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Canadian Books & Authors2023-01-20T14:41:32-05:00

An Enduring Passion

Ignited in childhood, still stoked today

In the eleventh grade, I decided that I liked ancient history best: it seemed like maybe I could read everything because so much had already been lost. Perhaps that longing was behind my initial compulsion to “read Canadian”, the idea that maybe I could read it all. Soon after, my reading landscape expanded.

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Canadian Works Discussed

A Wanna-be Read-it-all

Who only wants to ReadAllTheBooks

It is not the job of writers to life our spirits. Books simply do what they do. They sometimes confirm the capricious drama of a childhood living room. When you think that you are in the grace of a dance you come upon something hard.
Dionne Brand

Maharaj to Munro and McNulty to Miller. Browse the Books Discussed Page to look for more. More M’s. More of the other 25.

Indigenous Stories. From Sherman Alexie to Alexis Wright. Louis Riel to Louise Erdrich. Jordan Abel to Eden Robinson. Find new favourites.

Fiercely reading indie. How to preserve your reading spirit when you feel you can’t make a difference.

Recent Bookchat

About CanLit pages I’ve been turning

(For recent bookchat across all categories, visit Home)

Five Canadian Books: #CanadaReads 2024

This morning, the 23rd edition of Canada Reads program launches. I’ve missed the voice of a career writer in the program in recent years and now, with Heather O’Neill’s inclusion (whose Lullaby

January 2024, In My Stacks

Looking back on my stack from last January, I see one of those books is in my stack of reading now (Kim Bo-Young’s stories, which were longer than I’d expected). Typically, I

A Canadian Girl

From Lyn Cook and Jean Little, Onwards

My small-town library had all the Lyn Cook stories on their shelves (my favourite was Samantha’s Secret Room) and usually one or two Jean Little novels (I looked for Stand in the Wind and Look Through My Window first). A trip to the county library meant the chance of a Mouse Woman collection or that thrilling story of how Madeleine de Vercheres single-handedly saved the whole fort in New France (I was immersed in the colonial narrative). When I was a teenager, we moved to the city and the library was huge. Timothy Findley, Wayson Choy, Dionne Brand and Margaret Laurence were among my early favourites.

“Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.”

Carol Shields' The Republic of Love

“I’m starting to realize all readers are writing at least half the book they are reading. Maybe when I write I am responding to that childhood experience of reading, that unequivocal, sensuous absorption. I guess I found writing through reading.”

Lisa Moore
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