CanadianContent discussion

The jury has been chosen - https://scotiabankgillerprize.ca/intr...

Apologies if this isn't the most appropriate place to post this, but you can currently get 10 past Scotia Giller Prize books free from Audible. My account is inactive (i.e., I'm currently not subscribed to one of their plans), but I was still able to "purchase" them all for free.

Anne wrote: "Apologies if this isn't the most appropriate place to post this, but you can currently get 10 past Scotia Giller Prize books free from Audible. My account is inactive (i.e., I'm currently not subsc..."

This got me all excited until I looked at the 10 books. I have already read them all.

Thanks Anne!

Thanks for the heads up Anne. I will check those out.

I just “bought” them all, except for the three or four I already owned. Thank you!!

Thanks so much for posting this, I had four that I hadn't read, and was looking for.

Yes, thank you Anne! Added more to my collection. :-)

The Giller longlist will be announced September 7th.

Thank you, Alan.

Woo hoo! Another book event to look forward to!

I am so excited.,. I picked up on hold from the library the new
Gil Adamson because I’ve heard it’s fantastic and I’m pretty sure it will make the long list. Read the first chapter and it catches you right away. But I’m returning it for some happy person to pick up. It’s over four hundred pages and I won’t be able to renew it and it’s too much pressure to read a book on time. I know many of you could probably polish it off in a week but for me it would be stuffing myself with the most delicious meal because the restaurant closes in ten minutes. I will pick it up again,very promising irst chapter.

https://scotiabankgillerprize.ca/live...

September the 8th!

Thanks Susan, I love their clock. That’s great.

Emma Donahue will win this year,I haven’t started it yet but I haven’t heard one person dislike the book. And the timing is perfect with the plot.

I was just reading the chart of giller longlisted books since 1998 and it seems as if 90% of the books listed would be now familiar to any serious reader in this Country. That is so interesting and instructive because we’ve so often bemoaned the fact of feeling dwarfed by publishing south of us,but I’m sure anyone in this group would be aware of almost every title on the list.

Impressive longlist! Happy reading!

https://scotiabankgillerprize.ca/the-...

No surprises on this years Giller longlist.
I expected Gil Adamson and Emma Donahue to be there and since Clyde Fans was the only graphic novel submitted and received great praise,it is good to see it there. The Bergen for the most part is very weak,apart from the final novella,it’s just not a great collection. The Lynn Coady is delightful.
I expected How to Pronounce Knife as it has been highly acclaimed. I don’t think there were any translations which is unusul I also heard very good things about Polar Vortex and the Eva Crocker.

The only surprise is the exclusion of the Helen Humphreys.
I haven’t read the book nor a review but she’s a great writer.
I think it’s ten women writers represented this year.

Five Little Indians is on sale for $1.99 on Kindle (in the U.S.). Maybe it's on sale in Canada too?

I have not read any of these but The Pull of the Stars is my next book club read.

@Alan - I feel that Helen Humphreys is an overlooked author, she has such quietly, beautiful writing and I wish that more readers would talk about her books!

Unfortunately Five Little Indians is full price here.
I have from the library the Emma Donahue,the Gil Adamson,the Shani Mooto and the Eva Crocker. I’m going to need two heads to read all of these. I’m starting with the Donahue.

This is a great list of books but I am surprised and disappointed that Greenwood isn't on it. I thought it was a book of very high quality, both in the story telling and in the writing.

Anna wrote: "This is a great list of books but I am surprised and disappointed that Greenwood isn't on it. I thought it was a book of very high quality, both in the story telling and in the writ..."

I believe Greenwood was longlisted last year @Anna. It's a wonderful book that I very much enjoyed.

Oh thanks for the reminder. I guess I wasn’t paying attention to the dates very well 😄

Ooh, good list! The only one I’ve read so far is Clyde Fans, which is very good.

Kobo has a great sale on until September 21st and a few longlisted titles are included:

Ridgerunner $4.49
https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/ridg...


Watching You Without Me $4.49
https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/watc...

All I Ask $4.49
https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-...

I was just going to post this! Ridgerunner is a huge deal because I was planning on buying it and it was about sixteen dollars a week ago. Five Little Indians is also reduced but I hated it which has nothing to do with anyone else. The Emma Donaghue is reduced although not nearly as much as the others. I bought three just now.

Great deals for sure @Alan! Thanks for posting those I missed!

thanks @AllisonHikes!

Having read a few of the longlist,I still think the Emma Donaghue is the strongest. The research she has done is extraordinary,but sometimes it feels like she is overwhelming the reader with the information she has acquired. I had hoped the book would deal with the flu more in the city but she keeps it pretty contained to one very sad hospital ward. The ending sort of reads false, But it’s a huge achievement and I think she’s at the front of the pack. The perfect book to read during these covid times and some of the parallels are extraordinary as she had finished the book last March. Listening to the book on audio is perfect. The narrator reads the text beautifully and there are many very funny ditties sung in the book which the narrator reads with great glee.
I have moved on to the Thomas King which is very light-hearted and witty.
Unfortunately there are only two more titles on audio-the Annabel Lyon and How to Pronounce Knife. How to pronounce..is only two hours and not worth using a credit. I wrote to audible and asked if they could include the Gail Adamson ,the Shani mooto and the Eva Crocker as they have earlier books by all three authors in their store. The response felt somewhat hostile-we do the best we can and it’s not our fault. I’m sure the three will appear on audio eventually,perhaps not in time for me to hear them.i think the Gil Adamson would be perfect for audio.

I feel like the time I spent reading Thomas King’s Indians on Vacation was a great loss of valuable time. Had it not been long-listening for the Giller I wouldn’t have bothered. It’s hard to see the point in the book. There is very funny humour in the beginning but it becomes so annoying and sounds like such crabby bickering after a while that I just wanted to ask the narrator to stop. I just watched the interview Margaret Atwood did with Thomas King,and you do get a sense of his funny and expansive personality in the book. You also get the sense that this is an author who enjoys hearing himself talk and such is what he does in this book,for no clear reason.

Short-list on monday-here is my prediction:

Emma Donaghue
Gil Adamson-Ridgerunner
Seth-Clyde Fans
How to Pronounce Knife
Watching You Watching Me or Indians on Vacation. It should be the former.

There are two short story collections nominated-one is awful and annoyingly didactic. If you’re going to long list a graphic novel for the first time you’ve got to add it to the short list to show how whimsical and clever the jury is. Besides the book is highly praised and could win-a
surprise win because of its form
Two books by Indiginous authors-both quite weak but...
The Donaghue has to be short listed -she did an enormous amount of research and there isn’t any book as topical as this one right now.
It really is the Canadian novel of the moment and apart from Louis Penny on the best seller list every week. This year the Giller goes to her.
There are still seven I haven’t read and there may be a winner in the bunch- but based on my reading so far I don’t have a lot of hope.
So far my love goes to the Lynn Coady.. It’s delightful,moving and suspenseful and she never falters which Donaghue does big time. But it’s too lite or popular or domestic to win. The Gillers want the big picture and Donaghue strives for that.

I'm looking forward to the shortlist on Monday. There are 3 books on the longlist that aren't available in the U.S. until 2021 and a few others that are difficult to source, so I'm selfishly hoping most of those won't make the shortlist.

I had no idea Eva Crocker is Lisa Moore's daughter until I started poking around about the Giller authors I didn't know much about.

I've read five from the longlist (Coady, Donoghue, Good, St. John Mandel, Thammavongsa) and have two others checked out from the library (Mootoo, Seth).

Alan wrote: "There are two short story collections nominated-one is awful and annoyingly didactic...."

I'm curious which one you thought was awful. I read both and liked both. Didn't LOVE them but liked them well enough. The Coady however was a slog. The protagonist/narrator was a dipstick and drove me nuts.

Louise wrote: "Alan wrote: "The protagonist/narrator was a dipstick and drove me nuts."

I couldn't agree more @Louise!

I could see not liking the protagonist in the Coady,perhaps at another time I would have felt the same way. But I listened on audio and the narrator really enhanced the book.
Susan can you not shop in the Canadian amazon store? Why don’t you ask a friend or relative to buy it for you and have it shipped?I’m sure one can ship anywhere in the world.
Louise it’s the Dominoes at the Crossroads. There is a bit en francais,a small words, I have no idea how the jury understood as I don’t understand most of it. I just find the book incredibly didactic and really unengaging. I’m stuck on the seventh story and I wish a book robber would steal it from my house so I don’t have to read anymore. I’m way too ocd to throw it away.. Maybe Louise you can let me know what you liked about it and it will help me appreciate it more.

I also knew nothing about Eva Crocker. This makes Lisa Moore much older than I thought. I really love Lisa Moore’s work.

Alan wrote: "Maybe Louise you can let me know what you liked about it and it will help me appreciate it more."

I found it refreshingly unique and I liked how he incorporated so many different themes in different ways. He keeps you on your toes.

I am thrilled to see two short story collections make the shortlist!!! I have only read one book from the short list (Here the Dark: A Novella and Stories), and look forward to the other four. Seems like a good shortlist.

Well, I guessed wrong this weekend and started reading Clyde Fans instead of Polar Vortex. LOL.

I'm trying to suspend judgment on Clyde Fans, as the first part annoyed me but the second part was better. I did discover that the pub date for this was April 2019 so I'm not sure how it was eligible for this year's Giller unless they had different deadlines for graphic novels since this was the first year they were eligible.

I've only read two shortlist titles so far: The Glass Hotel (loved) and How to Pronounce Knife (liked but didn't love).

Very surprised by the short list. Apart from the novella which I thought was excellent I thought the Bergen was terrible and I never expected it to be on the short list. I really didn't care for the Glass
Hotel either-the female protagonist really annoyed me and I didn't
believe the depiction of her character at all. No Emma Donaghue?
That is the biggest shock for me. and no Clyde Fans? I've read
parts of it early on and I thought it was lovely. Oh well..so it be.
Don't know anything about Polar Vortex, fortunately it was greatly
reduced on kobo about a month ago.
At this point I think Ridgerunner may win it...but who knows these things. It sounds like an epic novel which the Gillers love. But I will have to read the earlier book The Outlander first. Interestingly the
program said the Ridgerunner is a sequel but someone here said
Gil Adamson said it isn't a sequel except for a returning character.

Polar Vortex which I believe is on the short list is greatly reduced at the kobo shop again.

I am disappointed that The Pull of the Stars did not make the list as I really enjoyed it.

This morning I finished How to Pronounce Knife and enjoyed it and it left it me wondering how much of the descriptions were take from the authors own experiences.

I have downloaded all the books from the library (on my kobo) so need to quickly read them before they get sucked back!

I finished Polar Vortex this morning and really did not like it. I gave it 2 stars but then read a 1-star review on Goodreads that was full of spoilers and I realized that I probably could have given it 1 star. Really disappointed that this made the shortlist in place of other longlist titles.

I have only read one shortlist so far (Here the Dark: A Novella and Stories and that was decent but All I Ask and Watching You Without Me from the longlist were both awful. I did like The Pull of the Stars.

From the shortlist I have high hopes for Ridgerunner and am rooting for How to Pronounce Knife because it's a short story collection.

Although I have not read Polar Vortex yet, I am reading another one of her books Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab which I am really enjoying.

I've read The Glass Hotel and while I have mixed feelings, there was lots positive about it and I can see it as a Scotiabank Giller Winner.

Have Here the Dark: A Novella and Stories in hand and enjoyed the first story I read. Have Polar Vortex to pick up and might be surprised. Have steered away from Shani Mootoo's works because the descriptions have never appealed but I know she's a terrific writer and am hoping to be positively suprised.

Also have The Outlander and Ridgerunner to pick up and read.

Not sure how I'll make out with my other reads on hand but should be a good leadup to The Scotiabank Giller gala announcement.

I’ve read 3/5, still needing to read Ridgerunner and Here the Dark. Polar Vortex, How To Pronounce Knife, and The Glass Hotel I listened to on audio and I did enjoy all 3. I’d say I most enjoyed the story Polar Vortex and the latter two were tied. I’m really interested in reading Ridgerunner though, I’ve got to get my hands on it, it’s not available on Cloud Library.

@ Sarah - hope you get Ridgerunner and The Outlander if you haven't read it yet. Just received info that our library ordered copies (paper) of Ridgerunner have arrived and are available for pickup so yours might be arriving soon. Fingers crossed.

@MJ thanks. I’ll keep checking 😊

Not sure who subscribes, but Here the Dark audiobook is now on Scribd.