Fall 1990 Book Catalogues

Eve Corbel

There are a few hun­dred book pub­lish­ers in Canada, most of them pro­duc­ing between one and fif­teen books a year. Few of us ever get to see pub­lish­ers’ whole lists and only some of us get to see their cat­a­logues (which are usu­ally dis­trib­uted to book­stores and libraries). But what bet­ter way to test the tem­per of the times, than by look­ing at how pub­lish­ers present them­selves and their prod­ucts to that amor­phous entity, the Market? Here are some of the notes gen­er­ated by a head­long rush through a ran­dom pull from the fall lists. Alphabetic by pub­lisher. (If you’d like to see any of these cat­a­logues, drop me a line.) The Blizzard cat­a­logue, for starters, is very jazzy — inside and out, form­wise and con­tent­wise. This is a new drama spe­cial­ist and a hot one, ha ha. Carol Shields (Departures and Arrivals) is on page 1, Connie Gault (The Soft Eclipse) on page 2, and so on. All with lush visu­als and draw-you-in type. However, the word “pres­ti­gious” appears twice in a 12-line publisher’s intro. Stare at the Brick Books cat­a­logue for 1 minute with­out blink­ing, then look at your friend and watch her nose swim before you. Inside the cat­a­logue, it gets bet­ter: poetry and fic­tion that actu­ally look read­able. I’ll let you know what I think of A Season of Mourning (Frances Itani) and Amanuensis (Phil Hall). You let me know about Rediscovered Sheep and Rack of Lamb. The 4-colour image on the Cormorant cat­a­logue is very arty indeed. It is less arty in black and white on page 1, but it accom­pa­nies From the Foot of the Mountain (Claudia Morrison), fic­tion set in ancient Rome and inspired by Jonathan Schell. What a com­bi­na­tion! Nino Ricci’s Lives of the Saints and Yuen Chung Yip’s The Tears of Chinese Immigrants also say “Read me.” The Coteau Books cat­a­logue is très chic and post­mod­ern. Lead title: On Air (Wayne Schmalz), a his­tory of radio in Saskatchewan. Companion vol­ume: Studio One, radio plays, illus­trated here with a photo of Donald Sutherland per­form­ing earnestly. Then the Herstory cal­en­dar and Wishbone, Reg Silvester’s, um, episodic short fic­tion? This cat­a­logue has lots and lots of words in it. The Douglas & McIntyre cover is a glossy colour clown-pig paint­ing, which may tempt you to buy the collector’s edi­tion of Scott Watson’s Jack Shadbolt: $575, but it’s signed, eh? Page l: Jack Webster’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy. Who cares? Better: An Iron Hand Upon the People (Cole & Chaikin), about when pot­latches were out­lawed. Elsewhere: bears, box­ing, pipelines, cat lifestyles. Goose Lane’s cat­a­logue looks a bit like an annual report. Lead title: The Landscape of Craft (George Fry), a real New Brunswick book with pic­tures of locally cre­ated objects. Page 2: The Real Klondike Kate—author Ann Brennan claims she was from New Brunswick. Don’t miss page 12: Arab-Canadian Writing from York Press. Goose Lane dis­trib­utes a lot of smaller presses and the cat­a­logue is amaz­ingly easy to fol­low. Guernica’s is the only pocket-sized cat­a­logue in the lot. Also the only com­pany whose lead title is 2 years old and whose new books are buried in later pages. This press has been passed by and put down for pub­lish­ing unfash­ion­able eth­nics, which is a good enough rea­son to have a look. Be the first on your block to try Writers in Transition (Minni & Ciampolini) or Conscience and Coercion (Gualtieri). Oh boy, a col­lec­tion of Harbour pub­lisher Howie White’s own writ­ings. Writing in the Rain — per­fect title. Also a new Raincoast Chronicles, a new Spilsbury (Spilsbury’s Album), Don Graham’s Keepers of the Light in paper, and other tempt­ing stuff. I’m cheat­ing, there’s no cat­a­logue here. But I heard about these books any­way, which is just as good. I give up, what’s the phal­lic peach-and-white graphic on the cover of Mercury (for­merly Aya)’s cat­a­logue? Anyway the cat­a­logue has great spe­cial effects — beige paper (recy­cled?) between glossy white cov­ers. Page 1: Cary Fagan’s City Hall and Mrs. God, a sort of Down and Out in Toronto. Page 2: Poetry Markets for Canadians. Looks good, but I still can’t fig­ure out that cover image. With its name and promi­nent tulip motifs, Netherlandic has a focus that can’t be missed. The lead title is Radiant Life Forms, poems by Diana Brebner, but more intrigu­ing is Buffaloberries and Saskatoons: Dutch-Canadian Stories and Poems. In a spring release, Naked Trees, John Terpstra med­i­tates on human-tree rela­tion­ships, from tree-o-philia to tree-o-phobia. Sarah Murphy’s new sto­ries (Comic Book Heroine) lead the NeWest pack. Then ecol­ogy essays, plays, poetry, fic­tion. And Women of Western Canada, an anthol­ogy sell­ing for $13.95 (as com­pared to the usu­ri­ous $16.95 of M&S’s new trade paper Native anthol­ogy). Very dar­ing back­list sec­tion, called “Backlist” instead of a silly euphemism. More dar­ing, a photo of the pub­lish­ers up front. New Star’s big fall book: A Death Feast in Dimlahamid—about Tibet, right? No, it’s the third world here at home, the Gitksan-Wet’suwet’en fight for land claims. A must-read. So are Where the Fraser River Flows, about B.C. Wobblies, and Getting the Goods, Information in B.C.: How to Find It, How to Use It. This cat­a­logue and Pulp Press’s are the only ones made of newsprint. Why? Newsprint always looks great. Cool Blues, Nightwood’s lead title, does not fool me: Charlie Parker was not a Canadian. The press redeems itself, how­ever (I’m guess­ing) by pub­lish­ing or re-publishing Al Neil’s novel Changes. And a revived 1941 “clas­sic mur­der mys­tery.” The real mys­tery: just what are those lit­tle dingbat-symbols at the end of each book descrip­tion? I read the whole Nu-Age cat­a­logue, hop­ing to find out at last what the new age is. (I still don’t know; do you?) Page 1: Muhla, the Fair One, a mag­i­cal tale about a young girl “trapped in the body of a spirit mon­ster.” Page 2: Dance Agenda, a cal­en­dar with pho­tos of bod­ies con­torted into con­tem­po­rary art posi­tions. Page 4: Community Care & Participatory Research. Whew! Oolichan’s lead title is The Golf Widow’s Revenge (P. J. Smith), which was excerpted in Cosmo. Also on page 1, A Canadian Challenge (Christian Dufour), an essay about the place of Quebec in Confederation. Inside, essays, prose poems, novel, and a his­tory of the salmon can­ning indus­try. And a (pre­sum­ably unre­touched) photo of Ogopogo. Orca fea­tures Katie Ekroth’s Lionheart, about her 6-year-old son’s heart-lung trans­plant. It’s billed as the story of Matthew’s courage; I bet his mum’s no slouch either. Some books for young peo­ple, the story of west­ern Canada’s Cordillera, and, for the per­son who has every­thing, Ian Baird’s Canadian Pacific Railway Stations in B.C. Penumbra is an inter­est­ing press with a per­fectly beau­ti­ful cat­a­logue. The intro says their “focus will con­tinue to be the North — as well as, in this catalogue’s instance, the polar South.” Eh? I yearn to read the Ernst Barlach mem­oir (A Seltold Life ? really? not Selftold?) but not the “post-modern poet­ics” with a “crit­i­cally aware text.” Try the meta-Canadian (tri–lin­gual!) count­ing book. Eeeuuuu, the Porcépic cover! A gross bug crawl­ing towards someone’s hand. Oh, and a com­puter chip, they must be fea­tur­ing the sci­ence fic­tion line. A sur­prise on the inside front cover — pho­tos of the book jacket design­ers! The third Tesseracts anthol­ogy is com­ing up. More entic­ing: The New Landlords: Asian Investment in Canadian Real Estate by D. Gutstein. Porcupine’s Quill’s lead title: Looking Good, the story of a bird and her cur­tain. No, not a book. Something about their list of chi-chi design prizes? Ah, got it. The bird is on the cover of Quickening, fic­tion by Terry Griggs. Ray Smith’s Cape Breton is the Thought Control Centre of Canada might be as good as The Lord Nelson Hotel. Anyways, it’ll look great. Pottersfield’s cat­a­logue is longer on con­tent than style, a ratio I pre­fer to the oppo­site. It has a good hit of mar­itime his­tory: Atlantic Outposts (Thurston), about ordi­nary folks inhab­it­ing Atlantic Canada, Native Song (Woods), poems and paint­ings by a native Black Haligonian, and The Man Who Built Churches. I hope the pub­lisher leaves big­ger mar­gins in the books than in the cat­a­logue. Classy and under­stated, Press Gang’s cat­a­logue is full of exu­ber­ant author pho­tos. And it’s not sta­pled, so recy­cle worry-free! Page 1 fea­tures Telling It, cre­ative writ­ing and med­i­ta­tions on who gets to tell whose sto­ries. Also Sojourner’s Truth by Lee Maracle, and fem­i­nist tales from boot camp. Read every­thing they pub­lish and don’t miss the Wonder Woman poster. Pulp Press’s cat­a­logue cover is bright red with dead fish on it! It’s for the Salmon Year Itch cal­en­dar. Inside, Bridget Moran’s Judgement at Stoney Creek, D. M. Fraser’s posthu­mously pub­lished Ignorant Armies, and no fewer than three new Little Red Books. Allan Lamport actu­ally said, “I get up at five o’clock in the morn­ing no mat­ter what time of day it is.” Whoops, the Quarry cat­a­logue isn’t quite at press, I’m look­ing at page proofs. Big fall book: Canadian Christmas Stories, by the usual list of lit­er­ary lumi­nar­ies. Snore. Page 2: Essays by Doug Fetherling on Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell … z-z-z-z-z. Later on, poetry from “arguably the best spir­i­tual poet in Canada.” Definitely time for a snooze. Ragweed/Gynergy offers a gen­er­ous cat­a­logue full of grin­ning women. Dark jew­els is a novel by Rita Donovan, whose work has dis­ap­peared in lit­er­ary jour­nals across the coun­try. Pages 4 – 5 were pre­pared by some­one who just fig­ured out desk­top pub­lish­ing and wants to use up all the tricks right now. Good thing they’ve got poems by Liliane Welch, Brenda Brooks, and Marg Yeo. Self-Counsel S.E.R.I.E.S. Is any­one else sick of those lit­tle dots between let­ters? The press still deliv­ers legal info, and blows with the wind by offer­ing lifestyle self-help. So there’s The GST Handbook for small busi­ness­folk, and how to sell stuff, cook your own din­ner, exhibit at trade shows. And, while doing all that, how to cope with stress. In the Simon & Pierre cat­a­logue are poems about cats, fic­tion set in Brazil, audi­tion pieces for hope­ful actors, ponderous-looking med­i­ta­tions on how to pro­duce Shakespeare plays. All printed up in black and green. The first book listed is the Canadian Book Review Annual (Wilson & Tudor) — now there’s some bath­room read­ing for you. Talon’s fall flyer fea­tures fab­u­lous foto on front by Frank. Leonard Frank, that is. An Enterprising Life is the big book, about the pho­tog­ra­pher who doc­u­mented B.C.’s early work his­tory. Talon also has two plays, the third Jovette Marchessault (White Pebbles in the Dark Forests), and some poetry described with phrases like “tex­tual gam­bits” and “kinetic sit­u­a­tion.” My eyes went right to page 3 of the Thistledown cat­a­logue, which says author Béla Szabados is “fas­ci­nated by auto­bi­og­ra­phy and self-deception.” The book, In Light of Chaos, looks intrigu­ing any­way. There’s new fic­tion by Cecelia Frey, some kid stuff, and The Eleventh Commandment, a col­lec­tion of Mennonite sto­ries trans­lated from the Low German by Andreas Schroeder. CanFolkFic? Even though the Tsar cat­a­logue has few graph­ics to relieve the tedium of desk­top Times Roman set too tight, the list is most invit­ing. Those Who Eat the Cascadura (S. Selvon): novel set in Trinidad. (Should we watch for an updated edi­tion?) Still Close to the Raven: poems by Rienzi Crusz, an Asian Canadian. Indenture & Exile: The Indo-Caribbean Experience (Birbalsingh). Etc. I almost missed the Wolsak and Wynn cat­a­logue, it looks so much like a PR piece from a hotel chain. But no hotel would sub­ti­tle an oeu­vre A Glossary of the Intertext (Ghosts, by Stephen Scobie). Anyway, many of these, ah, texts are prize-winners, so they must be good, eh? Check out the last title on the list, The Third Taboo, no less than 58 Canadian poets writ­ing on jealousy.