Canadian Challenge

I’m late to the party, but I’ve realised I don’t pay enough attention to my northern neighbours. So what better way to fix that than by joining a challenge that requires me to read 13 books by Canadian authors before next Canada Day (July 1st)? The lovely John Mutford is the host of the Canadian Challenge, now in its third year.

Once I overcame the temptation to fill up my list with L.M. Montgomery and Charles de Lint, I began creating my pool in earnest. And I discovered something fascinating; being a ‘Canadian’ author seems to be a pretty amorphous quality. My list ended up falling into three definite categories plus one catch-all. So let’s get to discussing books, shall we?

Fiction by Canadians Not Set in Canada

• The Assassin’s Song by M.G. Vassanji: I just read The Book of Secrets and loved it. This one has been sitting on my TBR shelf for almost two years! And it has the prettiest cover.
• The Lizard Cage by Karen Connolly: another one that’s been on my TBR shelf forever. I read three books about Burma earlier this year, so it’ll be good to return.
• The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway: Bosnia is near and dear to my heart, since I did my senior honour’s thesis (100+ pages) on its reconstruction. This is a novel set during the brutal war.
• The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys: this one sounds similar to the Persephones everyone’s been tormenting me with lately (my library doesn’t have any, and I’m on a book buying ban)-a quiet, private woman novel. It’s set during early WWII, when a young gardener leaves for Devon to get away from the Blitz (did I ever tell you that I woke up in the middle of the night one time, and thought to myself “Oh dear. The curtains. Shall have to pay a blackout fine.” before realising that I was not in fact British, living in London, or in the 1940s? I have weird, vivid dreams like that all the time.). She stays at a large estate, training girls to farm the extensive grounds, along with a regiment of Canadian soldiers. Girls, soldiers, war…need I say more?
• What the Body Remembers by Shauna Singh Baldwin: this is set in India during the Partition, which reminds me of an incredible novella I read the dealt with the same events (Train to Pakistan). But it looks at Sikh culture, specifically at two wives who have the same husband…I had no idea Sikhs could be polygamous!
• The Book of Saints by Nino Ricci: this one’s set in Italy, and is the beginning of a trilogy. That’s about all I know! (Sometimes I like to go into books with a blank slate.)
• A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry: I feel like this is one of the more well-known books on my list! After all, Oprah picked it. It’s another India-focused novel, and a Powell’s staffer recommends it by comparing it to Carson McCullers and Flannery O’Connor. Doesn’t that make you want to read it?!

Historical Fiction Set in Canada

• The Book of Negroes/Someone Knows by Name by Lawrence Hill: this one has been all over the blogosphere! I don’t know why the American edition has a different title; for awhile I thought my library catalog was just being dumb, lol. It follows a slavegirl from her capture through her life in America during the Revolutionary War to her involvement in the founding of Sierra Leone.
• Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald: this is totally my style: it’s a sprawling family epic. It’s set on Cape Breton Island, which I had to look up on a map (shameful, I know, but I can name the 13 provinces!), and spans five generations. Apparently, it was another Oprah pick.
• The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan: a love story set in 1915 around Niagara Falls. I’ve been to Niagara a lot, since my mom’s family is from Buffalo, so pretty much every time we visited we’d go look at them. Because of this, I forget that they’re a natural wonder! Anyway, Melody had a great review of this.
• In The Skin Of A Lion by Michael Ondaatje: I listened to his Divisadero on CD a few years ago and didn’t like it at all. However, I usually give authors at least two tries, and this one’s set in one of my favourite time periods-the 20s or 30s.
• Obasan by Joy Kogawa: it turns out the US government wasn’t the only one who treated people of Japanese descent as war criminals during WWII. Canada did as well. Kogowa has novelised her own experience of that.
• All that Matters by Wayson Choy: this is actually a sequel/prequel to Choy’s first novel The Jade Peony, but it’s the only one my library has. So, it follows a Chinese boy who arrives in Canada during the 20s and his eventualy family, mainly set in Vancouver 30s and 40s. I think it’s more like a companion novel, looking at the same family and events from a different perspective.
• Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood: I’ve very much enjoyed all of the Atwood I’ve read and I loved The Blind Assassin. So I to include her on the list! I’ve heard great things about this novel, based around a real nineteenth century maid who was convicted of killing her employers.
• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley: this is another one that’s gotten a ton of press! In fact, I’m number 70-something on my library’s list (fortunately, they’ve got 15 copies and 4 more on order). But I’ve seen only positive reviews, and Bradley’s a debut septogenarian author. How cool is that?! This is also the only mystery on my whole list; since I love mysteries, I’m very excited. It’s set in the 1950s, which will be a change-most of my historical mystery reads are earlier.

Nonfiction

• Louis Riel by Chester Brown: this is the only graphic book on my list (if you have any Canadian graphic novel/memoir recs, share away!). It’s a biography of Louis Riel, one of Canada’s founding fathers apparently. Can you tell I know next to nothing about Canadian history? That’s pretty shameful, I know. But I can tell you all about their refugee policy!
• The Day The World Came To Town by Jim DeFede: this sounds like it might be a bit fluffy for me, a la Outcasts United, but on the other hand I do enjoy a good personal interest story. DeFede is a journalist, and he looks at 9/11 in Gander, where many planes ended up landing after the US closed its airspace. It’s about both the passengers stuck there and the various townspeople who go out of their way to help.
• Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat: wolves! Who doesn’t love them? (Other than Sarah Palin…oh, cheap shot, I know. But I’m a vegetarian, so obviously I do *not* like hunting.) Anyway, this is a nature writing classic-Mowat spent a summer on the tundra trying to figure out why the wolves were killing artic caribou for the Canadian Wildlife Service.
• The Iambics of Newfoundland by Robert Finch: isn’t that a marvelous title?! This sounds like travel writing Bill Bryson style; apparently Newfoundland is an isolated place with a bunch of quirky traditions.
• The Devil’s Picnic by Taras Grescoe: another travel book, this one is also foodie style. Grescoe goes around the world eating illegal food in various countries. Another one with a fun title too!
• The Concubine’s Children and/or The Girl in the Picture by Denise Chong: both of these biographies sound really good. The former is of Chong’s grandmother and the family she left behind while the latter is of the little Vietname girl being burned by napalm in the famous Pulitzer-prize-winning photographer.
• As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto: this about a boy who, after a bad circumsion, was raised as a girl (he had a twin brother too!). Apparently, it’s also got a bit of a vendetta John Money and his work on gender.
• The Judgment of Paris by Ross King: I read King’s Brunelleschi’s Dome earlier this year and wasn’t impressed. But like I said, I enjoy giving authors second changes! And this one has a clever title. It’s about Paris and the beginnings of the Impressionist movement, which since I’m currently reading a big biography of Chagall will be interesting.
• Time Was Soft There by Jeremy Mercer: a travel memoir about the famous Parisian bookstore Shakespeare & Co.! How could I resist?
• The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant: we’ve established how I feel about trees. This is about logging and nature and politics and sounds really upsetting but really good.

Houseboat Chronicles by Jake MacDonald: Powell’s doesn’t have this one, but it’s another travelogue.

• Of This Earth by Rudy Wiebe: a memoir about growing up as a Mennonite. I always enjoy peeks into different subcultures! And I’ve got a fiction book that deals with the Mennonites too.

Everything Else (mainly fantasy and Native American)

• Memory and Dream by Charles de Lint: I love this urban fantasy author, and I’m working through his Newford series in order (after accidently reading the last one first back in the first OUAT challenge). This is next on the list! I’m excited-after the so-so ones published under a pseudonym, this one seems to have great reviews.
• “The Rez Sisters” by Tomson Highway: this is a play, which I ought to read more of, and Yann Martel sent it to the PM. It’s about seven sisters who live in on a reservation and their attempts to win a better life via bingo.
• A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews: this is the Mennonite novel I talked about. It’s also set in Manitoba, which is appealing since most of the books I’ve chosen are set on the coasts!
• Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King: this is a magical realist novel about four Native American men who escape from an asylum and are friends with Coyote.
• Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden: another Native American book, this won the 2008 Giller Prize. It sounds more modern literary than I usually read, but I’ll give it a go.
• A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay: Kay’s another one who I’m giving another chance (I enjoyed Ysabel but it didn’t blow me away). De Lint called this a perfect novel, so we’ll see! It’s set in an alternative, magical Medieval Province.
• Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson*: I loved Hopkinson’s novel that I read the Caribbean Challenge last month. This is another one of hers, which was part of the CanadaReads award/program/book-off (I don’t know what the right word is!). I originally had it in the ‘not in Canada’ category, but it’s set in a post-apocolyptic Toronto. It’s definitely urban fantasy, with an heiress to voodoo at the heart of the story!

[Via http://astripedarmchair.wordpress.com]