It’s that time of year again! Canada Reads 2018 is just around the corner. There’s just enough time left to dive into the books you want to read from the shortlist before tuning in for this year’s debates, but first, let’s take a look at the longlist and get to know this year’s panellists.
Canada Reads 2018 Longlist
- Saints and Misfits by S.K. Ali
- The Boat People by Sharon Bala
- Suzanne by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, translated by Rhonda Mullins
- Brother by David Chariandy
- Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan Coyote
- Precious Cargo by Craig Davidson
- The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
- American War by Omar El Akkad
- Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez
- The Measure of a Man by JJ Lee
- Out Standing in the Field by Sandra Perron
- The Clothesline Swing by Ahmad Danny Ramadan
- Forgiveness by Mark Sakamoto
- Dance, Gladys, Dance by Cassie Stocks
- Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga
You can see a full article on the books, including some information about each book and links to author interviews on the CBC Books site here.
For my part, there are some books on this list that, despite not making this year’s shortlist, piqued my interest and have been added to my TBR. Top amongst my choices are:
- Brother by David Chariandy (This one was already on my radar because it was nominated for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2017, and I’ve heard nothing but good feedback from those who have read it.)
- Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan Coyote (I haven’t read any of Ivan’s books yet, but I really really need to! I saw Ivan speak many years ago, and have so much respect for them. I am a big fan, and can’t believe I’m so behind on reading their work!)
- Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez (Scarborough is a cultural melting pot, and somewhere I spent a little bit of time in when I was much younger because some friends lived there. I’m interested to read more about the community.)
- Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga (I’m very interested in reading more books by and about indigenous peoples, and this one is fresh off winning the British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, the RBC Taylor Prize and the Hillary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, so it’s a must-read.)
Canada Reads 2018 Shortlist and panellists
This year’s shortlist has been narrowed down to these five picks for each of the five panellists:
- Mozhdah Jamalzadah, defending The Boat People by Sharon Bala
- Tahmoh Penikett, defending American War by Omar El Akkad
- Greg Johnson, defending Precious Cargo by Craig Davidson
- Jeanne Beker, defending Forgiveness by Mark Sakamoto
- Jully Black, defending The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
Below is a brief overview of the panellists, books and authors, with information taken from CBC Books. Check out their full article here.
Meet the Panellist: Mozhdah Jamalzadah
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Mozhdah Jamalzadah is an Afghan-Canadian singer and TV host, whose hit song Afghan Girl made her a star in Afghanistan. She was offered a position working for an Afghan television station, 1TV, as the host of Afghanistan’s Got Talent. But her background drove her to pursue tougher political and social issues, and her own show, The Mozhdah Show, was born. The show addresses taboo topics in Afthanistan – particularly those related to girls and women. She’s defending Sharon Bala’s first novel, The Boat People. |
- Mozhdah’s video for Dukhtare Afghan (Afghan Girl)
- Website
- Twitter | Instagram
- 6 Books Canada Reads panellist Mozdah Jamalzadah Can’t Live Without
- How Mozdah Jamalzadah Is Preparing for Canada Reads
About the book:
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When the rusty cargo ship carrying Mahindan and five hundred fellow refugees from Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war reaches Canadian shores, the young father believes he and his six-year-old son can finally begin a new life. Instead, the group is thrown into prison, with government officials and news headlines speculating that hidden among the “boat people” are members of a terrorist organization infamous for their suicide attacks. As suspicion swirls and interrogation mounts, Mahindan fears the desperate actions he took to survive and escape Sri Lanka now jeopardize his and his son’s chances for asylum. Told through the alternating perspectives of Mahindan; his lawyer, Priya, a second-generation Sri Lankan-Canadian who reluctantly represents the refugees; and Grace, a third-generation Japanese-Canadian adjudicator who must decide Mahindan’s fate, The Boat People is a spellbinding and timely novel that provokes a deeply compassionate lens through which to view the current refugee crisis. – Goodreads |
About the author:
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Sharon Bala’s debut novel, The Boat People, was published by McClelland & Stewart and Doubleday US in January, 2018. The manuscript won the Percy Janes First Novel Award (May 2015) and was short listed for the Fresh Fish Award (October 2015).
In 2017, she won the Journey Prize and had a second story long-listed in the anthology. A three-time recipient of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Arts and Letters award, she has stories published in Hazlitt, Grain, The Dalhousie Review, Riddle Fence, Room, Prism international, The New Quarterly, Journey Prize 29, and in an anthology called Racket: New Writing From Newfoundland (Breakwater Books, Fall 2015). In her past lives, she worked in PR, event planning, and enjoyed a brief stint as a British housewife. Today, she earns her bread with words. She’s available to write articles and essays, adjudicate competitions, for readings, manuscript evaluations, and editorial aid. Sharon was born in Dubai, raised in the 905, and now lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland with her husband, the mathematician Tom Baird. – From Bala’s website |
Meet the Panellist: Tahmoh Penikett
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Tahmoh Penikett, originally from Whitehorse in the Yukon, is a successful actor best known for roles in Battlestar Gallactica, Supernatural, Dollhouse and Continuum. His father is former Yukon Premier Tony Penikett, and his mother is from the White River First Nation. He is also has a background in Judo and Muay Thai that he has used to choreograph his own fight scenes on film. He’s defending Omar El Akkad’s American War. |
- IMDB | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- 6 Books and Authors Canada Reads panellist Tahmoh Penikett Loves
- Why Tahmoh Penikett Is Championing American War for Canada Reads
- How Tahmoh Penikett Is Preparing for Canada Reads
About the book:
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An audacious and powerful debut novel: a second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle a story that asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself.
Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, and that unmanned drones fill the sky. When her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she begins to grow up shaped by her particular time and place. But not everyone at Camp Patience is who they claim to be. Eventually Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. The decisions that she makes will have tremendous consequences not just for Sarat but for her family and her country, rippling through generations of strangers and kin alike.” – Goodreads |
About the author:
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Omar El Akkad was born in Cairo, Egypt, and grew up in Doha, Qatar. When he was 16 years old, he moved to Canada, subsequently completing high school in Montreal and college at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He has a computer science degree. For ten years he was a staff reporter for The Globe and Mail, where he covered the War in Afghanistan, military trials at Guantanamo Bay and the Arab Spring in Egypt. He was most recently a correspondent for the western United States, where he covered Black Lives Matter.
His first novel, American War, was published in 2017. It received positive reviews from critics; The New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani compared it favourably to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Philip Roth’s novel The Plot Against America. The Globe and Mail called it “a masterful debut.” The novel was named a shortlisted finalist for the 2017 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. He lives with his wife and daughter in Portland, Oregon. – Wikipedia |
Meet the Panellist: Greg Johnson
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Greg Johnson is a storm chaser and weather expert and star of the show Tornado Hunters. He began his career by building a communications, marketing and advertising firm, but decided to follow his true calling – chasing extreme weather. He has now been chasing storms for over ten years and is an accomplished photographer and public speaker into the bargain. He is defending Craig Davidson’s memoir, Precious Cargo. |
- Website
- Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Why Greg Johnson Thinks Precious Cargo Should Win Canada Reads
- How Canada Reads Panellist Greg Johnson Is Preparing for the Debates
About the book:
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In this new work of intimate, riveting and timely non-fiction, based loosely on a National Magazine Award-winning article he published in The Walrus, Davidson tells the story of one year in his life–a year during which he came to a new, mature understanding of his own life and his connection to others. Or, as Davidson would say, he became an adult. One morning in 2008, desperate and impoverished and living in a one-room basement apartment while trying unsuccessfully to write, Davidson plucked a flyer out of his mailbox that read, “Bus Drivers Wanted.” That was the first step towards an unlikely new career: driving a school bus full of special-needs kids for a year. Armed only with a sense of humour akin to that of his charges, a creative approach to the challenge of driving a large, awkward vehicle while corralling a rowdy gang of kids, and surprising but unsentimental reserves of empathy, Davidson takes us along for the ride. He shows us how his evolving relationship with the kids on that bus, each of them struggling physically as well as emotionally and socially, slowly but surely changed his life along with the lives of the “precious cargo” in his care. This is the extraordinary story of that year and those relationships. It is also a moving, important and universal story about how we see and treat people with special needs in our society. – Goodreads |
About the author:
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Born in Toronto, Ontario, Craig Davidson was raised in Calgary and St. Catharines. Davidson attended both Trent University and the University of New Brunswick.
His first short story collection, Rust and Bone, was later published in September 2005 by Penguin Books Canada, and was a finalist for the 2006 Danuta Gleed Literary Award. Stories in Rust and Bone have also been adapted into a play by Australian playwright Caleb Lewis and a film by French director Jacques Audiard. Davidson also released a novel in 2007 named The Fighter. During the course of his research of the novel, Davidson went on a 16-week steroid cycle. To promote the release of the novel, Davidson participated in a fully sanctioned boxing match against Toronto poet Michael Knox at Florida Jack’s Boxing Gym; for the novel’s subsequent release in the United States, his publisher organized a similar promotional boxing match against Jonathan Ames. Davidson lost both matches. His 2013 novel Cataract City was named as a shortlisted nominee for the 2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize. In addition to his literary fiction, Davidson has also published several works of horror literature using the pseudonyms Patrick Lestewka and Nick Cutter. In 2014, he released the thriller novel The Troop with The Deep following in 2015. He currently resides in Toronto with his partner, Colleen, and their child. – Wikipedia |
Meet the Panellist: Jeanne Beker
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Jeanne Beker is a fashion icon who has covered fashion on and off the runway, has edited two major magazines, hosts the series Style Matters and is style editor for the Shopping Channel.She is also the author of five books. Her parents are Holocaust survivors originally from Kosowa, Poland, who immigrated to Canada from a displaced persons camp in Austria. She is defending Mark Sakamoto’s true story Forgiveness. |
- Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
- Why Jeanne Beker Decided to Participate in Canada Reads
- 3 Books That Inspired Fasion Icon and Canada Reads panellist Jeanne Beker
- Why Jeanne Beker Thinks Forgiveness Should Win Canada Reads
About the book:
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The heart-rending true story of two families on either side of the Second World War-and a moving tribute to the nature of forgiveness
When the Second World War broke out, Ralph MacLean traded his quiet yet troubled life on the Magdalene Islands in eastern Canada for the ravages of war overseas. On the other side of the country, Mitsue Sakamoto and her family felt their pleasant life in Vancouver starting to fade away after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Ralph found himself one of the many Canadians captured by the Japanese in December 1941. He would live out his war in a prison camp, enduring beatings, starvation, electric feet and a journey on a hell ship to Japan, watching his friends and countrymen die all around him. Mitsue and her family were ordered out of their home and were packed off to a work farm in rural Alberta, leaving many of their possessions behind. By the end of the war, Ralph was broken but had survived. The Sakamotos lost everything when the community centre housing their possessions was burned to the ground, and the $25 compensation from the government meant they had no choice but to start again. Forgiveness intertwines the compelling stories of Ralph MacLean and the Sakamotos as the war rips their lives and their humanity out of their grasp. But somehow, despite facing such enormous transgressions against them, the two families learned to forgive. Without the depth of their forgiveness, this book’s author, Mark Sakamoto, would never have existed. – Goodreads |
About the Author:
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Mark Sakamoto, a lawyer by training, has enjoyed a rich and varied career. He began his professional career in live music, working with several international acts .he has worked at a national law firm, a national broadcaster and has served as a senior political advisor to a national party leader. He is an entrepreneur and investor in digital health, digital media and real estate. He sits on the Board of Ontario Media Development Corporation. Sakamoto lives in Toronto with his wife and two children. – Author website |
Meet the Panellist: Jully Black
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Jully Black is a Juno Award-winning and platinum-selling R&B singer-songwriter who has performed with the likes of The Black-Eyed Peas, Kanye West and Celine Dion – and was selected to perform for the Queen of England. She has been named one of the 25 greatest Canadian singers ever by CBC music and Canada’s queen of R&B soul by her fans. She is defending Cherie Dimaline’s young adult novel The Marrow Thieves. |
- Website
- Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
- 6 Books That Guide Jully Black Through Life
- Why Jully Black Thinks The Marrow Thieves Should Win Canada Reads
- How Canada Reads Panellist Jully Black Is Preparing for the Debates
About the book:
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In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America’s Indigenous people, and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow, and dreams, means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a fifteen-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite with loved ones and take refuge from the “recruiters” who seek them out to bring them to the marrow-stealing “factories.” – Goodreads |
About the author:
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Cherie Dimaline is an author and editor from the Georgian Bay Métis community.
Most recently, Cherie won the Governor General’s Award for Young People’s Literature and the U.S. Kirkus Award for Young Readers for her 2017 novel, The Marrow Thieves. Her first book, Red Rooms, (Theytus Books, 2007) won Fiction Book of the Year from the Anskohk Aboriginal Book Awards. Her novel, The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy (Theytus Books, 2013), was shortlisted for the 2014 Burt Award. Cherie has edited numerous publications including Spirit, FNH and Muskrat magazines. Her fiction has been anthologized internationally. Cherie was named the 2014 Emerging Artist of the Year – Ontario Premier’s Award, and was named the first Writer in Residence – Aboriginal Literature for the Toronto Public Library. Cherie currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, where she coordinates the annual Indigenous Writers’ Gathering. – Kegedonce Press |
So far I have completed reading The Marrow Thieves (I’m hoping to post my review of it later this week) and have begun Forgiveness, which I’m greatly enjoying so far.
Now that you are all acquainted with the panellists, books and authors, I’d love to hear which books you are rooting for or interested in reading. I’d also love to hear if any of the longlisted titles piqued your interest. If you have any other comments (or corrections – I tried to source info as best I could, but if you have more current or accurate links, please feel free to share!) or thoughts, drop them down below!
