Favourite Books Read 2020
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.
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.
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