Usually a contest announcement on NXNW brings a flood of entries right away. Not this time. During the first week only two arrived. The next week brought only a handful. We were beginning to feel concerned. Then by week three entries were pouring in — and on reading them, we realized that people had called special book club meetings or sessions or had waited for planned get-togethers to discuss their book report submissions. It was amazing to think about listeners and readers all around the province engaged in these discussions about CBC and Canada Reads and NXNW. We also heard from listeners who hadn’t entered but who were engaged by hearing about the whole range of clubs active in every corner of B.C.

More than 60 book clubs took part in the contest. They reported in from Terrace to Nelson to Vancouver. There were book clubs of high school students, senior citizens, crime-fiction lovers and foodies. They told us about hosts who went the extra mile with book-themed food and décor. They told us about the zany characters and the heated debates. And they told us why they love meeting up every month with people who share the same passion for books.

These are excerpts from some of the fabulous entries we received:

From the Occasional Ridgewalkers Book Club in Nelson:
“In 2004, we started a tradition of hiking into Kokanee Glacier after reading In the Path of the Avalanche, by Vivien Bowers, since this true account took place in this park. Since then it has become an annual event and the overnight has increased to three nights, with time for drawing, compass lessons, ridge walking and the preparation of more than enough food (and wine) to host everyone at the lodge — all of which we carry up ourselves.”

Well, the battle of the books is officially underway. And I had a coveted ringside seat, right there in studio, as opening day unfolded. (If you weren’t able to tune in, don’t despair: you can listen online, or download the program as a podcast.

And what a debate it was! In the course of the broadcast, we were introduced to a self-professed “ice hater” (Jemeni), two fine “fellas” (Zaib Shaikh and Dave Bidini), a panelist who’s seen the icefields from space (Steve MacLean) and a feisty Newfoundlander who brought a welcome feminist perspective to the discussion (my new hero, Lisa Moore).

Behind the scenes

The first pleasant surprise of day one was seeing what a nice spread Canada Reads puts on for its celebrity guests. This year’s panelists (and your humble bookworm) were treated to a lovely breakfast tray, and the food proved to be a great icebreaker, as the five debaters practiced voicing their opinions and preferences (poppy seed bagel or muffin) before the broadcast even started.

By the time they started sharing a laugh over the Persian rugs used for decoration in the studio, the five panelists were already behaving like fast friends, and I knew this lot was going to be a great bunch. Steve MacLean and Lisa Moore arrived armed with notes, ensuring we will hear some well-thought-out arguments over the next few days, while Jemeni exuded a warmth and enthusiasm that was positively infectious. And Dave Bidini and Zaib Shaikh seemed to develop an instant rapport and knack for witty banter. (I think we can expect to hear these two peas-in-a-pod egging each other on throughout the debates.)

In spite of all the palpable camaraderie amongst the panelists, it was clear before the show began that this crew wouldn’t be quite so nice when it came time to talk books: When asked what he thought of From the Fifteenth District, Dave Bidini promptly made a thumbs down gesture. Boo! Hiss!

And then the panelists took their respective positions at the table, and we were underway!
Here’s a rundown of some of my favourite moments from Day 1…

1. There was so much sensitivity on the subject of elder care, and an increasingly “spiralling” aged mind, in your novel. All of this rang true with me and the final months of my own father’s life, and this is what endeared me to your book. What, if any, personal experiences, should you care to share, enabled you to write with this much intuitiveness on the subject of an elderly gentleman in the twilight of his life?
Gail Nally
Seven Sisters Falls, Manitoba

First of all, thanks for your kind words. I was going to say that I relied mostly on imagination, the fiction writer’s greatest tool, but then I remembered that my maternal grandmother had what was likely Alzheimer’s Disease, although in those benighted days we simply used the word “senility.” At any rate, I can remember as a little boy being fascinated with the way my grandmother would come in and out of what I considered “reality” and the notion that she might have been in contact with ghosts from her past—in the most literal sense, as is Percival Leary—occurred to me then.

2. If Shakespeare had played hockey, which position would he have played, what team (and in what year) would he have played for, and what would have been his most memorable game?
Susan MacRae

Great question, Susan. First of all: he would have been a defenceman. A stay-at-home defenceman. He would have quietly watched the goings-on and kept his own counsel. (Most writers have this voyeuristic tendency.) Now, when I think of Shakespeare in terms of hockey (which is, in fact, what I did when I wrote King Leary) I think of the historical plays, and the theme of the throne and pretension to it. So I immediately think of an era when the mantle of “Greatest Player” was up for grabs. And I think of the late ‘80s. Who was the King of the Ice? Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux? And what was the great dramatic moment of their rivalry? Why, when they played together on the 1987 Canada Cup team and scored that most beautiful goal that won the series. So, what we need is a workmanlike defenceman from that team, so the answer to your question is: Shakespeare would have been Craig Hartsburg.

I am gobsmacked, as Percival Leary himself might have it. My buddy Dave Bidini successfully defended my novel and ultimately emerged with a victory! (As I vowed on Q, Jian Ghomeshi’s show, I will from henceforth purchase every beer that Dave Bidini drinks. Lucky for me, he isn’t that big a beer drinker.)

I was out of the country when the debates were taking place. I was in Cuba…more specifically, I was off the coast of Cuba…more specifically still, I was off the coast of a Cuban island with the enchanting name of La Isla de Juventud, the Island of Youth. It has also been called Parrot Island and Treasure Island and was once the haunt of pirates.

Anyway, that’s where I was, and that’s my excuse for not hearing the broadcasts, although between you and I, even if I had been right here in frigid Canada, I don’t know that I would have listened to them. I think most authors feel that their works shouldn’t be subjected to intense scrutiny. They are fragile, ephemeral things, these fictions we create, and they blush and mottle when too many eyes are laid upon them.

But good going, Dave!

Total strangers made a point of telling me that they’d be voting for me. The librarians and teachers at the school I visited were cheering me on. A friend sent a virtual huzzah when my book made it through to Wednesday. Someone who bought some of my crafts from my online store wished me good luck on Canada Reads. A former writing student, herself shortlisted for a writing competition, sent me her thoughts on what was happening.

A psychologist friend said how great it was that CBC had gotten an astronaut to read a science fiction novel. That of course made me regret that I hadn’t put any spacemen in it, despite Jemeni’s expressed relief that I hadn’t. And my library technician mother kept phoning me every morning on behalf of her whole office, all of them hoping for an update, because they couldn’t listen to the broadcasts at work. I’m afraid I had to disappoint them.

But finally, Thursday night, there I was in front of my computer with a couple of hours reserved to catch up on what had been going on. And the minute I began to listen to the first podcast, I came smack up against something I’d managed to put out of my mind until then: listening to the broadcasts meant I’d be listening to an extremely articulate group of folks talk about why they didn’t like Brown Girl in the Ring. Yikes!

I’m used to reading reviews of my work, and I’ve been fortunate that they’ve mostly been respectful and considered, even about aspects of my writing that the reviewer hasn’t liked. I’ve become less defensive over the years. However, I usually receive commentary on my work, positive or negative, through the filter of text. Words on a page lend a cushioning distance to reviews. Listening to a recording of people arguing the merits and demerits of your work is something else again. So I took a deep breath and steeled myself for the worst.

It wasn’t so bad! The jurors mainly talked about the fact that my wordcraft wasn’t as strong as it could have been. Hell, I’ve talked about that myself. I wrote Brown Girl in the Ring over 10 years ago. When I read it now, I find my fingers itching for the pen. I want to remove half the adjectives, rework the sentences, let the characters’ actions speak louder than the author’s words. So no argument from me there.

Indigo, John and Richmond, leaning in the book stacks.

Caucasian male, early 30s, with wavy, brown hair and dark beard, wearing plaid green jacket, black jeans with stitched back pocket, carrying an old leather bag.

Icefields, Thomas Wharton (NeWest Press)

Page 180:

He digs absently with the toe of his boot. There is a faint blue shadow in the hollow where the spilled liquid fell. He crouches, brushes away the snow crust with his gloved hands, digging a hole into the powdery layers beneath. Further down the snow solidifies again. Sexsmith stabs his alpenstock into the hole, strikes a hard surface. Rock, he thinks, and scrapes at it, glimpses a faint reflected gleam.

On the other end of the long drive, while three will shovel a throughway, one will have to make the pathless haul to the front door to turn on the power. They spend the last 30 minutes trying to find a radio signal, listening out for commercials, playing a bastardized version of Rock, Paper, Scissors they made up in high school, 20 years earlier. A pizza jingle beats a car ad, a car ad beats a realtor, and anyone selling hot tubs or saunas beats them all. Inside the cottage, he strips to his shorts and jogs in front of the space heater, an open bottle of red breathing on the counter beside frost-bitten ice trays.

There is no sense of up or down in space.

Before I tell you more…Close your eyes and very lightly put the tips of your fingers on your eyelids. Then slowly move your head side to side. You will feel that your eyes do not smoothly track this motion. Instead, there is jerkiness in the motion of your eyes. This is a very high tech feature of our vestibular ocular reflex system that has evolved over millions of years under the influence of gravity. Gymnasts, skaters and dancers can perfect their somersaults, spins and jumps because of this capability that allows us to stop, spot or track motion.

In space, with the onset of weightlessness, this relationship between your eyes and your inner ear is no longer calibrated. If I move my head from side to side the shuttle walls do not stay still. In fact they will appear to oscillate and some astronauts may not even appreciate that their head has moved at all. If you move your head very quickly, the walls will appear to have the same jerkiness that you sensed with your fingers. This dynamically distorted visual field is very difficult to look at and for the first few hours in orbit I found it necessary to close my eyes after turning my head quickly.

The fact that this phenomenon is short lived shows an interesting thing about human adaptation. The vestibular ocular reflex system can recalibrate itself. Within just a few hours I could move my head slowly and the visual field would remain stable.

A few astronauts have complained that their visual acuity changes in weightlessness. This is supported by some predictions that once gravity is removed, the eyeball will change shape ever so slightly. Although we tried to do some simple experiments that measured these changes, my reading acuity appeared to stay the same. So for most, we can read in space just like we read on the ground…as long as we read normally.

What makes Canada Reads producers happy? Well, many things, from cracking open a new novel by a beloved writer to hearing the ecstatic cries of authors included on the Canada Reads shortlist. (Well, okay, pleased murmurs, since they’re all Canadian.)

One thing that definitely makes our day is seeing Canada Reads books climbing the bestseller list. We just learned that all five of this year’s books have a place on the latest Canadian Booksellers Association bestseller list, which tracks sales of the top 15 Canadian fiction paperbacks.

King Leary is in the top slot (yippee!) and our People’s Choice winner, Icefields, clocks in at number three. (Number two, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, is also a grand book.)

Not Wanted on the Voyage follows closely at number four, and Brown Girl in the Ring and From the Fifteenth District both rank in the top 10.

We’re very happy you’re reading these books.

We’ll be aiming to add a new set of titles to your must-read list when we announce the next edition of Canada Reads. That’s coming up in November (something to look forward to in a sometimes dreary month).

Meanwhile, we’ve been getting e-mails from people wondering what books were chosen in past editions, so here’s the complete list. When there’s world enough and time, pick up any of these great reads:

Whew! I’m still trying to catch my breath after that dramatic final debate. I hope you were all listening as the Canada Reads 2008 winner was revealed, but if you weren’t, please download the podcast or catch the show online before reading any further. Trust me, today’s broadcast contained some truly shocking moments you will want to experience first hand.

The plot thickens as a third book is voted off

After taking their seats ‘round the studio, Jian and his fearless five wasted no time in tossing another book, since there were two titles destined to go back to the shelf today.

At first there was a certain déjà vu vibe to proceedings, with three of the panelists remaining consistent in their positions from previous rounds — Steve voted against King Leary, Lisa nixed Not Wanted on the Voyage and Jemeni held firm in dismissing Icefields. Only Dave Bidini put an X beside a new title, Thomas Wharton’s Icefields (for the record, though, he’d previously voted against From the Fifteenth District and Brown Girl in the Ring, and they were both gone at this stage). It came down to Zaib’s decisive vote, and to no one’s surprise (he and Dave are in cahoots, I swear!), he opted to send Icefields packing.

Steve MacLean, who had predicted his book’s fate earlier when he remarked, “I sense I’m in a storm,” was characteristically clear-headed about the result, and took one last opportunity to make a dignified plug for his book’s intricately structured “quest” story.

The final two duke it out

And then the moment we’d all been waiting for arrived. And no, I’m not talking about the final vote — I’ m talking about the sight of former partners-in-crime Dave and Zaib being forced to square off against each other! Now that’s karma!

This resulted in some of the finest debating I’ve seen across all five broadcasts, with Zaib using his Stratford chops to deliver a tour-de-force reading from Not Wanted on the Voyage. Not to be outdone, Dave Bidini joked about “reading wars,” and promptly proceeded to match Zaib note for note in his warm delivery of a scene from King Leary.

But the most dazzling defence came before the reading wars ever began. When asked to comment on the most moving book, the normally deadpan Dave Bidini offered up a description of the first time he read King Leary that was so personal, passionate and vivid (he conjured up albums! cigarettes! a Delta 88!), it stopped me in my tracks and made me abandon my previously diehard hockey-hating stance. Dave Bidini won Canada Reads fair and square in that very moment — the ensuing votes were just a formality.

And speaking of the votes, I’m still reeling from Steve MacLean’s last-minute decision to abandon his hockey-hating stance and turn against Not Wanted on the Voyage. I’m not sure what triggered Steve’s about-face — was it skating monks or peer pressure from his Leary-loving panelists? Whatever the reason, Steve provided what had to be the most shocking moment in a week that was full of dramatic twists and surprises.

Have all of you recovered from the excitement and drama of Friday’s final debate? I think I’m still trying to pick my jaw up off the floor now that Paul Quarrington’s King Leary has been crowned king of Canada Reads 2008.

As I was lying around this weekend, trying to decide which CanLit book to read now that this year’s titles have been sent back to my shelf, I started to feel a few debate-withdrawal pangs. My apartment felt very quiet, and somehow, thinking about books wasn’t as much fun without hearing five animated panelist voices talking about characters, words and themes in the background.

Just when I was ready to fall into the kind of black despair that hermit bookworms are sometimes prone to, I remembered there’s still some very cool Canada Reads-related material slated to appear on this site in the coming weeks. So, even if Steve MacLean didn’t get his Canada Reads “debrief,” we can still have ours…

The kingmaker

On the heels of King Leary’s thrilling Canada Reads victory, I find myself wanting to learn more about Paul Quarrington, the delightfully imaginative author who dreamt up all of the colourful characters who won over this year’s Canada Reads panelists. Later this week, Paul will be posting a blog entry in this space. And if the stars align correctly, Paul will make another, more interactive appearance on this site in future, where you will be able to ask him some questions about all of the blood, sweat and tears that went into the writing of this year’s winning title. So, keep your fingers crossed and start dreaming up your questions for Paul.

Meet the bloggers

In other blog news, I couldn’t write a post-game rundown of Canada Reads without giving a big shout-out to Steven Beattie and Alex Good, who offered up a fantastic daily play-by-play of all of the Canada Reads debates on That Shakespeherian Rag. On the off chance you missed their blogging during debate week, I suggest you catch up on their entries now — these two were required reading for me last week, and for my money, they provided the best commentary going during Canada Reads 2008.

Crunching the numbers, one more time

Another thing that added to the excitement and overall suspense of this year’s competition for me were the weekly rankings provided by BookNet Canada, which offered a sneak peek at which of the five titles was faring the best at bookstore counters across Canada. Now that the outcome of that tight race has been revealed, our friends at BookNet Canada have graciously agreed to provide us with some post-show numbers, and I’m very curious to see how many copies of King Leary are moving off the shelves in light of its recent win. I promise to let you know as soon as the numbers are in.