CBC Announces Canada Reads Panellists & Books Line Up, Including Giller Winner Fifteen Dogs!

It's one of the biggest bumps a Canadian book can get: inclusion in CBC's popular battle of the books, Canada Reads.

Today the national broadcaster announced their 2017 line up for the competition, in which book-loving celebrity panellists choose a favourite title from a shortlist of books and defend it through a series of televised debates.

The 2017 CBC Canada Reads line up:

• Spoken word artist and emcee  Humble The Poet defending Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis (Coach House Books)
• Singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk defending The Right to Be Cold by Sheila Watt-Cloutier (Penguin Canada)
• Politician, author, and former sniper Jody Mitic defending Nostalgia by M.G. Vassanji (Doubleday Canada)
• Comedian and broadcast host Candy Palmater defending The Break by Katherena Vermette (House of Anansi)
• Actor Tamara Taylor defending Company Town by Madeline Ashby (Tor Books)

The competition has continued its shift from discovering unknown gems to delving deep into widely celebrated books, with Scotiabank Giller Prize winning novel Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis, Nostalgia by CanLit icon M.G. Vassanji, and Governor General's Literary Award nominated The Break by Katherena Vermette all featured on the 2017 list. 

2017 marks the 16th edition of the program, this year hosted by Ali Hassan. This year the debates will focus on the question "What is the one book Canadians need now?" in celebrate of Canada's 150th anniversary. 

The four debates (each an hour long) will take place on March 27, 28, 29, and 30, 2017. Each day, one book will be eliminated via the panelists voting, culminating in the final vote to decide the winner, on March 30. The competition is a lively one, with panellists forming shifting alliances through the week until the final day, when all bets are off and the final verdict is often a surprise. 

Indigo Books will return in their role as sponsor this year, and the publishers of the finalists' books have committed to the tradition of the winning book's publisher making a financial donation to Frontier College’s Indigenous Summer Literacy Camps for First Nation, Métis, and Inuit children and youth across Canada. So we as book worms, hooked on watching the at-times confrontational contest, can feel good that the tension of the debates is all for a good cause. 

The debates will be broadcast each day on CBC Radio One at 11 a.m. (1pm AT/NT), CBC TV at 4 p.m. and live streamed online at CBCbooks.ca at 11 a.m. EST.

Stay tuned to Open Book for coverage of CBC Canada Reads throughout the competition!