Books of the Year 2010

There’s no formula for choosing the books of the year. Some break ground, some tackle familiar themes with new energy. Some represent the best work from established authors, some introduce us to important new voices. And some are simply in-house favourites we feel deserve a little more attention. Together, these 20 books made the biggest impact in 2010.

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Books of the Year 2010: Fiction and Poetry

There’s no formula for choosing the books of the year. Some break ground, some tackle familiar themes with new energy. Some represent the best work from established authors, some introduce us to important new voices. And some are simply in-house favourites we feel deserve a little more attention. Here are the Fiction and Poetry books that made the most impact in 2010.
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Daily book biz round-up, March 15

What you missed over the weekend:

• Yet more op-ed pieces about Amazon setting up shop in Canada. Michael Geist argues for. Morley Walker argues against. (Oh, and some writer from the Calgary Herald rips the Canadian Booksellers Association a new one)
• Still no decision on Amazon from Ottawa
• E-reader that nobody cared about to be delayed
• Doug Wright Awards finalists named
• Spanish author Miguel Delibes dies
• Norman Mailer’s son posts e-book “that explores post-Katrina New
  Orleans from the perspective of strippers”
• The evolution of Joan Thomas
• Scottish author A.L. Kennedy doesn’t want to be part of club that would have her as member
• Does iPad text-to-voice function violate an author’s audiobook rights?
• The Millions on how to get started in publishing
• St. Martin’s to publish sordid, tawdry details of Dame Judi Dench‘s life

Joan Thomas takes Amazon first novel award

The winner of this year’s Amazon First Novel Award is Winnipeg author Joan Thomas, who won for Reading by Lightning (Goose Lane Editions). A coming-of-age tale set in rural Manitoba around the time of the Second World War, the novel previously won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best first book in the Canadian and Caribbean category.

Read Q&Q‘s review of Reading by Lightning (in which reviewer Maureen Garvie writes, “Most first-time novelists strain for the gold ring; Joan Thomas grabs it effortlessly in this wonderful book”).

Thomas won the $7,500 prize at an awards gala in Toronto on Wednesday night. She was up against Michael Blouin’s Chase & Haven (Coach House Books), Claudia Dey’s Stunt (Coach House), Patrick Lane’s Red Dog, Red Dog, Mary Swan‘s The Boys in the Trees (Henry Holt), and Padma Viswanathan’s The Toss of a Lemon (Random House Canada).