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Interesting book. Heyers, who wrote in the 30 and 40s published more than 50 novels before she died in the 1970s. I found the book at the South Keys Chapters where several of Heyer's books were on a special display. They are typical British mysteries. The title alone convinced me to pick it up. I have mixed feelings about the book. Decent plot twists but not very interesting characters. Basically, a young woman is found standing on the side of a road next to a car. In the car is a butler, shot dead. Along comes the hero of our novel, Frank Amberley, who knows immediately that the woman is not the killer. With a penchant for helping out police who he considers inept, Amberley proceeds to collect clues, solve the case and win the girl. Categories: General | No comments Environmental hazards donald.ermen - February 21st, 2010 A new book came across my desk called Dodging the Toxic Bullet: How to Protect Yourself From Everyday Environmental Health Hazards. It's written by David R. Boyd with a foreword by David Suzuki Boyd is a scholar at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on the right to a healthy environment. He's also an environmental lawyer. The book deals with food water, the air we breathe and a host of other topics. I always have mixed feelings about these types of subjects. Yes, there are thing in our world that aren't good for you. They are toxic as Boy would say. But you have to live. Some of the stuff is just unavoidable. The best you can hope to do is to reasonably minimize what you come into contact with. It's still a good book, though. Categories: General | No comments Agatha Awards donald.ermen - February 20th, 2010 The Brutal Telling by by Louise Penny has been nominated for the Agatha Award for best novel (2009). Penny's Dead Cold won an Agatha for best novel for 2007 (the first Canadian to win best novel), and The Cruelest Month won last year (the 2008 Agatha best novel). The winners will be announced at the 2009 Agatha Awards banquet to be held on Saturday, May 1. The awards are named in honour of Agatha Christie. The 2009 Agatha nominations are: Best Novel Swan for the Money, Donna Andrews, St. Martin's Minotaur Bookplate Special, Lorna Barrett, Berkley Prime Crime Royal Flush, Rhys Bowen, Berkley Prime Crime A Brutal Telling, Louise Penny, Minotaur Books Air Time, Hank Phillippi Ryan, MIRA Best First Novel For Better For Murder, Lisa Bork, Midnight Ink The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley, Delacorte Press Posed for Murder, Meredith Cole, St. Martin's Minotaur The Cold Light of Mourning, Elizabeth Duncan, St. Martin's Press In the Shadow of Gotham, Stefanie Pintoff, Minotaur Books Best Nonfiction Duchess of Death, Richard Hack, Phoenix Books Talking About Detective Fiction, P.D. James, Knopf Blood on the Stage, 1925 - 1950, Amnon Kabatchnik, Scarecrow Press Dame Agatha's Shorts, Elena Santangelo, Bella Rosa Books The Talented Miss Highsmith, Joan Schenkar, St. Martin's Press Best Short Story Femme Sole, Dana Cameron, Boston Noir, Akashic Books andbaskets, Drawers and Killer Cold, Kaye George, Crooked The Worst Noel, Barb Goffman, The Gift of Murder, Wolfmont Press On the House, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Quarry, Level Best Books Death Will Trim Your Tree, Elizabeth Zelvin, The Gift of Murder, Wolfmont Press Best Children's/Young Adult Novel The Morgue and Me, John C. Ford, Viking Juvenile The Hanging Hill, Chris Grabenstein, Random House The Case of the Poisoned Pig, Lewis B. Montgomery, Kane Press The Other Side of Blue, Valerie O. Patterson, Clarion Books The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline, Nancy Springer, Philomel Categories: General | No comments John Steinbeck donald.ermen - February 19th, 2010 I'm starting to read a very old copy of The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck. I'm about 100 pages in and I last read it when I was a teenager. Some of the themes didn't resonate with me then. I just didn't have enough life experience. But reading it as a 43-year-old man, wow, this book is so powerful. And the writing is wonderful. It's the story of a man who comes from a proud and established family. But what little was left of the family fortune is now gone and he's a grocery clerk. He's a good man, a good father. Like a lot of people who take several hits in a row, sometimes you just want to stay down, stay safe. But sometimes, the lucky ones get a second chance. Some call it redemption. If you haven't read it, find a copy. You won't be disappointed. Categories: General | No comments Interview with Get Fat author donald.ermen - February 17th, 2010 I recently had the chance to do a Q&A with Steve Siebold, the author of Get Tough or Die Fat. Here's one of the Q and As. The rest of the interview can be found by clicking here. Q. I know you have lots of mental toughness phrases in the book. Do you have a favourite? A. "Fat people are liars." I like that one because it shocks people into reality and it's true. Fat people lie to themselves and others about why they're fat, how they got fat, and the reason they still haven't gotten fit. I did the same thing when I was fat. The secret is to recognize it and make a decision to change. Refuse to beat yourself about getting fat, because almost everyone has done it at some point in their lives. We are all fallible human beings. Decide today to get tough; get fit, and solve the problem once and for all. Categories: General | No comments CBC awards donald.ermen - February 17th, 2010 Folks, Here's an edited release from CBC regarding their literary awards. CBC/Radio-Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts and Air Canada's enRoute magazine are proud to announce the 80 English finalists of the CBC Literary Awards/les Prix litteraires Radio-Canada. They were chosen from more than 6,000 submissions in French and English from across the country, in the Creative Nonfiction, Poetry and Short Story categories. The CBC Literary Awards / Prix litteraires Radio-Canada are the most significant prizes awarded to unpublished literary work in Canada. They provide visibility for new authors and also help further the careers of more established Canadian writers. 2009 FINALISTS (in alphabetical order by title) CREATIVE NONFICTION (26 finalists) All I Can Say by Marion Agnew (Thunder Bay, ON) Are We Listening? by Maggie De Vries (Vancouver, BC) Buy Bentson! by Thomas Maynard (Vancouver, BC) Critical Theory and International Relations by Thomas Maynard (Vancouver, BC) First Call Resolution by Jeff Rose-Martland (St. John's, NL) Fishing For The Moon by John Blair (Toronto, ON) Flat Champagne by Lenore Rowntree (Vancouver, BC) Getting to Know a Hero by David Swanson (Gabriola Island, BC) How to Have a Delightful Home Death by Teri Leah Armitage (Toronto, ON) I Am The Tourist of My Childhood by Tanya Marquardt (Vancouver, BC) Instow by Jennifer Capes (Nepean, ON) Lessons From a Nude Man by Donna Besel (Lac du Bonnet, M B) Love Amid the Crows by Gordon Smedley (Vancouver, BC) Manpower by Elise Partridge (Vancouver, BC) Mill Guy by Leslie Henderson (Sechelt, BC) Paris Notebook by Rishma Dunlop (Toronto, ON) Quick-quick. Slow. Slow. by Sarah de Leeuw (Prince George, BC) Sputnik's Child by Terri Favro (Toronto, ON) Strangers to the Boy by Ted Beaton (Oro Station, ON) Survivors on the Ocean Floor by Paul Klassen (Winnipeg, M B) The Other Side of Here by Cathie Borrie (North Vancouver, BC) The Rise by Marian Botsford Fraser (Toronto, ON) This is Bread by Leslie Hall Pinder (Vancouver, BC) Who Designed This Thing Anyway? by Matt Sturrock (London, UK) Winding Sheet by Eve Joseph (Brentwood Bay, BC) You Are Here by Jason Emde (Gifu-shi, Japan) Readers: Donna Caruso, Moira Farr, Elyse Grasco, Penney Kome, Hal Niedzviecki and Alisa Smith (selected the shortlists of entries) POETRY (26 finalists) A Year of Ghazals by Pamela Porter (North Saanich, BC) Animal Love by Patricia Young (Victoria, BC) Arguments with the Lake by Tanis Rideout (Kingston, ON) Comings & Goings by Susan Glickman (Toronto, ON) Emanations of Immigration by Tae Ho Han (Willowdale, ON) fidelity by Michael Blouin (Oxford Mills, ON) Flat is True by Jude Goodwin (Squamish, BC) For Love of the Mushroom Picker by Patricia Young (Victoria, BC) Healthy Human Carrier by Erin Knight (St. Catharines, ON) Hypotheticals by Leigh Kotsilidis (Montreal, QC) Men by Anita Lahey (Montreal, QC) Music Garden by Jim Nason (Toronto, ON) No Pembina by Christopher Simons (Winnipeg, M B) Onion Man by Kathryn Mockler (Toronto, ON) Outage by Michael Eden Reynolds (Whitehorse, YT) Randonnees by Adrienne Drobnies (Vancouver, BC) Say Here, Here by Laurie D. Graham (Toronto, ON) Skin's Edge, Book III by Susan Andrews Grace (Nelson, BC) The Beautiful Assassin: A Poem Noir by Meira Cook (Winnipeg, M B) The Book of Imaginary Fathers by Meira Cook (Winnipeg, M B) The Hand of Scheveningen by Alexandra Oliver (Burlington, ON) The Keyhole Poems by Meira Cook (Winnipeg, M B) The Nervous Hunger of an Ox by Shane Book (Nepean, ON) Us unclean by Michael Langton (Vancouver, BC) Word = Work = Praxis by Scott Ramsay (Vancouver, BC) Wretched Beast by Shelley Ann Leedahl (Middle Lake, SK) Readers: Marina Endicott, Brian Henderson, Evelyn Lau, David McGimpsey, Karen Solie and Rob Winger (selected the shortlists of entries) SHORT STORY (28 finalists) 3:28 p.m. on a Saturday at the Bar on the Corner by Sarah Lolley (Montreal, QC) Almost Sisters by Traci Skuce (Cumberland, BC) An Evening In the Park by Douglas Moffat (Lansing, MI, USA) Badger by Donald Ward (Saskatoon, SK) Chick in Love by Constance Peters (Vancouver, BC) Chignecto Bay by Mary Thaler (Quebec, QC) Down to the Roots by Elissa Vann Struth (Vancouver, BC) Hares, Raccoons, Foxes, Bears by Nicolas Williams (Montreal, QC) Hot Town by Janet Trull (Ancaster, ON) Hunger by Meredith Hambrock (Toronto, ON) Laundry Day by Fran Kimmel (Lacombe, A B) Little Boy by Alix Hawley (Kelowna, BC) Michael and Mike by Megan Findlay (Ottawa, ON) On the Trail of an Astronaut by Lindsey Connell (Toronto, ON) One Day Last Summer by Jo-Anne Lubin (Edmonton, A B) Pop Music by Jasmine Szabo-Knox (Montreal, QC) Remainders by Shana Myara (Vancouver, BC) Tesseract Man by Sam White (Toronto, ON) The Homecoming by Jennifer L. Derkitt (Thousand Oaks, CA, USA) The Key by Roger Moore (Island View, N B) The Lilac Leaves by Caitlin Stall-Paquet (Montreal, QC) The Nonsense of Waiting by Cathryn Atkinson (Garibaldi Highlands, BC) The Peace Bridge by Stephen Hunt (Battersea, ON) The Troubled English Bride by Mark Jarman (Fredericton, N B) The World Series by Norbert Ruebsaat (Vancouver, BC) Trek & Trail by Dan MacIsaac (Victoria, BC) Unique and Life-Changing Items by Jessica Westhead (Toronto, ON) Wave Theory by Jane Hamilton Silcott (Vancouver, BC) Readers: Erika de Vasconcelos, William Devrell, Esi Edugyan, Andrea Gunraj, Elizabeth Kelly, Annabel Lyon, Jeffrey Moore and Saleema Nawaz (selected the shortlists of entries) Categories: General | No comments new book donald.ermen - February 12th, 2010 Hi folks, Sorry I've been away from the blog for a few days. Just got this press release about a new novel that is partly set in Ottawa. I'll let you take a read. Cheers The Reason for Ignoring Esirbon Mishner: The List by Chandor Humeyne is a futuristic story that pits humanity against itself in a society that uses a global technology infrastructure, called Secure-Health, to fight the spread of disease and to support global operations. The Reason for Ignoring Esirbon Mishner follows Georges and Sadee, modern individuals living during the 2030s and 2040s in Ottawa and Toronto. Humeyne's future includes a dominant global corporation, Secure-Health Architects (SCA) that controls the spread of sickness during disease outbreaks, intruding on citizens' lives. SCA's deviant motives become evident as it battles a group that works against the Secure-Health industry through non-violent means, the Zeitgeist Revolutionary and Emancipation Group (ZREG). As SCA's deviancy becomes increasingly visible, the public struggles to remain harmonious, and the ZREG founds the Society for the Removal of Pernicious Thought (SRPT) to pursue more aggressive means of persuasion. Sadee and Georges cross paths as they try to find a balance between their self-interest and an interest in others. Humeyne intends for his novel to entertain and highlight that equality and liberty stem from daily decisions, the effects of which are potentially broad, whether one is a leader or among the rank and file. The Reason for Ignoring Esirbon Mishner: The List is available for sale online at Amazon.com. Chandor Humeyne has a professional background in management and finance. He is an avid reader and has been writing creatively for 15 years. He has dual citizenship in Canada and France, and lives in Ontario with his wife and four children. Categories: General | No comments Books list donald.ermen - February 5th, 2010 This week's top books compiled by Maclean's magazine. Fiction 1 The Bishop's Man - Linden MacIntyre 2 The Girl Who Played With Fire - Stieg Larsson 3 The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver 4 The Museum of Innocence - Orhan Pamuk 5 The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown 6 Too Much Happiness - Alice Munro 7 Last Night in Twisted River - John Irving 8 The Sea Captain's Wife - Beth Powning 9 The Golden Mean - Annabel Lyon 10 The Year of the Flood - Margaret Atwood Non-fiction 1 Game Change - John Heilemann and Mark Halperin 2 Stones Into Schools - Greg Mortenson 3 Committed - Elizabeth Gilbert 4 Open - Andre Agassi 5 Half the Sky - Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn 6 What the Dog Saw - Malcolm Gladwell 7 Just Watch Me - John English 8 The Lady in the Tower - Alison Weir 9 The Boy in the Moon - Ian Brown Categories: General | No comments Die Fat or Get Tough donald.ermen - February 4th, 2010 I just put the final touches on an interview with Steve Siebold, the author of Die Fat or Get Tough. When the book first came in, I thought here's another weight loss book that is nothing more than a gimmick. Well, it actually turned out to be pretty good. What I liked about it is the premise that at the end of the day, for most of us, losing weight or getting healthy really is in our power. We either do it or we don't. I'm not saying it's easy and you only have to look at my blog photo to conclude that I don't "just do it." But I'm willing to admit that if I did just do it, I'd probably see some changes. Anyway, the book is a little different from what you will find out there. The interview will go up in the next day or two. I'll post the link when it's ready. Categories: General | No comments Writers' Meeting donald.ermen - February 2nd, 2010 Folks, From our friends at Ottawa Independent Writers SOCIAL NETWORKING WORKSHOP Confused about Facebook? Clueless about Twitter? Not sure how to connect to LinkedIn? On March 13, Ottawa writer/editor Murray McGregor and David Shaw of Ottawa's Workplace Institute will explain how members of the writingcommunity can use these and other online social networking tools to connect with other writers, conduct research and promote their published works. Attendees should have a basic understanding of computers, web browsing and email. 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Library and Archives Canada, Room 156, 395Wellington St., Ottawa. Cost: $10 for OIW members; $15 for non-members. Info and registration: membership@oiw.ca, www.oiw.ca, or (613) 731-3873. Categories: General | No comments << Older Entries * Search for: _____________________ [ Search ] * * Pages * Netiquette * Terms * About Don Ermen How much does Don Ermen love books? Well, he still has all his copies of Dr. Seuss and the Hardy Boys mysteries. But nowadays he reads books that are a little more challenging. They might be on the best seller's list, or found in the bargain bin at his local book store. Or it could be the effort of a local author that has come across his desk at the Ottawa Sun, where Don works as the assistant managing editor. Full bio * Recent Posts * Book reading * The Bookmobile * Kobo Reader * Olen Steinhauer * Will Ferguson * Recent Comments * Vicki Smith on Kobo Reader * jeff.morrison on Sasquatch * jeff.morrison on Sasquatch * donald.ermen on Aspiring Writers * freesoft on Time on Kindle * Categories * General * Uncategorized * Archives [___________________] * RSS feeds * RSS 2.0 Online * Autos * Careers * Classifieds * Homes * RSS * Mobile * E-mail alerts Newspaper * Contact Us * Letters to the Editor * Feedback * About * Jobs @ The SUN Advertise * In Print * Online * Classifieds * Corporate Advertising Opportunities Services * Subscribe * Buy Sun Photos * E-edition * News Research * Your Scoop Other * Terms & Conditions * Privacy Policy Copyright (c) 2010 Ottawa Sun All Rights Reserved