Some of my current favourite books:

Alessandro Baricco. Silk. 1998. This exquisitely textured story begins in France and Japan in 1861. As sensual as . . . .

Joseph Boyden. Three Day Road. 2005. This one may become as important in CanLit as The Wars and Green Grass, Running Water.

Gil Courtemanche. A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali. 2000 in French, 2004 in English. When I gathered the courage to take this one into the classroom, thirty of forty-two students wrote essays about it.

Anita Diamant. The Red Tent. 1997. If it makes me cry, it must be good.

Cole Harris. Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia. 2002. If more academics wrote with some of Cole’s grace, moral conviction, and self-reflexivity, universities would garner much more respect in our cultures.

Yu Hua. To Live. 1996 in Chinese, 2003 in English. Beautiful, sad, affirming.

Suketu Mehta. Maximum City. 2004. Mumbai as magnet.

Rohinton Mistry. Family Matters. 2002. Indeed, it does. Especially in Mumbai.

Michael Ondaatje. Anil’s Ghost. 2000. Some criticize Ondaatje “for aestheticizing violence.” This novel lays bare the roles that first world, northern, overdeveloped economies assume in third world civil wars.

Edeet Ravel. Ten Thousand Lovers. 2003. What would you do if you fell madly in love with someone who works for the army extracting information from prisoners?

Bill Reid. Solitary Raven: Selected Writings of Bill Reid. 2000. He was a great sculptor, especially of words.

Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go. 2001 in French, 2003 in English. The Kiriyama Prize for Pacific Rim fiction consistently selects scintillating novels. This girl played go in Manchuria during the Japanese occupation. Who would have thought that history could be this passionate?

John Vaillant. The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed. 2005. I like the current story, the mystery, of course; the depth of historical context comes as a bonus.