Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 30, 2006, Winnipeg, Manitoba Sunday july 30, 2006 b4 editor Morley Walker / 697-7307 email books new Bond. James Bond a new James Bond novel will be published in 2008 to Mark the 100th anniversary of creator Ian Fleming a birth. The identity of the new author is to be kept a secret until the Book is published the Reuters news Agency reports. We Are delighted to have secured this particular author who we have had in mind for some time now Corinne Turner of Ian Fleming publications is quoted in the report. The Book is to be released in May 2008. No publisher has been revealed. Several writers have been authorized by Ian Fleming publications Ltd. To write Bond novels since Fleming a death in 1964, including Kingsley Amis and John Gardner Reuters reports. Fleming wrote 13 or 14 Bond novels the authorship of thunderball is dispute beginning with Casino Royale in 1953. Production on the film adaptation of Monica Ali a Booker nominated novel Brick Lane has been disrupted. Businessmen and activists in London a bangladeshi Community Are opposed to the the film and have a Campaign against it. Street blockades had been threatened the guardian newspaper reports if the company filmed on location. Protesters believe Ali a 2003 Book degrades Syl Metis the mainly Muslim group that forms the majority of Britain a bangladeshi Community. Organizers of the Campaign Are threat ening to Burn the Book at a rally today. The Book caused a similar stir when it was first published. On the Road Jack Kerouac a classic account of his trek across America will be published in its original unedited ver Sion the associated press reports. John Sampas executor of Kerouac Slit Crary estate and brother of Stella Sam Pas Kerouac a third wife said he has signed a contract with Viking press which first published on the Road in 1957. The aim is to have the rerelease Book out by the end of next year the 50th anniversary of the publication Sampas told a. Incidents in the original some refer ring to drugs and sex were censored at the time Sampas says in the report. The new version of the Book will be in Book form but taken from Kerouac a Origi Nal 120-foot, Coffee stained scroll which is touring . Museums and libraries. Brandon poet Laurie Block has been awarded a residency this summer at the Patricia Blondal memorial writers Retreat in Arnes the Manitoba writers Guild has announced. The Retreat was established in 2001 by the Guild to give working writers a place of peace and concentration in which to work during the it is named for Souris born poet Patricia Blondal who died at 32 in 1959, and who was published Only posthumously. Winnipeg born blocks time out of mind is to be published by Hoolichan books in British Columbia this year. The collections Winnipeg launch is scheduled for october. Blocks website is . New in paperback. In audience of chairs Vintage Canadas. Johns based author Joan Clark tells the Story of Moran a Mackenzie a woman who lives alone in a Cape Bre ton farmhouse fighting the symptoms of mental illness and grieving the loss of the two daughters who were taken from her More than 30 years ago. Novelist and Short Story writer Mark Helprin a Freddy and Fredericka pen Guin paperbacks is a farcical fairy tale about a Peculiar British family. Novelist Marita Wolff 1918?2002 wrote six novels. She hid her seventh a Book about american marriage and poli tics in 1970 called sudden rain Scribner reprinting her refrigerator for 30 years. The wreckage Anchor Canad aset in 1940s St. Johns and a pow Camp in Japan is author Michael Crummey s second novel. The summer of my amazing Luck Vintage Canada reissue by award winning local writer Miriam Toews was originally published in 1996. Its the Story of a single Mother living in a Public housing Complex in Winnipeg. Phill Snel / Maclean a blurred vision unauthorized incomplete biography does to do Justice to Urban observer Jane Jacobs life work these decades but her american biographer hurries past them. Following some irksome comments about Canada apparently we re obsessed with All things Yankee she closes with a Chap Ter called the quintessential american As if to minimize the significance of Jacobs chosen citizenship. Perhaps the most unfortunate feature of this Book however is its subtitle at which its subject would surely have scoffed Urban Jacobs did to envision any of the things of which she wrote instead they emerged from her careful intelligent and pragmatic observations of what already existed but which visionary postwar planners had no patience or understanding to see. The term visionary is much More suited to the sort of men Jacobs railed against her whole life ? men like freeway Baron Robert Moses and St architect be Cor busier both of whom concocted Urban visions that were so often imposed contemptuously and without regard for the wishes of those most affected. In a sense Alexiou has done a very Simi Lar thing in disregarding Jacobs wishes she has imposed a narrative Over the life of a woman who did not wish one. Ultimately Jane Jacobs Urban vision Ary misses being a significant contribution to what will doubtless be an emerging body of literature re appraising the legacy of Jane Jacobs. Michael Dudley is a research associate and librarian at the Institute of Urban studies at the University of Winnipeg. A loser nah. Just an obnoxious name Dropper reviewed by Morley Walker smart Aleck British writer Toby Young is up to his old tricks again. In his lightweight but amusing new Memoir a sequel to 2002?s How to lose friends and alienate people he continues to portray himself As an obnoxious failure a hapless Guy who blows every Opportunity to climb the Greasy pole of celebrity journalism. The ploy seemed disingenuous enough Back then. Here was a Chap after All who mixed with the likes of Ber Magazine editors Gray Don Carter and Tina Brown. But this time the phoney self deprecation wears thin indeed. He quotes his first books negative reviews to give the impression that it was universally panned. Yet on the Back jacket the the sound of no publisher reproduces the hands Clappi Graves Young is a self Dep a Memoir relating Tom Wolfe Hilar by Toby Young ious lifestyles of the Rich de Capo press 269and shameless Etc., Etc. Pages $33 which is it More obnoxiously throughout no hands clapping the Oxford educated Young drops hints that he is really a Well connected and successful cosmopolitan. On an air plane trip to Kenya to attend a friends wedding he sits beside Morgan Entrekin one of new Yorks most respected publishers. He serves As the Best Man at another friends wedding where among the vip guests is the Chan cellar of the exchequer the no. 2 Man in the British la de a. Young name drops several prominent friends from Boris Johnson the editor of prestigious spec Tator Magazine to movie actress Elizabeth Hurley. Even when the anecdotes recount his fights with famous people its hard to escape the conclusion that real losers Don to move in these exalted circles. The sound of no hands clapping opens with Young taking a phone Call from a prominent Hollywood Mogul who wants him to write a screenplay based on the life of a repellent american record producer. Youngs adventures in the screen Trade provide the Backbone for the insider tales he relates though they re not As dishy As the Magazine gossip he spilled in vol. 1, largely because he does to name As Many names. Also Many of his anecdotes seem exaggerated beyond acceptable limits. Maybe like James Frey a a million Little pieces this Book should have been released As a novel. Mind you Young writes with comic flair and he produces several decent sections. Carter is Back again this time showing his vain Side in emails he sent to Young regarding his portrayal in vol. 1. There a also an insightful chapter in which Young discusses Why ambitious journalists want to Trade in newspaper work for something less ephemeral. But too much of the material is painfully hum drum As though he has emptied the contents of his electronic daytime. The cloying Domestic stuff is truly a waste of space. Good grief. He a not sup posed to be Bill Cosby. By the end Young continues to fail upward. He is a restaurant critic with one British newspaper and a drama critic with another. He has written a successful West end play he has penned a treat ment of his screenplay and he has fathered two children by what remains of his first wife. Spare us the Crocodile tears. No hands clapping this is a Guy to whom life has Given a standing ova Tion. Arts columnist Morley Walker edits the free press books pages. Reviewed by Michael Dudley j Ane Jacobs who passed away in april two months away from her 90th birthday was the author of seven groundbreaking books Deal ing with cities economics and institutions. Best known for her startlingly original observations in the death and life of great american cities 1961jacobs contradicted conventional thinking about cities by demonstrating How they actually worked rather than How planners thought they ought to work. American journalist and classicist Alice Sparberg Alexiou believing that the Story of so important a person must be told has written an engaging ? but frustratingly incomplete ? account of Jacobs life and writings. Alexious narrative reveals that from an Early age Jacobs sought her own answers and stood up to authority for causes she believed in. This trait she would bring years later to her famous Battles to save Greenwich Village from Urban renewal and freeway projects. Despite comparing Jacobs to a biblical Prophet Alexiou is no starry eyed acolyte and does not hesitate to criticize her subject. For example although Jacobs advocated Community driven a slumming Alexiou Points out that Jacobs never addressed the problem of institutionalized racism and its Impact on the ability of minority groups to Anslum their ghettos. The Lead up and reaction to the Publica Tion of death and life form the Core of the Book. But after Jacobs 1968 move to Toronto because her sons were eligible for the . Military draft Alexiou brings Jacobs Story to a hurried superficial conclusion either because the author appears to lose interest or because she has run out of material. The latter is most Likely. One of the unfortunate weaknesses of the Book is that Jacobs refused to co operate with the author going so far As to ask that her publisher do the same. Undeterred Alexiou proceeded without Jacobs bless ing. She might have been Wiser to have respected her subjects wishes although parts of the Book Reward the Jacobs aficionado reasonably Well the Reader can to quite forget that Jacobs herself sought to thwart the project. Even on its own terms though there is simply not enough material Here to qualify As an actual biography and because of the inattention paid to Jacobs Post death publications her final Book dark age ahead merits Little More than a sentence neither can it serve As an Overall appraisal of Jacobs considerable intellectual contributions. In the absence of genuine personal recollections Alexiou interviewed a Host of urbanist and colleagues but not alas for Mer Winnipeg mayor Glenn Murray who counted Jacobs among his friends. Alexiou also resorts to two unfortunate tendencies speculation and padded descriptions of the times and places in which Jacobs lived. Because Jacobs latter books which Alexiou neglects fall within her Canadian years the Domestic Reader will be left wanting to hear More about ;