New Yorker Review

A “vivid imagining of the encounter between Aristotle and the young Alexander the Great…. Lyon’s evocation of the ancient world is earthy and immediate.”

If you have a New Yorker subscription, you can see the complete review online by clicking here. Otherwise, you can read the review in the November 29rd issue.

Books of the Year for Christmas

"Annabel Lyon won prizes in her native Canada for her note-perfect historical novel The Golden Mean (Atlantic, £14.99), but here [in the UK] it has not had the attention it deserves. It tells the story of Aristotle and the young Alexander; her interpretation of their relationship and their world is luminous and deeply intelligent." --Hilary Mantel

To read the full article in The Telegraph, with more gift suggestions from Mantel, Colm Toibin, Simon Schama, Lydia Davis and others, please click here.

Bad Sex Shortlist!

I am deeply honoured to announce that The Golden Mean has made the shortlist for the Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award for 2010. The competition includes Jonathan Franzen and Christos Tsiolkas, amongst others. To read the whole sweaty, red-faced list, please click here.

Fabulous Fiction: Sitka Books and Art

On Wednesday, November 24 at 7:30PM, I'm honoured to be reading from The Golden Mean alongside Lee Kvern (The Matter of Sylvie) and Chris Ewart (Miss Lamp). For more information, please click here.

IMPAC Dublin Longlist

The Golden Mean has made the IMPAC Dublin longlist! To see the full list, please click here.

Welcome, Brazilian Readers!

The Golden Mean is now available in Brazil from Leya under the title O Filosofo + O Imperador. For more information, please click here.

Robson Reading Series II

On Thursday, November 4th at 1:00PM, I'll be reading at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, Parliament Room 155, at 1:00PM. The reading is free and open to the public. For more information, please click here.

Welcome, Portugese Readers!

The Golden Mean is now available in Portugese under the title Aristoteles e Alexandre from D.Quixote. For more information, please click www.dquixote.pt.

BC's Top 100 Influential Women

According to the Vancouver Sun, I'm one of BC's Top 100 Influential Women. Now, if only someone would tell my kids. To read the full article, please click here.

The Daily Beast

"And while The Golden Mean is beautifully written, its compressed prose both fleet and rhythmic, the novel’s pleasures are closer to those of Robert Graves’ I, Claudius, or even the historical pot boilers of Ken Follett."

To read Taylor Antrim's full review for The Daily Beast, please click here.

University College's 2010 Stubbs Lecture

"The talk by the Rogers Trust Writers’ Fiction Prize-winning author was wide-ranging, opening with the Greek myth of Philoctetes, a famed archer, and touching on depression, gender roles and creating a historical character that rings true to one’s readers. Lively and intelligent, her lecture was thought-provoking for both readers and writers."

To read Elaine Smith's full article for News@The University of Toronto, please click here.

Welcome, Spanish Readers!

The Golden Mean is now available in Spain under the title El Maestro de Alejandro. To purchase a copy of the Spanish edition, please click here.

Hello, Portland!

On Saturday, October 9th at 2:00PM I'll be in Portland, OR at the Wordstock Festival, on-stage with Tatjana Soli. This event will take place on the Wieden + Kennedy Stage in the Oregon Convention Centre.

Boston Globe Part Two

"Through Aristotle’s eyes, Lyon presents a remote world in such vivid and intimate detail that this alien terrain becomes uncannily familiar."

To read my interview with the Boston Globe's Anna Mundow, please click here.

The Golden Mean in Los Angeles

To hear my interview with Kari Moran for KFWB Los Angeles on Sunday, October 3rd at 3:00PM Pacific time, please click here and then click Listen Live.

Love Those Libraries

On Monday, October 4 at 7:00PM, I'll be reading at the Central Branch of the Vancouver Public Library, in the Alma VanDusen Room. Then on Tuesday, October 5 at 7:00PM, I'll be reading at the Richmond Public Library at the Brighouse Performance Hall. Both events are free and open to the public.

The Guardian Top 10

"Annabel Lyon's top 10 books on the ancient world: From Plato to John Updike and Robert Graves to Sappho, the novelist chooses books that 'subvert, surprise, challenge and please'."

To read my full list for The Guardian, please click here.

Hello Bellingham!

On Wednesday, September 29 at 7:00PM I'll be reading at Village Books in Bellingham, Washington. For more information, please click here.

Hello Seattle!

On Tuesday, September 28 at 7:00PM, I'll be reading at Seattle's Elliott Bay Book Company. For more information, please click here.

Boston Globe Review

"[H]ere we have a novel that is brave enough to raise the universal questions about how a man should live his life; that describes with amazing authority the flaws and growth of one of our greatest philosophers as well as his famous student, who, literally, seems to “swallow the world” before his death at age 32; and that, with luck, may send some of us back to the original texts that still shine with so much intelligence and wisdom."

To read Roberta Silman's full review for the Boston Globe, please click here.

Reading at Douglas College

On Monday, September 27th at 2:00PM, I'll be reading from The Golden Mean at Douglas College, Room 3406, New Westminster campus. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, please click here.

Also Rhymes With Aristotle

Rhymes With Aristotle

The opening lines of "The Holy Office", a 1904 poem by James Joyce:

Myself unto myself will give
This name, Katharsis-Purgative.
I, who dishevelled ways forsook
To hold the poets’ grammar-book,
Bringing to tavern and to brothel
The mind of witty Aristotle,
Lest bards in the attempt should err
Must here be my interpreter:
Wherefore receive now from my lip
Peripatetic scholarship....

Word of the Day

The Greek term "eudaimonia" is occasionally translated as "happiness", though a more Aristotelian understanding of the term would be "human flourishing", or a complete human life. In Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, the American scholar Martha Nussbaum points out that in English the word has tended to associate the supreme good with happiness or pleasure, whereas the ancient Greek concept is "compatible with as many distinct conceptions of what that good is as one cares to propose". Further, "A conception of eudaimonia is taken to be inclusive of all to which the agent ascribes intrinsic value: if one can show someone that she has omitted something without which she would not think her life complete, then that is a sufficient argument for the addition of the item in question" (32-33).

According to Wikipedia, "A moral theory which links virtue (arete) and happiness (eudaimonia) specifying the relation between these two concepts is one of the central preoccupations of ancient ethics, and a subject of much disagreement. As a result there are many varieties of eudaimonism. Two of the most influential forms are those of Aristotle[1] and the Stoics. Aristotle takes virtue and its exercise to be the most important constituent in eudaimonia but does acknowledge the importance of external goods such as health, wealth, and beauty. By contrast, the Stoics make virtue necessary and sufficient for eudaimonia and thus deny the necessity of external goods."

This image is of Eros and Eudaimonia.