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Five books...which one will be left standing?
During the week of February 16th, 2004, the
Canada Reads panelists will discuss, debate and
deliberate over these five titles. At the end
of each day's discussion, host Bill Richardson
will call for a vote, asking the panelists to
eliminate one book from the list. On Friday,
February 20th, we'll know the title Canada Reads.
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The
Love of a Good Woman
by Alice
Munro
Eight stories
about what people will do for love, and
the unexpected routes their passion will
force them to take. A prim, old landlady
in Vancouver with a crime of passion lurking
in her past. A young mother with a secret
life who abandons her children to be with
her lover. A country doctor in the 1960s
discovered by his daughter to be helping
desperate women, his "special patients." These
and other fascinating characters weave
their way through stories that track the
changes that time brings to families, lovers
and friends. This is a collection that
is about the clutter of our
emotional
lives.
The rich layering that gives Alice Munro's
work such a strong sense of life is particularly
apparent in the title story. The
death of a local optometrist brings an
entire community into focus - from the
preadolescent boys who find his body to
the man who probably killed him, to the
woman who must decide what to do about
what she might know.
Large, moving, profound - these are stories
that extend the limits of fiction.
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The
Last Crossing
by Guy
Vanderhaeghe
Set in the second
half of the nineteenth century, in the
American and Canadian West and in Victorian
England, The Last Crossing is a sweeping
tale of interwoven lives.
Charles and Addington
Gaunt must find their brother Simon, who
has gone missing in the wilds of the American
West. Charles, a disillusioned artist,
and Addington, a disgraced military captain,
enlist the services of a guide to lead
them on their journey across a difficult
and unknown landscape. This is the enigmatic
Jerry Potts, half Blackfoot and half Scottish.
Joining the caravan are Caleb Ayto, a sycophantic
American journalist, and Lucy Stoveall,
a wise and beautiful woman who travels
in the hope of avenging her sister's vicious
murder. Later, Custis Straw, a Civil War
veteran searching for salvation catches
up with the group. This unlikely posse
becomes entangled in an unfolding drama
that forces each person to come to terms
with his or her own demons.
This is a novel
of harshness and redemption, an epic masterpiece,
rich with unforgettable characters and
vividly described events.
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Barney's
Version
by Mordecai
Richler
Ebullient and perverse,
thrice married, Barney Panofsky has always
clung to two cherished beliefs: life is
absurd and nobody truly ever understands
anybody else. But when his sworn enemy
publicly states that Barney is a wife abuser,
an intellectual fraud and probably a murderer,
he is driven to write his memoirs.
Charged with comic energy and a wicked
disregard for any pieties whatsoever, Barney's
Version is a brilliant portrait of a man
whom Mordecai Richler has made uniquely
memorable for all time. It is also an unforgettable
love story, a tale about family and the
riches of friendship.
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Green
Grass, Running Water
by Thomas
King
Welcome to the
town of Blossom - part myth, part hilariously
off-kilter reality. Green Grass, Running
Water is the story of five Blackfoot Indians
who live in Blossom or on its nearby reserve.
Although they have seemingly separate lives,
they are connected in ways that are at
once coincidental, comical and cosmic.
Alberta, a university
professor who wants a child but not the
trappings of husband and marriage, finds
herself involved with not one, but two
men, who pull her into their opposing orbits:
Charlie is a flashy and ambitious lawyer
and Lionel is the local TV salesman, self-effacing
to the point of near-erasure. Latisha,
Lionel's sister and guerrilla marketing
whiz, runs the Dead Dog Café, a
local hangout named for its mythic culinary
delights, much to the titillation of gullible
tourists who take it to be the simple truth.
And then there's Eli, who left Blossom
to seek the white man's grail in Toronto,
only to find his destiny in a tiny streamside
cabin.
This is a rich
tale, weaving subtle, magical humor, revisionist
history, muted nostalgia, and complex humanity
into one bright, whole cloth.
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The
Heart is an Involuntary Muscle
by Monique
Proulx,
The Heart is
an Involuntary Muscle is vintage
Proulx. It is a brilliant, complex, witty
and moving book about writers and the
sometimes ridiculous world of letters.
The story revolves
around Florence, who hates writers and
their hang-ups and likes their books even
less. She only likes Zeno, who is her partner
in their small Web site construction business.
He loves writers, especially Pierre Laliberté,
the mysterious and mythic novelist who
lives like a recluse. Because of Zeno,
because of a stolen sentence, Florence
finds herself following a trail that could
lead her to Pierre Laliberté, an
imposter who pillages other people’s
lives as inspiration for his writing.
Proulx plays with
the mystery genre to write about literature
and those who create it. But above all,
this is a book whose engaging characters
pull us into their lives.
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