Would you like schadenfreude with that?

HEY, Manitoba writers, would you like a side order of schadenfreude with breakfast? An item on The Smoking Gun website has details on several prominent American writers being sued by Penguin to recoup advances for books that authors failed to turn in.

Writers on the list include racoon-eyed bad girl Elizabeth Wurtzel (Prozac Nation, Bitch), Beltway-insider Ana Marie Cox (author of the blog Wonkette), New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead, and Herman Rosenblat, whose story of having food smuggled to him during the Holocaust by a girl he later married was hailed by Oprah Winfrey as the greatest love story ever, just before it was revealed to be a fabrication.

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And now from schadenfreude to envy. Bidding for publishing rights for a proposed book by Lena Dunham, 26-year-old star and creator of the HBO series Girls, has reached US$3.6 million, according to the entertainment website deadline.com.

That's better than $3 for each person who watched the first-season finale in June, or a little less than a buck a viewer counting encore, PVR and on-demand viewing.

Dunham's book is tentatively titled Not That Kind of Girl.

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Canada lost another beloved independent bookstore Oct. 6 when Greenwoods' Bookshoppe closed its doors after 33 years on Edmonton's trendy Whyte Avenue.

Owner Gail Greenwoods writes on the bookstore's website that the decision to close the store was precipitated by the death of her brother and business partner, Brad, earlier this year.

Audrey's Books, across the North Saskatchewan River on Jasper Avenue, remains as the bookselling hub of Edmonton's literary community.

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Three Holocaust-survivor memoirs will be launched in Winnipeg on Monday at an event co-presented by B'nai B'rith Canada.

The authors of the three books -- Judy Abrams (Tenuous Threads), Max Bornstein (If Home Is Not Here), and Felix Opatowski (Gatehouse to Hell) -- will be on hand to sign books, which are being published by the Toronto-based Azraeli Foundation. The launch, at McNally Robinson at 7 p.m., will include a series of short films.

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Red River College instructor and United Church minister Peter Denton believes that the survival of the planet requires that we replace an economy based on exchange with one based on gifts.

That's the idea behind his fourth book, Gift Ecology: Reimagining a Sustainable World, which he is launching at McNally Robinson Monday at 8 p.m. in the travel alcove.

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There's seldom anything creative in the routine business of a non-profit organization's annual general meeting. So once that stuff's wrapped up at the Manitoba Writers' Guild AGM next Saturday, the group is putting on a talk and performance by folk musician Lindsey White.

White, who has two albums and a variety of experiences teaching music to young people to her credit, will talk about the creative process and how she turns an idea into a song.

The performance and lunch runs at noon Oct. 20 at the Free Press News Café, following the AGM, which starts at 9:30 a.m.

 

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Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 13, 2012 J8