How To Be A Canadian [Paperback]

How to be a Canadian. Don't worry: here, the phrase is not punctuated by the usual soul-searching question mark. Instead, the Ferguson brothers boldly assert that, since they have both been Canadian their whole lives, they are uniquely qualified to dissect Canadian society. Besides, Margaret Atwood told them to do this book, but that's another story.

As a guidebook, How to Be a Canadian contains "a wealth of information gathered from fact-filled articles that [the authors] sort of remember reading somewhere," but frankly, the facts are there as a framework for a wicked sense of humour. The jokes, which fill every page, are sometimes juvenile: "There are 30,000,000 people in Canada-- all of whom have, at some point, frozen their tongues to the side of a flagpole." They are sometimes pointedly amusing: "Often, when the UN needs a cereal box translated, they call in the Canadians, who parachute out of stealth bombers clutching boxes of Capitaine Crounche." And they are often laugh-out-loud, fall-out-of-bed funny: "There is the assumption that Canada has only two seasons: Winter and Not Winter...In fact, Canada has no fewer than six distinct seasons: Tax; Hockey; More Hockey; Still More Hockey; Summer (also known as the July Long Weekend); and finally Good God, Isn't the Hockey Season Over by Now?!"

Will and Ian Ferguson divide their guidebook into such useful sections as How to Find Canada on a Map; Canada: A Rich Tapestry (Who to Hate and Why); and my personal favourite, Twelve Ways to Say "I'm Sorry." Nothing defines the national character more than our "sorry," especially vis-a-vis the Americans. As the authors point out, "once you learn how to properly say 'I'm sorry,' you will no longer be trying to become Canadian, you will have rewired your brain to such a degree that you will actually be Canadian." For a true Canadian, the opportunities for saying "I'm sorry" are endless, but there is one uniquely Canadian "sorry": the one you use when someone else steps on your foot.

The book concludes with a quiz designed to evaluate your level of Canadianness. For example, if you hear the name "Elvis" and think of figure skating, you get 1 point. If you can't remember if you've ever curled or not, because of how drunk you were, you get 50 points. If you know the words to "Barrett's Privateers" but not the national anthem, you get 10 points. And so on. The perfect score is zero points; I'll let the Fergusons explain why: "So, you couldn't even be bothered to do the damn quiz. Too much effort, eh? You just skipped to the end. Talk about slack. Talk about lazy. Talk about Canadian! Congratulations. You are now one of us." --Marven Krug --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

A hilarious exploration of what it means to be Canadian. The Ferguson brothers let no foible sneak past their wit. -- Airlines Magazine

The book should be mandatory reading material for new and old Canadians alike. -- Calgary Straight

This book is a reminder of what Canadians do best: make ourselves (and others) laugh. Bring on some more Ferguson brothers. -- The Globe and Mail

Will and Ian are very funny and very Canadian, and yes, these two

categories overlap beautifully. -- Douglas Coupland

A new format for the little book that has become a Canadian cultural icon, still a best-seller six years after its first publication.

When Margaret Atwood suggested Will Ferguson follow up his runaway best-seller Why I Hate Canadians with a "tongue-in-cheek guidebook for newcomers on how to be Canadian," Will thought it was a swell idea, and he quickly recruited his brother, comedy writer Ian Ferguson, creator and executive producer of the television series Sin City. Together, the Ferguson brothers have created the ultimate guide to Canadian cultural quirks.

This is a hilarious inside look at that unique species, the Canadian, and their thoughts on such diverse subjects as beer, sex, dating rituals, sports, politics, religion -- and, of course, their trademark death-defying search for the middle of any road. Over 200,000 copies of this guide have been sold north of the 49th parallel.

A new format for the little book that has become a Canadian cultural icon, still a best-seller six years after its first publication.

Will Ferguson is the best-selling author of Bastards and Boneheads: Canada's Glorious Leaders Past and Present, Canadian History for Dummies and the tongue-in-cheek survey Why I Hate Canadians. His eleventh book, Spanish Fly was published in 2007.

Ian Ferguson is an award-winning playwright and humorist whose commentaries have been widely broadcast on radio and television. He is the creator of the live improvised soap operas Die-Nasty and Sin City and is currently writing a sitcom pilot for a major US television network. With his brother Will, he is co-author of the runaway best-seller How to Be a Canadian.