The Quotable Rob Sawyer
Penguin Canada has just published The Penguin Dictionary of Popular Canadian Quotations, edited by John Robert Colombo.
To my absolute delight, 23 quotations from my writings appear in the book, on topics such as "Privacy," "Humanity," "Immortality," "Gods," "The Moon," "Society," and, of course, "Science Fiction."
(Not that anyone's counting, but Margaret Atwood is only quoted 20 times, Spider Robinson 4 times, and William Gibson and Phyllis Gotlieb one time a piece ...)
It's a beautiful book, and I'm truly thrilled to be so well represented in it.
Posted by Rob on Tuesday, April 25, 2006
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9 Comments:
And I just gave The Penguin Dictionary of Canadian Quotations a five-star review on AMAZON.CA:
"I'm possibly biased, because I'm quoted in this book, but setting that aside, I've got to say that I found this compilation absolutely fascinating. Lots of great quotes by Canadians, but also plenty of quotes by outsiders about Canada (Bono, Stephen Jay Gould, John Paul II, etc.). The book is organized alphabetically by topic, and has a comprehensive index of authors, with key words from their quotes so that you can easily find what you're looking for. People like me who do public speaking will find this indispensable, but it's also compulsively readable, and an awful lot of fun -- Colombo has a keen eye for the witty as well as the pithy. All in all, what we have here is 500 pages, 4,000 quotations, and many pleasurable hours of browsing."
How many Due South quotes, I wonder, this go-round?
There's no reference to DUE SOUTH in the index; if it's quoted at all, it must be indexed under the writers' individual names.
More counts: David Suzuki, 3 entries. :)
Paul Gross, perhaps?
As for Suzuki, he's likely been thoroughly mined so far in earlier volumes, I'd bet.
This isn't a book of new quotations, Dwight; Winston Churchill is among those quoted in this book. Nor does it follow-on or replace an older book. Yes, Colombo has done other quote books before, but they were on different themes.
Paul Gross isn't quoted in the book. But SIMPSONS created Matt Groening is. :)
Ah. Understood.
Pity, though...
What's the ISBN of the book? I'd check it out but even though McGill has no fewer than 5 books of Canadian quotations from Colombo in their library catalogue, none seem to be exactly this one. Well I should be studying for my finals rather than browsing the library anyway...
The ISBN is 0-143-05369-8. The Penguin Dictionary of Popular Canadian Quotations was JUST published -- offical pub date was April 21, 2006 -- so I'm not surprised that it's not in the McGill library yet.
By the way, watched House, M.D. last night, and one of the characters wore a McGill sweatshirt through much of the show; the name it was very prominently visibile.
Thanks. I seem to recall that McGill did have Mindscan within about a month of it being published. (Sorry, my book budget is all for textbooks nowadays... but it's still on my birthday list!) I'll mention it to my dad though because this is exactly the sort of thing he'd buy.
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