My Personal Literary Canon

by @AnnieDaylon

The term “literary canon” refers to a collection of works considered representative of a period or genre.

Having studied English Literature (Renaissance, 19th century, Canadian Lit., and Shakespeare), I was familiar with the term, but it was not until I read “Speaking of the Canon” , a post by agent/blogger Janet Reid, that I gave serious thought to the idea of a personal literary canon.

Janet Reid begins her post as follows: “The canon is what one must have read to be considered well-educated. There is the canon for Western civilization which is largely books that are non-fiction. There is the canon of English literature (the books you’d see in an English Lit survey class in college.) There is the canon for literature of the American West.” She goes on to say that there is also a canon for whatever genre you write in.

I write historical suspense set in Newfoundland, modern day suspense set in Vancouver, and short stories with… you guessed it, suspense. I read a lot, nonfiction and fiction (literary and commercial.) When I started writing, my reading became studying. And I found my influences, my personal literary canon. These are books from writers I admire, books which sit on my shelves (not just in my Kindle) so I can go back to them frequently, riffle through the pages, find sections or paragraphs or sentences or phrases that moved me, and get transported all over again. These books make me want to write better. 

My literary canon is listed below, alphabetically by author (no affiliates here, by the way.) This list is fluid in that it changes as I learn and grow. 

• Life after Life by Kate Atkinson

• Psycho by Robert Bloch

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

• The Wreckage by Michael Crummy

• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 

• Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier

• The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

• The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

• The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen

• Mystic River by Dennis Lehane

• Fall on Your Knees by Anne Marie MacDonald

• Who Has Seen the Wind by W. O. Mitchell

• The Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro

• Collected Stories of O. Henry (Unabridged)

• The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx

• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Amazing things come from the dark! I fell to my knees and crawled beneath a giant fir tree to get this image.

Do I have an absolute favorite?
Actually, I have two:
The Crimson Petal and the White (dark) and
Fall on Your Knees (darker still.)

Authors, do you have a literary canon? Which writers move you to write better? Readers and writers, any titles you can suggest to me?? 

My best to you,