On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry

I don't want to describe this story because it 's been so beautifully and masterfully written that reading it without any knowledge of the plot increases the enjoyment. Barry is an Irish writer  who also wrote The Secret Scripture, which I read some years ago, and he uses much the same technique in this novel. 

I have been known to express the opinion that most male writers are verbose - like John Irving or Ken Follett- but Barry is almost a minimalist, although his descriptions and the poetry of his language are quite extensive.

It's a story of love and loss, well worth delving into and savouring the writing.

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party ✔✔✔

This is the 12th in McCall Smith's series of books called The #1 Ladies Detective Agency.  They are always such a wonderful treat, with gentle philosophy, wonderful people, and colorful personalities.

Mma Makutsi is about to marry Phuti after a long engagement, Precious discovers her beloved white van is still on the road, Charlie is accused of fathering, and then deserting, twins and of course there's a mystery to solve:  why are the cattle on a local farmer's property being killed.

Mma Makutsi is especially interesting this time around, especially after she goes shopping for shoes to wear at her wedding.  I still see her as she was portrayed in the BBC series a few years ago, which didn't last past the first season, unfortunately.

If I ever had the choice of meeting whatever author I wanted to, Alexander McCall Smith would be high on my list!

The Breadwinner Trilogy by Deborah Ellis ✔✔✔

Deborah Ellis is coming to KL in June for an author event I'm organizing at the Museum, so I wanted to review the books of hers that I had read and hopefully add a few more titles.  This trilogy includes three novels for children probably 9-12:  The Breadwinner, Parvana's Journey and Mud City.

We meet Parvana in The Breadwinner, where to support her family in  Kabul, Afghanistan, she dresses as a boy and sells items in the local market, where she meets Shauzia, a friend from her school, who is doing the same thing to support her family.  Parvana's father has been arrested by the Taliban, and there is no one to bring money into the house. At the end of this one, Parvana's father is released, but by then her mother and her siblings have left to attend the wedding of the oldest daughter, Nooria. Parvana and her Dad set out to meet the rest of their family.

In Parvana's Journey - which I really enjoyed - the father dies from his injuries while in prison and Parvana is left on her own to continue to search for her mother.  Her journey takes her through some pretty rough country, with some harrowing adventures, until she reaches a refugee camp and finds her mother and sisters.  Throughout the book she writes letters to her friend Shauzia just to keep her focus, and Mud City, the third of the trilogy, focusses on Shauzia and her efforts to reach " the sea" and sail to France.  This story is mostly set in what is called a Working Mothers' Compound, but at the end she  leaves with Mrs. Weera, her mother figure, and some other nurses to return to Afghanistan.

The next book, I Am A Taxi, is also set in Afghanistan.

How The Light Gets In - Louise Penny ✔✔✔✔

This is the latest Louise Penny mystery, again set in the tiny, romantic village of Three Pines south of Montreal.  Chief Inspector Gamache sets out to discover a missing woman, a friend of the bookstore owner in Three Pines, and finds not only her body, but the fact that she was one of five famous quintuplets.   While this  is going on, there is a dark plot brewing among some of the more rogue detectives in the Surete, designed to separate Gamache from the rest, and indeed kill him.

Everything comes together in a dramatic scene in the village itself, and all the important characters are part of the final scene.

It was hard to put the book down - I hadn't read a mystery in some time, and I just ate this one up.

A House In The Sky by Amanda Lindhout ✔✔✔✔✔

From the book jacket: "The dramatic and redemptive memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world's most beautiful and remote places, its most interesting and perilous countries, and then into fifteen months of harrowing captivity - an exquisitely written story of courage, resilience, and grace"

This was a very powerful story, and I couldn't put it down.  The last fifteen or so pages I was in tears most of the time, even as I marvelled at how she ever survived with her mind and heart intact. As intense as the brutality and abuse were, however, I was overwhelmed by how she could ever come to feel the compassion that she did, and how seemingly naturally she would reassert herself and find another path to her deep sense of self.

For example, and I quote from page 294:  "On days when I was really sturggling, when I felt the pressure in my mind moving again toward a snapping point, a voice -( meaning her soul) posed questions.  It said: In this exact moment, are you okay?  The answer, in that exact moment, was steadying:Yes, right now I am still okay.

An amazing story, beautifully written, inspiring, and unforgettable.

I Am A Hutterite by Mary Ann Kirkby ✔✔✔

Jean Bott loaned me this book after I saw it sitting on her coffee table when we were there for Study Group.  We had a Hutterite colony close to us when we lived in Chauvin back in the 50s, and I somehow had the impression theirs was a very repressive society, so I was interested in learning more about them.  I guess we fear - or at least mistrust- those we don't know, because we always regarded them with some suspicion.  I know my Mom thought they had stolen my pjs from our clothesline once!

What a pleasant surprise it was to read about these people - everything is held in common, although families have their own homes.  All meals are taken together in a large hall and the women take a week about cooking, baking, etc.  They are taught by a teacher from "the outside", and there are amusing stories by the author about how they regarded her clothing, and spent Saturdays trying on her shoes in the teacher's room behind their classroom. The men drive trucks, and they do leave the colony to shop ( I remember seeing them in Chauvin - not the women though, who wear black and white polka dots head scarves.  But the overall impression is one of happiness and contentment, good food, good company, living in a long-ago type atmosphere.

There were strict rules, however, the strictest one being that a man had to promise on his wedding day that he would never force his family to leave the colony, and of course, this is what happened to Mary Ann's family after her father and his brother-in-law, the head minister/mayor/rule enforcer constantly disagreed until such time as here Dad and Mother could not continue living there.

Their life after leaving the colony was very hard - isolated from everything they knew, living in extreme poverty, and suffering bullying and discrimination from their school mates.  Things eventually got better, relatively speaking, and they were able occasionally to return to the colony and visit with friends.

I didn't expect this book to be as interesting as it was, and also well-written.