The tribe has spoken: The best of 2008

What will he do for a followup?

Winnipeg's Andrew Davidson is easily the top story in 2008 in Manitoba's book world. He earned international attention with the release of his debut novel, The Gargoyle, in August, after being paid advances of least $2 million from publishers in 20-plus countries.

Random House Canada says it is thrilled with the novel's performance, but in the U.S., the literary fantasy has reportedly been a flop, selling only about 10 per cent of the copies needed for Doubleday to make its money back.

Obviously the CF-18 scandal is forgiven

Montreal's Rawi Hage won the $160,000 IMPAC Dublin International Literary Award after his debut novel, De Niro's Game, was nominated by a staffer at the Winnipeg Public Library.

To thank his benefactors, Hage gave a reading at the downtown Millennium Library in October. His followup, Cockroach, won rave reviews but, like De Niro's Game, came up short at this year's Scotiabank Giller and Governor General's awards.

Perhaps they could govern by coalition

Since the summer, the venerable Manitoba Writers' Guild has been mired in bickering and financial red ink, to the point where its very existence is in doubt.

But an upstart group, the Writers' Collective, has been quietly trying to woo guild members.

This year we have two golden girls

Local heroine Miriam Toews made waves in the U.S. with her new novel, The Flying Troutmans, after her previous effort, A Complicated Kindness, was a monster hit in Canada.

In this province the spotlight returned to Beatrice Culleton Mosionier after her 1983 novel, In Search of April Raintree, was tapped as the one book every Manitoban should read.

We're the hot spot -- even in December

The year saw numerous local writers, including Davidson, Toews, David Bergen, Joan Thomas, Daria Salamon, Allan Levine, Chandra Mayor, Michael Van Rooy and Christina Penner, release new fiction.

The Winnipeg publisher Great Plains launched a new literary imprint, Enfield & Wizenty, local bookselling chain McNally Robinson prepared to expand into Toronto, and the late media mogul Izzy Asper was celebrated in a much-publicized biography by heavyweight author Peter C. Newman.

All this prompted the national book trade journal Quill & Quire to dub Winnipeg "the hottest CanLit city."

Fiction

The Cellist of Sarajevo, by Steven Galloway

"Galloway's compassionate story about the consequences of war is riveting from beginning to end."

-- Bev Sandell Greenberg

The Enchantress of Florence, by Salman Rushdie

"Rushdie has done the nearly impossible: made a fairy tale grounded in detailed historical research that reawakens childlike wonder without ever insulting adult intelligence."

-- Jeff Presslaff

The Hour I First Believed, by Wally Lamb

"With a combination of history, current events, and tragedy, Hour is both classic and universally appealing."

-- Kathryne Kouk

Inner City Girl Like Me, by Sabrina Bernardo

"A brutally honest, no-holds-barred look at the lifestyle of our inner-city gangs and a page-turner full of colourful and complex characters."

-- Don Marks

Lush Life, by Richard Price

"It's the success of the New York setting, the warts-and-all characters, and the authentic dialogue that lifts Price's crime novel out of genre fiction into the literary realm."

-- Dave Williamson

The Man Game, by Lee Henderson

"Everything is earned and logical and utterly satisfying... Henderson is the real deal."

-- Debbie Patterson

A Mercy, by Toni Morrison

"Impressive in scope and set during a turbulent and horrific time in America's past.... Its most important aspect is that it offers an alternative perspective to the one most often heard."

-- Elizabeth Hopkins

The Origin of Species, by Nino Ricci

"It's a human comedy that finds laughter and pathos in the space between our god-like self image and our animal reality."

-- Bob Armstrong

Reading by Lightning, by Joan Thomas

"A stunning Prairie novel, vast in its description of a family eking out a living in the dust and mud of a Manitoba homestead.

-- Adelia Neufeld Wiens

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski

"Great stories always speak to human nature, no matter which species delivers the lines."

-- Kendra Gaede

Your Sad Eyes and Unforgettable Mouth, by Edeet Ravel

"Alternately moving, mournful and funny, and has such a harsh ring of truth to it that will be embraced by any child of a parent who has suffered."

-- Sharon Chisvin

Non-fiction

Auditon, by Barbara Walters

"Walters' bestselling new memoir is... smart, brutally honest, insightful and extremely entertaining."

-- Brenlee Carrington

Drive: A Road Trip Through Our Complicated Affair with the Automobile, by Tim Falconer

"Falconer literally steers himself though this fascinating survey of the automobile and its effect on society."

-- George MacLean

The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations, by Brian Fagan

"Fagan agrees with the futurists who argue that future wars could be fought over water rather than oil or nationalist rivalries or religious conflict."

-- Ron Kirbyson

Nothing to be Frightened of, by Julian Barnes

"Has more personality, vitality and depth in any one paragraph than the entirety of the numerous collections of comforting platitudes and bland homilies that tend to congregate whenever and wherever death rears its head."

-- Corey Redekop

Otherwise, by Farley Mowat

"Mowat has been praised and damned through his long career, but no one can deny he is a natural raconteur whose work brims over with enthusiasm, humour, irony and opinion."

-- Harriet Zaidman

Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell

"Once again, (Gladwell) successfully challenges society's way of looking at things, bringing fresh ideas and a new way of looking at things to the concept of success."

-- Julie Kentner

Passchendaele: An Illustrated History, by Norman Leach

"The quality of the photos, in both substance and reproduction, push the statistics off the page and put you in the sodden, mud-laden, poorly made boots of one poor bloody infantryman."

-- Ron Robinson

Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur, by Halima Bashir

"Bashir's book echoes with repeated and unimaginable physical and emotional pain, loss, grief and suffering... (but) is profoundly moving, inspiring and ultimately triumphant."

-- Sharon Chisvin

What is America?, by Ronald Wright

"Wright's devastating and brilliant critique... argues that it was the conquest of the New World, the integration of its crops into the global food supply and the killing of its inhabitants that fuelled the industrial revolution."

-- Michael Dudley

The World Is What It Is, by Patrick French

"(French) has delivered a superb bio of a great writer (V.S. Naipaul) who's an epic failure as a human being."

-- Douglas J. Johnston

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 28, 2008 D0