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The Victoria-based Touchwood Editions is preparing to publish The Greatest 100 Books of British Columbia. The book will be edited by January magazine co-founders Linda L. Richards and David Middleton, and they will be looking for input on the selection of titles from pretty much anyone with an opinion on the matter.

“I think it’s going to be an important B.C. book, not just for the trade market, but for  educational markets [and] for libraries,” says Touchwood publisher Ruth Linka.

Even though the book isn’t due until fall 2011, Richards and Middleton have already created a website (greatest100books.com) to solicit personal top-ten lists. What books can be considered “British Columbian” will be left loosely defined. According to Linka, candidates can be published in B.C., written by a B.C. author, or simply deal with a topic related to the province. “If the book has a British Columbian association for you, that’s good enough for us,” the authors explain in their press release.

Touchwood also plans to solicit lists from well-known B.C. personalities. “We’d love to have Shelagh Rogers’ top-ten, or Arthur Black’s,” says Linka, adding that the personalities “don’t even need to be book people.”

When asked to name a book she would put on the list, Linka offers up The Curve of Time, a memoir by M. Wylie Blanchet, who sailed up the Pacific Northwest with her four small children in 1927. Link isn’t a B.C. native however – she recently moved to the province from Alberta – and she says she looks forward to using the book to learn about classic titles she hasn’t heard of.