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.

The Frozen Thames

I’m not sure how to categorize Helen Humphreys' The Frozen Thames.  Is it a collection of short stories?  Creative non-fiction?  Historical fiction?  Each story is based the actual events that occurred during each freezing of the river Thames.

Humphreys has created a beautiful collection.  Each story is like poetry, lyrical, smooth and full of ice.  The poetic quality is why it took me so long to finish.  The book could be a quick read, but with poetry in general, I have to take a step back, so I had to do that after almost every story.  Of course, this is a personal thing and I’m sure others could sit on a cold winter day, in a warm chair with a cup of tea and read the entire book.  The Frozen Thames is simply lovely.

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?

1142

1142 is the first story in Helen Humphreys’ The Frozen Thames. The stories in The Frozen Thames have been described as vignettes and creative non-fiction. In recorded history, the river Thames has frozen solid forty times. The stories in Humphreys’ book are based on those occurrences. After reading the first story and then looking up this information online, it made me wonder if these could be considered short stories. Then I thought, these are stories and they are short, so yes. If anyone disagrees with me, I’ll have to wait and see.

1142 is the year. Queen Matilda of England is under siege. It has been a long seven years. The Thames is frozen. Getting and idea from her maid, Queen Matilda uses the unusually cold winter and frozen river to her advantage. What happens to Matilda after the siege? Well, that isn’t part of the story.

I feel like the story is about the river and how it is used. Matilda might be the main character, but without the frozen river, who knows how the little narrative would have ended. Helen Humphreys has a way with words that I envy. I really enjoyed the story of 1142 and look forward to reading more of this interesting book.


Side Note: Hardy Jones, author of The Americanization of Li Ming which I read for Short Story Monday two week ago stopped by my blog. I’ve never had a writer stop by my blog before! He left links to some of his other works and to his website. Check out my previous post if you’re interested.