Contest: Recommend A Good (New) Canadian Novel; Win An Autographed Copy Of The Handmaid's Tale

I was in the library yesterday, and a friend was sitting on the floor surfing a purse blog. The purse blog, which is located at purseblog.com was running some kind of contest in which readers could win a purse or a clutch or a wristlet or whatever women use to carry their phones and a VISA. She told me that contests are huge, and that all good blogs use them to attract readers. This isn't a "good" blog, and readers keep trickling in despite the lack of content, but in the name of fairness I'm willing to hold the first Canadian literature contest in which entrants may actually win something of real value: an autographed first edition of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. It's my least favourite book; I think an incredibly self-indulgent fantasy that doesn't read well and just isn't very good.

So why do I have it? I was at Atwood's place a year or so ago and she was carting out a few boxes of junk. Only, in Toronto, there are certain things that the city won't pick up. You clean out your basement or garage, put the stuff on the curb, and the garbage haulers'll laugh at you as they stop, pick up one bag or one box, and leave the rest behind with an orange or green sticker to let you know that you're fucked. Then you find that the city's policy of conservation and carbon footprint reduction is really about not letting you throw anything away.

So Atwood was tossing the boxes and asked me to carry one to the curb. I said, "They'll never take this; it's a box, and it's too heavy." She said, "Well, they're just books. They'll be recycled." I opened the box, rooted around, and they were all copies of Atwood novels that I guess had been issued as promo copies. She was tossing them. They were all autographed. I said, "Why are these all signed?" She said, "Practice." I said, "Yeah, but why's this one addressed to Beverly?" "I like the name."

So Atwood hones her signature on first editions. And she likes the name Beverly. Who knew.

Here's the contest: The first person who recommends a good Canadian novel published within the past five years wins the book. No catches; it's that simple. Just comment on this post, recommend a book, and if I like it you win.

Or, the first person to send in a nude photo of Rudy Wiebe wins all of the books: autographed first editions of every Atwood novel published to date.