CanadianContent discussion

No one has started a thread for our best reads of 2019, so I am starting one. What were your favorite reads of the past year?

In no particular order, my favorite reads of 2019 were:
What the Wind Knows
The Innocents
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
Moon of the Crusted Snow
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
The Alice Network
A Gentleman in Moscow
Monkey Beach

All my Puny Sorrows
Circe
And the Birds Rained Down
Sweetness in the Belly
Days by Moonlight
The Alchemist
The Island of Sea Women
Tricks
The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary

In no particular order, my favorites this year were:

The MaddAddam Trilogy: Oryx and Crake / The Year of the Flood / MaddAddam
The Grapes of Wrath
The Orenda
The Clay Girl
An Echo in the Bone
Omens
Out
Silence
Light in August
Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused

Thanks for starting this thread @Gail!

My top ten books this year (in alphabetical order because I just can't rank them):

City of Girls
The Keeper of Lost Things
Lord of the Flies (reread)
Olive, Again
The Red Tent
The Song of Achilles
The Starless Sea
The Testaments 🍁
The Weight of Ink
The Winters ‎🍁

The CanLit books I most enjoyed this year are:

The Testaments
The Winters
Christmas at the Vinyl Cafe
Our Homesick Songs (reread)
The Luminous Sea
Lampedusa

In no particular order:

Best Fiction
Monkey Beach🍁 A re-read for a book group and I loved it even more the second time.
The Museum of Modern Love This one had me mesmerized.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. So fascinating I had to read it twice.
Now We Shall Be Entirely Free Historical fiction that felt as fresh as if it were happening today.
Flames Best magic realism I've read in years.
The Mistress Of Nothing 🍁 Very atmospheric. I felt like I was with the characters in 1862 as they sailed up the Nile.
Gilgamesh Great Aussie fiction.
Happiness It's got everything. Love, danger, loss and foxes.

Memoir
Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation🍁 Uplifting
The Salt Path A middle-aged couple lose their home and life savings the same week the husband gets a terminal diagnosis. They decide to go for a very long walk. A good book to read if you're in need of some courage.
Klee Wyck🍁 Emily Carr's memoir about living with the First Nations people of BC.

Non-fiction
Wilding Loved, loved, loved this hopeful book about rewilding a farm
Mudlark: In Search of London's Past Along the River Thames Made me want to buy some rubber boots and a shovel.
Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder from the World of Plants The title says it all.
Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power Rousing!
Buzz, Sting, Bite: Why We Need Insects Who knew bugs were so endlessly fascinating?

So many good ones on this thread already! I'll add these because I read them this year:
- All we ever wanted
- Ohio
- Advice from Baba Yaga
- Trickster Drift
- My sister the serial killer
- the nightingale
- brother
- the Alice network
- Homes
- unsheltered
- Vi
- transit

Thanks for starting this thread Gail!!

My highlights included:
- Beartown which started my year off. for the first third, I wondered what everyone was talking about and then the story hit me and i could not put it down! I really enjoyed meeting this author this year too!
- Homes: A Refugee Story - although this Canada Reads short-listed book read a bit like YA, I loved that it was a collaboration between a teacher and a student who had moved to Canada and shared his challenges. The boy was the same age as my youngest when he moved so it had a greater impact and I was happy that he read the book too!
- The Hate U Give was also an eye opener which I enjoyed sharing both the book and an author event with my daughter. I am so privileged not to have to tell my son's how to behave if they are pulled over (besides being polite) because of the colour of their skin!
- Writing the Revolution - I missed seeing Michelle Lansberg at the U of Guelph this year but her collection of articles was eye opening in reading what women have experienced and continue to experience.
- The Handmaid's Tale - I did a third read of this amazing novel before The Testaments and continue to marvel and this novel. I also read the graphic novel version of this book which was a great accompaniment.
- The Testaments - i loved learning more about Lydia in this book and was very lucky to hear Atwood speak in Toronto with some friends this fall.
- A Fine Balance - although a devastating read, I think i am one of the last people to read this book and am not sure why it took me so long!
Christmas at the Vinyl Cafe - this book that everyone can relate to had me laughing out loud. it is great to both read and to listen to his funny, short stories. Stuart McLean was certainly a Canadian treasure, gone too soon!
- Where the Crawdads Sing has ended my year with a bang! I loved this book, reading about the gentle Kya who struggled independently in the marsh yet survived like the creatures she appreciated and with the help of a few kind individuals even as she was tried for murder! Although not Canadian, i feel that my year was bookended by two amazing books... Beartown and Crawdads which I would recommend to EVERYONE!

My lowlights included:
- The Woo-Woo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug Raids, Demons, and My Crazy Chinese Family which still makes me cringe and hope that the tale was exaggerated at the very least... otherwise, i would wish that the children's aid society would have intervened!
- The Mister - i am almost embarrassed to put this on my list but it was a book club pick.... and awful!
- The Minimalist Home: A Room-By-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life - boring, predictable book about common sense... don't waste your time!

Great lists, everyone! My TBR is growing. These were my five-star reads this year:
If Beale Street Could Talk
Becoming
Ghost Wall
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
Disappearing Earth
The Nickel Boys
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
Girl, Woman, Other

I can't help but comment on all these great lists!!!

@Susan - i should have added Becoming to my list too!! Although a slow start, I really enjoyed learning more about this amazing woman and loved seeing her in Toronto with my daughter and mom!

@Gail - I still have not been able to rate the Innocents but have certainly been thinking about it!! I have had A Gentleman in Moscow on my TBR forever!

@Sarah - and the birds rained down is one of my favourite and those chimps have also stuck in my mind. it is hard to believe how cruel the medical research was yet how kind the sanctuary has been. my daughter is reading this so i am looking forward to discussing with her.

@Petra - wasn't the Clay Girl impactful? this author met our bookclub for dinner and she was so interesting. I have only read Oryx and Crake and need to finish the other 2!

Allison ༻hikes the bookwoods༺ - I loved The Weight of Ink too and The Red Tent was one of our best book club discussions!

Story❤ - i will add the Dead Blondes and Bad Mother's to my TBR and Klee Wyck has been on my TBR for a long time!!

@Karen - Ohio has been sitting on my shelf for too long!! The Alice Network and The Nightingale are such terrific novels

❀ Susan wrote: "I can't help but comment on all these great lists!!!"

I completely understand. Such great books mentioned here. I had to laugh at your comment regarding The Mister. I listened to the audiobook as it popped up in new additions on my library's website and I grabbed it on a whim. I still get flak from girlfriends for not finishing the Fifty Shades series so I thought I might redeem myself!

@ Gail, thanks for reminding me to read Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. I've had it on audio forever but haven't listened yet

@Petra, I so loved the Madd Adam trilogy and envy anyone who gets to experience it for the first time

@Sarah, Circe made my list last year. Loved it!

@Allison Hikes--sharing your love for The Red Tent. Have you seen the mini-series?

@Karen, Advice from Baba Yaga is going on my TBR right away.

@ ❀ Susan, I didn't know about the Michelle Landsberg book. I read another by her in the 90s and loved it so will look forward to this one. Have you read Elizabeth Renzetti's Shrewed: A Wry and Closely Observed Look at the Lives of Women and Girls? It made my list last year

@Susan, Ghost Wall! So suspenseful. I loved Disappearing Earth too.

@ Story❤ i really enjoyed Shrewed!! i would like to meet Elizabeth Renzetti

Some great books already mentioned. Glad to see some of the books that I have selected for my 2020 book challenges.

Some of my favourite reads this year:
Moon of the Crusted Snow
Stay with Me
Homes: A Refugee Story
A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea
The Night Tiger
The House of Broken Angels
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
An Orchestra of Minorities
Days by Moonlight
The Starless Sea

@Susan and Storyheart:
This was a reread of The Maddaddam Trilogy for me. I read the individual books as they were published.
I can't believe how much detail I missed by reading the books so far apart from each other. I would recommend reading all three books as one large book. The story flows so well that way.

@Susan: The Clay Girl was so good. It's wonderful that you got to meet the author!

@Karen: I agree. There are a great many wonderful books listed already. My TBR list is expanding.

❀ Susan wrote: "@ Story❤ i really enjoyed Shrewed!! i would like to meet Elizabeth Renzetti"

That would be great. A chapter in Shrewed prompted my friend and I to collaborate on a novel. We just finished writing the first draft last week!

Petra wrote: "I can't believe how much detail I missed by reading the books so far apart from each other. I would recommend reading all three books as one large book. The story flows so well that way. "

Great idea to re-read them all in one go! I will do that at some point this year.

Storyheart - that is awesome. I hope we can all read it someday!!