Canada Reads announces books, panellists for 2009

Canada Reads announced the contenders Tuesday for its annual contest to choose a single book all Canadians would enjoy reading.

The field has five Canadian books, including two debut novels and works by Quebec's Michael Tremblay and New Brunswick's David Adams Richards.

CBC Radio One, host of the Canada Reads series, also announced members of the panel who will defend the five books in an effort to get theirs chosen.

They are:

• TV personality Avi Lewis defending The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill.
• Singer Sarah Slean defending Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards.
• Actor Nicholas Campbell defending The Outlander by Gil Adamson.
• TV host Anne-Marie Withenshaw defending The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant (La grosse femme d' ct est enceinte ) by Michel Tremblay, translated by Sheila Fischman.
• Author Jen Sookfong Lee defending Fruit by Brian Francis.

Both Western Canadian adventure-mystery The Outlander and Fruit, a gay coming-of-age story, are debut novels

Campbell told CBC News he reads biography more often than he reads novels.So he turned to a friend at the Walrus for recommendations when asked to choose a Canada Reads book.

His choice, The Outlander, is the debut novel by Gil Adamson and was shortlisted for the Trillium Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize.

"It deals with a very interesting period in history, one I hadn't seen written about before," Campbell said. "There's the story of survival against the wilderness and it's interesting because it's from a woman's perspective."

The Outlander follows a desperate young woman fleeing across the foothills of the Rockies in 1903, plunging into the wild to escape her brothers-in-law.

"It shows how difficult Canada was for some people in those days," he said, adding that he finds each of the characters well-drawn and believable.

"It would make a fantastic film. There'sthe survival situation and romance and a bit of a mystery. It's really inspiring," he said.

Campbell is a Canada Reads novice and said he's going to see how fellow contestants make their arguments as the process unfolds.

"I keep my head up and watch what happens. I've been very lucky in my acting career like that," he said. Campbell is currently starring in theatre production Festen at the Berkeley Theatre in Toronto and just finished shooting the 2008-9 season of CBC-TV's The Border, where he has a recurring role.

Withenshaw, who reads mainly Quebec writers, said it was difficult finding a work that was widely available in English.

The Fat Lady Next Door is Pregnant is one of a trilogy of novels that Tremblay wrote abouta working class district of Montreal in the 1930s.

"He's setting the table for what comes later," said Withenshaw. "There's a huge cast of characters, but the main thing about the novel is that it is accessible."

The fat lady of the title is 42, a scandalous age to be pregnant in the 1930s and her neighbours knit booties for her baby and discuss her situation with equal abandon.

"It's a true representation of a particular time in Montreal," said Withenshaw, who is a TV and radio personality in the city.

Tremblay is one of Canada's most respected playwrights, known for Les Belles Soeurs and For the Pleasure of Seeing her Again.

Hill's The Book of Negroes is the story of a literate slave and midwife who lives in Nova Scotia and England in the 18th century.

Adams Richards, who often writes about the Miramichi region of New Brunswick, has won the Governor General's Literature Award twice, for Nights Below Station Street and Lines on the Water, and shared the Giller prize for Mercy Among the Children. The book is the story of a New Brunswick man who makes a pact with God never to harm anyone else and sticks to it throughout his life.

The books are announced in November so Canadians have time to read them ahead of the Canada Reads series.

Canada Reads is scheduled for March 2-6, 2009, on CBC Radio One.