Prime Picks
Canada Reads quiz
Posted by Words At Large Admin on November 29 at 12:34 PM
Get ready, readers: Canada Reads is back with a great new line-up of Canadian fiction and celebrity readers poised to defend their favourite books!
Earlier this week, Jian Ghomeshi, host of CBC Radio's arts show Q and Canada Reads, joined Shelagh Rogers on Sounds Like Canada to launch the seventh edition of Canada's favourite title fight. Guess along with Shelagh as the clues play out about this year's great panelists, authors and books.
If you already know the score, listen anyway to hear great clips, learn more about all the players and enjoy the banter between Jian and Shelagh.
Listen to Jian quizzing Shelagh (audio). First aired November 28, 2007 on Sounds Like Canada.
[runs 21:04]
Check out all the books and panelists on the Canada Reads website. There's a 20% sale on the books until Sunday night. After that, you still get a free Canada Reads tote bag if you purchase all five titles. Or try to win a set in the weekly contest at Canada Reads.
Visit the site over the next three months for new exclusive audio and features, and be sure to catch the debates online or on CBC Radio One from February 25-29.
Musicophilia
Posted by Words At Large Admin on November 24 at 09:59 AM
Dr. Oliver Sacks was born in 1933 in London, England into a family of physicians and scientists (his mother was a surgeon and his father a general practitioner). Aside from his book Awakenings, which later inspired a play by Harold Pinter ("A Kind of Alaska") and the Oscar-nominated feature film with Robert De Niro and Robin Williams, he's best known for his collections of case histories from the far borderlands of neurological experience.
His most recent book is Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (Knopf). In it he explores the power music wields over us–a power that sometimes we control and at other times don’t.
Eric Friesen interviewed Dr. Sacks about his latest work (audio). First aired October 23, 2007 on Studio Sparks.
[runs 19:42]
The Unnatural History of the Sea
Posted by Words At Large Admin on November 11 at 11:59 PM
All around the world, the oceans are in crisis. Fisheries are collapsing, as long-liners and factory trawlers vacuum the oceans clean, devastating entire species and ecosystems. Our appetite for fish and seafood is leading to what many scientists think is a global fisheries disaster. According to Dr. Callum Roberts, however, there's nothing new about this. As soon as humans first took to the oceans, we started over-exploiting them. But in his new book, The Unnatural History of the Sea (Island Press Books), Dr. Roberts tells us that history can teach us how to save the seas today.
The Unnatural History of the Sea by Dr. Callum Roberts (audio) First aired on Quirks and Quarks, October 20, 2007
[runs 17:40]
The Dirt on Clean
Posted by Words At Large Admin on November 06 at 08:49 AM
Not since the Roman Empire have people been so clean. Today, we live in a deodorized world where germophobes shake hands with their elbows and where sales of hand sanitizers, wipes and sprays are skyrocketing. Katherine Ashenburg’s latest book The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History (Knopf Canada), is a spirited chronicle of the West's ambivalent relationship with the washed and unwashed body.
The Dirt on Clean, by Katherine Ashenburg (audio)
[runs 26:06]
First aired November 3, 2007 on Talking Books.
Katherine Ashenburg is the prize-winning author of three non-fiction books and hundreds of articles on subjects that range from travel to mourning customs to architecture. She describes herself as a lapsed Dickensian and as someone who has had a different career every decade. Her work life began with a Ph.D. dissertation about Dickens and Christmas, but she quickly left the academic world for successive careers at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a radio producer; at the Toronto newspaper The Globe and Mail as the arts and books editor; and most recently as a freelance writer, lecturer and teacher.
Her first book, Going to Town: Architectural Walking Tours in Southern Ontario, won the Ontario Historical Society's award for best regional history. Her second book, The Mourner's Dance: What We Do When People Die, was a finalist for two important prizes. She's a regular contributor to the Sunday Travel section of The New York Times and she writes a column on design and architecture for Toronto Life magazine.
Um...Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders and What They Mean
Posted by Words At Large Admin on October 22 at 10:38 AM
Pardon us if we suffer any verbal stumbles...the ums, the uhs, the slips of the tongue. Some see "ums" as a sign of weakness, and they desperately try to avoid letting them slip out. They argue that these kinds of verbal hesitations detract from what you're really trying to say. Others argue that you can communicate a lot more through a thoughtful and sincere “um” than through polished squeaky-clean speech.
And Sometimes Y host Jane Farrow talks with a speech coach who trains people to get rid of their verbal hiccups...as well as the author of Um...Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders and What They Mean (Pantheon).
Um, by Michael Erard (audio)
[runs 7:27]
First aired October 13, 2007 on And Sometimes Y.
Rick Mercer Report: The Book
Posted by Words At Large Admin on October 12 at 08:44 AM
"He'll rant and he'll roar like a true Newfoundlander"...well at least the first part. Rick Mercer has returned to CBC TV for a fifth season of his popular show. He's gathered some of his so-called rants and other writing from the last four years of the show in a new book called, Rick Mercer Report: The Book (Doubleday Canada).
Rick Mercer (audio)
[runs 20:00:00]
Aired September 21, 2007 on Sounds Like Canada.
Rick Mercer has selected the best of his rants from the first four seasons of RMR, sprinkled in choice moments from his interviews, added a generous helping of other material that has never been broadcast, and arranged the whole into revealing themes and groupings with all-new introductions, reflections, and updates.
Words at Large is CBC’s online destination for Canadians who love books. Look for something new every day, from CBC programs and podcasts, to interviews with writers and more. Stay tuned for our newly designed and expanded site.
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