VJ & Music Reporter KCC on His Favourite Reads

KCC (also known as Kim Clarke Champniss) took an unusual route to his career as a DJ, a popular MuchMusic VJ and, later, reporter for The New Music. He might be the only music journalist to get his start as a Hudson's Bay fur trader in the rugged Northwest Territories.

Skinheads, Fur Traders, and DJs (Dundurn Press) is the true story of KCC's wild ride from pop music-obsessed teen to trader stationed in a remote northern town of 750 people. Mixing his musical knowledge and trivia with a totally unique life story, the book is a love letter to the wild days of the 1970s.

To celebrate the publication of Skinheads, Fur Traders, and DJs, we've asked KCC to take our WAR: Writers as Readers questionnaire and share about the books that have influenced him. 

He tells us about making up for lost time after falling in love with books, the reading experience that made him very noticeable on the subway, and he shares a beautifully in depth review of his favourite recent read (which you will want to pick up after hearing his description!). 

The WAR series: Writers as Readers, with KCC

The first book I remember reading on my own:

I have no recall of reading books when I was younger, although I’m sure I must have glanced at some. Reading did not become a major part of my life until I was in my 20s. I then had to make up for lost time.

A book that made me cry:

I don’t think I have ever read a book that made me cry, other than maybe my school report book as a child.

The first adult book I read:

Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. It was assigned as a “must read” by my school English teacher. It was one of the few books I read in my teens, although I think I may have cheated on the day the essay was due and I used Coles notes.

A book that made me laugh out loud:

Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson. Loud guffaws on the subway.

The book I have re-read many times:

None.

A book I feel like I should have read, but haven't:

Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

The book I would give my seventeen year old self, if I could:

On the Road, Jack Kerouac. 

A book I feel strongly influenced me as a writer and why:

Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger. It captured a tone and understanding of a disillusioned teenager like no other book. The voice was natural and seemingly effortless. It exposed the phoniness of this world through a young person’s eyes. I felt Holden Caulfield was a real person.

The best book I read in the past six months:

H is For Hawk by Helen McDonald. My review: I saw Helen MacDonald’s book H is for Hawk listed on The New York Times bestseller list, and made a mental note to put it on my own reading list. For a number of months I checked the on-line library system for the book, but all the copies were out and there was a long list of “holds” already in place. Even the e-book had a waiting list of over fifty people. But last week there it was on the shelf of my small local library, a drawing of a proud hawk on its brown front cover. It reminded me a of a tarot card. There’s that wonderful feeling of finally beholding something after so may months of searching, like an ornothologist who spots a rare species. I took my find home hoping it lived up to expectations.

Wow! What a delightful and insightful read. The premise is as unusual as Ms. MacDonald’s life. After the death of her father (a famed press photographer) she decides to train a goshawk to deal with the grief. In the process of recounting her emotional ups and downs with both her bird and the memories of her father, she also provides a literary insight into T.H. White, the man who wrote The Sword and the Stone. This also gives a fresh take on White’s re-working of the Arthurian legends and the role of Merlyn the magician. White had also written The Goshawk, published in 1951, a sad and complicated story about his experiences of training such a bird. It had left its mark, if not scarred, MacDonald when she read it as a child.

There is magic in Ms. MacDonald’s writing and her view-point, not to mention her many references to books on hawks from hundreds of years ago. She becomes acutely aware of objects and emotions as if she was a hawk. In fact, that is how she understands what is going on – she is the hawk, a bird she has named Mabel. And Mabel is her. There is literary sorcery at work here. Not just in the words and the style, but of identifying with the natural world: landscapes, animals, the weather. Ms. MacDonald casts a spell with her story telling…and in the process she not only releases her grief, but Mabel’s power, and T.H.White’s dark history.

The work is a force of nature. It takes flight and carries the reader along. Loved it.

The book I plan on reading next:

Blackout, Connie Willis.

A possible title for my autobiography:

This is it?

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Kim Clarke Champniss (a.k.a. KCC) is an award-winning broadcaster who was a popular VJ on MuchMusic and special assignment reporter for The New Music. KCC is also the author of The Republic of Rock ’n’ Roll. He lives in Toronto.