Extraordinary Canadians

Penguin’s Extraordinary Canadians. John Ralston Saul, Executive Editor of the series and newly elected president of PEN International leads the discussion on three Canadian titans on the world stage: Adrienne Clarkson on Norman Bethune, Mark Kingwell on Glenn Gould, and Douglas Coupland on Marshall McLuhan.

So the Ottawa's Writers Festival event schedule said the above. I jumped on the chance to go as a student for only $15. The event was last night and the two Jenns came along too. Thank goodness I got our tickets weeks ago because the event was sold out, packed, and had a group of people outside trying to buy people's tickets. Now, it is a sad day as a Canadian when I, a fairly well educated English major, only knew 3 of the above 7 names. (That is a fail in fact.) However, a quick google/wiki search and I figured out who the rest were. It was so not what I was expecting! For one, Extraordinary Canadians is a book series, I didn't really figure that out from the above blurb. The authors were talking about books they had written for the series, biographies about famous Canadians written by famous Canadians. It really was an amazing event, I was much entertained and very glad to have seen these people speak.