Amazon Canada Picks ‘100 Canadian Books to Read in a Lifetime’ [LIST]

Amazon.ca and 49th Shelf have announced a list of “100 Canadian Books to Read in a Lifetime,” a curated list of books written by Canadian authors, chosen by editorial teams from both companies.

Here are some interesting tidbits about their list:

• Something old, something new: The oldest book on the list is The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery (originally published in 1926) and the newest title on the list is This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki (published May 2014).
• Eight decades worth: The list includes novels that span more than eight decades of literary contributions.
• The great debate: Books on the list that inspired the most internal debates were Swing Low: A Life, by Miriam Toews, and Beautiful Losers, by Leonard Cohen.
• Literary unity: A few books that were unanimously chosen were Paul Quarrington’s Whale Music, Andrew Kaufman’s All My Friends are Superheroes, and George Elliott Clarke’s Execution Poems.
• First novel, second list: Five books on the list are past Amazon.ca First Novel Award winners or finalists, including Obasan, by Joy Kogawa (winner, 1981), The Jade Peony, by Wayson Choy (finalist, 1995), Fall On Your Knees, by Ann-Marie Macdonald (finalist, 1996), Come Thou Tortoise, by Jessica Grant (winner, 2009), and Annabel, by Kathleen Winter (finalist, 2010).
• Fiction’s big footprint: The genre most represented on this list is fiction, with 44 novels included.

Click here to see the list of 100 Canadian books picked. Users can also go vote for their favourite book over at Goodreads.