I've decided to put up this new post to describe this group a little bit for newcomers (the former thread titled "Welcome aboard" has been renamed to "Book recommendations #1).
I’m an avid reader of the classics. However, I had never really been exposed to the literary tradition of my own country, Canada. After making a post in the Book Talk Forum on a few years ago asking for suggestions on what to read to make up for this pathetic lack, I began to investigate and stumbled across . It included many of the books those lovely BookCrossers had suggested, so I thought it would be a great place to begin. It’s missing a number of notable authors (e.g. Robertson Davies, Timothy Findley) and a few notable books that even I had heard of (e.g. it only includes four books by Margaret Atwood), so I thought I’d add those books when I came across them and once I’m done the NCL books, I’ll go looking for more additions. I now have several reference books about Canadian literature and there are also NCL books that are no longer part of the collection, not to mention Giller Prize lists and GG nominees and winners, so my Challenge won’t likely be ending any time soon.
My hope was that other people would be interested in the books I would pick and it might turn into a bit of an ongoing Readalong/bookclub. People who were interested in the "currently reading" book might read it at the same time as I do and then contribute to the discussion.
I also would like to encourage any of you who have read or wish to read former picks to post in the appropriate threads. I don't see this as a "book of the month" type thing as much as an ongoing discussion of an ever-growing collection of the books within the Canadian canon. For this reason, I'm in the process of adding all of the previous selections to the bookshelf and the discussion forum of the group.
If your post contains spoilers, please mark it clearly.
I’m an avid reader of the classics. However, I had never really been exposed to the literary tradition of my own country, Canada. After making a post in the Book Talk Forum on a few years ago asking for suggestions on what to read to make up for this pathetic lack, I began to investigate and stumbled across . It included many of the books those lovely BookCrossers had suggested, so I thought it would be a great place to begin. It’s missing a number of notable authors (e.g. Robertson Davies, Timothy Findley) and a few notable books that even I had heard of (e.g. it only includes four books by Margaret Atwood), so I thought I’d add those books when I came across them and once I’m done the NCL books, I’ll go looking for more additions. I now have several reference books about Canadian literature and there are also NCL books that are no longer part of the collection, not to mention Giller Prize lists and GG nominees and winners, so my Challenge won’t likely be ending any time soon.
My hope was that other people would be interested in the books I would pick and it might turn into a bit of an ongoing Readalong/bookclub. People who were interested in the "currently reading" book might read it at the same time as I do and then contribute to the discussion.
I also would like to encourage any of you who have read or wish to read former picks to post in the appropriate threads. I don't see this as a "book of the month" type thing as much as an ongoing discussion of an ever-growing collection of the books within the Canadian canon. For this reason, I'm in the process of adding all of the previous selections to the bookshelf and the discussion forum of the group.
If your post contains spoilers, please mark it clearly.