5 Best Books Out of Canada This Year

If you haven't been paying attention to Canada lately, you may be surprised to hear that their Conservative government is fighting for its life. Just months after winning reelection, Prime Minister Stephen Harper suspended Parliament last week, when Liberal and NDP opposition parties joined forces to oust him. This potential for political overthrow at pretty much any time is one of the fascinating contradictions of the land of "peace, order, and good government."

While this drama plays out, I'd like to draw your attention to some of 2008's best books by Canadians--my top five, to be precise. If you find they're hard to get a hold of on Amazon.com, try Amazon.ca.

• Blackstrap Hawco: Kenneth J. Harvey's sprawling and raucous novel follows a working-class Newfoundland family across generations as its legend grows, immersing readers in a dizzying swarm of voices.
• The Origin of Species: Nino Ricci won this year's Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction for his poignant, funny portrait of an angst-ridden grad student in 1980s Montreal, whose memories of an expedition to Darwin's islands years ago bring new epiphanies when he finds out he's a father.
• Cockroach: Lebanese immigrant Rawi Hage brings his Montreal community of outsiders to life through the tales of a thief--the self-described "cockroach" who lives off the scraps of the privileged--forced in to therapy after a public suicide attempt.
• Through Black Spruce: Joseph Boyden brought home this year's Scotiabank Giller Prize for his story of an aboriginal family, navigating the perils of contemporary, urban life while inescapably tied to the past.
• Dark Days: Human rights activist Kerry Pither exposes the Canadian government's complicity in the imprisonment abroad, torture, and eventual release without charge of four Canadian citizens. The systemic pattern she reveals calls into question Canadians' notion of itself as a just society.

If you beg to differ with my choices, do tell. --Mari

Comments

[Hera on December 08, 2008 at 08:47 AM]

Please fix that awful typo.

[Megan on December 09, 2008 at 02:45 PM]

Don't they teach English in Canada?

[Sean on December 10, 2008 at 04:15 PM]

Those are 5 very deserving choices! In a truly great year for CanLit, you've chosen some really great books. Kind of nice to see that all of them appeared at the Ottawa International Writers Festival this year.

[Ron Charles on December 12, 2008 at 08:32 AM]

Don't forget Gil Adamson's marvelous "The Outlander."

[Mari Malcolm on December 12, 2008 at 09:01 AM]

Yes! "The Outlander" was my favorite read by a Canadian author this year. It won our Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award, and it's now a Canada Reads selection. Because it released in hardcover in 2007, I couldn't put it on my official Best of 2008 list. But it is indeed marvelous, and I'm so glad it's gaining a wider readership.

[Roger on December 14, 2008 at 09:38 AM]

'Canadians' notion of itself as a just society.'??? Where'd you learn to write? That's one helluva an ugly sentence.