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Canadian Fiction
Libraries Unlimited | Sharron Smith and Maureen O'Connor | Reader's Advisory | Genreflecting | Available ISBN 10: 1591581664 ISBN 13: 9781591581666 Canadian fiction offers a wealth of diverse pleasures to readers, from high-toned literary works to down and dirty genre fiction. In fact some of today's most talented fiction writers are Canadian. Designed to help readers' advisors in the United States, Canada, and other English speaking countries make informed reading recommendations to their patrons, this guide provides reader’s advisors and readers with an overview of Canadian fiction, covering more than 650 popular titles—mainstream and genre fiction—written by Canadian authors, most published within the past decade. This guide categorizes mainstream titles according to primary appeal features and identifies the secondary appeal when there is one. Genre fiction is covered in a separate section. For each title bibliographic information and a brief annotation is provided. Subjects are listed, along with awards, and an indication of whether the title is appropriate for book groups. A “read on” section with references to some 2,400 titles, leads you to titles with similar features. Indexes cover author/title and subject (including awards, genre, series character names). An appendix contains information on Canadian Book Awards. Can$72.00 [Add to Cart] [View Cart] Also in the Genreflecting Series:                BooklistCanadian literature came into its own in the last part of the 1900s, and the choices and variety of titles coming from Canadian writers continue to grow. This work brings together many writers, some of them new voices and others, such as Margaret Atwood, Douglas Coupland, W. P. Kinsella, and Carol Shields, familiar to American readers. The authors clearly state in the introduction that this is not an all-encompassing work. It lists award-winning and reviewed titles from 1990 to 2004 and provides a broad sampling that represents the wide spectrum of reading possibilities and enjoyment in Canadian literature, including translations of works from French Canada. Part of the publisher’s Genreflecting Advisory series, Canadian Fiction follows the format and classification scheme of Nancy Pearl’s Now Read This (1999) and Now Read This II (2002). Five chapters cover Setting (including historical fiction), Story, Character, Language, and Genre Fiction. The genre chapter is the longest and is broken into sections on mystery, science fiction, fantasy, romance, thriller, and horror. Each genre is broken down into types as well. Within chapters, arrangement is by author. Entries for individual titles or series contain a brief summary, a list of subject headings, and a Read On section that suggests authors from the U.S and other countries as well as Canadian writers. Books that have won awards are highlighted with an award icon, and books thought to be good for book groups have an icon of their own. A minor complaint: the Read On suggestions would have been easier to read if they had been in a bulleted list rather than a paragraph format. The appendixes list Web sources and resources, Canadian literary awards both national and provincial, and publishers. Comprehensive author-title and subject indexes conclude the work. This is a must for those libraries where Canadian authors or settings are popular. Every Canadian public library will wish to have this at hand for the readers’ advisory desk. Highly recommended!”—Terri Tomchyshyn Copyright 2006 Booklist Library Journal, April 15, 2006 Smith (readers’ advisory, Kitchener Public Library, Ont.) and O’Connor (with more than 30 years’ experience providing reference and readers’ advisory assistance in Ontario) have written a comprehensive and easily accessible guide to Canadian fiction, discussing its development and highlighting cultural distinctions, characteristics, and trends. While the book is broad in scope, its introduction sets a good tone, being informative without overwhelming the reader. Criteria for selection are titles written by authors eligible for Canadian literary awards and published between 1990 and 2004. Entries are presented in four chapters, arranged by appeal factor: setting, story, characters, and language. The fifth chapter is devoted to genre fiction. The opening section of each chapter elaborates on the corresponding appeal factor with specific examples of Canadian authors’ works. Major award winners and popular book club choices are indicated, as are series titles. Each annotated entry includes secondary appeal factors, subject headings, and suggestions for further reading; short stories have been excluded from this volume except as suggestions for further reading. With author/title and subject indexes as well as appendixes on national literary awards and Canadian publishers and annotated lists of Canada-specific Web sites, writers’ associations, and review sources, this is a great readers’ advisory tool. Highly recommended for libraries where there’s an interest in Canadian fiction.—Amy Brozio-Andrews, Albany P.L., NY Teacher LibrarianApril 2006 Review by Esther Rosenfeld Canadian Fiction: A Guide to Reading InterestsSharron Smith and Maureen O’Connor. This guide, modeled in some ways on Nancy Pearl’s two Now Read This books, is a welcome addition to the Genreflecting advisory series. The book resembles the rest of the series in that it is primarily written to help librarians (in public, academic, and school libraries) to help readers choose interesting, worthwhile books. As such, the recent works of Canada’s internationally acclaimed literary award winners—Margaret Atwood, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Yann Martel, Anne Michaels, Timothy Findley, Mordecai Richler, Carol Shields, and Rohinton Mistry—are all featured in the guide. For librarians who want to include other Canadian writers in their collections, Canadian Fiction also serves as a comprehensive collection development guide for recent Canadian fiction, covering over 650 Canadian-authored titles published between 1990–2004. Canadian Fiction has value as a professional resource in several ways. First, it is a comprehensive selection tool for quality Canadian fiction. Second, it is a valuable reference for secondary English teachers, enabling them to build reading lists for students. Third, it is a useful resource for senior secondary students to assist them in choosing novels by theme and subject for novel and author studies. This book is organized into several chapters that list titles according to four “appeal characteristics”—setting (including historical fiction), story, character, and language—with each listed title having an annotation and suggestions for further reading. There is also an additional long chapter that covers recent Canadian fiction by genre (mystery, science fiction, fantasy, romance, thriller, and horror), which similarly includes annotated titles and suggested books for further reading. An interesting aspect of the suggested books for further reading—over 2,400 in all—in all of the chapters is that they are not all Canadian titles (as the main entries all are) but are English-language titles from all over the world. Several comprehensive appendixes list additional resources and web sites, literary awards, and Canadian publishers. An author/title index and a subject index are also included. Bottom line: Highly recommended. Although not written specifically for school libraries, Canadian Fiction is an essential resource for Canadian secondary school libraries and an important resource for secondary school libraries in the United States, Australia, and other English-speaking countries that want to build an international collection of fiction written in English. “A wonderful resource for both classic titles and popular reads—a treasure trove for both the fiction reader and the reader's adivsor.”—Nancy Pearl |
