Actually, the whole quote by Marx is “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog, it is too dark to read.” 🙂  This morning I am looking through my notes taken at this past week’s Association of Canadian Publisher’s Annual General Meeting and am searching for some threads to share with you here to accompany the snap above which I took on a lovely evening walk in the host city, Saskatoon.  Belonging to a talented and diverse group of Canadian publishers is a first for me in my publishing career. Up until this year I have toiled with a number of large, multi-national companies that do not call Canada their home office. While I appreciate the education I have received over the years from the likes of Oxford, McGraw-Hill Ryerson and Pearson, I am finding a genuine appreciation for the culturally rich, incredibly creative, home-grown and fiercely proud Canadian publishing scene.

This week I was blessed to meet the owners and staff of the many Canadian publishing houses that dot our vast landscape as we gathered to discuss and strategize the future of Canadian publishing: Annick Press, Breakwater Books, Coach House Books, Cormorant Books, Douglas and McIntyre, Dundurn, Goose Lane, House of Anansi, Kids Can Press, Orca, Purich Publishing, and Rocky Mountain to name a few. Despite the miles that separate us, and the diversity of our lists, all of us share a similar passion for developing books that promote and celebrate our Canadian heritage and shared experience. While we all face an uncertain future as the form and format of “the book” is in question and morphing before our eyes, each publishing house came to the table to discuss ways to continue sharing our stories as a relevant and necessary part of Canadian culture. Initiatives such as The National Reading Campaign and The 49th Shelf will no doubt extend the reach of Canadian literature, and help ensure that we support and develop a new generation of readers equally charmed by and fond of “the book” in whatever format it will take.

Before wrapping up this week’s blog post, I thought I would share perhaps the best story I heard last week (in a week full of stories told by a roomful of talented story tellers!).  On the evening of our banquet, we celebrated the service of a local Saskatoon dynamic duo, Wayne and Carrie Dueck, who were the first managers of the book lover’s paradise, McNally Robinson. The Dueck’s have a long history of managing bookshops in Saskatoon and supporting the reading community but much to the surprise of the whole room, we learned that they also supported the local environment by replacing all of the paper-bound books they sold over the years by planting over 30,000 trees! Bravo to the Dueck’s!

If you are looking for a great summer read, please check out the websites of the publishers listed above, and please do visit The 49th Shelf for a great dose of Can Lit at its finest.