Media Contact: Stephen Myers
416.973.4147

International Readings’ Spring Season Concludes with Eco and Cunningham

Toronto, May 27, 2005-International Readings’ Spring 2005 season concludes with a bang this June as Umberto Eco and Michael Cunningham present new novels. Also appearing are Commonwealth Writer’s Prize nominee Amitav Ghosh, Chatelaine contributor Anne Hines and New York Times bestseller Mark Kurlansky. All readings take place at Harbourfront Centre, 235 Queens Quay West at 7:30 p.m. Tickets $8, free for members and students (with valid ID). For more information and to book tickets the public may visit www.readings.org or call the Harbourfront Centre box office at 416.973.4000.

Please read on for full details

June 8, 2005 at 7:30 p.m.
Amitav Ghosh, Anne Hines and Mark Kurlansky
Brigantine Room

Amitav Ghosh is the author of a travel book and several novels, including The Calcutta Chromosome, Shadow Lines, and The Glass Palace which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize. He reads from Hungry Tide, a new novel.

Anne Hines is a contributing editor and book reviewer at Chatelaine where her work appears regularly. She is the author of the novel Fishing Up The Moon and a collection of four years of magazine humour, A Year in Hinesight. She reads from The Spiral Garden, a new novel.

Mark Kurlansky is the New York Times bestselling author of 1968: The Year That Rocked the World, Salt: A World History, The White Man in the Tree and several other books. He reads from Boogaloo On Second Avenue: A Novel Of Pastry, Guilt, And Music.

***

June 22, 2005 at 7:30 p.m.
Umberto Eco reading and in conversation with David Gilmour
Brigantine Room

Umberto Eco is a professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna and the bestselling author of numerous novels and essays. He reads from The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, his fascinating new illustrated novel about a rare‑book dealer living in Milan who suffers a traumatic and mysterious loss of memory.

***

Michael Cunningham’s most recent bestselling novel, The Hours, won both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and became an Academy Award-winning film starring Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep. He reads from his new novel Specimen Days, a genre-bending, haunting and transformative ode to life in New York City.

-30-

International Readings
at Harbourfront Centre

Since its inception in 1974, International Readings has hosted more than 4,500 authors from 100 countries, including thirteen Nobel Laureates. International Readings provides Canadian authors an internationally recognized stage on which to present their work and brings the best of world literature to Canada. Our season includes weekly Readings, the annual International Festival of Authors (October 19 - 29, 2005) and ALOUD: a Celebration for Young Readers (June 24-26, 2005).