Angol
"Schoemperlen's inventive language and narrative structures encourage readers to be free 'from the prison of everyday thinking.'"-The New York Times Book Review "Lovely, clever, [and] imaginative."-The Wall Street Journal Once touted as compendiums of human knowledge, the encyclopedias and handbooks of bygone eras now read quaintly, if not comically-yet within their pages are often found phrases of uncanny evocative power. Scrupulously stitching such fragments together in a sequel to the Governor General's Award-winning Forms of Devotion, By the Book is a collection of verbal and visual collages whose prestidigitations have transformed long-dead texts into tales of enduring vitality. With stories like "What Is a Hat? Where Is Constantinople? Who Was Sir Walter Raleigh? And Many Other Common Questions, Some With Answers, Some Without" and "Consumptives Should Not Kiss Other People: A Handy Guide to the Care and Maintenance of Your Family's Good Health," Diane Schoemperlen's irreverent brand of nostalgia combines vintage kitsch with comic, creepy, unexpectedly moving yarns. Diane Schoemperlen has published several collections of short fiction and three novels. Her 1990 collection, The Man of My Dreams, was shortlisted for both the Governor General's Award and the Trillium. Her collection Forms of Devotion: Stories and Pictures won the 1998 Governor General's Award for English Fiction. She lives in Kingston, Ontario.
