One Book One Kootenay 2011 winner announced — and coming to a library near you
By Nelson Daily Staff
By the Kootenay Library Federation
You’ve read the books, you considered, and you chose—and now, the votes have been tallied! This year’s One Book, One Kootenay winner is the novel Far from Botany Bay by Rosa Jordan (Oolichan, 2008).
One Book, One Kootenay (OBOK) is a region-wide book club that celebrates the work of the talented writers living in the Kootenay Boundary. This year, readers from across the Kootenay region were invited to read and vote for the shortlisted book they felt all Kootenay booklovers should read.
“I’m delighted,” said Jordan, speaking from her writing studio near Red Mountain, just outside Rossland. “Mary Broad’s story seems to me to be as relevant today as it was then. A woman’s independence has always been based mainly on what she has the courage to do for herself I’m so pleased that my novel struck a chord with Kootenay readers.”
Far from Botany Bay’s Mary Broad is a resourceful leader of men in an era—the late 1700s—when a prisoner, never mind a woman, would find it almost impossible to be master of her own destiny. Yet Mary, confined to a prison colony a world away from her native Cornwall, had the ingenuity to mastermind one of history’s most daring sea escapes, and the fortitude to overcome the hardships that stood between her and an eventual return to England.
Reader’s comments were enthusiastic about the novel, one person calling it “by far the best book I’ve read this year!”
Far From Botany Bay was nominated alongside The Glass Seed by Nelson’s Eileen Delehanty Pearkes and Living in the Shadow of Fisher Peak by Cranbrook’s Keith Powell.
“We had three excellent nominations for 2011,” said Kootenay Library Federation coordinator Joanne Richards. “We made sure that all of the libraries in our region had ample copies on their shelves, and reports are that all three books were in very high demand.”
Now, Jordan embarks on a One Book, One Kootenay reading tour. She reads at the Nelson Public Library Tuesday, October 11 at 7:30 pm.
One Book, One Kootenay is a public library supported program initiated by the Kootenay Library Federation.
