I hereby confess...

...that I have only read one of the shortlisted IMPAC Dublin Literary Award books:
The Believers by Zoë Heller (which I really liked)

Which is one less than Obama (a fact that becomes quite sad when you realise how much less time he probably has for novel-reading!)

The other contenders are:
The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
In Zodiac Light by Robert Edric
Settlement by Christoph Hein
Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
God’s Own Country by Ross Raisin (title in Canada and the U.S.: Out Backward)
Home by Marilynne Robinson

The winner will be announced on June 17th.

I can't pick any of these up right now; I'm reading my way through the Orange list (completed The way things look to me by Roopa Farooki last week - brilliant; on to Savage Lands by Clare Clark this week - which so far reads like a Dear Canada children's novel, but I am only at the very beginning and I have high hopes).

Randoms

So, I haven't been in a chatty mood recently. On the one hand, I've been pretty busy at work, with our Summer Reading Club activities and my new Babytime duties! On the other hand, I've just been tired, and not in a very social mood. This summer seems to be rapidly running away from me - it's already July, I haven't been on a beach or even on a long run down to Dow's Lake, and frankly, the weather has been Nothing to Write Home About anyway.

Enough grumbling, though. Here's some random stuff I have been reading or doing:

• Oogling Nick Laird's pug


• Reading various interviews with A. S. Byatt


• Taking SRC poster illustrator Werner Zimmerman out to lunch. He's a pretty interesting guy. Best part about his visit was watching him interact with the kids - and one of the parents - who were aspiring artists. One little girl became quite enamoured of him, and asked me later where she could buy art supplies (Werner showed them his, including a truly gross/fascinating self-cleaning gummy eraser.)


• Spying on ALA in Chicago. My friend took a wicked pic of this little bad boy (can I have one for home?) I am ambivalent about the RUSA President’s program "From the Book and Beyond: Interdisciplinary Readers’ Advisory," which I was disappointed to miss at first. Now it just seems kind of not fascinating, based on various reports. Don't get me wrong - I do think Steve is cool, but the other stuff was pretty boring and stuff I had already heard about. I do think it's great to shine a spotlight on whole collection RA, and to have an RA event, and maybe I needed to just be there to experience the excitement (this gave me a nice visual of one poster session about face-out marketing - spectacular! But again, not exactly revolutionary. The Amazing Joan Swamber got me hooked on face-out display, colour-coded even, back in, um, 2004?), but I wasn't too blown away. Finally, my ALA spying has resulted in a crush on Neil Gaiman (yes, it took me awhile to catch up. I don't just give my heart away, you know!)


• Thoroughly digesting Cutting for Stone, a seriously wonderful novel about twin brothers, Marion and Shiva, born in Ethiopia just before the revolution to a nun who had emigrated to Africa from South India. There is a lot in here about "created" families and the legacy of blood relatives, the history of medicine, fistulas (they seem to be following me now - case in point), sibling relationships, politics, religion, you know, all the good stuff. Definitely one of my favourite reads of the year. I also quite enjoyed The Believers.


• Jumping for joy at the news that my friend Chris seems to be on the fast-track to super-stardom. He's going to have to create a new level after ParCon 5, to encompass the ratio of parents to children to movie stars.


• Speaking of super-stardom, Serena Ryder deserves some, too. I saw her at Bluesfest this past week, and she totally rocked. Also, I was semi-impressed with Ottawa for approximately 5 seconds, for showing up (my standards are low), singing along, and displaying a variety of age groups at a concert.

Eh bien, c'est tout!