The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk ✔✔✔

Pamuk is a Turkish writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature a few years ago - this is his first novel since winning the prize.

Kemal is a young Turkish man, about to become engaged to Sibel, when he meets Fusun, a long-lost relative, and the two fall madly in love. He tries to balance both women in his life, but finally, at his engagement party, Fusun leaves him and disappears. His broken heart, his inability to get on with his life, eventually affects Sibel, and the engagement is broken. But his love for Fusun has become obsessive - and the obsession reveals itself in the items he collects from their time together, a collection which grows and grows and includes items from Fusun's own home - cups she drank from, a cherry pit, a ceramic dog that sits on the TV.

Finally he finds Fusun, whose family has become "reduced in circumstance" and are living in a run-down area of Istanbul. For eight years, Kemal visits the family every night - this part gets a bit long - all the time lifting things from their home to place in what has become his museum to their love. His obsession almost seems to have become the collection, rather than the love it's supposed to commemorate.

This was an unusual book - rather lengthy, but a memorable exploration into romantic attachment, how people deal with loss, the social manners of Istanbul, especially as regards women's behaviour, and the allure of collecting.

U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton ✔✔✔

I avidly read the first thirteen of these, and I didn't stop reading them because I didn't like them anymore, I just seemed to move on to other reading. I picked this one up at Wal-Mart to keep for one of those times when I didn't have anything good to read, and that happened yet again - two books on my ever-present list turned out to be disappointments, so I picked this one up and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Kinsey has settled down a bit, but she's still a bit of a rebel, and I appreciate that in her.This time she's solving a murder that took place many years earlier.

I Am The Messenger - Marcus Zusak ✔✔✔

Before I comment on this book, I have to add here that I started Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, about which I had read some good reviews, but I got to page 136 before I decided I could find better stuff to read. Then I started - and twice got as far as page 11 ( of some 1081 pages of And Ladies Of The Club, which has always intrigued me because it was written over a period of 50 years by the author, Helen Hoover Santmyer, and was finally published when she was 88 years old and in a seniors' facility. Too slow by far - so many books, so little time - I regretfully set it aside.

So I found this one listed in Bookmarks magazine as noteworthy for young adult readers, and for two reasons I purchased it for my Kindle. One, Zusak's "The Book Thief" is one of my all-time favorite books, and two, at age 65, I am proud to call myself a young adult reader too!

So I found this review by a reader, and decided he had said it much better than me, so here goes:

Winner of the 2003 Children's Book Council of Australia's Book of the Year Award and nominated for best young adult book at the 2006 L.A. Times Festival of Books, I AM THE MESSENGER (or THE MESSENGER in Australia) tells the story of Ed Kennedy, nineteen-year-old taxi cab driver and all-around average guy. In fact, he's the epitome of average -- faithful friends, stinky dog, dead-end job, and girl who loves someone else.

That's why it's such a big deal for Ed, Marv, and Ritchie to get trapped in a bank during a stickup. One of the thieves gets spooked, drops his gun, and somehow Ed ends up with the weapon and the town's praise. That might be a winning hand for Ed if he doesn't receive the first mysterious playing card, the Ace of Diamonds in his mailbox. It's a card with a message for him to deliver. Or else.

Messages like Ed's will change a person, if he or she lets them. That's the beauty of Zusak's story. Ed discovers the changing power in simple, personalized messages of love, even if they're ones he's forced to deliver. While I could imagine a cynical reader calling Ed's 12 messages a tad forced, I would differ with them on every case. Ed's stories are simple proof that if a "guy like him can stand up and do what he did, then maybe everyone can. Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of."

-- Reviewed by Jonathan Stephens

Observations by Jane Harris ✔✔✔

Another Kindle book, this title has been on my Book Browse reading list for several years.
Observations is the story of a young Irish girl working as a maid in Scotland in the 19th century. She is what her "missus" describes as a low-life prostitute who has been living with her "heart's companion", but he has just died and his family, quite naturally, have kicked her out of his home. She just sort of arrives at Castle Haivers and ends up staying there, devoted to her missus, frightened and intimidated by her mother, who sold her daughter Daisy on the streets as a young child. Daisy re-names herself Bessy and tries to make a new life for herself at Castle Haivers.

The title of the book refers to the study Arabella, the "missus" is doing of maids in Victorian times, a study which has been going on for several years when Bessy arrives on the scene. The study, now in book form, the missus, her husband, the local Reverend, Nora, the former maid, plus various servants at Castle Haivers make for an interesting, vivid picture of country life in Victorian times. Bessy is the narrator and a lively one she is, with her shrewd, ironic comments on the people around her, as well as her use of language - words I'd never heard before, words which didn't appear in the Kindle dictionary, that's for sure - like "flipsight", "clootie dumpling", "dunegan", but her voice and her language are genuine, and I chuckled many times over her own observations!

Here's what Book Browse had to say:


The Observations is a brilliantly original, endlessly intriguing story of one woman’s journey from a difficult past into an even more disturbing present, narrated by one of the most vividly imagined heroines in recent fiction. This powerful story of secrets and suspicions, hidden histories and mysterious disappearances is at once compelling and heart-warming, showing the redemptive power of loyalty and friendship. A hugely assured and darkly funny debut, The Observations is certain to establish Jane Harris as a significant new literary talent.

Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson ✔✔

It was two years ago when I discovered Kate Atkinson, a Scottish writer. Her book, When Will There Be Good News, was reviewed by Book Browse, then I found it at the PCB library and enjoyed it so much I read three others quite quickly. Her main character is Jackson Brodie, a sort of anti-hero actually, because he's an ex-detective, has been married two times, his second wife took off with all his money, the first one is a constant pain in his backside, he doesn't really solve cases, he just kind of circles around them, occasionally getting beat up... and so on.

This particular book I did struggle with, maybe because we were travelling to Florida while I was trying to read it, but I read thirty pages - or more accurately my eyes skimmed through thirty pages waiting to be "grabbed" by the book, then I decided to re-read those 30 pages more carefully so I'd at least know what was going on.

I did sort of finish it, and maybe sometime I'll go back and try to re-read it, but it was odd - I sort of liked it, but then I sort of didn't, too.

The Mistress of Nothing - Kate Pullinger.✔✔✔✔

I started reading this book last night after supper, and I've just finished it - at 3:15 pm on Monday. I chose it because I figured I could get it read between last night and Thursday morning, when we leave for the winter - but here I am left with having to choose another book to read! What a tough life!

Anyway, it was easy to read because it's short - only 246 pages, but also a good story, and well-written. This novel won the Governor-General's Award for Fiction in 2009. The three main characters in this story are based on real people - Lady Lucie Duff Gordon, member of the English aristocracy in 19th century London, Sally Naldrett, her maid, and Omar Abu Halaweh, her dragoman in Egypt.

Lucie suffers from tuberculosis, and is ordered to leave England to spend time healing and recovering in Cairo, so she leaves her husband and family, and takes Sally, her maid, to be her sole companion and nurse. In Egypt, she is advised to hire a male helper, and this is how Omar comes to be part of the household. He and Sally fall in love, she becomes pregnant, and has his baby. In the time leading up to the birth of the baby, these three have become very close and the lines of class have all but disappeared, but discovering Sally has "betrayed" her turns Lucie completely and ruthlessly against her, while making Omar even more indispensable in the meantime.

The story then, is summed up by Sally, the narrator, on the first page of this novel.
1. "The truth is that to her, I was not fully human."
2. "The truth is that she hated me for being happy."

Having had some recent - and ongoing - experience with ruthlessness based partially at least on class differences myself, I identified strongly with Sally, and it could have been me asking the question Sally poses at the end of the novel:
"Why is the world full of people who see fit to dispense with others as soon as it suits them? But I stop myself from having these thoughts, from thinking these things, and I get on with the task at hand. I'm very good at getting on with the task at hand - it's what suits me".

Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult.✔✔✔

Willow is a five-year-old who was born with a brittle bone disease, and over her lifetime she will experience hundreds of broken bones. Her mother, Charlotte, is pursuing a wrongful birth suit against her obstetrician- who is also her best friend - in hopes of gaining the financial means to take care of her daughter. Willow's Dad, Sean, and her older sister, Amelia, suffer too, not only as a result of Willow's disease, but also Charlotte's unwavering pursuit of the best she can get for Willow, even though she has to say she would have aborted the fetus if she'd known. There's lots of questions of ethics and morality, the trials of parenting an ill child, trying to preserve a marriage in the midst of all this, plus a law case - and lawyers who have their own problems to deal with. A quick read, but enjoyable. This is about the fifth of Picoult's books that I've read.

Galore by Michael Crummey.✔✔✔✔✔

I just enjoyed a week-long holiday in Newfoundland - without leaving the house! I smelled the cod, felt the cold winds, heard the voices of the characters, and revelled in their wonderful stories. This book had stories galore, as the title suggests, and I savoured every one, every character - from the new Anglican priest who stumbled up the dock after his voyage from England, Judah, who sprang full-blown from the belly of a whale, Devine's Widow with her tart tongue and great knowledge, to Esther, the famous opera star who returns to her hometown after fleeing the stages of European opera houses.

The book begins in the early 1800s and ends just after the first world war, so this is pioneering Newfoundland we get to experience, and I would say it's a folkloric history of Newfoundland, based in a small outport hear Harbour Grace, mainly concerns itself with two families, who merge in interesting ways as the book progresses. but whose lives and experiences are those of all Newfoundlanders.

If you've visited Newfoundland, you don't want to miss this one, and if you haven't, you'll want to go for sure after reading this. Just wonderful!!

A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery - Carola Dunn.✔✔

It's always interesting to find a new mystery writer, and after reading Room, I needed something light, so the fact that Carola Dunn has written eighteen Daisy Dalrymple mysteries was intriguing enough for me to do some more searching, so I downloaded one for my Kindle. It was called The Gunpowder Plot, takes place on a country estate in the Cotswolds, where Daisy, a journalist, is doing some research into Guy Fawkes Day, and where her friend's father is found shot to death along with a visitor from Australia. Daisy herself appears to be a bit of a "ditz"- it's her husband, Alec, a Scotland Yard detective who actually solves the mystery when he arrives.

Entertaining enough - probably a good one to read on The Tube while going back and forth from work in London!

Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue.✔✔✔✔✔

"Today I'm five." The reader already knows the significance of this first sentence of Room because we already know from the title and the book jacket that Room is Jack's home - the only thing he's known in his life. He lives there with Ma, for whom Room is a prison. This is a most unusual book, because the narrator is Jack, so everything is seen from the child's aspect, a situation which becomes more intense when Jack and Ma leave Room.

I really don't want to say anything more about this book - it just has to be read. I read it in less than three days, and didn't want it to end.

Emma Donoghue is from Ireland, now living in London, Ontario. This book was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize this fall. I will remember this book for a very long time!

This Body of Death by Elizabeth George.✔✔✔✔✔

This is the 16th of George's novels about Inspector Lynley, and I've read each and every one. I'm positive that each time I read her latest, I think they can't get any better, but they do. I'm filled with admiration for her as a writer of British mysteries, first for her detailed knowledge of the country, a fact which is notable because she herself is American ( you'd never, ever, know it from her writing), the intricacy of her plots, which while you're reading you marvel at their complexity, but when everything is finally revealed, were very simple, her use of surprise, which can make you gasp a little as much for the fact that you wonder how dull you must have been not to see it coming, and the roundedness - is there such a word?- of her characters.

Bloody marvellous, as Barbara Havers would say!!

The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti.✔✔✔✔

This is another book that's been on my list for over two years, not because I didn't choose to read it, but because I couldn't find it, either in book stores or in libraries, so I found and bought it on Kindle Store. I read it in just under two days - a quick, easy read, but also hard to put down.

Ren lives as an orphan at a monastery until a stranger, Benjamin Nab, comes and takes him. Nab is a con man, telling him he is Ren's long-lost brother, but it soon is apparent that Nab takes him more for the fact that Ren is missing his left hand - a definite entertainment value with the many thieves, liars, cut-throats and double-crossers the two meet in their adventures. Ren takes well to this new life, even as he remembers the moral values instilled in him back at the orphanage, which was not the most ideal place to grow up by any means.

It is a kind of dark fairy tale- I envisioned lots of dark colours, twisting branches, cold cellars, sterile hospitals and dingy factories, like the mousetrap factory where ugly girls work fashioning mousetraps - but I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would happily recommend it to anyone. It's listed as a young adult book, but is equally suitable for adults.

Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes by Daniel Everett.✔✔✔

Another Kindle book, I read this in between my last two postings! Being the child of missionaries myself, I was interested to read this account of the author's 30 years among the Piraha ( Pronounced "pee-da-han) in the Amazonian jungle, and how his experiences with these people led him to lose his faith!

The group he represented did not actively try to convert the natives: they went to these tribes to learn their language enough so they could translate the New Testament into that language, then trusting the word of God to reach and change the lives of the readers. It didn't work - the Piraha live in the moment, and had no interest in learning about a man no one had ever seen or experienced. Everett is primarily a linguist, and his adventures in learning and de-coding their language - which is inextricably linked to their culture - was interesting enough, but I was most intrigued by the last chapter, where he recounts quite clearly his path to losing his faith.

For the rest of the book, I've copied the book jacket info:


From the book jacket
A riveting account of the astonishing experiences and discoveries made by linguist Daniel Everett while he lived with the Pirahã, a small tribe of Amazonian Indians in central Brazil. Everett, then a Christian missionary, arrived among the Pirahã in 1977—with his wife and three young children—intending to convert them. What he found was a language that defies all existing linguistic theories and reflects a way of life that evades contemporary understanding: The Pirahã have no counting system and no fixed terms for color. They have no concept of war or of personal property. They live entirely in the present. Everett became obsessed with their language and its cultural and linguistic implications, and with the remarkable contentment with which they live—so much so that he eventually lost his faith in the God he'd hoped to introduce to them.

Over three decades, Everett spent a total of seven years among the Pirahã and his account of this lasting sojourn is an engrossing exploration of language that questions modern linguistic theory. It is also an anthropological investigation, an adventure story, and a riveting memoir of a life profoundly affected by exposure to a different culture. Written with extraordinary acuity, sensitivity, and openness, it is fascinating from first to last, rich with unparalleled insight into the nature of language, thought, and life itself.

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory.✔✔✔

Like countless other people whose childhoods spanned the 1950s, I was a keen reader of The Book of Knowledge. In one of those volumes was a portrait of the two young princes who were imprisoned in the Tower of London back in the late 15th century, and I was endlessly fascinated with the portrait, which showed them holding one another, looking down a passageway as if to search their way out.

When I learned that The White Queen was the story of their mother, Elizabeth Woodville, I placed the title on my "Must Read" list, where it has been for over two years, but I finally - but not without some mysterious disappearances of the book among the library's shelves - got to read it.

According to this novel, one of those princes was Edward, heir to the throne, but the other was a young boy who joined Elizabeth's household as a changeling for Richard, second in line to the throne, who was spirited away to France. Gregory does warn the reader that there is no hard evidence for this.

Elizabeth herself is a very interesting character, apparently the most beautiful queen of England, who also possessed some gifts of foreseeing and witchcraft, gifts which were handed down by her mother.

I enjoy reading Gregory's historical fiction. There's a lot of information and intrigue, but she keeps her story going well and doesn't let you get bogged down with details. I was a bit confused about the timeline in the book, which ended with the book's beginning period, but I realize now that this series, entitled The Cousins' War, is about the Plantagenets, who preceded the Tudors.

Now I've got her next, The Red Queen, on my list - it's about Mary, Queen of Scots.

The Secret Daughter -Gowda. ✔✔✔

Hmmm...what can I say? Sandra gave me this to read, and I started it with interest and enthusiasm, first because it's appearing consistently on best-seller lists, and it's a "Heather's Pick'' from Chapters as well.

The story is interesting for sure, but - well, I guess I'm still getting over the mastery of language, plot and character in "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" - after the first 100 pages which slipped by quite quickly, I just skimmed through to find out where the story was going to lead. There just wasn't good enough character development; the plot, though illuminating as a study of modern family in Mumbai, was pretty weak, and I couldn't help thinking of Mistry's "A Fine Balance" and how I was able to enter the story more fully and really feel the emotions of the characters. This one read like a newspaper feature in comparison - just not enough substance for me to let my eyes suffer the consequences of devouring a well-written novel. I owe them more than that!

Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith.✔✔✔

McCall Smith is a real favorite of mine. I love the No. 1 Detective Agency novels, and the "portuguese series" novels were so funny - The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, Portuguese Irregular Verbs, etc. This one begins a new series, and is set in London in an apartment building named Corduroy Mansions. The story revolves around some interesting characters who either live in the building or have some connection to people who do reside there. There's William, a wine merchant in his fifties whose son, Eddie, aged 24, is proving to be a bit of a nuisance in the apartment and William is trying to find an appropriate way to get him to leave. His solution is the rent - yes, rent- a dog, because Eddie hates dogs. This one's name is Freddie de la Hay, and he was a former luggage sniffer at Heathrow.

There are the four girls who room together - Caroline, who is doing a Masters' degree in Art History, Jennie, who works for Oedipus Snark, A MP, Dee, who works in a Vitamin store and wants to do a colonic irrigation on one of her (male) co-workers, plus Jo, whom we haven't yet met. Oedipus Snark is also a character in this novel, as is his erstwhile girlfriend, Barbara Ragg, plus Bertea Snark, his mother, who is writing a biography of her son, and Terrence Moongrove, my favorite character and Oedpius' uncle. Terrence is a kind of left-over flower child who is completely and utterly inept at just about everything he does, especially when it comes to cars.

Here's a couple of quotes I loved. The first illustrates how the author satirizes modern social and business values:

This is William, the wine merchant speaking about his job: " A semi-promise was where the client said that he would take something and the merchant said that he would set it aside, both knowing that neither meant it."

And the second concerns dogs - Freddie de la Hay is very central to this novel, but I feel this is so true.:

"Not much happens to dogs; they lead their lives around our feet, in the interstices of more complex doings, from which perspective they look up at the busier human world, eager to participate,eager to understand, but for ever limited by biology and the vagaries of evolution to being small-part players in the drama."

I found this read, as with all of Smith's books, a gentle, humorous, yet enlightening read. He is a keen observer of human nature. Can you imagine an MP named OEDIPUS SNARK?????

Losing My Religion by William Lobdell.✔✔✔✔

This was the first complete book I read on Kindle!
William Lobdell wrote this memoir of becoming an evangelical, then a Roman Catholic, then a somewhat reluctant athiest. He was the religion journalist for the L.A. Times and was preparing to enter the RC church when he began reporting on RC clergy sexual abuse claims. He was disheartened both for the way the hierachy of the church covered for abusive priests and vilified their victims, and by how congregations rallied to the side of those priests rather than to the victims. The result was he gradually, yet completely lost his faith and never did join the church.

In his column he also reported on "prosperous ministries"- the TV evangelists who charm money out of their viewers' pockets - Benny Hinn in particular.

He describes in some detail his life after losing his religion, and many of his thoughts mirror my own - reluctance to describe his fall from faith, feeling more peace and security than he ever did as a Christian, and he has better relationships with people as a result.

When he published the column in which he described his new thinking, he received countless e-mails, mostly of support, but many, as you could expect, lamenting his loss of faith and offering to lead him back to God. " The tone of response caught me off guard, but it was what Jesus would have expected of his followers: plenty of love, understanding and gentleness. The outpouring of concern didn't rekindle my belief in Christianity, but it strengthened my faith in humanity."

This was a quick, but engrossing read, informative and honest. I highly recommend it.

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay.✔✔

Okay, so what were some good features of this book?

1. I had never heard of the Vel d'Hiv incident, so this was new to me, and I thought this part of the story was well-told.
2. I finished it. I sure didn't read every page, though.

3. I like the fact that I won't be here when my Book Club discusses it because I'll find it hard to be negative in a nice way.

So what didn't I Like?

1. Julie's husband was a jerk. Why did she stay with him? Why did she even consider aborting his baby just because HE didn't want it?

2. Because of my two questions above, I ended up not liking Julie either, so much so that I didn't think she even deserved to tell Sarah's story because Sarah was so much better a person, so much braver.

3. There were too many coincidences, so many pat turns of plot just to get things done in the story. This author needs to sit down and talk about writing coincidences with an author like Kate Atkinson.

4. I felt manipulated by the writing, and I felt bad for all the people who went through that horrible, horrible time who were supposedly honored by this book, but instead were trivialized.

I hate it when I read a book that I dislike so intensely. There are so many others more worthy of my time.
So I'm not going to write any more about it!

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell.✔✔✔✔✔

This was not an easy read, but a very rewarding one, so much so that I will re-read it soon. There's just so much in it- a reviewer has named it "dense" in details, plot, dialogue, although you never get the feeling the author is exploiting your understanding by lengthy descriptions, etc. David Mitchell, the author, manages to dispense as much information as is necessary fairly efficiently, but in such a colorful, richly-detailed way that you marvel at what kind of mind can even hold all that knowledge, let alone share it so well with the reader. To be sure, this novel will be around for a very long time- I would call it a classic of contemporary literature. Even though all the events in the novel take place between 1799 and 1817, and there are times when you think of Charles Dickens or Herman Melville, it is very much a contemporary novel in its outlook and writing. At one point I remember thinking: This is Star Wars, or Avatar even, only two centuries ago and in Japan!

I borrowed this short summary from the New York Times Book Review :

As the novel opens, it’s 1799, and the Land of the Rising Sun is closed to the West, save for one trading post on the island of Dejima near Nagasaki that is run by the Dutch. Young Jacob de Zoet has arrived there to make his fortune and to win the hand of his beloved, Anna, back home in Rotterdam: her father has promised they can wed after Jacob has served a five-year posting in the Far East as a clerk.

The fastidious Jacob is both fascinated and repelled by the teeming street life he sees around him: “gnarled old women, pocked monks, unmarried girls with blackened teeth,” chanting street urchins, unscrupulous merchants, expensive courtesans, the smells of “steamed rice, sewage, incense, lemons, sawdust, yeast and rotting seaweed.”

Jacob also finds himself magnetically drawn to Orito Aibagawa, a young Japanese midwife with a scarred face, who is studying medicine on Dejima, under the tutelage of a Dutch doctor, Marinus. Orito has earned this unheard-of privilege for a woman by successfully delivering the seemingly stillborn son of Shiroyama, a powerful magistrate. Though Jacob soon becomes obsessed with Orito, his love for her is forbidden — as a Westerner, he is persona non grata in Japan, and Orito is prohibited from ever leaving her homeland. What’s more, Jacob has an equally unlucky competitor for Orito’s affections: a translator named Uzaemon, whose wish to marry her has been denied by his father, who is concerned about her family’s many debts.....( end quote)

So there's forbidden love, daring adventures, corruption, stealing, global trade, sea battles, good and evil, longing, a contrast between faith and science, plus, and - charmingly humorous for me - the difficulties of trying to explain English words to Japanese interpreters, not to mention the skewed sense of English that the Japanese use without any trace of hesitation or embarrassment.

Now I never once wanted to put this novel down because I had to concentrate too hard, or because I couldn't understand what was going on - although I experienced both those things while reading it. I just seemed to realize that this was literature at its very best and I'd really miss something if I didn't perservere with it.

My favorite character? Dr. Marinus, who is training young Japanese to be doctors, and who uses the clerks and hands like Jacob de Zoet to teach human anatomy to his students, cleverly trapping them into service.

David Mitchell is Irish. I have heard of another of his novels entitled "Cloud Atlas", which was mentioned by someone in book club last June when we chose our books for this year. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet was longlisted for the Booker this year, but did not make the shortlist. Too bad.

This Time Together by Carol Burnett.✔✔✔

I was a huge fan of the Carol Burnett Show back in the 70s. You couldn't get through a show without a belly laugh or too, and more often than not, laughing almost to tears, especially at Tim Conway, who just had to walk into a skit to make me start laughing.

There were a few good laughs in this book too, as Carol related many anecdotes, which is basically how the book was written. For example, and this is an actual happening, Carol, dressed in pants, went into an ice cream parlour in NYC where women were only welcome if they wore skirts ( we're back in the 50s here). A waitress loudly berated her for wearing pants, and Carol finally explained herself - and certainly silenced the waitress - when she said she had just received a wooden leg and was too embarrassed to wear a skirt! Then there was the skit where Tim Conway, as a dentist, injected himself with novocaine to check out the effectiveness of the drug - once in the arm, once in his leg, and then finally between his eyebrows, with Harvey Korman writhing with laughter in the dentists' chair, trying unsuccessfully to be the terrified patient.

This was a very quick read, but thoroughly enjoyable. There's even a memorable quote from her daughter Carrie who died of cancer in 2002, and who when asked why she was always so cheerful even amidst such invasive treatments, said: "Every day I wake up and decide: today I'm going to love my life". It's evident her mother did - and it's a decision we'd all be better off making every day of our lives.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks.✔✔✓

Some years ago, I read Brooks' first novel, Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague, and then last winter, I read about half of March, the book for which she won the Pulitzer Prize. I don't know why, but I find her books boring. The topics are interesting enough, and I'm involved in the first parts of them, but then, my interest wanes.

People of the Book was no different. This was Shirley's pick for our "Birthday Book Event" - two years ago, Shirley, Sandra and I decided not to exchange birthday gifts any longer. Instead each of us purchases a book for ourselves and each of the other two has first dibs on reading it if we wish. We get together for lunch to open our books, talk about them and decide who gets which book first. It's worked quite well and even though the three of us exchange books regularly anyway, it's sort of a special book occasion - we choose a date after the final birthday of the year has passed, which is October. I've already purchased mine, and then one week later, won the same book in one of those monthly draws from publishers!

Now my thoughts have moved on to another sort of "quirky" thing I do about books, and choosing which book to read. Like all avid readers, I have many books on my shelf which I haven't read yet. Presumably they're there because they called out my name from wherever I saw - or read about- them first, but occasionally I really can't decide which one to read next. Often I just go to the library and get something else, but once in a while, I pull six books off the shelf, line them up, and then toss a dice. Whichever number comes up, that's the one I read! And there's no losers - the remaining books may or may not be in the next lineup.

Back to People of the Book, which is about books, and one book in particular- the Sarajevo Haggadah," a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in fifteenth-century Spain and recently saved from destruction during the shelling of Sarajevo's libraries". Hanna Heath is a book expert who uncovers the history of the book, a journey which takes her research back to the fifteenth century, during which she uncovers the stories of those who worked on the book.

There are interesting stories to be told, and I particularly enjoyed Lola's story because, during the Nazi headhunt for Jews, she took refuge in the Partisan Army mountain camps of Yugoslavia - one of which Mike, Karen and I visited when we went to Slovenia six years ago. There are others, too, like the Inquisition and its many terrors, especially for Jews.

But then I found myself skimming through to the end. Maybe there were too many stories, too lengthily related, or maybe the subject matter just wasn't strong enough to hold my interest. It could even be my frame of mind at the moment. I'm at least interested enough to skim through to the end, rather than just closing the book, but I may do that only so I can tell Shirley I enjoyed the book.

Two and a half stars for this one, anyway.

Tales of Wonder by Huston Smith.✔✔✔

CBC's Tapestry on Sunday afternoons is one of my favorite radio shows, and having just heard the end of the program when Huston Smith was interviewed, I decided to read one of his many books. Huston is now in his early 90s, was born in a remote village in China to missionary parents, and has spent his life "chasing the divine", adventures which have led him to examine and experience first-hand such religions as Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, native American religions and yet he calls himself a practising Christian. It was this all-embracing spiritual journey that intrigued me, plus his voice in the interview, where he replied to questions very slowly but with complete humility.

His spiritual reading includes the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, the Qur'an and Sufi poems. a practise he follows every day after he does some yoga poses. ( He relates teaching a class of students while standing on his head!)

The book has been designed around the image of a cross, not the Christian cross but an ordinary cross, where the horizontal arm signifies the historical dimension of his life, while the vertical arm suggests the sacred dimension- his life "amid timeless truths".

He has become friends with such diverse and interesting persons as Aldous Huxley, Martin Luther King Jr., the Dalai Lama, and Timothy Leary - and yes, he tried mescaline with him. He has also travelled extensively, both on his own and with students.

Quoting from this autobiography: " The proper response to a great work of art is to enter into it as though there were nothing else in the world. The proper response to a major spiritual tradition, if you can truly see it, may be to practice it. With each new religion I entered into, I descended ( or ascended?) into hidden layers within myself that, until then, I had not known were even there"

And the last words of his book? "Thanks for everything! Praise for it all!" He certainly has lived life to the fullest.
I now want to read his book "The World's Religions".

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson. ✔✔✔

I read the first two of this series eagerly: I think Lisbeth Salander is one of the strongest female characters in any novel of this genre, and I cheered her on through all her adventures. I guess that's the main reason I was somewhat disappointed in this third novel, for Lisbeth spends most of the novel in a hospital bed while other, less colorful characters come to the fore. I wanted her to get up out of that bed and bring the book to life, or at least provide enough action to get me more involved with the story.

Now here's the other reasons I was disappointed by this third book:

1. There's too much information! I don't want a four or five page history lesson on the Swedish Internal Security System, nor do I need a three page description of the alarm system put into Erika Berger's bedroom! Was this novel written by a man or what????

2. A lot of the characters' names were quite similar, and there certainly was a big cast of characters in this book. For example, which one is that crazy guy who feels no pain - Nieminen or Niederman? And all those E's... Erlander, Ekstrom, Edklinth- it was hard enough keeping straight who was police, who was security, who was journalist, let alone keep the names straight. I even kept some sticky notes in the front cover with some identifying feature to help me out!

3. I was taken aback often by changes in writing style and I wondered if someone had done some editing. There'd be some real flow to the writing, then suddenly there were lots of very short, almost stilted sentences, obviously to insert some more information. And why did the women's wardrobe choices seem important to mention? And why did it have to be mentioned that Blomkvist had to buy toiletries before he left on a sudden flight out of Sweden?

4.Apparently, according to reviews and such that I read - Larsson was very much involved with women's issues and women's rights. Good for him. So why does he have a stalker following Erika, who, incidentally, has an on-going affair with Blomkvist with her husband's knowledge and approval? Local colour, maybe?

Anyway, I happily read well over 200 pages of this book before I got bogged down - and that was after I made the sticky notes. I skimmed some 200 more until I just turned over to the end and read the last two pages. It's over!! Yippee!!

I'll watch the movie to see what I missed...

Into The Wilderness by Sarah Donati.✔✔✔✓

Book One of a series of six or seven, Into The Wilderness begins in 1792 in a remote mountain village in the New York wilderness. Elizabeth Middleton, aged 29, has come to join her father, Judge Middleton, in the town of Paradise to teach school.

She meets Nathaniel Bonner, a Mohawk Indian, whose people reside peacefully in the area, and they soon fall in love. The villain in the piece is Richard Todd, the town doctor, who the Judge has "arranged" to marry Elizabeth, so he can pay his many debts. Once Elizabeth discovers this plan, she must decide whther to comply or deceive her father into thinking she will marry Todd, when in fact she runs away with Nathaniel.

I realize this all sounds rather cheesy, but it is well-written, and is a good story, with many characters, lots of conflicts, secrets, villains, heroes, sages, etc. I plan to read the other books,too, probably with some time in between- you could get a little weary of it all. I like that the author covers a great deal of historical information by character and situation, instead of those long pages of description by such writers as James Michener.

I discovered this series in the library- the latest novel was on the "recent" shelf, so I went looking for the others. It's always fun to discover a new author who tells a good story. I had been thinking of starting the Diana Gabaldon series, but I don't like the time travel aspect, and she gets a bit wordy. These are entertaining and they don't drag, even at 691 pages!

Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler.✔✔✓

A number of years ago, I read several books by Anne Tyler - Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist, Breathing Lessons, Ladder of Years, and - my favorite - Saint Maybe, with its Church of the Second Chance! Tyler is a keen observer of human nature - the humor, the lost opportunities, the foibles and follies of being human - yet she portrays a message that resonates so clearly.

Noah's Compass tells the story of Liam Pennywell, a 60-year-old teacher facing forced retirement, and trying to come to terms with the rest of his life when - on the first night in his new, smaller apartment- an intruder hits him on the head and he wakes up in hospital without any recollection of what happened to him.

His family - all of whom he rarely sees - come in to visit him and he meets a younger woman whose job is "a rememberer" for an elderly man. He finds himself becoming involved with Eunice, not entirely willingly, and his youngest daughter, Kitty, comes to spend the summer with him. Liam would dearly love to know what happened when he was injured, but instead, these women, plus his ex-wife and other children, just by their very presence helps him remember things from his past which are far more meaningful to him, and enable him to face this end of his life.

Liam feels he has always been an observer in life, never a full participant. Liam believes his life is “drying up and hardening, like one of those mouse carcasses you find beneath a radiator.” He’s “just trying to make it through to bedtime every night.” “I am not especially unhappy,” he imagines writing on a postcard to the public, “but I don’t see any particular reason to go on living.” Late in the novel he realizes that his "true self" left him after his first wife committed suicide and left him with a baby to raise, and never came back. Hence, the significance of the novel's title: His grandson, Jonah, is reading about Noah, and Liam explains to him how Noah didn't need a compass, because he wasn't going anywhere specific. " There was nowhere to go. He was just trying to stay afloat. He was just bobbing up and down, so he didn't need a compass, or a rudder, or a sextant..."

And that is how Liam is living his life. I would have wished for a better ending to the relationship with Eunice, but at least he restores a relationship with his daughters. The best parts of Tyler's writing are the humorous observations, worth many chuckles, and occasionally a good laugh ( like when the kindergarten boys rub their fingerpaints up and down the backs of the girls dresses).

And here's a quote I really connected with: " Epicetus says that everything has two handles, one by which it can be borne and one by which it cannot. If your brother sins against you, he says, don't take hold of it by the wrong he did you but by the fact that he's your brother, That's how it can be borne".

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See.✔✔✔✔

From the book jacket:
"In 1937 Shanghai - the Paris of Asia- twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Though both sisters wave off authority and tradition, they couldn’t be more different: Pearl is a Dragon sign, strong and stubborn, while May is a true Sheep, adorable and placid. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree . . . until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth and that in order to repay his debts he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from California to find Chinese brides.

As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the Chinese countryside, in and out of the clutch of brutal soldiers, and across the Pacific to the shores of America. In Los Angeles they begin a fresh chapter, trying to find love with the strangers they have married, brushing against the seduction of Hollywood, and striving to embrace American life even as they fight against discrimination, brave Communist witch hunts, and find themselves hemmed in by Chinatown’s old ways and rules."

An enlightening look into the Chinese immigrant experience, and certainly a better read than Peony in Love. The way this novel ends, there must be another one coming, and I'll be anxious to read it, too!

July 9, 2012:  I just finished reading Dreams of Joy, which continues this story.

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby. ✔✔

Nick Hornby is an English writer, most recognizable to me as the author of About A Boy, which later became a great movie with Hugh Grant. I think he also won the Booker a couple of years ago. This particular novel is about a musician - Juliet, Naked is the name of a CD he released - who fled the business and became a recluse in America. For that reason a kind of cult has grown up about him and Duncan, a real anti-hero, is the online leader of a forum about sightings of Taylor Crowe, the absent musician. Duncan's girlfriend, Annie, is a little more realistic about Crowe's abilities and actually ends up starting an e-mail relationship with Taylor.

This was a mildly interesting book, with a few amusing comments and observations. I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone over 40!

WE WERE THE MULVANEYS by Joyce Carol Oates.✔✔✔✔✔

I can't believe I read this novel in less than four days, but I just couldn't put it down. Like Mistry's "A Fine Balance" and David Adams Richards' "Mercy Among the Children" - both of which I loved - this story is a sad one, although there is redemption and closure at the end. The Mulvaneys are a happy, prosperous family of six in upstate New York, living in a beautiful three-storey home, busy with farm animals, cheerleading, playing football, visiting with friends, collecting antiques, until an incident involving Marianne, aged 17, changes the family forever. The story is told by Judd, the youngest, who was only 13 at the time of this incident, and who, at the age of 30, is now a journalist seeking to make sense of his family's history.

The novel, then, is about families - how they change their landscape over time, how siblings interact, how they keep secrets from each other, how one incident can affect everyone else.

Quotes from the novel:

Page 230
"He, Patrick Mulvaney, was this young woman's brother: they'd been brother-sister through all of their conscious lives: each was more closely related to the other genetically than either was to either of their parents. Yet he believed he scarcely knew Marianne at all. He loved her, but scarcely knew her. Members of a family who've lived together in the heated intensity of family life scarcely know one another. Life is too head-on, too close-up. That was the paradox. That was the bent, perplexing thing. Exactly the opposite of what you'd expect. For of course you never give such relationships a thought, living them. To give a thought - to take thought - is a function of dissociation, distance. You can't exercise memory until you've removed yourself from memory's source".

"Our lives are defined by the whims, caprices, cruelties of others. That genetic web, the ties of blood. It was the oldest curse, older than God. - Am I loved? Am I wanted? Who will want me, if my parents don't?"


Corinne Mulvaney( page 426) " I'm sorry not to have been a better mother but - I don't know what happened exactly - it was just something that happened, wasn't it?- no one ever decided - I never decided -..."

This is a novel I won't easily forget, and it goes on my list of all-time favorites.

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls.✔✔✔

This second book by Jeannette Walls - the first was the brutally vivid story of a dysfunctional family, The Glass Castle - tells the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette's grandmother and mother of Rosemary, the leftover hippie mother of Jeannette. Lily was raised on a very rudimentary ranch in Arizona, learned to break horses at the age of six, left home at age 15 to travel 500 miles on a horse to become a schoolteacher in a small frontier town,learned to drive a car and fly a plane, and even sold bootleg whiskey for a time to support her family. With her husband Jim, she ran a huge ranch in Arizona, then later moved to Phoenix for a short time - her description of city-living and coping for a woman who was used to wide open spaces, freedom and silence was quite revealing. She was ahead of her times in many ways - hated prejudice of all kinds, and voiced her opinions clearly and freely.
Jeannette's grandmother died when Jeannette was 8 years old, and Jeannette had wanted to write about her mother, but Rosemary convinced her that Lily's story was far more interesting. She wrote the book in the form of an oral history, and calls it a "true-life novel". Fascinating - what a strong woman!

The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee✔✔✓

I bought this book at Borders in the US, read about a third of it, then set it aside because of three big books I received from the library there, and I didn't get back to it till now, so I started again from the beginning. I copied this summary from Book Browse:

In 1942, Will Truesdale, an Englishman newly arrived in Hong Kong, falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their love affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese as World War II overwhelms their part of the world. Will is sent to an internment camp, where he and other foreigners struggle daily for survival. Meanwhile, Trudy remains outside, forced to form dangerous alliances with the Japanese—in particular, the malevolent head of the gendarmerie, whose desperate attempts to locate a priceless collection of Chinese art lead to a chain of terrible betrayals.( end quote)

I enjoyed this book, even though one reviewer in Book Browse didn't like the writing, or the fact that it didn't go anywhere. I read it in two days - it's easy enough to read, and she tells a good story. I'm always intrigued by people who suffer so much hardship, as did the people in the internment camp, and Trudy, to me at least, is the real hero of the book, as she stays outside the camps but still suffers immensely. I wish she hadn't just disappeared near the end- she deserved better closure by the author.

All in all, though, a very good read.

Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout.✔✔✔✔✔

Well, I just devoured this one! A mother-daughter story, Amy is 16, Isabelle is her mother, and the story takes place over the course of one summer, a summer which has begun with Isabelle's startling discovery that her daughter has become sexually involved with her math teacher at high school! There is no father, no siblings, and Isabelle, since their move to this small town, has made Amy the focus of her life. At the mill where she works, Isabelle has a secret crush on her employer, Avery Clark, and dreams of the day when they can be together, even though Clark gives no indication of any interest in her apart from their work together. When Amy's involvement with her teacher is discovered by Avery Clark, Isabelle is disgraced and yet, oddly, jealous of her daughter, envious that she has found someone to love her, envious of the attention she has received. This discovery is made even more harrowing by the punishment Isabelle inflicts on her daughter, a punishment which reflects this jealousy. The distance between them seems almost insurmountable until Amy makes a startling, traumatic discovery, and Isabelle nurtures her through this time.

The novel is rich with characters, most particularly other women from the mill like Fat Bev, the Mother Earth figure, Dottie Brown, whose husband leaves her after she has a hysterectomy, as well as the snotty church ladies who, at least in Isabelle's eyes, look down on her; Stacy, Amy's friend, whose father is having an affair with one of those snotty church ladies, and who is unrepentably pregnant and full of hate for her parents, plus the characters we never meet, like little Debby Dorne, and Jake Cunningham, Amy's real father.

This author obviously loves people, loves the ordinariness of their lives and predicaments, and writes with both humor, compassion, and power. At times, I found it hard to read, and found myself in tears, simply because it was so compelling a story.

Another big favorite this year, and one not easily forgotten.

The Double Comfort Safari Club by Alexander McCall Smith. ✔✔✔

This is the eleventh novel in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Smith- I've read each and every one of them and enjoyed them all. This time, Mma Makutsi's fiance has an accident, Mma Ramwotse has to find a Mrs. Grant who left an inheritance for tour guide, as well as be a private investigator for a woman who is disappointed when Precious finds out her husband ISN'T having an affair!

Now that we've had the HBO series, I can put faces as well as voices onto the main characters - Mma Makutsi is my absolute favorite!

The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny. ✔✔✔

Louise Penny is a Canadian mystery writer and, according to an interview I heard on CBC, a former journalist and recovering alcoholic. This is the third of her mysteries that I've read. Each book has the Chief Inspector Gamache, his closest fellow detective, Beauvoir, plus his protegee, Isabel Lacoste. The setting for these books is Tall Pines, a small town in Quebec - one of those places like Wakefield, Quebec, with bistros, bakeries, a village green - in short, I'd love to live there. The people are all wonderful - Olivier and Gabri, a gay couple, run the B&B, Myrna has the bakery, Clara and Peter are artists, but a murder has disturbed the tranquillity of Tall Pines, and Gamache is sent to investigate and solve the crime. .

The victim in this novel was a hermit who lived in a cabin deep in the woods - no one even knew he was there until his body was found in Olivier's bistro. Gamache has to find the identity of the Hermit, a quest which takes him all the way out to the Queen Charlotte Islands, plus the identity of the killer, as well as figure out why the body was moved twice before it was discovered.

Louis Penny is obviously very intelligent, and has a good knowledge of arts, culture and food. She is also enough of a craftsman to keep you guessing all through the story. Well-written, entertaining, easy to read, no car chases or high-tech warfare - actually, rather homey and, well, Canadian!

The Wives of Henry Oades by Johanna Moran.✔✔✔✓

This is a novel about good people caught in impossible situations. The Oades family - Henry, his wife Margaret, their two children, John and Josephine - relocate from England to New Zealand in the late 19th century. They find a home out in the country, twins are born, and they are settling into the community when Margaret, their four children, plus a neighbour's boy, are suddenly and viciously kidnapped by Maori warriors while John is in town at work. John searches for them for a few years, then books passage to San Francisco, certain that he will never see his family again. While there, he marries a young widow with a young baby - more a marriage of convenience than anything since the young woman, Nancy, is penniless, Henry loves children and is able to protect them both. Meanwhile, some seven years later, Margaret and the children are released by the Maori after they become ill with smallpox. Margaret eventually is able to book passage to the USA, writes to Henry telling him of their escape and their upcoming journey to re-unite with him - a letter he gets after Margaret and the children have already arrived on his doorstep.

It isn't long before the haughty, righteous, pious women of the town find out that Henry has two wives, charges of bigamy are laid against Henry, Margaret, and Nancy , and a court battle ensues.

I couldn't put this book down. It's not very long, for one thing, but I found the story fascinating, as well as the legal issues.

Helen of Troy by Margaret George✔✔✔✔

This book has been sitting on my shelf for close to three years, and every once in a while I'd look at it, then put it back on the shelf. This time, I chose to read it, probably because , once again, I wasn't looking for anything too involved. I already have George's "Mary, Queen of Scots", and I may also have had "Mary Magdalene" at one time, too, but it probably ended up in the Museum book sale. ( When you know the beginning, middle and end of the story, it's not all that entertaining)

At some 635 pages, "Helen of Troy" was a long read, but thoroughly enjoyable. This is a story I really didn't know - oh, I knew "the face that launched a thousand ships" part, many of the characters' names were familiar to me, probably from teaching Grade Nine English many, many years ago, I certainly knew about the famous "horse", plus the fact that Troy was ravaged in the end by the Greeks, but not much else. I didn't know how Helen and Paris met - it is a wonderful love story- I didn't know Helen may not ever have even existed, and certainly didn't know much about life in those ancient days, so all in all, I brought a lot of curiosity to this read, and my curiosity was certainly satisfied.

George has done her research very well, and the story of these people comes alive on the pages. I enjoy historical fiction, first because it informs me in an entertaining, easy-to-read style, and secondly because it's a quick, easy read. Now I'd like to read George's "The Autobiography of Henry VIII."

Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehran.✔✔✔✔

What a feast for the senses this one was! It's been on my list for several years, so it was a treat to find and read it!
Three sisters have fled Iran to England, and from there to a small town in Ireland where they open the Babylon Cafe, from which the heady scents of cinnamon, cardamon and rosewater shock the residents of Ballinacroagh, most especially Thomas MacGuire, the town's self-appointed big whig, who owns the pub next door, and whose son ( or is he?) falls in love with Layla, the youngest of the sisters.

The book is loaded with wonderfully eccentric characters, from the parish priest who longed to be an actor, to the leprachaun-loving store owner down the street. Thomas' wife, Cecilia, only appears occasionally, but I enjoyed picturing her in Thursday's getup: "a black sequined sweater paired with tight stretch pants that highlighted the grapefruit texture of her cellulite-ridden thighs".

The story of the sisters' flight from Iran is woven into the fabric of the novel with ease and discretion. The impact of their background is definitely felt throughout, as well as the discrimination against them by some citizens of Ballinacroagh, but, as in all fairy tales, Good prevails and the villains, like poor old Thomas, are punished.

The charm and subtlety of this novel reminded me a lot of Alexander McCall Smith's Ladies' Detective Agency novels, where there is lightness, but also food for thought ( and the senses!).

Fear The Worst by Linwood Barclay.✔✔✔

Every now and then, particularly after reading a fairly intensive novel, I feel the need for something light and easy. This filled the bill perfectly. I enjoyed reading Linwood Barclay when he wrote for the Toronto Star, and I have already read Too Close To Home, one of his earlier thrillers. It's interesting to me that he sets his stories in US locales, yet writes with a distinctly Canadian flavour, a flavour I can't even identify except that the characters, the unfolding of the story, the humour, the tongue-in-cheek attitude all indicate Canada to me, not to mention the fact that although there are murders, they're not as violently, sickeningly described as so many authors do, so I guess it's a marketing thing, because his novels appear regularly in US bookstores.

Latitudes of Melt by Joan Clark.✔✔✔✔

I enjoyed An Audience of Chairs by Joan Clark so much that when I found this earlier novel in a used bookstore, I snatched it up right away. Knowing it was about Newfoundland was another irresistible factor!

And, of course, I wasn't disappointed at all - this is an epic story of a Newfoundland family living on the Southern Shore. It begins in 1912 with a baby found floating on an ice pan by two fishermen - this child is named Aurora because she was found at dawn, and becomes part of the St. Croix family in a small outpost called Drook. Aurora, who is known as a "fairy child" not only because of her being found as she was, but also because she is a free spirit, becomes the central figure in the novel - the first two parts of the novel concentrate on her life as a child, young woman, mother, and grandmother, then the third traces her real parents' lives up till that moment when the Titanic sinks and Aurora is set afloat by her mother, who dies shortly after at the scene of the sinking. The fourth, and final part relates how this information was uncovered and show Aurora making connections with her past.

The title refers to the latitudinal points of Newfoundland - those points where the icebergs coming down the Labrador currents eventually grind up in the coves and bays of Newfoundland. Ice and sea water are very much a part of this novel - Aurora was found on it, her childhood friend dies from a rogue wave, her son Stan becomes an ice engineer and at the end of the novel is inspecting the wreckage of the Titanic, Stan's wife Anna dies on a diving expedition - but I was also struck by the significance of "melting" in the novel - how so many lives, so many characters, appeared in the novel, then either died or disappeared, and how Aurora herself maintained that freedom of spirit, that unique streak which makes her appear as if she doesn't entirely walk upon the earth like the rest of us. It was very well done!

The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee. ✔✔✓

The novel begins in 1955 Korea with June Han, an 11-year-old girl who has, in the last few days, seen her father and brother taken away by Chinese forces, witnessed first-hand the deaths of her mother and older sister, and is now fleeing the area atop a boxcar with her younger siblings. Pretty harrowing stuff, and these events shape the life of June Han, who when we meet her in 1986, has just closed her antique shop in New York, is dying of stomach cancer, and is planning a trip to Italy to re-unite with her son, whom she has not seen for years. Her unwilling comrade on this final trip is Hector, the father of this missing son, and the one who saved June's life years earlier in Korea after she finished the boxcar journey. Hector was an American soldier working in Korea at the time, who takes June to an orphanage, where their lives become intertwined with Sylvie, the lovely wife of Rev. Tanner, the orphanage leader. Hector and Sylvie have also had some harrowing experiences in the war, and the novel is about how their lives have been shaped by these earlier experiences.

The Surrendered is very well-written, but oh, such undiminishing sorrow and tragedy throughout. I was reminded of Mistry's A Fine Balance, one of my all-time favorites novels, but I didn't feel this author was quite the calibre of Mistry. He moves back and forth in time, and this helps to relieve the sorrow somewhat, because you do need time to step back, absorb what has just happened, and understand why these three characters are as flawed as they are by war and circumstance. But I found I didn't really care for the characters themselves too much. Why was June so disliked by the other children at the orphanage? How did Hector become the father of Nicholas- this is never explained? And Sylvie seems like a romance novel figure - transparent nightgowns, etc.

I'm not exactly sure why the novel is titled "The Surrendered". I don't know who was surrendered, how or why. A reader review I read stated the novel became more illuminating after a second read, but I'm not sure I could take it!

The Bishop's Man by Linden MacIntrye.✔✔✔

This year's winner of the Giller Prize, and a book I've waited all winter to read, The Bishop's Man is the story of Father Duncan MacAskill, who has spent most of his priesthood as the bishop's " clean-up man", the one who visits the priests who have been reported for their indiscretions and sends them away either for treatment or re-assignment.

As the novel opens, the bishop is sending MacAskill to a small parish called Creignish, quite close to Duncan's childhood home, the home where his mother died when he was four, and where his father, a bastard child, lived in bitterness because of his war-time experiences, as well as for his shadowy beginnings in life. This parish assignment is to get Duncan out of the way, where an enquiring reporter has been asking questions about Duncan's own investigations. But the questions still follow, and Duncan turns to alcohol to dull the thoughts which come more easily now that he has more time on his hands.

Initially, I thought the novel would be about the abuse and the church's role in it, but it is more the story of Duncan MacAskill: his life as a priest, his role in an incident in Honduras, his relationship with his sister, his dealing with young Danny Bad, and the ever-elusive priest, Brendan Bell, who finally appears on the scene in the book's final pages. It's probably the first book I've read describing the life of a priest - the loneliness of the calling pervades every page.

MacIntyre is an excellent writer and has crafted this novel extremely well, almost elegantly, you could say. It is very easy to read, it's not religious or spiritual in tone, it doesn't dump on the church, it just lets things unfold, and leaves it to the reader to involve herself in the character. It is, as I read in a review, a "character-driven" novel - it's not always easy to discern the time frame since he shifts around quite easily - but Dancan's character is interesting, challenging and memorable.

I would say this is one of my best reads of 2010 so far!

My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor.✔✔✔✔

I saw Dr. Taylor being interviewed on Oprah, then a short time later, she was interviewed on CBC Radio. Both interviews convinced me this was a book I had to read. Jill, a 37-year-old neuroanatomist surgeon, woke one morning to find she had suffered a major hemorrhage in her left hemisphere as a result of an undiagnosed congenital malformation of the blood vessels in her head. The two first chapters are the explanation of the makeup of the brain, the functions of each hemisphere, and then she goes on to relate the stroke, plus her recovery from it, which took a full eight years.

But in experiencing this trauma, plus the recovery, Jill also discovered that the brain can be trained - that the two sides of the brain, although opposite in makeup, complement each other, and as humans we can tap into the right side more often to make us better people, to control those aspects of our left side which limit us. So the stroke was a blessing - a revelation that by "stepping to the right" we can all uncover feelings of well-being that are often sidelines by the "brain chatter" of our left side. We can talk to our cells, acknowledge the work they're doing in keeping us healthy, asking them to work a little harder when we need them to, tell our left brain to take a rest, ask our right brain to help us out.

For example,, are you feeling angry? Give yourself 90 seconds, then let it go - you'll be a lot happier and a lot healthier. Live in the present moment, feel your body as a living, self-energizing vessel.

I enjoyed this book so much I read it twice to make sure I spent enough time meditating on it and trying to apply its philosophy to my own life. I find the process somewhat similar to the technique from yoga whereby you take your breath and wrap it around any pain your body might be experiencing in order to ease - and in some cases, assuage - the pain, or the other yoga technique used by our instructor after a period of meditation when you feel completely relaxed, at ease and fully alive - she says ""You can return to this feeling at any time in your day". I've found both of those techniques valid and useful.

As the back cover says: "This book is about the wonder of being human", and this is something I've become very interested in as it relates to one's spirituality, because I believe that what - or who- is called God is actually ME - the very core of one's being, the spark that inspires, strengthens, and guides me comes from within. Then that spark in each and every person finds energy between them, and that is the connection between us all. There IS a lot of wonder in that!

House Rules by Jodie Picoult.✔✔✔✔

I must have been ready for a page-turner, because I just swallowed this book up, thinking all the while about both Darren Bates of KL and David's client, Leslie from London, who knew all the important dates in our family's life, including Betty, Helen and Malcolm's, and recited them off to me when I first met him. Some years ago I read "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time", about an autistic boy who sets out to solve a murder, and it was probably better-written, but this one was more entertaining. Picoult definitely has a formula to her books, but the formula works, and she writes well, with extremely detailed research.

I copied and pasted the following description and review, simply because I was lazy....

"They tell me I'm lucky to have a son who's so verbal, who is blisteringly intelligent, who can take apart the broken microwave and have it working again an hour later. They think there is no greater hell than having a son who is locked in his own world, unaware that there's a wider one to explore. But try having a son who is locked in his own world, and still wants to make a connection. A son who tries to be like everyone else, but truly doesn't know how. "

Jacob Hunt is a teenage boy with Asperger's syndrome. He's hopeless at reading social cues or expressing himself well to others, and like many kids with AS, Jacob has a special focus on one subject -- in his case, forensic analysis. He's always showing up at crime scenes, thanks to the police scanner he keeps in his room, and telling the cops what they need to do...and he's usually right. But then his town is rocked by a terrible murder and, for a change, the police come to Jacob with questions. All of the hallmark behaviors of Asperger's -- not looking someone in the eye, stimulatory tics and twitches, flat affect -- can look a lot like guilt to law enforcement personnel. Suddenly, Jacob and his family, who only want to fit in, feel the spotlight shining directly on them. For his mother, Emma, it's a brutal reminder of the intolerance and misunderstanding that always threaten her family. For his brother, Theo, it's another indication of why nothing is normal because of Jacob. And over this small family the soul-searing question looms: Did Jacob commit murder?Emotionally powerful from beginning to end, House Rules looks at what it means to be different in our society, how autism affects a family, and how our legal system works well for people who communicate a certain way -- and fails those who don't.

Elizabeth by Randy Taraborelli.✔✔✔

As a young teenager, I was a star-struck movie actress fan, and Elizabeth Taylor was one of my favorites, probably because of the movie Giant, which I absolutely adored. Any meagre allowance I ever received as a kid was saved so I could buy Photoplay magazine or Modern Screen; I read these avidly and with awe at the life styles of the rich and famous.

I remember when ET divorced Michael Wilding and married Mike Todd, then the devastation she endured when Mike Todd was killed in a plane crash. This was all big news back then, with many, many photos and stories to tease the appetite. I followed her antics with Richard Burton less closely because I was at university by then, and busy with my own antics, but I do remember wondering why she had ever married Eddie Fisher, and also thinking that Richard Burton, a very strong individual, was more suited to her. Her succeeding marriages were of less interest, because by then I was mature enough to wonder why she kept marrying these men! She was the one with all the money, after all. ( In 1994 her NET worth was $650 million)

So reading this unauthorized bio was sort of a nostalgic journey for me because much of the material was well-known to me. I did not know much about her childhood, other than the fact that her mother, Sara, was the original "stage mother", a role she played right up to her death at age 99. I did wonder why Elizabeth had these numerous, debilitating illnesses and accidents - the author lists them at one point, and it's absolutely incredible how just about everything that came her way came with a high degree of intensity - brain tumor, broken hip(2x),alcoholism, drug dependency, weight issues, acute pneumonia,hip replacements, etc. Burton maintained that she thrived on her illnesses, yet she did recover from all of them, and she shows no sign of giving in to herself. The author suggests that her illnesses were a way for her to take control of her life - especially as a young actress under contract, an illness was her only way of getting out of doing movies she didn't want to make. But how can you plan such things? Myself, I think she was just a high-maintenance person: everything was done to extremes.

The author is very kind to her - he doesn't sugar-coat too much but he does make excuses for her a lot of the time.It was well-written and an interesting diversion for me, plus a trip into my own past!

New York, by Edward Rutherford. ✔✔

This was a long read - 866 pages -and it could've been shorter, like so many other books written by men. Why is that, I wonder? I read it for a couple of weeks before going to Toronto, then renewed it at the library so I could finish it when I got back home. At 866 pages, I wasn't going to lug it onto an airplane, and anyway, the book was so heavy, they'd probably have either taken it away from me, or put one of those pink tickets on it and stowed it under the cabin!

I can't really say why I stuck with it, because it wasn't all that wonderful - I'd give it two stars I guess. I enjoyed the first part, with the Dutch and the natives living close by each other, then later the British invading and trying to impose their laws on the New World. The geography of the area, and how it developed into the huge city it is now was interesting, too, as was the obvious importance of money- getting it, maintaining it, keeping others from getting it, taking it away from others, hiding it from spouses, using and mis-using it.

I think the author really captured the essence of New York and the people who have lived there for hundreds of years, but his characters, all basically members of one family, were not particularly colorful: the real star was the city itself- valid enough I guess, considering the title of the book.

Of all the books written by Rutherford, I still think his first, Sarum, was his best. I started reading Russka, but there were too many characters to keep straight and I couldn't be bothered continuing. I read about half of London, but I was still teaching then, and long books were too onerous a burden for me at that time. I read about thirty pages of The Princes of Ireland before I decided I much preferred Frank Delaney's "Ireland", so I quit reading it. I've never read a book about New York, so I pushed through to the end, and I did learn a few things, so I guess it wasn't completely in vain!

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.✔✔✔✔

Wow!! This was great - absolutely wonderful. Probably the best novel on racial discrimination that I've read since To Kill A Mockingbird, and The Help may well join it as an all-time classic. Three women - Minny, Aibileen, and Skeeter - tell their stories of the relationship between black maids and their white lady bosses, the maids' relationships with the children of the house, how women control each other, the fear, the tenderness, abuse, violence,threats - it's all there and told with such authenticity. The author explains that she wrote this book as a tribute to the black woman who raised her back in Mississippi - not only to honour her, but to acknowledge her lack of understanding of how the maid was treated.

There were a few things I didn't like - the story of Stuart Whitworth didn't really add to the novel, and it wasn't really resolved when he left either. Actually, there was a sense of unfinished material here, which makes we wonder what's coming next - will these questions be answered? Why were characters like Miss Leefolt, Miss Celia the way they were? Does Aibileen manage to survive without work as a maid?

Anyway, it was a special read, and I'm glad I purchased the book. It's a keeper for sure.

Thoughts about choosing a book for next year's book club list

I should look again at Clara by Janice Galloway. It's a beautiful book about Clara Schumann, her artistry, her relationship with her father, with Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms.

Alice in Wonderland, along with Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin, with a tie-in to the movie about Alice coming out this year.

Somewhere Towards The End by Diana Athill.

Updated: June 2, 2010. I'm recommending Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Last Night In Twisted River by John Irving.✔✔

For some unknown reason, I think it's important to read John Irving. Maybe it's because his Prayer For Owen Meany is one of my all-time favorite books, and I enjoyed The Cider House Rules, too. Last year, I read part of A Widow For One Year and gave up on it, so this year when Last Night In Twisted River was published, I thought: what the heck, I'll try again.

I actually thought for 200 pages that it was going to happen. The incidents in the town of Twisted River are colorfully described, the characters are interesting, and even though the subject of log-jamming doesn't appeal to me, I liked that Dominic, or Cookie, was an excellent cook. But then I began to notice things like an annoying predilection for capital letters- names of towns in the various areas where Dominic and his son Danny lived, names of rifles ( like , who cares?), names of famous authors- all scrunched together in paragraphs, as if he was trying to impress us with his wide knowledge. Then there were the women: Carmella, Rosie, Six -Pack Pam, Injun Jane, Katie, Lady Sky- all of whom seemed to have no other purpose in life than to screw Dominic, Ketchum, or Danny. And Danny! Well, he becomes a famous author, and when Irving goes way, way too deeply into his various successes as a writer, who he knows ( see capital letters above), where he writes, what inspires him, ad nauseum, you can't help but be convinced that Irving is writing about himself, whether to prove to himself that he actually exists, or that he is a good writer, or a famous one - which in this case is not one and the same thing- when I think about setting this novel down and turning to the next one in my list - I don't!! I kept on reading! He does tell a good story, but all this other "stuff" around it makes it more of a chore than a reading experience. I also found myself wondering how a female writer would have handled the same story, then that led me to wonder what it is about many male writers that they write way too much- this novel would have been better if it had been about 200 pages shorter.

But, I think I've finished with this notion that you "have" to read John Irving. You don't....

Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross.✔✔✔

I first came across this book in the Cobalt Book Store some fifteen years ago. I didn't purchase it then, but I was intrigued enough to add the title to my list of books to read. I learned recently that it had been re-released and was to be a motion picture, so when I found the book last week in Sundog Books at Seaside, FL, I bought it, and began to read it immediately.

Pope Joan almost certainly existed, despite the efforts of the RC Church to erase any record of her reign. She moved through the church rankings as a man, John Anglicus - she took the name from her brother who was killed in a Norse raid, and her father, who was English. Her story is well-told, historical fiction at its very best, and a quick read besides. I loved the fact that she valued reason above all else, and often expressed - to herself, at least -doubt that God actually existed.

Just today I was at the library, picking up the next wonderful book on my list, and saw that Pope Joan is the Library Book Club's choice for February 2011, so I must remember to attend that meeting! I wonder how both RCs and Baptists will react to this story: the Catholics for the fact that Joan existed at all, and the Baptists for her doubts. Worth finding out!!

Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos.✔✔✔

Broken For You is all about a collection of porcelain- a very special collection, as we find out almost immediately:

" While the woman sleeps and dreams of all that breaks, come into this house of many rooms. Once your eyes adjust to the darkness, beginning to take in what is visible, you may notice a silence that is not quite silent. There is another language being spoken here, a tongue that emanates from white clay, fire, the oils of many skins, the fusion of rent spirits and matter".....

Margaret, at age 75, lives alone in a 15,000sq.ft. mansion, with only this massive collection of antiques for company. After being diagnosed with a brain tumor, Margaret decides to take in a boarder, Wanda Schulz, and eventually a few more boarders are accepted, all of whom form a kind of surrogate family, and all of whom become involved with this collection of antiques. The significance of the antiques only becomes clear as the novel progresses, and along the way we ponder the connection between these pieces and the occupants of the house.

The writing reminds me of Anne Tyler, whose books I have read for many years. I especially liked the happy ending !

Princess:A True Story of Life Behind The Veil in Saudi Arabia by Jean Sasson. ✔✔✔

Denise loaned this book when I arrived, and since I had so many others on my "Must Read" list, I decided to read this at those times during the day when a book comes in handy as a diversion, so it's taken me a few weeks to complete it. Actually, it would probably be too much to read it continuously, because there are some harrowing moments in this book, so, for me at least, a little space to think about these events and reflect on the freedoms I enjoy in this society was needed.

The book evoked a few memories for me as well of women I knew or came in contact with and how their lives were changed by the attitudes towards women in Muslim countries. Joanne Slaughter- my friend from UWO- the Pakistani fellow she met in Montreal during Expo 67, their daughter Farah, and then moving to Pakistan, after which I never heard from her again. The beautiful young doctor in Iroquois Falls - I don't know which country she was from- who left her husband ( also a doctor) to visit a sister in Montreal who had arrived from their home country, and also was never heard from again.

And from this book, the story of Sameera, who was put into a dark, soundless hidden room at the age of 24 to spend the rest of her life there because she had disobeyed her guardian's rules will stay with me forever. That woman must still be alive, existing like an animal in that padded cell.

I have no idea whether this story is completely and utterly true or not - the events and such do raise the question in your mind, but the absolute truth doesn't really matter: I certainly got the picture. The book was written in 1991, and I've read many others on this subject, like "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and "Infidel", but this was a much more personal story somehow, and not as political as those two were.

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King.✔✔

We saw the movie "Sherlock Holmes" a few weeks ago; actually my introduction to Sherlock Holmes, because I have never read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, although I'm familiar with the various characters. This book presents Holmes as the mentor for a young woman, Mary Russell, who meets Holmes when she is barely 15. Holmes is impressed with her intellect, plus her capacity for minute detail, and so she becomes his apprentice, and together they solve some interesting cases. The book didn't hold me much beyond that, and when the library called today with a couple more from my ever-expanding list of books to read, I quickly skimmed it through to the end so I can start enjoying these two books.

I must say, though, that this period interests me far more when it comes to mysteries. Today's mysteries - or detective thrillers, probably - are rather lurid, have too many guns and body sheets lying around, and are largely occupied by computers, high-tech devices, fast cars, and rough language. I like murders to have a genteel air about them, and I prefer detectives like Holmes, who employ everyday techniques like disguises and such to solve their cases.

There is a sequel to this novel, wherein I expect the apprentice and the teacher form more of a bond, and I'm sure the author will handle that transition well, too. If my list is even near empty, I'll consider reading it!

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. ✔✔✔✓

In post-war Warwickshire, young Dr. Faraday is called to the mansion Hundreds Hall to treat a 14-year old maid for illness. Faraday visited the mansion as a young boy, when his parents worked as servants at the Hall, and this visit renews his interest in the mansion, now decaying even as the remaining occupants, the Ayres, struggle to maintain it with limited funds and limited help. There is Mrs. Ayres, whose first child died before either of her two remaining children were born, Roderick, who came home injured from the War, and Caroline, who has taken on much of the physical work needed to maintain the house and grounds. Faraday becomes a regular visitor to the mansion and soon becomes entwined in the mystery surrounding the house. Is the house haunted? By whom? As narrator, Faraday is- to me, at least- impossibly dull, but his thick-headedness only adds to the mystery. There were moments when I could not for the life of me understand why the characters couldn't accept what was so obvious to the reader, but then I realized that's what the author wanted. Either that, or that old-world class-consciousness rendered these people incapable of accepting the changes taking place around them.

This was a good old-fashioned read, almost like reading Daphne du Maurier, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I even read it more slowly than I read a lot of books, savoring the mystery and the excellent writing.

And those two questions I posed earlier? They're not quite answered! Well-done!

FAVORITES OF 2009

My list this year is arranged by my favorite book from each month of the year, plus an extra one which I just couldn't leave out!

January When Will There Be Good News? Kate Atkinson

February The Story of Edgar Sawtelle David Wroblewski

March Rebecca Daphne du Maurier

April Middlesex Jeremy Euginides

May Olive Kitteridge Elizabeth Strout

June Fifth Business Robertson Davies

July The Bible:A Biography Karen Armstrong

August The Angel's Game Carlos Ruiz de Zafon

September Full Tilt: From Dublin to Delhi by Bicycle Dervla Murphy

October Sacred Hearts Sarah Dunant

November The Girl Who Played With Fire Stieg Larsson

December Little Giant of Aberdeen County Tiffany Baker

December South of Broad Pat Conroy

Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil by John Berendt. ✔✔✔

This is a book I've wanted to read for a long time, and I don't even remember why! I know I've always been intrigued by the city of Savannah, Georgia: I see live oaks and huge mansions with lace curtains when I see the name of the city. However often I saw the book and remembered I wanted to read it, I would pass it by, knowing that the right time would come, and that time is now, because I'm hoping we can stop there on our way back to Canada in April.

While the book is framed around a murder, and the 10-year court case surrounding it, Savannah's colorful citizens are the stars of the show: the well-bred society ladies and their various social rituals, Chablis, the drag queen, Minerva the sorceress, the con artist- piano player who hosts tours of his homes in which he is merely a squatter, the young blacks dancing the minuet at the debutants ball, the redneck, fast-driving young man who ends up the murder victim, and the antique dealer whose four - yes, four- separate trials finally ended in his acquittal.

One of our Book Club themes two Christmases ago was "memoirs of a celebrity", and Helga chose the story of Chablis, whose story takes up one whole chapter in this book, so I must read that book, too.