Sunday, June 26, 2016

Possible entries for 10th Canadian Challenge

I thought this probably merited its own post.  The 10th Canadian Challenge is around the corner (I hope to review one more novel and perhaps a couple of poetry books to round out the 9th Challenge.)  I'm going to distort my main reading list a bit to try to cover some of the key Canadian novels I've been wanted to read (or reread).  I'll add an asterisk to the books I would/will be rereading.

There's no question I could read all these books, but that wouldn't leave much space for other things, and that approach is too extreme (and thus un-Canadian).  Still, I'll be aiming for about 25 from this list (update -- now it looks like it will only be 21).  I think for the duration of the challenge I'll track them in both places, but then close down this list in July 2017.

* Bowering Burning Water
Paul Quarrington Whale Music
Mavis Gallant Home Truths
Shields Unless
Steve Zipp Yellowknife
Munro The Progress of Love
Findley Dinner Along the Amazon
Anderson-Dargatz The Cure for Death by Lightning
Bissoondath The Soul of All Great Designs (Cartes postales de l’enfer (Postcards from Hell) in translation)
Lawrence Hill The Book of Negroes
Mistry Family Matters
* Findley Not Wanted on the Voyage
Bissoondath Digging Up the Mountains
Skvorecky Miss Silver's Past
Russell Smith Muriella Pent
* Engel Bear 
Bissoondath A Casual Brutality
Munro Friend of My Youth
David Bezmozgis Natasha and Other Stories
Guy Vanderhaeghe Daddy Lenin
Atwood Moral Disorder
Greg Hollingshead The Roaring Girl
Mavis Gallant The Moslem Wife
Laurence The Tomorrow-Tamer (short stories set in Africa - much different from her other work)
Ross The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories
Mordecai Richler The Street 
Miriam Toews A Complicated Kindness
* Hugh MacLennan The Watch That Ends the Night
Guy Vanderhaeghe Homesick 
Morley Callaghan The Many Colored Coat
Richler The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz 
Jane Urquhart The Stone Carvers
Bissoondath Doing the Heart Good
* Davies The Salterton Trilogy
Findley The Piano Man's Daughter
Skvorecky Dvorak in Love
Ross As for Me and My House
Ringuet Thirty Acres
* Leonard Cohen Beautiful Losers
Atwood's dystopian trilogy (Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam)

It's not that likely I will get all the way to Oryx and Crake and the others by next June, so I will roll them over to the 11th Challenge, assuming someone picks up the baton from John.  In Challenge 11, I would focus on Atwood, Margaret Laurence, Marie-Claire Blais and perhaps rereading some classic Carol Shield's novels (at least those I haven't reviewed previously).

Edit (7/1): I am seriously considering bumping Carol Shields up, and adding Unless (her final novel) to the top* of the list and The Stone Diaries (which would be a re-read) to the end.  The rest could be carried over into the 11th Challenge.

* At least towards the top, though I would probably be better off reading it in the late fall, since it seems so autumnal.  Maybe November?

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