Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him to the public.
- Sir Winston Churchill

Recent Posts

Welcome to the U of T Bookstore Reading Series

Reading Series events are listed in order of occurance to the right in the section “Upcoming Events”.

Below are updates presented in order of release.


The Globe and Mail Open House Festival - May 8-10, 2009

open-house-festival-rgb.jpg

May 9-10
SATURDAY-SUNDAY

Hart House Great Hall

Tickets

Available online at www.uofttix.ca or over the phone through the U of T Tix Box Office line (416) 978-8849.

~~~~~~~~~~

Join us for an extraordinary weekend of words and ideas in support of PEN Canada and Frontier College.

The Globe and Mail Open House Festival will bring together the very best writers and thinkers from Canada and around the world for a unique program of readings and discussions that will provoke, entertain, and enlighten.

~~~~~~~~~~

May 9
SATURDAY

Hart House Great Hall (all SAT events)

Noon
Ann-Marie MacDonald
Stuart McLean
Christian Lander
(Regretfully, Rick Mercer has had to cancel his appearance at the Festival.)
$15 general admission

2pm
“Notes from the Field”
A Conversation with James Orbinski, James Maskalyk, and Prabhat Jha.
$15 general admission

4pm
Zoe Heller
Nino Ricci
Elizabeth Hay
Wayson Choy
$15 general admission

8pm
Calvin Trillin
Miriam Toews
David Rakoff
Jay McInerney
$15 general admission

May 10
SUNDAY

Hart House Great Hall (all SUN events)

1:30pm
“A Crisis in Leadership”
A conversation with John Ralston Saul, Margaret MacMillan, Naomi Klein, and Adam Gopnik.
SOLD OUT

4pm
“The Planet in the Balance”
A conversation with Thomas Homer-Dixon, Gwynne Dyer, and Jeff Rubin.
$15 general admission

8pm
Anne Michaels
Ha Jin
David Wroblewski
Joseph O’Neill (moved from May9)
TBC
$15 general admission

~~~~~~~~~~
Open House festival website

Hart House website

Map to Hart House


True Patriot Love by Michael Ignatieff - Convocation Hall, May 8th.

mignatieff-poster-rgb.jpg


China Witness: Voices from a Silent Generation, by Xinran

Tuesday, March 3, 2009
7:30pm
Hart House, Debates Room
7 Hart House Circle
Free

Author Xinran will be interviewed by John Fraser. Book signing will follow.

china-witness_rgb.jpg

This hugely important and ground-breaking book - an unprecedented oral history - gives voice to a silent generation and tells the secret history of 20th century China.

In 1912, five thousand years of feudal rule ended in China. Warlords, Western businessmen, soldiers, missionaries and Japanese all ruled China, exploited and fought one another and the Chinese. In 1949, Mao Zedong came to power.

China Witness is both a journey through time and through the author’s own country, and a memorial to an extraordinary generation of men and women who have survived war, invasion, revolution, famine and modernization - to tell the story of their times. It is an extraordinary personal testimony from a normally silent generation who, in their lifetimes have seen China transformed from a largely peasant, agricultural country of more than 1.3 billion people into a modern state. These are ordinary people - a herb woman at a market, retired teachers, a legendary ‘bandit’ woman, Red Guards, oil pioneers, an acrobat, a naval general, a shoe mender, a lantern maker, taxi drivers, and others - from west to east, across the vast country, now in their seventies, eighties and nineties, and whose memories will soon die with them.

Here, for the first time many of them speak out about their lives and private thoughts about what they witnessed. Together their intimate stories are perhaps the only accurate record of modern Chinese history.

xinran_rgb.jpg Xinran was born in Beijing in 1958 and was a successful journalist in China. In 1997 she moved to London where she began work on her seminal book, The Good Women of China. She has also written Sky Burial and a novel, Miss Chopsticks.

John Anderson Fraser, is an award-winning Canadian journalist, former Globe and Mail Bureau Chief for Beijing, author, and Master of Massey College at the University of Toronto.

Presented by

mbna_rgb.jpg

random-house-canada.jpg

hart-house-logo_rgb.jpg


KAMA 2009 Reading Series - Adrienne Clarkson, Margaret MacMillan, Nino Ricci and John Ralston Saul

Wednesday, March 25th, 7:30pm
Hosted at the Park Hyatt Toronto, 4 Avenue Road
SOLD OUT

Join us for an evening of readings at
KAMA Reading Series 2009: Extraordinary Canadians!

KAMA 2009 Reading Series

Older Posts

Welcome to the U of T Bookstore Reading Series

The Globe and Mail Open House Festival - May 8-10, 2009

True Patriot Love by Michael Ignatieff - Convocation Hall, May 8th.

China Witness: Voices from a Silent Generation, by Xinran

KAMA 2009 Reading Series - Adrienne Clarkson, Margaret MacMillan, Nino Ricci and John Ralston Saul