Canadian literature...

[fajrdrako]

I always enjoy the way Amazon sends me messages advertising books they think I might like, and dammit, half the time they're right. They know my weaknesses. They offered me an Annie Dillard book yesterday, one I didn't already know about. I was thrilled.

So today they sent me a message beginnig, "As someone who has bought Canadian literature or fiction at Amazon.ca, you might like...."

I did? What? When? I never buy Canlit! I'm allergic to Canadian literature, partly because of bad experiences with it in high school, partly because of bad experiences with it in general. (No, I am not a Margaret Atwood fan. How'd you guess?)

Not that there aren't Canadian writers whom I love: Guy Gavriel Kay, Karen Lowachee, Antonine Maillet, Jane Rule.... but I haven't bought any of them from Amazon.

Maybe I bought something by a Canadian I didn't know was Canadian. Or maybe they made it up.

Comments

[dejla.livejournal.com]

If any ordinary writer had written The Handmaid's Tale, then it would have been stuck in science fiction and nobody but science fiction would read it--cf Sherri Tepper's GRASS. But because Margaret Atwood wrote it, it's literature and people have to read it in school.

That's one of the books I think is vastly overrated--The Handmaid's Tale.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

You're a Canadian. You read literature. OBVIOUSLY you read CanLit. :-) :-) :-)

I would add Jo Walton and Robert Charles Wilson to a list of good Canadian SF/F authors.

In fact, there are some CanLit authors you'd like, even if you're allergic to Atwood. And lots and lots and lots of good Canadian non-fiction authors.

[lunacy-gal.livejournal.com]

CanLit never fails to depress me.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

One time I bought a romance book and a gardening book, so their suggestion was an S&M manual with "Roses" in the title. O.o

[filkferengi]

Do you like mysteries? Mary Jane Maffini is quite good; I've enjoyed books in two of her series. [ http://www.maryjanemaffini.ca/ ]

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

I think they took your mailing address and made a leap of faith with it: you are a Canadian, therefore they can tell you they know you've read Canadian authors. The marketing version of a form letter....

Great about Annie Dillard. What is the book?

I am also not a Margaret Atwood fan. I was disgusted by The Handmaid's Tale, and bored by her other stuff. Great for her that she's famous, yay. But... couldn't care less, myself. One thing that bothers me -- she happens to be at the center of it, but couldn't know this -- is that some professors at IUP got into the habit of assigning that book to introductory sociology students. Now, I have a deep problem with forcing anyone to read something this sexually atypical -- not everyone can deal, especially not at age 18 or 19. Yet still the practice continues. Feh! (And so says the person who read Stranger in a Strange Land at twelve, and is happy to have done so.)