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Canada Reads are In!

The theme and longlist for the 2019 Canada Reads competition was announced about a month ago. After seeing that list, the staff here at Allison the Bookman scrambled to get our picks together and to make bets on what we thought would make the final cut.


The theme of this year’s competition is “one book to move you.” In an age of an increasingly jaded public, content that can evoke sentiment of this level is welcome and hard to come by.


The longlist can be found here. I recommend giving it a perusal, as most of us don’t read nearly as much Canadian lit as we should. I certainly don’t.


The staff picks from the longlist varied from person to person. However, all of us figured that we would see The Woo-Woo, Heart Berries, and Corvus make the cut. While one of these titles did it wasn’t the one we expected.



Between all of us, we were most confident in Johnson’s Corvus. We all felt that with the last years uptick in weather phenomena and political tensions as well as its fresh take on the role of First Nations within a dystopic future that it was a shoe in.


While I know I’m a little disappointed that it won’t be featured, I’ll still be reading it.


Without further ado, in no particular order, here are this years picks and their champions:


Homes by Abu Bakr al Rabeeah with Winnie Yeung being defended by Chuck Comeau.

Brother by David Chariandy being defended by Lisa Ray.

By Chance Alone by Max Eisen defended by Ziya Tong.

Suzanne by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, translated by Rhonda Mullins defended by Ziya Tong.

The Woo-Woo by Lindsay Wong defended by Joe Zee.


Click the respective titles for links to the summaries!


We are going to be getting in titles from the longlist that we thought we were interesting, be sure to check in! Is there any title in particular that you would like to read? Let us know!



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