Canada Reads Regional Top 10 Announced

The 2013 Canada Reads Top 10 was announced today. This year's edition will feature regional faceoffs, with the five books representing five regions of the country: Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, Prairies/North, B.C./Yukon. Today, the top 10 selections from each region was announced. The lists will be shortened to 5, and then a representative from each will be selected. CBC has posted the entire list.

My selection for B.C. / Yukon

The lists are excellent thus far, a mix of old and new, traditional and experimental. One common factor is that the majority of the novels are set within Canada; there are a few outliers, such as De Niro's Game from Quebec's Rawi Hage or The English Patient from Ontario's Michael Ondaatje. I was pleased to see that my selections made the top 10s as well: Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson from B.C.; The Diviners by Margaret Laurence from Manitoba; Fifth Business by Robertson Davies from Ontario; and Galore by Michael Crummey from Atlantic. I didn't pick a Quebec novel, since none immediately came to mind when I was selecting, but two stood out as favourites: Solomon Gursky was Here by Mordecai Richler and Ru by Kim Thuy. Both would be excellent selections.

Others on the list that I would support are Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay, and, of course, Anne of Green Gables.

Which Canadian books do you think all Canadians should read? It will be an interesting debate this year, and the winner will surely start the debate about CanLit all over again.