Catherine Coles
Coles Notes
The Ontario Library Association’s Evergreen Award is best described as the “readers’ choice” of Canadian literary awards.
Each year, a list of 10 nominees is selected by a committee of librarians and in September library patrons from all across the province can vote on their favourite. The winner will be announced during Ontario Public Library Week in October.
As is usually the case, the 2019 Evergreen list features a diverse list of titles. It spans multiples genres, includes both fiction and non-fiction, and features diverse authors and perspectives. It is certainly a book list that is well-representative of what Canadian authors have to offer Canadian readers. You only need to read one the following titles to be eligible to vote and you have until September to participate.
In All Things Consoled: A Daughter’s Memoir, acclaimed novelist Elizabeth Hay has written a poignant, complex, and hugely resonant memoir about the shift she experienced between being her parents’ daughter to their guardian and caregiver.
Foe by Iain Reid is an unexpected novel set in the near future. Farm dwellers Junior and Henrietta have their lives disrupted when Junior is called for a distant mission and Henrietta receives an unconventional replacement so her husband won’t be missed.
French Exit is a smart, social comedy by Patrick deWitt, author of The Sisters Brothers. Bankrupted by her infamous litigator husband’s tabloid death, a scandal-fearing widow flees New York for Paris, where her deadbeat son and she navigate near-comic self-destructive choices.
Set in 1950s upstate New York, Hysteria by Elisabeth de Mariaffi follows Heike, a young mother with a muddled history. Under a haze of medication administered by her controlling doctor husband, she begins to witness strange happenings at an abandoned cabin near their summer home. This is an atmospheric novel of psychological fiction.
In I’m Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya, the author, a trans artist, explores how masculinity was imposed on her as a boy and continues to haunt her as a girl–and how we might reimagine gender for the 21st Century.
The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore by Kim Fu follows a group of young girls as they embark on an overnight kayaking trip in the Pacific Northwest, only to be separated from their adult counselors and subjected to a life-changing event.
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice imagines a small community on the precipice of winter without power or communication where leaders must grapple with control, restore order, and save their people from a grave fate.
The Return of Kid Cooper by Brad Smith is a western set in 1910. It follows Nate Cooper, an old-school cowboy who grapples with the changes brought by the turn of the century.
The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson is a short, bittersweet coming-of-age story in the vein of Stranger Things and Stand by Me about a group of misfit kids who spend an unforgettable summer investigating local ghost stories and urban legends
Vi is the perfect complement to the bestselling novels Ru and Mãn by Canada Reads winner Kim Thúy. It exploring the lives, loves and struggles of Vietnamese refugees as they reinvent themselves in new lands.
You can reserve any of the 2019 Evergreen titles today at your local branch or online at www.countylibrary.ca.
Catherine Coles is the manager of library services for Lennox and Addington County.