Book club to read Canadian work

The new Borderland Reads International Book Club has chosen its book—and it’s Canadian.
The club selected “The Stone Diaries” by Carol Shields, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 and the Governor General’s Award for fiction in 1993, and also was nominated for the 1993 Booker Prize.
“The main reason we chose this book is the fact that Carol Shields was born in the States and now writes from Canada,” noted Margaret Sedgwick, head librarian at the Fort Frances Public Library.
“A good theme for the Borderland book club,” she added.
Shields was born in Oak Park, Ill., and attended university in England and at the University of Ottawa. She married a Canadian, Donald Hugh Shields, at 22 and has lived in Canada ever since.
She has been a professor at the University of Ottawa and University of British Columbia, and has taught at the University of Manitoba for the past 15 years.
She currently lives in Winnipeg.
“The Stone Diaries” is a fictional biography of the protagonist, Daisy Goodwill, and follows her life from childhood to old age—exploring love, marriage, and death.
It is a recount of the life of a commonplace, middle class woman who’s story would seem barely worth mentioning, yet Shields makes it interesting and significant.
Her account of the fictional Goodwill is so complete she includes a family tree, epigraph for her death, and photographs of the main characters.
The book was voted on by potential club members last month from a list of 10 books. There were more than 50 votes cast, with “The Stone Diaries” receiving about half the votes.
“It was probably a tie between it and Gary Paulsen’s ‘Hatchet,’” said Sedgwick. “Our concern was it [‘Hatchet’] was a book for young adults.
“We liked the idea of the Canadian connection,” she added.
The book club now will order enough books for interested readers, and will hold a meeting March 3 at 7 p.m. at the Metro Coffee Landing in International Falls “for anyone who is interested.”
Sedgwick said the committee that made the final decision still has to determine a plan of action for the club. She does know the plan is to have at least a couple of meetings between now and mid-April to discuss the book and bring in guest speakers.
“For example, Carol Shields’ sister-in-law lives in Rainy River. That’s a possibility [for a guest speaker],” she noted. “And we’ll try to have one discussion on either side of the border.”
For more information on the club or how to get a copy of the book to read, call the public library here or in the Falls.