Category: today’s top story

“Undoubtedly the most obscure book ever to win a major literary award in Canada, The Sentimentalists was hand-printed more than a year ago by [a] tiny publisher in Kentville, N.S., in an edition of 800 copies, most of which had disappeared by the time the three Giller judges announced their short lists.”

Jonathan Jones says that the Chinese artist “is threatening to become a cultural figure of serious global importance in the mould of Vaclav Havel and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.”

“Fashion dominates the world of evangelical Christianity and its therapeutic penumbra. The Crystal Cathedral, that glitzy architectural marvel, has become a 1980s nostalgia item.”

“A Nashville chancery court has granted the cash-strapped university permission to sell a half-share in its famed Stieglitz art collection for $30million – but only on the condition that $20million of the sale be set aside in a trust to preserve the art if Fisk’s money troubles force the school to close.”

“Iain Banks, Stephen King, Maeve Binchy, Elizabeth Buchan and Michael McIntyre were among those authors whose books were given new, low-ranking reviews on the basis of their Kindle ebook price, as part of a concerted attempt by readers to voice their displeasure.”

The city of Turku, one of two European capitals of culture for 2011 (along with Tallinn), “has decided that ‘culture cures’ and seen to it that its board of healthcare will distribute 5,500 free tickets for cultural events to people who show up at its municipal health centres.”

“Two of the biggest names in the dance world are moving to Wellington in an unprecedented coup by the Royal New Zealand Ballet. American dancer Ethan Stiefel will become the company’s next artistic director,” and his partner, “red-headed vixen” Gillian Murphy, will dance with the company.

“The deal, known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, according to many critics, favors big media at the expense of the general public. And the intellectual property accord, which Obama could sign by year’s end, has pretty much been hammered out in secret between the European Union, Japan, the United States and a few other international players, including Canada and Australia. Noticeably absent is China.”

Chandigarh was designed in great detail (down to furniture and manhole covers) by Le Corbusier according to his own master plan. Now “the purpose-built furniture that once filled the city’s chic public spaces is being systematically sold off in the auction rooms of London, New York and Paris.”