Congratulations to the B.C. writers whose works were selected for the 2023 CBC Canada Reads debate! The three titles were selected from a longlist of 15 books by Canadian authors. B.C. actor, filmmaker and writer Keegan Connor Tracy will champion Greenwood by Michael Christie. TikTok personality Tasnim Geedi will champion Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Station Eleven by B.C.-born and raised Emily St. John Mandel will be championed by actor Michael Greyeyes.
CBC Canada Reads debates take place March 27-30, 2023 and will be hosted by Ali Hassan.
Greenwood by Michael Christie
In 2038, scientist Jake Greenwood is working as an overqualified tour guide to ultra-rich eco-tourists in one of the world’s last remaining forests. As the rest of humanity chokes on the dust storms that follow the environmental collapse known as the Great Withering, Jake finds temporary refuge on Greenwood Island, a place whose connection to her own family name she had thought just a coincidence — until someone from her past reappears with a journal that might give Jake the family story she’s long craved.
As we move backward in time from the Great Withering to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, and then forward into the future again, we meet an injured carpenter facing the possibility of his own death, an eco-warrior trying to atone for the sins of her father’s rapacious timber empire, a blind tycoon with a secret he will pay a terrible price to protect, and a Depression-era drifter who saves an abandoned infant from certain death, only to find himself the subject of a country-wide manhunt.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.
Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find — her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough, smart, and has an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.
The complete longlist:
Ducks by Kate Beaton
Revery: A Year of Bees by Jenna Butler
Half-Bads in White Regalia by Cody Caetano
Greenwood by Michael Christie
Blood Scion by Deborah Falaye
Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin
All the Seas of the World by Guy Gavriel Kay
Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew
We Were Dreamers by Simu Liu
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Finding Edward by Sheila Murray
Hotline by Dimitri Nasrallah
We Spread by Iain Reid
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
