Category: Books

Eminem Reveals All In New Memoir
Eminem has returned in a major way. The 36-year-old rap superstar’s re-emergence comes four years after his last studio album, three years after he was treated for a sleep medication dependency and two years since the violent death of his best friend and the collapse of a second marriage to his childhood sweetheart.
His new track, “I’m Having a Relapse,” has caused a stir on the Web and is fueling talk of a new record and tour. But before Eminem moves forward musically, he first is taking a step back with a memoir out tomorrow (Oct. 21) that shares quite a few revelations about a man whose autobiographical lyrics have tantalized fans for years.
In “The Way I Am,” the man born Marshall Bruce Mathers III takes readers into his painful childhood and adolescence and inside the studio and beyond as the former Detroit factory floor sweeper and short-order cook enters the rap game and becomes a worldwide hip-hop sensation.
The book is 200-plus pages worth of text, behind-the-scenes photographs and reproductions of Eminem’s original lyric sheets — hotel stationery and other scraps of paper he used to scratch out partial verses of the songs that would make him famous.
Eminem may not love being in the public eye, but he loves music, and that’s drawn him out, said publisher Brian Tart, president of Dutton Books, an imprint of the Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
“I think he doesn’t like being famous, but he sure likes being an artist,” Tart said. “Getting away from the trappings of fame was something he needed to do. But in his bones and his blood, he’s an artist.”
The book kicks off with a prologue that provides one of the reasons Eminem has shunned the spotlight for the past few years. He describes in-depth just how difficult it has been for him to come to grips with the loss of his longtime best friend and fellow rapper Proof (Deshaun Holton), who was gunned down at a Detroit after-hours club in April 2006.
“After he passed, it was a year before I could really do anything normally again,” Eminem writes. “It was tough for me to even get out of bed, and I had days when I couldn’t walk, let alone write a rhyme. I have never felt so much pain in my life. It’s a pain that is with me to this day. A pain that has become a part of who I am.”
It was Proof, he says, who not only urged him to become an emcee, but also served as a “ghetto pass” — allowing the white Eminem the street cred he needed to enter Detroit’s black-dominated hip-hop scene.
“If Proof hadn’t gotten me … into the rap game, I don’t know where I’d be,” he writes. “I certainly wouldn’t be someone you’ve heard of.”
But millions of people have heard of him, and what they know of Eminem largely is based on his lyrics, his outsized public persona and the 2002 semi-autobiographical film, “8 Mile.”
“The Way I Am” answers a few lingering controversies and questions, including his 2000 arrest for pistol-whipping a man who kissed his wife (“Guns are bad, I tell you”); his substance-abuse problem (“I’m glad that I realized it and set myself in the right direction”); the flap over his perceived homophobia (“Ultimately, who you choose to be in a relationship with and what you do in your bedroom is your business”); and ethnicity (“Honestly, I’d love to be remembered as one of the best to ever pick up a mike, but if I’m doing my part to lessen some racial tension I feel good about what I’m doing.”)
Eminem also recounts his early years, living in public housing in Savannah, Mo., before moving to Detroit. He discusses the hurt he felt at never having known his father, the complicated relationship with his litigious mother and the suicides that ended the lives of his two uncles.
After he made the move to the Motor City, Eminem describes being a quiet outsider at school, having his home repeatedly robbed, getting pummelled by the police and later bouncing between dead-end jobs trying to make ends meet to provide for his then-wife, Kim, and daughter, Hailie.
But things turned in his favor when Proof urged him to start rap-battling at Detroit’s Hip Hop Shop. He made a name for himself in his home city by trading insult rhymes with fellow battlers and eventually branched out, competing in rap battles in Ohio and California. It was in Los Angeles that Eminem was spotted by an assistant in the office of Interscope Records executive Jimmy Iovine.
Before long, rap icon Dr. Dre came in to help produce what would become Eminem’s ticket to stardom, 1999’s “The Slim Shady LP.” While the pair had worked out the songs, Dre said the album lacked the image of what the Slim Shady character should look like.
A drug-fueled impulse buy took care of that problem. After two hits of Ecstasy, Eminem popped into a drugstore and on a whim purchased a bottle of peroxide. He threw some on his head and the platinum blonde hair and white T-shirt Slim Shady look was born. “I wasn’t thinking that the peroxide thing was going to be my look,” he writes. “I was just being stupid on drugs.”
Along the way, he’s had more than a few quirky high-profile run-ins, many of which he touches upon in the book: a fling with Mariah Carey, a performance with Elton John at the Grammys and the televised tiff with hand-puppet Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
Still, as he prepares to again enter the public eye, a more grounded, mature Eminem says he’s trying to keep everything in perspective. Music is important, but being a father to three girls — Hailie, niece Alaina and another girl, Whitney, who isn’t biologically his — is where it’s at.
“All three of my girls call me Daddy,” he writes. “They’re all loved the same and they all get the same treatment. Because of my success, I’ve been able to provide for them in ways my family never could for me. That’s what it’s all about.”

Stoker descendant resurrects Dracula for sequel
Drawing from handwritten notes by Bram Stoker, the horror author’s great-grandnephew is set to pen a Dracula sequel entitled Dracula: The Un-Dead.
The new project is the first story authorized by the Stoker family and estate since the 1931 film starring Bela Lugosi.
The forthcoming Dracula: The Un-Dead ó apparently the title Stoker had intended for his original before an editor changed it ó is slated for release in October 2009 in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. Film rights to the new story have also been sold, with production tentatively scheduled to begin in June 2009.
Dacre Stoker, a former Canadian Olympic pentathlon coach who is now based in the U.S., will co-write the new novel with Dracula historian and screenwriter Ian Holt.
Not having read his ancestor’s 1897 novel until college, Dacre Stoker told the U.K’s Guardian newspaper that he decided to prepare a research paper on the original story and his great-grand-uncle’s motivation in writing it.
“Because the novel was so good and had stood up so well over the years, I found it exceedingly sad that all of the trash Hollywood had put out monumentally sullied Bram’s and my family’s literary legacy,” he told the paper.
After meeting Holt, the duo decided to work together “to give both Bram and Dracula back their dignity.”
The sequel will be set in 1912 and will chronicle trials faced by Quincey, the son of Stoker’s original young hero Jonathan Harker.

Martin memoirs slamming ChrÈtien leaked ahead of election
About a week before the federal election, a Quebec newspaper has published leaked excerpts from former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin’s memoirs detailing his bitter rivalry with Jean ChrÈtien.
Martinís autobiography,Hell or High Water, is expected to arrive in bookstores in three weeks, but Le Devoir obtained one of the book’s final drafts and published its contents on Monday.
The revelations from Martin, who reportedly has counselled StÈphane Dion during the campaign, are likely to challenge the Liberal leader’s assertion that his party is united heading into the Oct. 14 vote.
The paper reports that Martinís book details his childhood, his climb to the top job at Canada Steamship Lines, his years in politics, and how he and ChrÈtien disliked each other right to the end.
According to the paper, Martin devotes several chapters to his bid to take over leadership of the party from ChrÈtien and the two years he served as prime minister, in which he accuses ChrÈtien of putting their rivalry ahead of the good of the party.
ChrÈtienís changes to party financing rules and the way he managed the sponsorship scandal also seriously hurt the Liberal brand, Martin is quoted as writing.
Martin also writes the collateral damage victim of the war between the two men is Dion, as the Liberal party in Quebec is but a shadow of its former self.
Sponsorship report a ‘time-bomb’
Martin goes on to write that one of ChrÈtienís most inexplicable decisions was to cap donations to political parties at $5,000, which he said hurt a party that was used to generous donations from banks and larger corporations.
Martin also writes that he was furious at ChrÈtien for proroguing Parliament in November 2003, thus delaying the “time-bomb” of the auditor generalís report into the federal sponsorship program until he took over the leadership of the party.
That meant ChrÈtien avoided having to deal with the sponsorship scandal and left it squarely in Martinís hands, he writes. If ChrÈtien had accepted the report while still in office, that would have shown a sense of responsibility and would have protected the future of his party, Martin wrote.
“We ended up losing the communications battle on the sponsorship question. Honestly, I don’t know if it could have been won,” the paper quotes him as writing.
But Martin writes he has no regrets doing his national “mad as hell” tour in calling for an inquiry into the sponsorship program.
Zaccardelli slammed income trust probe’s handling
Martin also offers scathing words for former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli over the Mounties announcing a probe was being launched into the former Liberal government’s handling of an income trust taxation decision in the middle of the 2006 federal election.
Some analysts have said news of the investigation contributed to the defeat of Martin’s Liberals at the hands of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives in January 2006. In the end, the Mounties charged a senior civil servant in the Finance Department with breach of trust.
Martin writes that the only question is whether Zaccardelli’s action “can be explained by ineptness or whether it was a premeditated malicious act.
“In my view, no one can be that inept,” he writes.
Earlier this year, the Mounties’ complaints chair said he found no evidence to suggest Zaccardelli deliberately meddled in the last election, although the former commissioner refused to co-operate with the complaints body or shed any light to his motives for releasing sensitive information during the campaign.
Zaccardelli resigned in late 2006 after admitting he gave misleading testimony to a House of Commons committee into the deportation and imprisonment of Maher Arar.

Hot commodity Tina Fey lands book deal
Fresh off recent wins at the Emmy Awards as well as a trio of brilliant cameos on Saturday Night Live, Tina Fey is now set to tackle her first book.
Little, Brown Book Group confirmed on Monday that it has signed a book deal with the award-winning comedian and comedy writer.
Though the publisher did not reveal any financial details, nor the book’s subject matter, New York media has been buzzing about the deal for about a week.
Last week, the New York Post had reported that the deal was in excess of $5 million US and that, rather than a memoir, the project was reportedly a non-fiction collection of humour essays.
The 38-year-old SNL alumna is riding a tidal wave of acclaim for her pitch-perfect parodies of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, on the venerable late-night sketch show.
Last month, she and her sitcom 30 Rock ó in which Fey stars as the head writer of a sketch comedy show ó scored four Emmy Awards, including its second consecutive win for best comedy series, an award for comedy writing and best comedic actress and actor trophies for Fey and Alec Baldwin.
After three weeks portraying Palin in sketches on Saturday Night Live, it’s expected that Fey will continue in the role until the U.S. election on Nov. 4.
The new season of 30 Rock begins Oct. 30.
Fey’s other credits include writing and appearing in the film Mean Girls and starring in the film Baby Mama.

Sean Connery’s memoirs no “kiss and tell”
EDINBURGH (Reuters) – If you are looking for kiss-and-tell stories about the Bond girls or movie town gossip, Sean Connery’s memoirs are not for you.
More of a coffee table book, the renowned Scottish actor’s autobiography, “Being A Scot,” is a heavyweight tome written in collaboration with Scottish film maker Murray Grigor.
The book, launched on Connery’s 78th birthday this week at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, relates his 1930s childhood in the poor Fountainbridge area of Edinburgh.
He details his break into acting by way of milk delivery boy, the Royal Navy (invalided out with ulcers), art college model, bodybuilder, and — almost — professional footballer.
But the book is sparse on intimate detail, with Connery apparently shy of revealing too much of his inner self, or of any of the rumored liaisons he may have had.
A passionate Scot, he devotes much of the well-illustrated work to Scotland itself, its history, art, literature, architecture and poetry. He lives, however, in the Bahamas, having vowed not to reside in his homeland until it achieves independence.
The Bond films made him world famous. He is regarded as having defined the movie role of Ian Fleming’s James Bond, following his initial appearance as British secret agent 007 in the first of the series, Dr No, in 1962.
He appeared in seven Bond films, the last of them, “Never Say Never Again” in 1983, regarded as an unofficial production outside the official franchise. In his memoirs, however, there are only half a dozen one-line references to Bond, although Connery does credit his passion for golf to the need to develop a convincing swing to outwit Goldfinger in the 1964 film of that name.
He was equally discreet at the book launch. Asked if he had a favorite leading lady, he replied, “Not really, no.” The book is published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson at 20 pounds.
The original idea was for the leading Edinburgh publisher Cannongate to publish, but the Scotsman newspaper reported Cannongate owner Jamie Byng had walked away from the deal due to irreconcilable differences over the book’s contents.
Reviewers seem to have been caught off guard by the book. Only the Sunday Times, whose sister publication The Times had published extracts, gave it a lengthy review. But even reviewer Christopher Hart concedes the long-awaited autobiography turns out not to be an autobiography at all.
It is about Being A Scot, not being Sean Connery.

Former Bond Sean Connery launches autobiography
EDINBURGH, Scotland – He’s recognized around the world as the iconic face of James Bond. But in Britain, Sean Connery is also well known as a proud Scot, and on Monday he returns to his hometown to launch his autobiography.
“Being a Scot” looks at Connery’s early life as a milkman in Edinburgh’s Fountainbridge neighborhood, then delves into a wide-ranging look at Scottish culture including the work of poet Robert Burns, novelist Sir Walter Scott and Mary, Queen of Scots.
“It will illuminate what Fountainbridge’s most famous former milkman thinks of many aspects of Scottish culture and life, including sport, architecture, and of course the gothic tendency in Scots literature,” said Edinburgh International Book Festival director Catherine Lockerbie.
Connery is a vocal supporter of the pro-independence Scottish National Party. He lives in the Bahamas and has said he will not reside in Scotland until it gains independence from the United Kingdom.
He was the first ó and, many say, the best ó Bond. In a six-decade career, Connery also starred in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” “The Hunt for Red October” and “The Untouchables,” which earned him an Academy Award for best supporting actor.
The unveiling of “Being a Scot” coincides with Connery’s 78th birthday. The actor is appearing at the book festival alongside his co-author, the filmmaker and writer Murray Grigor.
The Edinburgh event is one of Britain’s leading literary gatherings, and runs alongside jazz, comedy and performing arts festivals in the Scottish capital each August.
Among the 800 authors appearing at the Aug. 9-25 festival are Salman Rushdie, Louis de Bernieres and Margaret Atwood.

Julie Couillard plans to write autobiography
An autobiography of Julie Couillard, the woman at the heart of a scandal involving former foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier, will be published this fall.
The autobiography, to be published in French and English, was announced Friday by both Les Editions de l’Homme, Quebec’s largest publishing house, and English Canada’s McClelland & Stewart.
“Her book will recount a unique life from her modest beginnings in a working-class neighbourhood of Montreal to her spectacular emergence on the national scene last May,” McClelland & Stewart said in its release about the autobiography.
No terms of the book deal were disclosed.
Bernier resigned as foreign affairs minister in May only hours before Couillard described in a television interview how he had left classified briefing documents for a NATO summit at her Montreal home. The two had recently ended their relationship.
It was then revealed that Couillard had been involved with three men who had ties to the Hells Angels, going back to the 1990s.
McLelland & Stewart said Couillard would chronicle her life from childhood experiences, through the tragic death of her companion in 1990s biker gang wars, to her meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush while at Bernier’s side.
“Julie Couillard will reveal the details of a life marked by both tragedy and exhilaration,” the release said.

Sean Connery to unveil autobiography at festival
EDINBURGH (Reuters) – Sean Connery is set to shake and stir this year’s Edinburgh Book Festival by unveiling an autobiography on his 78th birthday.
The Scottish actor who defined the role of British secret agent James Bond and his literary collaborator, film maker Murray Grigor, discuss the book at the festival on August 25, organizers said on Thursday.
Connery, a passionate Scottish nationalist who has sworn not to live in his home country until it is independent, has titled his memoirs “Being a Scot.”
As the book festival celebrates its 25th anniversary, director Catherine Lockerbie told Reuters she had been keeping an eye on Connery’s autobiography through its various incarnations.
Edinburgh-born, Connery once delivered milk in the city and posed as a model at the College of Art before hitting the big time.
“His book obviously had to be launched with us,” Lockerbie said.
BIGGEST IN THE WORLD
The literary feast, with a record 800 authors participating in 750 events from August 9-25, runs alongside the international arts festival, the anarchic fringe and a series of exhibitions in the biggest annual celebration of its kind in the world.
Connery’s appearance also coincides with the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ian Fleming, creator of British superspy James Bond, otherwise known as agent 007.
Author and comedian Charlie Higson will launch the fifth and final episode of his successful Young Bond series, while the authorized biography of Fleming, “For Your Eyes Only,” will feature at the festival.
Lockerbie has sought to attract authors from around the world.
Focus on China brings writers from the world’s most populous nation, while themes on the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel and fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq are covered in the festival’s “East and West” and “War and Terror” series.
Lockerbie said the international aspect was key to the festival.
“I have been steadily working to increase the number of nations and cultures represented … I think there’s a strange disjunction between a globalize, homogenized, shrinking world, in one respect, and the fact that we still don’t understand other cultures, points of view.
“And it seems to me that with the arts in general, and literature in particular, is a key vehicle for understanding, and that’s been a mission of mine.”
Tickets can be booked online at www.edbookfest.co.uk.

Book from `Sex and the City’ film doesn’t exist
NEW YORK – A consumer alert for the millions who have seen the “Sex and the City” movie: There is no such book as “Love Letters of Great Men,” which Carrie Bradshaw reads while in bed with Mr. Big.
The closest text in the real world apparently is “Love Letters of Great Men and Women: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day,” first released in the 1920s and reissued last year by Kessinger Publishing, which specializes in bringing back old works.
Richard Davies, press manager for AbeBooks.com, an online seller that features used titles, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he has received hundreds of queries about the book’s existence.
Enough readers have been directed to the Kessinger anthology, on AbeBooks and elsewhere on the Internet, that it ranked No. 134 on Amazon.com on Tuesday afternoon.
In “Sex and the City,” an early scene shows Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) poring over the imaginary collection, although citing real letters by Beethoven and Napoleon among others. Big (Chris Noth) later takes passages from the book as he expresses his love, by e-mail, to Carrie.

The End: Canada’s oldest bookstore shut down
Canada’s oldest bookstore, located in Halifax, has come to the end of its final chapter and closed its doors on Saturday.
The 169-year-old Book Room survived wars and the Great Depression, but couldn’t outlast the vagaries of today’s retail and economic realities.
“The market reality is really changing,” said owner Charles Burchell, who described how a book was delivered to his store by mistake around Christmas time. The Book Room sits on the bottom of an apartment building; an online order was made by a tenant upstairs.
“The book was on our shelf, so they could have come down in two minutes and picked the book up, but they chose to order by computer and wait five [to] seven days for it to come in,” Burchell told CBC Radio.
Burchell said the Christmas of 2007 was his worst on record in the 42 years he’s run the bookstore.
He added that the straw that broke his store’s back was the dual pricing of books, with higher prices in Canada than in the U.S.
He accused publishers of not reacting quickly enough to the rising Canadian dollar. Books take about three years before they reach the market, with the selling price already set. Burchell said that model is archaic in today’s world.
Special ordering
The store has served the Halifax community since 1839, and customers said the closing will be like a family member gone missing or dying.
“Book people are quite close,” noted Dawn Underwood, one of the shop’s final clients.
“It’s one of those Ö unique little, you know, sort of businesses where you know a lot of people and you’re close with your customers, you’re close with writers and Ö you become a family.”
Burchell said the store’s first owners fostered a strong bond with its customers. He said newspaper ads from the old days show how considerate the first owner was.
“It said that anybody wanting special books that he didn’t have, to let him know before Christmas because the last ship leaving before the winter would take the request and it would come back in the spring when the ice was all gone with their special order books.”
Carol Nielson, who has been a customer for 18 years, said she will miss the unique qualities that go with a local, independent bookstore.
“Because it’s rather small and personal compared with some of the larger ones, and you get to know the staff and they have provided good service.”
It’s not just bibliophiles bidding a sad goodbye. The store was also a special place to the area’s authors, one of whom posted a farewell message on the Book Room’s website.
“After months ó sometimes years ó of solitude working on our manuscripts, the Book Room would welcome us and make us feel special. It was a rite of passage,” Allan Lynch wrote.