Canada Reads 2013: By The Numbers
October 26, 2012 4 Comments
Ladies and Gentlemen, your Canada Reads 2013 Longlists!
So how does it shake down? Here’s some statistics:
Total Nominated Women: 30
Total Nominated Men: 20
Gold Star Goes To: British Columbia, with 9 women & 1 man nominated.
Total Nominees By Publisher:
Random House: 23
Penguin: 6
Harper Collins: 5
House of Anansi: 5
Douglas & McIntyre: 4
MacMillan: 2
Everyone Else: 5
Oldest Book: Anne of Green Gables, 1908
Published in 2012: 8
Published 2001-2011: 25
Published 1993-2000: 6
Published before 1993: 11
MATH MOMENT!
Published in the last 10 years: 66%
Published in the last 20 years: 78%
Published 20 or more years ago: 22%
Lots of books I’d like to read among these finalists! Get your votes in by November 12th and on the 14th we’ll know who our finalists are!
Gold star?
There are 50% more women than men nominated – why would you get a gold star for perpetuating the imbalance? Has there been a lack of women in previous CanadaReads lists? (Honest question… I don’t know the answer.)
In addition to that, your numbers may be off. At least one of the writers on your list does not go by the traditional gender binary system.
Do you mean Ivan Coyote? She does identify as a woman…
But yes, previous years have been weighted in favour of men – usually 3/5 nominees are men. Over the last 11 years, 34/55 nominees were men (62%
). BC’s gaggle o’ girls is a large contributor to what helped the pendulum swing the other way.
Cool then (correcting a previous imbalance).
My encounters with Ivan have indicated to me not that she has a problem being identified as a woman, but that Ivan isn’t a big fan of the gender labels at all.
That is my interpretation of a conversation we had and may not be a perfect portrayal of the situation.
Fair enough, I’m just interpreting the website! Your experience is probably more authentic than mine.