Turnstone Press

Baldur's Song: A Saga by David Arnason adds a third prize nomination to its wish list this spring.

Already short-listed for the Manitoba Book Awards' Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction and Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award, the novel, featuring the fictionalized life of Arnason's grandfather, has been nominated for the Manitoba Historical Society's 2010 Margaret McWilliams Award in the category of Popular History.

The McWilliams Award is one of the oldest literary awards in Canada named for the Winnipeg author, journalist and feminist, Margaret Stovel McWilliams (1875-1952). Readings from the short-listed books will take place at McNally Robinson Booksellers on April 25 at 7:00 p.m.. The awards ceremony will take place at Dalnavert House on June 4 at 1:00 p.m.

In Baldur's Song, Winnipeg's boom-town days at the turn of the twentieth century come to life through the eyes of Baldur, a boy from Gimli, the Icelandic immigrant settlement on the southernmost shore of Lake Winnipeg. Both city and boy grow from innocence to savvy creatures of business as they mature, fall in love, and survive the politics of a competitive, cut-throat society. Lively characters bring early Winnipeg to life, and old neighbourhoods like the West End, Wolseley, West Broadway, and the Exchange District are immediately recognizable. Readers navigate the dirt streets and boardwalks with Baldur in Arnason's vivid narrative.

David Arnason is an acclaimed novelist, a writer of short fiction, and an editor of Turnstone Press since 1975. Very much in touch with his Icelandic heritage, Arnason has taught at the University of Manitoba since 1972, serving as Acting Head of the Department of Icelandic Studies from 1998 to 2006, and as head of the Department of English from 1997 to 2006. Currently, he lives and writes in Gimli, MB.

Winnipeg artist and designer, Robert J. Sweeney, captures Winnipeg’s urban landscape in this remarkable ­collection of sketches, Portraits of Winnipeg: The River City in Pen and Ink. Each portrait brings to life in brilliant colour, the many faces of Manitoba’s “River City.”

In the spring of 1966 Ken Leishman stepped onto the tarmac of the Winnipeg Airport and into the pages of Canadian history. By then, the mastermind behind the country’s largest gold heist had already gained Dillingeresque notoriety as a gentlemanly bank robber. Toronto headlines had spread the news about the brazen and polite ‘Flying Bandit’. This time, he almost got away. Almost.

Winner: Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher and the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award. A fascinating look at the people, places and stories that make up Winnipeg's literary history, from its earliest days to the present.

Members of the bookclub at the Mystery Au Lait Cafe in Winnipeg begin to get nervous as events from their favourite murder-mysteries start to come true - right in their own quiet neighbourhood of Wolseley.