Canada Reads American Style

Top Canadian Authors Continued

Rebecca and Tara shared their Top Ten Canadian Books of the 21st Century on YouTube Live on August 24, 2024 but decided they wanted to share additional authors and titles that they highly recommend.

Rebecca (@canadareadsamericanstyle): 

• Recollections of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Solnit
• The Pearl by John Steinbeck
• Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense; Driven: the Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers; Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers by Marcello Di Cintio
• The Lost Ones; In the Grip of It; It All Falls Down; No Going Back; Fight Like a Girl by Sheena Kamal
• The Red Chesterfield; Fall from Grace; A Killing Winter; Blood Red Summer; The Traitors of Camp 133 by Wayne Arthurson

Tara (@onabranchreads):

• I Don't Do Disability and Other Lies I Told Myself by Adelle Purdham
• The Christmas Jigsaw Murders by Alexandra Benedict
• The Doctor's Sweetheart and Other Stories by L.M. Montgomery
• Fayne; Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
• The Fionavar Tapestry series; The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
• The Spoon Stealer; Nosy Parker by Lesley Crewe
• Fallsy Downsies by Stephanie Domet
• Hollay Ghadery
• Helen Humphreys

 

 

Book Chat #21

Rebecca is back from a two-week road trip and shares her stops along the way and only two books.  Tara, on the other hand, had a great month of reading!

Rebecca (@canadareadsamericanstyle):

• Loudmouth Books: https://loudmouthindy.com/ / https://www.instagram.com/loudmouthindy/
• President Benjamin Harrison House: https://bhpsite.org/
• Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library: https://presidentlincoln.illinois.gov/
• Dana-Thomas House (Frank Lloyd Wright): https://dana-thomas.org/
• Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum: https://marktwainmuseum.org/
• Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum: https://www.ameliaearhartmuseum.org/
• Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum: https://ameliaearharthangarmuseum.org/
• Amelia & Me; Under Amelia’s Wing; Beyond Amelia by Heather Stemp
• Cahokia Mounds World Heritage & State Historic Site: https://cahokiamounds.org/
• Kurt Vonnegut Museum & Library: https://www.vonnegutlibrary.org/
• The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty
• Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow

Tara (@onabranchreads):

• Invisible Prisons by Lisa Moore and Jack Whalen
• We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
• I'm So Glad We Had This Time by Maurice Vellekoop
• Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo
• Sugaring Off by Fanny Britt with Susan Ouriou
• The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich
• The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman

Don't forget to check out Rebecca and Tara's latest "Reading from Our Shelves" on YouTube: https://studio.youtube.com/video/uAq2aptzpLc/edit

 

 

Interview - Brett Popplewell and Outsider: An Old Man, a Mountain and the Search for a Hidden Past

Rebecca is excited to chat with author Brett Popplewell about his latest book, Outsider: An Old Man, a Mountain and the Search for a Hidden Past.

Brett is an author and journalist who joined Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication in 2017. His articles have been recognized by the National Magazine Awards Foundation in best short feature, profiles, investigative reporting, longform writing, sports and travel.

He has written for Bloomberg Businessweek, Mother Jones, The Canadian Press, The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Sportsnet, Maclean’s, The Walrus and more. He is the co-author of The Escapist: How One Man Cheated Death on the World’s Highest Mountains. Published in 2016).

https://brettpopplewell.ca/

https://www.harpercollins.ca/9781443457859/outsider/

https://thewalrus.ca/churchill-portrait/

 

 

 

Interview - Sydney Leigh and Instagoner

Tara chats with author Sydney Leigh about her latest novel, Instagoner, published on August 27, 2024 by Level Best Books; it is the first book in the Bark and Blog Mystery series. When lifestyle blogger Emily finds the body of the local controversial talk show host who also happens to be her arch-nemesis, she enlists the help of her online audience, her best friend and barista Fitz, and furry, four-footed roommate Murray who help solve the crime.

 

Sydney spent several years running a seasonal business, allowing her to spend the cold months in cool places. She now spends her work time thinking about murder and writing cozy mysteries.  She is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers and served on the board of Crime Writers of Canada from 2018-2021.

 

Highlighted books:

• The True Love Experiment; The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
• Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies by Catherine Mack
• Murder Road by Simone St. James
• Peril in Pink by Sydney Leigh

https://sydneyleighbooks.com/

https://www.instagram.com/sydneyleighauthor/

 

 

Interview - Sarah Raughley and The Bones of Ruin Trilogy

Tara interviews author Sarah Raughley about her trilogy, The Bones of Ruin (The Bones of Ruin, The Song of Wrath, The Lady of Rapture), as well as her new novel, The Queen's Spade, out January 14, 2025. 

 

Sarah grew up in southern Ontario writing stories about freakish little girls with powers because she secretly wanted to be one. She is a huge fangirl of anything from manga to sci/fi fantasy TV to Japanese role-playing games.

 

As a writer, Sarah has been nominated for the Aurora Award for Best Young Adult novel and works in the community doing writing workshops for youths and adults.

 

As an academic, Sarah has a PhD in English. She has taught at McMaster University and acted as a postdoctoral fellow at The University of Ottawa. She currently teaches creative writing at Lakehead University. Her research concerns representations of race and gender in popular media, youth culture and post colonialism.

 

Highlighted titles:

• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
• Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor
• July's People by Nadine Gordimer
• Legendborn; Bloodmarked; Oathbound (3/2025) by Tracy Deonn 
• Tender Beasts by Liselle Sambury
• Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto
• Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama
• Hunter x Hunter by Yoshihiro Togashi
• Basara by Yumi Tamura
• Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi
• Sugar Sugar Rune by Moyoco Anno
• The Rose of Versailles by Riyoko Ikeda
• Fushigi Yugi by Yuu Watase
• Bleach by Tite Kubo

https://sarahraughley.com/

https://www.instagram.com/s_raughley/

 

Book Chat #20

Rebecca and Tara close out September with what they are currently reading and what they've read since their last book chat.

Rebecca (@canadareadsamericanstyle):

• Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of The Kingdom of Redonda by Michael Hingston
• The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
• Little Moons by Jen Storm
• Not Cancelled: Canadian Caremongering in the Face of Covid-19; Life After Loss: Reflections on Moments of Grace and Courage in Grief by Catherine Kenwell
• Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
• Outsider: An Old Man, a Mountain and the Search for a Hidden Past by Brett Popplewell
• The Circle by Katherena Vermette
• Driving the Green Book: A Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance by Alvin Hall

Tara (@onabranchreads):

• Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder by Julia Zarankin
• The Circle; Real Ones by Katherena Vermette
• Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
• Wild Dogs by Helen Humphreys
• The Women by Kristin Hannah
• The Brickworks by Lucy E.M. Black
• Pay the Piper by George A. Romero, Daniel Kraus
• The River; Burn by Peter Heller

Eden Mills Writers' Festival Wrap-Up

Rebecca and Tara chat about their great day at the annual Eden Mills Writers' Festival in Eden Mills, Ontario.  Check out the link below for the entire day's lineup of authors and titles discussed on the podcast. 

https://edenmillswritersfestival.ca/featured-writers/

Rebecca (@canadareadsamericanstyle):

• Driving the Green Book: A Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance by Alvin Hall

Tara (@onabranchreads):

• Instagoner (A Bark and Blog Mystery Series) by Sydney Leigh
• God Isn't Here Today by Francine Cunningham
• Tear by Erica McKeen

 

Interview - Hollay Ghadery and Widow Fantasies

Tara talks with Hollay Ghadery, an award-winning Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in rural Ontario on Anishanaabe land. Fuse, her acclaimed memoir of mixed-race identity and mental illness, was published by Guernica Editions' Microland imprint in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for nonfiction/memoir. (Check out Rebecca's interview with Hollay on the January 11, 2023 episode.) Her debut collection of poetry, Rebellion Box, was released with Radiant Press in April 2023. Her short fiction collection, Widow Fantasies, will be released on September 1, 2024, with Gordon Hill Press.

 

Hollay is also the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township as well as the founder of and senior publicist with River Street Writing, a team of creatives who aim to produce and celebrate amazing writers.

 

Books, authors highlighted:

• Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook by David Galef
• Through the Sad Wood Our Corpses Will Hang by Ava Farmehri
• Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier
• Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe
• Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa
• The Boulevard by Jerrod Edson
• Poet Bronwen Wallace
• Most of All the Wanting by Amanda Merpaw
• Whylah Falls by George Elliott Clarke
• A Simple Carpenter by David Margoshes
• Author Adele Wiseman
• Off the Tracks: A Meditation on Train Journeys in a Time of No Travel by Pamela Mulloy
• The Years Shall Run Like Rabbits by Ben Berman Ghan
• The Mona Lisa Sacrifice (The Book of Cross #1) by Peter Roman

Publishers:

• Radiant Press https://radiantpress.ca/
• Latitude 46 https://latitude46publishing.com/
• Wolsak & Winn https://www.wolsakandwynn.ca/

Literary Festivals:

• The Word on the Street Toronto https://toronto.thewordonthestreet.ca/
• Eden Mills Writers' Festival https://edenmillswritersfestival.ca/
• The & Festival https://theampersandreview.ca/the-festival-2024
• Wordstock Sudbury https://wordstocksudbury.ca/

Book Chat #19

Rebecca and Tara share their latest good reads!

Rebecca (@canadareadsamericanstyle):

• Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
• Golden Boys: The Winnipeg Falcons of 1920 by Paul Keery; illustrated by Michael Wyatt https://shop.teachmag.com/collections/frontpage/products/golden-boys-the-winnipeg-falcons-of-1920
• Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America by Matika Wilbur
• The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
• Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay

Tara (@onabranchreads):

• Where the Falcon Flies: A 3,400 Kilometre Odyssey From My Doorstep to the Arctic by Adam Shoalts
• Real Ones: A Novel by Katherena Vermette
• The Widow's Guide to Dead Bastards by Jessica Waite
• The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan
• Merlin Bird ID: https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/
• All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker
• The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren
• Road Ends by Mary Lawson
• The Puppet Master (Major Crimes #3) by Sam Holland
• The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

 

 

When Place is a Character

Rebecca and Tara highlight books they've read in which the location or place is a distinct character in the novel.

Rebecca (@canadareadsamericanstyle):

• True Gretch: What I've Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between by Governor Gretchen Whitmer
• Widow Fantasies by Hollay Ghadery
• Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez / Scarborough, Ontario
• Brother by David Chariandy / Scarborough, Ontario
• Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay / Hanging Rock, Victoria, Australia
• The Street by Ann Petry / Harlem, New York City
• My Ántonia by Willa Cather / Nebraska
• Denison Ave by Christina Wong / Chinatown, Kensington Market
• Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill / Toronto
• The Lost Ones (Nora Watts series) by Sheena Kamal / Vancouver
• The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty / Vacca Vale, Indiana
• Hotline by Dimitri Nasrallah / Montreal
• Chevy in the Hole by Kelsey Ronan / Flint, Michigan
• The Break by Katherina Vermette / Winnipeg's North End

Tara (@onabranchreads):

• Death & Other Inconveniences by Lesley Crewe
• Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder: A Memoir by Julia Zarankin
• Love That Story: Observations from a Gorgeously Queer Life by Jonathan Van Ness
• Road Ends by Mary Lawson
• Lost Girls by Andrew Pyper / Northern Ontario, Cottage Country
• The Dry by Jane Harper / Australia
• River Mumma by Zalika Reid-Benta / Toronto
• Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery / Prince Edward Island
• Galore by Michael Crummey / Newfoundland
• David Adams Richards / New Brunswick

 

Interview - Susan Wadds and What the Living Do

Tara chats with Canadian Susan Wadds, author of What the Living Do.  Winner of the Writer's Union of Canada's Prose Contest in 2016, Susan's award-winning work has appeared in The Blood Pudding, Room, Quagmire, Waterwheel Review, Funicular, WOW--Women on Writing, and many more.

The first two chapters of her debut novel, What the Living Do, (Regal House Publishing, 2024), won the Lazuli Group's Prose Contest, and were published in Azure Magazine.

Susan is a certified Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) workshop facilitator.  She lives on a quiet river in South-Central Ontario with an odd assortment of humans and cats.

https://www.instagram.com/deepamwadds/

https://writeyourwayin.ca/about-me/

https://regalhousepublishing.com/susan-wadds/

Reading Recommendations:

• Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
• The Stones of Burren Bay by Emily de Angelis
• Unrest by Gwen Tuinman
• Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
• Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel by Lisa Cron

 

Interview - Michael Redhead Champagne and We Need Everyone

Rebecca chats with author Michael Redhead Champagne about his first children’s book, We Need Everyone, which premiered with HighWater Press in January 2024.

Michael is working towards a revolution that dismantles harmful systems and builds up new ones based on justice, equity and love. A community leader from Winnipeg's North End with family roots in Shamattawa First Nation, Michael is host, helper, published author, on-screen personality and sought-after public speaker. He happily shares his words, wisdom and welcoming energy across Canada and around the world.

He loves family friendly jokes, Tetris, Stevie Wonder music and celebrating the successes of others.

https://www.michaelredheadchampagne.com/

https://www.instagram.com/northendmc

We Need Everyone Free Teacher Guide:

https://www.portageandmainpress.com/Books/T/Teacher-Guide-for-We-Need-Everyone

Community Resources:

https://fearlessr2w.ca/

https://necrc.org/

https://www.facebook.com/MBHealthCoal/

Upcoming Graphic Novel--Little by Little You Can Change the World by Sonya Ballantyne: https://www.portageandmainpress.com/Books/L/Little-by-Little

Recommended Title--Tipiskawi Kisik: Night Sky Star Stories by Wilfred Buck:

https://mfnerc.org/product/tipiskawi-kisik-night-sky-star-stories/

 

 

 

 

 

Reader Repartee with Katie

Rebecca welcomes Katie from Whitehorse, Yukon Canada to answer the Five Reader Repartee Questions. 

1. How did you become a reader?
2. What book do you wish you could read again for the first time?
3. Which author, living or dead, would you like to meet in person and why?
4. What fictional character would you like to meet and why?
5. What are you currently reading?

Katie's responses include:

• CNIB (Canada): https://www.cnib.ca/en/library-services-people-who-are-blind?region=on
• LEO (Michigan): https://www.michigan.gov/leo/bureaus-agencies/bureau-of-services-for-blind-persons/btbl
• On Fragile Waves by E. Lily Yu
• Sara Hildreth: https://www.instagram.com/fictionmatters/ and https://www.instagram.com/novelpairingspod/
• Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea
• A Fake Girlfriend for Chinese New Year by Jackie Lau
• The Foghorn Echoes; Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir by Danny Ramadan
• The Philistine by Leila Marshy
• Shawn Breathes Books: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXFFuV_loS97oL-UTCazcXA
• The Book of Ramallah: A City in Short Fiction edited by Maya Abu al-Hayat

If you would like to be featured on a future episode of Reader Repartee, contact Rebecca through her Instagram account: @canadareadsamericanstyle

 

Interview - Emily A. Weedon and Autokrator

Rebecca chats with the author of Autokrator, Emily A. Weedon.  Emily is a debut novelist and a screenwriter from Toronto Canada. Her web series Chateau Laurier was the most awarded web series on the entire planet in 2023 and won a Canadian Screen Award. Her novel Autokrator released by Cormorant Books in April 2024 is already receiving acclaim for its thoughtful messages, especially about women's health in a fractious world, for its wild creativity, and its driving pace as a story.

Other titles mentioned:

• Eris by Larry Gaudet
•  Serotonin; The Map and the Territory; Submission by Michel Houellebecq

https://emilyweedon.com/

https://www.cormorantbooks.com/emily-a-weedon

https://www.instagram.com/emily.weedon.creates/

Immediately after their discussion, Emily shared the following news with Rebecca:

"Dundurn Press Acquisitions Editor Russell Smith has acquired world rights to award-winning screenwriter and AUTOKRATOR author Emily A. Weedon’s HEMO SAPIENS, an erotic noir thriller, pitched as a sleek THE HUNGER meets a twisted HANNIBAL, that reimagines vampires through a lens of female sexuality and anthropology, wherein a homicide detective, while exposing a secret society of bloodthirsty women, will do anything to protect his wife and unborn child from a mysterious and powerful femme fatale for the ages. Publication is expected for Fall 2025."

 

 

 

Interview - Marion Agnew and Making Up the Gods

Rebecca interviews author Marion Agnew.  Marion is a dual US/Canadian citizen, who moved north mid-life, after a career in technical writing and editing. MAKING UP THE GODS (Latitude 46, Sudbury, 2023) is her first novel. Her previous book, REVERBERATIONS: A DAUGHTER’S MEDITATIONS ON ALZHEIMER’S (Signature Editions, Winnipeg, 2019) was shortlisted for the Louise de Kiriline Lawrence award for nonfiction. She lives on the Lake Superior shoreline, a grateful guest in Robinson-Superior Treaty territory, home of the Anishinaabe (Fort William First Nation) and Metis peoples.

https://www.marionagnew.com/ (includes citations to Marion's fiction and essays, short and collected)

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marionagnew/

Currently reading:

Fuse; Rebellion Box; Widow Fantasies by Hollay Ghadery

If Sylvie Had Nine Lives by Leona Theis