CanadianContent discussion

For those of you (@Louise -lol) having trouble narrowing it down to just one, here is a place to add your top 10 favourite books of 2018!

I will start us off. Please note that they are not ranked but listed in the order of reading:

1. The Translation of Love
2. The Break
3. The Nightingale
4. The Handmaid's Tale
5. Kit's Law
6. Drifting Home
7. The Piano Maker
8. The Fire-Dwellers
9. Consumption
10. Alias Grace

All were Canadian except for The Nightingale. Both Drifting Home and Consumption were books that I likely would not have read if it were not for the Cross Canada Challenge.

I'm just going to copy my post from the other thread where our mean moderator is making us choose only one book, hahaha.

My ratings of 10/10 for 2017 are the following:

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
Simple Recipes by Madeleine Thien (Canadian short stories)
After Rain by William Trevor (Irish short stories)
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
L'Acquittement by Gaétan Soucy
Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
Happiness, Like Water by Chinelo Okparanta (Nigerian short stories)
Immaculée Conception by Gaétan Soucy
A Bit on the Side by William Trevor (Irish short stories)
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

I also want to give a shout out to a couple of non-fiction books I read:

Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison
Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City

Hahaha! @Louise! :)

Top ten for me is easier to compile than top ONE. Here goes, kind of "in order" of best downward:

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (non-fiction, USA)
Crackpot by Adele Wiseman (fiction, Canadian)
A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves by Walter Alvarez (non-fiction, USA)
'Til the Well Runs Dry by Lauren Francis-Sharma (fiction, USA)
Frog Music by Emma Donoghue (fiction, Canada/Ireland)
The House Girl by Tara Conklin (fiction, USA)
A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley (non-fiction, Australia/India)
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels (fiction, Canada)
The Glace Bay Miners' Museum: The Novel by Sheldon Currie (fiction, Canada)
A Brief History of Creation: Science and the Search for the Origin of Life by Bill Mesler (non-fiction, USA)

Ha Ha Louise and Allison - just think of it as another challenge!!

Top 10, in rough order - the first nine got 5-star ratings (which I am usually very stingy with). Some of these were rereads.

Sing, Unburied, Sing - Jesmyn Ward
Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates (reread)
Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery (reread)
All Grown Up - Jami Attenberg
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood (reread)
The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy - Rachel Joyce
Nocturne: On the Life and Death of My Brother - Helen Humphreys
Eveningland: Stories - Michael Knight
We Should All Be Feminists - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Age of Hope - David Bergen

My top ten best books this year (in no particular order):

1. The Thirteenth Tale
2. Alias Grace
3. Rules of Civility
4. Practical Magic
5. The Rules of Magic
6. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
7. The Dinner
8. East of Eden
9. The Mothers
10. The Miniaturist

These are great lists! It's fun to see favorites and some not-so-favorites listed. :D

My top 10 books of 2017, in no particular order, are:
Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall
The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway
The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
The First Love Story: Adam, Eve, and Us by Bruce Feiler
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Wool by Hugh Howey
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
We Are Water by Wally Lamb

Seeing lots of previous years favs on these lists :-)

Here are mine:
The Essex Serpent--Sarah Perry
Autumn--Ali Smith
To The Bright Edge of the World-Eowin Ivey
Baba Dunja's Last Love--Alina Bronsky
Exit West --Mohsin Hamid
Consider This, Señora--Harriet Doerr
The Lonely Hearts Hotel--Heather O'Niel
Golden Hill-Francis Spufford
Beyond Black-Hilary Mantel
Lady Oracle--Atwood

You do mean 2017, right? I know you guys are keeners, but surely you don't time travel? haha

My top ten, in order of reading:

A Man Called Ove
The Road
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
The Handmaid's Tale
Pachinko
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Game Change: Steve Montador, Brain Injuries, and the Future of the Game
Lullabies for Little Criminals
Wonder
The Little Stranger
The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World

I didn’t even notice that it says 2018 lol! I guess we see what we want to.

I've got a few good recommendations from your lists. Thanks! Here are the ten books that stood out for me in 2017:

Brother
The Outlander by Gil Adamson (not the Gabaldon series!)
Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains
The Marrow Thieves
Witness, I Am
Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Burning In This Midnight Dream
The Last Neanderthal
In the Cage
Bad Endings

LOL - @Allison Hikes the Bookwoods... i guess I am getting ahead of myself and will change to 2017. :)

I like seeing these lists and the duplication of some books! Margaret Atwood seems to be a recurrent author.

@Maia - I have an ARC of The Last Neanderthal that i want to read before meeting the author mid- January so was glad to see that this book made your top 10 list.

Oh no, I'm adding to my TBR yet again!

My top reads:
1. The Moonstone
2. Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Issues in Canada
3. The Break
4. Autumn
5. The Friday Gospels
6. Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
7. In the Darkroom
8. Pink Mist
9. Duplex
And I think (hard to stop at 10!!) 10. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City or maybe Up Ghost River: A Chief's Journey Through the Turbulent Waters of Native History

Maia wrote: "
The Outlander by Gil Adamson (not the Gabal..."

I loved this book when I read it a few years ago. It was a monthly read in the old CBC Books group and it was a pleasant surprise. I don't understand why it hasn't gotten the attention that it deserves.

The Outlander made me look into the history of that rockslide too... a piece of history that I was not aware of but discovered through fiction.

❀ Susan wrote: "The Outlander made me look into the history of that rockslide too... a piece of history that I was not aware of but discovered through fiction."

I learn more history through fiction than I do through non-fiction....You just don't get a feel for what people have endured through a catalog of facts, but put it in a story and you're right there! I just spent the past few days at the North-West Rebellion of 1885!

I totally agree @Louise. One of the reasons I love historical fiction so much.

My Top 10 for 2017 in the order of reading:

1. All the Light We Cannot See
2. Books for Living
3. A Gentleman in Moscow
4. A Man Called Ove
5. Wonder
6. The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius
7. The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well
8. How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease
9. Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
10. The Palest Ink

I noticed almost 1/2 of them are non-fictions but not 1 CanLit made the list as these are all 5-star reads for me :)

Allison ༻hikes the bookwoods༺ wrote: "I totally agree @Louise. One of the reasons I love historical fiction so much."

Me too, me too.

Oh this is hard to narrow down. I'll keep this to Canadian fiction to narrow it down. So in no particular order:

1. Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations
2. Bear
3. North End Love Songs
4. Up Ghost River: A Chief's Journey Through the Turbulent Waters of Native History
5.Mennonites Don't Dance
6. A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder
7. One Native Life
8. Brother
9. How to Make Love to a Negro
10. 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl

ps. my favourite non-Canadian read was The Old Man and the Sea

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
Hum If You Don’t Know the Words
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Flight of Dreams
Sing, Unburied, Sing
The Alice Network
The Gilded Years
I Am a Truck
The Best Kind of People

Susan wrote: "Top 10, in rough order - the first nine got 5-star ratings (which I am usually very stingy with). Some of these were rereads.

Sing, Unburied, Sing - Jesmyn Ward
Between the W..."</i>

I was surprised that [book:The Age of Hope didn't gain more popularity. It was a really good book....I think you find it on the bargain shelves at Chapters now....so sad.

Megan wrote: "Oh this is hard to narrow down. I'll keep this to Canadian fiction to narrow it down. So in no particular order:

1. Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations
2. Bear
3. [book..."

I love your list Megan! Some great books indeed.

Shannon wrote: "I was surprised that [book:The Age of Hope didn't gain more popularity. It was a really good book....I think you find it on the bargain shelves at Chapters now....so sad. "

Wasn't it on Canada Reads one year? I loved that book!

Yes, The Age of Hope was defended by Ron McLean on Canada Reads (February won that year). I loved it and got really wrapped up with the main character - I even cried at the end.

I must have slept through Canada Reads that year...oops!

Confession - sometimes I trawl the bargain section of indigo and when I see really good books selling for peanuts, I feel sad on the author's behalf. :)

Okay my top 10 list is below - every eclectic:

1. Cash City - audio
2. The Butterfly Effect - audio
3. Magpie Murders - audio
4. S-Town - audio podcast
5. One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter
6. Company Town
7. Betty Boo
8. IQ
9. Lullabies for Little Criminals: A Novel
10. tied: Binti and Hag-Seed

@ Rainey, Magpie Murders was so much fun, wasn't it.

Storyheart wrote: "@ Rainey, Magpie Murders was so much fun, wasn't it."

I loved it. I listened to it on audio - so much fun

Susan wrote: "Yes, The Age of Hope was defended by Ron McLean on Canada Reads (February won that year). I loved it and got really wrapped up with the main character - I even cried ..."

She reminded me a lot of my mother and what my mother's life must have been like back then. It was so well done when you consider it was written by a man.

I had a few more 5 star books, two were rereads but these ones stood out.

Prairie Ostrich - Tamai Kobayashi
The Town That Drowned - Riel Nason
Hag-Seed - Margaret Atwood
First Snow, Last Light - Wayne Johnston
The Best Kind of People - Zoe Whittall
Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All - Jonas Jonasson
Garbo Laughs - Elizabeth Hay
The Break - Katherena Vermette
The Visitors - Catherine Burns
Late Nights on Air by [author:Elizabeth Hay|270543

Here is mine-I had 14 five star Canadian Lit reads in 2017, but narrowed my top ten to these:
Under This Unbroken Sky
The Lonely Hearts Hotel
The Break (I also loved her North End Love Songs)
Sweetland
Cereus Blooms at Night
The Virgin Cure
Hag-Seed
Ragged Company
A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali
Son of a Trickster

Here are my top 10

The Disappearance of the Universe by Gary R. Renard- based on A Course In Miracles - not for everyone, but I loved it!
Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson
The Reason You Walk by Wab Kinew
Inferno by Dan Brown
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (reread for a challenge)
Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo
Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal by Anthony William
Kit's Law by Donna Morrissey
Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill
The Break by Katherena Vermette