At The Tyee, we've had some success and a lot of fun doing things a little differently. We've tried to be democratic, in a manner that only the internet allows. We've depended not so much on focus groups as on the generosity of talented writers whose goodwill, imagination and civic-mindedness make us blush.

And we've been blessed by the many, many readers who've allowed The Tyee to become part of their lives. We hope you'll find a little more room for us with the introduction of Tyee Books.

Some of the section's content will be integrated into The Tyee as you now know it. All of it will occupy a distinct home page -- www.tyeebooks.ca -- with a unique look and sensibility, created by the immensely able Tyee web development and design director Dawn Buie and designer Alex Grunenfelder.

The internet and books may seem like an unlikely couple. We don't think so. In an increasingly fragmented media landscape, where mainstream outlets often flounder, books and websites attract passionate, growing readerships. In British Columbia, we have a great books tradition, fostered in part by our crazy geography. Our geography, however, sometimes confounds the public's ability to access that tradition. As such, the internet provides us with a unique new avenue to explore books.

Vital stories, when they matter

Exploring books is an important mission. We live in a time where, to borrow the eloquent observation of Mayne Island author Terry Glavin, traditional narratives are collapsing around us, and we need to create resilient new ones to better understand our challenged world. That's why Tyee Books is the first, permanent stand-alone section we've added to The Tyee domain in the site's three-year history.

We intend to be current and important. When someone like The Long Emergency author James Howard Kunstler comes to B.C., we'll talk to him, as Charles Montgomery has done for today's Tyee Books debut. Likewise, when a significant book like Glavin's Waiting for the Macaws arrives, we'll let the likes of Stan Persky give it the thorough, careful consideration it deserves.

By the end of the week, we'll have talked to B.C. authors Doug Coupland, Holley Rubinsky, and Timothy Taylor. We'll have discussed pandemics, activism and religion, the relationship between literature and pop fiction, and what B.C. non-fiction writers really ought to do with their time.

We want to encourage a sophisticated discourse about books and the ideas they contain. We want to do that in a manner that is rooted here but is not parochial. Tyee Books will be strongly anchored by British Columbian writers telling and discussing our stories, but it will also look well beyond our borders to find stories from elsewhere that matter to us.

Not just another dead B.C. scroll

Notwithstanding these ambitious intentions, we don't want to be so serious that we become just another ossified literary review. People cook and travel and build things. Some of us occasionally get a shave and a haircut. So we'll explore good books on all these subjects.

As well, in addition to the usual mix of reviews, features, essays, interviews, and a large number of excerpts, we're going to add a steady diet of idiosyncratic book lists. What books should one read to understand the development of Vancouver? What are the 10 best Canadian graphic novels? Science fiction for people who hate science fiction? Great rural B.C. narratives?

We'll do our best to create lists that begin provocative discussions, and we invite -- actually, we demand -- your participation.

We're also going to provide daily book news and views in a blog that provides a window into the province's lively literary scene, digests news and reviews from at home and away, and links to lively, insightful books coverage wherever we can find it.

Much of what we do will be an ongoing experiment in exploring what's possible on a regional site trying to capitalize on a nascent medium's potential.

We want to provide B.C. readers throughout the province with the opportunity to buy new books online from independent B.C. booksellers. We want to provide a clearinghouse for books-related podcasts. We want to connect B.C. locations with the literature that depicts them. We want to explore the ways in which the internet can provide an alternative to traditional means of publishing.

To all these ends, we're recruiting contributions from a wide range of writers, including Bill Richardson, Deborah Campbell, Matthew Mallon, Charles Demers, Zsuzsi Gartner, Stephen Osborne, Gudrun Will, Crawford Kilian and Shannon Rupp.

They're just a few of the people who have said they'll help us, and they're just the beginning. Mostly, we want you to join us in building on the lively independent forum that The Tyee provides, and will continue to provide, as long as we are able and you are willing.

To celebrate and promote this new initiative, a wide range of B.C. books are available to be won by those who sign up to receive Tyee headlines. The Tyee thanks the provincial ArtsNow and Spirit of B.C. arts funding programs for essential financial support.