Hello and welcome! I’m back with the (somewhat) Annual Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards! I’ve been doing this for a few years now (inspired by the incomparable FictionFan). My attempt at these awards petered out last year due to the craziness that was my life in December 2023 but this year I’ve started early and am (hopefully) more organized.
For those who are new or have forgotten, this is where I share some of my favourite reads from the past year and assign literary merit in various categories. I read the books, I create the categories, and I choose all the winners! The prize is the warm feeling that these authors will no doubt feel if they ever stumble across this blog.
This year’s categories will be:
Best Non-Fiction
Best Short Story Collection
Best Translation
Best Canadian Book
Best Fiction
We’ll begin today with Best Non-Fiction but first, of course, the runners-up:
The Fire Still Burns – Sam George
This is a slim memoir that I picked up because Sam George was a featured author at the local Writers Festival last summer. The book was orally dictated as part of a project at Langara College and then published. It is George’s story of his life, primarily his childhood experience as a residential survivor and the pipeline he travelled of residential school to prison and then beyond. I’ve read a few memoirs and novels now from survivors of residential schools in Canada and they will always be heart-breaking. George’s particularly stuck with me because he grew up and went to school not far from where I did and I was very familiar with every location he mentioned.
The Mythmakers – John Hendrix
A more recent read so perhaps that biases it in my memory because it’s still very fresh. But this makes the list simply because it is an uplifting read. I loved its focus on two of my favourite writers and particularly their friendship. We need more celebration of male friendships, I think, and it reminded me of the sweetness of the male fellowship that lies at the heart of The Lord of the Rings.
Our Crumbling Foundation – Gregor Craigie
Another one I read for the Writers Festival. To be honest, I picked this up thinking I’d skim through just to know what it was about but I ended up reading the whole thing and enjoying it. Craigie is a journalist who here delves into the housing crisis in Canada. He alternates looking at different Canadian cities and how we got where we are with looking at solutions being used around the world. Very fascinating and reminded me of how fortunate I am to be a millennial homeowner.
Kingdom, Grace, Judgement – Robert Farrar Capon.
This book was very personally meaningful for me. Capon is an Anglican priest who writes three linked books on the parables of Jesus. In the last few years, I’ve been doing a lot of (sometimes painful) work in examining my Christian faith. Capon’s writing helped me clarify and understand a lot of things I’d been struggling with.
Doppelganger – Naomi Klein
Fun fact: Naomi Klein lives in my town and she shops at my store and I get extremely flustered every time she comes in. I likely would have read this book anyway but Klein was another featured author at the festival last summer. Doppelganger is a hard book to classify because it encompasses so.much. But it was so smart and informed and touched on so many of the current issues in this post-Covid world. It was a big that made me squirm at times in the way Klein holds up a mirror to her community but it’s one I’d recommend to just about anyone.
And the winner is…
Monsters – Claire Dederer.
This was the first book I read in 2024 and I still think about it a lot. In a world where artists around us are (it seems) continually being exposed as deeply flawed humans, it can feel like a constant struggle to know what to do with their art. Dederer delves into this question with empathy and skill.
Karissa Reads Books 
Speaking of Lord of the Rings, every time I see something where Stephen Colbert geeks out on the books — and he HAS to be the most knowledgeable geek about LOTR — it makes me want to try reading them again. That opening chapter is NOT user friendly.
I love how much Colbert loves LOTR! I’ve reread the books a few times and I’ve been beginning to get the itch to read them again. I really want to read them with my girls but I think they’re still probably a bit too young.
An interesting shortlist! Oddly the one that appeals most to me is the one about the housing crisis. We’re having our own housing crisis, and it might be good to see how the problems are being tackled elsewhere. (We’re basically all shouting at each other and doing nothing, which doesn’t seem to be a very successful strategy so far… 😉 )
That one was surprisingly readable. He’s a CBC journalist so he knows his stuff. It’s very Canada-centric but it is an issue in so many cities around the world now. Vancouver is ridiculously expensive and it doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon.
All of these books sound worthy of being on your list. I read a similar essay this year on the housing crisis in Australia. One of the proposed solutions was to improve infrastructure – fast trains and better roads, but the most obvious is to have more medium-density housing built, which means goodbye to The Great Australian Dream – a big backyard.
It’s such a major issue in so many cities around the world now! This book is very focused on Canada but there are lots of interesting ideas. Denser housing is definitely an obvious solution but resisted by a lot of people here too for the same reason.
Well, I just bought Kingdom, Grace, Judgement off the strength of your summary and a quick google – so that’s the one that appeals most to me! It sounds really interesting. The book about the housing crisis does sound interesting as well – I have read a couple of books about the housing crisis in the UK but they were both pretty depressing.
Ooh, I hope you enjoy it! If I remember, you made a church switch around the time of covid too, right? This book helped me work through a lot of what I disagreed with in the church we left and why those things felt contrary to what I felt a church should be.
The housing book is catching everyone’s eye! It’s very Canada focused but it is such a problem in so many places. I liked how he presented both problems and ideas to solve the issue so it didn’t feel too bleak but I also long ago came to terms with the fact that I’ll never be able to afford to live in my hometown!
Yes, I made a church switch as we were emerging from covid. Although I joined a new church straight away, and it has taken me a long time to feel welcome there (for reasons that had everything to do with my old church and nothing to do with the new one). I do feel welcome there now, but it’s been a long couple of years. Hopefully this book will be similarly helpful for me!
Oh, I feel that! It’s been two-ish years at our new church and I still feel like I’m figuring it out. I’ve never experienced divorce but leaving a longtime church feels like it must be a similar experience.
The Mythmakers looks lovely—I clicked through to your review. Gorgeous artwork/illustrations, and a topic very dear to my heart too! (I’m a Tolkien girl but of course read the Narnia books as a kid too.)
It’s really lovely! I’ve read and reread Tolkien and Lewis and I don’t know if could ever pick a favourite but those two men shaped my childhood!
Whoa, Naomi Klein lives there, and shops in your store? Very cool!!!
I haven’t read a single book on your list above, but that’s why I love following other people’s blogs, it gives me good ideas 🙂
She does! You’ve been in the very bookstore that Naomi Klein has shopped in! She’s quite lovely. She and her family have had a place here for a while but moved here more permanently during covid – she actually talks about that move in the book.
That must be super cool to read about…maybe you’ll make an appearance in one of her future books! haha
She’s not always super positive about the community so I’m not sure whether I’d want to appear, haha! Her husband ran for MP in our riding and didn’t win and she talks about going door-to-door to campaign for him.
yikes haha
[…] keep this short because I lauded Klein’s work already in my Best Non-Fiction category. There’s a lot in Doppelganger and it covers a lot of the good and the bad of […]