slow: Justice in the Age of American Empire, would be limited to fifteen minutes. I wondered how I’d be able to do justice to a book I’d worked on for more than four years in such a short time. It worked out well, I believe, but like GBS, I’m looking forward to the easier, longer variety.

I found this a highly interesting book to research and write because it’s a story that is little known: the creation of courts of international criminal justice to try the perpetrators of the worst crimes, and the take-no-hostages politics that swirl around them. If these tribunals are successful, especially the new permanent International Criminal Court in The Hague, old-style impunity for leaders who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity will at last come under threat—for the first time in history.

In retrospect, meeting some of the people who have faciliated this unprecedented development in world affairs, against the greatest of odds, was probably the highlight of my research. I was interested to discover that many of the judges of the International Criminal Court are themselves from countries where major human rights abuses have occurred. It was this primary experience that inspired them to work for justice. I’ll write more about some of these exceptional people in another post. Stay tuned.

Posted by: Katherine Ashenburg - Author of The Dirt on Clean

When people hear that I’ve written a history of cleanliness, they often assume that I’m a clean-freak. I’m definitely not: on the spectrum from complete-slob to clean-freak, I’m around the mid-point. And my initial interest in The Dirt on Clean didn’t stem from cleanliness as much as my curiosity about the everyday lives of people in past ages. But lately, I’ve been rethinking my connections with hygiene. Strangely, the first book I withdrew with my brand-new library card, at 6, was a book about hygiene, with photographs of 1950s children brushing their teeth and wielding their wash-cloths. I read every word because I was charmed with my new skill, but this earnest tome was not my choice: a friend had taken my card to the library because for some reason I was unable to go. For years, I laughed at that unlikely start to my life as a reader. Little did I imagine that I would ever write a book about cleanliness!

As a dreamy child who spent her time reading novels, I was the exception in a very medical family. My father met my mother when he taught bacteriology to nursing students; later he became a doctor, as did two of my siblings. I was the one who never got above a C in biology. But while writing my book, when I needed to understand how the plagues traveled to medieval Europe or how the 19th century discoveries of Koch and Pasteur transformed our understanding of disease, I realized that biology is fascinating. My parents are dead now, but I like to imagine them in some celestial reading room, where they pass The Dirt on Clean back and forth while discussing their least scientific child. “Did you read her summary of the germ theory?” my father asks fondly, and my mother replies, “And wait until you get to her discussion of the Hygiene Hypothesis!”

Posted by: Michael Schellenberg - Associate Publisher, Knopf Canada

Timing is a crucial and tricky thing in publishing. In the case of The Sun Climbs Slow: Justice in the Age of Imperial America, it turns out that the publishing gods have smiled upon us. One of the threads of the book is about the establishment of the International Criminal Court and in telling that story, Erna Paris has tracked down a group of passionate people who on one side have come together to establish the ICC and on the other side are using their considerable means of power to thwart it. Surprisingly, the United States does not support the court and hasn’t become a member. But Erna makes the point that the US is following the well-trod path of the most powerful countries and empires throughout history: they don’t want to be held accountable, but they are certainly willing to hold the rest of the world accountable.

But our dilemma was that we might have to publish the book long after the first trial was heard—there had been ongoing rumours that it could have been last year. We gambled and chose to publish this month. As it turns out, the ICC is just about to hear their first case at the end of March (Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga is accused of recruiting and using thousands of child soldiers to fight for the armed wing of his party—The Union of Congolese Patriots—during the Democratic Republic of Congo’s civil war). Also going on at the same time, the legacy of the Bush government is being torn apart by critics and journalists during this extremely interesting election season (go Obama!). The more we hear about the actions of the Bush government and their alleged undermining of human rights, it isn’t a stretch to imagine some key Americans hauled in front of the ICC—oh, but wait a minute, that can’t happen. They aren’t subject to the treaty that founded the ICC. It’s a complicated world we live in, but this book provides a crucial and timely understanding of what has brought us to this moment in our history, and what might be possible if we learn from what history has to teach us.

Posted by: Katherine Ashenburg - Author of The Dirt on Clean

People sometimes remark how different the subjects of my three books have been—The Dirt on Clean was preceded by The Mourner’s Dance, which was about mourning rituals and practices, and Going to Town, which looked at the 19th century architecture of Ontario towns. It’s true they’re very different on the surface, but when I think about them, I realize that they have something in common.

I’ve always loved the history of everyday things and actions, and it’s the way I connect with the past. Not political history, not economic history, but the stories behind people’s food, clothes, furniture, and the ways they planned their houses, mourned their dead and made themselves “clean” (whatever that meant for them). While writing Going to Town, I learned, among other things, that the second floors of houses often had slanted walls and low ceilings because no one in the 19th century spent any waking hours in the bedroom. The Mourner’s Dance taught me why bereaved people ate special foods and wore certain colours.

As for The Dirt on Clean, it led me into hundreds of fascinating byways and behind-the-scenes anecdotes. I learned how commercial deodorants got invented in the 20th century, what people wiped themselves with in medieval outhouses, why very few people used soap to wash themselves until the mid-19th century, and why peasant cultures feared bathing and glorified dirt. (“The more the ram stinks, the more the ewe loves him,” was a proverbial French expression for the sexiness of body odour.) I loved collecting those pungent, surprising details and, at least for me, it makes history anything but remote.

Posted by: Jennifer Herman - Marketing Manager, National Accounts

What do you get when you bring a former Prime Minister and Rick Mercer together?

Good laughs is what you get! I was fortunate enough to be in Ottawa the day Rick Mercer taped a segment with the Right Honorable Jean Chrétien that appeared on his show this past Tuesday. As a HUGE fan of the Rick Mercer Report it was a thrill to see how his skits for the show come together behind the scenes. I was at the bookstore in downtown Ottawa where they prepared the pump jack that the Prime Minister was to pull and the table where the “sign off” would occur. The two of them seemed to be having a great time putting these skits together. Of course regular folks in the store who had come to shop were quite surprised to see Mr. Chrétien and Mr. Mercer just “hanging out” at a bookstore. Many pictures were taken and more books signed. The end result for the television show was fabulous. And of course, no Random House authors were hurt in the making of this production!

Posted by: Chris Turner - Author of The Geography of Hope

There’s apparently a book out there called Mortification, a compendium of stories about authors on tour. I’d like to add my own little anecdote, somewhere in the chapter by the title of “Mundane and Yet Exquisitely Unique Circles of Book-Tour Hell,” which I have to assume the book contains. The one that describes these remarkably specific cages you find yourself trapped in for what feels like All Eternity when you’re an author on tour? Yeah. Here’s one for those particular annals.

It begins with my unofficial Toronto “book launch,” by which I mean the pub night I threw for myself while I was in the city doing the media rounds promoting The Geography of Hope. Several of those in attendance are among my oldest and dearest drinking buddies—the sort of people who don’t even need to twist my rubber drinking arm so much as make a casual pantomime gesture across a crowded bar (the “drinkie-drinkie” gesture, as a lawyer once memorably called it on The Simpsons), and like that I’m out well past midnight on a school night.

…and then up far too early the next day for some morning interview…which turns out to be at CIUT, the University of Toronto campus radio station…which happens to be housed in a collapsing old Victorian pile…which happens moreover to contain a studio on its very top floor, a cramped little warren tucked under the eaves…which happens, returning to my point, to be the venue of my own brush with authorial hell on this tour…

What happens, to be specific, is that no one really properly greets us on arrival, and I’m so bleary-eyed that you could walk me out a second-storey window and I’d be picking gravel out of my chin before it occurred to me to ask where the hell we were going.

Anyway, so somehow I get ushered into this airless vault of a studio in the attic and seated in a folding chair off in a corner, and then I’m left alone in there until, presumably, the host sitting there begins our interview. Except he doesn’t even look up at me. He’s leaning in tight to the mike, an earnest undergrad in a hipster t-shirt, delivering a steady stream of words to the airwaves in a clipped monotone. For awhile I just sit there in a hungover haze, and then maybe five minutes in it occurs to me that he’s just reading a pile of news stories. Wire-service pieces about incidents of animal cruelty. One after another after another. In their entirety. Verbatim. He says “quote” and “unquote” to indictate the direct quotations, like it’s the ‘30s or something.

Not long after the reality of my surroundings fully dawns on me, it occurs to me that, while I’m by no means in favour of cruelty of any kind, I’d kill this kid with my bare hands if there was a glass of water in it for me. And I’d torch the whole building for something carbonated. I’m just dazed enough that it occurs to me what a strange headline that would make in the next day’s Varsity: “Author of book about ‘hope’ butchers animal rights broadcaster live on air.” Like an Onion headline, if The Onion was a much darker satire than it is.

Fortunately, my handler pops in to drag me to the right studio in time.

Posted by: Katherine Ashenburg - Author of The Dirt on Clean

While I worked on The Dirt on Clean, people began taking me aside and confessing. Sometimes the person didn’t use deodorant, just washed with soap and water; some people confided that they didn’t shower or bathe daily. Two writers told me separately that as the end of a project neared, superstitiously they stopped washing their hair and didn’t shampoo until it was finished. One woman reported that her husband of 20 years takes long showers three times a day: she would love, she said wistfully, to know what he “really” smells like, as opposed to deodorant soap.

Something similar happened while I was writing a book about mourning customs. Then, people would tell me privately about an observance that was important for them, even if it seemed superstitious or overly sentimental—how they wore their father’s old undershirts, or had long talks with their dead wife. As people confessed their washing eccentricities, I wondered if a failure to meet the standards of the Clean Police was as bizarre as full-blown mourning in the modern world.

Now that The Dirt on Clean has been published, I’m harvesting even more washing stories. At the end of a talk or interview, people will tell me about their Scottish aunt, who never got into a tub but washed herself “piecemeal” and always seemed perfectly clean. Or about their time in the south of France, when housewives used the kitchen’s pot of warm water to clean themselves quickly, in a few strategic places. Or about their decision to give up deodorant when there seemed to be a link between aluminum and Alzheimer’s disease (never proved), and they’ve never returned to the practice. As always, I’m interested, and amused at the surreptitious way people reveal their “deviations.” It shows how thoroughly we’ve been conditioned to the one-bath-or-shower-a-day-with-soap-and-deodorant model. But, as our ancestors knew, there’s more than one way to skin a cat—or get clean.

Posted by: Louisa Cohen - Publicity Intern, McClelland & Stewart

Last Thursday Dave Bidini’s new book, Around the World in 57 1/2 Gigs, launched at local music joint, The Paddock. As the new publicity intern, green to the world of publishing, I was excited to meet Dave Bidini, former member of The Rheostatics, and to be someone “behind the scenes.” Dave was scheduled to arrive, tape a television interview, perform a short reading, and play a solo gig.

Reading Bidini’s book he seemed down-to-earth, intelligent, and endearingly self-deprecating. To be honest, he sounded like the complete inverse of a rock musician. With Nirvana, The White Stripes, and Oasis as my rock models, I was unsure of what to expect.

Cool as the crisp air outside, Dave walked into the bar, hat on head and guitar in hand. “Sorry I’m late! Nice to meet you, I’m David.” A gentleman and a rock musician—the Gallagher brother’s could learn a thing or two.

Politely taking a seat on a barstool drinking a Perrier and lime, Dave got ready for the lights and camera…“Hi, Tom!” he said over his shoulder with a warm smile and familiar nod to the barman.

The evening went off without a hitch. Guests filtered in happy to be warm and with drink, and everyone was excited to greet Dave personally. After playing one song he switched to his writers hat—not literally—and the crowd remained in place. The Paddock went quiet and we all gathered in close as Dave read from his book. Listeners were eager and attentive—thoroughly enjoying his anecdotes from the road.

Afterward, it was all about good times in Queen West. A book launch became a night out at a great bar, to which Dave Bidini is no stranger. To tell his friends apart from his fans would have been an exercise in futility, as they were treated all the same by him.

Posted by: Jennifer Herman - Marketing Manager, National Accounts

This past Saturday I had the pleasure of attending a signing with Bret Hart at Chapters Pointe Claire for his book Hitman. What a fabulous time it was with over three hundred people coming ranging in age from three to thirty-three coming out to see their favourite wrestler. Some die hard fans had been waiting outside the store from 6:30am in the rain. People brought books, belts, magazines and DVDs. Bret was a pro and shook hands, signed books and took pictures with any one and every one who wanted one. On the way to the airport I asked him if he ever tired of the attention and he said that the fans were what made everything worthwhile. So I guess what they say is true: “Bret Hart is the best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be.”

Bret “The Hitman” Hart ready to sign!

Bret and me!

Posted by: Katherine Ashenburg - Author of The Dirt on Clean

Although our ancestors were much more relaxed about body odour than we are, I did find the occasional ancient deodorant recipe—like the 16th-century French one that recommended a compound of roses to counteract “the goat-like stench of armpits.” The first generation of commercial deodorants, at the end of the 19th century, tried to close the pores with wax, but in 1907 a Cincinnati surgeon invented the first modern deodorant. It was called Odorono (“Odor? Oh no!”), and it inhibited perspiration with aluminum chloride. A century later, our choices of deodorants are vast. And so are the problems associated with that choice, as I learned this week from two good sources, Heidi Sopinka’s Footprint column in The Globe and Mail, and Adria Vasil’s book Ecoholic.

Although the link between aluminum and Alzheimer’s disease remains unproven, many people avoid antiperspirants, which almost always contain aluminum. Lots of antiperspirants and deodorants contain paraben, a preservative that is potentially carcinogenic. So is talc, and its illegal mining endangers Indian tigers. Even so-called natural deodorants contain propylene glycol—better known, in 100% concentrations, as antifreeze. Aside from not wanting to smear antifreeze on your armpits, it’s very harmful to aquatic creatures.

Bewildering as this sounds, Sopinka offers some sensible advice: “Avoid antiperspirants entirely, and if after reading the label you find no mention of parabens, talc or propylene glycol, you’re on the right track.” Even simpler, you could experiment with a regime more and more people are telling me about: do without deodorant and rely on soap and water. When Kermit the Frog complained about how hard it was being green, he must have been thinking about deodorant!

Posted by: Katherine Ashenburg - Author of The Dirt on Clean

Often it’s hard for me to remember where I first got an idea for an article or book. But in the case of The Dirt on Clean, I can pinpoint it exactly. In the spring of 2003, Toronto (where I live) was the city outside Asia that was hardest hit by SARS. I was washing my hands 10 times more than usual and ruminating about the connection between washing and disease. At the same time, I happened to visit the 18th century rooms in the Royal Ontario Museum. A painting of a crowd was captioned, “The aristocrats in this picture are just as dirty as the peasants.” I don’t usually listen to audiotapes in museums, but I pressed the button and listened to a short tape on the subject.

What I learned was that the medieval Crusaders brought back the custom of bathhouses from the Near East. Medieval folk bathed together in communal baths, until the plagues frightened them into believing that sickness entered the skin through water. Most of the bathhouses closed by the 15th century and for the next couple of centuries, Europeans shunned water, wiping hands and faces without soap, and leaving the rest untouched. Wearing white linen, or “the linen that washes,” as it was called, substituted for real washing.

Listening to this, the proverbial lightbulb went on. By its light I saw a book title: Clean: The History of a Notion. The title evolved. But my sense of an intriguing subject, centred on the body but with connections to sexuality, disease, religion and other “big” ideas, remained pretty constant. I owe the ROM a thank you.

Posted by: Jeff Warren - Author of The Head Trip

In keeping with the associative spirit of my last blog entry, I would like to make some wild generalizations about science journalism. I would say that most science journalism is inherently conservative. That is to say, science journalists want to get it right, so they often ground their arguments in consensus. Like Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything or Jay Ingram’s Theatre of the Mind, they do chart the disputes, but the knowledge they deal in is essentially consolidated knowledge. It’s the hard foundational matter on which the sturdy edifice of workaday science is built. This is terrific and important science writing, the kind I love to gobble up, but it is not really the kind of science writing that I do.

I prefer to play around at the more dangerous leading edge of science. This, too, is where science happens. But it’s fraught with peril here because there’s a lot less consensus. This is especially true when it comes to the mind, which can be looked at through so many lenses—philosophical, neurological, psychological, phenomenological. Here everything is in flux. It’s a rowdy scrimmage of vague experiments, stirring anecdotes, wild speculation, emotional ego wars, new theories, old evidence, new evidence, old theories, and looming over at all, the dreaded “paradigm.”

Do we need a new so-called “paradigm” to understand the mind, or is that just New Age balderdash, relativistic Kuhnian wunder-fiddling, the kind that makes the Richard Dawkinses and Steven Weinbergs and Patricia Churchlands of the world reach for their guns? It’s too early to say. But it’s great fun for me as a writer to throw myself into this scrimmage and try to piece together a calm and coherent narrative. For me the best tools for writing this way are creative, and have to do with a book’s form and structure and tone. Which doesn’t mean you have to abandon all reason and sense—you don’t. There’s still a certain journalistic responsibility to point out the controversies and be transparent when transitioning from sober analysis to woolly speculation. But, as I say, it is more fun out here on the leading edge. This is where the Big Game graze—the freaks and the fights and the eerie sights. This is where to come to fire your imagination. Because—and this is the crucial point—scientists come here too. For many of them the leading edge may even be what drew them to science in the first place.

Posted by: Jeff Warren - author of The Head Trip

It’s a strange thing to be a first-time author, about to make the world’s acquaintance. You spend years toiling in anonymity—particularly if, like me, your subject matter is hard to summarize in one sentence at a dinner party (let me try: “The Head Trip is a first-person adventure romp through all the wild variations of waking, sleeping and dreaming consciousness”—not bad, been practising). And then suddenly for a few brief moments the world turns its gaze to you, and your hair stands on end. It’s like being electroshocked. The world (OK, one local radio host and a friend of your Mom’s) says, “Show me your wares, kid.” You squeak back: “Ah! I’m having a bit of trouble thinking since I’m being electroshocked!” Luckily, I’ve studied the mind, so I know how to handle the situation: shift into automatic, what athletes call “the Zone,” where I can move and speak without frontal lobe encumbrance. I am then able to spiel. Because at this point I know my stuff. Believe me. During the writing and editing process I read my own crazy book about a dozen times—I never want to read the thing again.

So what anxieties do I have right now? Well so far the automatic spiel-impulse has helped me hold my own in the live radio interviews (that and imagining it’s the ’70s and everyone is naked, suffering the chilly draft in the studio). My biggest concern is with the book reviews. You really can’t control them. So far I’ve had one—a good one—but I worry about the ones coming up. I especially worry about the Globe and Mail. If they do one (they may not, which in a way would be a relief), a lot of discriminating Canadian book consumers will read it. And what if the reviewer for that august publication is one of those types who thinks in logical scientific ways, but who may not appreciate that this is a different kind of science book: plenty rational but also a bit creative and weird?

Because that is what happens when you look at the mind from the inside. It doesn’t stay demurely in its assigned seat. Instead it races out in front of the bleachers, buck-naked (apparently everything is naked in my metaphor world), singing sports anthems like a streaker at half-time. Neurology can’t catch up. All it can do is hold out a pathetic little towel and hope the children’s eyes are covered—hell-LO!

Posted by: Pamela Murray - Managing Editor, Random House Canada

As the managing editor for the Random House imprint, I have a healthy number of titles to keep track of: from six years ago, when I started this job, to five years in the future (books that are still in the very earliest of planning stages) - my rough count is 248 folders, and counting. My email file folders, one for each book, are therefore more indispensable to my job than just about anything but my brain - and far more reliable.

Take one example: the file folder for The Head Trip by Jeff Warren. The first email came to me on December 9, 2004 when Anne Collins was getting ready to acquire this amazing book about consciousness from a young, hyper-energetic author with mad-scientist hair and a brilliant and funny spin on a fascinating subject. Today, just about two months away from when the book comes out this September, there are 333 messages files in the folder, from brief memos to long email chains.

Since I got to be one of the book’s main editors (along with Anne Collins here and Stephanie Higgs at Random US), there’s a LOT of communication with the author about matters big, medium and small. The topics cover everything from the author’s comic-style illustrations, dealing with major edits to the manuscript, helping Jeff create a teaser website for the book, and what the Arabic word for siesta is. There is a huge sub-folder just for blurbs, which are endorsements from people to whom we send advance copies of the book. Gratifyingly, we received messages full of praise (“audacious,” “hilarious,” “original,” “fun,”) that we’ve happily plastered all over the book’s very cool jacket.

The latest message came yesterday morning from the UK publisher - they’re publishing later in the fall. I can’t wait till the book comes out - if there’s one thing the monster file folder has proven, it’s that the conversation has only just begun.

Posted by: Michael Schellenberg - Senior Editor, Knopf Canada

Being an editor at Knopf Canada is a huge privilege. I will never forget the day when both Louise Dennys and Diane Martin phoned me to ask if I would come work with them. (The answer, by the way, in case you are ever asked, is “Let me check my schedule. What luck, I happen to be free.”). I was excited because Knopf Canada has very good international street cred. And I am thrilled to be riding on those coattails.

So far, I have been to Barcelona, Frankfurt, London, Jerusalem, Munich, Berlin, and New York. Nice work if you can get it. I’ve been part of the Random House Global Editorial Committee (GEC) from the beginning - simply put, a group of editors from the US, England, Germany, Spain, Australia, Japan and Korea who exchange information about projects that we’re passionate about. We have had summits in New York, London, Barcelona and even in Munich during last year’s World Cup (I was sadly not able to make that one – not much of a soccer fan anyway.) The meetings last a few days, and are very intense. But as each day comes to an end, there’s always one final bit of business to attend to - where to go for drinks and kibitzing. This is where the real “global synergy” takes place as far I am concerned.

When I received Doug Saunders’ new proposal for a book about the “great global migration” by the world’s rural populations into cities, my GEC “Spidey senses” began to tingle. This was a book that could travel. I reached for the phone and called Andrew at Vintage in the US (Scotch, straight up). He loved the idea. I immediately followed up with Jason in the UK (vodka stinger), Tilo in Germany (wheat pilsener), and Miguel in Spain (cava).

Lo and behold, when I presented my offer to Doug’s agent, he was surprised by a world offer with not only committed publishers in the five biggest territories, but with passionate editors at the top of their league. We struck a deal on the eve of the London Book Fair, and the book was a hit right out of the gate. Rights expert extraordinaire Jennifer (Chardonnay) returned from the fair triumphant with offers in hand from Holland, Australia, France, China, Norway with other countries clamouring behind them.

Is there a lesson to be learned here? An editor is only as good as his or her colleagues. And time spent with my drinking buddies can lead to something more than just a wicked hangover.

By the way, my preferred cocktail is a gin martini with a lemon twist, straight up - and who cares if it’s shaken or stirred, just set me up, and let me tell you about this great book I just read.

Posted by: Doug Pepper - President & Publisher, McClelland & Stewart

It is hard to imagine that a man with so much on his plate - indeed his very fate - had the time and focus to write a seminal and comprehensive biography - and of Richard Nixon, no small subject. But Conrad Black did just that. The Invincible Quest is one of the best political biographies I’ve read in recent memory. Written in Conrad’s usual lively fashion, the book debunks several myths associated with Nixon and is greatly helped by the author’s personal relationship with many of the players, including Nixon, Kissinger, Haig, as well as the unique access he had to the Nixon archives.

Previous books on Nixon have either been fairly dull or written through the lens of Watergate and Vietnam. But in the last decade, as the smoke from the past clears and we can be more objective about the man and his times, Nixon’s legacy is changing. (Note Margaret MacMillan’s excellent new book.) We are starting to better understand the politician as a person and not simply as a caricature, a president whose policies are more relevant today than ever (think China, the Mid East, the EPA, etc.). Conrad’s book does this - we now have a more accurate picture of Nixon than we ever had before, and any serious (or not so serious) student of American politics needs to read it. Do not be daunted by its size - Conrad’s style, the eras in which the book deals, and the revelations are all worth the time and effort.

As we all know, people have differing opinions of Conrad but the book should solidify his reputation as one of the best political biographers we have. It will be interesting to see what he tackles next.

Posted by: Randy Chan - Associate Marketing Director

II must admit that I first came to 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa by Stephanie Nolen because of Bono. The mega-star had just submitted advance praise for this book - a lovely quote that we’ll feature on the book cover - and so I figured if Bono loves this then so will I. I entertained visions of our publisher calling Bono up on speed dial.

But, of course, I am already a fan of Stephanie Nolen. Or, to put it another way, I have wiped a fair share of tears away while reading her astonishingly frank, brave and heartbreaking columns in The Globe and Mail about AIDS in Africa. I think she is one of the best journalists we have.

The book profiles twenty-eight different Africans living with AIDS. As Nolen writes, “I can’t tell every story. I decided to tell twenty-eight - one for each million people infected in Africa.” But with her keen, journalistic eye, she gets to the heart of what makes each of these people both unique and representative of a continent. Sure, this is sad stuff, but I cannot emphasize enough how powerful these stories are, and how much you learn about the human will, and about fighting for your life, literally, with passion and dignity.

Forget the newscasts, the government reports, and TV movies of the week: this book is the real thing. It will connect you to people you’d never otherwise get a chance to meet. And trust me, these people will move you to tears. They will move you to care. But most of all, they will move you to act.

Posted by: Michael Schellenberg - Senior Editor, Knopf Canada

It is hard to believe that April is upon us. I feel like it’s already October. As an editor, you spend your life thinking and talking about books that are six months or a year, or in some cases, many years off. So, it becomes a challenge to remember what books are being published now, and when people ask, what books are coming out from Knopf, I am often stopped short. But there is one wonderful moment that quickly brings you back to the here and now: when a new book arrives from the printer.

I had one of those moments earlier this week when Heather Mallick’s new book Cake or Death: The Excruciating Choices of Everyday Life landed on my desk. I had the pleasure of being Heather’s editor, and all I have to say is that you are in for a treat. Whether she is hilariously riffing about the consolations to be found in cleaning her house, quietly reflecting on her relationship with her mother, or giving tips on how to cope with people you just can’t stand, Heather’s writing is at once incisive, hilarious and provocative. For those of you who know Heather from her old Globe and Mail columns, or faithfully read her column in Chatelaine, you are going to love this book. And if you have not yet been introduced to the particular pleasure of reading Heather, choose cake, and dip into this delightful book.

April also brings Phil LaMarche’s rivetting debut novel American Youth, a page-turner of a story involving an accidental death and a young boy whose mother forces him to lie about his role in the event. When we received this manuscript, five of us read it over a weekend and we’ve been talking about it ever since. I can assure you that if you respond to this book in the same way we did, it will inspire one of your book club’s most interesting and heated discussion.

And fans of Mma Ramotswe have a reason to rejoice. (As do readers who haven’t discovered her yet.) The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, the eighth book in Alexander McCall Smith’s wonderful No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, comes out this month. Diane Martin, publisher of Knopf Canada, and founder of the Mma Ramotswe fan club, assures me it’s the best book yet. I believe that it was my membership in that fan club that led me to getting my job here at Knopf, but that’s a story for another time. Now, I have to get back to a manuscript that won’t be published until next April…

Posted by: Anne Collins - Publisher, Random House Canada

I was stuck in a snowstorm in traffic the other day, a captive of the car radio, when out of the speakers came a familiar voice. You would know her, too, as Jane Doe, the woman who was raped twenty years ago, by a man who became know as the Balcony Rapist. She sued the Toronto police for using her and other women as bait during their investigation, and won.

Jane Doe was on the radio because her rapist was about to be released after serving his full sentence, though the likelihood that he would reoffend was described as “high.”

I published her book, The Story of Jane Doe, a few years ago. I had been editing her at the very same time as I had been editing LGen Romeo Dallaire’s Shake Hands with the Devil and Irshad Manji’s The Trouble with Islam Today. It felt at times as though my office had become the tiny eye through which the troubles of the world were trying to pass: genocide, terrorism and fundamentalism, and rape.

Dallaire and Manji became national and international bestsellers, important achievements as what each book had to say is crucial to our futures. But Jane’s book, which turned a candid and critical eye on the sexual injustices at the heart of our own culture, did not climb the bestseller lists. In the end, her act of asking us to consider rape, and who benefits from it, to look at why rape is the only crime of violence whose incident is on the rise, her cry for us to examine what message we are delivering to our baby boys that encourages some of them to brutalize women: this was maybe just too challenging for people to bear.

She was being her usual unexpected self on the radio. Instead of calling for the Balcony Rapist’s head on a pike, she asked why it was that a man as dangerous as he was to be released into society with no support and no supervision. She was asking the questions she had asked in her book, which we sure as hell have not answered yet. If we can bear to listen to her message, she has given us a chance to look deeply into the heart of what ails us, and to confront monsters who are incredibly close to home.

Posted by: Brad Martin - President and COO, Random House of Canada

On Monday, I had the great pleasure of attending a lunch at the Windsor Arms Hotel, where The Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction was awarded to our own Rudy Wiebe. Rudy’s win for his memoir, Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest, was a recognition of the importance of stories to illuminate Canada’s cultural heritage. As someone from a Mennonite background, Rudy’s speaking the German of his mother’s tongue took me back to my own childhood, because my parents spoke the same language in our home.

Congratulations to Rudy on his well-deserved win, and to his co-nominees, John English for Citizen of the World: The Life of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Volume One 1919-1968 and Ross King for The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism.

Posted by: Kristin Cochrane - Associate Publisher, Doubleday Canada

Yesterday may have been cold and grey outside, but it started off very brightly for me. It began over breakfast with bookseller and Book Addict columnist Ben McNally, whose company is always a treat. We talked enthusiastically about the books we enjoyed over the holidays - Peter Carey’s Theft was a knock-out for me, and if you read Ben’s columns you will know his own faves.

Afterward we attended the press conference for the 2007 Charles Taylor Prize, which recognizes Canadian works of non-fiction. As publishers, we couldn’t be happier that this prize exists and that creative non-fiction is being given its due. Authors are equally pleased - the prize carries a $25,000 purse for the winner and this year added $2500 for each of the other two shortlisted authors.

The press conference was packed with publishing industry insiders, and the room was buzzing with good cheer and nervous energy. Margaret MacMillan, one of this year’s jurors, read out the shortlist. I was thrilled when I heard Ross King’s name read out! It is such nice news for us and of course for Ross. His book, The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism - which recently won the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction - is a great read, full of fascinating facts and stories, and so fits perfectly with the aims of this prize.

After saying my goodbyes, I rushed back to the office so I could let my colleagues know the news, and to call Ross, who is currently in the US on a publicity tour for the book. Naturally he was pleased, and quite honored to be recognized by the jury and for this prize. We look forward to having him back in Canada at the beginning of February to promote the paperback here, and he will be in Toronto for the announcement of the winner of the prize on Monday, February 26th. Fingers crossed for Ross King!

If you haven’t read this book yet, now is the time - I don’t think I can improve on what the jury had to say:

This book’s witty, compelling narrative, lush historical detail, and fascinating interplay of art and science, civil strife and international intrigue, operatic characters and historical turning points, makes for a thoroughly engrossing read.

Posted by: Marion Garner - Publisher, Vintage Canada

My Wedding Dress is a book that really took me, and my colleagues, by surprise. When the proposal came in I fully expected a book about frills and flowers and romanticizing the idea of weddings. In short, not my cup of tea at all. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to find it was full of intimate stories of women’s lives and loves, struggles and victories about their 1st, 2nd marriages, multicultural weddings, religious and secular, and dresses both worn and unworn. Even our male colleagues were won over by the breadth and depth of appeal.

The seed for this book was planted when co-editor Susie Whelehan started using this idea in writing groups she belonged to. She found that the words “Write about your wedding dress for 20 minutes-GO!” resulted in the most rich, personal accounts. Women loved writing and talking about their wedding experiences and even women who never married had a story about a dress, a family or a friend. Co-editor Anne Laurel Carter was in one of the writing groups and spurred on Susie’s idea to create a book of memoirs. So the original book proposal came in with 7 stories from around the writing table and 6 of them are in the final book.

Using the winning Dropped Threads formula, we worked to expand on the original 6, we strived to get a broad representation of women across Canada, and the book’s voices range from one coast to the other - there’s even a contribution from an Irish writer who lived in Canada for a time. Of the 26 writers in the collection, you will recognize some, and others will be fresh new voices to discover.

As the book goes out into the world in January 2007, we hope it will capture the hearts and imaginations of women from age 20 to 80!

Posted by: Craig Pyette - Associate Editor, Random House Canada

First pages of Entering The Babylon System are in (that’s the first time we see the text typeset, so the manuscript exists as more than just a Word doc). Looks like we’d hoped, which isn’t the given you might think. The illustrations were finished long before the text was finished so it’s remarkable that so many of them so perfectly speak to the issues Chris and Buns tackle in the book. All were great, but I was particularly impressed by a TO illustrator, Case, ‘cause he so completely captures the conflicts traditional gun culture presents to an urban environment. His ill’s are shocking and beautiful and incredibly smart.

Now first pages go to the lawyer. Not easy throwing down the gauntlet against those who seed the root causes of gun violence without setting yourself up for a big, fat lawsuit…