THE GREAT CANADIAN ANECDOTE CONTEST Edited by George Woodcock Madeira Park (B.C.), Harbour Publishing, 1991. 142pp, paper, $12.95 ISBN 1-55017-058-9. CIP Grades 12 and up/Ages 17 and up Reviewed by Joan McGrath Volume 20 Number 3 1992 May Anecdotes are a pleasant part of our lives. What can better enliven a dinner table or a friendly conversation? But "the neglected art of anecdote" tends to go unrecorded: even the best of the genre are enjoyed and for­gotten, ephemeral as yesterday's newspaper article. Here, in The Great Canadian Anecdote Contest, the anecdote comes into its own. Submissions were solicited, and some established professional writers were invited to participate as "guests" rather than as contestants. Seventy-two anecdotes, consisting of fifty submissions, including the six contest winners, plus twenty-two "by invitation" pieces, range from the amusing to the ironic, from sadness to inexplicability. The longest of the anecdotes runs three pages, and most are much shorter. These "bite-size" pieces make up a most tempting sampler, having much the same effect as an enticing box of chocolates. One finds oneself irresistibly reading "just one more" until the box is emptied all too soon. Proceeds from , sponsored by CIVA (Canadian India Village Aid), are dedicated to relieving poverty in the villages of India in establishing self-help public health and literacy programs. Joan McGrath, Board of Education for the City of Toronto, Toronto, Ont.