Edmonton Reads
Edmonton has not one, but two representatives in the CBC’s Canada Reads 2010 debate! The contenders were announced on Jian Ghomeshi’s show (Q) this morning.
Edmonton’s poet laureate, rapper Cadence Weapon aka Rollie Pemberton, is one of this year’s panelists. He will be debating and defending Douglas Coupland’s book “Generation X”, which he feels is representative of him, his friends and the transient nature of youth. Pemberton’s choice is the oldest book on the panel.
“Anyone can identify with the characters,” said Pemberton, when asked to defend his choice. He also added that his secret weapon is his ability to say a lot of words in a very short time period.
The other Edmonton component to this year’s race is the book “Good to a Fault”, written by Edmonton author Marina Endicott, a creative writing teacher at the University of Alberta. Endicott’s book was nominated for the 2008 Scotiabank Giller prize and was named as one of the Globe and Mail’s Top 100 books of 2008. The book was chosen as a Canada Reads pick by Simi Sara, a Vancouver based broadcaster.
This is a major coup for both Rollie and Marina! The Canada Reads debates, which will be held March 8-12, 2010 are a big driver of sales for Canadian books. Hundreds of people across the country will read the book and listen to the debates to find out which book Canadians should be reading in 2010.
The other books and panelists in the debate are:
- Olympian Perdita Felicien, who will defend Fall on Your Knees, by Ann-Marie MacDonald
- Dr. Samantha Nutt, who will defend The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy
- Author Michel Vézina who will defend Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner, translated by Lazer Lederhendler
The CBC Canada Reads site will feature a variety of podcasts, contests and information in the three months leading up to the debates.
If you’d like to stick with content closer to home, you can also participate in the Canada Reads Challenge at my site. To participate in the challenge, you sign up to read all five books before the air date of the debates.
Tune in March 8-12 to listen to Rollie and see how his choice fares.
Alexis Kienlen is an Edmonton based author, poet, fiction writer and journalist who reads too much. She’s one of the bloggers at the Canadian literary site roughingitinthebooks.com
Peep This: Hal Niedzviecki at U of A Tonight
AAAAAAAAHHHHH! OMG you guys!
I am so excited for today! I haven’t been this amped for anything since August 5.
It’s Hal Niedzviecki day!
For those of you not familiar with his work, allow me to debrief you (that’s what she said).
Hal is one of my favourite writers, this terrific social critic and fiction writer from Toronto. He co-founded Broken Pencil magazine. He’s written a bunch of great books, like “Hello, I’m Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity,” “We Want Some Too: Underground Desire and the Re-invention of Mass Culture” and “Ditch.” His newest work, “The Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love Watching ourselves and Our Neighbours” is going gangbusters; he’s currently working on a documentary on the same topic and living his life online for the sake of science, via twitter, facebook, youtube, and more. He’s even made O Magazine’s list of top 25 summer reads (something that I find deeply impressive, because I straight up love my O Magazine, people).
Anyway, Hal is here in Edmonton tonight, discussing “The Peep Diaries” at the Humanities Centre at the U of A. The last time I was this excited about being in the same room as one of my favourite Canadian media figures, I was 12 and appearing on the same episode of Edmonton Now! as Michael Slipchuk. But that’s another story entirely.
Where I’m going with all this is that I had the chance to interview Hal earlier this month after finding out he was going to be in Edmonton to promote the book. (more…)
We have a winner!
This robot likes to party on Whyte.
This image of Xeldon, the “Telus repairman of the future,” can be found in the window of the old Edmonton Telephone Historical Centre (Telus), on 83 Avenue, between 104 and 105 Streets.
Congratulations to Deja Springfield for being first with the answer. We’ll be by with your Greenwoods’ gift certificate, and for your wacky winner’s photo, soon.
Also fun, you can find more Xeldon at his new home, the Prince of Wales Armoury (10440 108 Avenue), where he’ll tell you about the history (and future?) of the telephone in Edmonton.
Thanks for testing your Edmonton knowledge with the edmontonian. We would have also accepted an answer of Xeldon being in “2003.”
It’s a contest. So win already.
You can win!
It’s time to test your knowledge of Edmonton.
The reward will be the right to brag about how you know more about Edmonton then the rest of us. And there’s a $25 gift certificate from local book experts “Greenwoods’ Bookshoppe.” Books go great with sunny weekends in a lawn chair.
Ready? Then let’s do this thing!
Somewhere in the city you’ll find this fellow.
Where is he?
You’ve seen the robot. Now, the first person to e-mail us at info@theedmontonian.com and tell us where to find him wins that $25 gift certificate from Greenwoods’ Bookshoppe.
Please don’t give away the location in the comments, it’s a contest after all. But feel free to make hilarious remarks.
(In order to win you should be ready to pose for an awkward winner’s photo.)
