The books are out, and one of my favourite books is one of the contenders, "The Book of Negroes" by Lawrence Hill. It has to win, it just has to. If you have time, pick up a couple of these books, or all of them. Ream them and post your comments here.
For those of you who have not heard of Canada Reads, here's how it works. Five celebrity panelists each choose their favourite books, and over the course of a week (March 2 0 6, 2009), the books are debated. Each day, a book is voted off the list until there is only one book remaining. I hope this year will be better than last year. The winning book from 2008 was "King Leary" by Paul Quarrington. It was an OK read, but not something I would have voted as being the book for all of Canada to read. Some of the other books on last year's list were real groaners.
OK, here are the books:
- The Book of Negroes
by Lawrence Hill
defended by
Avi Lewis - The Fat Lady Next Door Is Pregnant
by Michel Tremblay
defended by
Anne-Marie
Withenshaw - Fruit
by Brian Francis
defended by
Jen Sookfong Lee - Mercy Among Children
by David Adams Richards
defended by
Sarah Slean - The Outlander
by Gil Adamson
defended by
Nicholas Campbell
1 comment:
I love "The Book of Negroes". It's a fabulous book. Even better since I just found out that the author, Lawrence Hill, was born in Burlington, Ont, as was I. Aminata's resilience impressed and amazed me. I could use some of her strength now. For those of you who are not familiar with the story, here's a brief summary.
"Written over five years – “an exciting, daunting, endless and thrilling process,” he says – Hill’s masterful and affecting epic tells the story of Aminata Diallo. A skilled midwife and able to read and write – thanks to covert tutoring by a fellow slave – Aminata survives kidnapping by slave traders at the age of 11, the horrors of the Middle Passage and, later, an exodus to Nova Scotia, then Sierra Leone and finally England. "
I think I will read "Mercy Among Children" next. That book sounds really good, too.
"When 12-year-old Sydney Henderson pushes Connie Devlin from a church roof, he makes a pact with God to never harm another soul if the boy survives.
Everything in Mercy Among the Children stems from this defining incident. After Connie gets up from the fall unscathed, Sydney goes through life in state of almost masochistic passivity and pacifism, in spite of the intolerance and ridicule he faces in his rural New Brunswick community.
Sydney’s choices eventually have consequences for his entire family, particularly his volatile son Lyle, who cannot comprehend his father’s turn-the-other-cheek attitude. When Sydney is implicated in a heinous crime in his Miramichi Valley community, Lyle decides that violence might be a more effective way to clear his family’s name.
Richards has been compared to Tolstoy for the moral questions he raises in this wrenching story. The novel is a compassionate depiction of people who struggle to endure the legacy of abuse, poverty and misfortune they’ve inherited from their parents.
Released to much praise in 2000, Mercy Among the Children was named one of the best books of the year by the Globe and Mail and Ottawa Citizen, and won the Scotiabank Giller Prize."
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