2007 GILLER PRIZE WINNER!!!! Former CBC Radio producer turned novelist Elizabeth Hay's new book "Late Nights on Air" has won Canada's richest literary prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

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Edith Wharton was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize, a celebrated designer and a close friend of fellow novelist Henry James. Hermione Lee, who has previously written a biography of Virginia Woolf says Wharton was both chronicler and critic of life in the upper classes of New York City at the dawn of the 20th Century.

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How much of the media coverage of the seemingly always threatening flu pandemic is hype and how much is real? Doctors Vincent Lam and Colin Lee prescribe a cool head and realistic precautions in their new book The Flu Pandemic and You.

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Once upon a time Bill Buford had a great job behind a desk, but six months later he found himself the galley-slave and general whipping-boy to a Dante-quoting butcher in Tuscany. How he got there via famed cook Mario Batali's kitchen is the story in "Heat"! Published by Doubleday Canada.

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Recently a huge internet-based child pornography ring was broken up because of a co-ordinated effort by police around the world. Author and investigative journalist Julian Sher has the inside story of this battle in "One Child at a Time".

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First time novelist Mark McNay makes an impressive debut with "Fresh" the story of a day-dreaming worker in a Scottish chicken processing plant.

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Bret "The Hitman" Hart was a World Wrestling Federation champion in and out of the ring. Beyond his remarkable physical skills he also spoke out on behalf of his wrestling brothers and sisters. His new book "Hitman" is a warts-and-all look at his life, his father Stu the wrestling teacher, his profession and the colourful characters of wrestling.

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The subtitle of Beppe Severgnini's book is "A Field Guide to the Italian Mind". It is a funny, rollicking, fascinating and sometimes infuriating look at Italy in all its glory and with all its warts showing. Published Random House.

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Architect and writer Sarah Susanka, whose "The Not So Big House" books have been hugely successful, has now written "The Not So Big Life". At first it might seem that the jump from design to self-help is a great one, "The Not So Big Life" is in many ways a prequel because before she could write her first six books, she had to change her own life.

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Orhan Pamuk won the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature. This Turkish-born writer, and Columbia University professor is the author of several books including: "Snow", "The Black Book" and "Istanbul: Memories of a City" for which he was awarded the Nobel. His latest book "Other Colors: Essays and a Story" is exactly what the subtitle suggests.

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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.

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New Zealand author Lloyd Jones' new book "Mister Pip" won the Commonwealth Writers' Overall Prize for Best Book and was short-listed for the Man-Booker Prize. The story is set on a South Pacific paradise where the last white man on the island teaches the native children using Charles Dicken's "Great Expectations".

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Colin Angus is the first man to circumnavigate the planet using only human power. He began his adventure with one partner, but when they had a falling out his fiancee Julie joined him. 4,000 chocolate bars, 72 inner tubes, 250 kgs of freeze-dried foods, 31 dorado fish (caught from the sea), 2 offshore rowboats, 4 bicycles, 80 kgs of clothing, two tropical storms and two mid-Atlantic hurricanes later, he tells the story of how they made it home in his book "Beyond the Horizon".

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Author Joy Fielding is back with another thriller. The protagonist of"Heartstopper" is the deputy sheriff in a small Florida town dealing with the disappearances of attractive teenage girls.

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Look up on the shelf! It's a literary novel! It's a super-hero comic! It's Austin Grossman's debut novel "Soon I Will Be Invincible"!!!

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For years Swedish mystery novelist Hakan Nesser has been a best-selling writer in Europe. Now he is gaining a new audience in the English-speaking world. "The Return" features his detective the taciturn Van Veeteren.

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As you bit down on a delicious piece of chocolate did you ever wonder just where the cocoa originated? Who picked it? How much they were paid? Journalist and the host of CBC's "As It Happens", Carol Off , has investigated the dark side of the world's most seductive sweet in Bitter Chocolate.

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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.

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Canadian soldiers are still fighting and dying in Afghanistan. Globe & Mail journalist Christie Blatchford has spent time on the ground with the troops talking about the lives of some of the soldiers who have been killed. The book is "Fifteen Days".

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The War in Iraq continues to take the lives of American soldiers and journalist and military historian Gwynne Dyer says that situation is unlikely to change until after the 2008 Presidential election. "The Mess They Made" is Dyer's third book on the Iraq war and is a stinging indictment of the policies of U.S. President George W. Bush.

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Lorri Neilsen Glenn only 'came out' as a poet in 2001. Before that she had been an academic. Now she is poet laureate of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The reasons for her rapid rise are clear. She is a stunning new writer who can stir laughter and tears with equal skill. Lorri Neilsen Glenn spoke recently about her new collection "Combustion" as she prepared for a reading at a Toronto book store.

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The late Carol Shields won both Pulitzer prize and the Governor-General's Award for "The Stone Diaries". She was in the midst of writing it when she spoke with Bookbits about her just published novel "The Republic of Love".

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Alexander McCall Smith is best known for his "Number One Ladies' Detective Agency" series but he has now added a second character to his repertoire. Isabel Dalhousie is a Scottish philosopher with a habit of sticking her nose in other people's business, all with the best of intentions of course! The Right Attitude to Rain presents her with moral dilemmas both large and small and also gives her an unexpected second chance for love.

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When the other local farmers ask Jon Katz what he grows on his farm, he replies: "stories". The canine loving author with the feline name is back with more dispatches from Bedlam Farm in "Dog Days".

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First time novelist Catherine O'Flynn has won the prestigious First Novel Costa Book Award for her creepy story "What Was Lost".

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