Organizers of York University’s acclaimed Canadian Writers in Person Lecture Series – humanities Professor Gail Vanstone and Department of English contract faculty member Dana Patrascu-Kingsley – offer their 2023 list of best books to read over the holiday break and beyond.
Vanstone and Patrascu-Kingsley organize the annual series that brings new and established Canadian authors to the York community (either in person or via Zoom) to deliver readings from their books. Canadian Writers in Person is a for-credit course offered in the Culture & Expression program in the Department of Humanities in York’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, but the associated lecture series is free and open to members of the York community and the public who are not enrolled in the course. The series continues Jan. 16, 2024 with a reading from David Huebert’s latest novel, Chemical Valley (Atlantic Books, 2021).
“When Dana and I put our heads together, we thought a good theme for this year might be ‘books that will expand your world,’ since poetry and fiction give us an opportunity to see, understand and feel the world from different perspectives,” said Vanstone. “In our list, we want to acknowledge the importance of voice and representation in each work for helping us think beyond ourselves.”
Here are their suggestions of recent Canadian books that will help “expand your world”:
- Saeed Teebi, Her First Palestinian
- David Bezmozgis, Immigrant City
- Norma Dunning, Tainna
- Noor Naga, If An Egyptian Cannot Speak English
- Pik-Shuen Fung, Ghost Forest
- Casey Plett, A Dream of a Woman
- Omar El Akkad, What Strange Paradise
- Katherena Vermette, The Circle
- Michael Crummey, The Adversary
- M. G. Vassanji, Everything There Is
- El Jones, Abolitionist Intimacies
- Suzette Mayr, The Sleeping Car Porter
- Louise Halfe/Sky Dancer, awâsis – kinky and dishevelled
- Kim Thuy, Em
- Sean Michaels, Do You Remember Being Born?
- Emily Riddle, The Big Melt
- Mariam Pirbhai, Isolated Incident
- Zalika Reid-Benta, River Mumma
- Carrianne Leung, That Time I Loved You
- Ava Homa, Daughter of Smoke and Fire
And a special recommendation from York Professor Leslie Sanders, who is currently on sabbatical but is still associated with the Canadian Writers in Person course, is Drawing Down a Daughter by Claire Harris (in light of Goose Lane Editions’ recently announced Claire Harris Poetry Prize).
For more information about the lecture series, visit the event web page or email Vanstone at gailv@yorku.ca.