Join award-winning Biblioasis author Ray Robertson as he presents Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live. Shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Prize for Nonfiction, Why Not? is a long hard look at the meaning of life--or, in the words of the publisher, is "like Montaigne but with swearing in it." Robertson will be accompanied by short story writer Rebecca Rosenblum, whose collection The Big Dream (as featured in Publisher's Weekly & the National Post) was launched by Biblioasis in September. For more information please see www.biblioasis.com.
ABOUT RAY ROBERTSON’S WHY NOT? FIFTEEN REASONS TO LIVE
Written shortly after recovering from a bout of nearly-suicidal depression, Ray Robertson’s second work of nonfiction is a celebration of what makes life worth living. With essays on Love, Praise, Duty, Intoxication, Friendship, Death, and more, Why Not? is guaranteed to have a broad appeal—just as Ray Robertson’s plain-dealing, music-loving, rolling prose style is to charm. The National Post called these essays “playful and profound, laced with insight from thinkers across a range of disciplines, from music to history, politics to literature, high to low culture" … and we agree.
PRAISE FOR WHY NOT? FIFTEEN REASONS TO LIVE
“These thoughtful meditations on the big questions of life (and death) emerge from mental pain and a writer’s need for whatever helps you make it through the night. Readers will not doubt their authenticity.”—The Globe and Mail
“Playful and profound, laced with insight from thinkers across a range of disciplines, from music to history, politics to literature, high to low culture."—National Post
“So if you’ve ever grappled with existential angst, cried for no good reason or howled at the moon, Why Not? will remind you that you’re not crazy. If you haven’t, I hear Hilary Duff just released her second memoir. And, if you find yourself contemplating jumping from a bridge, here’s an alternative spine worth cracking.”—The Newspaper
ABOUT REBECCA ROSENBLUM’S THE BIG DREAM
When Rebecca launched Once with us, in 2008 it was heralded by Steven Beattie as “the most exciting first book of short stories by a Canadian writer since Munro’s Dance of the Happy Shades.” Rosenblum recently admitted that the quote was “a terrifying comparison to live up to”—but we think her new book, set in the offices of a lifestyle magazine publishing company, has superceded the first. It’s funnier. It’s riskier. Of course, whether it will hold rank alongside Lives and Girls and Women is something for the critics to decide, but for now we’ll just say that Rosenblum’s insight into the quotidian grows keener with every story, and the collection more than merits a look if you can find the time.
It’s also a timely book. The Big Dream is a study of people in the workplace, and how their lives don’t stop just because they’re on the clock. It’s about what Rosenblum calls “the joys and sorrows and sandwiches of waking life.” Given the way that labour has occupied the zeitgeist (not to mention Wall Street, Bay Street, Robson St, and so on), I think people would be interested to hear Rosenblum’s take on how our lives and our jobs intersect.
PRAISE FOR THE BIG DREAM
"In her spry, satirical new collection, Rosenblum (Once) presents 13 dialogue-rich and highly readable vignettes featuring a colorful cast of characters who work for Dream Inc., a foundering Canada-based lifestyle-magazine publisher. There’s the Vice President of Human Resources, forced to lay off customer-service reps while her mother lays dying in a local hospital; the college student on the verge of a nervous breakdown who works in the cafeteria; the corporate-branding specialist experimenting with lesbianism; and the retired exec who can’t quite let go of the dream. None of her main characters are editors; they come from other areas of the publishing industry, and they struggle with such mundane decisions as where to eat lunch and what to do after work. Rosenblum makes these challenges read like monumental events in her characters’ lives (which they no doubt are), and deserves admiration for her well-chosen details and nuanced protagonists.”—PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY
"A clever, penetrating collection ... shrewd, razor-sharp, yet deeply compassionate."—National Post
"Each short story is rich with memorable dialogue, capturing the empty banter, complaints, and flirtations that often fill the halls of an office. Rosenblum’s natural dialogue and descriptive prose result in a collection that successfully depicts the complex balancing act between home and work that so often define the lives of office workers who struggle to stay afloat inside and outside of their cubicles."—This
"Rosenblum is an entertaining master of minutia, she has a prodigious ability to take ordinary details and restyle or adorn them in just the slightest way, transforming the mundane into the eccentric. The stories in The Big Dream come alive with orange-juice stained pillows, Zellers jeans, and jam sandwiches ... The Big Dream thoroughly succeeds ... Rebecca Rosenblum is a gifted chronicler of our time."—The Rover
"Rosenblum as an original, dialogue-strong stylist among Canadian short story writers"—Salty Ink
