This is Canada Reads American Style, featuring two friends who love Canada Reads and Canadian Literature. Welcome our host Rebecca from Michigan and Tara from Ontario. Welcome listeners to Canada Reads American Style. Happy holidays. This is Tara and Rebecca is here with me. Hello Rebecca. Hello. And we are here to discuss our top books/reads of 2024. I don't know about you Rebecca. Well I kind of think I do know, but I am in a food-fueled fug. I have a cup of tea sitting beside me. My brain is muddled, but I am like so excited to do this today to discuss our top reads of the year. Yeah, and I am getting over a cold that I cannot really fully shake. And so I think I'm going to go to the doctor in the new year and figure out why I can't shake this cough. And I know it wasn't COVID or anything, but I don't know why I can't. So that's why I've asked Tara to just do all most of the talking so that I don't cough in everybody's ears. So yeah. Yeah. And like I said, food-fueled fug. So thanks to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Who knows what you're going to get from me today. But we have decided to do our top 10 of the year. Now Rebecca knows I am, I love a checklist, but I am also terrible at staying within the limits/rules of a top 10. I'm not, I am, but I just, I'm seriously having decision-making inability this morning. Well, I actually originally had a top 14, but I made myself pare it down. Yeah. Because I thought, no, everybody's heard me talk about these books before. So I thought, beat and have a nice tight list. Yes. I want a tight list and I'm hoping to make it tight as we go along. Because, so I will start off just here briefly saying that of my reading for 2024, my non-fiction reading was down a little bit. Like I think last year I was 70%, 30% kind of thing, fiction versus non-fiction. This year I was at 76% percent fiction and 24% non-fiction. So slightly down, however, the majority of my top reads are non-fiction, which is why I had trouble making a decision because I kind of made a non-fiction list and a fiction list. And my fiction list, I'm at five. And I will say that, I know I'll save that for later. My non-fiction list is at 11. Wow. Like five star weeks, 11 five star weeks in non-fiction. I know. Like, as I went through, skimmed my journal, everything that's really stayed with me has been my non-fiction reading. I'm shocked because in my top 10, I have one non-fiction and the rest are fiction. So we kind of did it. We're doing a freaky Friday. We did. Yeah. Man. Weird. So that's why I'm like whittling down that 11 to five is almost impossible in my brain when I looked at it this morning. But I'm going to do my best. I'm going to do my best. I have three for sure that I know, and then I may lump together a couple and see where it goes. And I will also say that of my top five fiction books, only two of them are by Canadian authors. I know. And it's not because I haven't read a lot of Canadian authors. I have read a lot of Canadian fiction. Like the majority, I don't have the numbers, but it's at least 75%. I would say of my fiction reading is by Canadian authors. But I don't think hot take. I don't think it's been a stellar year for Canadian fiction. Oh, that's interesting. I know. I feel bad saying that, but. Well, I have my top 10, six are Canadian, three are US and one is Australian. Okay. Now, I'm looking at the majority of my nonfiction reads are Canadian authors. Only I think I have. I have two, two Canadian or two American authors out of 11. Yeah, my nonfiction. So. I can't wait to hear your list. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Want me to start. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to start with perhaps like my first top nonfiction read of the year so which it. These aren't ranked, but I'm just saying this was the first one I finished I think back in February or March, and it is fire weather the making of a beast by John Valiant, obviously nonfiction it about the, I think it was in 2016 the forest fire that ravished. Fort McMurray and Alberta. That's the first part of the book and then the second part he goes into really the science and the history of climate change, and how climate change has set up the world for these crazy fire forest fires to happen. I spiraled I mentioned this when I read the book it's it's a dark it was a dark read for me it was a difficult read. I spiraled while reading it in just, you know, what's going on in the world but that book it stuck with me and I was so glad that I read it. It's not difficult but it's it's up there it's in my top. Yeah that one I can't read but as I can't read climate stuff it upsets me too much and so I bury my head in the sand and I listen to you when you talk about books like that so that's my first book that I want to. It's a series actually so technically it's three books in one but it's the category. So my top youth book that I read this year or series is the Jenny Ross series by Heather Stemp and it was Amelia and me under Amelia's wing and beyond Amelia and it really is the story of Heather Stemp's family who actually had a connection to Amelia Earhart they're from Harbor Grace Newfoundland and that's where Amelia was before when she was taking off to fly over to Europe. And as I had said before and I've raved about this series I talk about it all the time. It's the Academy of Anne of Green Gables. That's how beautiful the storytelling is and how historically accurate Heather's researches and how she took her family story and created this connection to Amelia Earhart and as you all may know or many of you may know I went to see Amelia's birthplace in Kansas as well as her hangar museum. So I'm all everything about Amelia Earhart. It was absolutely fascinating and she's a woman who I would never have known to dig this deep into who she was as an incredible person that hadn't been for Heather Stemp's beautiful series. Yay to Heather and I just hope that she continues to write more young adult historical fiction. I loved it. Great series. I'm going to add to your travel bucket list and say that you need to finish out by going to Newfoundland. I really would love to do that and it's so funny because Heather I had interviewed her for the podcast and she had an event at Harbor Grace. And she sent me back a sticker this is Harbor Grace so I thought that was just so sweet of her. And she also sent me copies of her books all signed to me personally which was really sweet and I had already bought my own copies. So I said I'm going to find a girl who I think would love this series and give her my three copies and then keep the ones I have with Heather's messages to me in them which I just love that I thought that was so sweet and lovely of her to do. Okay, I'm going to stick with my nonfiction and I'm going to do a genre. And it is that I had this insight this year into my reading that I love birding memoirs. And I have three on my list I think I could have put four because there was another but I'm going to, I have three, and I will just say the better living through birding by Christian Cooper, who is the black man who was in during the pandemic was accosted by a white woman in Central Park. And it's his story. I went into it thinking it was a story of that incident, but it's his whole life he did bookend with it's something in Central Park ending with the infamous incident in Central Park but you get his whole life from child to present his story, his start in birding his relationship with his father, his being a black man in birding, and having that almost not acknowledge that times his work in the comic book industry fascinating I'd love to this one. The second one is the Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan. It's Amy Tan. She's exploring just watching birds from her what I sounds like a beautiful house with her own illustrations. It's an amazing book, and then field notes from an unintentional author by Julia Zirankin, a Toronto author, and it is how her story of how she accidentally became a birder. I loved all three of these books. I had to get them in. I couldn't choose. And I want to read them because I do. I'm a very novice birder. I have I paid a lot of money for my binoculars for the purposes of doing that. So I want to read these books because that you did you don't made them sound amazing. My next category is my classic titles because as if you've been following along, I've been reading my goal was to read 12 classic women authors and so I have a category of classics so I have three titles which I'll give you. Are you should I go one at a time or should I do all three of them in this category. That's up to you like is it. Yeah, whatever you think flows better actually. Okay. I will do one at a time just to give everybody a break and then I won't start coughing so that would be probably the best way to do it. Okay. So in my classics, one of my favorites this year was the street by and Petrie, which was a book written in the 1940s in New York, and it was a story about a young black mother and her son and just trying to make a better life for themselves and it was incredible. And again, this is that idea of black women authors that got published at the time when you wouldn't have expected them to be able to tell a really graphic hardcore story of what their lives look like. And I've loved it so I highly recommend if you haven't read the street, it's widely available and I think this was the one that was the first book by a black woman that sold a million copies. And I think it was like 1946 or something like that. So highly recommend the street. My next book is a graphic novel memoir and it is I'm so glad we have this time together by Maurice Velcoup. I read this a few months ago I fell in love with his story. It's his illustrations. It's beautiful. So it is his story of being raised in a very Christian family and coming out as a gay man later in later in life well like you know once he reached adulthood kind of thing. And his the it's also a story of art because he, his art is so enmeshed in his life story that it's also about him becoming an artist as well. And I loved it, loved this book. And that's the one I'd heard him interviewed on the next chapter and I definitely wanted to read that book so is he talk about like is Carol Burnett or something. Yes, okay that's what I thought because that's the title so yeah. Because he was a huge Carol Burnett fan or is a huge Carol Burnett fan so there is illustrations of her. I love there is because it takes place in Toronto so you know you get the illustrations from the. And I roughly the same age so like the 70s and stuff too of Toronto and the Eaton Center and oh yeah oddly enough he was he puts in his home address like where his childhood address is in the book. And it was just doors away from where my aunt lives so he just lived during the same time just a couple of doors down from one of my aunts, which I love because I'm like I love that. That's her head when he showed the neighbourhood and stuff it was really cool. Okay that's a really you know what do they say six degrees of separation that's so cool. Yeah that you have that connection to it that's awesome. My second classic book that I want to call out is my brilliant career by Miles Franklin and Miles Franklin is a woman author, but that was the book and this is the Australian title that really was my first introduction when I saw it as a movie Australia looked like at the like in the 19 early 1900s and I just love this book it just was such a great story because she wrote it when she was quite young. It was her most notable book that she ever wrote she didn't really have the same success after that. And I just think it showed a life of a really hard life that women lived at the turn of the century in Australia at that time so I absolutely love that book. And I'm so glad I read it and I'm glad that I waited all these years honestly like 40 some years to read it after having seen the movie but it was definitely worth the wait. I like that you revisit it a lot of your favourite movies this year through the books. Yeah like a theme I don't I don't think it was intentional on your part but I noticed it right the year. Yeah it wasn't intentional but I think that's what was really interesting when I just because I literally sat down and thought okay I'm just going to start looking up classic women authors and then all of a sudden all these classic books came up and I thought oh my gosh I've seen the movie and and I love that I because I do get hung up on. I often don't go to see a movie if it was a if like I won't see the book in the movie together because I it just it's never the book is always better you know. But these were movies that I really really loved and so and it was so long ago that I'm not comparing like oh what did they do or where did they take a diver you know a diversion into something else that wasn't in the book or something. I was able to just enjoy the movie years ago and then love the books because books are always better. Yeah. Okay my next book is another memoir and it is my body is distant by Paige Nailotte I just finished this book last month two months ago within the last couple of months. Paige is a local author to me. She's a trans woman and this is it's a difficult read in that. It's just not easy being a trans woman. It's just it's not, you know, and she discusses her story. It's like her journey of coming out as a trans woman at the same time she lived like a digital life. Yeah, a digital life and online life through one of these games I can't remember what they would be called because I'm not familiar with them like a role playing game kind of thing with chat rooms and stuff like this in which she built relationships and friendships and at a time when she couldn't be her genuine self she could be in these games online I should say so and it's just it's such a beautiful story. And I've never read anything that she would have alternating chapters between her digital life and her real life. I'm going to say real in that you know because it's all whatever you're experiencing is a real life but her non digital life. Yeah, and I just it's a was such a powerful read, not easy again, not an easy read but powerful. Yeah, that one sounds really good as well I remember you talking about it in more detail and yeah that was, that's an incredible story. My last book and I actually, in each category because I have four, but in each category I actually asterisk, my favorite of the series I mean of that category so I have to say this was my favorite book of all my classics this year. And I don't even know how to pronounce it Ethan from from I don't know how to pronounce. Yeah it's FRO ME but I'm not which would think it would be from but from I don't know by Edith Wharton anyway, I, I mean it's hard to say because I'm old but you know it could be the most tragic book I've ever read in my life I don't know but I love this book so much everything about this book was incredible and mostly, I think the reason it resonated with me because I love a tragic story but I think it resonated with me because the landscape was so beautifully described I, in my mind's eye I will never forget the scene like I, I can see the house I can see when I'm adding Ethan sit down to have this meal and the kitchen is dark and they're eating by you know lamplight and stuff and, and the hill that people go sledding on and the point at which he is traveling and the horse is going through deep snow like everything about it just felt like I was right there in the middle of it and I could just visually see the entire story and I don't know. I mean I'm a visual person anyway so I think I do this when I read books but I think Edith Wharton just had this ability to paint a picture of this story and these people that will live with me in my brain for the rest of my life like I, and I think there is I'm sure there's a movie I'm sure it's been made into a movie and I don't even, oh and I think it was actually made into a movie within the last say 20 years or so. And I'm not even sure if I would watch it but I, yeah I don't know that I would watch it because I kind of love that I have this image in my head of what it is, what it looked like and I love this book even though it's tragic and if you've read it. You know what I'm talking about and if you haven't read it, don't blame me if you don't love the book the story because I'm not going to lie. It was something else. Okay I've never been interested in reading this book until now. Well, and it was hilarious because my sister's boyfriend, he just read the book and it's short I think it's like, I mean, maybe it's 150 pages, I don't even remember it's short, but it was funny because he read it and then he said to me at some point he said, well who what character speaks to you in this book and I said, I'm not telling you anything and then after he finished I said, here's who I made the most impact on me and here's why, because you have to read the book and don't let anybody tell you anything just read it and just feel the book, it's incredible, but and of course it's why that's the thing about classics it's why they're freaking classics. You read them and it speaks to our humanity and everything and it's classic for a reason people return to it they read it they get a lot out of it and that's what he started to say is my sister's boyfriend was saying something about a particular part of the book and I said here's why I think it's this and I was like oh my god like I hadn't thought of that until I was answering his I was responding to him and then it gave another layer to the book that I just went off or crying out loud like it never dawned on me until I was talking to him about it so that's why buddy reads are so good even though this wasn't a buddy read but it draws out things that you maybe didn't think of until you're talking about it with somebody else so I hope that you someday read it. No, I just added it to my TBR, I think I'll like push it up a little bit instead of how I normally goes books go at it chronologically at the bottom I think I'll push it up so I can read it this year, because I am like intrigued. Yeah, and then I want to find out who spoke to you know which character. Yeah, yeah so I think I gotta read it just to find that out. Okay, my last nonfiction book so I have managed to whittle down to kind of five and that I lumped three together, but my last nonfiction is I've not brought to the podcast yet because I just finished it a couple weeks ago, and it is not going to surprise you Rebecca. The knowing by Tanya Talogga. Holy crap. Like, amazing. Everyone should read this book. I can't wait. Yeah, I know we saw her at Eden Mills, and it's kind of like the jumping off point for her to write this book was to find the graveyard of her great the grave site the burial site of her great grandmother I believe. So I thought it was going to be that like that story and the story of her great grandmother and her family which it is, but she does such a deep dive into the history of Canada and residential schools. I thought I was, I thought I had a good knowledge of residential schools, and then I read this book. And she's left nothing on turn like she just. It's, you know, everything like I'm just like, I did not know that like it's she just goes right back from the beginning of history of for Canada, and as a country and how these, and who, how why these schools were put into place. Yeah, and just for those of us in the United States, we will not have access to it until I think it's June of 2025 we cannot get it. So you can't even get it shipped to camp I mean shipped from Canada to the US they won't do that. So we may have to wait a little bit but yeah. Really you can't even get it shipped like if you were to. No, that's that's what's happened for me with Canada reads a couple of times there were books that were because publishers have the ability to make those decisions I don't know why they do that to be honest with you and maybe it's because they have a deal set up for an American edition and they don't want to tip into those sales for something. But yeah, one, I've had to go to Canada to get some books from Canada reads because I could not get them in the US because they were not allowed, because I've even ordered things on Amazon through Canada. And it won't, I can't ship it from there to a US address I can't ship it from the US Amazon to a US address so that's why I'm so thankful for the bookkeeper right across the border. Thank goodness for them. And when you when the American edition comes out to see the cover because the cover of the Canadian one is a Kent milkman painting. Yeah. So it'll be, and usually the American and Canadian covers are different. Oh, absolutely. So that my goal is I will go to the bookkeeper to get my Canadian copy. I think you're up next. So now this is my category for fiction and I have five books in my fiction section. So the, and these were all Canadian authors, except for the number one but anyway. And therefore it's sisters of the spruce by Leslie Shimo Takahara and one of the things I loved about this that I talked about, and I won't go into great detail about all these books but it, it's really kind of a huck fin, Tom Sawyer kind of. With girl characters that were just fierce awesome girl characters and I thought Leslie did a super super job. I would just say, look up the book I don't want to go into a lot of detail but look up the title. Look at my Instagram account where I put a longer review in, but I loved sisters of the spruce set in the BC area by Leslie. It's a fabulous book. Thank you. Right. You interviewed her. The I forgot. Yes, I also interviewed her. Thank you for reminding me of saying that. Yeah. And I did interview her as well. And I really love this book. It's funny when you said when you started this and you're like four of the five are Canadian authors because obviously I've already said my non my fiction is kind of reverse. I was like oh what's going to be on hers but I wonder because I'm like why did I missed what did we think differently about but I think you have a Leslie's book yet. I don't think you've read any of the four that I'm going to mention. Right. Leslie's I think I'm reading it in January actually I have a copy in. Cool. Yeah. Okay so my first fiction book is a collection of short stories and it is co existence by Billy Ray Bell Court. I read this in the spring, I think midway through the year and I. I love this collection. Holy so I've read a lot of, well I think two of Billy Ray's previous books, not his poetry. And I enjoyed them. But they didn't grab me like they like I thought they would. His writing was amazing and I could tell from his earlier works that I'm like he knows how to write, but something didn't grab me emotionally which is what makes a book like a top. And what I read for me is if it's emotionally grabs me as well as and this collection grabbed me right from the beginning I was like done I'm like whatever I found I'm going to put in quotation marks was missing from his writing in the previous books of his that I'd read is in this book like he has found it and that might just be like a maturity thing too with right like because he's still so young. And who knows but I like I'll read everything for sure I was going to anyways like I really did enjoy his earlier books but I'm like hands down will be reading everything he writes from now on. Awesome I love that. And there was like a sneaky I'm going to say sneaky because he throws in a horror story in the middle of this collection. I'm not expecting because it's a literary collection right. And then there's this horror story that was terrifying because I want it really is and to you're not expecting it in this kind of collection. So it throws it in and I flipping love that as well. Yeah I didn't know that okay. My next fiction book is bird suit by Sydney Hegaly. I love their book this was a quirky story. Again I got to interview her interview them. I wrote a review on my Instagram, but this book is this kind of quirky story that has a little bit of magic realism in it. And it's a family drama and I just, to me this was a book that just had a ton of layers to it and that if you read this as a book club book, you would have just so much to talk about. And I really loved this book. This is another one I didn't get to in 2024 but will be in 2025 and I can't wait to read it, like to read it and then discuss it with you. We could do like a little buddy read together. Yes let's do a little buddy read because I definitely would read it. I would read it again because I think again there are layers to it and I think talking it through with someone would make it fantastic. Now the next book I have in my list which is not by ranking. I'm actually going to skip over because I feel like it might be your number one. I think it's probably going to be. So I want to leave it to the end so that you can speak. No, no, I want to save it till the end just to see if it is the same. Okay, I know it is. I feel like it is. So I'm going to leave it. Okay. So my next one is going to be followed by the lark by Helen Humphreys which is her latest book. And it is her, I'm going to say retelling but it really is. And it's her book about, oh my gosh, I forgot to look it up. The American author who lives in a cabin. A throw. Throw. Throw. That's it right. Yeah. It's his story. She tells his story in her beautiful, beautiful writing and I love this. Okay, now I don't want to give anything else away but is this potentially then of all of the ones you've read so far of her this year that that's your favorite of hers or should I not ask that question. No, you can ask. I don't think I can say that it's my favorite because I have loved all of her books equally. And I think I wanted to include her in this list. So I chose her most recent book to go in this list. Because everyone, when I look back on her books, I'm like, yeah, that was a great book. I think it would be hard. If you've loved everything, I think it would definitely be hard. So yeah. So yeah, I just went with her most recent because you can't go wrong. I can go wrong with it. Yeah. My next book from my fiction category is Making Up the Gods by Marion Agnew. And again, you know, I interviewed Mary and I know it sounds like I'm just promoting our past podcast episodes, but it's the truth. I love this book so much that Marion had written a short story first of this one care of the main character in the book and it won a competition. And when she told me that, I thought, I've got to find that art. I mean, that short story. So I did. I went through and got my a friend of mine is an academic library director. And she put it through her interlibrary loan process and I got a copy of it. I read it. I loved that short story and it sort of gave me a little bit more of the characterization of the main character, which I read off the bat. I can't think of her name right off the bat. But anyway, it's about her, this young boy, and this man who was there to sort of a grifter who was going to take something from her. And it's just a really beautiful story. And again, visually, I can see the old cabin. I can see where she lives. I can see them walking through this area in Ontario. It was just a really beautiful story about these three people. And it just was, it just grabbed my heart and I loved it. Okay, my next one is the first by an American author and it is All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whittaker. Read this over the summer. It's a chunky book. I feel like it was 400 plus pages. Okay, I have to interrupt. Yeah, I do not remember you ever talking about this book. Do I know this? Oh my gosh. I don't know if I brought it to the podcast or not. Okay, who's actually I'm checking on Storygraph. It was almost 600 pages. Like it's a chunker of a book and I flew through it because it has short chapters. Plus the story is so propulsive that you're just like you have to read it. And so I'm going to quick synopsis. It takes place 1975 somewhere in the US. I can't remember which state. And there is a serial killer on the loose. And one who is abducting young girls in this one particular little town. And this young boy patch who only has one eye comes across the serial killer is trying to kidnap the one of the prominent fathers, daughters in the woods one day, patch comes across it is able to stop the abduction. The girl gets away. Patch gets taken instead. And due to that happening, patch ends up going on a journey for the majority of his life, looking for something. And so it's the story of patch. It's the story of his best friend and I'm going to see if I can't find her name because she was amazing. No, I don't see it here but he has a best friend who doesn't, while as a child when he has, I'm not really spoiling this happens in the first part of the book. When he patches missing, because he's not a prominent, he's not a member of a prominent family. His best friend is the one that really keeps people looking for him. It's a book about their friendship as they become adults as patch continues to search for something as his best friend becomes a police officer and continues to do something as well. It's about love. It's about a serial killer. Oh my God, it's so good. But the serial killer really is like just a vehicle to get the story of these characters lives and their loves and God it's so good Rebecca, you will love this book. I do remember you talking about it, but I didn't remember the title, nor that it was 600 pages like I just somehow missed that part yeah. Yeah, like it went so quickly that I would have said I knew it was a big book, but I would have said 400 pages when I just saw on 600 and like I did not remember that you just fly through it. Wow. Yeah. My next book is Eleanor Curtin by Lucy and Black, and she wrote the brick works which you and I both loved, but I have to say when I read this book, I, as you know I'm not a romance reader, but this is the exact kind of romance that if I'm going to read a romance this is what I want to read. And again her historical research is absolutely impeccable so it's about Eleanor who comes to Canada from Ireland because her cousin had married a man and had come to Canada and she really is worried about her and she wants to check on her kind of like Mexican Gothic only to me a lot, lot, lot better and there's no Gothic horror going on, but anyway it's the same concept right. She's coming to see how her cousin is, and then she makes her life and it's about this community I mean yes it's the romance which I loved, but even if you hadn't had that romance, I would have still absolutely loved this book because again the research that you feel like you are literally in the middle of that not literally figuratively in the middle of this time period because it's just so amazingly accurate, but it's seamlessly woven in so that it doesn't feel like. Oh, so she's telling us this is what they how they did this or how they did that. It's just a natural part of the story it's almost like it's been written at that time period and not someone who's looking back from 2020 and writing it right. And so I loved it loved it loved it and I am so very thankful that I found Lucy and I will continue to read everything she writes. Yeah, I have to read that book I have to read that one, especially because you really like the brick works I did, and I love the brick works but I have to admit I love this one even a tad more. Yeah, like the brick work almost made my top five here was so close, I like, I was, it was so close. Yeah, I love that one. But you know what we're, it kind of did make our top 10 here because we're talking about we're talking about it absolutely. Okay, so my next one another American author is same as it ever was by Claire Lombardo. This is the story of a marriage essentially it is the story of a marriage. One woman we start at the beginning. Julia is in her 50s married and she in the grocery store meets a woman who she hasn't seen in probably about 20 years. I can't remember the woman's name but she's an older woman who she had a deep friendship with in her 30s when she was a young mother. Something happened that kind of derailed Julia and her marriage for a while. The friendship ends. Then she meets this woman again. And it all comes back so you get the story of what happened in Julia, Julia's life as a young mother in a young as a young wife. And then you get her her story now like in her 50s with two adult children with a marriage and I loved this story. And I think I wrote in my book I don't have it here in my book journal like it was a four star read. Because I really enjoyed it. It's a long book as well. But it was a four star read until like the last 20 pages and then became like a five star week. Like instantly I was like the end of it I'm like, bam, I loved it. And now I want to go back and read I think Claire Lombardo has at least one book previous to this because this is her most recent book and I'll read whatever else she puts out there. And she's an American author or Canadian yes American American okay got it. Yeah. And Julia at time the main, the main character is not a likable character, especially when she's young but I don't know how many of us really are when we're young we're all kind of a holes right like at some point or another. So I raised my hand. So I was like I was okay. I was okay with it. I don't mind unlikable characters and then, you know, by the end of it I love Julia. Great book. Okay, Rebecca, I'm going to bring us home. I think you and I think you and I should say this at the same time did I'm assuming this book is on your list as well. So number one fiction read of the year is James, absolutely. I'm telling you, there's no I there's nothing that we can say about this book other than it just one wasn't the National Book Award or I don't it's one so many things he's won so many things. You haven't read it do yourself a favor read it you will I guarantee you you will absolutely love this book. Yeah, that's all I'm going to say. I know what can you it's a retelling of Huckleberry Finn in which James gets James is the hero. It's just fantastic. It's heartwarming. It's tragic. It's funny. It's personal effort. Yeah, there's vengeance. Come on. It has everything you want in a great American novel. Yes. It's a true American novel. Yeah, yeah. I love it. Okay. That's it folks. I actually have one more so this is right. Yeah, my last one. I have one more. Okay, that's okay. Okay, my last one is my nonfiction I said it earlier in the year that this was going to be the my best. It's not only my favorite nonfiction and I read and let me just say this and I'm sure you will say the same thing. We read so many amazing books because I don't think either one of us we kind of DNF if we're not enjoying something we just DNF right. So we read a boatload of amazing books this year and this is simply, you know, today this is my top 10 could, you know, I could be thinking about something else and change it or whatever but right now this is my top 10. I read a lot of great nonfiction, but outsider and old man a mountain and the search for hidden past by Brett pop a well was my number one nonfiction book by number one read of this year. I loved every single thing about this book. I've done so many deep dives into it and not only well I don't want to say anything because if you read it I don't want to say anything all right. It's a fabulous book read it great nonfiction about an old man who lives in an old bus in the middle of the somewhere in BC like in a wooded area. And he was he had a great life when he was younger, but there's this incredible story about him and his past that Brett helps uncover. And it is nonfiction at its absolute best and I will 100% go back and read other Brett's other stuff he's written a lot for journals as well magazines I'm going to read that I want to read his other books. And I will continue to read him because he just writes the kind of nonfiction that makes me really happy. That's amazing. I'm sorry I lost track of count so I feel like we got like a bonus book there which is awesome. And I love that you found some like a new favorite author in 2024. Yeah so thank you Eden Mills because if it hadn't been for Eden Mills, I would not have known about Brett's book I don't know that it ever would have popped up in my, on my feet or whatever I just don't think it would have. And so that is the thing that's why people should go to literary festivals you will uncover great authors new to you perhaps support them, love their work read them, etc. Yeah. Okay, so that is it folks that is our top reads of the year. We would love to hear what yours are so you can send us a message through Instagram if you're listening on YouTube leave it in the comments, wherever, however you want to contact us let us know your favorite reads of the year if we, if you've read something that we haven't that you think we should that's on your list, let us know because okay maybe Rebecca doesn't but I love building my TBR even so send it to us send it to us. And that's it best wishes and onward to 2025. Thank you for joining us on our bookish journey. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, reading and reviewing Canada Reads American style wherever you listen. You can connect with the podcast and Rebecca on Instagram at Canada Reads American style and with Tara at on a branch reads. Until next time, keep reading.
As Rebecca and Tara close out 2024 and a great year of reading, they share their Top Ten list of books!
Rebecca (@canadareadsamericanstyle):
Ginny Ross Series by Heather Stemp: Amelia & Me; Under Amelia’s Wing; Beyond Amelia
The Street by Ann Petry
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Sisters of the Spruce by Leslie Shimotakahara
Bird Suit by Sydney Hegele
Making Up the Gods by Marion Agnew
Eleanor Courtown by Lucy E.M. Black
James by Percival Everett
Outsider: An Old Man, a Mountain, and the Search for a Hidden Past
Tara (@onabranchreads):
Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast by John Vaillant
Better Living Through Birding by Christian Cooper; The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan; Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder by Julia Zarankin
I'm So Glad we Had This Time Together by Maurice Vellekoop
My Body is Distant by Paige Maylott
The Knowing by Tanya Talaga
Coexistence by Billy-Ray Belcourt
James by Percival Everett
Followed by the Lark by Helen Humphreys
All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whittaker
Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo
Rebecca and Tara want to thank all of you for listening to and supporting the podcast this past year or longer. They look forward to creating more fun and interesting content in 2025!
