most controversial book was Bear (winner of the Governor-General's Award) in which a mousy, timid librarian is summoned to a remote Canadian island to inventory the estate of Colonel Cary, who, she learns soon enough, had any number of secrets. But the most surprising and enduring secret is a pet bear. In thirty pages, the reticent librarian meets the not so reticent bear and "wonders if it would be good company." It is good company indeed. Intimate company. Shocking company.

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