Updating our book list

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our Best of Canadian Political Writing list, so far. The suggestions for books to add continue to rush in. We received a raft of responses the day before Canada Day, which was impressive considering how much work Canadians must have been trying to squeeze in before the long weekend.

Over 80 books have been suggested through emails, tweets, posts on our site and phone calls. We’ve received some surprising suggestions. Susan Delacourt, a senior writer for The Toronto Star who has written three books about Canadian politics, got us off to a rousing start by blogging about her list of ten suggestions.  We’ve also received suggestions from a recommended author, Paul Wells, who submitted his own ten suggestions.

Our initial list grouped the books into four categories: Political Biographies, Political Fiction, Culture and Practice of Politics and Political Parties. So far, most of the suggestions we received fit into Culture and Practice of Politics and Political Biographies. We’ve received fewer suggestions in the Fiction category but they’ve been interesting. Andrew Steele, who writes for The Globe and Mail, suggested including Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion and another commenter suggested a piece of historical fiction, Roy MacSkimming’s MacDonald.

We’ve also received recommendations for a handful of books about provincial politics. And we think that’s enough to start a new category in our list. If you have any suggestions for great books about provincial politics, let us know.

For now, we thought we’d list the eight books that have, so far, been suggested independently more than once. Here’s the list, in alphabetical order by author’s last name:

• Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall, “Trudeau and Our Times”
• John Duffy, “Fights of Our Lives”
• Ron Graham, “One Eyed Kings”
• Peter C. Newman, “Renegade in Power”
• Steven Paikin, “The Life”
• Jeffrey Simpson, “Discipline of Power”
• Paul Wells, “Right Side Up”
• Richard Johnston, Henry E. Brady, André Blais, and Jean Crête, ”Letting the People Decide”

What do you think? Do any of the books added to our updated list deserve another vote?