Travelling with the Kobo

What a way to travel!  Load up your Kobo with your picks from the long lists of the Giller and the GG's and you never have to search for the elusive bookshops of the USA

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick de Witt A Western marvelous romp, tender and clever and very funny.  The plot is excellent all through but the ending must be one of the funniest in Can Lit.  The brothers find gold, lose it, get pummeled by vengeful whores and more. A distinctive voice animates this fine novel. Giller short list.

The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje. A marvelous book, very humanistic and a hymn to friendship so strong that you feel an urge to reconnect with all your absent friends. Three young boys spend three enlightening weeks on an ocean voyage, getting into mischief but also watching the adults around them and forming the ideas that will animate their future lives. Giller short list

A Good Man by Guy Vanderhaeghe. A fine book with a good story, great characters, excellent history and that feeling about it, the lure of a good story, that pulls you in, in this instance into the Old West, and you want to stay there or return quickly whenever you put the book down.  The characters stand out: Dunne, the villain, Ada Tarr, the prickly widowed school marm, Wesley Case, a man of intelligence but who makes mistakes and sometimes apologizes for them. The portrayal of the historical characters such as RCMP Major Walsh and Sitting Bull is magnificent. 

The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott Three sisters try to break into small town vaudville with the help of their mother, a long-ago performer.  Endicott's writing is so intense and her characters so alive, that we find ourselves hanging on every sentence. Just a wonderful book. Governor General's short list

If I were on the Giller committee I would immediately resign.  Who can chose a winner from novels as excellent as those on the short list?  What criteria could you use to pick "the best"?    It cannot be done. 

Michael Ondaatje

Author of The Cat's Table.

And Here They Are - The Giller hopefuls

Below is the Giller 2011 long list for those book nuts who read the entire list every year. Some top notch writers grace this fine list among them: David Bezmozgis who makes prose sing. His short story, Natasha, is a classic. Lynn Coady, who has visited the Thunder Bay Sleeping Giant Writers Festival can always be counted on for a good story as can Clarke Blaise, one of Canada's best short story writers.  Marina Endicott's last book, Good to a Fault was one of my rave books of 2010. Wayne Johnson's Colony of Unrequited Dreams garnered praise  from avid Thunder Bay readers, including me. When The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe hit the shelves, a friend phoned me to advise me to read it ASAP.  I also loved it as well as The Englishman's Boy, both the sort of historicals I inhale. And as everyone knows, Michael Ondaatje has the English language twisted around his little finger.  The above writers are well know to me but the others are just as intriguing and I hope to make their acquaintance shortly because I too am one of those book nuts who read the list!

Winner announced October 4!!!

·               David Bezmozgis for his novel, THE FREE WORLD, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

·               Clarke Blaise for his short story collection, THE MEAGRE TARMAC, Biblioasis

·               Lynn Coady for her novel, THE ANTAGONIST, House of Anansi Press

Gillers and GG's

For all those who buy the Giller and GG short list either for themselves or Xmas presents, here are the lists.

Giller Finalists
• Kim Echlin for her novel THE DISAPPEARED, published by Hamish Hamilton Canada
• Annabel Lyon for her novel THE GOLDEN MEAN, published by Random House Canada
• Linden MacIntyre for his novel THE BISHOP’S MAN, published by Random House Canada
• Colin McAdam for his novel FALL, published by Hamish Hamilton Canada
• Anne Michaels for her novel THE WINTER VAULT, published by McClelland & Stewart

This year’s Scotiabank Giller Prize will be announced on November 10th at Toronto’s Four Seasons Hotel at a gala black tie dinner and award ceremony.

Governor General Literary Award Finalists
• Michael Crummy for GALORE (Doubleday)
• Annabel Lyon for THE GOLDEN MEAN (Random House)
• Alice Munro for TOO MUCH HAPPINESS (McClelland and Stewart)
• Kate Pullinger for THE MISTRESS OF NOTHING (McArthur and Co.)
• Deborah Wills for VANISHING AND OTHER STORIES (Penguin Group)

Her Excellency, the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, will present the 2009 Literary Awards on Thursday, November 26, at 6 p.m. at Rideau Hall.

INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF AUTHORS

I spent a few days in Toronto at the International Festival of Authors, a week long sprawl of an event with 200 plus writers and dozens of workshops, spread here and there among the forlorn spaces of two enormous Harbourfront buildings. The Sleeping Giant Writers Festival it ain’t. No informal lunches, coffees or the chance to engage the writers in conversation. In Toronto the writers disappeared after each workshop except when they hung around to sell their books.

I was lucky to run into an old friend, Wayson Choy, looking dapper and healthy. Wayson’s many friends from the Humber School for Writers will be happy to hear he was chosen to receive the Harbourfront Festival Prize, presented to a person who has made a significant contribution to Canadian writing. Wayson’s work as a novelist, memoirist and creative writing teacher as well as his volunteer work with literacy and AIDS garnered him a nice cheque of $10,000 as well as a Waterford Crystal bowl. Rumour has it he will release a new book this spring.

The final evening of the festival featured readings by the five Giller Prize finalists.
Authors and books were:
Joseph Boyden Through Black Spruce
Anthony De Sa Barnacle Love
Marina Endicott Good to a Fault
Rawi Hage Cockroach
Mary Swan The Boys in the Trees

All the books were good but one affected me strongly. This was Boyden’s reading of two excerpts from his novel Through Black Spruce. Two separate sections, one of survival in the bush and the other of survival on the streets of Toronto, were told with such gutsy emotion, such northern power, I could hardly stand it. The writing carried me away.

The local libraries carry cards for you to guess the winner. I know who I am rooting for,