Monniblog

Some people have been disappointed with the Canada Reads 2010 list. Reasons include the authors/publishers/books being too well-known already. There are two new grassroots challenges called Canada Reads Independently and Canada Also Reads which aim to shed light on the lesser known titles/authors/publishers. How very Canadian of us! Personally, I haven’t read any of the books but I did know of Generation X and The Jade Peony already. I’m enjoying reading the Canada Reads list but also want to spread the word about these Canadian works too.

CANADA READS INDEPENDENTLY

When I first heard about Canada Reads Independently 2010, I thought it was a list of books from independent presses. Wrong. It turns out that Kerry Clare of Pickle Me This launched Canada Reads 2010: Independently for a different reason. Kerry says, “I’m not going to knock [Canada Reads] because I love the spirit behind the whole thing… but it just wasn’t the reading list for me. What I wanted was what I found from (most of) the 2009 lineup– book recommendations out of nowhere, books I’d never pick up otherwise, that challenge my sensibilities, and that I might just fall in love with.”

In an interview with Julie Wilson (aka BookMadam) at CBC Book Club, Kerry said, “I’m going to be reading the five books over the next two months, posting reviews as I go, and rating the books against one another. I’ll be inviting other readers to comment on my reactions to the books, perhaps have some guest posts and coverage of other readers’ reviews, and then I’ll choose my own favourite of the bunch, and we’ll have a vote to come up with a readers’ choice champion as well. And I’m hoping my “celebrity panelists” will be able to weigh in from time to time in their book’s defence, which should be fun.”

The books:

• Moody Food by Ray Robertson
  (championed by Steven W. Beattie of the Quill & Quire)
• How Happy to Be by Katrina Onstad
  (championed by author Rona Maynard)
• Wild Geese by Martha Ostenso
  (championed by Melanie Owen of Roughing it in the Books)
• Hair Hat by Carrie Snyder
  (championed by illustrator Patricia Storms)
• Century by Ray Smith
  (championed by publisher/bookseller/editor Dan Wells of Biblioasis)

CANADA ALSO READS

The National Post’s book blog The Afterword has released a selection of titles called Canada Also Reads 2010. When the Canada Reads list was released, they agreed with “many of the 140-character-or-less comments that appeared in the moments after this year’s crop was unveiled: these are great books, but haven’t they already been read?” And so Canada Also Reads was born. They are “a fan of what Canada Reads has done to promote CanLit, we figured this would be a great opportunity to help shine a light on some of the books sitting in the shadows. What books should Canada also read, we asked? We were immediately inundated with hundreds and hundreds of submissions from readers across the country.”

The books:

• My White Planet by Mark Anthony Jarman
  (defended by writer and critic Steven Beattie)
• The Day The Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan
  (defended by author Tish Cohen)
• Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis
  (defended by singer/songwriter Andy Maize)
• The Last Shot by Leon Rooke
  (defended by poet Jacob McArthur Mooney)
• Yellowknife by Steve Zipp
  (defended by blogger John Mutford)
• You And The Pirates by Jocelyne Allen
  (defended by author Lisa Pasold)
• Come Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant
  (defended by author Neil Smith)
• Fear of Fighting by Stacey May Fowles, pictures by Marlena Zuber
  (defended by author Zoe Whittall)