My 10 Favourite Books

I'm on a new team at the Edmonton Public Library: the Great Stuff Crew. Our job is to promote the great content we've got in the library collection -- books, movies, music, games, digital delights -- the whole breadth and depth of it. We'll be doing this primarily online, via the EPL website.

As a way of introducing ourselves to the public, crew members have been asked to come up with a list of our ten favourite books (or other materials). Only ten? Impossible!

This is my list of three dozen, in alphabetical order by title, leaving out many, many, many favourites. I've included links to my reviews on this blog.

The 10 PM Question. Kate De Goldi
Autobiography of Red. Anne Carson
Better Living Through Plastic Explosives: Stories. Zsuzsi Gartner
The Botany of Desire. Michael Pollan
Carry the One. Carol Anshaw
Cereus Blooms at Night. Shani Mootoo
Chime. Franny Billingsley
A Country Year: Living the Questions. Sue Hubbell

I'm reading something by China Mieville here... which
reminds me that the audiobook of his City and the City
(narrated by John Lee) is another favourite. Oh dear!

Exit Wounds. Rutu Modan
Fall on Your Knees. Ann-Marie MacDonald
Fugitive Pieces. Anne Michaels
Fun Home. Alison Bechdel
How I Live Now. Meg Rosoff
How to Heal a Broken Wing. Bob Graham
I Want My Hat Back. Jon Klassen
Jinx. Margaret Wild
The Lesser Blessed. Richard Van Camp
Lighthousekeeping. Jeanette Winterson
The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches. Gaetan Soucy
The Lost Garden. Helen Humphreys
Monkey Beach. Eden Robinson
Mr and Mrs Bunny, Detectives Extraordinaire. Polly Horvath
Packing for Mars. Mary Roach
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Annie Dillard
The Pull of the Ocean. Jean-Claude Mourlevat
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking. Susan Cain
Skellig. David Almond
Skim. Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
Stitches. David Small
Someday this Pain Will Be Useful to You. Peter Cameron
The Summer Book. Tove Jansson
There But For The. Ali Smith
True Grit. Charles Portis. audiobook narrated by Donna Tartt
A Visit from the Goon Squad. Jennifer Egan
West Wind. Mary Oliver
When Women Were Birds. Terry Tempest Williams
Why We Broke Up. Daniel Handler

Some of my most favourite authors -- Kate Atkinson, Margaret Atwood, Douglas Coupland, Carol Ann Duffy, John Green, Sonya Hartnett, A.S. King, Margo Lanagan, Alice Munro and Michael Ondaatje (that's another ten right there) -- aren't on this list because it was too hard to choose only one of their books. How could I ever only pick ten?