April 9, 2014,  7:15pm – 9:00pm at the Coach House, Green College UBC

Local author Daniel Kalla will be joining us to read from his most recent novel Rising Sun, Falling Shadow, and discuss his dual career as an emergency room physician and writer.

Daniel Kalla produces engrossing novels with an intensity that matches the challenge of his other role as Department Head of Emergency Medicine at an urban teaching hospital in Vancouver. His first five novels, medical thrillers, focus on themes that lie at the heart of his professional life, delving into topics as diverse as superbugs, pandemics, addiction, DNA evidence and patient abuse. His seventh novel, The Far Side Of The Sky, is a historical novel set against a startling, yet little known, chapter of the Second World War, when 20,000 Jews fled Germany to find shelter in only one city: Shanghai, “The Paris of the East”. His latest, Rising Sun, Falling Shadow, continues the story – A story of espionage, betrayal, and one family’s struggle to survive in war-torn Shanghai.

“A vivid, realistic novel that rewards the emotional investment it encourages.” –The Vancouver Sun

“Despite its grim subject matter, this gripping historical novel communicates a hopeful message about the power of love and friendship to overcome hatred.” — Booklist

Author reading sponsored by Canada Council, Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library and UBC Department of Psychiatry.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014- 7:15 pm

Writer and Lucid Book Club participant Lenore Rowntree will be reading from and leading a discussion about Bad Animals: A Father’s Accidental Education in Autism by Joel Yanofsky, winner of QWF Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction
“A veteran book reviewer, Yanofsky has spent a lifetime immersed in literature (not to mention old movies and old jokes), which he calls shtick. This account of a year in the life of a family describes a father’s struggle to enter his son’s world, the world of autism, using the materials he knows best: self-help books, feel-good memoirs, literary classics from the Bible to Dr. Seuss, old movies, and, yes, shtick. Funny, wrenching, and unfailingly candid, Bad Animals is both an exploration of a baffling condition and a quirky love story told by a gifted writer.”

Writers… show their capacity for greatness when they point their talent at something they love. Joel Yanofsky has done just that: written a marvellous book about a child he adores — his son.

– David Gilmour, author of The Film Club

Feel free to email us with any questions or comments at lucidreadinggroup@nullgmail.com, and be sure to check out our blog: blogs.ubc.ca/lucid for updates!

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