December 8, 2013 Christmas Wish List Event

Don't you love books like that. I dragged Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell around for weeks. I think it gave me tendonitis.

Lastly, I'm asking Santa for Caught by Lisa Moore (I died over February -- what a supremely beautiful book) as well as How to Get Along with Women by Elisabeth DeMariaffi. I've been wanting to read more of Elisabeth's work ever since I heard her read in a little book store in Perth, Ontario. And now I'm broke.

I'm always looking for books for a 7 and an 8 year old who read beyond their age--that tricky business of finding the right subject matter. YA subject matter can veer into the mature pretty quickly. I'd love suggestions, if anyone has any...

I was lucky to have been asked to blurb My Ghosts by my publisher and this was the second book of hers I read. She caught my attention with The Deep a novella about two sisters (identical twins) who travel to Europe to minister to soldiers in WWI. I loved the way Swan told their story, mixing memoirs, images, short vignettes. She is an outstanding stylist.

I don't know that I've enjoyed a novel this much since Patrick deWitt's The Sisters Brothers and Gill Adamson's The Outlander. (Both of which I would also recommend.)

Hey Everyone!

Short stories and poetry are what I have time for lately and lucky for me there’s an abundance of both. These are the books I’d like to give this Christmas.

How to Get Along with Women by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

Elisabeth de Mariaffi’s collection of short stories How to Get Along with Women was a big stand out for me this year and also long listed for the Giller. It's an amazing debut collection. The writing is sophisticated and it feels like this is a fifth or sixth book. The stories themselves span a wide range of styles and points of view. And there is a clear unrelenting voice that goes with them - funny and mean and kind and heartbreaking. Elisabeth has a way of pulling you right into the narrative. I can't think of any writer who writes about sexuality the way she does. Ever time I turned a page I thought, Wow, she's doing something different here. Something uniquely her own. It’s exciting work. It’s the kind of book you’ll go back to.

Hellgoing by Lynn Coady

I know when a story is working for me when I can feel it in my body. Sometimes it’s in the chest sometimes it’s in the throat. With Hellgoing, it was in the gut. I have been following Coady’s work for a long time. She knows how to weight a story. She leans on parts that reveal way more than the surface would suggest. She raises questions without delivering neatly packaged answers, instead she makes you look hard and think deeper. I was so happy about her Giller win.

1996 by Sara Peters

A friend recommended Sara Peters collection of poetry 1996 and I’m so glad he did. Seriously, buy this book. You will not be disappointed. Peters pulls you into the murky waters of the human heart and mind. It’s a luxuriously dark place full of mystery and desire - unabashed in its want and unafraid to show the viciousness that comes with it. This book touches that place in the back of my heart I keep hidden. That shameful part that I am secretly proud of – few books talk to this side of us – not with this kind of directness and humour.

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

I have only recently discovered Junot Diaz and I am in love. I feel like the kind of teenager I never was, the type who pins a poster of a movie star on her wall and thinks if she happened to meet him they would fall in love. It’s a ridiculous infatuation but I can’t help it. His writing is that good and that much better than most.

In This is How You Lose Her, Diaz uses the character of Yunior as the central narrator. The stories are told in first person direct. You feel like Yunior is sitting beside you, telling you what is happening in his life and his community. It’s painful and ugly and darkly funny. We see the world through his eyes and the deep compassion that he himself doesn’t know he has. He’s simply trying to figure it out what the hell is going on and you get the privilege of taking the journey. For me, it feels like someone is finally speaking the truth, telling all the secrets - it’s Junot Diaz.

When I looked at my list this morning, I saw that the one thing theses authors all have in common is their voices. All these writers stand out in the din. They make you straighten your back and lean a little closer. Be careful though because if you get too near they may smack you right across the face. All of them are fearless and unrelenting. All in different ways. I’m agog at their talent. They make me want to be a better writer.

Thanks Gail for having this forum today. It’s so easy to get focused on my own work and forget the reason why I love literature. The energy and satisfaction it brings. Sometimes you take a love one for granted then you wake up one day and see them again and the love affair continues. Yup, I’m in love today.

I'm taking The Sisters Brothers with me on vacation, and I absolutely LOVED The Outlander.

Love your list, Wanda. I love Junot Diaz, too, and really want to read this one. And Sara Peters is brilliant.

One thought for those with kids -- the Complete Calvin and Hobbes. I'm always shocked and appalled when I meet teenagers who don't know Calvin and Hobbes.

Oh, yes, my own website is www.catherinebush.com.

And I'd like to salute the books by all the fine writers gathered in Gail's virtual kitchen. Many of our own books would make great gifts!

What about E.Nesbitt? L.M. Montgomery: Anne of Green Gables, Jane of Lantern Hill, Emily of New Moon. Older books have a higher level of vocabulary for younger readers with suitable themes for their age.