I’m astonished and hugely flattered to learn that a long time listener and reader of my stuff, Gavin Bamber, has nominated three of my books for recognition as the top Canadian political books of the past 25 years by Samara. This about Samara and the awards.
25 Influential Books on Politics: Samara will be collecting nominations from people across the country—and the political spectrum—on their picks for the 25 most influential political books of the last 25 years. Samara is a charitable organization that studies citizen engagement with Canadian democracy. Through our projects we hope to strengthen the health of our democracy and encourage others to do the same. Samara was created out of a belief in the importance of public service and public leadership.
Our work focuses on three areas: political leadership; the participation of citizens in public life; and public affairs journalism.
The books selected are, Canada Is Anyone Listening? (Key Porter), Rants Raves and Recollections (Whitecap), and Still Ranting (Whitecap).
Mr Bamber says “Unfortunately I had to narrow it down to only three… but those 3 work great as a trilogy. I worry that as is typical of the “national” scene that a BC writer such as Rafe Mair will be overlooked, so I figure “what the bleep!” (To quote Rafe!) Please help get Rafe the recognition that I believe he deserves!”
This project’s website is:
http://www.samaracanada.com/Best_Political_Books
The page to endorse me is:
http://www.samaracanada.com/Nominate_Books
Political books from BC writers suffer greatly from being all but ignored by Indigo/Chapters which site books about as far away from potential buyers as is possible and discourage local publishers. I’m not whining just laying it out.
You can get, from www.abebooks.com, each of these books not in good condition for pennies – however the good copies get $25 for Canada: Is Anyone Listening; and $35 for each of the others. Which with the exception of Canada is considerably more than they came out at!
