Read Across Canada: A 2013 Challenge discussion

Bride Of New France (setting)

The Hanging of Angelique, which appears to be non-fiction about the trial and conviction of an ex-slave convicted for arson related to a catastrophic fire in Montreal, 1734.

The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant by Michel Tremblay.

Also A Trick of the Light by Louise Penney, but it's part of a whole series of murder mysteries... maybe the rest of them are Quebec, too?

GateGypsy wrote: "The Hanging of Angelique, which appears to be non-fiction about the trial and conviction of an ex-slave convicted for arson related to a catastrophic fire in Montreal, 1734."

Oooo, The Hanging of Angelique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal I have to add this to my list. Many of us Canadians pat ourselves on the back because of the Underground Railway. It wasn't until I read Someone Knows My Name that I realized that we aren't without our own skeletons.

Janice wrote: "It wasn't until I read Someone Knows My Name that I realized that we aren't without our own skeletons."

I think Obasan is what opened my eyes, but you're right. Canada does not have an innocent history. (ps, Obasan qualifies as either a BC or Alberta read LOL)

Oh, and I can't forget Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill. This'll be the one I read, I expect. It has been on my mount TBR for a very long time!

Since we have similar threads listing books set in Quebec, I'm going to combine them, unless somebody objects.
Edit: I copied all three of the posts from the Quebec thread I started into the one Janice started, so no one's post gets deleted.

Aliss
The Book of Knights
Gabrielle
Solomon Gursky Was Here
With Nothing But Our Courage: The Loyalist Diary of Mary MacDonald, Johnstown, Quebec, 1783

Gate Gypsy wrote: Windflower by Gabrielle Roy. The back cover copy claims it's set in Labrador, but it lies: it's actually Northern Quebec. Or... it was at the time this book was set, but now that new lines have been drawn, it's officially in Nunavut. How's that for confusing?

Janice wrote: Don't you just hate that when books lie? :)

Weird things are happening. Someone must have loosed the gremlins. I looked for a Quebec thread this morning and created one because I couldn't find it. But you've fixed it, and that's the main thing. Sorry Melissa.

Oh, okay. I wondered what happened there. I guess it must have been the gremlins. ;)

Janice wrote: "Weird things are happening. Someone must have loosed the gremlins. I looked for a Quebec thread this morning and created one because I couldn't find it. But you've fixed it, and that's the main ..."

Yeah, you're right. I went to delete the other Quebec thread, and Goodreads said they couldn't find it. Maybe it's some kind of bug that needs to be reported to Goodreads.

Dang those gremlins. We need a can of Raid around here.

I can't see that the other Quebec thread is here. Maybe you were successful in deleting it, and just got the wrong message. I've had that happen before.

Haha, so true! We need some Raid around here.
Yeah, maybe I was successful in deleting it. I don't see it either.

Nikolski I would call this one Quebec, but it alternates between that and other provinces (Saskatchewan).
This was one of my favourite reads, I just loved it.

GateGypsy wrote: "Oh, and I can't forget Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill. This'll be the one I read, I expect. It has been on my mount TBR for a very long time!"

This might be one I read, too. Well, that or Bride Of New France. I think I'm going to have a hard time choosing. I might have to read both of them. ;)

The Apple House by Gillian Campbell
Found on the CanLit Giller Prize eligibility list 2012.

Jenny, can you give me the link for the Canlit list? I'm eager to check it out, but Google gave me 250,000+ results. Thanks :)

This is the list of books that qualify this year, but I'm not sure about the greatness quotient. Very few appear to be set in Canada.

There of course is also the Giller Prize, where the authors are Canadian, but not necessarily the setting.

Oh, ok. Thanks for the links and the information.

The Madness Of Youth

I don't know why I didn't think of him earlier, but Leonard Cohen is not just an amazing musician, but also a beautiful writer, and most of his works are set in Montreal.
Beautiful Losers continues to be one of my favourite novels of all time...so much so that when in New Mexico my partner and I visited the cathedral dedicated to Kateri Tekakwitha (although in the story she is Mohawk and in life she is from Ancestral Pueblan nation, but I guess not everything one reads in books is true haha!)

Autumn, Beautiful Losers does sound interesting. :)

Via the Read All Day blog, she mentions the mysteries of Louise Penny set in old world Quebec.

The first book is Still Life

Thanks for mentioning that blog, Jenny. I checked it out, and I laughed hysterically over their How To Read All Day list.

Melissa wrote: "Thanks for mentioning that blog, Jenny. I checked it out, and I laughed hysterically over their How To Read All Day list."
She also wrote a book that is worth a read, although it is a sad novel about the grieving process and not just about reading all day.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading

Ru by Kim Thúy is set in Quebec. The paperback version will be published in late November.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004J8HVVK...
Vigilante by Claude Bouchard is free for kindle at the moment. I have no idea what his novels are like(but looks like I will find out)!

The Beautiful Mystery
Confirming GateGypsy's recommendation on this author.

As my review covers, in this one the murder of choirmaster of Gregorian chant in a remote cloistered order of monks leads Inspector Gamache and Agent Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec to travel there and live among the community until the mystery is solved.

Surfacing—Margaret Atwood: an early work of hers, which is a minimalist tale of a woman trying to find a pathway out of her alienation from her modern urban life through a trip with friends to a lake in remote northern Quebec

Michael wrote: "The Beautiful Mystery
Confirming GateGypsy's recommendation on this author.

As my review covers, in this one the murder of choirmaster of Gregorian chant in a remote cloistered order of monks le..."

Nice review, Michael. The Gregorian chant was a nice addition to the review. It reminded me of reading In This House of Brede about cloistered nuns in Great Britain. I took The Beautiful Mystery out of the library, and should be starting it next week.

Connie wrote: "...I took The Beautiful Mystery out of the library, and should be starting it next week.
..."
Reading out of sequence like I did. This one is so different from the others (presuming the one other I read was typical) in that you don't get coverage of Gamache's rural community and Montreal.