Category: Canada Reads

And The Birds Rained Down by Jocelyn Saucier

And The Birds Rained Down by Jocelyn Saucier.jpgA beautiful and moving story about ageing on your own terms. The novel is set in Northern Ontario where 3 elderly men can hide in the remoteness. But two women join the hideaway and life for all changes. The ending is wistful and transcendent. This was the second funner-up in Canada Reads 2015 (with Martha Wainwright as the proponent), a very well-deserved recognition of exceptional writing.

When Everything Feels Like The Movies – Raziel Reid

This book provides a demoralizing and disturbing view of young people in small-town Canada. Life is particularly dismal for Jude as a gay teenager who is bullied. This is an important book to read but it will be uncomfortable (but Ru still deserves to have won the Canada Reads competition).

The Hero’s Walk by Anita Rau Badami

The Hero's Walk by Anita Rau BadamiA sweeping story of a multi-generational Indian family near Madras: a mean-spirited mother of two, a spinster daughter aged 42 and the older brother Sripathi who is the major figure in this story. Sripathi is married with a stay-at-home son and an estranged daughter living in Vancouver. Sripathi is angry is angry with life: his job; corruption in India; but his major disappointment is his family relationships, in particular his daughter who defied him by rejecting an arranged marriage. All live in a single big house that is decaying literally. A very important element in this book is dealing with change, their declining standard of living. When their estranged daughter is killed in a traffic accident, the 7-year-old grand-daughter (who they have never met) comes to live with them, a fourth generation, forcing them to cope (poorly) with even more change. This is a very fine book about India.

Note: this book is also from the CBC list mentioned above. And later was in the 2016 CBC Canada Reads list)

The Orenda – Joseph Boyden

the-orenda-joseph-boydenAt times a slow-moving story of a Jesuit priest inserted into the ongoing conflict between the Huron and Iroquois (Haudenosaunee). The story is bloody to be sure but there is an interesting veneration of violence in how vanquished foes are tortured, using the word “caress”.

Note from Amy: later won 2014 Canada Reads