Finally I can start gossiping about the Booker again!

Oh man, sorry for the sporadic posting folks. It’s been a long month. I promise a real post is in the works!

For now, in case you haven’t heard, The Booker Long List:

• The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt
• Summertime by J.M. Coetzee
• The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds
• How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall
• The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey
• Me Cheeta by James Lever
• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
• The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
• Not Untrue & Not Unkind by Ed O’Loughlin
• Heliopolis by James Scudamore
• Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
• Love and Summer by William Trevor
• The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Who’s up for a rousing game of “find the Canadian?” No, it’s not Margaret Atwood. The book doesn’t even have the word “wilderness” in the title! Trickier than you thought, eh?

Reading The Little Stranger was like the highlight of my year, so that’s who I’m rooting for.

Which book’s got your vote?

 

Canada Has at Least Ten Poets: Read in Case of Future Jeopardy! Question

Last month CBC took some time out to remind us that there are Canadian poets and make us feel guilty for not reading any of them. Oh CBC, I kid. It’s actually a good article and with the wealth of poets out there in Canadiana territory picking a top 10 must have been thankless task.

Readers will (perhaps) be relieved that they are no longer required to read George Bowering wax poetic about the eroticism of baseball or Al Purdy make metaphors about wood. Thankfully the list goes outside of the “Introduction to Canadian Poetry” canon and includes several women and non-white poets. Somehow I keep forgetting Dionne Brand is Canadian. I must remember to brag about this more when I leave the country.

Something else that caught my eye was despite claims to have “dropped several past masters in favor of some younger authors making their mark in this millennium”  I wouldn’t call these top 10 poets youngsters. Let’s just say none of them are twittering. Where are the Zoe Whittals? The Stuart Rosses? All those other hip poets that hang out in Toronto I keep trying to “accidentally” run into?

I think as a literary culture we tend to associate “Canadian Literature” with past generations, and it works to our deteriment by making it seem like there have only been 20 or so poets to have ever grown in Canada. And let me tell you, WE ARE LEGION. Seriously, I bet 10% of the people you know under 30 are poets. It’s like being left-handed, except that Stephen Harper takes your money away.

So… Read poetry! Go! Now!

Here’s the list to get you started:

Don McKay
Ken Babstock
Mary Dalton
Dionne Brand
Don Domanski
David McGimpsey
Skydancer Louise Bernice Halfe
Jeramy Dodds
Erin Mouré
Sheri-D Wilson

 

Jane Eyre as a Twitter update

evil aunt, evil cousins, school w/lots of death, sexy boss! oh no other wife! creepy missionary, Rochester blind now, married ♥, the end

Ok, I’m totally going back to work now. Seriously.

 

New Stephen King novel: it’s really long and something weird happens

The jury’s out on whether this is going to be really good or just really… Stephen Kingish. I mean, if anyone can pull off an epic 1000+ word novel about a town being trapped under a dome it’s him. What worries me is the Stand comparison. Do we really need another lengthy battle between good and evil/random weirdness in which (spoiler alert!) good wins? And the leader of the good team is a well-meaning middle-aged guy who is totally not Stephen King because sometimes he doesn’t wear glasses?

I actually really liked the Stand, I remember going to school the day after I finished it continually thinking I was in the middle of an apocalyptic viral war and flinching every time someone coughed. As somewhat predictable as his main characters often are, I always remember an interesting female character I can identify with (remember when Dayna throws herself out the window to keep Flagg from reading her mind? OMG!)

But King can also take us different places- he’s at his best when he lets his creative plots loose and writes a world somewhere beyond the black and white of good guys vs bad guys. Really, as long as there’s some kind of supernatural vortex or rips in the fabric of time I’m good.

 

Playoffs!

Finally, a Stanley Cup for geeks:

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction announced today a one-off award – The Best of the Booker – to celebrate the prestigious literary prize’s 40th anniversary. The Best of the Booker will honour the best overall novel to have won the prize since it was first awarded on 22 April 1969. 41 novels will be eligible for the award as there were two winners in both 1974 and in 1992.

This poses all sorts of questions in my head- do you favour well-written books over books with good stories? Will they avoid picking authors who have won more than once? Who would win in a book-off, Peter Carey or Ian McEwan? Better yet- Margaret Atwood or A.S. Byatt? I don’t envy these judges. I guess I don’t have to worry about it either, as six finalist books are chosen by three judges, who then leave it up to the well-balanced and always reliable people of the internet. Let’s just hope it won’t be the Facebook Wishlist all over again. We all know how evangelical those Salman Rushdie fans can be.

Booksellers are predicting the Life of Pi, but I think that’s too recent and readers got a little sick of it during its year of glory; especially if they happened to be working in a bookstore at the time. *ahem* Anyway, my vote’s on J.M. Coetzee with his wacky cult following, or perhaps Iris Murdoch. But in my heart it will always be Maggie.