{"id":8566,"date":"2011-02-09T14:47:18","date_gmt":"2011-02-09T19:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/?p=8566"},"modified":"2011-02-09T14:47:18","modified_gmt":"2011-02-09T19:47:18","slug":"examining-canada-reads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/?p=8566","title":{"rendered":"Examining Canada Reads"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_8567\" style=\"width: 209px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/comicscomicsmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/essexcounty.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8567\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8567\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/comicscomicsmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/essexcounty.jpg?resize=199%2C300\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-8567\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lemire&#039;s Essex County<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u00a0Jeff Lemire&#8217;s graphic novel <em>Essex County<\/em> was one of the five nominees for Canada\u00a0 Reads, a very influential (at least in terms of book sales) Canadian book award. Lemire didn&#8217;t win, but just his nomination and the debate around the book among the jurors opened a fascinating window into how comics are regarded by the larger culture. If you go <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/books\/canadareads\/watchlisten.html\">here<\/a>, you can find podcasts of the entire Canada Reads show for the year. <em>Essex County<\/em> is extensively discussed on round one (where it was eliminated).<\/p>\n<p>For those interested in learning more about Canada Reads and its place in the Canadian literary ecosystem, I have an in-depth article on that very topic in <em>The Walrus<\/em>. You can read it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.walrusmagazine.com\/articles\/2011.03-radio-the-life-raft\/\">here.<\/a>\u00a0My own take on Essex County can be found <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bookforum.com\/inprint\/015_03\/2760\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>An excerpt from <em>The Walrus<\/em> article:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It\u2019s a measure of how profoundly Canada Reads has reshaped our literary landscape that the show has turned novelists \u2014 usually a rather introverted lot who spend their days locked away wrestling with sentences \u2014 into arm-twisting politicos eager to woo the crowd. The show\u2019s importance can be explained in simple economic terms. Only a small circle of Canadian novelists, such as Margaret Atwood and Douglas Coupland, earn a living from their craft. For the vast majority who fall outside this fortunate club, only two surefire roads to bestsellerdom and financial security are available: you can win either the Giller Prize or Canada Reads. This is the bleak reality behind the unsettling eagerness of writers lobbying to be shortlisted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0Jeff Lemire&#8217;s graphic novel Essex County was one of the five nominees for Canada\u00a0 Reads, a very influential (at least in terms of book sales) Canadian book award. Lemire didn&#8217;t win, but just his nomination and the debate around the book among the jurors opened a fascinating window into how comics are regarded by the larger culture. If you go here, you can find podcasts of the entire Canada Reads [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[642,1358],"class_list":["post-8566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-jeff-lemire","tag-walrus"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}