Your library owns copies of all of the titles under consideration for the best book of 2012. Read, them all, then tune into CBC Radio during the week of Feb 6 - 9 to hear the debates. Reserve a title by clicking on the book jacket, have your library card number handy.
The Game by Ken Dryden
Defended by Alan Thicke
A reflective and thought-provoking look at a life in hockey. Intelligent and insightful, former Montreal Canadiens goalie and former President of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ken Dryden captures the essence of the sport and what it means to all hockey fans. He gives us vivid and affectionate portraits of the characters - Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson, Guy Lapointe, Serge Savard, and coach Scotty Bowman among them - that made the Canadiens of the 1970s one of the greatest hockey teams in history.
On A Cold Road by Dave Bindini
Defended by Stacey McKenzie
David Bidini, rhythm guitarist with the Rheostatics, knows all too well what the life of a rock band in Canada involves: storied arenas one tour and bars wallpapered with photos of forgotten bands the next. Zit-speckled fans begging for a guitar pick and angry drunks chucking twenty-sixers and pint glasses. Opulent tour buses riding through apocalyptic snowstorms and cramped vans that reek of dope and beer. Brilliant performances and heart-sinking break-ups...
Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat
Defended by Arlene Dickson
Complaining about curriculum changes in her school in the years immediately following Iran's Islamic Revolution, 16-year-old Marina Nemat found herself arrested and imprisoned in Tehran's Evin Prison, notorious for its political prisoners' wing from before the revolution and since. Sentenced to death, she was spared at the last minute by the intervention of one of her jailers in exchange for marrying him...
Something fierce : memoirs of a revolutionary daughter by Carmen Aguirre
Defended by Shad This dramatic, darkly funny narrative, which covers the eventful decade from 1979 to 1989, takes the reader inside war-ridden Peru, dictatorship-run Bolivia, post-Malvinas Argentina and Pinochet's Chile. Writing with passion and deep personal insight, Carmencaptures her constant struggle to reconcile her commitment to the movement with the desires of her youth and her budding sexuality...
The tiger : a true story of vengeance and survival by John Vaillant
Defended by Anne-France Goldwater
It's December 1997 and a man-eating tiger is on the prowl outside a remote village in Russia's Far East. To the horrified astonishment of a team of hunters, it emerges that the attacks are not random: the tiger is engaged in a vendetta. Injured and starving, it must be found before it strikes again, and the story becomes a battle for survival between two main characters: Yuri Trush, the lead tracker, and the tiger itself...