Sunday October 4th Giller Nominees

Working at the library, the most common question you are asked is “What’s a good book to read?” I can wax for hours on the books, authors and genres that I love, but finding something that someone else may love as well, can be quite challenging. Depending on someone’s interests and experiences, their tastes might be diametrically opposite to mine, so asking a few well placed questions about previous books and what the reader actually liked or didn’t like will tell someone doing Reader’s Advisory a great deal about what they may enjoy. Some of my favourite new authors have come from patron recommendations, and surprisingly many of them are Canadian.

Like most of us, I was introduced to Canadian novels in high school and hated them, well to be truthful, I did like Stephen Leacock but, I still handle any book by Margaret Atwood as though it is something that has been sitting in the back of the fridge for a month. Telling a 14 year old girl that all Canadian novels are about death and isolation pretty well killed any interest in further exploration and actually the pickings for Canadian novels in the 1970’s were slim. Skip ahead to this year and the world of Canadian writing could not be more interesting and varied. The long-list of the 2009 Giller Prize novels was released last week and there is really something for everyone.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood is a natural disaster has occurred that alters the Earth as we know it, destroying most human life. The story follows two very different women, Ren and Toby who have survived.

The Incident Report by Martha Baillie is both a mystery and a love story, in the novel set in Toronto, notes begin appearing by someone who believes himself to be Rigoletto, the jester from Verdi’s opera, promising he will protect the young librarian, Miriam.

The Disappeared by Kim Echlin is set against the killing fields of the Pol Pot’s Cambodia, the story centers around a passionate love affair between a Canadian woman and her Cambodian lover.

The Heart Specialist by Claire Holden Rothman is based on a true story, this is a historical novel of an ambitious woman who dreams of pursuing medicine during the dawn of the twentieth century.

The Color of Lightning by Paulette Jiles follows a former slave and a young Quaker,suffering hardships during the taming of the West in the years following the Civil War.

Factory Voice by Jeanette Lynes is a mystery and coming of age story of four women working at the military aircraft factory in Fort William in 1941.

The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon is a debut novel set in the ancient world involving Aristotle and the boy who you grow up to be Alexander the Great.

The Bishop’s Man by Linden MacIntyre explores the life of Father Duncan MacAskill as he struggles between human wants and his desire for spiritual peace.

Fall by Colin McAdam centers around two boys in an elite boarding school and Fall, the girl they both want.

The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels begins in Egypt in 1964, when a newly-married Canadian couple settle into a houseboat on the Nile and life tests both their love and their beliefs.

Valmiki’s Daughter by Shani Mootoo deals with the struggle of both a father and a daughter as they seek to repress their feelings and their sexuality.

The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger is a historical novel concerning the life and loves of a maid to a Victorian novelist and world at the end of the nineteenth century.

Lori Kauzlarick, Public Services Assistant