Taken from Google Images

Firth is a shoe-in for Best Actor, and the film is the favourite to take Best Picture. Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter may or may not walk away with Best Supporting Actor/Actress wins, and while everyone is expecting David Fincher to take Best Director, imagine the upset if Tom Hooper walked away with it.

If you think of it, Hollywood has had a massive affinity for the Royal Family in recent years. Helen Mirren won Best Actress for playing Queen Elizabeth in The Queen back in 2006. (If you remember, this film was about the Royal Family in the aftermath of Princess Diana’s death, and how the Queen was criticized for isolating her family. Mirren was superb.) There were rumours of a move specifically about Prince Harry (called The Spare) in the works, and well, now that we have a royal wedding in our midst, you better believe someone somewhere is pitching a movie about Prince William and soon-to-be Princess Kate. Let’s not even dive into all the films about other royals, fictitious royals, etc, or we’d be here all day.

The point is, royalty has consumed the cinema and beyond. The Windsor Family continues to dominate modern media in all forms, really – magazines, gossip blogs, and books.

Yes, we at Dundurn have been bitten by the Royalty bug. We’ve done a few books on the royal family, the most recent being Royal Tours, 1786-2010. This is a look at all of the trips members of the royal family have made to Canada, starting with the first official state visit and finishing with the Queen’s tour around town this past summer.

Even though I can’t personally count myself as a Royal Family Expert, it was quite interesting to flip through this book and see how the family – and the nature of the state visits – has changed over the years (or, rather, centuries). I mean, there’s a picture of Prince Charles and Prince Andrew from the 1970s. Who knew Prince Andrew was such a babe?

On Sunday night we’ll see if the Royals will walk away with Oscar Gold, but I think it’s safe to say that this won’t be the last film we see set at Buckingham Palace.

I’ll be honest — I had no idea. So, I eagerly watched the tweets pile in with answers to the question. Interestingly, everyone was answering Lila Adams (and I think I know why) even though, officially, the answer was Aune Paavola Newell. According to the archive listing of people sentenced to hang in Canada, Mrs. Newell was strangled by her husband Hugh with her own stocking in 1940 (more of this story is available in Ed Butt’s Murder, if you want to read it. I’m not sure I do).

But, this issue of two Silk Stocking Murders fascinated me, and I found myself digging around on the internet, reading about Silk Stocking Murders — and more — both in Canada and abroad (sorry, productivity…). Sherlock Holmes solved a case of a silk stocking on TV, we have our own poor Mrs. Newell on Centre Island, and the mysterious Lila Adams, murdered in Cabbagetown (you can learn more about her case in Line of Fire.

This googling led me pretty deep into cases of Canadian murders and, more comfortingly, crime fighters — the man who solved the Lila Adams mystery, of course, but also a woman referred to as the Sherlock Holmes of Saskatchewan. I wait with bated breath for the release of 100 More Canadian Heroines, a book that looks at her in more detail. The Sherlock Holmes of Saskatchewan! Who knew?!

The number of interesting cases here in Canada was astounding, and all of this from a nose-dive internet search for “silk stocking murder canada”. I’m looking forward to the rest of Murder Week

If you’re new here (it’s okay, we love every fan of Canadian books here at Dundurn!), The Deadly Conch is the latest and last book in Mahtab Narsimhan’s exciting, stunning, award-winning Tara Trilogy. I read the first book in the series, The Third Eye, while I was still a bookseller, long before I had even seen the Dundurn office. The complex blend of adventure, feminism, mythology and… more adventure really appealed to me, and I almost wish I was in middle school again (almost) — it’s the perfect book for a fantasy-loving kid with a head full of ideas.

And if you happen to know a kid like that (or a whole group of them), we’ve got free Teacher’s Resource Guides available for the whole trilogy.

So when he tells us he knows something about the new GM Volt Electric Car, well, I’m inclined to listen.

Apparently, despite the car’s pretty exterior and claims of green-ness, the Volt is “hype and deception.”

Phil says, “In a nutshell, the claims of substantial fuel savings and fewer greenhouse emissions are bogus.”  He kindly sent us a press release about it — you can read the whole story after the jump (or, read more warnings and car news on his website at lemonaidcars.com).

GM’s Volt Electric-Car: Hype and Deception, says Lemon-Aid Author

Lemon-Aid New Cars, Trucks, Vans and SUVs author Phil Edmonston says GM’s just-launched 2011 electric-car, the Volt, is an expensive, high-tech toy that neither has the range nor the fuel savings hyped  by General Motors.

“After emerging from bankruptcy, GM is using the Volt as its ‘halo’ car to showcase the automaker’s high-tech prowess and commitment to fuel economy and a cleaner environment. Yet, there is mounting evidence that the vehicle serves no environmental or economic purpose and that the U.S. $5 billion subsidy given to Detroit automakers to develop electric cars was a colossal waste of money.

J. D. Power and Associates has just released a damning 72-page report that confirms what many other independent analysts have found: electric cars cost too much; they require a huge federal subsidy ($7,500) to bring the Volt’s price down to $33,500; other conventional small cars are just as fuel frugal; and the Volt’s range without a recharge may be half of what GM promises (http://businesscenter.jdpower.com/news/pressrelease.aspx?ID=2010213).

The Power study also targets the high cost of battery pack replacements that can vary between $5,000 and $15,000 for a hybrid or plug-in and that “the disposal of depleted batteries presents yet another environmental challenge.

“Furthermore, electric-cars and hybrids use rare earth elements that are processed almost exclusively by China in highly toxic plants, thereby shifting our dependence from relatively benign Middle East oil to a greater dependency upon China’s lethal monopoly.

In a nutshell, the claims of substantial fuel savings and fewer greenhouse emissions are bogus—just as bogus as the previous tax-payer rip-off from billion-dollar subsidies used to promote corn-based ethanol fuel,” says the Lemon-Aid author. In fact in 2009, the U. S. based National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council concluded: “Subsidies in the tens to hundreds of billions of dollars…will be needed if plug-ins are to achieve rapid penetration of the U. S. automotive market.”

And, even if the money could be found, the Council warns that plug-in hybrid electric vehicles won’t significantly impact oil consumption or carbon emissions before 2030. Though percentages for the U.S. are expected to be higher – around 14% – the better piece of electric-car market will belong to non-plug-in hybrids like the Prius and Ford Fusion Hybrid. The Power report also predicts that a mere 1% to 2% of new car sales in 2020 will be in the form of full-electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids.

Other independent researchers who have echoed this conclusion are Deloitte Touche, Boston Consulting Group, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, professor Harry Lee at Harvard’s Belter Center for Science and International Affairs, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Energy Initiative.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row

Like many Canadian children, I memorized this poem for assemblies on November 11th every year. Even now, it makes me choke up a little. What a sad, sad piece — “We are the Dead” still makes me shiver. I hope never to break faith with those who died. So, today, I honoured the moment of silence at 11, and I will wear my poppy with pride. All of us here at Dundurn will do the same.

I am, however, an adult now, and while my childhood connection to the poem is a visceral one, I hope to be able to learn more about the soldiers of Flanders fields now that I’m old enough to understand what it means (maybe). So, like Karen, I plan to take the opportunities working at Dundurn has given me and spend some time with Hell in Flanders Fields, a book about the 1st Canadian Division at the Second Battle of Ypres on the 22nd April, 1915. Word around the office is that it’s gripping — and a bit sad — with maps, letters, and diaries, but it’s also a story of courage and hope. I think that’s a good combination for Remembrance Day.

Cool, right? So I spent some time wandering around Youtube looking at other lacrosse videos (it was research, I swear!) and I watched some pretty exciting clips (I won’t post them here — it would clutter this post up something fierce! But I recommend checking them out on Youtube). I still won’t say I know all that much about lacrosse, and I probably won’t turn into a fanatic, but I will probably pick up Arctic Thunder and I might actually watch a game or two on TV.

Maybe becoming a fan of our other national sport will make up for skipping that gold medal game?

I’m not saying that how one person interacts with people is precisely how he or she would interact with a books, but it’s a fascinating way of thinking to see the pattern:

Reading books can be very similar to meeting people — and to some degree, the similarity is brought to light through the frequently-used expression and analogy “don’t judge a book by its cover”.

More importantly, books and people, have influence over your thinking (even the most absolutely boring ones) and have an impact on your life.  How many books have you read that have changed your life or the way you think?  Similarly, how many people have you met that have made an impact on you?  How have they influenced the way you live and think?

To some degree, books have a life-span (not age wise) that is very similar to individual people.  Just as we read books and gain knowledge or understanding, we also gain to some degree — almost the same from a particular perspective — from interacting with other people.

In terms of differences, the content of books rarely change — only the interpretations change; while people are pretty dynamic — our opinions change — what we think of an issue, how we feel about one another, where we want to be in the future, etc.

What we find in books is very much what we discover hidden in every individual — both require time to unravel and unveil.  Perhaps one (of the many proposed) future of books is not just simply bringing content electronically and allowing universal access regardless of device, but providing a platform where the content can become dynamic … a story with characters that change not just across pages, but over time with a reader’s interaction.

Just for the record, I’m not suggesting a form of Wikipedia or anything that currently exists.  I just wanted to muse about the similarities between books and people.

Having had the opportunity to work at Dundurn for nearly three years has been both challenging and a pleasure.  With the help and support of the many people I’ve been lucky enough to work with from day to day; share ideas and enthusiasm with, and learn so much from — it has almost always been a pleasure.  Thank you.  Unfortunately, this will be my final blog post here at Defining Canada.  I will be passing the torch over to Erin Winzer when it comes to the matters of blogging.  She blogs more than I do these days anyways…

Thank you as always for dropping by.  I’ll be watching from the sidelines (with a little online participation) as the evolution of  the book continues to occur around the world.

Well, if you’re not able to make it to the El Ateneo Bookstore in Buenos Aires, Argentina, here’re some things we’ve stumbled across (thanks to the many people that shared them with us over twitter) that perhaps you may want to try out … when you’re not reading:

Construct Something With Your Books … a house, staircase, maybe even a bookshelf?

Line up your book spines and see if there’s a connection

Sculpt from books

Turn the books into a masterpiece work of art

Arrange all of Your Books according to colour

We’ll be closed for the holidays until January 5th 2009 so if you happen to visit us and begin wondering if we’re still around. Don’t worry, we’ll be back … or perhaps we’re just in the midst of laying out the schematics to actually constructing a castle out of books…

For those who are not as keen on literary fiction (like myself), perhaps the fact that two local newspapers had good things to say about Carpenter’s latest work may encourage you to take a peek into Twelve Trees:

“A beautifully written but coldly realistic tale of an empty life unfolds in this novel.” — Carol Ross Williamson, The Guelph Mercury

“Carpenter has skillfully brought together an array of dysfunctional characters and blends them together into a seamless and believable story which engages the reader form[sic] beginning to end.” — Joel Nash, The Intelligencer

What is bibliographic data?
First let’s face reality, every product in any market contains many elements and characteristics. These elements and characteristics need to be conveyed throughout the supply chain — from the producer to the distributor to the retailer and finally to the consumer. These may be lists of ingredients, sizes, quantity and price for food products or with computers, there would be specifications, colour and dimensions included. There are many more details involved — I just wanted to highlight a few examples.

For books we deal with almost every tiny detail of the book — just to list a bunch — the type of production (format), the categories, the title, the depth, the weight, the number of books that fit into a box, the publication date, and even the type of barcode that’s on the back of the book! All of these details are inputted into a database. Each week I gather up this information together for many of our books and export it into what we call an ONIX file.

What’s an ONIX file?
ONIX files are XML based files that are structured accordingly to a standard set out by an international body containing various stakeholders in the book industry. These files contain all of the information pertaining to each book that has been or will be published. Feel free to read more about the ONIX file here.

What do we do with these … ONIX files?
We then submit this ONIX file to various retailers, data aggregators, wholesalers, and distributors so that the customer will find the book. We also upload any new or updated cover images with this ONIX file. Of course each recipient of each ONIX file has some slightly different requirements but they are generally all standardized.

Why ONIX files?
Try working with many many Excel spreadsheet files — each recipient having their own way of setting up rows and columns. Enough said.

How do we keep up with what details are required?
Thankfully we’ve got friends at Booknet Canada who are looking out for any major changes to the ONIX data standard. They keep us not only up-to-date but also up to par with regards to the standard to ensure order amidst the craziness that is metadata for books.

The Biggest Challenge
The biggest challenge is monitoring all of the details for the forthcoming books and backlist titles and making sure book covers and descriptions are up-to-date. Thankfully everyone generally chips in and authors provide a little help by keeping watch over their own title every so often too. If you like to work with details, this stuff will provide you with your regular fix!

I could keep talking about ONIX data but I’ll stop now. Just wait till we get to the e-books…