Authors and advocates join CBC host Jian Ghomeshi as Canada Reads announces its 2010 reading list. From left, Simi Sara, Marina Endicott, Nicolas Dickner, Ghomeshi, Michel Vézina, Ann-Marie Macdonald, Lazer Lederhendler, Perdita Felicien, Cadence Weapon, Douglas Coupland, Dr. Samantha Nutt and Wayson Choy. (Timothy Neesam/CBC)Pickering, Ont., hurdler Perdita Felicien will jump to the defence of Fall on Your Knees and rapper Cadence Weapon will go to bat for Generation X as CBC's Canada Reads series returns in 2010.

The annual battle of the books involves celebrity guests defending their choice of novel. They debate their choices every day for a week on CBC Radio One before choosing a single book they believe Canadians would enjoy reading.

Canada Reads host Jian Ghomeshi introduced this year's celebrity panel at a public event at CBC headquarters in Toronto on Tuesday.

The other contenders are:

• Vancouver broadcaster Simi Sara defending Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott.
• Dr. Samantha Nutt, founder of War Child Canada, defending The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy.
• Quebec literary and cultural critic Michel Vézina defending Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner.

The cover of Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie Macdonald. The novel is one of five finalists in the Canada Reads contest. Fall on Your Knees is a gothic tale about the Piper sisters and their troubled relationship with their father told against a sprawling backdrop that begins in Cape Breton Island and extends to the battlefields of the First World War, Harlem in the Jazz Age and the Depression.

Felicien, a two-time Olympian who was Canadian Athlete of the Year in 2003, said she was nervous about having to debate the book, which has already been singled out for attention by Oprah Winfrey.

"Really, it's about bringing it to a whole new audience," she said. "A book like this keeps you enthralled and excited to the very last page. It's beautiful to read."

Generation X :Tales for an Accelerated Culture, Douglas Coupland's seminal novel about the desperate generation that followed the baby-boomers, spawned several terms that entered popular usage, such as McJobs, and was credited with capturing the zeitgeist.

Cadence Weapon, who was appointed poet laureate in Edmonton this year at age 24, said he believes Coupland's book, published in 1991, was "prescient" and ahead of its time.

"I feel it relates to a lot of people that I know," he said. "Those three characters, their lives are similar to people I know."

Good to a Fault, Endicott's examination of the limits of altruism, was a Giller nominee in 2008. It follows a lonely single woman who takes on care of three children of a woman stricken with cancer, and what happens when the mother recovers.

"I choose this book because I think things have changed for people. People are asking themselves 'Why do I do what I do?'" Sara said. "We try to be good, but we wonder if we are."

The Jade Peony is Choy's sensitive examination of the Chinese immigrant experience in Canada through the eyes of three second-generation children who must adapt to the new culture.

Nutt said she often reads in the evening when she travels in the world's trouble spots, sometimes by the light of a flashlight. It's an escape into a whole new world, she said.

Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner was originally published in French in 2005 and came out in English in 2007, translated by Lazer Lederhendler. But she read The Jade Peony at home, soon after its publication in 1995. When she was asked to choose a book for Canada Reads, she thought back and realized the book had stuck with her.

"This is a story about war, a story about kids, about hope," she said. "It has a lot of humanity and tremendous wisdom.

"What stayed with me was the richness of the characters. You feel you've been part of this family, and you've been transferred to a different time and place. This is Canadian history, too — and an important part of history."

Nikolski, originally published in French in 2005, was translated into English by Lazer Lederhendler and published in English Canada in 2007. It follows three characters as each of them try to discover who they are, following the clues left by absent fathers.

"It's an image of modern life, a book about the times we live in," Vézina said. "These three characters go down the same streets, and they never meet, but that is how things are today. We don't know what goes on next door.

"What's strange about it is that it's not a linear story, but when you come to the end, you realize you have a whole story."

Last year's winner was Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes.

Canada Reads airs March 8-12, 2010 on CBC Radio One at 11:30 a.m. and again at 7:30 p.m.