Chris Benjamin's Blog - Posts Tagged "best-of"

I posted this on FB but may as well put it here where books are the theme. By request, here is a list of the books I most enjoyed reading last year:

-The Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz and Hatem Aly. This is a YA book I read to my son, set in France in the year 1242. It was creative and funny and smart and I enjoyed it probably even more than he did.
-The Reader by Bernhard Schlink. A novel that poses the fascinating question of how to handle bearing witness to atrocity, and whether one can do so and remain innocent. An odd read but it stayed in my thoughts a long time afterward.
-Under the North Star by Vaino Linna. As Mahfouz is to Egypt, Linna is to Finland. This one is the story of a village leading up to the revolution against Russia in the early 20th century.
-Life on Mars by Linda McNulty. Weird and wacky stories with magic realism elements, like Rushdie in Canada, with a lot of fun wordplay.
-Advocate by Darren Greer. A novel about the (fictional) first AIDS case in small-town Nova Scotia. Poignant and powerful.
-One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovych by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Classic gulag short novel, the first overt criticism of Stalin to be accepted by Russian authorities. But the uneasy relationships among the prisoners, each facing the same hopeless situation with dry humour, was what made it a great piece of writing.
-Willem De Kooning's Paintbrush by Kerry Lee Powell. Punchy stories about punchy, crazy people wheeling and dealing to stay afloat. Amazing writer.
-The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy. This is another one that I think is as much a story of a place (India) as it is about the individuals in it. She's got a gift for voice and perspective.
-Best Canadian Stories 2017. They picked the "best" ones (so very subjective), and several of them are indeed really, really good.
-Peninsula Sinking by David Huebert. Short stories about animals and people in Nova Scotia. One story, "Limousines," about dairy farmers, is one of my favourite short stories ever.

Elsewhere California, Dana Johnson. Beautiful exploration of not only race and class but also the ways we become our adult selves, the choices we make and the hand we're dealt, how the littlest things or encounters can shift us one way or the other, and how all these make us far more complex than the category boxes on the census forms, the stereotypes we put groups of people into.

White Kids, Margaret Hagerman. Fascinating commentary from rich white kids and their parents about race. Of the many messages in this book, I'll most remember the pervasiveness of the belief by some people that they "don't see race." It's not just a harmless self-deception; that belief prevents people from seeing the racism in front of their faces, prevents them from seeing injustice everywhere, and let's them pretend racism is a thing of the past.

The Wanton Troopers, Alden Nowlan
Gorgeous prose, poetic turns of phrase and image; fully realized, complex characters, the people are very real, flawed, and yet Nowlan calls on them with love. Told from the child's perspective, which allows a certain naivete yet never flinches at the sometimes gory details of the story. Dialogue ranges from gritty to bullyish taunting to whimsical to philosophical-theological to drunken carousing. Brilliant book.

The Boat People, Sharon Bala
The three perspectives were all engaging, fascinating, illuminating. Each showed something different about the refugee claimants and Canada's response to them. I got a look at the bureaucracy and politics behind decisions on their 500+fates. I got a look in the jail where they stayed, the psychological machinations--the cage inside the brain. I got a look at life and survival, the brutality in Sri Lanka at war with itself. I got a look at Canadian life from a 1st-generation Canadian, the daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants, who also had a fascinating and complex backstory. This was a great story, very engrossing.

Malagash, Joey Comeau
Young woman records conversations with her dying father and uses them to create a computer virus that will outlive him. Beautifully rendered, brilliant concept, absolutely heartbreaking.

Best Canadian Short Stories 2018, Russel Smith
My favourites were by David Huebert, Kathy Page, Alex Pugsley, Stephen Marche (he wrote a short story forcing himself to follow certain algorithmic restraints of "good literature", and it turned out great), and Bill Gaston.

The Wedding, Dorothy West
Beautiful prose and rich, complex characters set up this tragedy, in which everyone is obsessed with race and skin colour, which made me consider my own privilege of not having to be. The dialogue wasn’t great, but all the other writing was.

The Search for Heinrich Schlögel, Martha Baillie
I loved the character and story of Heinrich Schlögel, the titular and main focus of this novel. His story was a profound exploration of living with our histories—personal and collective--particularly colonial genocide. That sounds like a slog but the prose was so tender it didn't feel like one.

Best American Short Stories, Roxane Gay
Diverse and fascinating selection of American stories, all superbly written with very few misses. Personal favs were Boys Go to Jupiter by Danielle Evans (deep dive into racism and responsibility); Unearth by Alicia Elliott (exploring the trauma and legacy of residential schools); Good with Boys by Kristen Iskandrian (a beautifully simple coming-of-age story set in a museum); A Big True by Dina Nayeri (looking at immigration and changes in status it brings, but also the concept of living a free and creative life); and Whose Heart I Long to Stop with a the Click of a Revolver (again about inter-generational trauma, but also about power and guns).

JAN 22 EDIT:

I can't believe it but I left The Break by Katherena Vermette off my list! This is a Top-3-of-the-year book along with Wanton Troopers and Malagash. What makes this novel so compelling is Vermette's ability to take so many different perspectives, to show the pain and trauma of so many characters, including the perpetrator of a horrific act. Even as the victim’s mother understandably says she doesn’t give a fuck for the perpetrator’s backstory, we the readers know it, and we feel for her as well. 

Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. The scenarios, at first, felt unbelievable, even though they were an amplification of current instabilities and hatreds. Maybe I didn't want them to be real. But he rendered them perfectly, developed his narrators' psychology so well. Beautiful writing. And he was only 28! How is that possible?

No Is Not Enough by Naomi Klein. She's a brilliant analyst of contemporary global politics and movements. Here it's basically a deep dive in the 2016 US presidential election and what went wrong for the left, how Trump built his brand, and how to fight back. I think the Democratic organizers followed some of her prescriptions in 2020.

One Good Reason by Sean McCann and Andrea Aragon. McCann was one of the Great Big Sea guys until he realized touring with the band was fuelling his alcoholism. But much more deeply, it was trauma from sexual abuse by a priest, memories he'd repressed. I expected a typical music biography but McCann and Aragon wrote profoundly about mental health and how addiction affects families.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Sadly, my son announced not long before his 12th birthday that he will from now on be putting himself to bed. So, no more nighttime reading to him. Luckily, my daughter's into chapter books now, which has made for some good YA reading. This one here, well I had to censor as I read. I also had to explain what slavery is, and why we don't make light of it nowadays. But the writing and storytelling here are so sharp, and Huck literally believes in hell, and is willing to risk the eternal flame for his friend Jim, a runaway slave. Their long-formed bond on the Mississippi is a beautiful thing.

Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson. I didn't know this was supposed to be YA until I finished. It was very R rated for YA, but in terms of style it makes some sense. Regardless, it was really good. Heartbreaking and funny, with a little bit of magic. The story of a smartass kid who sees ghosts and really needs adults he can trust to take proper care of him. But those are very hard to find.

Teardown by Dave Meslin. Much of the book felt like lunching with a wildly energetic ideas guy: Bam bam bam here's 3 ideas I just thought of, wait bam bam bam here's three more. Here's a story about the time we stopped an environmentally destructive garbage dump in a freakin mine. Bam bam two more ideas that reminded me of. These aren't spontaneous I been doing this for 20 years. The conclusion brought it all together, a day in the life of a fictional young woman named Sarah. I loved the optimism, the energy, the sense that a better world is possible and there are tangible things to do to get there.

Blood in the Water by Silver Donald Cameron. This turned out to be my friend's last book, about the infamous "murder for lobster" case in Cape Breton. Most writers see a dot and the dot is their story. Don saw constellations, and made the connections between the pieces apparent for his readers. He showed "murder for lobster" to be so much more than that, so this becomes a story about culture, community, place, economics, and competing philosophies of law enforcement. Fascinating stuff.

Humanimus by David Huebert. These poems centre around human-environment interactions, with a whole section on oil, its transformation from zooplankton into pollutant. He loves scientific language and plays with it. Despite a heady theme, the book is consistently playful and fun to read. It's also very personal, touching on fatherhood and falling in love, with plenty of pop culture references. It's a post-renaissance renaissance.

Unidentified man at left of photo by Jeff Bursey. Experimental, some might call this, and Bursey in general, and I suppose he is up for trying things out, not inclined to follow standard story structure. This "novel" is a series of vignettes involving the same set of characters, all in Charlottetown PEI. He constantly pokes fun of the concept of character development, offering tidbits about characters and then letting readers know that's enough work on that. And yet I felt I got a sense of the real Charlottetown from it. And I got a good sense of who the characters were. And I laughed at their foibles, mainly because Bursey is very good with the English language.

Doing Time by Carole Glasser Langille. About the author's year of doing workshops for inmates at various Nova Scotia jails, women's and men's. As readers, we benefit from the same insights Langille offers the inmates through poetry. In the main body of the book she quotes many poems to them and they use them as springboards to their discussions and writings, which are often heartbreaking tales of poverty, neglect and abuse. Somehow though, they remain intact, resilient souls determined to do better. We know their odds are long. We get to know them well enough to cheer for them.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. Fantastic novel. As I read it I wondered a lot why he used this device of making the Underground Railroad a literal thing. It occurred to me slowly that the key was in the line by the first conductor, who said American is what you see between stops, which turns out to be nothing. The real story is at the stops, where runway slaves could never be fully free. That is America.

This is probably the earliest I've ever made my best-of books list, but here it is for 2021, my 12 personal favourite reads I read last year, in the order I read them. Hope you find some worthy material here.

Evicted by Matthew Desmond
Incredible ethnographic study/work of gonzo journalistic dive into poverty in an American city, life lived on the margins of housing, the landlords and tenants. It is a hard-edged read, very honest and real assessment of what it means to be housing insecure. The instability that being evicted causes in a family’s lives, the effects and echoes that reverberate for generations.

To Be a Slave by Julius Lestor
Amazing historical documentation of firsthand accounts of slavery, from former slaves. Still very relevant today and enlightening with respect to current race relations in America.

The Ku Klux Klan in Canada by Allan Bartley
Mostly straight reportage, a presentation of years of formidable research into a little-covered topic. It must have been hard at times for Bartley not to editorialize. Fortunately the organization, at least the Canadian version (which infiltrated leading up to WWII, even having a high-ranking MP as one of its leaders), was mostly a clown show (Klown show?) peopled with self-centred con artists rather than a genuine hate movement.

Constant Nobody by Michelle Butler Hallett
My favourite of many books I read for work reasons, this was a great pre-WWII international spy novel/love story written by a St. John’s novelist, set mostly in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s purge. The writing was so, so strong, and the situation so gorgeously taut all the way through.

Greenwood by Michael Christie
I especially loved the middle section focused on the dust bowl thirties, and Everett on the run with the baby (Willow)—from the opium-addicted human hunter. It was kind of Cormac McCarthy meets Woody Guthrie, mixed together with plenty of nature appreciation and contemplation.

The Appendage Formerly Known as My Left Arm by Julie Curwin
I read this primarily because it was on a shortlist with Boy With A Problem. I was very impressed with Curwin’s stories. The two collections actually have much in common. Hers focuses mainly on characters struggling specifically with their mental health—and the many different ways we can become broken, how we attempt to fix ourselves, the mixed results, and also our surprising capacity to love the broken ones.

Before the Parade by Rebecca Rose
An excellent history of LGBT activism in Halifax, how people went about it, and the clever means of fundraising (running a gay bar and using profits for advocacy work) used. Filled with real-life yet larger-than-life characters.

Five Little Indians by Michelle Good
Heartbreaking. I loved the multiple storylines and perspectives. Gives a feel for how each individual handles trauma differently. Yet also shows the broad reach of residential schools in Indigenous communities, for generations. The healing stories were particularly powerful and hopeful.

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
Rich storytelling that weaves together many different threads, set in and around Calcutta in the early 1800s just before the First Opium War with China. It’s a slow burn with occasional sparks, illuminating a world that could have existed (some version of which probably did) and I’d have never known without Ghosh’s work.

Chemical Valley by David Huebert
Short stories by one of the best young short story writers around. These have been described as CliFi but that term seems to imply futurism, and these are all contemporary stories, set in Sarnia’s chemical valley, a place of high toxicity. What I love most about these stories is the characters, who are sensitive people and thus troubled by the sickness all around them, and moved to do something about it. Their decisions, of course, are rarely ideal.

Talking to Canadians by Rick Mercer
Another very enjoyable work read. I remember when 22 Minutes first aired and I loved it, it was irreverent and cutting and much better than any Canadian political comedy I’d seen before. Talking to Americans was brilliant. It was fun reading the stories behind these shows, and how Mercer went from directionless class clown type to one of the most successful writers and performers in Canadian television.

Ode to the Unpraised by Abena Beloved Green
Gorgeous collection of vignettes and poems, snippets from the lives of women, mostly in Canada, Ghana and Jamaica. A world apart yet connected in their vulnerability, each offering wisdom and insight.

Inside: Thoughts from a Pandemic by Various Authors
(Published by Nevermore)
I had a story in this one so I'm biased but I really enjoyed these poems, stories and essays trying to make sense of a claustrophobic time everyone shared.

From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle
This is one of the best accounts of addiction I’ve ever read, mainly because it was easy to connect with the author, to understand the loneliness he must have felt even when he wasn’t explicit about it. I got a great sense of his humility, his gratitude for life and survival, and his unwillingness to blame his mistakes on others, even when he was traumatized. I came to better appreciate a lot of the difficulties people I’ve known and loved have experienced.

Pay No Heed to the Rockets by Marcello Di Cintio
I've had this shelved for years, and was inspired to read it by current world events. It was soul food, the words of poets (in interviews) making sense of their ravaged world, not only the wars but also quotidian life, including patriarchy, tradition, faith, literature, the art of great coffee. It was also sad to wonder how they're faring now.

The World of Dew
Julian Mortimer Smith
Speculative fiction from a Nova Scotia author casting light on the world we know and face: social media, climate change, artificial intelligence, virtual planes, hyper commercialization, grifters, war machines, and occasional authoritarianism. A fascinating mix of well crafted stories.

What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
The writing is excellent. On Themes of the roles we play and that are societally foisted on us due to gender, race, nation of origin, or other fated things beyond us. A mix of realism and surrealism. My favourites tended to be the latter, particularly Who Will Greet You at Home, What is a Volcano, and the title story.

We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama
For the first time ever I read all five Giller shortlisted books. This one was my favourite. A beautifully written and well constructed tale of displacement, emphasizing the essential nature of homeland, how place shapes and defines us all, with much resonance in american Indigeneity.

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu
The first story was incredible: innovative in the telling, the dialogue (which was the whole story) was sharp and interesting, and in the end I was moved, and had fresh insights into the nature of reality and technology. Brilliant. The rest of the stories were also quite good, some great.

You Can't Win by Jack Black
“If they would give more attention to the high chair, they could put cobwebs on the electric chair.”
“…the cop is a victim of the same machine which makes the criminal.”
The most interesting part was the postscript, in which the author makes his case for a preventative rather than punitive approach to crime. Having suffered decades of punishment he makes his case quite clearly and plainly, and it is convincing. 100 years later though we remain a vengeful society.

When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut
Beautifully written. It's speculative, imagined, but I'm not sure it's a novel. It's not structured like one, but that's semantics. It's an engaging, fascinating read about the push to understand what is perhaps not really understandable, the consequences for the explorers and the rest of us. Perhaps it would be better if we resisted asking, or were satisfied with imagined answers (like God). But is that even possible for us?

What Comes Echoing Back by Leo McKay Jr.
Written by a Nova Scotian high school teacher who is a novelist of renown. The novel deals with two high school students who have each experienced brutal trauma in different ways. Social media and bullying factor heavily. Music is their common coping mechanism and healer. Beautifully and powerfully written.

Your Blues Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell
Based on Emmett Till's murder, this novel explores the multigenerational impacts on the families of the victims and perpetrators in the North and South. Moore Campbell's genius was inhabiting the damaged psyches of her characters on all sides.

Laughing with the Trickster by Thompson Highway
“What could have been if this worldview, this ideology, this collective subconscious, this pantheistic Indigenous mythology, had been listened to, if it had been respected?”
Perhaps humans would have a better chance of surviving. And as Thompson indicates, living joyfully, laughing till we fart, laughing till we die. Brilliant insights in this book.