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by: CTV
Date: 10/27/2010 5:49:00 PM ET

CTV shines the spotlight on the finalists for Canada’s most prestigious literary prize and celebrates the great unifying force of reading as a national pastime with ONE COUNTRY 5 BOOKS at Giller.CTV.ca. The online literacy initiative encourages fans to pledge to read one or more of this year’s shortlisted Scotiabank Giller Prize nominees. After pledging to the Book Club, readers can then share their choices with friends online, observe which books are most popular with fans and monitor which regions of Canada have the highest number of pledges.

• CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE PLEDGE

“Engaging readers on a social level is a perfect way to connect communities to these incredible authors,” said Susanne Boyce, President, Creative, Content and Channels, CTV Inc. “With this year’s broadcast and online offerings, plus ONE COUNTRY 5 BOOKS, Canadians can rally around authors on a national and local level, and engage more extensively with their favourites.”

Expanding on the One City One Book initiative that began in Seattle in 1998 and has taken off around the world, ONE COUNTRY 5 BOOKS is a social and traditional media campaign intended to bring Canada together around the Scotiabank Giller Prize short-list authors.

Will Newfoundland pledge to read Annabel by Kathleen Winter? Will Winnipeg band together to read David Bergen’s The Matter With Morris? Which of the five books will prove most-pledged among Canadians? Find out on Giller.CTV.ca. After submitting the pledge form, visitors can access the results page containing live book rankings and updated frequently with provincial and city-based stats.

Leading up to the November 9 gala broadcast, Giller.CTV.ca has all the latest updates, including exclusive one-on-one interviews with each nominated author as they give an inside perspective of their work. Plus excerpts from each book will be available on the site, and visitors will have the opportunity to comment on the story or offer a review. Then, live online on Tuesday, Nov. 9 at 9 p.m. ET, CTV.ca will stream the black tie GILLER PRIZE broadcast for literary fans around the world.

CTV is supporting ONE COUNTRY 5 BOOKS with a series of on-air spots featuring prominent television personalities, each pledging to read one of the books. Promos feature CTV National News Anchor Lisa LaFlamme, CANADA AM co-host and GILLER PRIZE Gala host Seamus O’Regan, DAILY PLANET’s Jay Ingram, TSN hockey analyst Gino Reda, CP24’s Melissa Grelo, ETALK’s Ben Mulroney and Lainey Lui, OFF THE RECORD host Michael Landsberg, FT’s Jeanne Beker, and R&B artist and ETALK correspondent Jully Black.

In addition to ONE COUNTRY 5 BOOKS, CTV will announce its extensive 2010 Scotiabank GILLER PRIZE multi-platform campaign. Widespread coverage is anchored by the live broadcast and live webcast of the GILLER PRIZE Gala on Tuesday, Nov. 9 at 9 p.m. ET with encore broadcasts and on-demand online access. Prior to the live Gala, highlights include Bravo!’s pre-GILLER, one-hour ARTS & MINDS SPECIAL EDITION: THE GILLER WRITERS' CIRCLE, CP24 feature interviews with the Giller Prize shortlisted nominees, and CANADA AM’s author profiles and roundtable discussion. Plus, ETALK pairs each finalist with a celebrity interviewer including Sergio Di Zio (FLASHPOINT) and Jordan Todosey (DEGRASSI). Full details will be announced shortly.

The 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize finalists are:

David Bergen, The Matter with Morris
David Bergen won the 2005 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel The Time In Between. He is also the author of four other novels: The Retreat, winner of the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction; The Case of Lena S., winner of the Carol Shields Award; See the Child, and A Year of Lesser, winner of the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and a New York Times Notable Book. The recent winner of the Writers' Trust Award for a writer in mid-career, David Bergen lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
 
Alexander MacLeod, Light Lifting
Alexander MacLeod was born in Inverness, Cape Breton and raised in Windsor, Ontario. His award-winning stories have appeared in many of the leading Canadian and American journals and have been selected for The Journey Prize Anthology. He holds degrees from the University of Windsor, the University of Notre Dame, and McGill. He currently lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and teaches at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.
 
Sarah Selecky, This Cake is for the Party
Sarah Selecky grew up in Northern Ontario and Southern Indiana. Her stories have been published in The Walrus, Geist, Prairie Fire, The New Quarterly, and The Journey Prize Anthology. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia and has been teaching creative writing in her living room for the past ten years. She currently lives in Toronto.
 
Johanna Skibsrud, The Sentimentalists
Johanna Skibsrud’s first poetry collection, Late Nights With Wild Cowboys, was published in 2008 by Gaspereau Press and was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award. Originally from Scotsburn, Nova Scotia, Skibsrud now lives in Montreal.
 
Kathleen Winter, Annabel
Kathleen Winter has written dramatic and documentary scripts for SESAME STREET and CBC Television. Her first collection of short stories, boYs, was the winner of both the Winterset Award and the 2006 Metcalfe-Rooke Award. A long-time resident of St. John's, Newfoundland, she now lives in Montreal.