Books, books, and an Unavailable Book.

I have given up my Giller project for now. I must wait for the final three books on the list to arrive.  The winning novel, The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skipsrud, will not be available for a while.  Her publisher is an "artisan press,"(sounds a bit like a bread making business) and it "crafts" the books by hand.  ! What!  By Hand! ie - Slowly?  The firm refuses to change or outsource to the nearest computer.  However, a hot novel has only  a few weeks to rake in significant cash, enough to keep the author in grub.  Then it becomes yesterday's book.  Copies of a prize winner have to hit the stores tout suite.  Everyone (agent,author, big book sellers,Jack Rabinovich) is leaping about trying to break the log jam.  So when will a copy of The Sentimentalists hit Thunder Bay?  I'll try to find out.

Meanwhile I finished Annabel by Kathleen Winter.  The first chapter blew me away with its lovely writing.  This book should have been enjoyable but I struggled.  The plot concerns a child born both male and female.  Interwoven is much interesting information about Labrador and its settlers.  But the overwhelming background, the constant philosophizing and the clunky dialogue were so distracting that the story got lost in the wallpaper.