Christine Leclerc

Top recent:

The Anatomy of Story by John Truby

Who Opens by Jesse Seldless

Top five all time:
Hooked On Growth by Douglas E. Booth

Briefing for a Descent Into Hell by Doris Lessing

The Baron In the Trees by Italo Calvino

"Lemonade" by Timothy Findley

The Unspoken a film directed by the guy who did The Basketball Diaries... not sure if it was ever released, so I probably shouldn't put it on my list, but it affected me so deeply I can't resist.

Each of the above works changed my life forever.

Larissa Buijs

Top five right now:

1. The Glass Castle – Jeannette Walls. An amazing memoir about a girl who survives supremely irresponsible parents.
   

2. The Journalist and the Murderer – Janet Malcolm. A close look at a lawsuit regarding journalists’ conduct with interview subjects. A must-read for any journalism or non-fiction student.

3. The New New Journalism – Robert S. Boynton. A great set of interviews with whacked-out writers. Inspiring and terrifying.
   

4. What It Feels Like for a Girl – Jennica Harper. Wonderful contemporary poetry.

5. A Complicated Kindness – Miriam Toews. Okay, so I read it awhile ago, but it’s still on my mind. In a good way.
   

Top five all time:

1. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho. Classic fable about following your dreams.
   

2. By The River Piedra, I Sat Down And Wept – Paulo Coelho. Same as above, but sort of a women’s version.

3. Into The Wild – Jon Krakauer. NF story about an idealistic young man. Brilliantly researched and humbly written. Krakauer is a god.

4. Life of Pi – Yann Martel. Nobody mentioned this yet. A true work of art.
   

5. Empty (lyrics) – Ray LaMontagne. The guy is brilliant, and because I just took a lyric class this deserves mention. I can’t live without LaMontagne.

Dan Schwartz

1. Roberto Bolano - 2666

900 page epic about killings in Mexico. Amazing.

2. Jorge Luis Borges - Labyrinths

collection of Borges stories, it is great

3. Sherwood Anderson - Winesburg, Ohio

good book of stories about American problems

4. Alice Munro - Runaway

finally got around to reading it, as good as said

5. Bryan Lee O'Malley - Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe

c'mon, it's scott pilgrim

Top Five Books of All Time: (at least for now)

1. Julio Cortazar - Blow-Up and Other Stories

it's so good

2. Raymond Carver - Will You Please Be Quiet Please?

again, it's so good

3. Eudora Welty - The Golden Apples

i am amazed by it, and still don't understand most of it

4. Franz Kafka - The Metamorphosis

i mean talk about things that are great

5. Raymond Chandler - Farewell, My Lovely

one of my favorite authors

And Now a Word From Our Sponsors (Not Really)

Watch this! Get inspired!
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

Elizabeth Ross

My Current Top Fives Are:

Mortal Arguments - Sue Sinclair
Intuition and such beauty. How does she do this?

Short Haul Engine - Karen Solie
Kind of in the same realm as Home of Sudden Service to me.

Mean Boy - Lynn Coady
A novel about creative writing workshops. Need I say more?

Kingdom, Phylum - Adam Dickinson
I feel like a lobotomy victim as I read this, but in a good way.

Dance of the Happy Shades (Collected stories) - Alice Munro
All hail.

Steadfast 5's:

Home of Sudden Service - Elizabeth Bachinsky
So damn good, it's the book of poems I wished I'd written.

Another Gravity - Don McKay
Funny, clever, musical, parataxis to a tee!

Dream Work - Mary Oliver
Heartbreakingly sad and smart poetry.

The Gold Cell - Sharon Olds
Drop-kick-to-the-gut poetry.

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
I'm obsessed with the ending. Someone help me.

Dina Del Bucchia

Books of the now:

(Almost all of these are brand new and available at your favourite local bookstore. That bookstore is Duthie Books. Please don't put me out of a job. Stupid Amazon.)

1. Lark and Termite - Jayne Anne Phillips
Gah. Gorgeous.

2. The Women - TC Boyle
Outrageous ladies in love with an eccentric architect.

3. The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery
The original title of the translation of this french novel was Welcome to Awesometown.

4. Don't Cry - Mary Gaitskill
Dark stellar stories.

5. Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry - Leanne Shapton
A fake auction novel. You read that right.

Books of All Time

1. Beautiful Losers - Leonard Cohen
Hilarious, sexy, startling, gritty, experimental Canadian fiction. Also, the author is super hot.

2. The Favourite Game - Leonard Cohen
What? I can't have two books by the same author on my list? Suck it jerks.

3. What's Not to Love? The Adventures of Mildly Perverted Young Writer - Jonathan Ames
Obvious. Next.

4. Drop City - TC Boyle
Hippies falling apart everywhere.

5. Pastoralia - George Saunders
Will break your heart and send beer flying out of your nostrils.

Special Bonus Title (with chocolate sauce):
Elementary Particles - Michel Houellebecq
-Seriously, why have you all not read this? Don't talk back.

John Mavin

Top Five Books of the Moment:

1. Cory Doctorow – Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
People living in Disney World – what’s not to like?

2. Tim Winton – Cloudstreet
good and gritty Australian writing

3. Keri Hulme – The Bone People
set in New Zealand – hey , I used to live there

4. Alistair MacLeod – No Great Mischief
been to most of these places – love the writing

5. Lori Lansens – Rush Home Road
keeping up with the geography thing – this is where I grew up

Top Five Books of All Time:

1. David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas
the most meticulously-crafted structure I’ve ever seen

2. John Fowles – The Collector
flipping POVs, utterly creepy

3. Tennessee Williams – The Glass Menagerie
the first time I read this play, my reaction was "holy crap!"

4. Edward Albee – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
time to go to the euphemism (read the play, it’ll make sense)

5. Vladimir Nabokov – Lolita
one of the all-time most unreliable narrators

(and because Rachel said Nabokov, too:)
6. Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid’s Tale
well written SF -- 'nough said

Roger Pylypa

Top Five Recent Books

1. Oryx and Crake – Margaret Atwood.

Hybrid futuristic chemically-induced world.

2. The Flying Troutmans – Miriam Toews.

F’ing funny roadtrip.

3. Kira Kira – Cynthia Kadohara.

Children’s fiction.

4. Long Path to Freedom – Nelson Mandela.

5. Godel, Escher, Bach – Douglas Hofstadter.

Just read the easy parts if you like.

Top Five All-Time Reads

1. The Aeneid – Vergil.

So what if it’s 2000 years old?

2. Ulysses – James Joyce.

If Wilde could see us now.

3. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie.

Booker of Bookers. Too many nose jokes.

4. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

5. The Consolation of Philosophy – Boethius.

Only 1500 years old.

Rachel Knudsen

Top Five Books of the Moment:

1. Eden Robinson - Monkey Beach

2. Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man is Hard To Find

3. Lynn Coady - Play the Monster Blind

4. Richard Ford - Rock Springs
Empire is the best short story ever. Well, not really. But maybe almost.

5. Nancy Lee - Dead Girls
Had me on the edge of my seat the whole way through. Heartbreaking.

Top Five Books of All Time:
1. Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita

2. Bill Gaston - Deep Cove Stories
Gaston taught me that bizarre, psychedelic writing is kosher in Can Lit.

3. Edith Wharton - House of Mirth

4. Kurt Vonnegut - Breakfast of Champions

5. Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass

Michelle Miller

Top Five Books of the Moment:

1. Lisa Moore - Alligator

2. Andrew Kaufman - All My Friends Are Superheroes
Because you know what? Reading should be fun.

3. Lynn Coady - Mean Boy

4. Alison Bechdel - Fun Home
Oh man, because comics can totally be tragic and funny and depressing.

5. Anne Carson - The Beauty of the Husband

Top Five Books of All Time:

1. Margaret Laurence - The Diviners

2. Judy Blume - Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
I spent my childhood wishing for a Sylvia Simon.

3. Tom Robbins - Another Roadside Attraction

4. Marilyn French - The Women's Room
Feminism is sexy. It is.

5.Margaret Atwood - The Robber Bride
So are women with complex relationships.