March 8, 2009
(Almost) Definitive
Oh, this is good. Melanie from Roughing It In the Books gets a bit more definitive than I did about what she’d recommend for the nation to read. Her choice is Thomas Trofimuk’s Doubting Yourself to the Bone, which I’ve never heard of, and have requested at the library. And I’ve managed to narrow it down to two, which is the best I can do. Pickle Me This’s recommendations for Canadian books the whole nation should read is The Fire Dwellers by Margaret Lawrence, and Russell Smith’s Muriella Pent. The first because I bet you have strong opinions of Lawrence based upon having read The Stone Angel in grade twelve, and this might challenge some of them. The second, because it demonstrates that contemporary Canadian fiction can be fabulous to read, and different than anything else you’ve read before.
I haven’t read either of those but I’m looking forward to The Fire Dwellers. I haven’t read The Stone Angel either but I loved The Diviners and completely ate up Lawrences biography when it came out years ago. I’m looking forward to reading more of her work when I get around to it in my NCL pile.