The Heliconian Literary Lecture Series 2018-19
For busy people who like to read
This popular series has been described as a cross between a traditional book club and a university course without exams. This year it will consist of two separate series consisting of nine two-hour sessions, each including a lecture, question period and refreshments. Both series run from September 2018 to June 2019.
There are authors with whom you will be familiar, talented newcomers with whom you will be impressed, and up-and-coming international authors. Once again there are non-fiction titles whose content is timely and informative, and entertaining.
Subscription cost for non-members of the Heliconian Club is $200 including HST (108122466RT0001). Subscriptions can only be purchased online through the BeMused Network (details below). Please remember we sell out early, so purchase your subscriptions as soon as possible. The information about each series is below. The description of each book is at the bottom of this text.
For first-time subscribers, the doors open at 6:45 pm, with the lectures beginning at 7:30 pm, so come early to get the seats you want and to enjoy the refreshments. We will have a bookseller from Ben McNally Books, for the first Tuesday and Thursday in September and the first Tuesday and Thursday in January. They will bring several copies of each series’ books so that you will be able to purchase books for the fall, winter and spring series if you haven’t already managed to get them.
BOTH SERIES ARE NOW SOLD OUT. SINGLE TICKETS ARE NOT AVAILABLE.
This popular series has been described as a cross between a traditional book club and a university course without exams. This year it will consist of two separate series consisting of nine two-hour sessions, each including a lecture, question period and refreshments. Both series run from September 2018 to June 2019.
There are authors with whom you will be familiar, talented newcomers with whom you will be impressed, and up-and-coming international authors. Once again there are non-fiction titles whose content is timely and informative, and entertaining.
Subscription cost for non-members of the Heliconian Club is $200 including HST (108122466RT0001). Subscriptions can only be purchased online through the BeMused Network (details below). Please remember we sell out early, so purchase your subscriptions as soon as possible. The information about each series is below. The description of each book is at the bottom of this text.
For first-time subscribers, the doors open at 6:45 pm, with the lectures beginning at 7:30 pm, so come early to get the seats you want and to enjoy the refreshments. We will have a bookseller from Ben McNally Books, for the first Tuesday and Thursday in September and the first Tuesday and Thursday in January. They will bring several copies of each series’ books so that you will be able to purchase books for the fall, winter and spring series if you haven’t already managed to get them.
BOTH SERIES ARE NOW SOLD OUT. SINGLE TICKETS ARE NOT AVAILABLE.
SERIES I- TUESDAYS
Tuesday, September 4
- Claire Cameron, The Last Neanderthal
- Carol Off, All We Leave Behind
- David Demchuk, The Bone Mother
- Will Ferguson, The Shoe On The Roof
- Claudia Dey, Heartbreaker
- Jocelyn Parr, Uncertain Weights and Measures
- David Chariandy, Brother
- Katherine Ashenburg, Sofie & Cecilia
- Sandra Martin speaking about Michael Ondaatje's Warlight
SERIES II- THURSDAYS
Thursday, October 25
- Michelle Winters, I am A Truck
- Tanya Talaga, Seven Fallen Feathers
- Linda Spalding, The Reckoning
- Linden MacIntyre, The Only Cafe
- Antanas Sileika, The Barefoot Bingo Caller
- Kim Thuy, VI
- Sharon Bala, The Boat People
- Catherine Hernandez, Scarborough
- Suanne Kelman speaking about Min Jin Lee's Pachinko
BOOK DESCRIPTIONS SERIES 1 (Tuesdays)
Claire Cameron: The Last Neanderthal: Forty thousand years in the past, the last family of Neanderthals roams the earth. After a crushingly hard winter, their numbers are low, but Girl, the oldest daughter, is coming of age and her family must travel to the annual meeting place and find her a mate.
Carol Off: All We Leave Behind: An incredible work of non-fiction that reads like a thriller, All We Leave Behind is the true story of a family fleeing the death sentence of a ruthless warlord, written by the journalist who broke all her own rules to get them to safety. Winner of the 2018 B.C. National Award for non-fiction.
David Demchuk: The Bone Mother: Three neighbouring villages on the Ukrainian Romanian border are the final refuge for the last of the mythical creatures of Eastern Europe. Now, on the eve of the war that may eradicate their kind—and with the ruthless Night Police descending upon their sanctuary—they tell their stories and confront their destinies. Finalist for the Amazon First Novel Award.
Will Ferguson: The Shoe On The Roof: Ever since his girlfriend ended their relationship, Thomas Rosanoff’s life has been on a downward spiral. A gifted med student, he has spent his adulthood struggling to escape the legacy of his father, an esteemed psychiatrist who used him as a test subject when he was a boy. It is a novel that questions our definitions of sanity and madness, while exploring the magical reality that lies just beyond the world of scientific fact.
Claudia Dey: Heartbreaker: Seventeen years after falling from a stolen car into a remote northern town, Billie Jean Fontaine is still an outsider. When she vanishes one cold October night, those closest to her begin a frantic search: her daughter, Pony, a girl struggling against being a teen in the middle of nowhere; her killer dog to whom she cannot tell a lie; her husband, The Heavy, a man haunted by his past; and the charismatic Supernatural, a teenage boy longing only to be average.
Jocelyn Parr: Uncertain Weights and Measures: Provocative and compelling, the novel takes place in the heady days of post-Revolution Russia, when belief in a higher purpose was everything. Writing in beautifully incisive prose, Jocelyn Parr vividly captures the ambiance of 1920s Moscow and the frisson of real-life events while also spinning a captivating tale of a love torn apart by ideology and high-stakes politics.
David Chariandy: Brother: Coming of age in The Park, a cluster of town houses and leaning concrete towers in Scarborough, a Toronto suburb, Michael and Francis, sons of Trinidadian immigrants, battle against careless prejudices and low expectations that confront them as young men of black and brown ancestry.
Katherine Ashenburg: Sofie & Cecilia: A story of a lifelong female friendship, set in the art world of Sweden at the beginning of the Scandinavian mid-century modern design movement that was inspiring a creative revolution across northern Europe. Loosely based on the lives of celebrated artists Carl Larsson and Anders Zorn, Ashenburg transports us behind both the public and domestic scenes of these larger-than-life men to reveal the equally astounding and rich stories of the women who married them.
Michael Ondaatje: Warlight: it is the story of fourteen-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war, all of whom seem, in some way, determined now to protect, and educate (in rather unusual ways) Rachel and Nathaniel.
BOOK DESCRIPTIONS SERIES 2 (Thursdays)
Linda Spalding: A Reckoning: It opens in the spring of 1855 when John Dickinson is involved in a shameful secret that will require a tragic decision. The family’s resources have been wasted by a reckless brother, and, adding fuel to John’s desperation, the enslaved workers have been visited by a Canadian abolitionist who pushes them to escape. A Reckoning is the perfect companion to Linda Spalding’s novel, The Purchase.
Michelle Winters: I Am A Truck: A tender but lively debut novel about a man, a woman, and their Chevrolet dealer. Agathe and Réjean Lapointe are about to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary when Réjean's beloved Chevy Silverado is found abandoned at the side of the road--with no trace of Réjean. Set against the landscape of rural Acadia, I Am a Truck is a funny and moving tale about the possibilities and impossibilities of love and loyalty.
Tanya Talaga: Seven Fallen Feathers: From 2000 to 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The seven were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave home and live in a foreign and unwelcoming city. Five were found dead in the rivers surrounding Lake Superior, below a sacred Indigenous site. Tanya Talaga delves into the history of this small northern city that has come to manifest Canada’s long struggle with human rights violations against Indigenous communities. Winner of the RBC Taylor Prize and the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.
Linden MacIntyre: The Only Cafe: Pierre Cormier had secrets. He was especially silent about what had happened to him in Lebanon, the country he fled during civil war to come to Canada as a refugee. In the midst of a corporate scandal, he went missing after his boat exploded. Five years later, a single bone and a distinctive gold chain are recovered, and Pierre is at last declared dead. Which changes everything.
Antanas Sileika: The Barefoot Bingo Caller: Anatas has a keen eye for social comedy, bringing to life such memorable characters as ageing beat poets, oblivious college students, the queen of the booze cans and an obdurate porcupine. Passing through places as varied as the Prime Minister’s office and the streets of Paris, these wry and moving dispatches on work and family, art and identity are to be shared and savoured.
Catherine Hernandez: Scarborough: A poignant, multi-voiced novel about life in a low-income, culturally diverse neighbourhood of Scarborough. The novel offers a raw but empathetic glimpse into a troubled community that locates its dignity in unexpected places and refuses to be undone.
Kim Thuy: VI: Set in Saigon during the Vietnam War, Vi is born into a family intent on protecting her, the youngest. Vi translates literally as “tiny precious microscopic,” but as the armed conflict rages around her, shaping her fate and that of her family’s, Vi’s legacy becomes one of invisibility.
Sharon Bala: The Boat People: When a rusty cargo ship carrying Mahindan and five hundred fellow refugees from Sri Lanka's bloody civil war reaches Vancouver's shores, the young father thinks he and his six-year-old son can finally start a new life. Instead some of the refugees are deemed to be members of a terrorist group and they are thrown into jail.
Min Jin Lee: Pachinko: Spanning nearly 100 years and moving from Korea at the start of the 20th century to pre- and postwar Osaka and, finally, Tokyo and Yokohama, the novel reads like a long, intimate hymn to the struggles of people in a foreign land. Min Jin Lee meticulously reconstructs the relatively overlooked history of the large ethnic-Korean community in Japan, referred to as zainichi.
Claire Cameron: The Last Neanderthal: Forty thousand years in the past, the last family of Neanderthals roams the earth. After a crushingly hard winter, their numbers are low, but Girl, the oldest daughter, is coming of age and her family must travel to the annual meeting place and find her a mate.
Carol Off: All We Leave Behind: An incredible work of non-fiction that reads like a thriller, All We Leave Behind is the true story of a family fleeing the death sentence of a ruthless warlord, written by the journalist who broke all her own rules to get them to safety. Winner of the 2018 B.C. National Award for non-fiction.
David Demchuk: The Bone Mother: Three neighbouring villages on the Ukrainian Romanian border are the final refuge for the last of the mythical creatures of Eastern Europe. Now, on the eve of the war that may eradicate their kind—and with the ruthless Night Police descending upon their sanctuary—they tell their stories and confront their destinies. Finalist for the Amazon First Novel Award.
Will Ferguson: The Shoe On The Roof: Ever since his girlfriend ended their relationship, Thomas Rosanoff’s life has been on a downward spiral. A gifted med student, he has spent his adulthood struggling to escape the legacy of his father, an esteemed psychiatrist who used him as a test subject when he was a boy. It is a novel that questions our definitions of sanity and madness, while exploring the magical reality that lies just beyond the world of scientific fact.
Claudia Dey: Heartbreaker: Seventeen years after falling from a stolen car into a remote northern town, Billie Jean Fontaine is still an outsider. When she vanishes one cold October night, those closest to her begin a frantic search: her daughter, Pony, a girl struggling against being a teen in the middle of nowhere; her killer dog to whom she cannot tell a lie; her husband, The Heavy, a man haunted by his past; and the charismatic Supernatural, a teenage boy longing only to be average.
Jocelyn Parr: Uncertain Weights and Measures: Provocative and compelling, the novel takes place in the heady days of post-Revolution Russia, when belief in a higher purpose was everything. Writing in beautifully incisive prose, Jocelyn Parr vividly captures the ambiance of 1920s Moscow and the frisson of real-life events while also spinning a captivating tale of a love torn apart by ideology and high-stakes politics.
David Chariandy: Brother: Coming of age in The Park, a cluster of town houses and leaning concrete towers in Scarborough, a Toronto suburb, Michael and Francis, sons of Trinidadian immigrants, battle against careless prejudices and low expectations that confront them as young men of black and brown ancestry.
Katherine Ashenburg: Sofie & Cecilia: A story of a lifelong female friendship, set in the art world of Sweden at the beginning of the Scandinavian mid-century modern design movement that was inspiring a creative revolution across northern Europe. Loosely based on the lives of celebrated artists Carl Larsson and Anders Zorn, Ashenburg transports us behind both the public and domestic scenes of these larger-than-life men to reveal the equally astounding and rich stories of the women who married them.
Michael Ondaatje: Warlight: it is the story of fourteen-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war, all of whom seem, in some way, determined now to protect, and educate (in rather unusual ways) Rachel and Nathaniel.
BOOK DESCRIPTIONS SERIES 2 (Thursdays)
Linda Spalding: A Reckoning: It opens in the spring of 1855 when John Dickinson is involved in a shameful secret that will require a tragic decision. The family’s resources have been wasted by a reckless brother, and, adding fuel to John’s desperation, the enslaved workers have been visited by a Canadian abolitionist who pushes them to escape. A Reckoning is the perfect companion to Linda Spalding’s novel, The Purchase.
Michelle Winters: I Am A Truck: A tender but lively debut novel about a man, a woman, and their Chevrolet dealer. Agathe and Réjean Lapointe are about to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary when Réjean's beloved Chevy Silverado is found abandoned at the side of the road--with no trace of Réjean. Set against the landscape of rural Acadia, I Am a Truck is a funny and moving tale about the possibilities and impossibilities of love and loyalty.
Tanya Talaga: Seven Fallen Feathers: From 2000 to 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The seven were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave home and live in a foreign and unwelcoming city. Five were found dead in the rivers surrounding Lake Superior, below a sacred Indigenous site. Tanya Talaga delves into the history of this small northern city that has come to manifest Canada’s long struggle with human rights violations against Indigenous communities. Winner of the RBC Taylor Prize and the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.
Linden MacIntyre: The Only Cafe: Pierre Cormier had secrets. He was especially silent about what had happened to him in Lebanon, the country he fled during civil war to come to Canada as a refugee. In the midst of a corporate scandal, he went missing after his boat exploded. Five years later, a single bone and a distinctive gold chain are recovered, and Pierre is at last declared dead. Which changes everything.
Antanas Sileika: The Barefoot Bingo Caller: Anatas has a keen eye for social comedy, bringing to life such memorable characters as ageing beat poets, oblivious college students, the queen of the booze cans and an obdurate porcupine. Passing through places as varied as the Prime Minister’s office and the streets of Paris, these wry and moving dispatches on work and family, art and identity are to be shared and savoured.
Catherine Hernandez: Scarborough: A poignant, multi-voiced novel about life in a low-income, culturally diverse neighbourhood of Scarborough. The novel offers a raw but empathetic glimpse into a troubled community that locates its dignity in unexpected places and refuses to be undone.
Kim Thuy: VI: Set in Saigon during the Vietnam War, Vi is born into a family intent on protecting her, the youngest. Vi translates literally as “tiny precious microscopic,” but as the armed conflict rages around her, shaping her fate and that of her family’s, Vi’s legacy becomes one of invisibility.
Sharon Bala: The Boat People: When a rusty cargo ship carrying Mahindan and five hundred fellow refugees from Sri Lanka's bloody civil war reaches Vancouver's shores, the young father thinks he and his six-year-old son can finally start a new life. Instead some of the refugees are deemed to be members of a terrorist group and they are thrown into jail.
Min Jin Lee: Pachinko: Spanning nearly 100 years and moving from Korea at the start of the 20th century to pre- and postwar Osaka and, finally, Tokyo and Yokohama, the novel reads like a long, intimate hymn to the struggles of people in a foreign land. Min Jin Lee meticulously reconstructs the relatively overlooked history of the large ethnic-Korean community in Japan, referred to as zainichi.
