Village Squire, 1976-09, Page 31ABOUT BOOKS
Misinformed
Americans
put down
Canadian
books
BY ELLEN STAFFORD
The New York Times Book Review has
discovered Canada The magazine has been
taking little jabs at us, such as that the
Toronto Star's best seller list shows only one
title -- Marian Engels' Bear, and only four,
they erroneously say, of the non-fiction
bestsellers in Canada are Canadian. Wrong,
because they don't appear to know that The
Man Called Intrepid was written by a
Canadian, nor that Raymond Massey comes
from a long line of Canadian manufacturers.
It's observable, though, that books on the
bestseller list need not necessarily be the best
books published - au contraire, as Jacqueline
Susann et al prove. And from this
perspective, Canadian books don't take a
back seat to those published in the United
States; we have no need of an inferiority
complex, and anyone who thinks we have
hasn't been keeping up with Canadian books.
Which is his -- or her -- bad luck.
Publication of Margaret Atwood's new
novel, Lady Oracle, will send admirers of The
Edible Woman. to their library or bookstore to
pick up this latest romp through the cluttered
mind of a woman writer, seeking to shed
some of her identies, first as fat child then as
writer of Gothics, those romantic popsicles
beloved by many of what one can only, in this
context, call the fair sex. Along the way she
has also made a reputation as a literate poet,
bringing the fame that she eschewed for her
romances written under another name. She
also acquires relationships with an assorted
bag of men, and these too she is trying to
shed as a snake sheds its outlived skin. It
ends as one might assume for such a
mixed-up lady, with yet another man
appearing literally on the doorstep, with no
indication that he will be any more successful
at being the man in her life than the others
have been.
It's at times very funny, but it takes time to
get to that point, with perhaps too indulgent
an accounting of a fat child's world, but
though by no means fast -paced, it's lively and
witty, certain to delight Atwoodians with its
wit.
That personable actor Don Harron,
known across Canada in his other persona as
Charlie Farquharson, will bring joy to the
hearts of his followers -- and the nation's
booksellers -- with his latest epic, coming in
September. Titled Charlie Farquharson's
K.O. R.N. Allmynack, it comes in a paperback
(hooray!) at 54.95 and for people with heavy
thumbs or tough kids, there's a hard cover
edition at 57.95.
The problem of birthdays and of course
Christmas presents is now solved. Charlie's
effort this time is a compendium of advice and
warnings based on the old Farmers'
Almanac, and sure to be every bit as popular.
It contains horrorscopes, forchunes, and
some pretty classic ads that will have
Charlie's followers in stitches, rolling in the
aisles, and all like that there. Try this sample
"thot fer the munth: Lern to take everything
with a grane of salt It'll taste better."
There's more -- much more -- something for
everybody. Charlie Farquharson's K.O. R.N.
Allnynack, Gage. Publishers, paper $4.95
cloth $7.95.
'Mrs. Stafford is proprietress of Fanfare
Books, Stratford, Ontario
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VILLAGE SQUIRE/SEPTEMBER 1976, 29