Ron Nurwisah, Boy Reporter

52 in 52 is a project to read a book a week in 2010

[Note: I'm actually not behind in my reading, but I am behind in writing about these books. Whoops.]

Nicolas Dickner’s Nikolski was the only book that grabbed me from this year’s Canada Reads list and after giving it a read I want it to win the whole damn thing.

Nikolski is the story of three young people drawn to Montreal and the book explores ideas of personal identity, family, history and place. Leavened with the author’s healthy obsession with marine life, archaeology, maps and pirates. It all sounds heavy but Dickner’s playful writing makes it a real joy to read.

In fact, all these themes are why it makes a perfect candidate for Canada Reads. Immigrants, long-time Canadians, First Nations, Quebecers, non-Quebecers, Western Canadians, Eastern Canadians, all have a stake in this book and in some small way are all represented. This is a big country and Dickner tries to cram it all in, to strange yet beautiful effect.

One of the key objects in the novel is an odd book made up of parts of three others stitched together to create a unique object. I couldn’t think of a more beautiful metaphor to describe this book or the country that it’s trying to sum up.

Note: Pal Nic Boshart is defending this book as part of the Keepin’ It Real Book Club. Go Nic.

Food52 is an ingenious publishing idea thought up by Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs. Each week Amanda and Merrill pick a different theme and then allow a community of home chefs and food enthusiasts to send them their best recipes. They’re tested, judged and then voted on by the community. The winners get included in a book that’ll be published by HarperStudio.

It’s a brilliant idea for so many reasons. Amanda and Merrill have plenty of food writing experience, having written books, for the New York Times and a number of magazines, but letting the crowd have input means they get to tap into the food expertise of hundreds if not thousands of people.

The open and crowdsourced nature of the project also means the book is building the kind of pre-publication buzz that any publisher would kill for. It’s not just the winners that’ll be telling their friends and family about the book, a lot of those who submitted recipes will undoubtedly do the same.

The model won’t work for a lot of books, a crowdsourced novel will probably suck, but crowdsourced photo anthologies, how-to-books, craft books, etc. would be exceptional.

52 in 52 is a project to read a book a week in 2010

Sometime in the early 2000s karaoke, a fringe activity that was firmly in the domain of Asian people and pseudo-exhibitionists, went mainstream. I always had some idea as to why this happened but culture writer Bryan Raftery has done a better job of telling this story.

To him it was the great confluence of reality TV (especially American Idol), the rise of teenybopper pop such as the Backstreet Boys, faux nostalgia and a growing comfort around amateur performance. Don’t Stop Believin‘, is part personal memoir and part cultural history. He talks about a long-gone and once beloved karaoke bar in New York’s Lower East Side, binging on karaoke and more. Yes, I got jealous that he got to fly to Japan and sing karaoke with his  best friend as “research” for this book.

For me, a self-confessed karaoke junkie, parts of Raftery’s book are very familiar. Don’t Stop Believin’ is not unlike hearing a stranger at a karaoke night belt out a song that you love. You can’t help but sing along and you sure as hell applaud at the end of the song.

As an aside, check out this great blog post from Flickr, what else, karaoke.

52 in 52 is a project to read a book a week in 2010

After two novels to start the year, it was about time I sunk my teeth into some non-fiction. I wanted something light and fun and this book hits the spot. Victoria Moore, the Guardian’s wine columnist, has given us a delightful little book on drinking well throughout the year. And she doesn’t just write about booze. Moore has written a very nice primer on juices, coffees and, that most British of drinks, tea.

Of course, some parts of the book were a bit like torture. The recipes on summer drinks had me aching for bike rides to the park and picnic (also, large pitchers of Pimms and mint juleps). But I’m probably more likely to start with some of the winter drinks. Some of you might be lucky to see them at a dinner party soon.

Moore should also send a thank-you card to her book designer, Heredesign, for elevating this book with dozens of charming letterpress-inspired illustrations throughout the book. I’ve embedded the Google Books excerpt for your perusal.

52 in 52 is a personal challenge to read a book a week in 2010

Margaret Atwood just might be Canada’s best science-fiction author. She probably won’t like that label but this book and Oryx & Crake, the novel that closely dovetails with The Year of the Flood, is science-fiction at its best.

The novel tells the story of two women, Toby and Ren, and the God’s Gardeners, a survivalist eco-cult. They are all trying to survive in a dystopian world where the social fabric has been torn apart by rampant consumerism, environmental damage and bio-technology run amok. So basically, Las Vegas.

Atwood is grimly serious and if you don’t steel yourself, Year of the Flood can be a difficult read in many ways. Sometimes I found sections of the book a bit didactic and preachy. But the horrors that she writes about just have enough grounding in reality that to simply dismiss them would be wrong.

Further reading:

The Year of the Flood’s official site

Margaret Atwood on Twitter

52 in 52 is an unofficial challenge to read one book a week this year. I tried this last year but lost track somewhere in the 30s. So we’re trying this again for 2010.

Book the first? Ian Weir’s novel of pugilism, faith and Victoriana, Daniel O’Thunder. The book is also the first selection of the Afterword Reading Society so you’ll be hearing more about it in the coming weeks.

Weir’s novel is a fun, well-paced and well-plotted book about an Irish street preacher and boxer who challenges the devil to a boxing match. C’mon, how can you not like that summary?

Some of my favourite books in the last few years have been novels that played with the conventions of the historical novel (i.e. the Man Game). This one fits that bill and is probably a bit more accessible than Lee Henderson’s novel, with its crazy patois and slightly more outrageous, MMA style fighting.

My co-worker Brad and a few others have said this book was an overlooked title of 2009 and I agree. Daniel O’Thunder is a manly, meaty book. I’d recommend it to those who enjoyed Quirk’s Jane Austen mash-up series or those who enjoy their Victoriana a bit rougher around the edges.

Here it is, the Post’s roundup of books of the decade. My friend and co-editor Mark Medley did an insane amount of work on this and the final product is just astounding. We got two really interesting lists, one of Canadian books of the decade and the other of international books. Here they are, but I urge you to read the whole thing. It’s a great summary of the decade in publishing and books.

The Top 10 Canadian
1. Life of Pi, by Yann Martel (Knopf Canada, 2001)
2. Three Day Road, by Joseph Boyden (Penguin Canada, 2005)
3. The Man Game, by Lee Henderson (Penguin Canada, 2008)
4. De Niro’s Game, by Rawi Hage (House of Anansi Press, 2006)
4. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Mariage, by Alice Munro (McClelland & Stewart, 2001)
6. Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, by Chester Brown (Drawn & Quarterly, 2003)
7. Lullabies for Little Criminals, by Heather O’Neill (HarperCollins Canada, 2006)
8. Eunoia, by Christian Bök (Coach House Books, 2001)
9. The Middle Stories, by Sheila Heti (House of Anansi Press, 2001)
10. Natasha and Other Stories, by David Bezmozgis (HarperCollins Canada, 2004)
—-
The Top 10 International
1. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers (Simon & Schuster, 2000, U.S.)
2. The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001, U.S.)
3. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon (Random House, 2000, U.S.)
4. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (Knopf, 2006, U.S.)
5. Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer (Houghton Mifflin, 2002, U.S.)
6. Platform, by Michel Houellebecq, translated by Frank Wynne (Knopf, 2001, France)
7. Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber and Faber, 2005, U.K.)
8. Remainder, by Tom McCarthy (Metronome Press, 2005, U.K.)
9. The Master, by Colm Tóibín (Picador, 2004, Ireland)
10. No One Belongs Here More Than You, by Miranda July (Simon & Schuster, 2007, U.S.)

For the record, I accurately predicted both the top Canadian and top International book. What that says about my taste, I’m not sure. I also want to point out Tom McCarthy’s Remainder, on the international list, a really wonderful novel that got overlooked by a lot of people. The list of books that narrowly missed out on making the lists is also full of some wonderful books.

My fondness and respect for indie publisher McSweeney’s is pretty huge. They publish some of my favourite writers, do fun (and worthwhile) things like teach kids how to write and they do it all with style.

The 99% blog gives me yet another reason to love the gang from San Francisco.

From the post:

On the early side of the ’00s, a post-college, pre-McSweeney’s Eli Horowitz sat down in the middle of rural Virginia and stared at a pile of nails, wood, and glass. Against all odds – in particular, those stating Eli’s heretofore untested ability to build things – the items had conspired to become a house, and it was finished save for one small detail. Eli was tired, and the window trim that made sense during the home’s excitable blueprint stages seemed less important here in the wilderness, where his only neighbors were bats and foxes.

So, like any good recently graduated Philosophy major, he thought about it. What was the purpose of window trim in the Blue Ridge Mountains? No one would see it, it had no utilitarian purpose, it didn’t have feelings – nope, there was no real reason to go ahead with it. On the other hand, it would look nice. And that wound up being reason enough for Eli. From this story, a typical McSweeney’s mantra emerges. It goes: Never having done something before is a bad reason not to do it.

There you go everyone. Your mantra for 2010.

Here’s my picks for the best books of 2009. You can read Mark and Brad’s picks on the Afterword.

Ron Nurwisah

1. Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann — One of the finest novels written about New York or any city for that matter. McCann’s book uses Phillipe Petit’s death-defying tightrope walk across the World Trade Center as its crux, and like that walk, he takes our breath away.

2. Asterios Polyp, by David Mazzuchelli — Asterios Polyp is a tightly-written tale of one man coming to terms with his mid-life crisis. It’s well-trodden ground made fresh by a virtuosic and eye-popping mastery of comic book storytelling.

3. Zeitoun, by David Eggers — Eggers strikes again. This time bringing to life the injustices that a Muslim-American man suffers in his adopted home of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina

4. Columbine, by Dave Cullen — Journalist Dave Cullen tries to bear witness and recreate to one of the most unspeakable crimes in recent memory. An emotionally heavy book but a stellar piece of long-form journalism.

5. The Cello Suites, by Eric Siblin — Music critic Eric Siblin falls in love with Pablo Casals and Bach’s gorgeous cello suites. By the end of this travelogue/music history book you probably will too.

6. Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, by Leanne Shapton — Illustrator Leanne Shapton tells the story of a fictional couple through the objects they used and shared. A deliciously voyeuristic take on the love story genre.

7. The Golden Mean, by Annabel Lyon — Recreating the world and emotional space of one of the western world’s greatest thinkers is no easy feat. That B.C.’s Annabel Lyon does so in such a convincing manner in this book puts her at the top ranks of this country’s novelists.

8. What Would Google Do, by Jeff Jarvis — Journalist Jeff Jarvis tries to figure out how one of this decade’s biggest technology and business success stories works. The book is full of insight that sheds light not just on the search giant but also on a myriad of other businesses.

9.  Sag Harbor, by Colson Whitehead — One of America’s finest young novelist gives us a book that touches on race, nostalgia and the universals of coming of age.

10. Corked, by Kathryn Borel — Follow a father and daughter, both with outsized personalities to match, as they wend their way through France’s wine country. The end result, not unlike drinking good wine, is entertaining and just a bit intoxicating.

Stay tuned for a really great look at the books of the decade that I contributed to and Mark Medley lovingly put together. One omission/oversight was Richard Poplak’s the Sheikh’s Batmobile, which was on Mark’s list. It’s a great travel book and a hilarious look at American pop culture in the muslim world. It really should’ve made my list too. Sorry Rich.

I almost always prefer to get books for Christmas than other fall-back gifts (tacky sweaters, socks, ties). But buying books can be a tricky proposition. Giving Michael Crichton or Dan Brown to your Alice Munro loving aunt might get you taken off her Christmas card list.

To avoid this unpleasant fate, check out the Advent Book Blog. Julie Wilson and Sean Cranbury have asked some of their favourite bloggers and literary people for book recommendations. The list is pretty eclectic, everything from poetry and graphic novels to a history of money.

Enjoy and remember to support your local indie bookseller.