Exciting news!

The Babble Book Club presents a special discussion with Lynn Coady, author of The Antagonist, subsequently our newest selection, on Sunday, March 4, 12:00 p.m. PST/3:00 p.m. EST.

That's right, author Lynn Coady has so kindly agreed to join us on the babble forum to answer questions about her novel The Antagonist and impart some knowledge and insight into her writing.

I had a great time being a "book" in the Human Library this Saturday. This was the first time a Human Library has been organized in Ottawa on this scale. It came about as a unique partnership between CBC Ottawa, the Ottawa Public Library and the Canadian War Museum.

So, what is a Human Library? 

According to the Human Library website:

The Human Library is an innovative method designed to promote dialogue, reduce prejudices and encourage understanding.The main characteristics of the project are to be found in its simplicity and positive approach.

The big day is upon us tomorrow! Who's excited (me)?!

For those unfamiliar will the babble forum here is an excellent link that discusses what the babble forum is, how to sign up, FAQs and other tidbits! The babble forum will be our primary place for discussing the book club, but I will try and post some questions or links for everyone on our Facebook group as well!

So please get signed up and ready for tomorrow -- it is easy, completely free and you can use whatever name you would like (permitting no one else is using it!).

Hey all!

Just a quick reminder that the Babble Book Club has its final discussion of selection Haruki Murakami's The Wind Up Bird Chronicle on Sunday, Jan. 15 at 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EST (10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. PST) in the babble forum!

The rabble book lounge is proud to present a new approach to our Book Club: the babble Book Club! In the babble book club we take a more traditional style by choosing the same book, picking a timeline and then letting the conversation fly between everyone!

The babble Book Club was conceived from the idea that rabble.ca has cultivated a critically-minded, engaged and interesting following, especially those active on the babble forum pages. With so many readers discussing each and every facet about books, authors and writing, the idea arose: "why don't we start a book club for babblers about books they want to review and discuss?" And thus, the babble Book Club was born.

Vancouver's year-long celebration of its 125th anniversary and status as the Cultural Capital of Canada continues on with the long awaited reissues of the Vancouver 125 Legacy Books Project. The Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia (ABPBC) partnered with the City of Vancouver have launched a collection of 10 previously out-of-print classic Vancouver titles available through local bookstores.

On behalf of rabble.ca, we would like to congratulate Dionne Brand for winning the Griffin Poetry Prize. She won for her book Ossuaries, a novel-length narrative poem about the life of an activist, Yasmine, living an underground life. This distinction is well-deserved.

An impressive group of Toronto poets have come together to create a poem in response to the recent devastation in Japan. Another Spring is a renga for Japan, which is a traditional Japanese collaborative poetic form.

"Traditionally, the renga was, sometimes, something of a party game. Guests at a party might write a renga together throughout the night, each taking turns writing a stanza. Our renga, however, was passed from poet to poet via e-mail," explains Sachiko Murakami, the curator of Another Spring.

Poet and writer Karen Connelly grates ginger into the pot before pouring me a piping cup of tea at her home. We sit at a bare, wooden table, but the surroundings are less austere: sunlight dapples a verdant plant dangling over the painted china-cabinet, then lingers on the fort her four-year-old son has built in the living room. The writer whose name has become synonymous with the nomadic life is now living in Toronto and married with one child. But the exigencies of domestic life have not hampered her creative output: her book Burmese Lessons: A Love Story was recently nominated for the 2010 Governor General's Award for Nonfiction.

As a matter of historical responsibility, this is an appeal from the Bahrain Writers Association and Bahrain PEN Center for help in the face of mass systematic murder against the unarmed people of Bahrain, demanding legitimate rights for a democratic system which respects their rights.