“I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.”

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

While staring at the dust bunnies and wondering what to write for the next blog, my mind wandered to the novel I’m reading, Joseph Boyden’s harrowing Through Black Spruce. My thoughts travelled further back to the last novel I read, Where White Horses Gallop by Beatrice MacNeil, then to the book before that. I grabbed a pen and started jotting down everything I can remember reading during my sabbatical thus far. Herewith, in no particular order, my list:

Novels:

The Diviners, Margaret Laurence

No Great Mischief, Alistair MacLeod

The Boys in the Trees, Mary Swan

The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, MG Vassanji

The Assassin’s Song, MG Vassanji

Kiss The Joy as it Flies, Sheree Fitch

Quintet, Douglas Arthur Brown

Glass Voices, Carol Bruneau

Where White Horses Gallop, Beatrice MacNeil

Short Story Collections:

The Watermelon Social, Elaine McCluskey

When She Was Queen, MG Vassanji

The Lost Salt Gift of Blood, Alistair MacLeod

As Birds Bring Forth the Sun, Alistair MacLeod

Barnacle Love, Anthony de Sa

Non-fiction:

Paper Shadows, Wayson Choy

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, Bill Bryson

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris

A recent letter to the editor in a Canadian national newspaper lamented the fact that “barely half of Canadians can name even a single Canadian author, or that a federal department that calls itself Canadian Heritage doesn’t know how to spell the name of this country’s most beloved author, the late Margaret Laurence.”

Humph.

There are thirteen authors on my list. All but two are Canadian; I had little trouble remembering their names. As a writer friend reminded me, readers will remember who they’ve read. And that’s what really matters.