New Leaf Nominations for November 2019 • Books like Onions: Layers

[Victoria]

Originally Posted by CRussel

FWIW, I get most of my books from the U.S. Amazon store, and I'm pretty Victoria has access to a U.S. store as well. So don't let Canadian availability be a concern.

Charlie.

I wish that were true for me too Charlie, but unfortunately it isn’t. US Amazon knows I’m Canadian and only lets me see and buy books that are available in Canada.

[Victoria]

Originally Posted by issybird

I am absolutely gobsmacked.

I've been toying with making a second nomination depending on how things go. I thought Fifth Business by the greatest of all Canadian authors, Robertson Davies, (Margaret who?) would fit. I read it decades ago and loved it and have planned to reread it eventually, as I have his other two trilogies in the past few years. And, it's cheap here; only $1.99.

It's not available in Australia! Or the UK, which I always check for price comparison purposes. It continues to shock when great authors aren't universally published in Anglophone countries, but I do bump into it, as we all do with nominations here. Well, so much for that.

Issybird I’m double gobsmacked! Fifth Business was my first choice and ran into the same problem. What are the odds?!! Mind you, Davies does fit the theme like a glove.

I think you can make a very strong case for Davies as our greatest author. He’s our ‘man of letters’. But many will argue the title belongs to Margaret Lawrence. I love Davies, and it’s close, but if I had to choose just one, she’d get my nod. (PS: Was your “Margaret who” Atwood or Lawrence? )

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Victoria

I’m double gobsmacked! Fifth Business was my first choice and ran into the same problem. What are the odds?!! Mind you, Davies does fit the theme like a glove.

Hah! Great minds. What a pity. But if our Aussies can't find a way around it, there we are. I know Bookpossum doesn't mind reading pbooks from the library, but that might not be an option for gmw. I don't mind it myself, when it's the cheapest option, but I suspect we're in the minority. And Fifth Business is so cheap in the US. Only $1.99! (And highly recommended to my fellow Yanks in any case.)

So, whom do you consider to be the greatest Canadian author? I've already gone on record with Davies.

[Victoria]

Objectively, I suppose the title belongs to Atwood. But her work isn’t particularly ’Canadian’. I guess she’s ok

My personal favourite for the title is Margaret Lawrence, with Davies a very close second. But W.O. Mitchell, Alice Munro, and Mordecai Richler have given us wonderful portraits of the country too.

(PS: I have to mention Carol Shields, but admit she was American)

[CRussel]

And Farley Mowat. Let's not forget him!

Charlie.

[Victoria]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

I have a similar dilemma with the book I want to nominate, which isn't available in Canada as an ebook, as far as I can make out. I would like to crave my Canadian cousins' forgiveness and put it up anyway, in the hope that if you are interested in reading it, you can get it from a library.

So, I would like to nominate Ever After by Graham Swift.

Kobo prices: $US11.99, $A12.99, ￡5.99.

295 pages.

Bookpossum - no worries at all There is plenty of time to order the p-book from via Amazon if it wins.

It’s odd though, because you would think an author like Swift would be available in Canada. But my library doesn’t have a paper copy either. I wonder if it’s an issue with the publisher? I considered nominating Last Orders a few months ago but the availability was restricted. I wouldn’t expect an issue between Commonwealth countries.

[Victoria]

Originally Posted by CRussel

And Farley Mowat. Let's not forget him!

Charlie.

Absolutely! Love Farley Mowat! A terrible lapse of memory.

(It’s shamelessly off topic, but I’d love to hear everyone else’s pick their greatest national author . Is there an appropriate thread to pose the question? )

[CRussel]

We could move this to the Welcome thread, if you want.

Charlie.

[Victoria]

Originally Posted by CRussel

We could move this to the Welcome thread, if you want.

Charlie.

Good idea! I don’t know how to move something, but I posted the question, in case anyone is interested.

[gmw]

I don't mind reading paper books, but the local library offers a catalogue search online that didn't show anything by Robertson Davies. There is a second hand bookshop that might offer a better chance, but not sure when I will be in town next to check it out.

[issybird]

Catlady's mention of Rashomon got me thinking and while I don't think this is Rashomon-like, it's similar in exploring different reactions to a situation. So I'm nominating Paths of Glory by Humphrey Cobb, the basis for the classic Kubrick film and not the book by Jeffrey Archer! 228 pp.

Paths of Glory explores the perilous complications involved in what nations demand of their soldiers in wartime. Humphrey Cobb's protagonists are Frenchmen during the First World War whose nightmare in the trenches takes a new and terrible turn when they are ordered to assault a German position deemed all but invulnerable. When the attack fails, an inquiry into allegations of cowardice indicts a small handful of lower-ranked scapegoats whose trial exposes the farce of ordering ordinary men to risk their lives in an impossible cause. A chilling portrait of injustice, this novel offers insight into the tragedies of war in any age.

Kindle prices: US$6.99; AU$8.99, UK£5.49; CA$13.99

[Twitchly]

I don’t know if you’ve already done this one, but I’m in the middle of “The Overstory” by Richard Powers, and it seems to fit the theme well. To say that it’s about trees is woefully inadequate. It’s an extremely difficult book to describe. Goodreads attempts it thusly:

“From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Power’s twelfth book unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century timber wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn to see that world and are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.”

Warning: the book is long. And I’ll be gone much of November. (Not that I’ve contributed much so far, though I greatly enjoyed reading your comments about September’s book.) But it’s definitely an unusual book and an unusual subject, and the writing is poetic.

[issybird]

I'll take that as a nomination.

I'll note that it won the Pulitzer and was shortlisted for the Booker.

[gmw]

I do have a thing for trees, so I second The Overstory by Richard Powers.

And while I'm here, my last vote I use to second Ever After by Graham Swift.

[Bookpossum]

Oh yes, I have heard good things about The Overstory, so I shall third it.