A.J.'s comments
(member since Sep 01, 2008)
(showing 1-10 of 10)
The Globe & Mail's advice on guessing the Giller without actually reading the books:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/in-...
Steven Beattie's blog (linked to from the Globe post) is very good -- he reads the shortlist and reviews them all. This year, he's doing it very slowly. They're not his kind of thing.
Yes, sorry, four small presses.
Three of the books are from small presses this year, which is unusual. Last year, I think the only small press contender was Marina Endicott.
There's a real preponderance of historical fiction here, which should get Giller critics and Canlit malcontents good and riled.
No more guesswork: the long list has been released. The Year of the Flood A Novel by Margaret Atwood
The Incident Report by Martha Bailie
The Disappeared by Kim Echlin
The Heart Specialist by Claire Rothman
The Colour of Lightning by Paulette Giles
The Factory Voice by Jeanette Lynes
The Golden Mean by Annabelle Lyon
The Bishop's Man by Linden MacIntyre
Fall by Colin McAdam
The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels
Valmiki's Daughter by Shani Mootoo
The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinge
Was The Winter Vault really out this year?
If you haven't heard of most of these, it might be because most fiction comes out in the fall, at about the same time as the prizes are announced. Some books aren't even on the shelves, and advance copies are sent to the awards juries.
Notably, this year the long list is almost all women, and three are from small presses.
Atwood's The Year of the Flood is a shoe-in for the shortlist. Award juries try to demonstrate their credibility by selecting the biggies.Alice Munro's Too Much Happiness is, of course, a shoe-out.
Mark Anthony Jarman -- at the sentence level, he is simply the best writer in Canada today.Also Joseph Boyden, Lynn Coady, Bill Gaston, and Rawi Hage among newer or lesser-known writers. Alice Munro is top of mind among the stars, also Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood.
Well, My White Planet. Intensity of language it has, in spades.Other than that, The Box Social & Other Stories by James Reaney kind of leaps out at me when I scan my bookshelves.
I want to say Once by Rebecca Rosenblum, but I don't have a copy yet, so I'd be lying ... but from what I've read from her so far, this one is high on my list to buy.
Here's an article by Paul Wells in Maclean's on the loudest controversy in Canadian books since ... well, probably since Heather Reisman bought Chapters.
The summary: Penguin published the Penguin Anthology of Canadian Short Stories, edited by Jane Urquardt. And a lot of people feel it's a lousy anthology, because it leaves out important short story writers and includes some who should have been omitted.
Of interest if you read short stories, or if you're interested in Canadian short stories.
Early Margaret Atwood (The Edible Woman, Surfacing) is actually rather poorly written, not to mention self-consciously literary. Her later stuff is much better. The Handmaid's Tale, for example, seems to be from a different author entirely.
