This is my country, what's yours?
Here is a sample of both fiction and non-fiction books that take you across Canada while sitting in your favourite reading chair...
River in a dry land: a prairie passage
by Trevor Herriot 971.24 HER
This is a luminous portrayal of the lives and myths of the rolling grasslands and forests of Saskatchewan's Qu'Appelle River country.
A walk to New York
by Charles Wilkins 971.1304 WILK
One snowy day in April Charles left his home in Thunder Bay, Ontario and walked until he got to Sixth and 54th in Manhattan at the end of June. Pedestrian will never mean dull to you again after reading this book.
A road for Canada: the illustrated story of the Trans-Canada Highway
by Daniel Francis 388.10971 FRA
Contains photographs some of Francis's own treasured spots from his first trip 35 years ago in an old VW van that had to be parked on a hill so it could be jump-started come morning.
Houseboat chronicles: notes from a life in shield country
by Jake MacDonald 917.1 MAC
An exemplary presentation of what can be done with a flair for storytelling, and an instinct for colourful phrasing by an author who knows and loves this graceful land and whose version of it illuminates our own version.
Village of small houses: a memoir of sorts
by Ian Ferguson 971.23 FERGU
A vivid but merciful recollection of his imperfect parents as they raised a house full of kids during the 1960s in the unpredictable squalor and drama in northern Alberta's Peace River country
This is my country, what's yours: a literary atlas of Canada
by Noah Richler 813.54 RIC
This book is more interesting for its commentary on our national characteristics than its excellent literary analysis. You'll finish this book with a long list of "must reads".
Top 100 unusual things to see in Ontario
by Ron Brown 917.1304 BROWN
Monuments to murders, massacres and mysterious spy camps, temples, towers and quirks of nature offer an insight into an Ontario few even know exists.
Up north: where Canada's architecture meets the land
by Lisa Rochon 720.971 ROC
Sent across Canada in search of architecture that mattered Rochon has written a book accessible to a general audience.
Causeway: a passage from innocence
by Linden MacIntyre BIO 971.6 MAC
A delightful, poignant recollection of a boy watching a mountain disappear into the Strait of Canso. Emotionally moving, full of sadness and humour, but also a historical memoir of Gaelic-speaking refugees in a new country.
The dominion of Wyley McFadden
by Scott Gardiner FIC GARD
A road novel with a twist - McFadden is hauling 1376 rats to Alberta in his specially outfitted camper. Why? Because Alberta doesn't have any rats, that's why. A whimsical, wistful account of what a man can accomplish when he lets his mind - and 1,376 rats - run free.