My Favourite Books that are Older than I

I celebrated my 50th birthday this year, and it hasn’t hit me that I am “old”. Old is a matter of mind I guess. I know people in their 20's who seem older than I am. So I guess the following books are “golden oldies” -- they aren’t getting older; just better.

The Pulitzer Prize winner, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck will always be a favorite of mine. Steinbeck is a wonderful writer that brings the trials and tribulations of the common folk to light. All of his novels, from The Red Pony, to Of Mice and Men, etc. are fabulous. But Grapes is the one I studied in school, so it was the one I learned the most about and the most from. This is a novel that I can read again and again only to find something new with each reading. I guess this is where age comes into factor. As I get older, I find I identify with different characters. The story takes place in the dustbowl of the Great Depression. The Joudrey Family has been rejoined by their son, Tom, who was in prison. Between the weather and the bank the family is just one of thousands of Okies who are forced to leave their home. Their journey to California is both physical, emotional and spiritual trip for all members of the family. The reader comes to realize that family is the most important factor in your life.

Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. It is unusual for me to include a romance novel for a list that I create. Maybe I liked it because it was a bodice ripper but not a Harlequin romance type. Tess come from a humble poor beginning and rises above her station in life. Through a series of events it all comes to tragedy. When I first read this book it was the spring of the woman’s liberation movement of the 70's. This influenced how I read this novel and the emotional upset I received from it. Teenagers of today would have a hard time imagining the injustice of the world towards women and the poor. Perhaps that is all the more reason they should read this.

There are two novels that are linked in my mind – Animal Farm by George Orwell and Lord of the Flies by William Golding. After all the theme of equality in society plays a huge factor in both novels. The power struggle of the young boys in Lord of the Flies proves what animals humans are. In Animal Farm the animals are trying to break down societies roles which fails as “some animals are more equal than others”. What does the “little piggy” does to his society is quite interesting in both novels.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It is funny this is one book that I seem to forget the title of but can’t get the ending out of my head. I won’t, of course, tell you the ending....you have to find that out for yourself. I will tell you this, the plot of the novel is reflected in the era it was written; materialism was becoming more and more commonplace as the world recovered from WWI. The world itself was becoming “smaller” as transportation to and media from other cultures was more available. The land of opportunity, the United States, declared itself a melting pot, not a mosaic. The novel even takes place “the year of out Ford 632" and like the assembly line of a car manufacture, people are willingly losing their individuality.

Perrault’s Fairy Tales. As weird as this sounds I didn’t really get into reading fairy tales until I was 15 or 16 years old. If anyone really knows the facts behind fairy tales these stories were not “children’s” stories at all. Often morality tales these tales have been “disneyized” over the years. I challenge our readers to go back and re-read the tales but in their true original forms. They could scare the “beejeezies” out of you.

So, dear Reader, what is your favorite book from before you were born? Or better yet, the year you were born? I would love to know.

New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2010

If you are struggling to come up with holiday gift ideas for you favourite readers, The New York Times has numerous suggestions of recently published books to suit every taste. See the full list here. A few for my own list should anyone be interested (hint, hint!) are:

Comedy in a Minor Key
by Hans Keilson

"A penetrating study of ordinary people resisting the Nazi occupation—and, true to its title, a dark comedy of wartime manners—Comedy in a Minor Key tells the story of Wim and Marie, a Dutch couple who first hide a Jew they know as Nico, then must dispose of his body when he dies of pneumonia. This novella, first published in 1947 and now translated into English for the first time, shows Hans Keilson at his best: deeply ironic, penetrating, sympathetic, and brilliantly modern, an heir to Joseph Roth and Franz Kafka. In 2008, when Keilson received Germany’s prestigious Welt Literature Prize, the citation praised his work for exploring “the destructive impulse at work in the twentieth century, down to its deepest psychological and spiritual ramifications.” Published to celebrate Keilson’s hundredth birthday, Comedy in a Minor Key—and The Death of the Adversary, reissued in paperback—will introduce American readers to a forgotten classic author, a witness to World War II and a sophisticated storyteller whose books remain as fresh as when they first came to light" - publisher


Parisians: an adventure history of Paris
by Graham Robb

"This is the Paris you never knew. From the Revolution to the present, Graham Robb has distilled a series of astonishing true narratives, all stranger than fiction, of the lives of the great, the near-great, and the forgotten. A young artillery lieutenant, strolling through the Palais-Royal, observes disapprovingly the courtesans plying their trade. A particular woman catches his eye; nature takes its course. Later that night Napoleon Bonaparte writes a meticulous account of his first sexual encounter. A well-dressed woman, fleeing the Louvre, takes a wrong turn and loses her way in the nameless streets of the Left Bank. For want of a map—there were no reliable ones at the time—Marie-Antoinette will go to the guillotine. Baudelaire, the photographer Marville, Baron Haussmann, the real-life Mimi of La Bohème, Proust, Adolf Hitler touring the occupied capital in the company of his generals, Charles de Gaulle (who is suspected of having faked an assassination attempt in Notre Dame)—these and many more are Robb’s cast of characters, and the settings range from the quarries and catacombs beneath the streets to the grand monuments to the appalling suburbs ringing the city today. The result is a resonant, intimate history with the power of a great novel." - publisher

The Talented Miss Highsmith: the secret life and serious art of Patricia Highsmith
by Joan Schenkar

"Patricia Highsmith, one of the great writers of 20th Century American fiction, had a life as darkly compelling as that of her favorite "hero-criminal," talented Tom Ripley. In this revolutionary biography, Joan Schenkar paints a riveting portrait, from Highsmith's birth in Texas to Hitchcock's filming of her first novel, Strangers On a Train, to her long, strange, self-exile in Europe. We see her as a secret writer for the comics, a brilliant creator of disturbing fictions, and erotic predator with dozens of women (and a few good men) on her love list. The Talented Miss Highsmith is the first literary biography with access to Highsmith's whole story: her closest friends, her oeuvre, her archives. It's a compulsive page-turner unlike any other, a book worthy of Highsmith herself." - publisher

Mr Peanut
by Adam Ross

"David Pepin has been in love with his wife, Alice, since the moment they met in a university seminar on Alfred Hitchcock. After thirteen years of marriage, he still can’t imagine a remotely happy life without her—yet he obsessively contemplates her demise. Soon she is dead, and David is both deeply distraught and the prime suspect. The detectives investigating Alice’s suspicious death have plenty of personal experience with conjugal enigmas: Ward Hastroll is happily married until his wife inexplicably becomes voluntarily and militantly bedridden; and Sam Sheppard is especially sensitive to the intricacies of marital guilt and innocence, having decades before been convicted and then exonerated of the brutal murder of his wife. Still, these men are in the business of figuring things out, even as Pepin’s role in Alice’s death grows ever more confounding when they link him to a highly unusual hit man called Mobius. Like the Escher drawings that inspire the computer games David designs for a living, these complex, interlocking dramas are structurally and emotionally intense, subtle, and intriguing; they brilliantly explore the warring impulses of affection and hatred, and pose a host of arresting questions. Is it possible to know anyone fully, completely? Are murder and marriage two sides of the same coin, each endlessly recycling into the other? And what, in the end, is the truth about love? Mesmerizing, exhilarating, and profoundly moving, Mr. Peanut is a police procedural of the soul, a poignant investigation of the relentlessly mysterious human heart—and a first novel of the highest order." - publisher

Gather 'Round: Stories and Songs for a Winter's Day

Gather `Round: Stories & Songs for a Winter's Day - a Family event

Join CBC's Close to Home host Carmen Klassen, award-winning author Alexander MacLeod, actor and poet Anne-Marie Woods, accomplished performer Joanne Miller and ECMA winner David Myles for an hour of heart-warming stories and songs about the great Canadian winter.

Families and friends are invited to get cozy as we celebrate the joy and fun of a winter's day. This event is being taped for broadcast and will air as a CBC Radio special on Sunday, Jan. 2, 2011 at 4 p.m. on the regional show All the Best.

Keshen Goodman Public Library Sunday, November 28/2:30 pm

Canadian Shortlisted for UK Writing Award

What does Annabel Lyon's award winning novel The Golden Mean have in common with Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons, A Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer and Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones?

Apparently they all feature some rather bad sex writing. This is according to Literary Review, who have been awarding the Britain's Bad Sex in Fiction Awards since 1993. The Golden Mean is among this years' shortlisted titles. The other titles mentioned above are past "winners".

Annabel has posted her remarks about being nominated for this prestigious award on her blog.

Also making the 2010 shortlist (and in our collection) are:

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen;

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross

Tough Customer by Sanda Brown

Tough Customer by Sandra Brown is all about the consequences of bad decisions whether it is a lifetime of smoking, reckless ambition or the impulsive choice not to forgive.

First Introduced in Smash Cut, investigator Dodge Hanley is a tough guy with a soft center. In Tough Customer we learn that he had a past. Dodge is awakened one morning to learn that his daughter Berry, whom he has not seen since an infant thirty years previously, is in trouble and needs the kind of help only he can provide. Berry Malone is a successful marketer who has found herself the target of a crazed stalker. Local authorities in the shape of Ski Nyland appear to doubt Berry's story when the stalker makes his initial attack. Berry's mother Caroline fears for her daughter and calls on former lover Dodge to help. The situation becomes more desperate as the stalker grows more unraveled and innocent bodies begin to pile up.

Although on the surface this is a suspense thriller, this novel is all about Dodge Hanley. This appealing character can almost make you forget some of the more implausible plot twists. Dodge is the one character who is fully fleshed out. He's a loner who must overcome a damaging past if he is to have a lasting relationship. Women find him irresistible. He knows this and uses it. He has carried a torch for Caroline for thirty years and once he is reunited with her and their daughter all his protective instincts come rushing back. Caroline's character is vague and cool. It's never clear, at least to me, why she had such a hold on his life.

Perhaps in the next Sandra Brown novel, we'll see more of Berry Malone. She, like her father, is flawed. Her unethical decisions, while not deserving of murder, do take away from her lily white victim status.

I enjoyed the rhythm of this novel. As the plot heated up and the chase became frantic, we stopped and looked back at Dodge and Caroline's romance leading up to the fateful event that was to split them up for thirty years.

Sandra Brown fans, and there are many, might also enjoy Heartbreaker by Julie Garwood, Dying to Please by Linda Howard and On the Run by Iris Johansen.

Cult Classics

What makes a book a cult favorite? My co-workers and I had a debate on this. Is it just popularity? Did it have to be a best-seller? Is it something that it’s popularity relies strictly on word of word? My idea was that it had to be something that people quoted lines from it. If that was the criteria then the Bible or Qur'an would be here as a cult classic but I don’t want to get into to that. Then I debate with myself if things like the Sherlock Holmes series is a cult classic since everyone can quote “elementary my dear Watson”. Here are some authors and titles that came up in our discussion:

I wrote about Hunter S. Thompson in my blog post on authors who have committed suicide. Thompson is known for his “Gonzo” journalism more than his novel The Rum Diary: the long lost novel. This style of writing may have been influenced by his admiration and friendship with other cult writers: Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. The Rum Diary is a fictionalized account of his time in Puerto Rico. Thompson has written on a wide variety of subjects, including the Hell’s Angels, the Kentucky Derby, politicians and sports figures. His most famous work is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. This was originally featured in Rolling Stone magazine in two parts. It is an account of a journalist on a trip to Las Vegas for a Narcotics Officers’ Convention (and oh what a “trip” it is)!

William S. Burroughs was an American novelist, poet, spoken word performer and one of the founding fathers of the Beat Generation. He wrote 18 novels, six short story collections and essay collections. Much of his work comes from his experiences as a heroin addict; thus, his first novel is entitled Junkie. Yet his most famous novel is his third, Naked Lunch, possibly due to the fact it underwent a court case charged under the Sodomy laws. The plot is basically about Willie Lee and his travels to find his next fix. I realize this is a very simplistic summary but this novel is hard to describe so I will let you, dear Reader, make up your own mind about it.

I first read Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions when I was about 13 or 14 and I believe that novel influenced all my future reading favourites. I love satires! You have to be brilliant (in my mind) to write them. You have to understand the original subject matter well enough to know how and at what to poke fun. In B of C the plot about fans being fanatics is explored as Dwayne Hoover mistakes Kilgore Trout’s works of fiction to be a message from the Creator of the Universe. Within this novel are characters from his other novels, such as Eliot Rosewater from God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater and Rabo Karabekian from Bluebeard. The title from this novel is a well know slogan for Wheaties cereal but a waitress says it here whenever she serves martinis. Now I always heard that you shouldn’t drink before noon so when their breakfast is, I don’t know!

I must admit that even though I have read all of Chuck Palahniuk’s writing, and even look forward to reading his new works, I don’t always like them. I guess sometimes it is the style of writing. Pygmy has very stilted language and the words do not flow. This is a novel about foreign child terrorists infiltrating American families. The language used reflects the difference between American English (and slang) compared to the technical/militarized language of these “soldiers”. I guess you have to read it to understand what I am attempting to say. While Palahniuk gained his fame through the novel, Fight Club, my favourite of his novels is Haunted. I guess this is influenced by my feelings about reality t.v and its “survivor” contest. This is one novel that I both read and listened to, as the audio book is read by a full cast.

One author who's work I really dislike is Brett Easton Ellis. I know that is not popular to say now. It is not that Ellis is a terrible writer because that is not true. It is just that the characters he writes about are just so distasteful. They are so self-centered that I could not I could not even remotely relate to them. His latest work, Imperial Bedrooms, is a sequel to the 1985 novel, Less than Zero. The characters have not improved over time. Even though they are now middle-aged I don’t find they have matured into caring people. I don’t know I guess you will have to judge for yourself.

Some of the other titles that were discussed between my co-worker and fellow readers were:

Trainspotting
by Irvine Welch
The Hobbit
by J.R.R Tolkien
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams
Dune
by Frank Hebert
Harry Potter
by J. K Rowlings
2001 : a space odyssey
by Arthur C. Clarke
Wheels of Time series
by Robert Jordan.

Well, Dear Reader, what do you think? Are these cults classics - or maybe they are just classics?! I would love to have input on this. Who knows -- you may introduce me to my next favorite story that I haven’t discovered yet.

Simon Winchester Author Reading

One of my all time favourite non-fiction writers is coming to town tonight! Simon Winchester will be reading at the Keshen Goodman Public Library, November 24th @ 7:00p.m.

I was first introduced to Simon Winchester's great writing with The Map that Changed the World: William Smith and birth of modern geology. While I was waiting all day to see if I would be selected for jury duty, I sat transfixed in the provincial courthouse, totally engrossed in the story of William Smith. I continued to read on the bus home and finished the book that evening. I never would have thought that a book about a geologist and mapmaking could hold my attention so well.

I then went on to enjoy many other of his titles, such as Krakatoa and The Professor and the Madman.

I absolutely love his ability to interweave the personal stories and motivations of the people involved, as well as the prevailing social context, into his examination the broader topic. I heartily encourage you to come out and hear Simon read tonight and/or checkout one of his great books. He is a world class writer.


Atlantic: great sea battles, heroic discoveries, Titanic storms, and a vast ocean of a million stories.

Blending history and anecdote, geography and reminiscence, science and exposition, Atlantic tells the saga of the Atlantic Ocean, setting it against the backdrop of mankind's intellectual evolution. Simon Winchester's works include The Map that Changed the World and Krakatoa. His books have been on the New York Times and a number of other bestsellers lists.

Keshen Goodman Public Library
Wednesday, November 24/7:00 pm

I Don't Think I Can Read this Book - Waking the Witch by Kelley Armstrong

I know I"m missing out on something here. I put it on hold and waited for my turn. It's sitting on my desk, but I don't thing I can read it. Waking the Witch by Kelley Armstrong has been getting great reviews:

“Like Stephen King, . . . Armstrong not only writes interesting page-turners, she has also achieved that unlikely goal, what all writers strive for: a genre of her own. . . . This is not The Call of the Wild; it’s Nora Roberts meets The Sopranos by way of Henry David Thoreau.”
— The Walrus

“Armstrong’s prose has a punchy, easy flow.”
— The Globe and Mail

“Mesmerizing . . . the ‘other-worldly’ atmosphere conjured up by Armstrong begins to seem strangely real. Armstrong is a talented and original writer whose inventiveness and sense of the bizarre is arresting.”
— London Free Press

I may be a wimp, but I just can't get past the creepy, scary cover.

Novelist describes Waking the Witch as a darkly humorous, steamy, suspenseful story in which a spell casting investigator, Savannah Levine, is recruited to track down a supernatural killer. Novelist compares it to The Redemption of Althalus by David Eddings, Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier and Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris

It does sound pretty good. Maybe I'll have to get myself a book cosy and give it a go.

Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain

I have to admit, I'm left somewhat bewildered by this book. It probably helps if you're a foodie or someone who is "in the know" about the personalities in the New York Restaurant scene. Though I enjoy cooking, baking and, of course, eating, I'm wary of exotic food, extreme eating and have little interest in "dining experiences". Years ago, in Vancouver, I went with a group of friends to a restaurant that specialized in pancakes (if memory serves) and rude service. That was their shtick. You lined up outside on the sidewalk for hours it seemed, only to be barked at and glared at once you were finally admitted. The friends took great joy in changing their orders and making nuisances in themselves in order to be cursed at. The pancakes were good, but again I was left bewildered at the experience.

Oh yes, and this book (Medium Raw: a bloody valentine to the world of food and the people who cook by Anthony Bourdain) introduced me to the idea of tablescaping. Having never heard of this I had to google it and, again, I just don't get it. Where do you put all those dishes?

All this aside Medium Raw is an ascerbic, no-holds barred followup to his first book Kitchen Confidential: adventures in the culinary underbelly. in which, in addition to learning creative swear words, the reader learns the truth about what really goes on in a professional kitchen. Kitchen Confidential carved out a new career for Bourdain as a writer and traveling food critic. Success was not kind to him and he spiraled into a world of excess from which, fortunately, he was able to extricate himself.

Bourdain shines in his descriptions of the things he feels passionately about - food, his daughter, and disdain for select others in his industry. He opens with a description of a (possible illegal) certainly morally questionable meal of a rare species of bird. His description of the experience is no less than lyrical, yet it is hard to get beyond the hot fat, guts, bones and beak. His delight in his young daughter is heartwarming and he wishes to counteract McDonald's influence by telling her that Ronald has cooties. Hilarious, but again I waver when he whispers outside her bedroom door about possible Ronald-related abductions and cootie infestations. Too far? His daughter will have the best of everything including an organic diet, but when Alice Waters wants the same for "ordinary children" he describes her as "Pol Pot in a moumou". Which is actually quite funny.

While Bourdain has mellowed somewhat since Kitchen Confidential, he has lost none of his edge and may still have a chip firmly lodged on his shoulder. You certainly have to respect his honesty. He blames no one for his bad behaviour and is even finding ways to share middle ground with adversaries (PETA for example, if you can believe it). Even though I was bewildered at times, Bourdain presented ideas that made me think. For example, I can understand why an individual might object to a meat-eater, but why would anyone object to a vegetarian? Bourdain has an answer. Vegetarians are objectionable because they will refuse the hospitality of others.

Though I may not always like or agree with it, I love a book that makes me think.

Book Award Roundup (AKA how is anyone suposed to stay on top of this?)

I consider myself to be someone who is interested in and generally on top of what is going on in the literary world. I read reviews, book blogs, listen to book podcasts: but this year I've found myself absolutely overwhelmed by the so-called book award season. It seems every where I turn I'm hearing about another book award long list, short list, winner, runner up.... It's hard enough to keep up with who is winning what: let alone find time to read all these award winning titles.

But awards mean something to me. I like to read an award winner: to agree or disagree with the judges decision. I like a book that has people talking and reading, so that I can read and talk about it myself. Fiction is my main interest—not to ignore the prizes honouring great nonfiction, poetry and plays, but there's already enough to keep on top of with just the fiction accolades.

So, if like me, you're feeling a bit overwhelmed: here's a little recap of the last few weeks.

We might as well start back in October, as I feel like that's when I first feel behind. On October 7th, the Nobel foundation announced that Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa was this year's recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Jump forward a week, and you got the announcement of this year's Man Booker Prize: The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson. There was a fair bit of buzz over the Jacobson selection—The Finkler Question is the first comic novel to win the Booker. More recently, The National Book Awards were given out and the fiction prize went to Jaimy Gordon for Lord of Misrule.

October and November saw a run in the Canadian Prize circuit as well. The Scotiabank Giller Prize's much talked about small press winner was The Sentimentalists by first time novelist Johanna Skibsrud. Although, back in October, before all the small press attention in the big prize world, Canada's prize that focuses on small press literature announced it's winners. The ReLit Award for fiction went to The Beautiful Children by Michael Kenyon, and the short story prize to Stuart Ross' Buying Cigarettes for the Dog.

With all the Giller media uproar over what Nova Scotia printer Gaspereau Press was going to do in order to get the winning book into readers' hands, it seemed like this year's Governor General's Awards got a bit overlooked. The winner for English fiction was Cool Water by another debut novelist, Dianne Warren. If the GGs got pushed to the background, this year's announcement of the winner of Canada's other big fiction award—The Rogers Writer's Trust Fiction Prize—seemed positively lost: it went to Emma Donoghue for her already bestselling novel Room.

So, I think that makes me up-to-date? There is probably something I've missed: let me know in the comments below. And with these winners noted, we can now sit back and wait for the nominees and winners of the Pulitzer Prize, the Commonwealth Writers Prizes, the National Book Critics Circle Awards, the Orange Prize and more, which are all upcoming in the first half of 2011. Why is it again that the fall is considered book award season?

And just to give you a taste of what's to come: the Dublin IMPAC award announced its extremely long longlist this month. You can see the 162 nominated titles on their website, although you may want to wait and give your attention to the pared down short list which will be announced in April.

The Brotherhood of the Disappearing Pants - Political Scandals

Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll. Yes, this is the common stereotype for musicians. But move over rockers – politicians have taken over! We are taught never to talk about sex, religion or politics in polite company. Yet, this is all that the news stations are talking about recently. Sex scandals are nothing new but with mass-media we are hearing about the latest politicians who had sex with , well who-ever, the minute, nay the second that it is found out.

There are so many scandals we now need a guide; isn’t that ridiculous. The Brotherhood of the Disappearing Pants: a field guide to conservative sex scandals by Joseph Minton Amann and Tom Breuer focuses on Americans. Divided into three sections, the Republicans, religious figures and the conservatives, it gives a summary of each scandal. As the preface of the book states: " A careful reading of this book should convince you that there are more sexual hi-jinks taking place in Washington, D.C., than you’ll ever find in the pages of Hustler."

What name comes to mind first in US political sex scandals – what more do I have to say except the name Kennedy. The first female images that comes mind when thinking about JFK is not Jackie but Marilyn Monroe (at least in my mind). All the males of this family appearing to be "hounds" and there are lots of books to choose from that give their history. The Kennedy Men 1901 - 1963: the laws of the father by Laurence Learner gives an overview of why the sons became the men that they were. Both Robert and John were linked to Marilyn Monroe. Teddy was forever judged because of the events that are featured in Chappaquiddick Revealed: what really happened by Kenneth R. Kappel. We have to wait and see about the next generation as they fills the pages of The National Enquirer with their "sexploits".

Bill Clinton! Oh Slick Willy, the exploits that he got up to while in Office. There is a whole generation who don’t believe that oral sex is sex since Bill declared "I did not have sexual relations with that woman"in reference to Monica Lewinski. There are two books that may interest you on this particular affair: The Clinton Enigma: a four-and-a-half minute speech reveals this presidents entire life by David Maranuis and A Vast Conspiracy : the real story of the sex scandal that nearly brought down a president by Jeffrey Toobin.

Two of the women linked with Clinton, not counting Hilary, of course have biographies: Gennifer Flowers: passion and betrayal and Monica’s story by Andrew Morton.

Clarence Thomas. I remember watching the inquiry on television and being totally disgusted. Where the other men I have written about had willing partners, Thomas was under the media and American people’s eyes for sexual harassment. You can read all about it in Capitol Games : Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill and the behind the scenes story of a Supreme Court nomination by Timothy M Phelps and Helen Winternitz.

And just when you think, Oh Canada (excuse the pun) politicians are so squeaky clean, well it isn’t because they are! It just seems that the media and Canadians in general are less interested in political private lives. After all we are the country in which, Pierre Trudeau stated " the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation". PET had an active bachelorhood but his wife, Margaret, may have had something to do with this saying. After all she did party the night away with members of the Rolling Stones. This may be mentioned in either the biography Changing My Mind by Margaret Trudeau or Keith Richards' bio Life.

For a more recent Canadian scandal, you can read My Story by Julie Couillard. Conservative Foreign Minister, Maxime Bernier, resigned his post after leaving sensitive NATO documents at his lover’s house. As if this wasn’t scandalise enough, Julie has been linked to the Hell’s Angels.

Locally, New Brunswick had Richard Hatfield who was well known for his doll collection and his love or hate for the Queen (or queens as the case may be).
Richard Hatfield: the seventeen year saga by Richard Starr.

Even closer to home is Gerald Regan. In 1995 the former NS premier was accused of a number of sexual offenses, including rape, dating back decades.
Not Guilty, the trial of Gerald Regan by Stephen Kimber.

Peter MacKay was linked to Condoleezza Rice. I wonder what state secrets could have been shared with pillow talk. As time goes on I am sure that there are many more affairs to be discovered, legal or otherwise. I am sure that the media will keep us posted.