Ah, the season of lists…
Here’s to curling up with a good book! Happy reading…
Poetry highly recommended:
Roo Borson, Rain, road, an open boat
Susan McCaslin, Into the Open
Sharon Thesen, The Receiver
Daphne Marlatt, Reading Sveva
Some of my favourite prose this year: all by Canadian women!:
Eden Robinson, Son of a Trickster
Alison Pick, Strangers With the Same Dream
Claire Cameron, The Last Neanderthal
Kyo Maclear, Birds Art Life: A Field Guide to the Small and Significant
Barbara Gowdy, Little Sister
Karen Connelly, The Change Room
Louise Penny, Glass Houses
Emma Donoghue, Landing
And two English writers:
Paula Cocozza, How to be human
Margaret Drabble, The Dark Flood Rises
Not to mention the brilliant stylist, Adam Gopnik, At the Strangers’ Gate: Arrivals in New York, and James King, The Way It Is: The Life of Greg Curnoe
Here’s the list: an odd mixture. Because of a concussion, I was limited to light reading for some months. Thank goodness for audio books!
Books Read, 2017
Cecelia Ahern, Lyrebird
Yehuda Amichai, The poetry of Yehuda Amichai / edited by Robert Alter
Kelley Armstrong, A darkness absolute
John Ashbery, Commotion of the birds / new poems by John Ashbery
Kate Atkinson, Emotionally weird: a comic novel
Kate Atkinson, Started early, took my dog
Kate Atkinson, When will there be good news?
Margaret Atwood; illustrated by Duan Petrii. A trio of tolerable tales
Margaret Atwood, Angel Catbird. Vol. 1 / story by Margaret Atwood; illustrations by Johnnie Christmas
Margaret Atwood, Angel Catbird #2: To Castle Catula
Margaret Atwood, The Burgess Shale: the Canadian writing landscape of the 1960s
Paul Auster, 4 3 2 1
Sarah Bakewell, At the existentialist café: freedom, being and apricot cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre [and others]
Peter Balakian, Ozone journal
Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture
Gary Barwin, No TV for woodpeckers: poems
Peter S. Beagle, We Never Talk About My Brother
Peter S. Beagle, Summerlong
Ann Beattie, The state we’re in: Maine stories
Ann Beattie, The accomplished guest: stories
Brit Bennett, The Mothers
Tara Bennett-Goleman, Emotional Alchemy: how the mind can heal the heart
David Bergen, Stranger
John Berger, Portraits: John Berger on artists
Lucia Berlin, A manual for cleaning women: selected stories; edited and with an introduction by Stephen Emerson; foreword by Lydia Davis
Jill Bialosky, Poetry will save your life: a memoir
Roo Borson, Rain, road, an open boat
David Bouchard; paintings by Kristy Cameron; music by Stephen Kakfwi; Ojibwe language by Jason and Nancy Jones. Dreamcatcher and the seven deceivers= Asabikeshiiwasp gaye awiya oga-gagwe-niisibidoon
Brian Bouldrey, editor. Inspired journeys: travel writers in search of the muse
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three; Discovering the Radical Truth at the Heart of Christianity
Erin Bow, The Swan Riders
Melanie Brooks, Writing hard stories: celebrated memoirists who shaped art from trauma
Dan Brown, Origin: A Novel
Vanessa Brown and Jason Dickson, London: 150 Cultural Moments
Stephen Harrod Buhner, Plant intelligence and the imaginal
Jessie Burton, The Muse
Steve Burrows, A Shimmer of Hummingbirds a Birder Murder Mystery
Steve Burrows, A cast of falcon
Sharon Butala, Where I live now: a journey through love and loss to healing and hope
Claire Cameron, The Last Neanderthal
J.L. Carr, A Month in the Country
Kate Cayley, Other houses
Michael Chabon, Moonglow
Tracy Chevalier, The lady and the unicorn
Tracy Chevalier, ed. Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre
Pema Chödrön, The compassion book: teachings for awakening the heart
Ann Cleeves, Blue lightning
Ann Cleeves, Dead water
Lynn Coady, Who needs books?: reading in the digital age
Harlan Coben, Fool me once
Paula Cocozza, How to be human
Karen Connelly, The Change Room
Lynn Crosbie, The corpses of the future
Lorna Crozier, The Wrong Cat
Laura Cumming, The Vanishing Velazquez
Rachel Cusk, Transit
Ram Dass, Polishing the mirror: how to live from your spiritual heart
Wade Davis, Wade Davis: photographs
Albert Flynn DeSilver, Writing As A Path To Awakening
David Demchuk, The Bone Mother
Mary di Michele, Bicycle thieves
Lloyd M. Dickie and Paul R. Boudreau, Awakening higher consciousness: guidance from ancient Egypt and Sumer
Joan Didion, South and West
Emma Donoghue, The Lotterys Plus One
Emma Donoghue, Landing
Margaret Drabble, The Dark Flood Rises
Philip Eade, Sylvia: queen of the headhunters: an eccentric Englishwoman and her lost kingdom
Elena Ferrante, Fragments
Elena Ferrante, Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey Translated by Ann Goldstein
Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookstore
Penelope Fitzgerald, At Freddie’s
Philip Freeman, Searching for Sappho: the lost songs and world of the first woman poet: including new translations of all of Sappho’s surviving poetry
Tana French, The Trespasser
Carrie Fisher, The Princess Diarist
Penelope Fitzgerald, The bookshop
Christopher Fowler, Full Dark House
Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology
Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop
Malin Persson Giolito, Quicksand; translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles.
Philip Glass, Words without music: a memoir
James Gleick, Time Travel: A History
Rumer Godden; introduction by Phyllis Tickle, In this house of Brede
Al Gore, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power
Nora Gould, Selah
Barbara Gowdy, Little Sister
Naomi Goldberg, The True Secret of Writing
Herman Goodden, Three Artists: William Kurelek, Jack Chambers & Greg Curnoe
Daisy Goodwin, Victoria
Adam Gopnik, At the Strangers’ Gate: Arrivals in New York
Robert Gottlieb, Avid Reader: A Life
Philippa Gregory, The Last Tudor
Terry Griggs, Nieve
Terry Griggs, The discovery of honey
John Grisham, Camino Island
David Grossman, A horse walks into a bar
Don Gutteridge, The way it was / poems by Don Gutteridge
Joan Haggerty, The Dancehall Years
Kang Han, The vegetarian: a novel
Graham Hancock, Magicians of the gods: the forgotten wisdom of Earth’s lost civilisation
Yuval Harari, Homo deus: a brief history of tomorrow
Michael Helm, After James
Brenda Hillman, Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire
James Hillman & Sonu Shamdasani, Lament of the dead: psychology after Jung’s Red book
Anne Hillerman, Song of the Lion
Susan Holbrook, Throaty wipes
Emma Hooper, Etta and Otto and Russell and James
Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders
Sarah Howe, Loop of Jade
Helen Humphreys, The river
Markus Imhoof & Claus-Peter Lieckfeld, More than honey: the survival of bees and the future of our world
Anosh Irani, The Parcel
Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena: the secret history of the U.S. government’s investigations into extrasensory perception and psychokinesis
Tama Janowitz, Scream: a memoir of glamour and dysfunction
Greg Jenkins, Theban oracle: discover the magic of the ancient alphabet that changes lives
Marni Jackson, Don’t I know you?
Paulette Jiles, News of the World
Han Kang, The Vegetarian
Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey
James King, The Way It Is: The Life of Greg Curnoe
Naomi Klein, No is Not Enough: Resisting the New Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need
Christina Baker Kline, Orphan train: a novel
Joy Kogawa, Gently to Nagasaki
Hari Kunzru, White Tears
- Travis Lane, Crossover: poems
John Le Carré, A Legacy of Spies
Genevieve Lehr, Stomata
Donna Leon, Death in a strange country
Donna Leon, The waters of eternal youth
Donna Leon, Falling in Love
Donna Leon, Death and Judgement
Donna Leon, Quietly in Their Sleep
Donna Leon, Drawing conclusions: a Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery
| Donna Leon, The girl of his dreams
Donna Leon, Looks are deceiving
Donna Leon, Through a glass darkly
Donna Leon, Suffer the little children |
Donna Leon, Earthly Remains: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery
Martine Leavitt, My book of life by Angel
Deborah Levy, Hot Milk
Penelope Lively, The purple swamp hen and other stories
Beau Lotto, Deviate: the science of seeing differently
Charles C Lovett, The Lost Book of the Grail
Robert Macfarlane, Landmarks
Kyo Maclear, Birds Art Life: A Field Guide to the Small and Significant
Karan Mahajan, The Association of Small Bombs
Henning Mankell, Quicksand: what it means to be a human being
Lee Maracle, Talking to the diaspora
Stephen Marche, The Unmade Bed: the messy truth about men and women in the 21st century
Megan Marshall, Elizabeth Bishop: a miracle for breakfast
Daphne Marlatt, Reading Sveva
Elan Mastai, All our wrong todays: a novel
Alexander McCall Smith, Precious and Grace
Alexander McCall Smith, The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine
Anna & Jane McGarrigle, Mountain city girls: the McGarrigle family album
Ami McKay, The Witches of New York
Adrian McKinty, The Cold Cold Ground
John McWhorter, The language hoax: why the world looks the same in any language
Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Coyote Medicine
Glennon Doyle, Love Warrior
John Metcalf, The museum at the end of the world
Claire Messud, The Burning Girl
Anne Michaels, All We Saw
Jacob Mooney, Don’t Be Interesting
Robert Moss, Sidewalk oracles: playing with signs, symbols, and synchronicity in everyday life
Rhonda Mullins, Twenty-One Cardinals, Coach House Books. English translation of Les héritiers de la mine by Jocelyne Saucier
Alice Munro Dear life: [stories]
Haruki Murakami, Wind; Pinball: two novels
Shane Neilson, On shaving off his face: poems
Jo Nesbo, The Thirst yuck
John Nyman, Players
Heather O’Neill, The lonely hearts hotel
David Orr, You, too, could write a poem: selected reviews and essays, 2000-2015 *
Orhan Pamuk, The Red-Haired Woman
Molly Peacock, Analyst
Louise Penny, Glass Houses
Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent
Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Heaven
Alison Pick, Strangers With the Same Dream
Nancy Geddes Poole, The past— comes back: a memoir
Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Steven Price, By Gaslight
Francine Prose, Mister Monkey: a novel
Philip Pullman, Mystery of the Ghost Ship
Philip Pullman, The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage
Andrew Pyper, The Only Child: A Novel
Susan Quinn, Eleanor and Hick: the love affair that shaped a First Lady
Matt Rader, Desecrations
Ian Rankin, Rather Be the Devil
Michael Redhill, Bellevue Square
Iain Reid, I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Robbie Robertson, Testimony
Eden Robinson, Son of a Trickster
Peter Robinson, In the Dark Places
Judith Rodger, Greg Curnoe: Life & Work
Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Bernard Sanders, Our revolution: a future to believe in
George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo
Dani Shapiro, Hourglass: time, memory, marriage
Will Schwalbe, Books for Living
Will Schwalbe, The End of Your Life Book Club
Gregory Scofield, Witness, I am
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, This accident of being lost: songs and stories
Sue Sinclair, Heaven’s Thieves
Robin Sloan, Sourdough
Carolyn Smart, Careen
Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle
Zadie Smith, Swing Time
Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby
Rebecca Solnit, The Mother of All Questions
Linda Spalding, The Reckoning
Dana Spiotta, Innocents and Others
Mirabai Starr, Caravan of no despair: a memoir of loss and transformation
Jon Kalman Stefansson, Fish Have No Feet
D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle’s book
Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible
Cordelia Strube, On the shores of darkness, there is light
Matthew Sullivan, Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore
Shaun Tan; foreword by Neil Gaiman, The singing bones: inspired by Grimms’ fairy tales
Deborah Tannen, You’re the only one I can tell: inside the language of women’s friendships
Charles Taylor, The language animal: the full shape of the human linguistic capacity
Susan McCaslin,
Sharon Thesen, The Receiver
Laura Thompson, The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters
James Thurber, The Wonderful O
Colm Toibin, House of Names
Tomas Tranströmer, The great enigma: new collected poems; translated from Swedish by Robin Fulton
Rose Tremain, The Gustav Sonata: a novel
Jeff VanderMeer, Borne
Katherena Vermette, The Break
Karen Virag, editing Canadian English: a guide for editors, writers and everyone who works with words / editor-in-chief
Eleanor Wachtel, The Best of Writers & Company
Martin Walker, Bruno, Chief of Police
Martin Walker, Bruno, Chief of Police, Fatal pursuit: a Bruno, chief of police novel
Martin Walker, The Templars’ Last Secret: A Bruno, Chief of Police novel
Mary Walsh, Crying for the moon: a novel
Phyllis Webb, Peacock Blue, The Collected Poems
Izabella Wentz, Hashimoto’s Protocol
Hank Wesselman, Medicinemaker: mystic encounters on the Shaman’s path
Jennifer Welsh, The Return of History: Conflict, Migration, and Geopolitics in the Twenty-first Century
Zoe Whittall, The Best Kind of People
Kathleen Winter, Lost in September
Jeanette Winterson, Christmas days: 12 stories and 12 feasts for 12 days
Peter Wohlleben; foreword by Tim Flannery; The hidden life of trees: what they feel, how they communicate: discoveries from a secret world
Gwendolyn Womack, The fortune teller
Diana Wynne Jones, Witch week
Jon Young; with science and audio editing by Dan Gardoqui, What the robin knows: how birds reveal the secrets of the natural world
Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind
Jan Zwicky, The long walk
Jan Zwicky, Wittgenstein Elegies, intro: Sue Sinclair
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