As fresh-faced booksellers, Heidi and I have gotten to know many of you this year through your reading habits. And also your pets, like Steven the parrot. You each have wonderfully specific interests. You study boat building or Indigenous history or foraging or women sailors or dragon smut. Graphic novels, queer romances, or Greek retellings can captivate you, and also logging memoirs, vampire stories, cookbooks, classics, poems, or just something to make you snort-laugh the stress out of your body.
While I would never disclose your personal reading history without your permission (and we don’t track it anyway – we’re not tech billionaires), I can share a few observations about what you crave most as a collective. So join me in the spirit of reflection. Following the sacred tradition of personalized, digital, year-end wrap-ups, it’s time to reveal which books you all have been spending time with.
Let’s start local. Haida Gwaii writers, artists, and editors have had a great year. This summer, our Daajing Giids bookshop celebrated the launch of Gumboot Guys (edited by Lou Allison and Jane Wilde) down at the pub, and Knots & Stitches by Kristin Miller over at the hall. The Last Logging Show: A Forestry Family at the End of an Era, by Aaron Williams, was released in Port Clements.
Several incredible Haida art books were released, including From a Square to a Circle: Haida Basketry by Dolores Churchill, Skidegate House Models: From Haida Gwaii to the Chicago World’s Fair and Beyond by Robin K. Wright, Dorothy Grant: An Endless Thread; and Raven Star and Octopus, a set of Haida stories told by John Wesley and John Wood.
Amid the trove of local treasures, one title has consistently been our most popular. Athlii Gwaii: Upholding Haida Law on Lyell Island, edited by Jisgang Nika Collison, is the story surrounding the blockade to prevent logging on Lyell Island in 1985, told through the voices of many Haida leaders. We highly recommend it.
This year, we also made recommendations through our monthly Book Box service, which is available to Haida Gwaii residents. Subscribers get a new book every month, selected and pre-screened by Heidi, whose curatorial tastes many of you have been enjoying all year long.
“I really enjoyed the book Dispersals by Jessica J. Lee,” says Erin Harris, a Book Box subscriber. “It was a really cool book exploring the themes of belonging and identity and plant species and their relationship with the human species.”
Erin lives in Daajing Giids with her partner and two daughters. Books are a big deal in their house, and reading is a daily habit for all four of them. Erin’s favourite genre is fantasy, and lately she’s enjoyed reading The Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski.
Another Book Box favourite was My Conversations with Canadians. “After I read the Lee Maracle book, I was really interested in continuing to learn about reconciliation. It’s been a big theme in my non-fantasy fiction reading.”
For something entirely different, Erin also says the novel The Husbands by Holly Gramazio was really funny. It’s about a woman in London whose attic endlessly generates new husbands. Hilarious or horrifying? You decide. The Book Box, Erin says, has helped her avoid getting stuck in the same genre all the time. “Every time I get the message that the book is in, I’m like, very, very stoked to go down there and see what it is. And I haven’t been disappointed.”
Some other people who are very, very stoked about books are pre-teens and young teenagers, because we’ve found middle grade books to be a huge hit this year. Apologies to you adults, but these kids are some of our favourite customers. “They are the most fun and the bossiest,” Heidi says. “And it’s great.” Lately they’ve been into books like The Wild Robot or the I Survived series of graphic novels.
And now for the big reveal: Which genre rules them all? Haida Gwaii, you’ve made your desires crystal clear. One type of book sets your imaginations ablaze in a special way. It’s full of dragons, danger, and unspeakably attractive beings. It’s the substance of ever-more TV shows, movies, and video games, and it’s everywhere. I’m talking about romantasy.
In romantic fantasy novels, the stakes are higher than ever as the forces of magic gather for battle. Sometimes the characters have sex. (Let’s be honest, it is most of the time.) You may be comforted to know that you aren’t alone in this interest. The romantasy trend has spread across Turtle Island too. It’s attracting a lot of investment from publishers thanks to BookTok, a collection of TikTokers and their followers who have made a few authors wildly famous.
This year, the reigning queen of romantasy is Sarah J. Maas, who has published 16 novels across three series. She has sold 38 million copies, and a few of those have been to you.
That does it for Haida Gwaii Wrapped 2024. What are you reading next? It will be our secret. To tell us, or for more details about the monthly Book Box service, email [email protected].