CROSS COUNTRY CHECKUP'S CHRISTMAS READING LIST, November 26, 1995

From Rex Murphy's introduction to the program:

"We discovered to our delight, but not surprise, last summer that very many of the listeners to CCCU are fond of reading, great readers, great boosters of reading or a commendable salad of all of the above. So, when with those same eager readers' help, we compiled a loose list of books recommended for a summer's read, it was extremely gratifying that so many people wrote, faxed or e-mailed for a copy of it -- over 2,000. There is something very healthy in this, something that weighs in by way of redress against the great tidal wave of vulgarity, trivia, eye and ear wash of the media - the relentless and inexorable rip currents of simple bad taste which tug at us - and threaten to carry us out or down - every hour of every bombarded day.

On the strength of your response, and in tandem with our own occasional lapses of inventiveness - we've been looking for an opportunity to redo that effort. And the coming of Christmas offers the perfect excuse; what can offer more substantial merriment than a good book, and what more delightful measure of affection or regard than the intelligent selection of a book as a present; or, for that matter, what better silent tribute to yourself than the purchase of some vigorous patch of prose or verse - as compensation or refreshment after a year of toil and hurry."

Rex Murphy's list:

"Lover of Strange Souls" by Walter Pater (Knopf/Dennis Donoghue)
"The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages", by Harold Bloom (Harcourt Brace)
"David Daniell: Burnt at Stake - 1536" by William Tyndale (Yale Univ. Press)
"Landscape and Memory" by Simon Schama (Random House)
"Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" by John Berendt (Random House)
"The Redress of Poetry: An inaugural Lecture Delivered Before the University of Oxford on 24 October 1989" by Seamus Heaney (Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press 1990)
"Midnight Court" by Brian Merriman (Dufour 1987)
"Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts On the Information Highway" by Clifford Stoll (Doubleday).


• Robert Everett-Green

  senior features writer for the Globe & Mail:

  "Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization" by Richard Sennett, (Norton 1994)
  "Pnin" 1953 and "The Enchanter" 1929 by Vladimir Nabokov (Random 1989, 91) "Being Digital" by Nicholas Negroponte (Knopf 1995)
  "In the Jaws of the Black Dogs: A Memoir of Depression" by John Bentley Mays (Viking 1995)
  

• Arlene Perly-Rae

  Toronto Star columnist -books for children:

  "Princess Prunella & the Purple Peanut" by Margaret Atwood, (Key Porter).
  "Jacob Two-Two's First Spy Case" by Mordecai Richler, (McClelland & Stewart).
  "Christmas With Anne and other Stories" by Lucy Maude Montgomery edited by Rea Wilmshurst, (McClelland & Stewart).
  -others:
  A boxed set trilogy by Kit Pearson published by Penguin
  -"The Sky Is Falling"; "Looking At The Moon"; The Lights Go On Again"
  "The Story of Canada" by Janet Lunn, (Key Porter)
  "Mad About Madeline" by Ludwig Bemelmans, (Viking)
  The new annotated "Charlotte's Web" by E.B.White, (Harper Collins).
  "The Road To Chilsa" by M. Marineau, (Raincoast Books).
  "Paddle-To-The-Sea" by Holling Clancy Holling, (Houghton Mifflin)
  "There Were Monkeys In My Kitchen" by Sherri Fitch, (Doubleday).
  

• Robert Alter

  senior professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of "The Pleasures of Reading: Thinking About Literature in an Ideological Age." (Simon & Schuster)

  "Sabbath's Theatre" by Philip Roth, (Houghton Mifflin).
  "Hinge and Sign: Poems 1968 - 1993" by Heather McHugh, (Wesleyan University Press).
  "Foregone Conclusions: Against Apocalyptic History" by Michael Andre Bernstein, (California Press)
  

• Greg Hollingshead

  professor of English at the University of Alberta and 1995 winner of the Governor-General's Literary Award for fiction: "The Roaring Girl" (Patrick Crean/Somerville House).

  "Adam's Task: Calling Animals by Name." by Vicki Hearne, (Harper Collins 1986).
  "Outer Dark" by Cormack McCarthy, (Vintage paperback 1968)
  "Letters of William S. Burroughs 1945 -1959" (Penguin 1993)
  -others:
  "Mister Sandman" by Barbara Gowdy, (Patrick Crean/Somerville House)
  "Her First American" by Lore Segal, (Knopf 1985)
  "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver (Random 1989)
  The last 4 or 5 books of Alice Munroe
  

• Stefani Paine

  biologist, natural history writer and author of: "The Nature of Sea Otters" and "The Nature of Arctic Whales" (Greystone Books/Douglas McIntyre).

  "Eyelids of Morning: The Mingled Destinies of Crocodiles and Men" by Alistair Graham and Peter Beard (Chronicle Books, San Francisco 1990; distributed in Canada by Rainforest)
  "The Rand-McNally Atlas of the Oceans"
  "Where the Sea Breaks Its Back" by Corey Ford, (Alaska Northwest Books 1992 orig. 1966)
  -others: stories by Vic Scheffer "The Year of the Seal"; The Year of the Whale" -good stories for both children and adults
  

• Cross Country Checkup's

  Callers' Suggestions:

  "No Ordinary Genius: The Illustrated Richard Feynman" by Christopher Sykes (Norton 1995)
  "Grosse Ile 1847 Eyewitness: Letters From the Summer of 1847" by Marianna O'Gallagher & Rose Masson- Dompierre (Carraig Books 1994)
  "The Group of Seven: Art For a Nation" by Charles C. Hill (catalogue for show, McClelland & Stewart 1995)
  "The McIntyre Liar" by David Bly (Tree Frog 1993) (childrens' book -high school level)
  "The Gift of Wings: An Aerial Celebration of Canada" by Carl E. Hiebert (Boston Mills Press 1995)
  "More Than a Rose: Prime Ministers, Wives and Other Women" by Heather Robertson (Seal 1991)
  "Northern Dancer: The Legend and His Legacy" by Muriel Lennox, (Beach House 1995)
  "Reaching For the Beaufort Sea: The Autobiography of Al Purdy" (Harbour 1993)
  "Days of Victory" by Ted Barris & Alex Barris (Macmillan 1995)
  "Both My Legs: The Love Song of Howard Lovell" by Wade Hemsworth (Viking 1995)
  "The Commodore" by Patrick O'Brien (HarperCollins 1994) (whole series of 17)
  "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" by Louis De Bernieres (Secker & Warburg 1994)
  "A Book of Five Rings" by Mayamoto Musashi (Bantam 1982)
  "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry (McClelland & Stewart 1995)
  "Paul Kane's Great Nor'West" by Diane Eaton & Sheila Urbanek (University of British Columbia Press 1995)
  "Hyperion" and "The Fall of Hyperion" by Dan Simmons (Doubleday 1989/Bantam 1990)
  "The Message: New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs" by Eugene H. Peterson (Mavpress 1993 USA)
  "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis (Macmillan 1970)
  "Our Man Weston" by Gordon Korman (Apple Paperbacks 1986 Scholastic Inc.)
  "The Glace Bay Miners' Museum: The Novel" by Sheldon Currie (Breton Books 1995)
  "Bread Alone: Bold Fresh Loaves From Your Own Hands" by Daniel Leader and Judith Blahnik (Morrow 1993)
  "The Lone Ranger and Tonto: Fistfight In Heaven" by Sherman Alexie (Atlantic Monthly Press 1993)
  "A Mixture of Frailties" by Robertson Davies (Penguin 1980)
  "The Alteration" by Kingsley Amis (Carroll & Graf. 1988)
  "Fine Woodworking On Making and Modifying Machines" (Taunton Press 1986)
  "Workshop Tips and Techniques" by Cy DeCosse Incorporated (Black and Decker series - Cy DeCosse 1991)
  "Two-by-Four Furniture: simple, inexpensive and great-looking projects you can make" (Sunset series - Sterling Pub. Co. 1993)
  "Spider in the Woodpile" and "The Fog Spinner" by Terry Morrison (Tantalas Books 1991, 94)
  -children's books "The New Concise Oxford Dictionary"