By Margaret Atwood
All comparisons are odious and lists are by nature comparisons. Therefore all lists are odious, and I for one have a lot of trouble making them up. A list called The LRC 100: Canada’s Most Important Books is a recipe for a brawl, as there will be many disagreements about what should or should not have been included. In fact, the list itself—we’re told—is a product of furious though presumably civil wrangling among its compilers. We hope no tea-cups were thrown.
My own long-ago experiences after the publication of Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature—a book that has made it onto the dreaded 100, though with a disparaging note attached to it—would indicate that the editors of this list will receive more than one sackful of...
A.F. Moritz’s The Sentinel (House of Anansi, 2008) received the 2009 Griffin Poetry Prize and was chosen by The Globe and Mail for its “100 Best Books of 2009” and its “39 Books of the Decade.” He is editor of The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2009.