2009 Globe Books 100

The Golden Mean is on the 2009 Globe Books 100, the "best-reviewed, buzziest books of 2009". To see the full list, please click here.

2009 Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize

"Annabel Lyon's Aristotle is the most fully-realized historical character in contemporary fiction. The Golden Mean engenders in the reader the same helpless sensitivity to the ferocious beauty of the world that is Aristotle’s disease. In this alarmingly confident and transporting debut novel, Lyon offers us that rarest of treats: a book about philosophy, about the power of ideas, that chortles and sings like an earthy romance."

Citation from the 2009 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Jury:
Marina Endicott, Miriam Toews and R.M. Vaughan

The Golden Mean wins the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize! For more details on all the winners and nominees, please click here.

Word of the Day

The sarissa was invented by Philip of Macedon, Alexander's father. It was a pike, considerably longer than its predecessor, used in phalanx formations. The advantages were comparable to a boxer with an extra-long reach; the disadvantages included its considerable weight. A soldier needed both hands for the sarissa, entailing only a small shield hung from the neck.

Sarissa is also a girl's name, supposedly a derivative of Sarah, meaning "princess" or "lady" (see photos.)

Congratulations Kate!

Congratulations to Kate Pullinger! She's the winner of the 2009 Governor General's Award for Fiction for her novel The Mistress of Nothing.

Scenes from a Giller

Margaret Atwood (with a big smile on her face): "Aristotle was a shit, wasn't he?" (Yes, ma'am.)

Michael Ondaatje (in response to my "You're Michael Ondaatje!"): "Yes, I am."

Rex Murphy : "Well, I know what you're doing here."

Clayton Ruby (on being told Victoria Glendinning had the envelope with the winner's name in her pocket): "I know some people who could get that. Want me to make a call?"

My mom: "There's Stuart McLean!"

Giller Pics

Kim Echlin, me, and Linden MacIntyre at the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize Gala. And then me looking somewhat crazed.




From left to right: me, Kim Echlin, Linden MacIntyre, Anne Michaels, and Colin McAdam.

Huffington Post

To read Marissa Bronfman's coverage of the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize for the Huffington Post, including interviews about the future of literature in a digital age, please click here.

Congratulations Linden!

Congratulations to Linden MacIntyre for winning the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize for The Bishop's Man. Linden and I share a wonderful editor in Anne Collins of Random House. Kudos!

Walrus Interview

"Depicting Aristotle’s tutelage of a young Alexander the Great, The Golden Mean is a gripping, thoughtful dramatization of one of the most intriguing relationships in ancient history."

To read my interview with Nav Purewal, please click here.

Indie Booksellers Pick The Golden Mean

"If indie booksellers could pick the winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, it would be Annabel Lyon stepping up to the podium Tuesday night. Of the dozen or so booksellers contacted by Q&Q this week, most said they would prefer to see Lyon’s The Golden Mean take the prize."

To read Scott MacDonald's article in Quill and Quire, please click here.

Monty Python - Argument Clinic

Q: What has this got to do with The Golden Mean?
A: The author of The Golden Mean thinks it's funny, that's what!

Toronto Star Picks The Golden Mean!

"Of all the finalists, Lyon's novel is the most accomplished, sure, compelling and arrestingly its own. If the award considers not only what has been accomplished by an author, but what is promised in that author's future, this would seem to be the most deserving candidate."

The Toronto Star's Geoff Pevere picks The Golden Mean to win the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize! To read more, please click here.

The Globe and Mail does not pick The Golden Mean to win the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize! To read John Barber, Sandra Martin, and Alison Gzowski's takes, please click here.

Michael Enright Interview

To hear my interview with The Sunday Edition's Michael Enright, on CBC Radio One, please tune in on Sunday, November 8 at 9:11AM. For more information, please click here.

To hear a replay of the interview, please click here.

CTV Giller Coverage

For a full round-up of CTV's coverage of all things Giller (including a round table discussion with all nominees and a "what will you wear?" segment on Fashion Television), please click here.

Toronto Star Interview

To read my interview with Vit Wagner for the Toronto Star, please click here.

IFOA

I'm so pleased to be taking part in the International Festival of Authors in Toronto. I have two readings to go: one at noon on Saturday with Ian Weir, Meaghan Strimas, and Nikos Papandreou; and then at 8:00PM is the Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlist reading with Anne Michaels, Linden MacIntyre, Kim Echlin, and Colin McAdam.

Hippocratic @#$%&*

Aristotle's father, Nicomachus, was physician to Amyntas, king of Macedon in Aristotle's youth, father of Philip, grandfather of Alexander the Great. Nicomachus practiced a generation or so after Hippocrates, one of the fathers of medicine, and I imagine he must have absorbed some of the radical teachings associated with him, such as the avoidance of superstition and the keeping of detailed case notes. I also imagine that Aristotle must have acquired a good bit of his father's medical knowledge; he certainly had a lifelong interest in biology, and his books reveal snippets of the expertise he must have acquired at his father's knee (see, for instance, his discussion of black bile in relation to melancholy in the Problems).

Here's a modern translation of the Hippocratic Oath (thanks, Wikipedia!):

I swear by Apollo the Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods, and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:
To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art–if they desire to learn it–without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken the oath according to medical law, but to no one else.

I will apply dietic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.

I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.

I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.

Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.

What I may see or hear in the course of treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep myself holding such things shameful to be spoken about.

If I fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.

Globe and Mail Profile

To read Marsha Lederman's profile of me in the Globe and Mail, please click here.

CJAD Interview

I'll be speaking with Anne Dowson on her radio show Saturday in Montreal on CJAD 800AM tomorrow at 2:30PM EST. Listen up, all you Montrealais!

Governor General's Literary Awards

"Annabel Lyon’s The Golden Mean is a wise and subtle journey into the Court of Philip of Macedon, the mind of Aristotle and his complex relationship with his pupil, Alexander the Great. In this glorious balancing act of a book, Aristotle emerges as a man both brilliant and blind, immersed in life but terrified of living."

The Golden Mean has made the shortlist for the 2009 Governor General's Literary Awards! To see the full list, please click here.

New Westminster News Leader Interview

"While writing her first fiction novel, The Golden Mean, New Westminster author Annabel Lyon joked with her publisher at Random House that she should have made the main characters vampires if she really wanted to sell lots of books."

To read the full interview with the New Westminster News Leader, please click here.

NXNW

You can hear my interview with Sheryl MacKay on CBC Radio One's North by Northwest on Saturday, October 10th from 8:20AM to 9:00AM. To listen to a podcast of a longer version of our chat, including a reading, please click here. Happy listening!

"Giller jury picks tantalizingly varied list of finalists"

"The Golden Mean: One of the most celebrated first novels published in Canada in the past year, Annabel Lyon's book is hardly the stuff of the ordinary. Narrated by no less a voice than Artistotle's, the book blends, philosophy, history, speculation and cleanly crafted prose into an account of the great Greek thinker's reluctant tutelage of the young – but already formidable – Alexander the Great. On ambition alone, this one sticks out."

To read Geoff Pevere's full article for the Toronto Star, please click here.

Giller Shortlist!

The Golden Mean has made the Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlist! To see the full list of nominees, please click here.