In 1967 the eastern section of Nigeria, dominated by a minority tribe, attempted to form a separate country: Biafra . The civil war which followed killed tens of thousands of people. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie follows the lives of well-to-do twin sisters and their poor house-boy through the disaster and famine which followed in Half of a Yellow Sun.
Published by Knopf Canada.
Winner of the 2002 Booker Prize, "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel is an extraordinary book. It tells the story of a young boy, lost in the south Pacific in a life-boat accompanied by a Royal Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker. After that the story gets a bit strange!
Madhur Jaffrey is an Indian-born actress and cookbook author. Her latest book is much more personal, "Climbing the Mango Trees: a Memoir of a Childhood in India".
Seth Lloyd makes very, very, very small computers. In fact his computers are smaller than many molecules. He talks about quantum computing in his surprisingly entertaining new book "Programming the Universe".
Former US Justice Department Nazi war crimes investigator and intelligence journalist John Loftus has ventured into the world of fiction with "The Witness Tree". It examines the Dulles family: John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, Allen Dulles, the first head of the CIA and their little known sister Eleanor who was critical to the founding of the state of Israel.
Young adult novelist William Bell has won the Mr. Christie's Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award, and the Canadian Librarians' Association Award amongst others. His latest book is "The Blue Helmet".
Steven Galloway's new book "The Cellist of Sarajevo" follows the lives of some ordinary people trying to cope with life in the besieged city. One, a cellist, refuses to be afraid, giving a daily concert in remembrance of people killed in a mortar attack.
Canadians are deeply divided about participation in the war in Afghanistan and the larger U.S. war on terror. Journalist Linda McQuaig says Canada has moved from being an honest broker in the world to "Holding the Bully's Coat".
In high school you probably studied the novella "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad. There is a new biography of the Ukrainian-born ethically Polish writer who wrote some of the greatest works of English literature by John Stape "The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad".
Best-selling fantasy and speculative-fiction writer Terry Brooks is now linking several of his various novel series together in a new trilogy. "Armageddon's Children" is filled with everything you've come to expect from the author of the Shannara series.
When you think Economist, chances are you picture some ivory-tower intellectual desperately out of touch with the real world. That is NOT Tim Harford. He uses his experience on the real world as "The Undercover Economist".
Diana Gabaldon's 'Outlander' universe now has two narrative strands. The story of the time-travelling Claire and her love for Jamie Fraser an 18th century highlander has spun off one of the major-minor characters into his own series with the latest "Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade".
Agnes Walsh is the poet laureate of St.John's, Newfoundland. She is also the author of "Going Around with Bachelors" a wonderful collection of poetry largely inspired from her life on Placentia Bay. She spoke to Bookbits just before a recent poetry reading at a Toronto bookstore.
Conrad Black, currently appearing in a Chicago court on fraud charges, is also a highly respected biographer. "The Invincible Quest: The Life of Richard Milhouse Nixon" is the most thorough biography ever written about America's most controversial President.
![Linda McQuaig-Holding the Bully\](http://img.youtube.com/vi/Ki47EjTvHcM/2.jpg "Linda McQuaig-Holding the Bully\")
![Terry Brooks-Armageddon\](http://img.youtube.com/vi/wx6PcwbtXlA/2.jpg "Terry Brooks-Armageddon\")
