Author Archives: Vicki Ziegler

The special trust you derive from a very good silent book club

Leave a reply

This month, our east end Toronto silent book club chapter celebrates its 7th anniversary, thank you very much! Here’s how our first meeting went.

Our latest meetings, online and in-person, were just yesterday. Not every meeting is like this, but some like yesterday’s are an interesting balance of our fellow readers’ enthusiasms and delights and … disappointments or cautions. I actually really appreciate that our readers have so grown to trust each other that our discussions and reviews are not just about what we enjoyed reading, but what we didn’t. When the review is not necessarily glowing, we can also trust that the assessments will be measured or readers acknowledge when maybe it just wasn’t the right time for one to be challenged by a particular subject or author. It’s still constructive and informative.

Silent book club member Kath's recent reading, including The Doctor’s Wife by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, Rewitched by Lucy Jane Wood and The Moonlight Market by Joanne Harris

Cover of Showa 1926-1939 A History of Japan by Shigeru Mizuki

Page of graphic novel Showa 1926-1939 A History of Japan by Shigeru Mizuki

Page of graphic novel Showa 1926-1939 A History of Japan by Shigeru Mizuki

Silent book club members gathered, reading silently, at a table at East Toronto Coffee Co

Silent book club meeting at the East Toronto Coffee Co, with the group's book selections spread out on the table along with beverages and pastries. The books include works by Rob Ford and Doug Ford, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Annick MacAskill, Rachel Cusk, Elizabeth Renzetti, Thomas Pynchon, Claire Fuller + more

Silent book club meeting at the East Toronto Coffee Co, with some of the group's book selections spread out on the table along with beverages and pastries. The books include works by Rob Ford and Doug Ford, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Annick MacAskill, Rachel Cusk, Elizabeth Renzetti, Geoff Ryman, Robert Jordan + more

Silent book club meeting at the East Toronto Coffee Co, with some of the group's book selections spread out on the table along with beverages and pastries. The books include works by Thomas Pynchon, Oakley Hall, Claire Fuller, Gerard Reve + more

As always, every title on our group’s lists means that at least one (but usually more) readers have given that title thoughtful consideration. That doesn’t mean that every work on our lists is expressly recommended (as I just suggested) – but that’s still more than OK, we think. Inclusion on this list always means that our readers have devoted time and attention to a title – and that, dear readers, means a lot.


Here are some extra book-related articles, resources, news and recommendations, items and tidbits that are often companions to books on the list, or are inspired or offered by our members and/or come up during our discussions and chat.

  • In case you missed it … yes, we’re that book club from TV!

  • One of the creatures chronicled in Pests – How Humans Create Animal Villains by Bethany Brookshire is the cane toad. If that story sparks your interest, you might also enjoy the 1988 documentary Cane Toads: An Unnatural History.

Our group’s previous reports and book lists – all eminently trustworthy – areright here!

You can also check out links to articles, interviews and more here – some with San Francisco-based Silent Book Club founders Guinevere de La Mare and Laura Gluhanich, and some with us here in east end Toronto.

Learn more about the worldwide phenomenon of silent book clubs via Guinevere and Laura’s Silent Book Club web site. In fall 2023, they welcomed their 500th chapter … and with continuing and astonishing momentum, they are now boasting over 1,000 chapters!!! (There were around 60 chapters when we joined as the first Toronto chapter in 2017.) You can find information on meetings happening around the world and close to where you live. Every club is a different size, format (in-person, virtual or combinations) and vibe, so contact a club’s organizers beforehand if you have any questions or preferences. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

Happy, happy reading (or even sad, or challenging, or frustrating reading … but keep going!) until next we meet!

Where to find Canadian poetry online

2 Replies

bookcover-lemonhoundPoet Jacob McArthur Mooney recently sparked a discussion on Facebook about online publications with a mandate to publish new work by Canadian poets. With his go-ahead, I’m moving the list that resulted from the discussion here. Where I can find them, I’ve added links and Twitter handles. Broadening the definition just a bit, there are some publications on this list that have a print counterpart. I’ve also added a few web sites that go back a bit in terms of Canadian poetry history and archives, and some that might be now defunct in terms of publishing new material, but still offer interesting selections and back issues (and hey, you never know – sometimes these things come back to life!)

The intent here is to give people a starting point to explore and discover poetry created and published by Canadians. Are there any sites or resources that should be included? Let me know via the comments here or by email at vicki@bookgagabooks.ca.

Celebrating the beautiful book object – The Children Act, by Ian McEwan

5 Replies

The special limited first edition of Ian McEwan’s latest novel, The Children Act, is not only a beautiful book object, but it offers some striking visual insights into the author’s creative and editing processes.

This edition charms right from the slipcover …

mcewan-childrenact004

… which contains not one, but two pieces …

mcewan-childrenact005

… the leatherbound edition of the book, plus an additional treat exclusive to the first 25 of the 100 copies of this specially crafted version.

mcewan-childrenact006

mcewan-childrenact007

The unique addition is a selection of facsimile pages of notebook manuscript and one page of hand-corrected typescript from an early draft of the novel, all supplied by the author – an intimate look into the author’s work and fascinating pieces to pore over and scrutinize.

mcewan-childrenact008

mcewan-childrenact009

See also:

Satisfying Clicking Sound, by Jason Guriel

Leave a reply

“Avoid writing if you can. If you can’t, avoid cliché, and be precise. Don’t try to ‘express yourself’; self-expression usually amounts to expulsion. Try, rather, to connect with another: picture a smart but demanding reader, and try to hold her attention.”
– Jason Guriel … on hoarding and keeping your best lines off Twitter

I’m pleased to welcome back guest book reviewer Rebecca Hansford, who previously reviewed Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood here on the the Bookgaga blog. Rebecca recently graduated from Queen’s University, where she studied Biology and Psychology. As she previously observed, “Majoring in science instead of English was a tough choice for me as I have an electric passion for reading. I particularly enjoy fiction that integrates scientific facts, environmental issues and dystopian societies.”

bookcover-satisfying-clicking-sound

In Jason Guriel’s Satisfying Clicking Sound, the poet explores the contrasting elements of nature and technology currently existing in our society. Guriel’s style is of writing demands the reader’s attention in a profound yet disturbing way. For instance, Two Girls Splitting a Set of Earbuds describes two girls as flesh conjoined by an iPod, illustrating our dependence on our newfound technology and our inability to communicate without it. This brutal yet honest style of poetry is seen throughout his work, causing any reader to pause and ponder his thought, even possibly becoming repulsed at times. In his poem Poetry is Barbarous, Guriel fully exposes the vulgarity of his writing, as he compares a snowfall burying plastic swans and rabbits to real animals being buried to the throat. This vicious, yet captivating style of writing is seen throughout most of Satisfying Clicking Sound.

Although most of Guriel’s poems are blunt and difficult to digest, there was some free verse poetry with a more flowing style. In the Washbasin, Guriel compares painting and watery reflections to emphasize how the narrator feels he can live up to his father’s shadow. This poem was genuine, and the painting metaphor was beautifully tied into the poem. Dead on Arrival was another poem that appealed to me. Guriel remarks that stars are not aware of the fact that they burned out light years ago and therefore, they may not be aware of who they are themselves. Similarly, since we live our lives with the knowledge that we will die, is life futile? Will we ever know who we truly are?

In short, Jason Guriel’s Satisfying Clicking Sound is a fantastic read if you are interested in a more modern style of poetry. However, the last half of his work does bring forth some beautiful poetry with a less hard-hitting and vulgar style. Nonetheless, Guriel uses imagery in an astounding manner as he broadcasts his ideas regarding technology and society in a brutally honest manner. He will almost certainly hold your attention throughout his work.

Thank you to Véhicule Press for providing a review copy of Satisfying Clicking Sound by Jason Guriel.

Book traffic report #6 – an especially giving month

5 Replies

carrying-stack-books

This household continues to brim with books – but is maybe starting to offer just a wee bit of breathing space – as we continue to take a year-long look at how books make their way into (and out of) this place. This report reflects the month of August, which even though it included a cottage week during which all we did was read books, we still somehow managed to have a record month in the “outgoing” column.

At the end of August, the two columns on my home office whiteboard tallied up as follows:

Incoming: 4

  • All incoming books were paper.
  • 2 of the books were fiction, 2 were poetry collections.
  • 3 of the incoming books were purchased in bookstores (Book City and Sunworks in Red Deer, Alberta).
  • 1 book was purchased online, directly from an independent bookseller in the UK.

Outgoing: 48

  • 32 outgoing books were contributed to three local Little Free Library boxes.
  • 7 books were given to friends.
  • 5 books (mostly technical references) were donated to a workplace.
  • 4 books that were damaged or grievously outdated references were consigned to the recycling bin.

It pains me to have to put a book in the recycling bin, but on occasion, that seems like the only sensible thing to do … that really, it’s just going to take up precious space in a Little Free Library box and really, no one is going to take that wrinkled, discoloured Windows 98 technical reference manual.

2014 to date: 74 books incoming, 138 books outgoing

The ratio of read to unread book incoming or outgoing is still pretty much 1 to 1, with slightly more outgoing books leaving here read rather than unread. As I mentioned before, this makes me feel like we’re sending mostly loved or at least acknowledged books back out into the world, versus having more books pass through our home to which we haven’t given any attention.

So far this year, 38 fiction, 15 non-fiction and 21 poetry books have arrived, and 61 fiction, 53 non-fiction and 24 poetry books have departed. One further observation to one I made in our last report: many of the departing non-fiction books are admittedly out-of-date technology or topical content that perhaps doesn’t have great historical value. We are consciously adjusting so that if we are going to read non-fiction or reference that might have a “best before” date, we more likely to borrow that from the library now rather than purchase it. Perhaps that’s a “well, duh” realization, but anyhow …

Our outgoing numbers continue to confirm that we have an abiding affection for our local Little Free Library boxes. If those didn’t exist, I wonder if we’d be carting more boxes of books to garage/yard sales and the like. Somehow, Little Free Library boxes seem more thoughtful, don’t they? (Do many books still make their way through Freecycle, I wonder?)

The whiteboard is erased and ready for another month as we head into the home stretch of our year of flying books …

Carrying a stack of books. Photograph: Thomas Barwick/Getty Images (via The Times)
(http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/books/article3307489.ece)

With each social media milestone, a continued commitment to literacy causes

Leave a reply

I’ve mused in previous blog posts about the importance of literacy. From those musings, coupled with wise advice and support from book and publishing friends and acquaintances in real life and online, I’ve made a commitment to supporting literacy initiatives and programs … every time I hit a followership milestone on Twitter.

This time, I’ve made my donation as follows:

copian-logo
For 25 years, non-profit organization Copian (previously known as the National Adult Literacy Database) built Canada’s largest and most comprehensive digital collection of Literacy and Essential Skills tools and resources. This database/collection was a vital resource to numerous grassroots literacy organizations, libraries and individuals, not only providing materials but also comprehensive online training.

Earlier this summer, the Government of Canada withdrew vital funding, forcing the closure of Copian. The following coverage and reactions capture the dismay, confusion and disappointment:

Mainstay of Canada’s literacy movement topples: Goar
Literacy workers distraught as Ottawa eliminates their national database and resource centre.
by Carol Goar
Toronto Star
July 3, 2014

Update: On September 24, 2014, Copian announced that they have been able to restore a streamlined version of their online library. While the content is not maintained as regularly as before, Copian hopes this will tide over everyone depending on this information until the organization can devise an ongoing sustainable business model.

As I’ve mentioned previously on this subject, much more important than numbers of followers or influence scores or whatever is that we are in this social milieu reading and writing and talking … about books and literature and print and digital formats and reading devices, and on to bookstores and libraries and the vital reading and writing experiences in all their forms. I value those who follow me and converse with me, those that I follow and learn from, and those that I come across even fleetingly in this vibrant tweeting, retweeting, chattering, enthusiastic and engaged environment. It’s not the numbers of them (although that there are an endless potential for book friends out there continues to take my breath away), but the quality of the discourse and the spirit, dealing with fundamental issues, not to mention myriad delights.

Numbers are just numbers. But then again, we can use those numbers in creative ways to challenge ourselves to remember, to recognize, to give back. Through this exercise, I’ve learned about other organizations and institutions supporting literacy, literary causes and books that I’d like to recognize in future, so I’m going to set a goal to do just that whenever I hit one of those “number” milestones. I challenge other book tweeters and bloggers to do the same.

A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, by Eimear McBride

1 Reply

A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, by Eimear McBride

In A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, Eimear McBride takes you inside a young woman’s mind teeming so violently, body pained so volcanically, soul torn so profoundly that you’re left shaking by the last page … if you last to that point. You might not. As McBride inhabits this character at the cellular level, the effect is scorchingly intimate, uncomfortable, unbearable and possibly unreadable for some at times. The rewards and insights are great, though, for the reader that can persevere with this thorny, brilliant debut novel.

This young woman gives vivid voice to her troubled upbringing, her sexual abuse at the hands of a manipulative family member, and the self-abuse she plunges into to simultaneously feel and not feel what has happened to her. That voice is only tempered with tenderness and sweet, wry humour when she speaks of and to her brother, set back in his own life’s progress by early childhood illness that comes back to afflict him and unravel their already fractured family.

While always defiant and spirited, that vivid voice is not entirely discernible, however. Spewing a churning wellspring of language that is somehow both dense and fragmented, this unforgettable narrator’s words regularly tumble into inarticulate ranting, but can just as easily take exuberant flight as she wields her unique form of black humour. Even as strict meaning is sometimes blurred, though, you will somehow manage to feel, sometimes be strangely charmed and almost constantly be rendered uncomfortable but still compelled by this woman’s intensity, however desperate, misguided and destructive she is, to herself and those she loves.

Through her voice, you also gain a powerful sense of her physical presence. As striking and verging on impossible it is to take in the indignities visited upon her and that she seeks out, it is a comparatively minor impertinence with her deceased grandfather that oddly but most affectingly connects with the physical intimacy, sympathy and even empathy of the final days with her brother. Even if some of her capacity for fearless physical connection has been made in the most horrific ways, you can’t help but feel a breathless, twisted admiration at her perverse determination to survive.

Her particular ability to understand her brother’s confusion and humiliation is both disquieting and profoundly moving to witness – and still, miraculously, leavened with that feisty dark humour – even when her beloved sibling’s existence has ground down to the miserably mundane. Somehow, she alchemizes that misery into something expiatory and transcendent:

“Something. Words words. I’ll go on my own. Your temper that’s the devil up. Normal almost sight again. Pull the bed but melt like water. Gone to hell. All your muscles. You’d give me a hit but can’t. I. There. Lie back. Lie back. You have to. Don’t do this you say.

“Don’t. You have to. And I turn away. I say. Just go don’t worry it’s. Normal now. It’s fine. You. Strapped up in your body. You don’t live there. I. Don’t look. I hear you. Crying.

“Going in the nappy. Rage. Not fair. Not fair. You wait til I’m well. You can definitely kill me then I say.

“Quiet.

“Turn and you are back asleep. I. Know I life the cover. Clean up. And now you’re gone fast far. Breathing. Don’t see me. Don’t know I do. New one. Clean you. Put it in the bin. See. My one act. I might be a person. Beneath the. Where horrible can be a good act of contrition. Shush there. You there sleeping. My boy. My brother. Wish my eye for yours tooth for your tooth. You’re a better. No. It’s all fuck gone. Gone to the gone to the wrong wrong wrong. Be shush for you. I can.”

A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing is perhaps best read in as few sittings as possible to stay with the narrator’s linguistic and emotional rhythms. Ironically, maintaining that sustained attention is like gazing into the sun. You have to stop. You have to look away. You have to take a breath before resuming. In particular, the book’s last 50 pages (pretty much the entirety of Part V, The Stolen Child, an at least two-pronged title) are suffocatingly intense and emotionally lacerating as the heroine’s – yes, she is heroic – anguish reaches a crescendo.

A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing joins admirably other works known for distinctive if fractious voices that veritably leap off the page. The comparisons to Joyce are plentiful and warranted. More titles that come to mind include Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman and How late it was, how late by James Kelman.

Eimear McBride’s admiration of James Joyce and Edna O’Brien is immense and unabashed, as she reveals in this Guardian essay. Her tribute to Joyce can also be well applied to the rewards to the reader who stays with A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing to the end:

Difficulty is subjective: the demands a writer makes on a reader can be perceived as a compliment, and Joyce certainly compliments his readers in what he asks of them.

See also:

Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for providing a review copy of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, by Eimear McBride.

Book traffic report #5

Leave a reply

As this household continues to brim with books, we’re also continuing to take a year-long look at how books make their way into (and out of) this place. This report reflects the months of June and July, more than halfway through the year.

At the end of June, the two columns on my home office whiteboard tallied up as follows:

Incoming: 10

  • All incoming books were paper.
  • 7 of the books were fiction, 2 were poetry collections, 1 was non-fiction and purchased as a gift (so it quickly became an outgoing book).
  • 6 of the incoming books were purchased in bookstores (Book City and Ben McNally’s).
  • 1 book was purchased online, via Amazon.

Outgoing: 8

At the end of July, the whiteboard tally was as follows:

Incoming: 9

  • 1 of the incoming books was purchased in a bookstore (Book City).
  • 5 received books were complimentary copies from publishers or authors.
  • 1 book was purchased online from Amazon.
  • 1 book received was a gift and 1 was work-related.

Outgoing: 11

2014 to date: 70 books incoming, 90 books outgoing

So far this year, the ratio of read to unread book incoming or outgoing is pretty much 1 to 1. More outgoing books are leaving here read rather than unread, which makes me feel like we’re sending mostly loved or at least acknowledged books back out into the world, versus having more books pass through our home to which we haven’t given any attention. (Well, that makes me feel somewhat less guilty … does that make sense?)

So far this year, 36 fiction, 15 non-fiction and 19 poetry books have arrived, and 45 fiction, 30 non-fiction and 15 poetry books have departed. One observation: many of the departing non-fiction books are admittedly out-of-date technology or topical content that perhaps doesn’t have great historical value (but who are we to judge … perhaps some Little Library acquirers of those books will feel differently …?)

Our outgoing numbers continue to confirm that we have an abiding affection for our local Little Free Library boxes. If those didn’t exist, I wonder if we’d be carting more boxes of books to garage/yard sales and the like. Somehow, Little Free Library boxes seem more thoughtful, don’t they?

little-free-library

The whiteboard is erased and ready for another month of flying books …

Many ways to contemplate the books that make us proud to be Canadian

Leave a reply

cbc-books-logoCBC Books has just served up another delicious helping of CanLit, a way for us to reflect on, ponder and debate the books that make us proud to be Canadian – not to mention a way for us to determine how complete and comprehensive our own reading is, and where we need to fill in some gaps. Here is the list of 100 novels that their team has compiled to meet these general criteria:

Canada has a wealth of writers telling today’s tales, revisiting our past and imagining our future. Literary or mystery, comic or graphic, historical or out of this world, the 100 novels on our list are must-read books.

CBC Books considered everything from cultural impact and critical reception to reader response to choose these titles. The authors all call or once called Canada home, and the novels are all in print. Enjoy!

CBC Books makes it easy for you to determine how many of the books on their list you’ve already read. I’ve read 55 (some of those multiple times), which pleases me in that it’s a nice balance of feeling I’m keeping up, but can always learn and discover more.

What is nice and kinda chewy about this list is that you can come at it from numbers of different angles. The list on the CBC Books page is sorted alphabetically by title, and also breaks out titles by specific types or genres, such as comics and graphic novels, historical fiction, mystery and more. How about these views of the list?

How about your own approaches to the great list which CBC Books has provided to seed our ongoing CanLit discussion – how would you sort, prioritize, add and delete?

CBC Books 100 Novels sorted alphabetically by author

It’s interesting to see which authors – new, established, historical – are represented on the CBC Books 100 Novels list, and which authors avid Canadian literature aficionados might think are missing.

Adamson, Gil
The Outlander

Anderson-Dargatz , Gail
The Cure for Death by Lightning

Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid’s Tale
Alias Grace

Badami, Anita Rau
The Hero’s Walk

Baldwin, Shauna Singh
What the Body Remembers

Barclay, Linwood
No Time for Goodbye

Bergen, David
The Time in Between

Blais, Marie-Claire
trans. Derek Coltman
A Season in the Life of Emmanuel

Blunt, Giles
Forty Words for Sorrow

Boyden, Joseph
The Orenda
Three Day Road

Brand, Dionne
What We All Long For

Catton, Eleanor
The Luminaries

Choy, Wayson
The Jade Peony

Clarke, Austin
The Polished Hoe

Clarke, George Elliott
George & Rue

Coady, Lynn
The Antagonist

Cohen, Leonard
Beautiful Losers

Cohen, Matt
Elizabeth and After

Coupland, Douglas
Generation X

Courtemanche, Gil
trans. Patricia Claxton
A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali

Crummey, Michael
Galore

Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business

deWitt, Patrick
The Sisters Brothers

Doctor, Farzana
Six Metres of Pavement

Donoghue, Emma
Room

Edugyan, Esi
Half-Blood Blues

Engel, Marian
Bear

Fallis, Terry
The Best Laid Plans

Ferguson, Will
419

Findley, Timothy
The Wars

Francis, Brian
Fruit

Galloway, Steven
The Cellist of Sarajevo

Gibb, Camilla
Sweetness in the Belly

Gibson, William
Neuromancer

Govier, Katherine
Creation

Gowda, Shilpi Somaya
Secret Daughter

Gowdy, Barbara
The Romantic

Grant, Jessica
Come, Thou Tortoise

Hage, Rawi
De Niro’s Game

Hay, Elizabeth
Late Nights on Air

Hébert, Anne
trans. Norman Shapiro
Kamouraska

Highway, Tomson
Kiss of the Fur Queen

Hill, Lawrence
The Book of Negroes

Hopkinson, Nalo
Brown Girl in the Ring

Johnston , Wayne
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams

Kay, Guy Gavriel
Tigana

King, Thomas
Green Grass, Running Water

Kogawa, Joy
Obasan

Laferriere, Dany
trans. David Homel
How to Make Love to a Negro without Getting Tired

Laurence, Margaret
The Stone Angel

Lawson, Mary
Crow Lake

Leacock , Stephen
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

Lemire, Jeff
Essex County

Lyon, Annabel
The Golden Mean

MacDonald, Ann-Marie
Fall on Your Knees

MacIntyre, Linden
The Bishop’s Man

MacLennan , Hugh
Two Solitudes

MacLeod, Alistair
No Great Mischief

Maharaj, Rabindranath
The Amazing Absorbing Boy

Martel, Yann
Life of Pi

McKay , Ami
The Birth House

Michaels, Anne
Fugitive Pieces

Mistry, Rohinton
A Fine Balance

Moore, Lisa
February

Mootoo, Shani
Cereus Blooms at Night

Morrissey, Donna
Kit’s Law

Nawaz, Saleema
Bone and Bread

O’Malley, Bryan Lee
Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life

O’Neill, Heather
Lullabies for Little Criminals

Ondaatje, Michael
In the Skin of a Lion

Ozeki, Ruth
A Tale for the Time Being

Penny, Louise
Still Life

Pullinger, Kate
The Mistress of Nothing

Pyper, Andrew
Lost Girls

Quarrington , Paul
Whale Music

Ricci, Nino
Lives of the Saints

Richards, David Adams
Mercy Among the Children

Richler, Mordecai
Barney’s Version

Robinson, Eden
Monkey Beach

Selvadurai, Shyam
Funny Boy

Shields, Carol
The Stone Diaries

Smart, Elizabeth
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

Soucy, Gaétan
trans. Sheila Fischman
The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches

Swan,Susan
The Wives of Bath

Tamaki, Mariko & Jillian
Skim

Thien, Madeleine
Certainty

Thuy, Kim
trans. by Sheila Fischman
Ru

Toews, Miriam
A Complicated Kindness

Urquhart, Jane
Away

Van Camp, Richard
The Lesser Blessed

Vanderhaeghe, Guy
The Englishman’s Boy

Vassanji, M.G.
The Book of Secrets

Wagamese, Richard
Indian Horse

Watson , Sheila
The Double Hook

Whittall, Zoe
Holding Still for as Long as Possible

Wilson, Ethel
Swamp Angel

Wilson, Robert Charles
Spin

Winter, Kathleen
Annabel

CBC Books 100 Novels sorted chronologically by publication year

Doesn’t this give an interesting perspective of how the CBC Books 100 Novels list spans recent and more historical choices? The CBC Books list offers 43 titles published before 2000, 57 in the last 13 years.

1912
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town
Leacock, Stephen

1945
Two Solitudes
MacLennan, Hugh

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept
Smart, Elizabeth

1954
Swamp Angel
Wilson, Ethel

1959
The Double Hook
Watson, Sheila

1964
The Stone Angel
Laurence, Margaret

1966
Beautiful Losers
Cohen, Leonard

1970
Fifth Business
Davies, Robertson

Kamouraska
Hébert, Anne
trans. Norman Shapiro

1976
Bear
Engel, Marian

1977
The Wars
Findley, Timothy

1981
Obasan
Kogawa, Joy

1984
Neuromancer
Gibson, William

1985
The Handmaid’s Tale
Atwood, Margaret

How to Make Love to a Negro without Getting Tired
Laferriere, Dany
trans. David Homel

1987
In the Skin of a Lion
Ondaatje, Michael

1989
Whale Music
Quarrington, Paul

1990
Tigana
Kay, Guy Gavriel

Lives of the Saints
Ricci, Nino

1991
Generation X
Coupland, Douglas

1993
Green Grass, Running Water
King, Thomas

The Stone Diaries
Shields, Carol

The Wives of Bath
Swan, Susan

Away
Urquhart, Jane

1994
Funny Boy
Selvadurai, Shyam

The Book of Secrets
Vassanji, M.G.

1995
The Jade Peony
Choy, Wayson

A Fine Balance
Mistry, Rohinton

1996
The Cure for Death by Lightning
Anderson-Dargatz, Gail

Alias Grace
Atwood, Margaret

Fugitive Pieces
Michaels, Anne

Cereus Blooms at Night
Mootoo, Shani

The Lesser Blessed
Van Camp, Richard

The Englishman’s Boy
Vanderhaeghe, Guy

1997
Barney’s Version
Richler, Mordecai

1998
Kiss of the Fur Queen
Highway, Tomson

Brown Girl in the Ring
Hopkinson, Nalo

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams
Johnston, Wayne

1999
What the Body Remembers
Baldwin, Shauna Singh

Elizabeth and After
Cohen, Matt

No Great Mischief
MacLeod, Alistair

Kit’s Law
Morrissey, Donna

2000
The Hero’s Walk
Badami, Anita Rau

Forty Words for Sorrow
Blunt, Giles

A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali
Courtemanche, Gil
trans. Patricia Claxton

Monkey Beach
Robinson, Eden

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches
Soucy, Gaétan
trans. Sheila Fischman

2001
Three Day Road
Boyden, Joseph

George & Rue
Clarke, George Elliott

Life of Pi
Martel, Yann

Mercy Among the Children
Richards, David Adams

2002
The Polished Hoe
Clarke, Austin

Crow Lake
Lawson, Mary

Fall on Your Knees
MacDonald, Ann-Marie

2003
Creation
Govier, Katherine

The Romantic
Gowdy, Barbara

Lost Girls
Pyper, Andrew

2004
A Complicated Kindness
Toews, Miriam

2005
The Time in Between
Bergen, David

What We All Long For
Brand, Dionne

Sweetness in the Belly
Gibb, Camilla

Spin
Wilson , Robert Charles

2006
De Niro’s Game
Hage, Rawi

The Birth House
McKay, Ami

Lullabies for Little Criminals
O’Neill, Heather

Still Life
Penny, Louise

2007
The Outlander
Adamson, Gil

No Time for Goodbye
Barclay, Linwood

Late Nights on Air
Hay, Elizabeth

The Book of Negroes
Hill, Lawrence

Certainty
Thien, Madeleine

2008
The Best Laid Plans
Fallis, Terry

The Cellist of Sarajevo
Galloway, Steven

2009
A Season in the Life of Emmanuel
Blais, Marie-Claire
trans. Derek Coltman

Galore
Crummey, Michael

Essex County
Lemire, Jeff

The Golden Mean
Lyon, Annabel

The Bishop’s Man
MacIntyre, Linden

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life
O’Malley, Bryan Lee

The Mistress of Nothing
Pullinger, Kate

2010
Room
Donoghue, Emma

Fruit
Francis, Brian

Secret Daughter
Gowda, Shilpi Somaya

Come, Thou Tortoise
Grant, Jessica

February
Moore, Lisa

Skim
Tamaki, Mariko & Jillian

Holding Still for as Long as Possible
Whittall, Zoe

Annabel
Winter, Kathleen

2011
The Antagonist
Coady, Lynn

The Sisters Brothers
deWitt, Patrick

Six Metres of Pavement
Doctor, Farzana

Half-Blood Blues
Edugyan, Esi

The Amazing Absorbing Boy
Maharaj, Rabindranath

2012
419
Ferguson, Will

Ru
Thuy, Kim
trans. by Sheila Fischman

Indian Horse
Wagamese, Richard

2013
The Orenda
Boyden, Joseph

The Luminaries
Catton, Eleanor

Bone and Bread
Nawaz, Saleema

A Tale for the Time Being
Ozeki, Ruth

A list of 100 Canadian books (read or to be read) inspired by the CBC Books 100 Novels list

Needless to say, the CBC Books 100 Novels list stirred up a lot of discussion in a household with a pair of folks who are intensely avid readers and book collectors who also happen to work in very book-oriented professions (libraries and literary prizes). While we appreciate the obvious thought that went into the original CBC Books list, we couldn’t resist using it as the basis for own list. The exercise proved not only how challenging (perhaps impossible) it is to compile a definitive list – kudos once again, CBC Books! – but it also highlights just how rich the CanLit treasure trove is. Here’s how we approached our list and some of what we discovered:

  • Our list of 100 Canadian books / works of fiction simply had to include short story collections. Major literary awards for fiction in this country look at it that way, too. Canada is known internationally for its short story craft, with a certain Nobel winner as one of our greatest but certainly not our only ambassador in this realm. Our list wholeheartedly includes short story collections.
  • We felt there should be a bit more balance between books published pre- and post-2000. The CBC Books list is 43/57 – ours is 51/49.
  • We removed and replaced 15 titles from the original list.
  • On this newly compiled list, I’ve admittedly read a few more – 61 as opposed to 55 on the original CBC Books list. That means I still have some reading to do, which I don’t mind at all!

On the following list, I’ve highlighted where we’ve placed different books, or where we’ve substituted different titles for authors represented on the original list.

Adamson, Gil
The Outlander

Anderson-Dargatz, Gail
The Cure for Death by Lightning

Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid’s Tale
Alias Grace

Badami, Anita Rau
The Hero’s Walk

Baldwin, Shauna Singh
What the Body Remembers

Barclay, Linwood
No Time for Goodbye

Bemrose, John
The Island Walkers

Bergen, David
The Time in Between

Blais, Marie-Claire
trans. Derek Coltman
A Season in the Life of Emmanuel

Blunt, Giles
Forty Words for Sorrow

Boyden, Joseph
Three Day Road

Brand, Dionne
What We All Long For

Buckler, Ernest
The Mountain and the Valley

Callaghan, Morley
Such is My Beloved

Catton, Eleanor
The Luminaries

Choy, Wayson
The Jade Peony

Clarke, Austin
The Polished Hoe

Clarke, George Elliott
George & Rue

Coady, Lynn
The Saints of Big Harbour

Cohen, Leonard
Beautiful Losers

Cohen, Matt
Elizabeth and After

Coupland, Douglas
Generation X

Courtemanche, Gil
trans. Patricia Claxton
A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali

Crummey, Michael
Galore

Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business

deWitt, Patrick
The Sisters Brothers

Doctor, Farzana
Six Metres of Pavement

Donoghue, Emma
Room

Edugyan, Esi
Half-Blood Blues

Engel, Marian
Bear

Fallis, Terry
The Best Laid Plans

Findley, Timothy
The Wars

Francis, Brian
Fruit

Gallant, Mavis
The Other Paris

Galloway, Steven
The Cellist of Sarajevo

Gaston, Bill
Mount Appetite

Gibson, William
Neuromancer

Govier, Katherine
Fables of Brunswick Avenue

Gowda, Shilpi Somaya
Secret Daughter

Gowdy, Barbara
We So Seldom Look on Love

Grant, Jessica
Come, Thou Tortoise

Grove, Frederick Phillip
A Search for America

Hage, Rawi
De Niro’s Game

Harvey, Kenneth
Inside

Hay, Elizabeth
Late Nights on Air

Hébert, Anne
trans. Norman Shapiro
Kamouraska

Hiebert, Paul
Sarah Binks

Highway, Tomson
Kiss of the Fur Queen

Hill, Lawrence
The Book of Negroes

Johnston , Wayne
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams

Kay, Guy Gavriel
Tigana

Kelly, MT
A Dream Like Mine

King, Thomas
Green Grass, Running Water

Kogawa, Joy
Obasan

Laferriere, Dany
trans. David Homel
How to Make Love to a Negro without Getting Tired

Laurence, Margaret
The Stone Angel

Lavery, John
Sandra Beck

Leacock, Stephen
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

Lemire, Jeff
Essex County

MacDonald, Ann-Marie
Fall on Your Knees

MacIntyre, Linden
The Bishop’s Man

MacLennan, Hugh
Two Solitudes

MacLeod, Alistair
No Great Mischief

Maharaj, Rabindranath
The Amazing Absorbing Boy

Martel, Yann
Life of Pi

McKay, Ami
The Birth House

Michaels, Anne
Fugitive Pieces

Mistry, Rohinton
A Fine Balance

Moore, Brian
The Luck of Ginger Coffey

Moore, Lisa
February

Mootoo, Shani
Cereus Blooms at Night

Munro, Alice
The Progress of Love

Nawaz, Saleema
Bone and Bread

O’Neill, Heather
Lullabies for Little Criminals

Ondaatje, Michael
In the Skin of a Lion

Penny, Louise
Still Life

Pullinger, Kate
The Mistress of Nothing

Quarrington, Paul
King Leary

Ricci, Nino
Lives of the Saints

Richards, David Adams
Nights Below Station Street

Richler, Mordecai
Solomon Gursky Was Here
Barney’s Version

Robinson, Eden
Monkey Beach

Ross, Sinclair
As For Me and My House

Selvadurai, Shyam
Funny Boy

Shields, Carol
The Stone Diaries

Smart, Elizabeth
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

Snyder, Carrie
The Juliet Stories

Soucy, Gaétan
trans. Sheila Fischman
The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches

Toews, Miriam
A Complicated Kindness

Urquhart, Jane
The Stone Carvers

Van Camp, Richard
The Lesser Blessed

Vanderhaeghe, Guy
The Englishman’s Boy

Vassanji, M.G.
The Book of Secrets

Wagamese, Richard
Indian Horse

Watson, Sheila
The Double Hook

Wilson, Ethel
Swamp Angel

Wilson, Robert Charles
Spin

Winter, Kathleen
Annabel

2014 reading list (so far)

Leave a reply

Waiting For the Man, by Arjun Basu

As I’ve done in years past, I’m taking a look at the halfway point in the year at the books I’ve read so far, with links where they exist to books that I’ve reviewed (either here on this blog or briefly on Goodreads). As I’ve perpetually remarked – and really mean it – it’s a competition with no one but myself, but it is always useful and interesting to stop and reflect a bit where one is at with one’s reading, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Of the 22 books I’ve read so far this year, 3 were non-fiction, 5 were poetry and the balance of 14 were fiction (novels and short story collections). It’s kind of nice to reflect on this Canada Day holiday that 15 of those 22 books were written by Canadians.

  1. All the Rage
    by A.L. Kennedy

  2. Life After Life
    by Kate Atkinson

    3. canlit

  3. A Recipe for Disaster & Other Unlikely Tales of Love
    by Eufemia Fantetti

    4. canlit

  4. how the gods pour tea
    by Lynn Davies

    5. canlit

  5. Maidenhead
    by Tamara Faith Berger

    6. canlit

  6. Crazy Town – The Rob Ford Story
    by Robyn Doolittle

    7. canlit

  7. The Luminaries
    by Eleanor Catton

    8. canlit

  8. Prairie Ostrich
    by Tamai Kobayashi

  9. Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life
    by Hermione Lee

  10. Bark
    by Lorrie Moore

    11. canlit

  11. Waiting for the Man
    by Arjun Basu

    12. canlit

  12. The Lease
    by Mathew Henderson

    13. canlit

  13. Grayling
    by Gillian Wigmore

  14. Sun Bear
    by Matthew Zapruder

    15. canlit

  15. Ocean
    by Sue Goyette

    16. canlit

  16. Cockroach
    by Rawi Hage
    (reviewed for bookgaga by Paul Whelan)

    17. canlit

  17. Dog Ear
    by Jim Johnstone

    18. canlit

  18. New Tab
    by Guillaume Morissette

  19. Congratulations, by the way
    by George Saunders

    20. canlit

  20. Based on a True Story
    by Elizabeth Renzetti

  21. Americanah
    by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    22. canlit

  22. All My Puny Sorrows
    by Miriam Toews

Currently in progress:

  • The Rise & Fall of Great Powers
    by Tom Rachman

  • Everyone Is CO2
    by David James Brock

How is your reading going so far in 2014?