Footnotes In Gaza by Joe Sacco (Metropolitan Books)

A truly remarkable accomplishment by graphic novelist Joe Sacco. It is hard to imagine how he will ever top the epic scale of this book. Footnotes in Gaza tells the long-forgotten story of the massacre of 111 Palestinians in Gaza in 1956 by Israeli soldiers. We follow Sacco as he searches for the truth from the remaining witnesses still alive. He sifts through their conflicting memories and uncovers what really happened on that terrible day. All the while, he must contend with Palestinians who just don't see the point in dredging up old history when what's happening now in Gaza is so much more important. But Sacco makes a compelling case as to why the past matters.

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I'm fond of non-fiction, particularly history and religion. But then, you probably would have guessed that.

Misquoting Jesus/Lost Christianities by Bart Ehrman (HarperCollins / Oxford University Press)

Bart Ehrman is a Biblical scholar with a populist touch. His books are little primers in the methods employed used by those who pore over Scripture to separate the oldest writings from later additions and translator's mistakes. Although Ehrman has also written about his own theological ideas, in books like Misquoting Jesus he is more intent on in guiding readers through the basic principles of scholarship and explaining why and how scholars come to their conclusions about the validity of Gospel passages. Lost Christianities focuses on the many gospels that never made the Biblical cut, including the entertaining "infancy gospels" in which little Jesus is revealed as a dangerous playmate to cross.

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Vote! Help select the next chapter for On the Same Page. Which Manitoba book, by a Manitoba author, do you think should get the On the Same Page this year? From the short list below, select the title you'd like for Manitoba's biggest book club. The poll closes Saturday, September 10, 2011.

• Baldur's Song, by David Arnason
• Winnipeg 1912 by Jim Blanchard
• Le Soleil du Lac Qui Se Couche / The Setting Lake Sun by J. R. Léveillé
• Black Bottle Man by Craig Russell

You may vote by clicking here. In October, 2008, The Winnipeg Foundation launched On The Same Page. The Literacy for Life Fund supports family literacy programming across Manitoba. Gifts to the fund are permanently endowed and the income generated supports inter-generational literacy projects at community organizations and library branches throughout the province.

My family always considered reading a favourite pastime. My father enjoyed James Gray and my mother loved Pearl S. Buck. Growing up I read all the books in my parent's and grandmother's library and what ever I could get my hands on from Leacock to Shakespeare, Spillane to Dickens. Looking at my night table I can tell you my taste in literature remains varied; Citizen of the World, the Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Volume One by John English, a collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle including The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Adventures and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Distant Hours by Kate Morton, I Used to be Coloured but Now, I'm Black by June Harris, Dancing Backwards by Sharon Carstairs and Tom Higgins and 'ripped from the television screen', Heat Wave and Naked Heat by (?) "Richard Castle".

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