Kathleen Molloy

Can bibliokarma be spread electronically?

Yes.

As a result of a partnership between the United Way, the Ontario Trillium Foundation and Imagine Canada, not-for-profit groups in Ontario now have access to a non-profit library network. The network, housed at the John Hodgson Library is deemed the world’s largest collection of literature on Canadian non-profit organizations.This means NGOs have access to a library that has 80 per cent of the material in downloadable electronic format, some of which covers tools such as how to write funding proposals and share best practices in board governance. If you are a NGO liaison officer, why not contact Imagine Canada and your local librarian to see how you can catch this bibliokarma, electronically!

In the interviews following Nino Ricci’s win of the 2008 Governor General’s Award for Fiction, Ricci spoke about the research he did in preparation of The Origin of Species. Ricci had the opportunity to travel to the Galapagos to devour the region first hand.

Family Literacy Day is Jan 27 in Canada. In Ottawa, the Nepean and Kanata libraries will host half-hour reading sessions at 10 a.m., 11 a.m. and noon on Saturday Jan 24, sort of as a practice run in preparation of their attempt to break a Guinness record for reading.  The Guinness category for Most children reading with an adult, multiple venues is up for grabs.The record was set in 2006 with 78,791 families across the United States reading together. Can Ottawa break that record?Guinness rules allow people to read during a 24-hour period from 2 p.m. Friday, Jan. 23 to 2 p.m. Saturday. Rules also outlined on the ABC Canada Literacy Foundation website.And after the record is broken, why not celebrate by reading a book with your family on the 27?

I’m a title junkie. Give me a book with a good title and I’m hooked. When Mrs. Cohen at the Wakefield library mentioned Our Lady of the Lost and Found a few years back, I put it on my list of books to hunt down.

I scooped it up last month at the Singing Pebble in Ottawa. I have the Harper Perennial version which has Diane Schoemperlen’s bio, an interview, background on the book, and excerpts of newer works. I read the author interview first.  It was very interesting to read about the hours of research she did squirreled away in libraries uncovering records of Virgin Mary appearances around the world. I should mention here that this is the story of a writer that is visited by the Virgin Mary. Mary is tired of being Mary and decides to take a little break so she picks a no-fuss writer to put her up while she puts up her feet. That’s the whole story.

What makes the story work is the way Diane Schoemperlen describes the boring daily events of an ordinary Canadian writer such as making lunch and checking for dust. The boring writer has an extraordinary visitor and tries to make her feel ‘normal’ in a boring Canadian routine. They scratch lotto tickets. They head off to the mall where it turns out that Mary has her own debt card under the Greek name Mary Theotokos (Mother of God).

Schoemperlen details centuries of Mary appearances from around the world. What I found fascinating is the research she cramped in so that she could make mention of the world-wide appearances. If some people can see the image of Jesus in a plate of spaghetti on a billboard in Georgia why not Mary on their front stoop?

GG winner Diane Schoemperlen’s  Our Lady of the Lost and Found another CanLit title for the Canadian Book Challenge.

Andrea Warner asked writer Karen X Tulchinsky if she is judgemental. In Room’s volume 31.3 Glass Houses, Tulchinsky acknowledges that many of her works have protagonists that have to deal with being judged. It got me thinking about how easy it is for us to judge an author by their work and a reader on their reaction to that work. Judging books by their titles ring a bell?I visited Tulchinsky’s self-named website and scrolled her titles. A fun title is Friday the Rabbi Wore Lace. It is a collection of Jewish lesbian passions. Can you just hear the naysayers cranking up the Negative Judgement machine?And that’s the shame of it all. We all judge. As readers it comes naturally.

But what of writers? I don’t know Tulchinsky. I haven’t dove into her work. My first introduction is through Warner’s interview. But I am going to end up judging her because she’s a writer. I’m going to wonder what drove her to create her work. I’m going to question her choices. I may even check out what she throws on when she attends her next awards ceremony…because she’s a writer, and because as a writer, she has put herself out there to be judged – by readers and writers alike.  

As I have.

In December , Alexis and Melanie posted opposing opinions of Stephen Leacock’s work on their blog  Roughing it in the Book.  Alexis reminded me why I adore Leacock.  

I dug out my copy of No. 43 from the New Canadian Library and dove into Leacock’s Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy .

First published in 1916, Leacock portrays the hand selling traits of a seasoned book seller. The narrator is a professor hiding among the shelves as he spies on the bookseller  raving over only two titles that turn out to be remainders from a publishing house. In the short story The Reading Public: A book-store Study Leacock reminds us that fiction sells in Canada when it becomes popular and popular books drive the Canadian book industry. Have times changed all that much?

From Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy:

“Have you any good light reading for vacation time?”
called out the next customer in a loud, breezy voice–he
had the air of a stock broker starting on a holiday.

“Yes,” said Mr. Sellyer, and his face almost broke into
a laugh as he answered, “here’s an excellent thing–Golden
Dreams–quite the most humorous book of the season–simply
screaming–my wife was reading it aloud only yesterday.
She could hardly read for laughing.”

“What’s the price, one dollar? One-fifty. All right,
wrap it up.” There was a clink of money on the counter,
and the customer was gone. I began to see exactly where
professors and college people who want copies of Epictetus
at 18 cents and sections of World Reprints of Literature
at 12 cents a section come in, in the book trade. ©2009 Google

Our puppy just peed on the floor. I used my mean voice and my stern eyes to let her know that I wasn’t happy. Yet this is the same puppy the endured a weekend’s worth of a half-dozen kids running through our house playing hide-and-seek.  This is the same puppy that Kiddo Number 1 reads to every night.

Our puppy has shown extreme patience and I owe it to her to do the same. I need to take a page from Kiddo Number 1’s book. And speaking of dogs and books… there is a neat program that some members of the Western Québec School Board participant in that pairs dogs and young readers. Using therapy dogs, kids are encouraged to build their literary skills, all the while getting an encouraging lick or a wagged tail.

The program is called Reading Education Assistance Dogs (READ). Seems there are programs in Aylmer Quebec and Arnprior Ontario and Winnipeg Mantioba.

I wonder what our puppy would think if I read her drafts of my next novel.