One of the five Canadian books selected for Canada Reads 2009 is Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes. Published as Someone Knows My Name in the USA, Australia and New Zealand, the book appears in Canada as The Book of Negroes. Lawrence Hill’s gripping novel features a woman on an amazing journey in the 1700s and 1800s. Although her life is shaped by slavery, Aminata Diallo survives and even transcends adversity.
Joan Rivers’ plastic-surgery adventures are as well-known as her penchant for joking about them. She’s just published a new book on the subject, Men Are Stupid… And They Like Big Boobs.
And as Rivers tells Scott Simon, her new book — subtitled “A Woman’s Guide to Beauty Through Plastic Surgery” — doesn’t hold back any details.
“It’s a procedure, and you should know what’s going on and you should take it very seriously before you make your decision,” Rivers says. With several doctors in the family, she says she grew up hearing about such work.
But Rivers is also still doing comedy. And as usual, she’s sure to say something that will outrage, shock or offend someone.
“Your Brain on Blog” Video: Andrew Sullivan and Marc Ambinder discuss the narcotic appeal of blogging and the occupational hazards of thinking quickly.
Why I Blog by Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic, November 2008.
Listen to Eleanor Wachtel interview Mavis Gallant on Writers & Company at the CBC’s Paris studio.
At 86, Mavis Gallant’s mind is as quick and engaged as ever. Her memory, like her writing, boasts a remarkable precision, an attention to detail that goes back to her days as a journalist for the Montreal Standard.
Although she maintains her Canadian citizenship, Gallant has lived in Paris since the 1950s. Since then she has published more than 100 stories, most of which first appeared in the New Yorker magazine, where she continues to publish.
Short skirt, warm jacket — a new Chanukah song by My First Earthquake. Download the MP3: http://tinyurl.com/45wpys Directed by Eric Slatkin, starring Rebecca & Dave from My First Earthquake.
This Christmas I am giving you a pied-à-terre. True to form with all my construction projects, it isn’t finished yet. I hope it never is.
I will help you make a house key for yourself at wordpress.com so you can move right on in and make of it whatever you wish. I look forward to working on it with you, and the deed comes with a lifetime commitment to WordPress learning and support. You can’t get a better real estate deal than that these days!
About the image: Notre Dame de Paris shimmers on a December night. [Photo by M. Bob]
A witty cultural and culinary education, Immoveable Feast is the charming, funny, and improbable tale of how a man who was raised on white bread—and didn’t speak a word of French—unexpectedly ended up with the sacred duty of preparing the annual Christmas dinner for a venerable Parisian family.
Ernest Hemingway called Paris “a moveable feast”—a city ready to embrace you at any time in life. For Los Angeles–based film critic John Baxter, that moment came when he fell in love with a French woman and impulsively moved to Paris to marry her. As a test of his love, his skeptical in-laws charged him with cooking the next Christmas banquet—for eighteen people in their ancestral country home. Baxter’s memoir of his yearlong quest takes readers along his misadventures and delicious triumphs as he visits the farthest corners of France in search of the country’s best recipes and ingredients. Irresistible and fascinating, Immoveable Feast is a warmhearted tale of good food, romance, family, and the Christmas spirit, Parisian style.
The Pied-à-terre is a place where Mark and JoAnn share their work and dreams. Like their love, its scope and prospect know no bounds! 
![Getty Images/NPR]](https://piedatere.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/rivers_200.jpg?w=150)
A witty cultural and culinary education, 
Pied-à-terre 