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 All hail Paul Quarrington's King Leary, winner of CBC's 2008 Canada Reads competition.
Canada Reads – this country’s so-called Battle of the Books – was first staged in 2002 and has grown in momentum with every year. This year’s debate took an interesting turn with the introduction of a book that had fallen out of print – King Leary by Paul Quarrington. And what do you know? The oldie was a goodie. Now back in print and in demand, the book originally published in 1987 has found a new life. Toronto-native Quarrington is a novelist, playwright, filmmaker and musician. He has just published his 10th novel – The Ravine.
King Leary offers quirky Canadian humour. Patrick Leary is former hockey hero who was ‘King of the Ice’ but there’s been more to his life than glory with the Canadiens. Asked to make a commercial for ginger ale, his real past is revealed. It’s not really a hockey book in the same way that Shoeless Joe, by that other sports-loving Canadian, W.P. Kinsella, is not really a baseball book. Both of them are books about people. Quarrington has also written about baseball (Home Game), fishing (Life of Hope) and a previous book about hockey (Logan in Overtime).
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| The Other Contenders |
Timothy Findley
Not Wanted on the Voyage is the story of the great flood and the first time the world ended. It is a brilliant, unforgettable drama filled with an extraordinary cast of remarkable characters: the tyrannical Noah and his indomitable wife, Mrs. Noyes; the aging and irritable Yahweh; a chorus of singing sheep; and a unicorn destined for a horrible death. With pathos and pageantry, desperation and hope, magic and mythology, this acclaimed novel weaves its unforgettable spell.
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Thomas Wharton
Nearly sixty feet below the surface, Byrne is wedged upside down between the narrowing walls of a chasm, fighting his desire to sleep. The ice in front of him is lit with a pale blue-green radiance. There, embedded in he pure, antediluvian glacier, Byrne sees something that will inextricably link him to the vast bed of ice, and the people who inhabit this strange corner of the world. In this moment, his life becomes a quest to uncover the mystery of the icefield that almost became his tomb.
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Mavis Gallant
Set in Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War, the nine stories in this glittering collection reflect on the foibles and dilemmas of human relationships. An English family goes to the south of France for the sake of the father’s health, and to get away from an England of rationing and poverty. A displaced person turned French soldier in Algeria now makes a living as an actor in Paris. A group of selfish English expatriates on the Italian Riviera are incredulous that Mussolini and the Germans may affect their lives. A great writer’s quiet widow blossoms in widowhood, to the surprise and alarm of her children, who send a ten-year-old grandson to Switzerland to keep her company one Christmas. Full of wry humour and penetrating insights, this is Mavis Gallant at her most unforgettable.
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Nalo Hopkinson
This is Nalo Hopkinson's debut novel, which came to attention when it won the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest. It tells the story of Ti-Jeanne, a young woman in a near-future Toronto that's been all but abandoned by the Canadian government. Anyone who can has retreated from the chaos of the city tothe relative safety of the suburbs, and those left in "the burn" must fend forthemselves. Ti-Jeanne is a new mother who's trying to come to grips with her as- yet-unnamed baby and also trying to end her relationship with her drug-addictboyfriend Tony. But a passion still burns between the young lovers, and when Tony runs afoul of Rudy, the local ganglord, Ti-Jeanne convinces her grandmotherGros-Jeanne to help out. Gros-Jeanne is a Voudoun priestess, and it's clear that Ti-Jeanne has inherited some of her gifts. Although Ti-Jeanne wants nothing todo with the spirit world, she soon finds herself caught up in a battle to thedeath with Rudy and the mother she thought she lost long ago.
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