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The 10 best Atlantic Canadian books of all time

Halifax’s Nimbus Publishing has just released Atlantic Canada’s 100 Greatest Books, a compendium of the best East Coast books of all time. The comprehensive list should function as a good conversation-starter, though as with many such “best of” lists, the rankings are somewhat arbitrary (we’re not sure that most people would consider Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes, #29 on the list, an Atlantic Canadian novel). Still, there is a healthy mix of classics (Ernest Buckler’s The Mountain and the Valley, at #4), contemporary lit (Lisa Moore’s Open, at #18), and works that are less known outside of the Atlantic provinces (Thomas H. Raddall’s The Nymph and the Lamp, at #11).

The top-10 titles are:

1. No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod
2. Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
3. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston
4. The Mountain and the Valley by Ernest Buckler
5. Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
6. Barometer Rising by Hugh MacLennan
7. Random Passage by Bernice Morgan
8. The Lost Salt Gift of Blood by Alistair MacLeod
9. Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards
10. Rockbound by Frank Parker Day

The list was compiled by Halifax journalists Trevor J. Adams and (occasional Q&Q contributor) Stephen Clare, based on the votes of more than 700 authors, critics, librarians, professors, booksellers, and readers.

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