James Macgowan, books columnist at the Ottawa Citizen, asked me to name the one book I'd love to get for Christmas, and why, and to also name the one book I would give for Christmas, and why (evidently I couldn't name my own books, dang blast it!). I decided to steal this rather classic idea and had a festive event on my forum on Saturday, December 1. I invited a few of my favorite booksellers and many of my own favorite authors to my on-line kitchen party and together we compiled a list of favorite books, and the reasons why we love 'em. Many of the authors who turned out for the party had just made The Globe and Mail or Quill and Quire best book of the year list themselves. Here's an except from that conversation:

Neil Smith (Bang Crunch):

Some of my favourite books of the year did make the G&M list. One of those was The End of the Alphabet written by CS Richardson. Scott is a book designer at Random House of Canada (he designed the cover for Bang Crunch). His novel is a marvel of concision. The G&M also listed five first novels to pick up. One of them I highly recommend: Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet by Joanne Proulx. I blurbed this book.

... Barbara Gowdy's Helpless is the book I'll give for Christmas. I have always been a fan of Barbara Gowdy, and Helpless cemented her status as my favourite Canadian author. The title sounds almost Orwellian: Hell Plus. That's what a mother would go through if her young daughter were kidnapped. But what fascinates me most about the novel is the portrayal of the kidnapper. Barbara Gowdy doesn't make Ron a monster. She makes him a human being, granted a very confused one. Ron deludes himself. He feels a kind of love most of us don't feel. But we almost sympathize with the guy, even though his actions might revolt us. Gowdy helps us understand the things we fear most. So I was pleased to see Helpless on the G&M list.

Jen Sookfong Lee (The End of East):

The book I want to receive this Christmas is A Social History of Dying by Allan Kellehear. Why? Because I'm a morbid broad, but also because I'm fascinated by how different people fear, view and venerate death. It's one of the things that makes us human, but unlike eating or communicating, death is something that most of us would rather forget. Also, as a writer, I'm always looking for ways to look at humanity in a different way, and there's nothing more backwards than looking at life through the rituals and preparations we make for death.

The book I'm giving away this Christmas is Soucouyant by David Chariandy, because he's a nice guy and I like supporting nice people, but also because it's a family story and everyone can relate to feelings of loss and guilt.


Mary Novik (Conceit):

The book I'd give for Christmas is Jen Sookfong Lee's new novel The End of East. Set in Vancouver's East Side, it spans the twentieth century, from Seid Quan's arrival from China in 1913 to his granddaughter Samantha Chan's return from Montreal to make her peace with her cultural history. It's a beautifully-written novel--fresh, spare, and lyrical. The cover is so gorgeous, all it needs is some cellophane and a green silk bow.

The book I'd most like to receive is Peter Ackroyd's The Thames: Sacred River, which I hope will be as diverting as his London: The Biography. Since I have a fascination with London's river, I wouldn't object if it came bundled with Jerome K. Jerome's classic Three Men in a Boat, a hilarious account of a cruise along the Thames that was an instant bestseller when it was published in 1889.

Richard Bachmann (legendary owner of A Different Drummer Books in Burlington, Ont.):

I'd give Alan Weisman's The World Without Us, not so much a WHAT-IF as a THEN-WHAT. Thoroughly engrossing and mentally provocative. If I'm allowed an extra: the brilliant short novel Kindergarten by Peter Rushforth has just been reissued. An obvious motive of book giving, and not just by booksellers, is to make a lesser-known title better known. Kindergarten is some decades old, but still strongly topical memorable and moving.


A book I'd like to receive: any handsome edition of a classic. This year your best choice would be the new translation of War and Peace. (When we were living in England I bought a second-hand copy of the Maude version, a Macmillan hardcover, that still had a wonderfully useful bookmark with all the characters names printed on both sides. But I read it years ago and would like to think I'm ready for another go).

Ameen Merchant (The Silent Raga):

Here's what I want to give: Leilah Nadir's "The Orange Trees of Baghdad."


Here's what I want to take: Robert Weirsema's "Before I wake."

... I chose Leilah's book because we are both Banff Writing Studio Alumni, and we both have our first books out this year.


Robert's book...How could I resist your (Gail's) persuasion? Actually, I am quite looking forward to reading his book. Last year was eaten up by final edits and copy edits and all those wonderfully banal things, and I completely missed it. If I get the book this season, I'll take it to India with me! (I am off in January for The Silent Raga's South Asia launch).

Robert Weirsema (reviewer, bookseller at Bolen's, and author of Before I Wake):

Sadly, I seem to have placed myself in a position where I can no longer either get or give books as gifts. If I'm giving books, people assume I received it as a gratis copy and I'm just passing it on (I know, I know, it's not what you pay but the thought that counts...). And people are afraid to give me books as gifts, knowing that I have a tendency to already have anything I might want (which is ridiculous, but try to explain to a less bookish person that a reader can NEVER have all the books they might want?)

But in the spirit of the day, I did come up with a few picks. I'd look at giving Bob Mersereau's The Top 100 Canadian Albums - a lot of my friends and family are almost as big of music junkies as I am, and this is the sort of book that will foment good discussion over a glass of yer poison and a quality evening spent listening to things like Trooper's Armageddon and wondering how you manage to have that in your cd collection in the first place.


My mother is getting Old Canadian Cemeteries by Jane Irwin and John de Visser -- she's fascinated by boneyards, and this is a fairly exhaustive look at Canada's cemeteries from coast to coast, with a good historical and social overview.


Catherine Bush (Rules of Engagement):

... just wanted to throw in a pitch here for Gil Adamson's The Outlander, which I recently read; its language and remarkable meeting of interior and exterior wildness are still humming through me. A young widow tears off into the 19th-century Rockies pursued by her dead husband's two near-maniacal brothers. I'm looking for the perfect person to give it to.


As for me, all I want for Christmas is ... the illustrated Elements of Style (Strunk and White). I still have the old tiny turquoise used copy a high-school boyfriend passed on to me let's just say a while back. The new weirdly illustrated version is weirdly luscious and I dream of having it on my desk as I ponder the difference between 'that' and 'which.'

Richard Van Camp (Lesser Blessed):

My favourite novel to come out of 2007 by an Aboriginal author is Drew Hayden Taylor's The Night Wanderer ...

The Night Wanderer takes place on the Otter Lake First Nations Reserve in Ontari--where the author now lives. The novel opens with Tiffany's father, Keith, deciding to make extra cash for the family by renting out a guest suite in their house. What they don't know is their first guest, Pierre L'Errant, is Ojibwa and a vampire. What sounds like a plot that could turn into a sitcom or campy is actually the opposite. Annick Press calls the novel "a mesmerizing blend of coming-of-age novel and pulse-pounding thriller", and I agree.

Gail Anderson-Dargatz (Turtle Valley):

The book I'm giving at Christmas::I've been championing Mary Novik's Conceit because it's a wonderfully written book that bucks conventions. It's playful, erotic, and puts a literary spin on the classic historical novel. Very fresh. (And aside from making the Giller long-list, it just made the top five "A feast of firsts" list in the Globe and Mail.)

The one book I would love for Christmas: Geeze, do I only get one? If it has to be only one, then I want Elizabeth Hay's Late Nights on Air. It's not because Elizabeth just won the Giller Prize (though, of course, that makes me want it all the more). The first reason why I want this book is pure embarrassment: I did three events with Elizabeth this year and travelled the festival circuit with her and didn't get a copy. And worse, I didn't get her to sign a copy! How silly can I get? All I can say for myself is that it was book tour season and no one thinks straight during book tour season (I didn't get anyone's book).

The second, more important reason that I want Late Nights on Air is that Elizabeth Hay is simply a lovely person and I want the book to remember her by. The last event I did with her, in October, was memorable. There were three of us reading this night, Elizabeth, myself and the wonderful Bernice Morgan. Our event was at the Knox Presbyterian Church in Waterloo and we started our trip from Toronto at 4:30 p.m. The traffic was terrible and we didn't arrive in Waterloo for our 7:30 p.m. event until 7:30 p.m. Then our driver got lost. And panicked. As I was sitting in front, I phoned up the bookstore hosting the event for directions and handed our driver the phone and he wandered around town trying to find our venue. At 8 p.m. we finally found the church. After that many hours on the road, all three of us ladies made a bee-line for the washrooms.

The audience was patient and lovely and the event itself went very well indeed. But none of us had eaten anything since lunch, so once signings were over, Elizabeth asked the driver to take us somewhere to get a snack to take with us on the road back to Toronto. He parked the limo by the front door of a Tim Horton's, which seemed like the perfect ending to a Canadian literary evening somehow, as the three of us, dressed in our performance rhinestones, stepped out of the limo to buy chilli and sandwiches. None of us felt at home in that damn limo. We wanted donuts.

Throughout that evening, Elizabeth Hay was gracious and patient and funny. As we were stuck in traffic, that long car ride would have been rather tedious, but along with Bernice, Elizabeth turned it into a real adventure. So, that's why I want Late Nights on Air. And geeze I'd like a signed copy!

For much more of our rather lively kitchen talk, visit http://www.gailanderson-dargatz.ca/ and click on "forums."