You really can’t go past the short list for the Giller this year for some execptional Canadian reading.  Here is the list along with the Giller jury feedback for each title:

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (winner)

“Imagine Mozart were a black German trumpet player and Salieri a bassist, and 18th century Vienna were WWII Paris; that’s Esi Edugyan’s joyful lament, Half-Blood Blues. It’s conventional to liken the prose in novels about jazz to the music itself, as though there could be no higher praise. In this case, say rather that any jazz musician would be happy to play the way Edugyan writes. Her style is deceptively conversational and easy, but with the simultaneous exuberance and discipline of a true prodigy. Put this book next to Louis Armstrong’s “West End Blues” – these two works of art belong together.”

Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje

“A beautiful mingling of memory and imagination takes place in Michael Ondaatje’s novel The Cat’s Table. It is the early 1950s, and a passenger ship, the Oronsay, makes its way to England over the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, through the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean. On board is our 11-year-old narrator Michael, who eats his meals at the unglamorous cat’s table, where he joins a group of boys and adult eccentrics, all of whom have stories to tell and lives to live, or live down. The journey will change them all in ways that only time will tell. A mature, shimmering work of fiction, Ondaatje’s novel is rich in images, precise in its language, and wise about the way people can be haunted by their own experience.”

Sisters Brothers by Patrick Dewitt

“If you fear that Canadian literary fiction is becoming mortally po-faced, Patrick deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers might be the perfect antidote. Combine equal parts slapstick brutality, howling humour, and prose grace; slug it back neat, brush your teeth for the first time ever with the bemused wonder of a hired assassin on a half-blind horse; and repeat. deWitt has thrown the Western up in the air and brought it down new and strange and ferociously alive.”

The Antagonist by Lynn Coady

“Lynn Coady’s novel The Antagonist is perfectly titled. Its main character, Rank, is hassled, cajoled and bullied by his hockey coach, classmates and most relentlessly by his own outlandish lout of a father into becoming a nearly twisted psychopath. Yet deep down he’s nothing of the sort. In middle age, Rank discovers a secret novel written by his university friend Adam, in which he is harshly depicted. Rank becomes a cyber-stalker, trying to correct in emails all wrongful indictments set forth in the novel. This zany epistolary life comprises one of the most eccentric and memorable autobiographies you’re likely to read. In this antagonistic tour-de-force, Ms. Coady shows us betrayal up close and personal. This author is a virtuoso of sympathetic edginess.”

Better Living Through Plastic Explosives by Zsuzsi Gartner

“Readers who doubt the modern world is grotesque and hilarious, heart‐stopping and wild, may discover they are delighted with Zsuzsi Gartner’s wonderful collection of stories, Better Living Through Plastic Explosives. From the specifications of covetable stereo equipment to the worries of the former terrorist, from the language of IKEA to gardening as warfare, this book shows the short story form at its savage best, each story capturing, with brilliant economy and grace, not only entire worlds but whole mindsets as they explode into eloquence. Gartner is one of the supreme noticers in contemporary fiction, and with this book she has produced a rare work of wisdom and laughter”

The Free World by David Bezmozgis

“This chronicle of the Krasnansky family, Soviet-Jewish refugees are stranded in Rome, has the strange immediacy of a family album where the photographs light up and start talking. The narrative is so often pulled backward in time, it evokes Sholom Aleichem’s proverb that “In Jewish thought eternity resides in the past.” But The Free World is also a very modern, very hip, intellectually intimate, electrically comic novel, all the while a passionate re-telling of the most ancient sort of immigrant story, full of vicissitudes, nerv-wracking doubt and unforeseen joys. David Bezmozgis has done the near impossible – given us a story with pointillist detail as well as historically operatic dimensions. A truly magical writer.”

Muskoka Rooms was set up to address a need in Muskoka to showcase our local accommodation properties.  As resort owners in Muskoka ourselves, we felt a gap in the market.  Other websites do a great job of listing us in Canada or Ontario but sometimes we felt a little lost in the sheer amount of listings.

Muskoka is such a magical place, we really wanted to showcase the beauty and uniqueness of this area alongside the listings.

Please share the link with others to bring more visitors to Muskoka and help to keep our local towns vibrant.

www.muskokarooms.com

Louise

info@muskokarooms.com