All in Canadian Authors
I had seen The Berry Pickers recommended a few times, but it hadn’t yet made it to my stack of books when my mother-in-law gave it to me for Christmas. Books are always a good bet as a gift for me, but this one was such a wonderful choice that I gave it back to her as soon as I finished it so she could read it too!
Thinking about my favorite kind of novels, I must admit that mysteries fall towards the bottom of my list. I feel like I’m not good at keeping track of all the clues that should lead me to figure out “who done it” before the writer actually reveals the killer. I know I’ve said this before, but this is one of the reasons why I love being in a book club. We make our book selections and inevitably some of those books I would never have read on my own. And guess what? Sometimes I really enjoy the books. Louise Penny’s Still Life is a perfect example of this phenomenon.
Many of you will remember the glowing review my mother wrote of Edugyan’s novel Washington Black (read review here), which was one of my favorite books that year as well. So when I saw that an earlier book of hers had won the Giller prize, I scooped it up from the library immediately. A similarly sweeping historical drama dealing with race across several continents, Half-Blood Blues did not disappoint.
I’ve mentioned before the odd coincidence when I feel that a theme or time period is suddenly everywhere in my life. Right now all of my media seems to be World War II related. Not the most uplifting moment in history, and sometimes downright traumatic. But even though I am feeling a bit inundated, Obasan stood out as a truly remarkable piece of writing.
As I turned the last page of Five Little Indians, I honestly felt a sense of relief. My first instinct was to put it in one of the little free libraries near my house and be done. But over the next few days, I found myself thinking about the characters often and realizing that although their stories were brutal at times, they were also deeply affecting. Perhaps the book held more than I initially experienced.
Every year when the Giller Prize, one of Canada’s top literary awards, is announced, I buy the book. I finally got around to reading the 2022 winner, The Sleeping Car Porter. This book was engrossing and beautiful and I would never have discovered it if not for the Prize.
I absolutely love when I end up reading the right book at the right time, and Every Summer After lined up perfectly with the first warm days of spring in Toronto. This is a true beach read and a very enjoyable one.
Samra Habib is an Ahmadi Muslim who spent her early childhood in Pakistan before fleeing persecution with her family and settling in Toronto. As a young teen in Canada, Habib faces huge challenges from bullying to being the sole translator for her parents as they navigate a whole new bureaucracy.
What Strange Paradise is an incredibly difficult read emotionally, but one I have to recommend for its tragic portrayal of the hope we all harbor as humans and what good can come from reaching out to one another.
I truly believe that Emily St. John Mandel is well on her way to Margaret Atwood status in terms of Canadian authors we (yes, I’m Canadian-ish now) delight in bragging about. My only caveat to demanding that you run out and buy this book and then read it immediately is that if time travel annoys or confuses you, maybe give this a pass.
With an author as prolific as Margaret Atwood, it seems I can always find another of her books to read. I don’t remember how this 2015 novel made its way onto my reading list, but it is a fascinating story with plenty of psychological tricks and thrills, like so many of Atwood’s better-known works.
If you are looking for an epic, historical family drama, look no further. Set in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in the first half of the 20th century, Fall On Your Knees weaves together the stories of the Piper family over four generations, as well as the stories of their extended families and neighbors. MacDonald expertly reveals both dark secrets and terrible mistakes her characters make at the same time ensuring you feel the same love for them that she does.
Fifteen Dogs is one of the most entertaining books, with one of the weirdest premises, that I have ever read. Set in and around downtown Toronto, the story begins with a conversation in a bar between the gods Hermes and Apollo, who share a drink and make a wager. They debate whether the cause of human unhappiness is consciousness, and so decide to bestow human consciousness on a group of dogs so see if their lives are made happier by it.
This completely original and unforgettable book will captivate you from beginning to end. Edugyan opens the book with young Washington Black (Wash) who is enduring life as a young slave on a sugar cane plantation on Barbados in 1830. Under the dominion of the ruthlessly cruel plantation owner, Erasmus Wilde, Wash struggles to understand how so little value can be placed on the slaves’ lives.
Set in Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century, The Wonder fascinates with the story of Lib Wright, a nurse who trained with Florence Nightingale. She has been hired for two weeks to observe 11-year-old Anna O’Donnell, who claims not to have eaten for four months. Her parents and the local priest and politicians believe that she is a living miracle. Her fame has spread so widely that believers make pilgrimages to meet her. Lib believes she will uncover with ease and efficiency the deceit in the little girl’s and her family’s claim. Instead, she finds herself pulled into Anna’s saint-like aura.
Thirty-five years after writing her dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood has given us the ultimate gift of an absolutely fabulous sequel in The Testaments. Although I read The Handmaid’s Tale many years ago, I was able to jump right into The Testaments because I’ve been following the Hulu television series of The Handmaid’s Tale.
I’m going to be upfront here: this book took a long time to grab my interest, and even after finishing it, there are huge sections that never really interested me. But it’s a sneaky one, and since finishing it, I have found myself remembering the characters as though they were people I knew. And it certainly taught me a great deal of Newfoundland's history, about which I knew absolutely nothing.
This is not the kind of book I would normally pick out for myself, but my husband Dan saw Hadfield speak and brought his memoir home. His high praise of the man’s message and the book itself put it at the top of my list, and I wasn’t disappointed.
Confession: I definitely chose this book for its cover. I was intrigued and almost bought it several times before finally getting it from the library after a long wait. But whatever I thought it would be about, The Birth House sucked me into a world and story that I never dreamed existed, and taught me some Canadian History at the same time.
It’s hard to categorize this book, and I am sure I have never read another one like it. Part mystery, part thriller, part brain teaser, every page you turn the story gets weirder and more engrossing.
