Canadian Readers, Where You At?

Well, you aren't reading my blog, that's for sure. Chances are, you aren't reading much of anything. A recent poll commissioned by Canada Heritage of 1,502 people over the age of 15 revealed Canadians read an average of 17 books a year. 12 percent don't read at all.

I know none of this is surprising. Anyone with a television can tell you that reading is a dying hobby, if he bothered to turn away from the warm glow long enough to do so.

What’s surprising is that fifty percent of the people polled couldn’t name a single Canadian author. At all. Not even Margaret Atwood or Mordechai Richler.

I realize if you poll Canadian readers you'll have much better luck, but this is just shameful. I love CanLit, and there is a lot of it to choose from. You'd be hard pressed to find a genre that Canadians haven't written in. That's what makes CanLit (indeed, Canadian culture even) so inclusive—because we live in such a large country that includes so many different cultures, the nature of CanLit changes with its location. CanLit from B.C. is different from CanLit from Ontario, or Nova Scotia, or Quebec.

Despite this dismal poll, I think Canada has a really healthy reader culture. For instance, we have plenty of well-respected awards like the Giller and the GG's that help promote CanLit at home and abroad.

Plus, the CBC (another wonderful Canadian institution) holds a debate each year called Canada Reads. I started following Canada Reads a couple of years ago. Five books are chosen by five Canadian celebrity panelists, who are then asked to defend their choice. The week-long radio series airs on the CBC this year March 2 to 6, if you're interested.

This year one of my favourite artists, Sarah Slean, is a panelist. Previous panelists include Jim Cuddy (lead singer of Blue Rodeo), Scott Thompson (Kids in the Hall alumnus), Olivia Chow (Liberal MP), and Justin Trudeau (sexiest member of Parliament and son of late Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada).

Canada Reads is sort of the ultimate in CanLit selection, in my opinion. It's chosen by well-known Canadians, and presented by the CBC, the Canadian media. I don't always get to read every book on the list in time for the debates, and indeed, sometimes I just don't have an interest in the book, but it's always interesting and engaging.

Despite what the Calgary Herald thinks, CanLit certainly is not dead. The fact of the matter is, people just don't read any more. That doesn't mean that Canadian authors will stop writing, though. And as long as they keep writing, I'll keep reading.


Source: Calgary Herald by way of Book Ninja
Photograph by low.

Blogs to Newspapers: "Aren't You Dead Yet?"

If you've ever wanted to be a published journalist, but haven't been lucky enough yet, you might have your chance now. If you have a blog, that is. 'Course, everyone has a blog these days. This plant has a blog. My sister has a blog. If you don't have a blog, you should just stop reading.

BUT, if you do have a blog, and you live in San Francisco or Chicago, you might find your posts published in a new local paper. It's called The Printed Blog; the paper aims to publish blog posts from local writers and journalists. It's the 'best of the web on the newsstand.'

Oh, newspapers. You're sure trying hard, aren't you? I'm not saying this is a death knell, but...well, it's a death knell.

Blogs are interactive. They don't end at the end of the entry because the reader can choose to browse the links provided in the blog, find similar blogs, browse the writer's blogroll, or even the post history. Newspapers are static and hard to edit or comment on. Besides, do I really want to read last week's news in the paper when five new entries have been posted on the internet?

What do you think of this aggregate of blog posts in print form?

Book Review: Zot:! The Complete Black and White Collection by Scott McCloud

Zot! is a comic created by Scott McCloud, who is better known for having written and drawn Understanding Comics, a comprehensive work on the creation of comics. I found Zot! The Complete Black and White Collection at my my library after not finding a book I was looking for. I seem to have this allergy that prevents me from leaving the library empty-handed. So, I chose Zot!

Zot! is a series that combines the superhero elements of classic comic books with the newer genre of real-life, relationship based graphic novels. I suppose if you were to ask me the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel, that would be it, although that's not necessarily always the case. The definition of a graphic novel and a comic book is highly debated, and this review isn't where I would necessarily lay my lines down about that.

Anyway, I digress.

Zot! tells the story of a blonde-haired superboy named Zot who comes from an alternate earth, and his relationship with Jenny Weaver, a teenage girl from our own earth. The first half of hte collection is comprised of the 'superhero' stories in the series. Zot (real name Zachary Paleozogt) battles a host of villains who are all in some form or another caricatures of the villains McCloud grew up on.

The second half of the collection deals with more introspective, personal stories. McCloud deviates from the classic superhero format by literally exiling Zot in Jenny's (i.e. our) earth and moving the focus away from him. Entire issues of Zot! are devoted to characters that were introduced as minor players in previous issues, such as Ronnie, a comic book obsessed school friend, or Terry, Jenny's best friend who comes out in an issue.

Zot! was published in comic form from 1984 to 1991, and the stories that McCloud introduces, if you look at the time he was writing and drawing them in, are ground breaking. My favourite story has to be Jenny and Zot's first time. The story is left open to allow the reader to decide for themselves if anything actually happens.

What I liked most about the collection was McCloud's commentary. He provides insight into his drawing habits and his personal thoughts about each story. You can really tell he's an incredible perfectionist and it pains him in some ways to publish this collection, warts included. Personally, I didn't think there were any warts, but I'm not an artist, let alone a graphic novel artist. I liked knowing what he thinks of his own stories.

The stories themselves were fun to read. While not terribly complicated by any standards (McCloud admits that he had little knowledge of how to write a story when he first started drawing Zot!), they're interesting and humourous, as well as touching. I could understand Jenny's (I want to say motivation here, but it's not a play...c'mon Olga, work that vocabulary!) desire to flee her world and live in Zot's, where everything is just better. We've all been there before, and we don't have to be fifteen to feel like that.

The characters also made Zot! a good read. Each one, be it a villain or a friend, has a story and they're all interesting. I could go on and on. Seriously, if you happen to stumble upon this collection at the library, I suggest you take it out. It's not McCloud's best work, but it's a really great read nonetheless.

Rating: Four Stars

Booking Through Thursdays

Booking Through Thursdays asks:

It’s a week or two later than you’d expect, and it may be almost a trite question, but … what were your favorite books from 2008?

For someone who hasn't been tracking every book she's read in 2008, this is kind of a hard question.

For light and fluffy reads, I would have to go with Deanna Raybourn's Silent in the Grave. A good mystery, and really good chemistry between the characters made it an instant fave with me, and I've started to convert people as well.

For nonfiction, hands down, it has to be Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. Informative, inspiring, horrifying, yet uplifting. It made me want to hide in a farmer's market and not come out until the spring.

Book Review: Stuck in the Middle: 17 Comics From an Unpleasant Age edited by Ariel Schrag

Stuck in the Middle: 17 Comics from an Unpleasant Age collects the unpleasant, embarrassing, and often humourous memories of a group of artists from the junior high years. Best friends, horse camp, betrayals, first kisses, and parachute pants all combine to breathe life into the childhood memories that so many of us try and repress. It’s true. We all have, to varying degrees, really effed up stories of pre-teenage years.

In the spirit of Stuck in the Middle, I give you a tale of my own from those tender years when I thought in all honesty I would grow up to be the bride of Leonardo DiCaprio (or one of the Backstreet Boys.)

I never went to middle school, but that didn't prevent me from going through similarly painful juvenile rights of passage. As a child my family moved around a fair bit. By the time I was in the seventh grade, I was in my sixth grade school. As everyone knows, moving not only uproots you, it also turns you into the newest pariah of any given school. I don’t blame my parents for changing my schools very often, but I certainly know that I will never do the same to my own children.

In the seventh grade, after moving once again in the summertime, I happened to be close enough to go back to my very first elementary school. Figuring that I would at least have somewhat of a connection to these group of children, I begged, whined and complained until I was enrolled in St. J’s once again.

Of course, nothing ever goes right, especially not when you’re the new kid. I was immediately ostracized by former friends, having made the grave mistake of leaving on a bad note the first time around—I stole a robin’s egg from my class and was caught. That was the very last thing my schoolmates remembered about me before I moved away, and so I was the pariah once again.

But, I was resourceful. I made friends quickly, girls who came to St. J’s long after the incident, and thus had no memory of my egg-stealing.

Fairly soon I was fully embraced by a group of about five or six girls. The number of us changed constantly since we were always not speaking to this girl or that girl, but for the most part we got on really well.

The problem with prepubescent girls is, they are like mercury. Moods and alliances could change in an instant, without provocation. We were like ticking time-bombs, ready to go off at one another.

This became a harsh reality for me one evening. Out of nowhere I received a phone call from R.—she accused me of making fun of her voice. Bewildered, having done no such thing, I denied it vehemently, but there was no use. I was already a Benedict Arnold. The news spread quickly—Olga’s a teaser. And that was that.

The next day at school I was ignored by all of my friends, left to stew in the mess that I had made for myself by allowing myself to become a target.

Heartbroken, I was forced to tell my mother the details (after being yelled at on the phone once again by a friend the following night). My mother was livid, and no doubt even more bewildered than I was, having received a hysterical and no-doubt confusing explanation from a distraught pre-teen.

The next day, she took me to school. Instead of dropping me off, she went down to the schoolyard with me, and—to my horror—bitched out the very girls who had ostracized me for the past thirty-six hours in broken English.

God bless my mother. She was my greatest champion, fighting that battle as best she could with half-finished sentences growled at the girls. At least they had the courtesy of looking shame-faced.

I was convinced this was the end of my social life completely. R. and the rest of the girls apologized half-heartedly in front of my mother. When she left, I was left alone once again.

But then something miraculous happened. At lunchtime, I was invited to sit with them. Once more I was welcomed back into the fold, and in the blink of an eye all was forgotten. There was no need to discuss what just happened—it was over! Why bring up the pain, when we could just move on with our lives and share a bag of Doritos and talk about our crushes again?

I’ve never been able to forget that event, even though the details have become fuzzy. I still don’t quite get what happened, but it serves as a reminder that middle school—your thirteenth year especially—is f**king scary. You couldn’t trust anyone, and you couldn’t be trusted. That best friend who just yesterday was braiding your hair over lunch, could be pointing the finger of blame on you today.

I’m glad I’m not thirteen anymore. This collection of comics from that unsettling age is a great journey down memory lane, but it makes you think about your own hellish recollections. The best part of the book is knowing that everyone goes through the same thing—no one gets out of middle school without having been scarred by it.

Rating: Four Stars

Book Review: Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin (aka Diana Norman)

Mistress of the Art of Death has been in my TBR pile since its publication. In fact, it probably should have gone on my TBR Challenge list at least a couple of years ago, but the list is so long, it sort of got lost in the depths of it.

Like a lot of books that find their way into my TBR pile, this one happened to casually announce itself through my former job as a sales girl at the local big-box bookstore. I would scower the shelves and the display tables for something new and interesting (and there was always something new and interesting), then write down the title or the author to take home. My pockets were full of slips of paper by the end of most of my shifts.

Despite the fact that I would ritually spend half my pay cheque on new books, I never picked this one up. I thought about it during my weekly trip to the bookstore. As I was checking out the graphic novels, for some reason my eyes shifted to the next shelf over. Lo and behold, there it was, staring me in the face.

Mistress is set in twelfth century England. Four children from Cambridge and the surrounding area have been kidnapped and murdered in a horrible fashion. The first child was found crucified and the local Jews have been accused of the murders. Cambridge, incensed by these brutal killings, force the Jews to flee to the castle, where they are protected by the sheriff, but not before Chaim, Cambridge’s most successful moneylender (and the unfortunate soul who discovers the first murdered child), is lynched, along with his wife.

King Henry I is shrewd—he is not interested in seeing the most profitable citizens of his kingdom expelled or massacred. Not when there are wars to be won and coffers to be filled.

His answer arrives in a pilgrimmage. An unlikely trio arrive in Cambridge: Simon, the best investigator the King of Naples can send, Mansur, a Moor, and Vesuvia Adelia Rachel Ortese Aguilar—mistress of the art of death. Salerno, home of Europe’s best medical experts, is where they come from, and they are commanded to find the murderer, and (hopefully) exonerate the Jews.

Adelia is a wonder—a female doctor in a world where even male doctors are considered an oddity, she is faced with the task of examining the corpses to determine who could have committed such a heinous act, while evading the notice of the Cambridge townfolk. It isn’t always easy to avoid notice, being the only group of foreigners in town.

Of course, this is Adelia’s story. But Franklin does not allow the other characters to become one-dimensional. They each have their quirks, which makes the book much more than just a mystery—it’s a novel about ordinary people in a historical setting reacting to extra-ordinary circumstances.

Child-killers are rare even in today’s society. To find your community invaded by a serial killer during that time must have been a truly frightening experience, and you can see how such events can create monsters and demons to frighten us in the dead of night. Indeed, Franklin ultimately turns him into a demon by his ritual--when he kills he transforms himself into an animal by wearing a pair of antlers, and he lures children to his den with jujubes, the Pied Piper of the fens.

I enjoyed learning the history of the fenland people, their accents especially. At times it was hard to get the gist of what they were saying, and I can only imagine how much harder it would have been for poor Adelia.

I didn’t enjoy Mistress right from the beginning. For one thing, the book’s language is frilly. But as the mystery soon enfolded, I was quickly sucked in. It’s part-CSI thriller, part-historical fiction, with a dash of romance thrown in to round it out completely. I’ll add The Serpent’s Tale on the TBR pile, because I like Adelia a lot and I’m interested to learn more.

Having also read Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, I have a greater appreciation for the history as well. Franklin’s novel paints a different side of Henry I—in Mistress he is more than just the instigator of Thomas á Beckett’s death, he is a sensible and fair king who struggles with the limits of his own power. He also has some of the best lines in the book.

Definitely worth a read if you’re interested in the time period, or enjoy medical mysteries.

Rating: 4 stars

Booking Through Thursdays

Booking Through Thursdays asks:

So … any Reading Resolutions? Say, specific books you plan to read? A plan to read more ____? Anything at all?

I only have one reading resolution this year--do it more often. Some people say I already read too much, but frankly I don't think there is such a thing. Perhaps my resolution should be that I would like to read more of my own writing? So I secretly want to write my own novel. Who doesn't, frankly.

As for things I really want to read, I'm eagerly awaiting the release of Deanna Raybourn's Silent on the Moor. Lovely series, can't wait to have it in hand.