The Captive Reader

Well, the Canadian Book Challenge 6 has officially started and, as promised, here is my book list. The aim of the challenge is to read 13 Canadian books over the course of a year, with “Canadian” being defined however you like.  It could mean that the book is set in Canada, that the author is Canadian, or that it is about a Canadian.  There are no rules about how you choose your books: some participants like to read one book from each of the thirteen provinces and territories, some like to concentrate on one geographic region, or on one author…you can really do whatever you like.  I, as usual, am entering the challenge with no particular plan, just the intention of reading as many Canadian books as I can and enjoying them all!  Accordingly, here is my very random reading list for the challenge: 

Fiction

New Under the Sun by Kevin Major
Needing a change, Shannon Carew takes a job in the National Parks system in Newfoundland and Labrador. The journey brings her life full circle, returning her to the birthplace she abandoned years before. As she makes new connections, and unearths old ones, Shannon learns the land holds many memories, stories of Maritime Archaic, the Vikings, the Basques, the Beothuk, and the Europeans who came after.

Hetty Dorval by Ethel Wilson
Seeking refuge from her mysterious past, the beautiful Mrs. Dorval arrives in a small British Columbia town at the confluence of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers. As Frankie Burnaby, the young schoolgirl Mrs. Dorval befriends, pieces together Hetty’s story, she begins to realize that her enigmatic idol is also a treacherous opponent.

No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod
An astounding novel about family and ancestry from one of Canada’s greatest writers.

Underground by Antanas Sileika
Inspired by true events, Underground tells the story of a troubled romance between Lukas and Elena, two members of the underground Lithuanian resistance movement in mid-1940s.

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
…the internationally celebrated epic of a beleaguered country struggling to be free. It is the tale of a people so cursed by the dark sorceries of the tyrant king Brandin that even the very name of their once beautiful home cannot be spoken or remembered. But, years after their homeland’s devastation, a handful of men and women set in motion a dangerous crusade—to overthrow their conquerors and bring back to the world the lost brightness of an obliterated name: Tigana.

 

Children’s Books

The Guests of War Trilogy by Kit Pearson
Examining the experiences of two British children evacuated to Canada during the Second World War, I adored these three books growing up.

The Daring Game by Kit Pearson
I do love a good boarding school story.  Ironically, this is the only one of Pearson’s books I didn’t read as a child, though it is set at a fictionalized version of the school that I attended (and where Pearson was a boarder in the 1960s).

The Mountain and the Valley by Ernest Buckler
…an affectionate portrait of David Canaan, a sensitive boy who becomes increasingly aware of the difference that sets him apart from his family and his neighbours. David’s desire to write is the secret that gives this haunting story its detailed focus and its poignant theme.

 

Short Stories

Dance of the Happy Shades by Alice Munro
What could be more quintessentially Canadian than a book of Munro’s short stories, especially this, her first?

The Lost Salt Gift of Blood by Alistair MacLeod
Focusing on the complexities and abiding mysteries at the heart of human relationships, the seven stories of The Lost Salt Gift of Blood map the close bonds and impassable chasms that lie between man and woman, parent and child.

Glengarry School Days by Ralph Conner
The 15 sketches that make up Glengarry School Days look back affectionately on childhood in Ontario at the time of Confederation. Yet behind Connor’s delightful account of boyhood enthusiasms – and his clear desire for a more orderly and courageous world – lie glimpses of the moral rigidity that also characterized homesteading life in early Canada.

Copernicus Avenue by Andrew J. Borkowski
Set primarily in the neighbourhood of fictional Copernicus Avenue, Andrew Borkowski’s debut collection of short stories is a daring, modern take on life in Toronto’s Polish community in the years following World War II. Featuring a cast of young and old, artists and soldiers, visionaries and madmen, the forgotten and the unforgettable, Copernicus Avenue captures, with bold and striking prose, the spirit of a people who have travelled to a new land, not to escape old grudges and atrocities, but to conquer them.

Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich by Stephen Leacock
Of the many books by Canada’s most celebrated humorist, none has received more acclaim than his brilliant, caustic treatment of the glittering rich who gather at the Mausoleum Club on Plutoria Avenue.

 

Graphic

Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton
HARK! A VAGRANT takes readers on a romp through history and literature — with dignity for few and cookies for all — with comic strips about famous authors, their characters, and political and historical figures, all drawn in Beaton’s pared-down, excitable style. This collection features favourite stories as well as new, previously unpublished content. Whether she’s writing about Nikola Tesla, Napoleon, or Nancy Drew, Beaton brings a refined sense of the absurd to every situation.

Paul Has a Summer Job by Michel Rabagliati
This sweet and funny coming-of-age story marks a high-water mark in great old-fashioned storytelling in graphic novels. This book tells the story of Paul, a Montreal teenager who, against the backdrop of Quebec in the 1970s, tastes the freedom and responsibilities of adulthood for the first time. Thanks to plummeting grades, Paul defiantly quits high school and takes a job at factory. A year later, tired and depressed, Paul accepts a strange job offer to go be a counselor at a summer camp in the mountains run by a freewheeling Catholic priest. Paul finds himself guiding a motley band of kids– misfits, loners, and troublemakers — through the rough terrain of growing up.

Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China by Guy Delisle
I have read and loved Delisle’s other graphic memoirs (Burma Chronicles, Pyongyang, Jerusalem) so, of course, I am looking forward to this.

 

Non-fiction

A Thousand Farewells by Nahlah Ayed
A uniquely personal insight into the Middle East from one of Canada’s most respected foreign correspondents.

The Juggler’s Children: Family, Myth and a Tale of Two Chromosomes by Carolyn Abraham
Carolyn Abraham explores the stunning power and ethical pitfalls of using genetic tests to answer questions of genealogy–by cracking the genome of her own family.

Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile by Taras Grescoe
Ultimately, Straphanger’s subject is the city, and it offers a global tour of alternatives to car-based living, told through encounters with bicycle commuters, subway engineers, idealistic mayors and disillusioned trolley campaigners. Along the way, Grescoe meets libertarian apologists for the automobile, urbanists who defend suburban sprawl, champions of buses, rapid transit and light rail, and planners fighting to liberate cities from the empire of the automobile.

My Grandfather’s House by Charles Ritchie
In this book, Charles Ritchie looks back at some of the characters that peopled his childhood and youth, in the years before his brilliant career in Canada’s diplomatic corps began. In these essays we are introduced to his uncles, Harry “Bimbash” Stewart and the dashing, doomed Charlie Stewart; to his indomitable mother; to his mad cousin Gerald; to the newspaper tycoon Lord Beaverbrook; to his college friend Billy Coster, who threw away wealth and a secure future; and to a host of others. With his usual unerring eye and elegant prose, Charles Ritchie brings them all to life again, with affection and wit.

I can’t wait to begin reading!