Ten Canadian Authors

This week is Freebie week over at The Broke and TheBookish.  I was inspired by 1girl at AllThe Books I Can Read, who decided that she would name the top ten books by Australian authors.  Naming ten specific books might be a little to difficult for this time of night, but I do want to recommend ten great Canadian authors.  Are they the top ten?  I don’t know, but I certainly like them.

1. Alice Munro
2. Michael Ondaatje
3. Rabindranath Maharaj
4. Sinclair Ross
5. Douglas Coupland
6. Helen Humphreys
7. Timothy Findley
8. Margaret Laurence
9. Gwendolyn MacEwen
10. Lucy Maud Montgomery

Narrowing it down to ten was not easy.  I purposely did not include Margaret Atwood, because I talk about her all the time.  I hope some of these authors make it onto your shelves.

Getting to Know You: Top Ten Authors That Deserve More Recognition

Hmm… The Broke and The Bookish have given us an interesting topic this week, but one I couldn't resist.  Though, I could probably tell you more easily authors who I think get too much recognition/hype. Anyway, here we go, in no particular order.

1. MaryJanice Davidson – She writes fun paranormal romance. There are currently nine books in her Undead series with two more on the way. I’ve read up to book seven. She also writes four other series and numerous short stories.

2. Helen Humphreys – Wrote a book I love, The Lost Garden. It’s a brilliant novel and something any Virginia Woolf fan or fan of World War II fiction should read.

3. Rabindranath Maharaj – I love his short story collection The Book of Ifs and Buts. I couldn’t resist a title like that. It’s a great collection for anyone interested in stories from an immigrant’s perspective.

4. Mercer Mayer – A great children’s author. My daughter loves I Was So Mad. He has tons of stories to his name and I’m happy to be reading them to my child(ren).

5. Gwendolyn MacEwen – She was a brilliant poet, novelist and playwright. My favourite of her works is her play, The Trojan Women. Her life was cut too short. There’s a great biography of her life called, Shadowmaker.

6. Hanan Al-Shaykh – Her novel, Only In London was powerful and moving. A large part of it is about escaping circumstance and finding yourself. I should read more by her.

Well, that’s it. It’s rare that I can’t come up with ten, but this was a difficult one for me.

Who do you think we should know better?

Wonderful Wednesdays

Wonderful Wednesdays is a new meme from Sam at Tiny Library. Each week, we are supposed to highlight a book based on the theme or genre given to us. This week’s theme is biographies.

Well, this was easy and difficult. I haven’t really read many biographies, so I don’t have many to choose from. However, as soon as I saw the topic, one came to mind. For a class in University, I had to read Shadowmaker by Rosemary Sullivan. I really enjoyed it. It was about Canadian writer Gwendolyn MacEwan. She is mainly known for her poetry, but she also wrote plays and novels. Her work was brilliant and her life was too short. Side Note: Rosemary Sullivan was the professor of that class and she was fantastic!