Margaret Laurence Home to host Canada Reads in April

By Casper Wehrhahn Neepawa Banner & Press

Passionate thought and discussion are sure to be shared in the coming weeks as the 2023 edition of Canada Reads gets underway. The annual event, hosted at the end of March by CBC, highlights five different books being defended by five debaters. As the event goes on, a book is ‘eliminated’ until one remains. The books for this year are Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton, Greenwood by Michael Christie, Hotline by Dimitri Nasrallah, Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

Closer to home, Neepawa’s Margaret Laurence Home will once again be hosting it’s own version of the event on Apr. 17. The reading evening will take place at ArtsForward in Neepawa, beginning at 7:00 p.m.

“We held the event there last year and found that the venue just worked really well,” said board member Blair Chapman.

Chapman added, “While the CBC event will focus on debates, our version is more centred on generating discussion about the books. We’ve got five local readers who have been recruited to read [this year’s] books and do a short presentation as part of the evening.”

With the space and amenities available via ArtsForward, the evening will also include drinks and snacks, cheese and a glass of wine.

The readers the Margaret Laurence Home has selected are Don Walmsley, Nancy Hunter, Chad McCharles, Tani Major and Brenda Osmond.

About the books

Ducks is an autobiog- raphy in the form of a graphic novel recounting Beaton’s time working in the Alberta oil sands. Intending to pay off her student loans, Beaton leaves her tight-knit seaside community in Nova-Scotia to head west, encountering harsh realities– including the everyday trauma that no one discusses.

Greenwood takes place in the year 2038, most of the world having suffered from an environmental collapse. However, there is a remote island with 1,000 year-old trees where Jake Greenwood works as a tour guide. The novel takes you back in time as you learn more about Jake, her family and how secrets can have an impact throughout generations.

Hotline is a novel about Muna Heddad, a widow and mother who has left behind a civil war in Lebanon and is living in Montreal in the 1980s. There, the only work she can find is as a hotline operator at a weight-loss centre, fielding calls from people respond- ing to ads in magazines or on tv. These strangers share their challenges, from marriages gone bad to personal inadequacies. Although her life in Canada is filled with invisible barriers, Muna is privy to her clients’ deepest secrets.

Mexican Gothic is a gothic horror set in 1950s Mexico. It illustrates the story of a young woman, Noemí, who is called by her cousin to save her from doom in her mysterious

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and alluring countryside home known as High Place. Although Noemí doesn’t know much about the house, the region or her cousin’s mysterious new husband, she’s determined to solve the mystery and save her cousin, whatever it may take.

Station Eleven is a dysto - pian novel set on an Earth that’s been undone by disease and follows the interconnected lives of several characters, both before and after the plague. Among them are actors, artists and those closest to them. One travels the wastelands performing Shakespearean plays with a troupe, while another attempts to build a community at an abandoned airport and yet another amasses followers for a dangerous cause. Copies of each book will be available for purchase at the event, but can also be purchased ahead of time by contacting Chapman via phone at 204-476-2359.