why I don't love Canada Reads (and other Qs and As)
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- Опубліковано 14 жов 2024
- (I'm probably playing Stardew Valley right now.)
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Fatma's instagram: @tthebookplace
@FreshlyReadBooks February TBR Spin: • TBR Spin | February Pr...
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- Books mentioned - -
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
The Unseen by Roy Jacobson, translated by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw
Last Witnesses by Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
The Believer by Sarah Krasnostein
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
Little Town On the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
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I loved Canada Reads! for 2 years on booktube it was my jam. I found good, long-time favourite books but it just got so difficult, to pit titles from all years/ genres/ walks of life against each other with the vague "a book every Canadian should read" theme. I once read a memoir about a man who drove a bus for special needs kids and everything he learned about the kids, about life, and about families with children with special needs, because it was on the long- list. An incredible memoir, I think about it often, but it was just never even mentioned again. It didn't make the shortlist, and the books that did were as you say, mediocre. I feel sometimes it becomes more about who is more skilled at the debate portion of the show, than about the books themselves. I also always find that it leaves a lot of discussions to be desired. We just get to the good part and then Ali Hassan says "that's all for today" It just as you said is an excellent concept with just poor execution, are we so starved for Canadian content that this is 2nd best to the GILLER? People love it. I was on the hype train and then promptly got off.
Love the earrings! Canada Reads is different than anything else. The defenders do choose their own books but the longlist is put together by Canada Reads. I love that it gets the country reading and it highlights CanLit that I wouldn’t otherwise know. Canada Reads definitely helps sell books. Same with the Giller. 😊💙
You made me go down memory lane with Little House on the Prairie books. Those books as well as the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew were my childhood! Have you read Prairie Fires? I have it on my shelves and I think I need to prioritize it for 2023.
I have read Prairie Fires and loved it. I'm thinking about rereading it soon because I feel like I've forgotten some of it.
Love the hot takes. I think there’s room for all kinds of bookish prizes/awards. Just as I believe it is the case with Colleen Hoover, I think Canada Reads may be popular with people who don’t usually read many books a year. Hoover’s books are not literary masterpieces in any sense of the word, but they tell stories that many people find compelling and engaging. They don’t appeal to me, but for readers who want something that will sweep them away and not require much from them, these type of books are very successful.
Alexeivich’s style of oral history is so brilliant, but the more I hear about her political opinions, the more critical I become of her books (although to be fair some of that may be because the last book of hers that I read was Zinky Boys, which wasn't well translated).
Regarding Canada reads, I think with the nonfiction specifically, there's some value to having people read things like The Right to be Cold or Life in the City of Dirty Water because even if they're not great literature (I read both and thought they were mediocre), there's value to having a popular work about environmental issues and Indigenous cultures. There are certainly better books out there (although Ducks, the memoir on this year's list is brilliant), but is a popular audience of people who are presumably not reading more than a handful of books a year going to get more value from a more academic work?
I don't know the answer, but that seems like the kind of education that CBC is designed for, you know? lol
Svetlana Alexeivich’s method of presenting her interviews is masterful. “The Last Witnesses” is chilling and heartbreaking. The children clearly remembered the evils they witnessed in Belarus & USSR during WW2. “The Womanly Face of War” presents the recollections of women who served on the Soviet front lines as fighters, nurses, drivers and cooks, etc.
There were a lot of incredible and heroic scenes in that book.
I enjoyed hearing your thoughts on “Anna Karenina”. The part you mentioned enjoying so much was the part I felt I had to endure to get back to the story. I thought Tolstoy’s exposition on Russian agro-labor economics would never end. It’s a long time since I read it, and my memory could be faulty, it seemed that Anna and Levin’s stories were on two completely unrelated tracks. For me, the Levin story was much less intriguing.
As someone with no previous knowledge of Canada Reads your description of it just had me laughing so much. Like: in a bizarre, sacred and clandestine process, several books are selected, then their champions are plucked from the streets of Canada to battle it out before the nation...
It is our most sacred national ritual
I love the Canada Reads dragging. Also hope you like The Unseen! I read the first 3 books (fourth one releasing in Canada in March!) in 2022 and they absolutely blew me away. I had trouble with the audiobook for The Unseen too, but the later books have a different narrator who made for easier listening. I hope you like it and continue with the series!
Thanks for including my question in your video 😊
I would love to be able to read The Book of the Unnamed Midwife again. The writing was a bit shaky in moments, but the post-apocalyptic setting, the tension, the plot, etc. all worked so well for me. I’m gonna re-read it before picking up the companion novel, but I know it won’t be the same. Also here for the Canada Reads hot take. 😂-Becks
I roll my eyes every time Collen Hoover is mentioned. 🤣 I'm pretty sure people think I'm a book snob sometimes. 🤷♀️
I am so glad that I expanded my book reading over the last two years. I've learned so much about the world and myself. I appreciate all my favorite booktubers that keep bringing lessner known books into my life!
Yay, love those earrings!!
I have to remind myself I own other pairs
I too am a book snob. I try to keep it to myself but I appreciate so much your words. Not so much about Canadian books as I do not know enough about your literature but for example I am currently reading Transit of Venus by Hazzard and it is so challenging and well written, not without flaws yet a book I know I will never forget even as I read it. The story at 3 star but the writing and the way she describes people and events is like nothing I've ever read before
Thank you for identifying yourself as a fellow book snob!
Will you take part in the #Irishreadathon in March ?
I can identify with your love for These Happy Golden Years. I still have my original hardback and I read it too many times to count. I think it set up an expectation that age 17 or 18 is the right age to choose a lifemate and get married. When I read The First Four Years I felt like we were in an upside-down world of bad luck and misery and hence I didn't want to reread it. But I loved those books a lot and have a fondness despite all the now-obvious problems. Did you read Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder? So eye opening and contextualizing the Ingalls' lives with the history.
Yes! I really loved Prairie Fires as well. I mentioned it when filming this video but cut it out for time. It's an amazing piece of nonfiction and I've been thinking about rereading it this year.
I also discovered Stardew Valley last month and my reading has also been suffering for it 😅 need to finish A Ghost In The Throat in the next few days or the library will take it back - it’s gorgeous and immersive but also so intense!
It is definitely intense and I can see how it would be a real culture shock to switch back and forth between Stardew Valley and A Ghost in the Throat
Yess. Hands up for the kids desperately seeking books and finding readers digest!
I remember reading an article called The First World Web War about a cyber attack on Estonia's entire system and I have been trying to find it for a few years because I remember being fascinated by it.
I also used to love the jokes ahhahaha
@@TheBookBully i was all about the "i survived" and dramatic stories! Plus those silly anecdotes people sent in.
Wait, you can't say you're playing Stardew Valley without telling us who you are/want to romance! 😄
This is of course the most important question!!!! I'm happy to report that just today I married Harvey and while I do find him pretty boring he has made me breakfast and fed my animals so I'm ok with having him around.
I don't read enough canlit or follow Canada reads closely enough to make an informed comment. But I'm here for the tea
🫖
I could never really understand the Canada Reads thing either-though I don’t get along with most fiction book prize lists anyway. I’m more of a non-fic kinda gal with some fantasy thrown in for fun. I’m a newish subscriber (maritimer turned Albertan) and have been enjoying, and agreeing, with your thoughts on Canadian Lit. Cheers!
Hello! Thanks for commenting! Do you have any Canadian nonfiction recommendations?
@@TheBookBully Hello! Off the top of my head…I enjoy Adam Shoalts’s books and Educated by Westover (edited to add that this is wrong!). Last year I really enjoyed Revery: A Year of Bees by Butler, Rat by Langton (I think he’s Canadian), and loved Woman, Watching by Merilyn Simonds. Though Woman, Watching got a bit to caught up in the minutiae of Louise de Kiriline’s letter writing…that woman wrote a lot of letters!
Wait-Westover isn’t Canadian. I must be thinking of another memoir. Hmmm. I’ll have to think on that one.
@@amylynnm324 I don't particularly follow Canada Reads either (I'm not a prize person), but to be fair to it, it's not a dedicated fiction prize. This year there's only one among the finalists, but often there are two, with more on the initial list.
I didn’t know you lived in Ottawa! I live in Ottawa too🎉
My problem with Canada Reads is its nationalist focus. The question of what makes us Canadian 🤮.
Howdy neighbour! 👋
more book snobbery pls!! colleen hoover currently has three of the five top spots on the new york times best seller list. someone needs to get in touch with the united nations. maybe the hague. figure out what the hell is happening
Canada Reads is a strange one. I love what they do for reading in this country and I often hear about new authors through it. There was a time for me (years ago) when the Giller was so boring and white and blah and Canada Reads filled that gap.
However, I’m still bitter about when The Break was kicked out because “there were no good men” in it. Like how is that a requirement?
That was a travesty and honestly that was an insane year generally. Chantal Kreviazuk was emotionally unhinged and was so mean to the other guests.
@@TheBookBully unhinged is the word!