The 2nd Canadian Book Challenge

Well, I didn't join in the first time around, but I've decided I can't resist participating this time. I have quite a few Canadian books on my shelves and could use an extra incentive to read some of them. It's hosted by The Book Mine Set, and the goal is to read 13 Canadian books (because there are 13 provinces and territories) between July 1st, 2008 and July 1st, 2009. There are several themes to choose from to organise our reading, but I'm going to go with "The Free Spirit" with a handful of award-winners thrown in. Click on the button for more info on the other themes and how to join.

Here are some of the Canadian books I may read for the challenge:
The End of the Alphabet - C.S. Richardson
Dingo - Charles de Lint
Still Life - Louise Penny (BA)
Helpless - Barbara Gowdy
Mercy Among the Children - David Adams Richards (BA)
No Great Mischief - Alistair MacLeod (BA)
Larry's Party - Carol Shields (BA)
The Delicate Storm - Giles Blunt
The Lions of Al-Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay
How to Be a Canadian - Will Ferguson
The Birth House - Ami McKay
Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures - Vincent Lam (BA)
something by Camilla Gibb
something by Timothy Findley
or maybe a re-read of Anne of Green Gables to celebrate the 100th anniversary,
or any of the other Canadian books in my TBR or that I may pick up on my next trip 'home'.

*(BA) represents book award winners and these will also be on my list for the Book Awards II Challenge

Happy Canada Day!

Image courtesy of the Canadian Tourism Commission

purple hydrangeas

Sunday Salon: BAFAB Week Giveaway

It was another rainy Sunday here but I didn't get as much reading in as I would've liked. The story of my life it seems. I did finish Farewell to Manzanar in the morning though, and then started Matrimony by Joshua Henkin, which I'm enjoying so far. This week I posted reviews of The Tenderness of Wolves and The Scortas' Sun, both of which I enjoyed a lot for their strong settings.

But I'm going to keep it short this week because it's time once again for Buy a Friend a Book Week. This time, inspired by one of Stone Soup's Monday giveaways, I'm going to offer up my 're-homing pile'. These are the books that I don't plan to keep and that are currently living in a box near my desk waiting to be re-homed.
To enter, leave a comment on this post by Saturday, with the title of the book that you'd like to win. For two entries, blog about BAFAB Week and my giveaway, and then don't forget to come back and let me know that you have. I'll draw two names next Sunday. If by strange coincidence the two people drawn have chosen the same book, the first name out of the hat will get it and the second will have a chance to choose another from the pile.

(click on the photo to enlarge)

FYI: Moon Palace, Psalm at Journey's End, The Handmaid's Tale, Vendetta, and An Equal Music are registered at Bookcrossing.
P.S. Giveaway open to anyone who can receive mail! :)

I'm very behind on blog reading but I'll be posting about other BAFAB giveaways here as I come across them, so let me know if you're giving books away this week as well.

Other giveaways:
S. Krishna's Books - a copy of The Beach House by Jane Green (US & Canada)
Temple Library Reviews - a copy of Black Magic Woman by Justin Gustainis
Juxtabook - a copy of The Road to Haworth with some postcards from the Bronte Parsonage Museum Shop.
Books4all - a surprise book, the only clue is that it's a recent paperback novel!
Oxford reader - a Virago Modern Classic birthday edition
In the Shadow of Mt. TBR - a $20 Borders Gift Card
Stone Soup - a copy of any book she's mentioned on her blog.

Book Awards Challenge completed

I managed to finish my 12th, and last, book for the challenge with just a couple of days to spare before it officially ends tomorrow. Whew! I really enjoyed the challenge though and that extra push to read some of the award winners hanging out on my shelves. I only read 6 that I originally intended to, but they were all worth reading so I can't complain.

Books completed:
(clicking on the title will take you to my review)
1. them - Joyce Carol Oates (National Book Award 1970)
2. Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata (Nobel Prize for Literature 1968)
3. The Love of a Good Woman - Alice Munro (Giller Prize 1998)
4. Kira-Kira - Cynthia Kadohata (Newbery Medal 2005)
5. The Road - Cormac McCarthy (Pulitzer Prize 2007)
6. Birds of a Feather - Jacqueline Winspear (Agatha Award 2004)
7. Every Secret Thing - Laura Lippman (Anthony Award 2004)
8. How I Live Now - Meg Rosoff (Printz Award 2005)
9. Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami (World Fantasy Award 2006, Franz Kafka Prize 2006)
10. The Tale of Despereaux - Kate DiCamillo (Newbery Medal 2004)
11. The Tenderness of Wolves - Stef Penney (Costa/Whitbread 2006)
12. The Scortas' Sun -Laurent Gaudé (Prix Goncourt 2004)

Best book(s) I read for the challenge?
The Road and Kafka on the Shore. They're both already on my Best of 2008 List.

Book(s) I could have done without?
None. They were all worth reading. I didn't perhaps enjoy Them, and Every Secret Thing as much as I'd hoped to but I don't regret reading them.

Any new authors? Will I read them again?
8 of the 12 were by authors I hadn't read before and I'd be willing to read something else by any of them. Of those, I'd especially like to read more by Cormac McCarthy, and Yasunari Kawabata though.

Best thing about the challenge?
The best thing was probably reading a variety of books from a variety of literary awards. Not a requirement this time around but, quite unintentionally, I ended up choosing books from different awards. Except for two Newbery Medal winners, the other 10 books I read all won different awards.
I still have many award-winning books in my TBR stacks so I'm glad that there will be a second round of the challenge beginning in August. I've already been thinking which ones I hope to read this time around and I'll be posting about it later this week.
A big thanks to 3M for hosting!

'The Scortas' Sun'

by Laurent Gaudé

(Originally published in French as Le Soleil des Scorta, published in the US and Canada as The House of Scorta.)
Translated from the French by Andrew Brown
Fiction/Literature, 2004 (France), 2006 (English translation)
Hesperus Press, hardback, 202 p.
WINNER of the Prix Goncourt, 2004

Boasting a notorious brigand as an ancestor, the Scorta family is born into extreme poverty in the small Italian village of Montepuccio. Each successive generation must confront their heritage and attempt to wrest a living out of the sun-scorched fields of Apulia, while passing on their pride, their cherished memories, and their passionate appetite for life. Spanning five generations of Scortas, the family’s deepest secrets and fiercest passions are at last revealed by Carmela as she makes her final confession to the village priest.
A profoundly human work set in the glorious landscape of southern Italy, Laurent Gaudé’s sweeping, cinematic tale of family life won the Prix Goncourt in 2004.

I really felt I was armchair travelling while reading this book, as it transported me to the hot, sun-scorched landscape of the Apulia region of southern Italy. The story covers several generations of the Scorta family from a rather illustrious beginning. Sometimes the author gives detailed descriptions that really bring the people and events to life, other times the story skips ahead several years down the road. In this way it was like snapshots of their lives laid out to tell their story. Despite the secrets, passions, and regrets of each successive generation, what comes through is their strong attachment to the land and the importance of family. Like the previous book I read, it was the vividly portrayed setting that really made this an enjoyable read.

Olives are eternal. A single olive doesn’t last. It grows ripe and rots. But olives succeed one another, in an infinite, repetitive way. They’re all different, but the long chain of them is endless. They have the same shape, the same colour, they have been ripened by the same sun and have the same taste. So yes, olives are eternal. Like men. The same infinite succession of life and death.

My Rating: 4/5
(#27 for 2008, Book Awards Challenge #12, Orbis Terrarum Challenge #2)

Reminder: If you have read and reviewed this title, let me know and I'll add the link here.

PhotoHunt: Bright

Taken near Victoria, Canada - November 2007

'The Tenderness of Wolves'

by Stef Penney

Fiction/Mystery, 2006
Quercus, trade pb, 445 p.
WINNER of the Costa Book of the Year, 2006
Interview with the author

1867, Canada.
As winter tightens its grip on the isolated settlement of Dove River, a woman steels herself for the journey of a lifetime. A man has been brutally murdered and her seventeen-year-old son has disappeared. The violence has re-opened old wounds and inflamed deep-running tensions in the frontier township – some want to solve the crime; others seek only to exploit it.
To clear her son’s name, she has no choice but to follow the tracks leaving the dead man’s cabin and head north into the forest and the desolate landscape that lies beyond it…

The quote on the back of my copy that calls it ‘a fascinating, suspense-filled adventure’ pretty much describes my thoughts on it as well. The historical aspects of the fur trade and pioneer life in northern Canada were very interesting. It wasn’t necessarily fast-paced and full of action but the murder mystery and the search for the perpetrator added suspense. And the fact that the search led them through such harsh terrain was certainly an adventure. A nicely told story with a large, varied cast of characters, it was actually the bitterly cold, snowy landscape, so vividly portrayed, that became the strongest element of the story for me. At it’s core, a mystery, but more than that too. All in all, a very enjoyable read.

Stef Penney talks about the novel:


My Rating: 4/5
(#26 for 2008, Book Awards Challenge #11, What's in a Name 'Animal' #4)

Also reviewed at:
ReadingAdventures
Reminder: If you've read and reviewed this title, let me know and I'll link to it here.