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Atlantic Canada's 100 Greatest Books

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By Trevor J. Adams and Stephen Patrick Clare

Nimbus Publishing Ltd.

How do a couple of literary buffs determine "Atlantic Canada's top one hundred books of all time?"

Their first step was to determine what actually made a book "Atlantic Canadian."

The criteria they used were books that were published here, written by writers from here, or written by writers who have lived here for a significant portion of their careers. Also, the books had to be prose - no poetry or plays.

The task then was to set up a panel of hundreds of people from the literary community - editors, publishers, critics, writers, journalists, librarians and booksellers - to rank the books. From that collective thought, editors Trevor Adams and Stephen Patrick Clare arranged Atlantic Canada's 100 Greatest Books.

It's not surprising that Alistair MacLeod's No Great Mischief is No. 1. It's one of the most authentic fictional voices ever written in this country, and it has all the right measures of everything a great novel should have.

Many of the titles are from the old masters of the Canadian literary scene, such as Ernest Buckler, Hugh MacLennan, L.M. Montgomery, Thomas H. Raddall and Thomas Chandler Haliburton.

Nonetheless, the list of contemporary writers is also impressive. David Adams Richards' Mercy Among the Children is listed at No. 9. In all, there are five of Richards' novels among the first 65.

Richards is a New Brunswicker hailing from the Miramichi area who has recently returned from years in Toronto to live in Fredericton.

Overall, at least 11 of the writers live, have lived or have a connection to Fredericton, which adds up to 25 or one-quarter of the titles. Others include Raymond Fraser, Alden Nowlan, Herb Curtis and Mark Anthony Jarman.

Wayne Johnston (third on the list for Colony of Unrequited Dreams), Silver Donald Cameron, and Kenneth J. Harvey either studied at or taught or were writers in residence at the University of New Brunswick.

There may also be others who spent time here, such as Richards, Fraser and Johnston, each have five works on the list. The only other with five is L.M. Montgomery.

Atlantic Canada's 100 Greatest Books is a major reference title.

There is one major flaw: biographical notes and accomplishments are included for only the first 10 on the list, which deprives the reader of identifying , even briefly, some biographical data.

- reviewed by MICHAEL O. NOWLAN

For The Daily Gleaner