Canada Reads Chris Benjamin

Drive-by Saviours, Chris Benjamin's 2010 debut novel set in Canada and Indonesia, has just been chosen by CBC's Canada Reads as one of the Top 40 Essential Canadian Novels of the Decade. If you're a fan of Benjamin's novel, click here to vote Drive-by Saviours into Canada Reads' Top 10 Essential Novels of the Decade.

Watch the trailer for Drive-by Saviours on YouTube. Read an interview with Benjamin about his novel.

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Rattling Books' EarLit Shorts 4 features a story by Chris Benjamin, about an unusual romance. Listen to an excerpt.

A Canadian Gallant in Paris

Mavis Gallant is one of the foremost short story writers of our time. Only S. J. Perelman and John Updike have had more pieces published in The New Yorker than Gallant, who left her native Canada in the 1950s for the more sophisticated charms of Paris. She's still there physically, but not entirely psychologically. "I am a writer and, of course, a Canadian. Once, in Switzerland, emerging from a long anaesthetic, I had no idea where I was, or why. . . . I could hear someone speaking French and I thought I had been in a driving accident somewhere in Quebec." (From an interview in The Paris Review, Winter 1999.)

To watch a two-part 1965 CBC documentary on Gallant's life in Paris and her writing, click here.

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Rattling Books' unabridged audio version of Mavis Gallant's Montreal Stories received an AudioFile Earphones Award, and was named a Best Audio Book of the year by the magazine. To listen to an excerpt from her story "Florida," follow this link.

Emily White's "Lonely"

Canadian author Emily White's 2010 national best-seller Lonely: A Memoir is described by Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones, as "a masterwork on the topic [loneliness], a memoir of deep insight and revelation." Sebold isn't alone in her praise; White's book has been widely and generously reviewed nationally and internationally. To see what The New Yorker has to say about Lonely, click here. To visit White's web site, click here.


Rattling Books' EarLit Shorts 3 features a short story by Emily White. To hear an excerpt from her story, "Granite," follow this link.

Ron Hynes Release Concert for "Stealing Genius," November 3, St. John's, Newfoundland

On Wednesday, November 3, Ron Hynes will release his latest CD at the LSPU Hall in St. John's. The songs on Stealing Genius, composed while Hynes was on a writing retreat at Woody Point in western Newfoundland, were inspired by the works of some of his favorite Newfoundland authors, including Michael Crummey, Stan Dragland, Randall Maggs, Donna Morrisey, Al Pittman and Des Walsh.

For reservations, call 753-4531, or book online at www.rca.nf.ca. To listen to the songs on Stealing Genius, click here.

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To listen to Ron Hynes reading from Rattling Books' audio version of Michael Crummey's Hard Light, click here. Ron Hynes has also narrated Cassie Brown's Death on the Ice, an upcoming Rattling Books title. For more information about Brown's Newfoundland classic, follow this link.

Andy Jones remounts "To the Wall" Oct. 21-24, 2010, St. John's, Newfoundland

October, 2010 - Andy Jones will perform To The Wall in St. John's, Newfoundland.
Thursday, October 21, 2010, LSPU Hall
Friday, October 22, 2010, LSPU Hall
Saturday, October 23, 2010, LSPU Hall
Sunday, October 24, 2010, LSPU Hall
Thursday, October 28, 2010, Reid Theatre (MUN)
www.rca.nf.cahttp://www.rca.nf.ca/

Tickets for this show can be purchased by calling the LSPU Hall at 753-4531 or online at www.rca.nf.ca select box office.

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Letters from Uncle Val by Andy Jones is available from rattlingbooks.com as either an audio CD or digital download. CDs will also be available directly from the artist at performances of To The Wall.

Stephen Pederson on New Ron Hynes Documentary

Halifax-based arts blogger Stephen Pederson takes a look at The Man of a Thousand Songs, a new documentary on legendary Newfoundland singer-songwriter Ron Hynes.

The documentary also features Hynes' nephew, writer Joel Thomas Hynes.

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Ron Hynes is one of three narrator's of Michael Crummey's poetry collection Hard Light: 32 Little Stories, available as an audiobook from Rattling Books. He also narrates the Rattling Books audio edition of Cassie Brown's Death on the Ice (forthcoming in 2011).