Comments on: Forget the guidebooks: take a novel approach to Canada

By: Laura Byrne Paquet

Laura Byrne Paquet — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:47:32 +0000

All great recommendations! I would add Hugh MacLennan’s “The Watch That Ends the Night.” One of my favourite books, and it inspired my first trip to Montreal.

Joseph Boyden’s “Through Black Spruce” is wonderfully evocative of the North (at least I assume it is, as I’ve never been as far north as the setting of this book).

By: Stephen Aberle

Stephen Aberle — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:33:26 +0000

Farley Mowat: The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be
Mordechai Richler: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
Margaret Atwood: Surfacing
Robertson Davies: Fifth Business
Dennis Lee: Jelly Belly
Robert Munsch: Love You Forever
Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine
Jack Henstridge: Building The Cordwood Home
Leonard Angel: The Unveiling
25th Street House Players: Paper Wheat
Rick Salutin: 1837 : The Farmers’ Revolt

By: Fiona

Fiona — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:59:36 +0000

Ethel Wilson’s Swamp Angel.

And to give the kids a look into the past (or for a trip down your own Memory Lane): Muriel Dennison’s Susannah of the Mounties.

By: Peter Rawsthorne

Peter Rawsthorne — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:03:27 +0000

Any book about Robert (Bob) Bartlett. In particular, ‘the ice master’. This books gives good insight into Canada’s (well Newfoundland’s, when it was still a dominion) greatest explorer. It also gives insight into the harshness of the arctic, our relationship to europeans, and inuit… The Canadian equivalent of Shackleton, in fact the two voyages shared some members.

By: Julie Ovenell-Carter

Julie Ovenell-Carter — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:31:42 +0000

Oh, Christine, you nailed it: in fact, when I was choosing my 10 to recommend, I had to make the decision to dump Two Solitudes (which helped me understand “the Quebec question”), Swamp Angel and Wolf Willow–but they were way up there on the list too.

Yummy. Now I want to go back and re-read some of these!

By: Christine Hearn

Christine Hearn — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:01:07 +0000

What a great list you have. A few more thoughts from me: two books that say prairies are Wallace Stegner’s Wolf Willow and Sharon Butala’s Perfection of the Morning. Interesting that they are both written around tiny East End, Sask.

Hugh McLellan’s Two Solitudes sets up the French/English dynamic that we are still living. Ethel Wilson’s Swamp Angel and Hetty Dorval, as well as Sheila Watson’s Double Hook say BC to me.

By: Christine Hearn

Christine Hearn — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:43:19 +0000

I’ve been thinking a lot about this since I posted my any of the Anne of Green Gables books comment yesterday. I’m now not sure if any book says “Canada” to me. Certain books say parts of Canada.

The Anne books said a great deal to me about my idea of Canada when I was growing up. Even though they were set in PEI, they had a very Ontario WASPy sensibility as did Mazo de la Roche’s Jalana books. Growing up in small town BC with no Canadian television I thought that WAS Canada, at least Canada in my grandmother’s time. BC seemed very much a different place–not part of Canada at all.

By: Susan Munro

Susan Munro — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:39:20 +0000

How about The Curve of Time? All about a widow and her family boating up and down the BC coast in the 30s and 40s (I think). Absolute magic.

By: Julie Ovenell-Carter

Julie Ovenell-Carter — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:11:47 +0000

Hey Mark, I think I know the guy who wrote May Day! How come I haven’t seen my copy yet? I’ll look for the Thomas book. And I’m still at the uni, mostly found on the 7th floor of HC while SCA makes the transition downtown…buy me lunch at Nuba!

By: Julie Ovenell-Carter

Julie Ovenell-Carter — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:10:34 +0000

Thanks Karen–I promise to go look for it at the library. You reminded me of another book that I recently discovered and that I had the same “why isn’t this required reading” reaction to: it’s called The Golden Spruce: A true story of myth, madness and greed by John Vaillant. It tells the story of an ex-logger turned environmentalist who felled this sacred golden tree in Haida Gwaii. It reads like a thriller, and it gives profound insight into the clash between aboriginal and colonial culture…absolutely a summer must-read!