Best Book Lists: Oct. 2-8, 2020
Happy Thanksgiving in Canada 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
Hi Reader,
Monday is Thanksgiving in Canada, which I always thought was officially named Canadian Thanksgiving. But it turns out that in Canada, they don’t call Thanksgiving Canadian Thanksgiving because it is, to Canadians, the Thanksgiving.
Which makes sense, though I then learned that Canadians call football football and soccer soccer. I thought we Americans alone referred to the sport played with a round black-and-white ball in which referees hold up colored pieces of paper “soccer.” Turns out, that isn’t the case. Canadians call soccer soccer, too, and football football — another strike against American exceptionalism.
But don’t fret, fellow patriots, for our country boasts the newest Nobel Prize in Literature winner. Poet Louise Glück was named the award’s latest recipient on Thursday. According to The New York Times, Glück received the news by phone at her home in Cambridge, Mass., which is on the other end of Massachusetts from where I’ve been staying the past few weeks.
It’s really something to think that just two hours from where I researched Canadian Thanksgiving, I mean Thanksgiving in Canada, Louise Glück learned she won the Nobel Prize. What an illuminating Thursday morning both Glück and I had.
And now we both have things to talk about at parties, whenever parties resume. Glück can prattle on about her Nobel Prize while I regale people with information about Thanksgiving in Canada.
Until then, you can enjoy the book lists below. And if you were also busy earlier this week researching Canadian holidays, you might have missed my interview with Gwen Goodkin and the latest This Week in Literary History.
Thanks for reading,
Nick
Fall & New Book Lists
12 Books to Help You Weather the Rest of 2020 and Beyond (The Washington Post)
11 Localish Books to Read This Autumn (Seattle Met)
11 New Books We Recommend This Week (The New York Times)
Best of the Rest
11 of the Best Sci-Fi Books That Transport You to Another World (NewScientist)
Bats Beat a Bad Rap In These Books (The Columbian)
Celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada by forwarding this email to a Canadian you know. Or, maybe they’ve at least visited Canada. Or heard of it. 🇨🇦
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