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Did you know that downtown Vancouver’s most extensive/incredible used bookstore, Macleod’s, has a Tumblr and they post a photo from their insane collection on it almost every second day? You do now. BOOKMARK!
http://macleodsbooks.tumblr.com
Big news for us! We’ve penned a deal with Arsenal Pulp Press and our resident historian, Lani Russwurm, is currently working on a history book called VANCOUVER WAS AWESOME! Releasing this October, it will be available in bookstores all over Vancouver, and across Canada.
Arsenal Pulp publisher Brian Lam and Lani Russwurm discussing VANCOUVER WAS AWESOME
A few of Arsenal Pulp’s history/local interest titles that I personally love include Charlie Demers’ Vancouver Special, City of Vancouver Book Award finalist V6A, the recent Liquor, Lust and the Law, D.M. Fraser’s Class Warfare, Michael Turner’s Hard Core Logo, and Stan Douglas: Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971 as well as Every Building on 100 West Hastings.
Stay tuned for more details concerning VANCOUVER WAS AWESOME!
Last week we shared the news that troubled Vancouver publisher, Douglas & McIntrye, had been saved by Harbour Publishing (HERE), as well as the news that their imprint, Greystone Books, was also given a second life (HERE), so I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when I received word that another D&M imprint, New Society Publishers, was re-acquired by their previous owners and will continue publishing! The full release is below, I’m not sure what more good news could come out of this bad news about D&M… but of course we’ll keep you posted!
THE OFFICIAL WORD:
In a surprise move, New Society Publishers — a former imprint of D&M — has been re-acquired by its previous owners and D&M creditors Chris and Judith Plant and Carol Newell of Renewal Partnersreall, New Society Publishers’ spokesperson Sara Reeves announced today. Judith Plant will once again take on the role of Publisher and all distribution channels will remain unchanged. D&M, the company that purchased New Society in 2008, declared itself insolvent in October 2012, and the BC book publishing community has been wondering if New Society could be reclaimed.
A mission-driven company, New Society Publishers has for decades published books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and has conducted its business in a way that models that vision, bringing to print authors whose work inspires and offers tools for change.
New Society led the book publishing community in Canada through a collaborative arrangement with Friesens, a leading Canadian printer, by committing to print all of its books on 100 percent post-consumer recycled book paper, and making that paper available on the shop floor, thereby making it ready and affordable for others. New Society was also the first publisher to go carbon-neutral and was named BC Publisher of the Year in recognition of this and other achievements. Recently, New Society has introduced a unique component to its thriving ebook program — New Society’s Guide To Environmentally Responsible Digital Reading.
The “new” New Society will continue to acquire books with an activist focus. For, as publisher Judith Plant says, “Given climate change, ecological limits, the end of cheap energy, and the underlying economic and social collapse here and around the world, the party’s over, as New Society author Richard Heinberg succinctly puts it. We’re at a tipping point, and we need tools, techniques, strategies and inspiration for radical change, now.”
New Society is also embracing other technological challenges facing the publishing industry in the 21st century. Explains Plant, “Of course we sell all of our books as ebooks, and we plan to continue this. But the real challenge as a publisher is adapting to the broader electronic culture. We’re working on proactive ways to harness these technologies to work for our authors in getting their critical messages out to the reading public, in whichever form that public might use.”
“Courage and resiliency are at the core of New Society Publishers’ corporate culture, and this has never been more evident than in the past months,” says Plant, “when our committed, passionate, smart and savvy staff stuck with New Society through uncertainty and constrained working conditions.”
It all gives the distinct impression that if anyone is going to survive this time of turmoil and transition in the industry, this team will.
We love the folks at The 49th Shelf because they’re all about Canadian books. The website is a treasure trove of information about authors, literary festivals, and anything to do with the Canadian book scene. (Check out their Read Local map to indulge your 100-mile book diet.)
One thing they like to do at The 49th Shelf is create thematic lists and this week they’re running a contest to build a list of Canadian books with powerful love stories in them. They’re looking for books that “have made your heart beat harder or broken it at least a little.” We think there are plenty of Vancouver and B.C. books that fit the bill.
You can send them a tweet with the book title and #CdnBookLove, or add the title to a post on their Facebook page. Or go to the website and add it there.
And what’s a contest without a prize? The winner will receive a $150 gift certificate to drop at their favourite local bookstore. And that’s a great way to share the love.
Contest closes at midnight tomorrow night, February 14, 2013.
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Read All Over celebrates the bookworm in all of us, showcasing readers in Vancouver and the books they love most.. |
| V.I.A. is celebrating its 5th birthday and so we thought it would be great to ask our Founder and Editor-In-Chief Bob Kronbauer about the books in his life. As you’ll see, there’s a heavy dose of local writers, fishing, with some hijinx thrown in for good measure. |
What are you currently reading? Your thoughts on it?
Right now I’m juggling The Art of the Impossible by Rod Mickleburgh and Geoff Meggs as well as a biography on Roderick Haig-Brown written by his daughter. Both are biographical so it almost feels like I’ve been taking a class for the past few weeks. My next read will hopefully be complete fluff.
How do you like your books served up best – audio books, graphic novels, used paperbacks, library loaner, e-reader…?
I hope to never get an e-reader. Ever. When I worked as a professional photographer I was okay with the end of film, just because the technology of digital can’t be argued with, but I struggle the idea of not holding a book in my hands when reading. I value them as design items and I also love collecting them as trophies, and as personal markers. I can pick one up off of my shelf and remember the point in my life and the and the headspace I was in when I read it.
What books have changed your life?
When I read The Story of B back in my 20′s it really set in my mind that if I had children, I would only ever have one. David Suzuki’s The Legacy hammered the point home; I’ve fathered one child and recently got a vasectomy. We’re done. …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>
This is, by far, the best news I’ve received all year: troubled Vancouver publishing house Douglas & McIntyre (whom I have often cited as my favourite publisher in the world) is about to get bought by BC’s own Harbour Publishing. This is second only to the NEWS that another BC publisher, Heritage House, came in and saved the Douglas & McIntyre imprint, Greystone Books, a few days back.
Authors, photographers, artists, and our most inspiring humans have been celebrated in the mostly BC-centric pages of more than 500 titles that D&M have released over the last 40 years, and if someone didn’t come in and save them a gigantic hole was about to be left in the printed culture of our province. Read more in THIS piece from the National Post.
This is, thankfully, not the last cover of a Douglas & McIntyre catalog ever produced
Here’s the release from Harbour:
DOUGLAS & MCINTYRE FORGES ALLIANCE WITH HARBOUR PUBLISHING
Madeira Park, British Columbia — February 6, 2013
Douglas & McIntyre, the original imprint of British Columbia’s long-time flagship book publisher, will live to see another day thanks to a new alliance with Harbour Publishing, another long-established British Columbian publisher. Harbour owners Howard and Mary White reached an agreement to purchase assets associated with the famous imprint from its former owner, D&M Publishers Inc., it was announced today.
D&M Publishers Inc. published under two imprints, Douglas & McIntyre and Greystone Books. During reorganization the imprints have been separated and sold as individual entities. The Douglas & McIntyre imprint dates back to 1971 when the original publishing company was co-founded by Jim Douglas and Scott McIntyre. The Douglas & McIntyre list is made up of some 500 titles including the Giller-Prize-winning novel The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skribsrud; the CBC Canada Reads contender Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese; British Columbia: A New Historical Atlas by Derek Hayes and works by such eminent Canadian authors as Emily Carr, Bill Reid, Wayson Choy, Doris Shadbolt, Wade Davis, Bill Richardson, Douglas Coupland, Will Ferguson and others.
Harbour Publishing, based on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast, was started by Howard and Mary White in 1974, and is known for its focus on regional titles about British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. The Whites plan to operate Douglas & McIntyre as a separate company with its own editorial direction, maintaining the press’s focus on First Nations, art, fiction and books directed at the national and international market. All Douglas & McIntyre titles will continue to be distributed by Harper Collins in Canada with no interruption of service.
White had been “concerned, like everyone else,” when D&M filed for creditor protection last year. “I have been admiring Douglas & McIntyre since we started publishing books together 40 years ago,” White says. “I just felt if there was a role for Harbour to play in keeping that great program going, we had to do it.”
Harbour has successfully partnered with other presses in past, including Nightwood Editions, Caitlin Press, Bluefield Books and Lost Moose Books. None of these was the size of D&M and White doesn’t underestimate the scale of the new undertaking.
“We plan to take it one step at a time,” he says, adding that he we will be contacting D&M authors over the next few days and urging them “to work with us to make sure this great Canadian publishing tradition carries on for years to come.”
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