Recommended Website: Goodreads

Recently, I joined Goodreads.Com where you can set up your own page, much like Facebook or MySpace. There I list the books I have read and I am currently reading. Looking for friends is easy: you check what they are reading and what books you have in common. Also on the website are many authors, for example Neil Gaiman. I have already gain librarian status and author status.

My book, Jon Hart: Six Tales of the Supernatural, is now listed on Amazon.Com.

At St. Catharines Marina

Spring is near. Spent some time Sunday afternoon shooting seagulls in flight.

John Lennon Biography

Currently I am reading John Lennon, the Life, a big, 800-page-plus biography by Philip Norman. A very detailed and fascinating book, published in 2008.

I took the above photo last March in Taichung, Taiwan, a sketch of Lennon on a utility box sitting near one of the water-control canals in that city.

NOTE: I have made available my books Jon Hart and The Vice Principal as free downloads at Lulu.com. They can now be read without charge in pdf format.
http://stores.lulu.com/northdoorbooks

December Reading

Here are three books I read this month:

Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden tells the story of two Cree Indians who volunteer for the Canadian Army. With shooting skills obtained in the Northern Ontario bush, they become snipers in trench warfare during WWI.

Mafiaboy by Michael Calce with Craig Siverman is the story of a fifteen-year-old living in the suburbs of Montreal, who launches DOS (denial of service) attacks on CNN, Yahoo, eBay, and Amazon in early 2000. The RCMP, with the help of the FBI, arrest him.

Rawi Hage

Cockroach by Rawi Hage is set in the immigrant communities of downtown Montreal. A restaurant busboy, from the Middle East, tells a story with echoes of Kafka's "Metamorphosis", Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers, and Dostoevksy's Notes from the Underground.

Links:
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/
http://mafiaboybook.com/
http://www.anansi.ca/authors.cfm?author_id=441

Recent Movies

Here is a list of movies I've seen recently (October & November):
Fallen Idol (1948) director Carol Reed - based on story my Graham Greene
The Bourne Supremacy (2004) - from novel by Robert Ludlum
Bryon (2003) d. Julian Farino - biography of the poet
Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (2005) d. Lian Lunson - tribute concert to the poet
Sylvia (2003) d. Christine Jeffs - biography based on the lives of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes
Juno (2007) d. Jason Reitman (Canadian) - written by Diablo Cody
Shakespeare Wallah (1965) d. James Ivory - screenplay was a collaboration of James Ivory and writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
A History of Violence (2006) d. David Cronenberg (Canadian) - based on graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, screenplay Josh Olson (for which he nominated for an Oscar for best adapted screenplay).

A further note on Cronenberg's History: I'm tempted to call it a remake of his movie The Dead Zone (1983), not only because he uses small Ontario towns and masks them as American. The plots are similar: man has a secret and must kill his evil twin to survive. Viggo Mortensen = Christopher Walken (and they both have a limp in the movie). William Hurt = Martin Sheen.

See my website for a list of movies seen and books read by me.

Can Lit page

Like many Canadians I don't read as much Canadian literature as I would like. I've just created a webpage to list Canadian fiction writers. It is interesting to note the large number of foreign-born Canadian writers. I started separating the authors by place of birth. If you have info to add to this page, send me an email. http://home.cogeco.ca/~thenorthdoor/giller.htm

Photos shows Joseph Boyden winning the Giller Prize for 2008 (National Post)

The Vice Principal now available for ordering

http://www.lulu.com/content/4323541

see also North Door Books new homepage:

North Door Books