Really Random Tuesday: Canadian Bookshelf Win & Personal Reading Challenge

For the past two months, Canadian Bookshelf, “the one-of-a-kind resource for discovering, discussing, and indulging in Canadian books,” has been running The Personal Book Shopper Contest, hosted by Julie Wilson aka Book Madam. To enter the contest, participants are asked to describe themselves in five words. Three winners are then chosen at random, and a rotating panel of book people (librarians, booksellers, publishers, authors and book bloggers) selects books for the winners based solely on the words they submitted.

I entered the contest for the first time last month and, thinking I was being clever, decided to describe myself using only words that begin with the letter “q” (inspired in part by Marie at Daisy’s Book Journal, who had described herself as quiet and quirky among other things). My five words were thus quiet, quirky, questioning, Québécoise and quibbler. I considered and discarded quixotic—I don’t think it’s an accurate descriptor—but I didn’t even think of queer until too late!

As you may have guessed, I was one of the three winners last month, and I won nine books! (I was very surprised by this since the previous month the panelists had each picked only one book for each winner.) The books selected for me are the following:

• You Comma Idiot by Doug Harris (Goose Lane)
  
• ManBug by George K. Ilsley (Arsenal Pulp Press)
  
• The Three Fates of Henrik Nordmark by Christopher Meades (ECW Press)
  
• Breakfast with Cora: An Autobiography by Cora Tsouflidou, trans. by Dawn M. Cornelio (McArthur & Company)
  
• Cigar Box Banjo: Notes on Music and Life by Paul Quarrington (D&M Publishers)
  
• Chorus of Mushrooms by Hiromi Goto (NeWest Press)
  
• Sandra Beck by John Lavery (House of Anansi)
  
• Apocalypse for Beginners by Nicolas Dickner, trans. by Lazer Lederhendler (Vintage Canada)
  
• Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel (Unbridled Books)

Not only did I win nine books, but eight are books I’d never heard of before. (I reviewed Last Night in Montreal in 2009, but gave away my ARC, so I’m happy to get another copy.) Since most of these books are not only new to me but also not the type of book I’d likely have picked up on my own (with the exception, perhaps of Chorus of Mushrooms), I’ve decided to create a Personal Canadian Bookshelf Challenge for myself: I want to read and review all these books between now and the end of next summer.

Oh and keep an eye out for the next Personal Book Shopper Contest in September: I just might be one of the panelists!
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Really Random Tuesday is hosted by Suko at Suko’s Notebook. Feel free to join in, copy the button and link back to Suko’s blog.