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Humble the Poet on why André Alexis's Fifteen Dogs should win Canada Reads

Canada Reads defender Humble the Poet discusses his book pick for this year's battle of the books and what he learned from reading André Alexis's Fifteen Dogs.
CBC Radio ·
The Canada Reads 2017 panellists are, from left, Chantal Kreviazuk (defending The Right to Be Cold by Sheila Watt-Cloutier), Jody Mitic (defending Nostalgia by MG Vassanji), Candy Palmater (defending The Break by Katherena Vermette), Humble The Poet (defending Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis) and Tamara Taylor (defending Company Town by Madeline Ashby). (CBC)

Kanwer Singh, a.k.a. Humble the Poet, is not the biggest fan of fiction but within the first few pages of André Alexis's Fifteen Dogs, he was in love. 

"I definitely shed a few tears," Singh recalls of the book he is now defending at this year's Canada Reads. "If you're a dog person, you're definitely going to cry and if you're not a dog person then you'll probably become a dog person after." 

Fifteen Dogs follows the story of 15 canines who are given human intelligence by Greek gods. It's a story that, Singh argues, "has the broadest touch upon what the world needs to hear about" in our current times. He adds: "It'll help us [...] understand ourselves, the world around us and the people around us." 

Stay tuned in the upcoming weeks for other contenders — Chantal Kreviazuk, Tamara Taylor and Jody Mitic — to visit the q studios and talk about their picks.

And don't forget: the winning panellist of Canada Reads will join us live in Ottawa on March 30 for our Junos show. For more information about that, head over here. 

— Produced by Chris Trowbridge and Jean Kim

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