Never too Late to Read Classics discussion

Canada is a country with a rich history, and this includes literature.

Prior suggestion is Author Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers, The Favorite Game and A Ballet of Lepers: A Novel and Stories

Author W.O. Mitchell's Who Has Seen the Wind

One of our favorites Author L.M. Montgomery

Suggestions from Member Sandy see link to her thoughts:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

My suggestion is Alice Munro who has written several powerful, deep, and touching short stories. Her work even won her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013. A Wilderness Station : Selected Stories, 1968 - 1994 It’s complex and rich and exciting. Here Alice Munro goes out into the wilderness of Canada in 1852 and shows us the survival of a woman.

Please join in and share which read are you thinking about for this Summer?

Sandy's list
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I am at number 6 in my research and I think I like Arthur Stringer.

I plan to join in with As for Me and My House by Sinclair Ross. It's hailed as one of Canada's great novels, being a "classic study of life in the Depression era."

Happy Day to all Canadians.

I was planning to read through the Anne of Green Gables series this summer but I am already running out of summer with all of my other committments! I did the Little House series last summer and enjoyed that. I did just finish Alpine Path by L.M. Montgomery yesterday. A lovely slim volume; a collection of a serialized edition Montgomery was asked to do for Everywoman's Magazine, detailing her young life and career up to the point of her marriage and honeymoon. I purchased the book last summer on Prince Edward Island when I visited Montgomery's birthplace. At 96 pages it's light on detail, but a quick and informative introduction to her life and dreams.

Bernard wrote: "Happy Day to all Canadians."

Thank you!

Rosemarie wrote: "Bernard wrote: "Happy Day to all Canadians."

Thank you!"

Happy Day, Rosemarie.

Thanks, Luis. I'm having a nice restful day and listening to the rain, which has just started.

Rosemarie wrote: "Thanks, Luis. I'm having a nice restful day and listening to the rain, which has just started."

Wonderful! I love the rain, but only when it gets not too heavy.

Same here!

Happy Canada Day!
I don't think I've ever read canadian literature, I guess it is time to change that...
I am accepting suggetions...

Are there any specific genres you like, Andrea?

Sci-fi is the only genre that does not interest me...

I'm a big fan of Leonard Cohen's poetry and Margaret Laurence's novels, Andrea.

I enjoyed The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost / Leaven of Malice / A Mixture of Frailties by Robertson Davies.

Thank you Rosemarie ! Thank you Kathy !

I recommend Margaret Atwood's books.

Thank you Luis!

Adding to Luis' suggestion, I can highly recommend The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. I haven't read any of her other books.

Thank you Melanie!

I recommend Alias Grace Though it wasn't a plot of my preference.

I plan to read a few short stories from A Treasury of Stephen Leacock, which includes 3 collections of his short stories.

I haven’t read much Canadian lit and only 1 classic, Anne of Green Gables. I have a personal challenge in another GR group that I set up many years ago to read from all of the provinces. I’m still missing a few! Maybe I’ll find a few suggestions in this thread.

I don't know. I thought I'd read some Stephen Leacock but when I tried he was appalling to me, so very sexist among other things. It was rather funny, though, to read how he not only thought women can't make puns, but that puns were dead. This was in some essay where he was discussing if women could be witty and how unattractive that would be. As a member of a punning family (my dad's side are all punners--not sure about my grandmother but she did have a great sense of humour that not all saw--and my husband and kids and I all make them. Plus other jokes--if I couldn't be funny I'd just be crabby a lot some days.)

That wasn't the worst one, either, and I read the fifty-fifty sexes one as well.

I don't care if he was a man of his times, I am well aware of what idiots many of them were about women and it's in no way relaxing to read that kind of twaddle.

Andrea - I highly recommend Indian Horse by Ojibwe Canadian author Richard Wagamese. It’s not a classic yet but I suspect it will be! If I was an English teacher in the US or Canada, it would be on my required reading list.

Pam wrote: "Andrea - I highly recommend Indian Horse by Ojibwe Canadian author Richard Wagamese. It’s not a classic yet but I suspect it will be! If I was an English teacher in the US or Canada, it would be on..."

Luís wrote: "I recommend Alias Grace Though it wasn't a plot of my preference."

Thank you so much !!!

I’m sorry to hear that Karin! Bummer. I’ll try a few and see what I think. I don’t care for that kind of attitude at all. There is a Stephen Leacock award for Canadian literary humor. Maybe I can find a winner on that list who is worth reading.

Kathy wrote: "I enjoyed The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost / Leaven of Malice / A Mixture of Frailties by Robertson Davies."

I've read the Salterton Trilogy twice and love it. I've rated all three books at 5 stars. My favorite might be Leaven of Malice which won the Stephen Leacock Award that Pam mentioned. I agree with the GR reader comment that the book is a "funny take on community gossip and interactions, as once both biting and heart-warming." I am a lawyer and that the plot involves an interesting legal case helped pique my interest in the story events.

I am reading Who Has Seen the Wind and, at the 1/3 mark am quite enjoying it so far. It's the story of a now-6-year old lad named Brian in a Saskatchewan small town. Brian's father is the town pharmacist.

So far it's been a slice of life story with no major events. Yet, I have been quite interested in all the small events and aspects of Brian's life. The writing is clear and descriptive and young Brian has a vivid imagination and interesting personality.

Interestingly, on July 4th I had picked up my edition of Collected Stories by Wallace Stegner which I am slow reading over the course of the summer. I chose to read it on that day because he was the only American author I was reading at the time. I had finished The Killer Angels on July 3rd as I read each book section on the corresponding day of the Battle of Gettysburg. It was 4 sections, the set-up on June 29th, then the battle over July 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

So of course, the first Stegner short story I read that day is not set in America but is instead set in Saskatchewan where Stegner spent his younger childhood years and even has a young boy as the central character. It served as my appetizer for this full-length Saskatchewan based novel which I started the next day.

That's good timing, Brian.
During the outlaw days in the west, many of them went to Saskatchwan to avoid the American law men-many to Moose Jaw and also the Badlands area.

Brian E wrote: "Kathy wrote: "I enjoyed The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost / Leaven of Malice / A Mixture of Frailties by Robertson Davies."

I've read the Salterton Trilogy twice and ..."

Thanks, Kathy and Brian, for your enthusiastic reviews of The Salterton Trilogy! I’m looking forward to reading them.

Kathy wrote: "I enjoyed The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost / Leaven of Malice / A Mixture of Frailties by Robertson Davies."

I discovered Robertson Davies, too, and he has become one of my favorite authors.

Two of my favourites from W.O. Mitchel's are How I Spent My Summer Holidays (coming of age story, but rather heavy themed, which we read in grade eleven English) and also the very funny and delightful social satire The Black Bonspiel of Willie MacCrimmon.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

My review of W.O. Mitchell's Who Has Seen the Wind: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I enjoyed your review Brian. I was surprised about the storyline. Sounds very interesting, one to look into.

I'm going to read The Black Joke by Farley Mowat, one of his earlier books which looks like a fun read.

I've finished The Black Joke, and it was a fun read!
The Black Joke is the name of the schooner in the book, which is set in 1935 in Newfoundland, which didn't join Canada until 1949.
It also takes place on two islands which are part of France-St Pierre and Miquelon.

I had never heard of these still existing New France territories until I looked them up while watching Season 6 of the TV show Peaky Blinders last year. A plot in the show involved liquor smuggling into the US in 1933, the last year of Prohibition. Miquelon Island served as a base for smuggling operations for some of the characters on the show. It's fun to discover such interesting previously-unknown-to-me nearby locales.

Liquor smuggling is an important part of the plot in The Black Joke.

I finished As for Me and My House by Sinclair Ross. The story is told my Mrs. Bentley, the wife of the preacher, Phillip. It was like being in her mind for the full book. Very interesting. It's set on the prairies of Saskatchewan during the Depression.