Atlantic Canada
Five years ago I decided to challenge myself to read more books from Atlantic Canada. As a result, I have read 131 books from Atlantic Canada in the last five years.
You can check out results of previous years here: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016.
#of Atlantic Canadian books read: 31 (last year, 25)
% of books read from Atlantic Canada: 39% (last year, 32%)
Newfoundland: 9 (last year, 6)
Nova Scotia: 21 (last year, 19)
New Brunswick: 0 (last year, 0) – Ack! But I’ve already got one on the record for 2021! (And James has still got you covered!)
Prince Edward Island: 1 (last year, 0) — An improvement…
Standouts:
(not necessarily published this year, and in no particular order)
The Rest of Canada and Beyond!
%CanLit: 80% (last year, 88%)
Out of 80% CanLit, 48% is from Atlantic Canada (last year, 36%)
My Favourite cover: The Difference (Runner-up: Little Fortress) What’s yours?
My Top 8 Books (if I was forced to choose)
- The Difference
- Ananias
- If You Hear Me
- Tatouine
- How to Pronounce Knife
- The Waiting Hours
- Ex Libris
- Transcendent Kingdom
Some Bookish Highlights of my year:
- I always enjoy the Canada Reads debates.
- The Shadow Giller has a new website!
- Marcie and I have been having lots of fun with Margaret Atwood Reading Month
- I had fun reading for this themed post: Born to Walk
- The Literary Wives are still going – although we have dropped from 6 books/year to a more manageable 4.
- I’ve been loving my subscription to Atlantic Books Today, and this post about one of the issues was one of my most popular this year.
- This is probably my favourite book spine poetry yet (inspired by the 2020 pandemic): Book Spine Poetry April 2020
- Sheree Fitch’s You Won’t Always Be This Sad was just the thing for our broken hearts.
- I decided to start tackling my stack of Books about Books
- I managed to read more books than ever from the shortlists of the Atlantic Book Awards.
- I wrote a little post about Mothers in Literature.
- Other bookish events I managed to participate in: 1956 Club, AusReading Month, Novellas in November
The Very Best Thing about my year in blogging: YOU!
What were the highlights of your year? Do you have a favourite book or event to tell me about?
Consumed by Ink 
You had a great reading year, Naomi! I’m looking forward to your tackling of your ‘books about books’ pile.
I really hope I get to more of those this year!
I really enjoy reading your blog and it’s awesome to see the books you enjoyed reading and the highlights of your bookish year. Mine was up and down – but I ended up reading more books than usual after a slow start to the year.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for commenting! 🙂
Seeing your favourites lists always makes me wish I could access more of the Canadian material. This year we overlapped with the Mandel and Gyasi novels, and I’m glad of the reminder that I’m going to reread Ex Libris soon (to compare with Michiko Kakutani’s book by the same title).
I love that the Lit Wives read of The Amateur Marriage almost perfectly corresponds with the timing of Liz’s Anne Tyler reading project (as she has it down for August). I was only going to participate with the Tylers I have copies of; technically I own a copy of this one, but it’s in a box in the States and I’m not sure I’ll be able to retrieve it by then. We’ll see 🙂
I hadn’t even thought of that – I’ll have to remember once we get to the Anne Tyler!
I always wish everyone could access the CanLit more easily!
Imagine if you could get to the States by then…
Seven is probably the cover that first jumps at me but there are so many lovely ones! Love all your reading Canada posts – thank you!
That’s a beautiful cover, too. Thanks for reading! 🙂
Hahaha I love your ack’s…that’s how I feel sometimes when I get down to the math of it. In some ways, 2020 seemed like a long year. In other ways, it must have been super short because I definitely didn’t get all the books read that I planned to read, and I’m guessing your New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island reads are in that “sometime later this year” stack at your house too. (I’m spelling them all out for Bill! *waves to Bill*) The sun is setting out my window as I type my comment to you and it seems fitting for your end-of-year review! Thanks for encouraging me to read more widely in Atlantic Canadian stories too.
That’s exactly how it always is… “later this year”, “maybe next”, “soon!”… haha! But it always surprises me at the end of the year when NB still says “0”! There are lots of good NB books to read. I find PEI a bit more challenging. But, thinking ahead, I requested an anthology from PEI which just came. But I only have 3 weeks to get to it! (Would have spelled them out for Bill, but no need since you already did.) 🙂
Well, my favourite was an Atlantic Canadian book – The Innocents. What’s up with New Brunswick… time to read some more David Adams Richards? Reading his back catalog would boost your NB stats pretty quick!
Good question! I don’t know what’s up! I have lots to choose from, but for some reason they just keep getting pushed back. I even own a bunch of David Adams Richards, among others…
The Innocents was SO GOOD!! 🙂
So many great Canadian books! I always feel like there are tons of books coming out of Nova Scotia; is New Brunswick less prolific do you think?
I FEEL as though there are more coming out of NS, but I don’t actually know if that’s the case. Maybe I’m just more likely to be seeking out the NS books? But like I said, I already have one from NB under my belt for this year, so things are looking up!
I feel like I’ve read quite a few books from Nova Scotia in the last few years and I wouldn’t say I seek them out. Definitely more from Nova Scotia than another province like Manitoba!
It would be fun to look into all that more closely… maybe someday I’ll find the time… 🙂
I love reading your reviews, and hoping more of the books will make their way over here. And thank you to Bookish Beck for pointing out the almost-overlap between my Anne Tyler year and your Lit Wives read of Amateur Marriage!
I enjoyed doing my Paul Magrs challenge last year and reading his Christmas stories, but I had a good reading year in general anyway, fortunately.
Thanks, LIz! I’m extra happy about the Anne Tyler now that I know it will (almost) fit in with your reading event! 🙂
Wow I’m so impressed by the amount of Canlit you are reading right now, are you singlehandedly keeping Canadian publishers in business? haha
I really like your idea of mentioning your bookish highlights of the year. I think mine is similar; connecting with everyone via our book blogs, regardless of what’s happening in the pandemic brings a sense or normalcy and continuity to my life that I really appreciate 🙂
I couldn’t agree more! And, yes, that it my goal – to help keep the CanLit industry booming! Happily I have help from lots of other book bloggers like you! 🙂
and you inspire me to reach for CDN content more!
🙂
I admire your dedication to reading Atlantic Canada authors! And enjoy you writing about them, even if I can’t access the books easily.
Thanks, Laila! 🙂