Happy Canada Day 2009

It's a quiet morning. I'm puttering around doing some writing administration work, checking emails, etc. Weather calls for a mix of sun, clouds and rain. Yet again, I'm extremely thankful to live in this phenomenal country of Canada.

Damn, I'm lucky.

Speaking of Canadian, I'm delighted to read that John Mutford's 2nd Canadian Book Challenge (where he challenged bloggers to read 13 books by Canadian authors in a 12 month period and post reviews of them online) reached a total of 1118 books read. (Beating last year's 415 books by a long shot) -- Congrats to John and to all the other participants. I know I had a blast sharing the Canadian books I'd been reading and hopefully helping other readers discover Canadian writers they'd perhaps not heard of before.

I'm certainly looking forward to the 3rd Canadian Book Challenge and in honour of Canada Day have started reading LAST CANADIAN BEER: THE MOOSEHEAD STORY by Harvey Sawler (Nimbus Publishing) -- which is a look at the story of the Oland family's brewery, Canada's last oldest independent brewing company. (Born in 1867, they are celebrating the same birthday as Canada, BTW -- so along with a Happy Birthday Canada, I'd like to extend a Happy Birthday Moosehead)

I love discovering and purchasing independent and micro brewed beers from Canadian breweries -- running an independent bookstore, I take pride whenever I spend my own dollars on independent local businesses. They are part of what makes Canada unique and special, offering up choice, selection, uniqueness and the kind of independence that Canadians take pride in (if not only once per year on July 1st)

But back to John's Canadian Book Challenge. I was also delighted to learn I was one of the randomly selected winners and am getting a New Canadian Library Prize Pack from McClelland & Stewart. This is perfect since each year I do my best to try to read a few of the classics that I hadn't already enjoyed.

In any case, Happy Canada Day to all the Canucks out there reading this! We live in a truly spectacular country and should regularly count the blessings inherint in our free society, with the freedom to be creative and make personal decisions of where and how we live, the right to vote at all levels of municiple, provincial and federal government, affordable universal health care, a wonderfully multi-cultural society and a truly phenomenal geography as beautiful as it is diverse.

My name isn't Joe, but I'm proud to be Canadian.

[And unlike Joe, who abandoned his Canadian-ness in 2005 when Molson sold out to Coors (sorry, couldn't resist that little dig), I'm still proud to be Canadian.]