The Globe 100

Though it's not officially out until tomorrow, if you're a compulsive snoop and head over to the Globe & Mail Books Pages, you can see that they are publishing their annual Globe 100 list tomorrow. Biblioasis has two inclusions in the top 100 for 2009. Terry Griggs's fabulous farcical slacker-cozy of a literary novel makes the cut of the Canadian novels, as it well should, sitting alongside titles by Annabel Lyon, Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood and company. Sally Cooper enthuses:

Chockablock with winks and digs at the literary set, Thought You Were Dead is a gleeful Russian doll of a novel. Reading it, one trips along, revelling in its wordplay, its wit, its puns and allusions, and its jokes. Then there are the characters: the inventors, writers, realtors and reputation-management specialists who people the antic “sleepy town” of Farclas, Ont. The story is equal parts comic murder mystery, hero’s journey and layered intellectual puzzle, and it satisfies on every level.


Perhaps a bit more surprisingly, Kahn & Engelmann has made the cut as well, this time in the Best Foreign Fiction Category, alongside titles by Zoe Heller, A. S. Byatt, Aleksander Hemon, William Trevor, Lorrie Moore, Nicholson Baker and several others. Very good company indeed. (We have, incidentally, received some even potentially better news about Kahn & Engelmann this eve, though I shall not share it quite yet, for fear of jinxing things. Stay tuned, and I will say more when I can.)

Of Kahn & Engelmann Chris Scott writes: A fascinating family saga, Kahn & Engelmann chronicles five generations of Jewish life. Beginning in 1880 near Lake Balaton, Hungary, the narrative moves episodically from turn-of-the-century Vienna through the 20th century’s convulsions, culminating in the Holocaust, the foundation of Israel and the battles for the survival of the Jewish state.

Other Biblioasis alumni made the cut for books with other presses. Leon Rooke was listed for his collection of short fiction The Last Shot, as was Ray Robertson, for David, both published by Thomas Allen. And though it may be a bit much to claim Annabel Lyon as an alumni, we did publish a chapbook of hers back in 2005, a few copies of which are left. Congratulations to all.