We decided to celebrate the New Year by asking this past year’s contributors to tell us what their favourite books were in 2010. Here are some of their choices.

W.F. Lantry
Poetry
Stateside by Jehanne Dubrow
Huncke by Rick Mullin
The Gardens of Flora Baum by Julia Budenz
Whale Sound audio chapbooks read by Nic Sebastian
 
One collection I’d like to mention is Jehanne Dubrow’s Stateside. It’s a wonderful book, and I don’t have much to add to the numerous positive reviews it has received. But I do think readers will be well served to listen to her interview on Fresh Air. We even get to hear Jehanne read some of her poems.



Another book, this one deserving of more notice than it has received so far, is Rick Mullin’s Hunke, published in Dublin but available on Amazon. It’s one long poem, discussing the legend and legacy of the late Beat poet Herbert Huncke, and through that discussion treats a wealth of other issues. Long poems don’t seem to get the notice they deserve, and this one merits more trumpets.



My most exiting find of the year was The Gardens of Flora Baum by Julia Budenz. It’s not actually collected anywhere, one has to piece it together from snippets on sites like the Poetry Porch, but it may be the most brilliant poem I’ve found in decades. She wrote it over a period of perhaps forty years, adding to it almost every day, until it reached 12,000 lines in five volumes. She published small portions here and there over all that time, but mostly, she just kept writing. March 2003 was a particularly rich time. It’s worth your time.

I would like to highlight another project, which is pretty new, but seems to hold great promise. Nic Sebastian has begun publishing audio chapbooks on Whale Sound. It’s a nascent effort, and so far there are only a few, but I’m very excited about the idea. Along with other audio projects, like Soundzine, it may be just what the poetry community needs to help us renew our experience of poetry in the digital age.

Lise Weil
Nonfiction
Breathing the Page by Betsy Warland

Betsy Warland’s Breathing the Page (Cormorant Books) is a collection of essays about the act of writing. Though it’s chockful of inspired and very useful advice and support for writers (e.g. how to avoid falling into a “coma story”), what sets it apart from other how-to books is its emphasis on the materials of writing (pencil, page, table, writing room) and also on the body of the writer (e.g.: “The body is far wiser about narrative than consciousness will ever be”). In addition, these essays are themselves writing acts,
instances of often beautiful and profound poetic prose.

Fiction
The Obituary by Gail Scott

Gail Scott’s The Obituary (Coach House Press) is a quest-for-origins narrative with a murder mystery spliced in. The backdrop is genocide, in particular the one on which our own culture has been built: “the gêne on which we standing.” It’s difficult reading—sentences are fractured, syntax is unusual, and the narrative is distributed between the protagonist Rosine, a politically correct historian who is mainly relegated to footnotes, and a fly—but the writing is masterful and the rewards voluminous, particularly for local readers. This book captures the human sounds peculiar to Montreal like nothing else I’ve read and unearths layers and layers of urban history. The depiction of yuppefying Mile End is brilliant and often hilarious. Rereading is highly recommended.

Poetry
L’étreinte des vents by Hélène Dorion

Hélène Dorion’s L’étreinte des vents (University of Montreal Press) is set in a far-off island where a woman has retreated in the wake of a devastating break-up. Somewhere between novel, prose poem, and long essay, it’s a meditation on love, the end of love, and what begins when love ends; grief as initiatory experience. I copied long passages into my journal.

Mark Paterson
Fiction
Annabel by Kathleen Winter
The End of the Ice Age by Terence Young
Krakow Melt by Daniel Allen Cox

Annabel by Kathleen Winter
I don’t know that I’ve ever been so happy to feel so sad: it was Annabel’s unrelenting
tragic mood that won me over more than anything. In the end I found I hadn’t had enough
of Kathleen Winter so I picked up boYs, her award-winning short story collection. It was,
while not a 2010 book, the favourite of my reading year.

The End of the Ice Age by Terence Young
Terence Young’s fifth book (and second short story collection) lulls you with the
everyday and the seemingly mundane and then you get crushed by something so real that
you curse out loud and even though the librarian might throw you out you keep reading.

Krakow Melt by Daniel Allen Cox
Young queer pyromaniac artist with a soft spot for Pink Floyd fights entrenched
homophobia in Poland on his own terms. And there’s sex.

Wendy Thompson Taiwo
Nonfiction
Strange Trade: The Story of Two Women Who Risked Everything in the International Drug Trade by Asale Angel-Ajani

Angel-Ajani went to Italy’s Rebibbia Prison and interviewed African female inmates, many of whom had gotten caught up in the drug trade. What she walked away with was a research experience that became far more personal than she’d ever expected. Having the background of an anthropologist whose mother and father both spent time in prison, Angel-Ajani writes about two women in particular–one from Liberia, the other from Uganda–who left very different life circumstances behind to enter into the drug underworld. Strange Trade combines anthropological inquiry with personal narrative to give readers a glimpse into the difficult choices facing African women and the lengths some will go to stay afloat in a rapidly moving global economy.

Fiction
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin

Just like I love hearing my Yoruba partner tell me about his childhood, his family, and his community back in Nigeria, I love reading stories about everyday Nigerian life written by Nigerian authors. Lola Shoneyin, the daughter-in-law of Nobel Literature Laureate Wole Soyinka, writes a story of the polygamous Alao household whose members become thrown into disarray when the patriarch marries his fourth wife. A young university educated woman, Bolanle’s presence causes her co-wives to plot and scheme. In addition, her failure to conceive leads the entire Alao clan into a revelation of secrets. It’s a novel about polygamy written from the inside–Shoneyin’s maternal grandfather Abraham Olayinka Okupe had five wives (her grandmother was his first) and this marital choice would leave a lasting negative impression on members of the family; Shoneyin’s parents would dissuade her and her siblings from marrying potential mates who came from polygamous households. Thanks to her entertaining writing style, Shoneyin has created an interesting and at time humorous foray into a most definitely complicated living (and loving) arrangement.

Steven Mayoff
Fiction
The Young In Their Country by Richard Cumyn

My reading habits are somewhat haphazard, so it’s rare that I read new books in any given year, preferring to let books somehow make their way to me in their own time. One book that was released in 2010 that did make it to my reading list was the wonderful story collection, The Young In Their Country by Richard Cumyn. I can’t tell you whether it was the best book of last year or even my favourite book (since I don’t really believe in either of those things), but I do highly recommend it. Cumyn’s great talent as a writer is how he mines ordinary situations to reveal a skewed vision of the world. This talent is highlighted by the collection’s running theme of life experiences as viewed through new and old eyes alike. Whether it be a young man’s audacity in trying to land his first job, a social worker’s struggle to understand an act of senseless violence or a dry cleaner navigating his feelings for a younger female customer, these stories take unexpected turns to show us how everything old can become new again (and vice versa).

Heather Davidson
Poetry
Patient Frame by Stephen Heighton
The Irrationalist by Suzanne Buffam

Two of my favourite poetry books of 2010 were both House of Anansi titles: Steven Heighton’s Patient Frame and The Irrationalist by Suzanne Buffam. Buffam became my new favourite philosopher, as her witty and heartfelt poems revealed a world where “Light plucks the coins from your eyes”. Heighton initially won me over with his poem “Some Other Just Ones”, but the rest of the collection is just as good.

Nina Bunjevac
Graphic Fiction
Special Exits by Joyce Farmer

This is one of the best books I have ever read in this genre. No other work of graphic fiction came even close to this one in 2010. The consistency of style and visual rendering, combined with realistic dialogue and the author’s intimate knowledge of the subject all make Special Exits an easy read. However, the true strength of this book comes from the emotional effect it has on those who read it - half way through it I called my stepdad to tell him that I love him – when I finished reading it I called my mom and did the same.

Finn Clarke
Fiction
Started Early, Took My Dog, by Kate Atkinson

Started Early, Took My Dog isn’t my favourite Kate Atkinson book, but it’s certainly my favourite book for 2010. Although it fits within the crime genre, as usual she is more interested in exploring her characters than plot, so although there is the now familiar childhood tragedy (and less familiar childhood salvation), what really stays with you are her people. They are flawed, brave, stubborn, irrepressible and have a black sense of humour. In this particular book they also seem to be obsessed with quotes from Emily Dickenson, no matter what their education, which while commendable seems unlikely – but this is a minor niggle in an otherwise strong cast. Jackson Brodie, more battered and bemused by life than ever, never loses his morale compass and while my favourite, DI Louise Monroe (who only knows how to love a man by tearing him to pieces) has just a cameo, her absence is more than made up for by the dementing Tilly and solid, retired Tracy Waterhouse - whose one moment of madness sets the novel off. If you’ve not read Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie series, then start at the beginning with Case Histories, but leave a free schedule and take the phone off the hook for When Will There Be Good News? If I could write a novel as good as that one, I’d die content.

William Roby
Poetry
Lighthead by Terrance Hayes
Other Flowers by James Schuyler
The Cloud Corporation by Timothy Donnelly

Lighthead by Terrance Hayes
Every review of Hayes’ books will use the words “jazzy” or “hip” or even “jarring.” I won’t do that.  I’ll just say that while yes, this book won the National Book Award in America, it is anything but “in the mainstream.” No one clip can do the book justice, so go ahead and buy it.

Other Flowers by James Schuyler
These uncollected poems by New York school poet James Schuyler are as exciting as anything being written today.

The Cloud Corporation by Timothy Donnelly
What more do you want? Pretty words in a pretty order. This is Donnelly’s second book, and there’s no evidence of a sophomore slump.

Sharanya Manivannan
Poetry
Love Stands Alone: Selections from Tamil Sangam Poetry by ML Thangappa

Fiction
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

Nonfiction
Following Fish by Samanth Subramanian

John Barta
Poetry
Good Poems
Good Poems for Hard Times

These last two were not actually published in 2010, but John says: “these are two highly accessible poetry anthologies collected by Garrison Keillor, featuring a star-studded cast of poets.” Good enough for us!

Want to share your favourite books from 2010? Send us an email telling us the title of the book, the genre, and a few sentences on why you liked it.