Canada Reads List Announced

This past week the 2010 version of Canada Reads was announced by the CBC.

The books and their defenders are as follows:

• Perdita Felicien is defending Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
• Samantha Nutt is defending The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy
• Cadence Weapon is defending Generation X by Douglas Coupland (side note: Cadence Weapon is curently Edmonton's poet laureate- how cool is that? Edmonton has a rapper as a poet laureate! Sometimes this city surprises me)
• Simi Sara is defending Good to a Fault by Marinna Endicott
• Michel Vezina is defending Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner

I haven't read any of these books, though Fall on Your Knees is quite popular, so I imagine many people have. So was Generation X when it first came out.

I am looking forward to reading all theses books, and on Katy's suggestion I am going to have to reserve them at the library so I don't go broke reading Can Lit.

I am not going to lie, I have never spent the time following or reading Canada Reads books. Two years ago I did read the winner, King Leary by Paul Quarrington and it was amazing. But going back through the list of all the books nominated, that is only one of two that I have ever gotten around to. Not to say I haven't read other books by those authors, but the exact books? Just two. Quarrington and Thomas Wharton's Icefields (which happens to be a personal favorite of mine). SO this year will be a challenge for me (a challenge in a challenge, if you will). We will see how I do.

On the note of Canada Reads, I wanted to share this column by Douglas Hunter, who criticizes the novel choices in Canada Reads, noting that they are all fiction! What about Canadian non-fiction? He is right, while I am not a huge non-fiction fan, there are some great Can Lit non-fiction writers out there and I am going to try and read his recommendations as well. I need to break out of my fiction box. I may even read the Andrew Nikiforuk book.... just don't tell anyone I work with :)

So get reading readers! let me know what you think of the Canada Reads selections- any first thoughts?

The Logogryph by Thomas Wharton

I just want to start this post by saying I have met Thomas Wharton (he is from Edmonton)- it was a long time ago, but he is a super cool guy who drives a minivan. Years ago, this minivan had a “Honk if you love Borges” sticker in it. How cool is that? Pretty freakin’ cool!

I have read other Thomas Wharton books that I love (Icefields being a favourite) and he is such a great writer. The thing with The Logogryph is you have to understand the format. At first, I was not enjoying it as much as I had hoped. I loved the story about the Canadian boy that ran through the book, but the other stuff was just short and disjointed. But then I reconsidered what I was reading and its purpose.

The Logogryph is like an annotated bibliography. It is a collection of bits that give a glimpse into stories about books. And it does a fabulous job of it. When you change your perspective from “I am reading a novel” to “I am not reading a novel, but a creative piece of fiction” then you can really understand what Wharton is trying to do.

I don’t have much to say about The Logogryph and that may be because I read it almost a month ago (I know- I suck at blogging) but it really is great and worth reading. So is every other Thomas Wharton book. There is nothing specifically Canadian about The Logogryph (unlike Icefields, which is super Canadian), but it demonstrates that even Canadians can produce cutting edge literature. It is just a great, creative, work of fiction. So go read it!

PS- When I was googling Thomas Wharton to make sure I spelt Logogryph correctly I cam across his blog, which is also on blogspot! Check it out here

-Tory (the bad twin who doesn't post much)