Margaret's Reading List

Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick ✔✔✔

2012-01-25T15:12:00.000-08:00

This title won Book Browse's award for the best children's book of 2011, and the comment was made that it was good for both adults and children, so I reserved it at our library here. When I went to pick it up and saw the size of the book -637 pages, I said "Oh no, how am I going to get this finished?"

Then I saw that there were pages and pages of illustrations, and for a few seconds I thought the whole book was drawings, but then I found some text, so I decided to give it a try.

It's a story of two people fifty years apart. Ben's story is told in text, Rose's in drawings, and you are gradually drawn into their stories, especially when you realize that even though they are told in two different times, Rose's in 1927, Ben's in 1977, that they are similar.

Both are deaf, and both are on their own, trying to find their way in the world. How their stories intertwine is really quite amazing, and the art work ( all in black and white pencil drawings) is quite impressive.

Certainly a different format for me, but enjoyable. I just marvel at the imagination of some of the writers today!

Radio Shangri-La by Lisa Napoli

2012-01-22T12:08:00.000-08:00

The author, a radio journalist in Los Angeles, was looking for a change in her life, and a chance encounter led her to travel to Bhutan - said to be one of the happiest places on earth - to volunteer her expertise to help develop a youth-oriented radio station. And for this reason, in her own words: " I longed for a way of life in which people made it a priority to look into each other's eyes and communicate, soul-to-soul....I yearned for meandering conversations about all things important, all things banal. Bhutan, I imagined, might be as close as you could get on earth to what I'd been craving - a real,live, actual community, where being wired took a backseat to being present, face-to-face, experiencing the here and now"

The book is mainly a travel memoir, and gives a good look at this remote Himalayan kingdom, and it certainly had some interesting people in it. The trip from the airport alone would be enough to keep me from going! But what I enjoyed most of all was the preface to the book, for in here Napoli describes a positive psychology workshop that she took while in LA, and some of the questions used by the workshop leader to help people discover "what we appreciated in ourselves, and what inspired us about others":

1. Describe in detail a person you love - and why.
2. 'write a toast to four difficult periods in your life and how you handled them
3. Summarize your life story as if you were 90 and telling a child.

He also assigned them a nightly exercise to teach them how to appreciate life in its most basic terms. Every night before going to sleep, review your day and make a short list of three things that happened that were good. "I want you to see that every single day, three good things do happen. It will help you discover that goodness exists all around us, already". Those good things are the most nourishing to our life. It's like a gym for the brain: over time this ritual with strengthen you.

And what did Lisa learn? "I was learning to slow down, to sit with myself and the uncertainties of the future. To enjoy not knowing what was next, instead of fearing and panicking over what might be. To appreciate the successes I'd had, instead of dwelling on my failure to have accomplished more".

Good stuff and worth thinking about.

Pearl of China by Anchee Min ✔✔✔

2012-01-16T20:58:00.000-08:00

Pearl S Buck was the author of The Good Earth, a story of China written by an American woman who was actually more Chinese than American, although both her parents were American. This historical fiction novel tells the story of Pearl's friendship with Willow, who is actually a fictional character developed by the author to tell Pearl's story.

The following is taken from Book Browse:

In the small southern town of Chin-kiang, in the last days of the nineteenth century, two young girls bump heads and become thick as thieves. Willow is the only child of a destitute family, Pearl the headstrong daughter of zealous Christian missionaries. She will ultimately become the internationally renowned author Pearl S. Buck, but for now she is just a girl embarrassed by her blonde hair and enchanted by her new Chinese friend. The two embark on a friendship that will sustain both of them through one of the most tumultuous periods in Chinese history.

Moving out into the world together, the two enter the intellectual fray of the times, share love interests and survive early marriages gone bad. Their shared upbringing inspires Pearl's novels, which celebrate the life of the Chinese peasant and will eventually earn her both a Pulitzer and a Nobel Prize. But when a civil war erupts between the Nationalists and Communists, Pearl is forced to flee the country just ahead of angry mobs. Willow, despite close ties to Mao’s inner circle, is punished for loyalty to her 'cultural imperialist' friend. And yet, through love and loss, heartbreak and joy, exile and imprisonment, the two women remain intimately entwined.

In this ambitious new novel, Anchee Min brings to life a courageous and passionate woman who is now hailed in China as a modern heroine. Like nothing before it, Pearl of China tells the story of one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers, from the perspective of the people she loved and of the land she called home.

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan ✔✔✔✔

2012-01-15T12:35:00.000-08:00

Take Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Margaret Attwood's The Handmaid's Tale, cast them both in a post-scourge America where church and state have become one, there are no prisons, and the chief form of entertainment is watching convicted criminals living from day-to-day on television and you have When She Woke.

These convicted criminals are "chromed" - their bodies are chemically altered to cast them a vivid colour so they are immediately identifiable not only for their crime, but also the nature of it.

Hannah Payne is red because she had an abortion and therefore, according to the state, is guilty of murder. She is in prison in solitary confinement for three months then cast out into the streets to make it on her own - knowing that her every move is subject to whoever feels like watching her on TV.

The novel is a form of science fiction but the scary part of it, plus the reason you keep reading it is because it could
SO easily happen.

Lots of room for a lively discussion here. I'm not sure I liked the ending, and I thought Hannah would have suffered a bit more from PTSD - she seems remarkably adapatable to many different situations - but the book certainly has a lot of food for thought in it.

Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens ✔✔✔

2012-01-10T20:57:00.000-08:00

I thoroughly enjoyed Chevy Stevens' first thriller, Still Missing,( see January,2011) so I was happy to hear she'd published a second one, entitled Never Knowing. Sara is a 30 yr old woman who was adopted at birth, and has recently taken steps to find her birth mother. She does find her, but also finds out that this person was the victim of a serial killer who survived her attack, although she was raped. Sara is the child that was born, and this story is about how her father - known as the Campsite Killer - finds her and tries to establish a relationship with her.

This was a real thriller - I couldn't put it down. Maybe the ending was a little TOO tidy, but it was good nonetheless.

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn ✔✔✔✔

2012-01-02T20:58:00.000-08:00

One of the most informative book I've ever read about cooking, this title was first mentioned in a Chatelaine magazine. I put it on my Christmas list.

The Author, a graduate in culinary arts from France, put together nine volunteers who lacked confidence in their cooking skills, and offered them a teaching session over one summer. There were lessons in how to use a knife, how to braise a chicken, make an omelet, make a pasta dish, use items already in the kitchen cupboards, and so on.

I underlined like crazy in this book, and learned lots, like how to measure flour properly, to shake a pan after a fish or chicken has been put into it to saute it, how to chop an onion - the list goes on and on.

Just tonight I made an omelet - I wasn't planning this for supper, but this book has persuaded me to clean out the things I have. I just followed her suggestions and it was very tasty. Somehow I always thought an omelet was hard to cook- it's not, you just need to have courage! Bravo, Kathleen Flinn!

Tomorrow I'm going to tackle onions!

FAVORITE READS OF 2011

2012-01-01T11:17:00.000-08:00

I read a lot of non-fiction this year, much of it so good that I find I'm continuing to read it. When I pick my favorite reads for a year, there are several reasons why a book might be chosen. Sometimes in non-fiction it's the subject that is so fascinating - Elvis Presley, for example, or Gina Welch, who "embedded " herself in Jimmy Swaggart's church in West Virginia. Sometimes it's the human spirit that endures despite terrible hardship, as the "Unbroken" or in "The Boy In The Moon". There are only four novels on this list, and one of them is a Christmas novel, but each of these spoke to me in different ways. The Christmas novel was probably the best-written of all of them, but Ian Brown in Boy In The Moon comes pretty close. Anyway, before I get off on a "why and how I read" tangent, here's my favorites for this year, in the order in which I read them.

1. Unbroken by Lauren Hillebrand ( also the top pick of the year on Book Browse)
2. Charlotte and Emily by Jude Morgan ( the story of the Bronte sisters)
3. Elvis Presley: Careless Love and Last Train To Memphis by Robert Guralnick
4. The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews
5. The Art of Racing In The Rain by Garth Stein
6. In The Land of Believers - Gina Welch
7. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother - William Shawcross
8. The Boy In The Moon - Ian Brown
9. Mrs. King by Charlotte Gray
10. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
11. Wishin' and Hopin' by Wally Lamb

Widow of the South by Robert Hicks ✔✔✔✔

2011-12-27T10:09:00.000-08:00

I was told about this book by a woman I occasionally golf with here in Florida. She said it was an excellent book, and explained a bit about the subject of the book, and also told me the title was "Woman of the South". Well, I couldn't find that title, and I sort of forgot about it. Then, about two years later a member of our book club and I were talking about our mutual interest in reading historical fiction, and she mentioned a book she'd read called "Queen of the South". She had the book and said she'd leave it in my mailbox at home, but it never arrived. Meanwhile, I'm now searching for the title "Queen of the South" on the Internet, with no luck.

I don't even recall now how I found out the correct title, probably while I was searching for something else on the local library's website, but I immediately knew this was the title I was searching for - the library system here has five copies of the book, and it has been borrowed a total of 72 times to date. That's a good enough validation for me, plus the fact that I discovered the book was set in Franklin, TN, a small city south of Nashville on I-65 a city where we spent one night in a hotel on our way north a few years back, completely oblivious to the history around us.

Franklin, Tennessee was the site of one of the bloodiest Civil War battles, a battle which took place on a single morning in November,1864, with 9200 casualties. Carrie McGavock was named the Widow of the South ( and she was a real person) because first of all the plantation where she lived was turned into a hospital for survivors of the battle, and she nursed many of them herself. But Carrie also - some years after the war - took it upon herself to write to the parents of every single man who died in her hospital, and then eventually retrieved 1500 bodies of Confederates whose remains had simply been plowed over, identified them, and created a cemetery for them in a field near her plantation She herself had lost three children before the war even began, and so it was tremendously important to her to treat these casualties of war with respect and compassion.

The final chapter of the book is the true story of Carrie, with pictures of her family, her servant Mariah who was given to her as a slave when she was a child but who was almost the completion of her own soul, and the cemetery itself.

Mike is reading the book right now and I think we'll visit this area on our way home this year.

Gold Diggers: Striking It Rich In The Klondike by Charlotte Gray ✔✔✔✔

2011-12-23T12:12:00.000-08:00

This book is the story of the Klondike Gold Rush told through the lives of six people: the miner Bill Haskell, the saintly priest, Father Judge, the savvy 24-year-old businesswoman Belinda Mulrooney, the British journalist Flora Shaw, the highly disciplined Sam Steele of the Mounties, and the writer Jack London, whose stories about the North made him a legend.

Mike and I visited Dawson City four years ago when we were on a Holland America trip. Mike has a family member who went to Dawson as a young man in the 1920s and died there in 1945, so we climbed a very long hill - me wearing flip flops, as I recall - to find the local cemetery where James McCrank was buried, and we did!

The stories of these six people in this book were fascinating - the author interwove their stories so well, and each one was so unique from the other. The hardships of Bill Haskell were perhaps the most affecting, particularly dealing with the challenges of spending a winter in such a remote area with so few resources.

I wish I'd read this before we went to Dawson, but it sure brought back some memories.

Wishin' and Hopin' By Wally Lamb ✔✔✔✔

2011-12-18T12:06:00.000-08:00

This book just caught my eye when I was in Bay County Library - a little book, written by Wally Lamb, and a Christmas story - so I picked it up. Well, I read it in one day, laughed till I cried at least twice, and enjoyed some good chuckles too. It's the story of 10-year-old Felix Funicello, distant cousin of Annette Funicello, and his adventures at St. Aloysius Gonzaga Parochial School, especially as the 5th grade class prepares for their Christmas pageant.

There's Felix, who's small and very innocent, and doesn't understand the off-colour jokes he's told, the supply teacher who comes from Quebec, Rosalie, who is the class pain in the ass,Zhenya, a Russian immigrant with " big bazoom-booms" and a hilarious accent so funny I had to read it aloud, Felix's Mom and her adventure at the Pillsbury Bake-Off - wow, in some 254 pages, Wally Lamb packs in a lot.

I won't forget this one too soon! The pageant itself is the funniest since John Irving's "A Prayer For Owen Meany", which had me in stitches while driving from KL to Sudbury for a hockey tournament and Karen and David wondered why Mom was crying......

I Still Dream About You - Fannie Flagg ✔✔✔✔

2011-12-14T19:30:00.000-08:00

A thoroughly entertaining novel, I Still Dream About You could be classified as chick lit, but with a difference. First of all, the chicks are older, and the level of writing is much better.

The novel is set in Birmingham, Alabama and the main characters, Maggie, Brenda, Hazel, and Edith all work at a real estate firm owned by Hazel, a midget who has died before this story takes place, but whose spirit is still very much present. There's a villain too, Babs Bingington, a rival agent, who is pure venom.

There's a mystery about a house high up on a mountain overlooking Birmingham, a house that has always fascinated Maggie, a former Miss Alabama. Brenda is an overweight friend whose main comfort is ice cream and doughnuts. All this is related with a gentle sense of humor, no condescension, just a sort of bemused or amused detachment.

I read it very quickly and enjoyed every minute of it. Flagg also wrote Fried Green Tomatoes, another favorite - I saw the movie,too with Kathy Baker - I saw her as Brenda in this, even though Brenda is black.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern ✔✔✔✔✔

2011-12-06T14:17:00.000-08:00

"The circus arrives without warning"
This is the first sentence of this imaginative story, a story that wrapped itself around me and wouldn't let go until I'd finished it.
Le Cirque des Reves is its name - and it only operates at night.
It's like a dream really - I don't like fantasy in fiction, but this is just on the edge of fantasy.
Probably the best novel I read this year.
Enough said. I'm still in love with it.

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick de Witt ✔✔

2011-11-27T18:21:00.000-08:00

This was an interesting read when I first started it. It's basically a western, a story about Charlie and Eli Sisters, who are brothers, and hired assassins who are on a journey to find and kill a Mr. Warm, who has a formula for finding gold in the California Gold Rush. The author has chosen to use much more elevated language than one usually finds in a western: for example: "we set up in a drafty, lopsided hotel at the southernmost end of town. There was but a single vacancy and Charlie and I were forced to share a room, when we typically kept individual quarters." Most Western writers would have said instead: "We had to sleep in this dive at the end of town, and since there was only one room, we had to share a bed, doggone it"

Their journey to find Warm reminded me a bit of the Canterbury Tales, because they do meet some interesting and colorful characters along the way, and they do manage to kill quite a fair number of people while en route. But by the time they found Warm, I found I didn't really care anymore, so I skimmed through to the end.

Old City Hall by Robert Rotenberg ✔✔✔

2011-11-21T19:55:00.000-08:00

I purchased this book in New Liskeard. I had already read about the author, who was the founder of a magazine about Toronto, T.O.,The Magazine of Toronto. It was first published in 2009.

It's a detective story involving a popular radio talk-show host whose wife is found murdered in the bathtub in their condo on Front Street. There are lots of characters - Mr. Singh, former chief engineer of Indian Railways, who now delivers newspapers in Toronto, Rasheed, the security guard, the two detectives who investigate the case, the Crown attorney and the defense attorneys, the judge - they're all here.

The fact that it's set in Toronto, with lots of descriptions of the Market area, Front Street, Old City Hall, etc were also very interesting.

I read this in several days - very entertaining and well-written.

Through The Glass by Shannon Moroney ✔✔✔✔

2011-11-21T19:45:00.000-08:00

This is a true story, and an amazing one. Shannon was married for one month when a knock came to her hotel door where she was attending a conference for school guidance counsellors in Toronto. A policeman informed her that her husband Jason, who was back home in Peterborough, had been arrested for forcibly confining and raping two women in the basement of the video store where he worked.

Her life just absolutely fell apart with this news, and over the next three years, she recounts the crimes in more detail, her husband's criminal history - which she did know about, incidentally, when she married him - how she herself was treated because of his actions, dealing with the justice system, visiting her husband in prison ( she visited him regularly, although they could only communicate through a glass - hence the title) his attempts at rehabilitation, how her family was affected, how Jason was loved and valued by Shannon and her family - of course they loathed his crimes, and knew he had to be punished for them but they still loved the man. We also learn about his difficult childhood which was a large part of his problems as an adult.

I read this very quickly - it was hard to put down.

Reading the novel "Sacajawea" by Anna Waldo.

2011-11-07T14:32:00.001-08:00

I first read this novel some years ago- I just checked my earliest book journal, which I started in 1991, and it's not recorded there, so I must have read it in the 80s, and although I do recall it being very long, I really enjoyed the story of Sacajawea, the Shosone woman who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their expedition to the Pacific from North Dakota when it was only Indian tribes who inhabited the land.

I could end this entry right there, because that sentence pretty well sums up the whole book, all 1400 pages of it. But why am I even writing about it? Well, one of our Book Club members presented it as a possibility for us to discuss this year, and it was accepted, probably much more on the positive comments made by those who had read it, myself included. None of us mentioned its length, and if I'd recalled that, I'd have NEVER voted for it!

So, late in August I started reading Sacajawea for the second time, so I'd have it read by November 12, which is when we will meet to discuss it. About six chapters in, I decided it was boring, and anyway, I had a couple of other books on the go which were more interesting. But I felt some responsibility needed to be taken for having voted for it, so maybe I could just read the beginning of every chapter, which was an entry from Lewis and Clark's own journals on the expedition. Well, I did that for a bit, but then my curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to read it properly at least up to the middle of the book, then I'd decide if I was going to continue. Around page 600, I took a break, and I thought it was a permanent one- after all I knew enough of her story by this time, and I'd already read about her in Wikipedia. And I was also finishing those other books I mentioned earlier, and had my eye - as always - on the next one I wanted to read.

The novel is interesting enough as historical fiction, but I really feel the author did little beyond basically re-writing other journals and letters from Sacajawea's point of view, so that it's just a milder dose of a historic epic, written to make the story more accessible to general readers. There's also a fair amount of legend in there,too, which is all right - the story is interesting and certainly informative, but I thought my life would probably turn out all right if I didn't finish it.

So I left it - it's on my Kindle, stored under my "Did not finish" collection - quite content with my decision, until early last week Shirley mentioned she was just about finished it, and had really enjoyed it, and lo and behold, I felt guilty again about not finishing it.

Why is there this need to finish a book you're not fully committed to? It's not like you make a solemn oath or anything, the author doesn't care whether or not you read the whole thing and wouldn't feel himself or herself a failure if a little not old- but aging- lady in Northern Ontario didn't want to finish it, and there are so so many books to read! Is it so you can say you read the whole thing - Sandra said she "read every word" - is there some mountain--top experience if you actually finish something you don't really want to? I remember Gerry Pickett telling me he always finishes a book, whether he likes it or not. I'm not like that at all - I always have so many books ahead of me I'm dying to read. I used to make myself read 50 pages of a book before giving up on it, and nowadays it's more like 100 pages, but more often than not, I can tell within the first few pages if it'll be worth continuing with it.

The result of this latest - and last - guilt trip - is that I decided to finish it. Note that I said "finish" not "read" because I did not read every word. I didn't even read every page. When I woke up with a headache one morning because of skimming through about 20 pages before bedtime, I quit finishing.

And I don't feel guilty about it. And I don't know what there will be to discuss about Sacajawea as a book - I have a feeling it's going to be about the experience of reading - or not finishing - the book. Keep tuned!

Mrs. King by Charlotte Gray ✔✔✔✔

2011-11-07T14:17:00.000-08:00

I'm a fan of Charlotte Gray's. I read Sisters In the Wilderness, about Susannah Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill ( and I think every woman should read it, just so we can keep things in perspective when the fridge breaks down or we get a flat tire on the 401), and Flint and Feather, the biography of Pauline Johnson, whose poems were a part of our readers in elementary school, as well as the biography of Alexander Graham Bell ( I think the title is Reluctant Genius), so when I saw this title on the list of Canada Reads 2011 top 40 titles in non-fiction, I found it at our library and settled down to enjoy another story of a well-known Canadian.

And it was very enjoyable, and very informative. Isabel Mackenzie King was the daughter of William Lyon Mackenzie who led the 1837 revolt in Upper Canada, and the mother of William Lyon Mackenzie King, who was one of our greatest prime ministers. Willie, as he was known by his family, absolutely adored his mother, almost unnaturally so, and she herself, disappointed by her husband's lack of initiative and constant financial problems, relied almost exclusively on Willie for both financial and emotional support.

As a portrait of Toronto in the late 19th century, it was particularly interesting to me - the way people lived, the city limits ( Isabel was in her twenties before she ever went north of Eglinton Ave), the At Homes which the King women attended and hosted, even as they scraped together enough money to hold them, the class distinctions, and so on, so the book also is a social history of women at this time. It must be fascinating to do research like this. Fortunately the King family were all great letter-writers,so there must have been lots of material to work from. For example, while Willie was in Chicago, he sent a ten-page letter home once a week!!

Twelve Steps To A Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong ✔✔✔✔

2011-11-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I didn't enter a posting on this book when I first read it back in May or June of this year, unless I knew that I'd probably be reading it again and again. I'm presently on my third reading of it, this time chapter by chapter because our study group is using it as our focus for this year.

Karen Armstrong is one of my favorite spiritual writers, and this one is a handbook, if you like, to leading a compassionate life. I've felt for some time that, even as my views on faith and religion have changed so much over the past five years or so, I could be doing more - more to help others, more to express in a positive way those changes in my perspective, more to help myself along this life journey. This book is built around the Golden Rule, and the twelve steps are presented first as a treatise on compassion itself and how it is built into the major religions of the world, but then she moves on to finding compassion within your own world, within yourself, then moving out to others.

Reading this enabled me to finally be able to communicate with Brooke as the mother of our grandchild to present as clearly as I could how David needed some compassion in this trauma he's experienced for the past 16 months. I don't know what influence it had, but it doesn't matter - there were finally some more positive movements. I felt infinitely better for having done it, too.

The Boy In The Moon by Ian Brown ✔✔✔✔✔

2011-10-22T05:21:00.000-07:00

If I were to record everything I either learned or deeply appreciated from this book, I'd be here all day trying to put my thoughts in order. First, let me say that the writing is wonderful - clear and concise but at the same time deeply moving without ever getting sentimental. Ian Brown is a Globe and Mail writer, and I've heard him talking about books on CBC as well. I first read about this story in the Globe when Ian wrote a Focus article on his son Walker, the boy in the moon.

Walker was born with a rare genetic mutation called "cardiofaciocutaneous syndrome" - he is globally delayed, cannot speak, will always be in diapers, and is constantly hurting himself. His father describes him: "Walker, my teacher, my sweet, sweet, lost and broken boy".

In someone else's hands, this could turn into a litany of how challenging and yet how significant this child is, and how the lives of his family are in constant turmoil, But Brown goes way beyond that, and this is what makes the book so exciting. He sets out on a journey to find other CFC children and their families to discover similarities between them and Walker, he turns to science - genetics - to find the answer to why Walker is so profoundly disabled, he journeys to France to visit Jean Vanier's L'Arche to live with disabled people to discover how Walker might be able to live and prosper after his parents die.

The L'Arche community is very interesting because, unlike many many other agencies, the disabled people themselves make up the community and the dynamic - there is no integration such as in our own schools here - they define their own world, rather than constantly trying to adapt themselves to a world they don't understand. I found this enlightening, because who says our "normal" is something to be admired or longed for when your "normal" is something else entirely?

When I mentioned this book to the two other people I know who read it, one said "What a sad life", but I couldn't see it that way. Yes, it was sad, but it was also life-changing and strengthening and I come out of it thinking what wonderful creatures we all are, with our various flaws and deficiencies, and how we continually enrich one another's lives, often with even being aware of it.

The High Road by Terry Fallis ✔✔✔✔

2011-10-18T13:33:00.000-07:00

Our Book Club has just finished discussing The Best Laid Plans, Fallis' first book, which I have talk about elsewhere on this blog - May, 2011. Everyone enjoyed it so much that I thought the sequel, The High Road, would be a good segue, and it certainly was.

Angus has brought down the government in BLP, and now there's a campaign for the upcoming election, a few momentous trips in Baddeck I, Angus' hovercraft, a romance between Daniel and Lindsay, a visit from the US President and First Lady to Angus' home, all kinds of hi-jinks, and just a rollicking good story, well-crafted and a hoot to read.

I'd like to mention also that I invited our MP, Charlie Angus, to our book club meeting way back in September. He never replied, and I was disappointed in that. I didn't put any pressure on him, but it would have been nice if he'd even acknowledged my invitation! Mind you, the NDP doesn't contribute much to this story - it's more a Liberal/Conservative kind of thing.

Saints and Villains by Denise Giardina✔✔✔✔✔

2011-10-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

I ordered this book after reading about it in a list of favorite historical fiction novels created by a book club in the U.S. and it stayed on the shelf for probably five years before picking it up to read two weeks ago. It wasn't that I didn't want to read it , but how I choose a book already on my shelf varies considerably. Since I've been reading non-fiction almost exclusively, I felt that historical fiction wasn't too far off the track, and this just caught my eye one day - and I knew it would be the next one I read.

The name Dietrich Bonhoeffer first became known to me when I was organist at a German Lutheran Church in London, Ontario during my years in university. The Pastor, Godfrey Oelsner, mentioned him often in his sermons, so I knew that he was a German theologian who had been imprisoned by the Nazis during WW II, and finally executed. I can't remember whether I read any of his Letters and Papers From Prison, but I was aware that he was a man of great faith and compassion, and was considered a martyr by the Lutheran Church.

This was an incredible book to read, and for me it was the first book I have ever read detailing the rise of Hitler, the overthrow of the German government, the resistance movement led many Germans, and the unfolding of the war from a German vantage point. It also depicts the confusion within the Church - those who sympathized with Hitler, and those who knew the only way to defeat him from within was to kill him. Bonhoeffer had to leave Germany at least twice because he so inflamed the hierarchy in the Church.

The most illuminating part was Bonhoeffer's time in prison leading up to his execution - the terrible conditions under which he was held in the beginning, then a relaxing of rules as time goes on, and it is at this point that he becomes truly a pastor as he ministers to other prisoners and becomes a friend to one of his guards.

A quote from Bonhoeffer: " God makes a convenient scapegoat. Or people always think God is absent when things are going bad for them. Things go better and God is back. Well, I want to live in a world as if there were no God. That is the only way God can truly be with any of us."

Lives Like Loaded Guns - Emily Dickinson and her Family's Feuds by Lyndall Gordon ✔✔✔✔

2011-10-01T15:55:00.000-07:00

The author of this remarkable biography was interviewed on CBC the day before the book was released, and I was so intrigued by the title, plus the story of these feuds, that I wasted no time in purchasing the book. I only started reading it this past summer, in between several others I was enjoying, and I finally came back to it this week to finish it.

I'm not even certain the book can be described as a biography - I guess it's a literary biography of the Dickinson family and the other families who were involved - and in many ways it seems to operate more as a literary thriller. The title of the book, taken from one of Emily's 1789 poems, more than aptly describes the families and their feuds, and I often felt I was reading a novel. These were flesh and blood creatures for sure, including Emily - the typical view of her as a recluse in a white dress, shy and retiring, is not accurate. The recluse part is, to be sure, but not the rest of it.

I've chosen one of Lyndall Gordon's paragraphs to sum up the book:

"Emily Dickinson is now recognised as one of the greatest poets who ever lived, yet her life remains a mystery. She continues to be encased in claims put out by opposed camps fighting for possession of her greatness. These camps originated in the clash between Austin Dickinson ( Emily's brother) and his wife, who had been the poet's intimate and her keenest reader. Out of this feud, a lasting feud developed, and it was the opponents in this feud, their allies and warring descendants, who devised the image of the poet as her fame grew and endured. What began as a split over adultery turned into a feud over who was to own the poet: in the first instance, who was to have the right to publish her works; in the second, whose legend would imprint itself on the public mind."

Gordon has written other bios: Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot and Charlotte Bronte.

Shania Twain: From This Moment On

2011-09-30T18:55:00.000-07:00

I've long been a fan of Shania Tawin. She's a Northern gal, she always seems very down-to-earth, she sings well, and I loved how she appeared at the Juno Awards some years ago wearing different hockey sweaters of Canadian teams. I knew that she had had a difficult childhood, and that her parents had both died in a car accident, and more recently, the news of her marriage breakdown because of the affair her husband and producer was having with her best friend and confidante made me sympathize with her even more.

I really enjoyed reading this book - her childhood was even more difficult than I knew- a lot of physical violence between her parents, much of which she witnessed, extreme poverty ( she tells of taking a sandwich made with mustard as the only filling to school), and finding escape in her music - writing and singing songs. Her mother was very much involved in getting her career in music started, and it's also interesting how, as an adult, Shania still has a lot of respect for her father, despite the fact that he beat his wife so often, seemingly more over financial difficulties than any troubles with alcohol or drugs.

Her rise through the music business is interestingly told - I never knew that emerging artists basically "shop" for songs in Music Row in Nashville ( our hotel was next to the Row when we visited there three years ago) and how Mutt Lange, her husband and partner, was such a master in producing her albums, and helped her go in musical directions much different from other country artists.

She's quite candid about the marriage breakdown, and the developing relationship with Fred, her husband now, who was the husband of her best friend, Marie-Anne, who is now with Shania's ex....( will there be a test on this after??)

She is also quite inspirational, and I especially appreciated the fact that she got through a lot of these situations in her life on her own two feet and using good common sense - not giving all the credit to God as so many of the country artists do. And I will always admire someone who could lead a tree-planting crew of men at age 17, set a bear trap and wash clothes in a river. Way to go, Shania!!

The Cello Suites by Eric Siblin ✔✔✔

2011-08-16T09:47:00.000-07:00

Subtitled "J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the search for a Baroque Masterpiece.

I am presently leading some worship services at Trinity, and I'm using Music as my theme, so I read this book - which I purchased in Peterborough two years ago - to give me a refresher on the life of J.S. Bach, which was timely, and certainly about 80% more information about Pablo Casals, whom I had known merely as one of the world's greatest cellists, and that he had played in Washington for JFK back in the early 60s, than I previously had had.

It was an interesting read, both for reading about these two great musicians, but also for their creative life, and how these Cello Suites came to life only in the 20th century by Casals. The connections between the 18th century and the 20th were very interesting, and the author, who describes his own attempts to sing in a Bach cantata with no previous choral experience, and absolutely no music-reading experience, made this a very readable book.

Eric Siblin was a pop music critic for the Montreal Gazette, and had had his fill, as he says, of music is his head that he didn't want to have there, so the Cello Suites offered " a way out of a jam". He travelled extensively throughout Spain and Germany, attended a Bach festival, interviewed other cellists, and, as I mentioned before, immersed himself as completely as he could in the music of Bach.

Queen Elizabeth by William Shawcross

2011-08-08T05:37:00.000-07:00

It's taken me a long time to finish this 943-page bio. I read the first 300 pages or so in June, amidst other books, then decided to read it exclusively through to the end. I had started reading Follett's "Fall of Giants", and after a hundred pages or so, thought Shawcross had done a better, more-informed job of the First World War, so I turned to QE full-time.

This is sub-titled "The Official Biography", and Shawcross evidently took that very seriously, because it is so detailed in every aspect of QE's public life, and it does paint an extremely flattering picture of her.

I have great admiration for Royals - their job is not an easy one, and George VI and Elizabeth were the ultimate, I'd say, in meeting and visiting people, keeping in touch, becoming patrons and so on. The rigours of royal tours became very evident in this book - there would be complaints from people around them, but rarely from the main attractions themselves. Right up to the year she died, QE was out visiting, trooping the colours, travelling, entertaining. I'd have been gasping for some time to myself!

King George V's biographer called her " one of the most amazing Queens since Cleopatra". Her smile was infectious, and she never lost the warmth and grace of her childhood years, living in Glamis, Scotland.

Her smile, her unwavering faith and her love of surprises were, for me, the most notable things about QE. She took a lot of delight when things went awry at events. For example, on one visit to Canada, poor weather forced her plane down in Cold Lake, Alberta. She sat in the officer's mess and talked happily with the officers and their wives until her plane could continue its journey.

After her 90th birthday, her daughter Margaret mentioned how much they were now looking forward to her 100th birthday. She replied:" Oh, you mustn't say that. It's unlucky. I mean, I might be run over by a big red bus". When someone mentioned that this was highly unlikely, she replied:"No, it's the principle of the thing. Wouldn't it be terrible if you'd spent all your life doing everything you were supposed to do, didn't drink, didn't smoke, took lots of exercise, all the things you didn't want to do, and suddenly one day you were run over by a big red bus, and as the wheels were crunching into you, you'd say "Oh, my God, I could have got so drunk last night" That's the way you should live your life, as if tomorrow you'll be run over by a big red bus"

And that's exactly how she did live!

In The Land of Believers by Gina Welch ✔✔✔✔

2011-07-12T13:59:00.001-07:00

I don't even remember how I found out about this, but when I read about it, I downloaded it immediately. Gina is a young woman who decides she wants to write about evangelical Christians by "embedding" herself in one of their churches, and chooses Dr. Jerry Falwell's church. She is an athiest, and remains so throughout the book, but nonetheless is changed by her experiences there - she even gets baptized by immersion! She also attends something called a Scaremare, which I had never heard of - a sort of haunted house experience designed to scare you enough into becoming a Christian - yes, I kid you not!

I was wondering how she would get herself out of all this, so it was very interesting to read, and find out the members' reactions to her book.

The Art of Racing In The Rain - Garth Stein✔✔✔✔

2011-07-12T13:47:00.000-07:00

This story was so close to David's situation right now, plus his relationship with his golden retriever, Charlie. It tells the story of a family with the dog, Enzo, as the narrator. Here's the beginning:

"Gestures are all I have; sometimes they must be grand in nature. And while I occasionally step over the line and into the world of the melodramatic, it is what I must do to communicate clearly and effectively....I have no words I can rely on because, much to my dismay, my tongue was designed long and flat and loose, and...an even less effective tool for making...sounds that can be linked together to form sentences"

But Enzo is also a very important character in this novel, as he nurtures and helps heal Denny, his owner, Eve, Denny's wife, who is dying of cancer, and their daughter,Zoë.

This would be a wonderful book for a Book Club to read and discuss.

The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews ✔✔✔✔✔

2011-06-29T11:32:00.001-07:00

It's been a long while since I shed a few tears at the end of a novel, but I did with this one. It's a quick read, a family road trip, and last night I thought I'd skim through to the end but today I backed up to re-read the last thirty pages and was overwhelmed, both by the beauty of the writing and the love of family that permeates the end of the book, as well as the fact that it resembles so closely the dilemma our David continues to endure with his separation from his 17-month-old daughter.

Min, the mother, is in a psychiatric hospital for the nth time, and tells her sister Hattie, the narrator, that she wants to die. Min has two children: Logan, aged 15 and Thebes, 12, and Logan, who has seen the exchange between the two sisters, wants to know what his mother said. Hattie doesn't want to tell him, so instead she says that Min wants the three of them to find Cherkis, their father and promptly sets out on a road trip with the two teenagers to find their father - a seemingly impossible task, given the fact that they have no clue where he is and they're driving in an aged and inform Ford Aerostar, and all three of them are a bit nuts themselves.

It's a unconventional trio, but you know all along that they do love each other, and of course they meet some interesting characters along the way.

A five-star read for sure, Toews certainly knows how to write about teenagers and family. As the Edmonton Journal said, " She shines a kindly light on family dynamics that the average social worker would find worthy of a hefty investigation. And she balances heartbreak with laugh-out-loud wit."

Shirley loaned me this book - it came from her cousin Cheryl.

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain ✔✔✔✔

2011-06-25T16:25:00.000-07:00

This is our first Book Club selection for September 2011, which I downloaded to my Kindle. It was a slow start, but I was very busy with other things while reading it. I ended up enjoying it and look forward to our discussion of it. Meanwhile, I've copied this from Book Browse because, once again, I'm feeling lazy...

A deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, The Paris Wife captures a remarkable period of time and a love affair between two unforgettable people: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley.

Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris, which hardly values traditional notions of family and monogamy. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Despite their extraordinary bond, they eventually find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for.

A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.

God's Secretaries by Adam Nicolson ✔✔✔✔

2011-06-16T05:36:00.000-07:00

How the King James Bible came about is the theme of this informative, reader-friendly book. I have always loved the King James version, with its beautiful language, which flows so majestically, especially in the Psalms. I already knew, of course, that it had been put together in the 17th century in England, but I never knew exactly how, or how much James I - who succeeded Elizabeth I - was actually involved in the making of it. This book answered those questions, but was also a vivid portrayal of that post-Elizabethan time in England, plus a comparison of the Puritans to the Church of England clergy.

Some of the highlights were: - a Puritan minister who spent five years from 1594 - 1599,preaching each and every Thursday on the book of Jonah, which consists of four chapters, a total of 48 verses! The author calls this "word - inflation".

- the fact that James I commissioned this translation as a way of unifying England and Scotland.

- the translators divided up the Bible amongst some 50 of themselves, and each translator was to work on a chapter, then submit it to his particular group to work on it together, then to submit it to the entire group. In this way, the richness and majesty of the text was the result - each word was important.

- this richness and lushness was reflected in the stained-glass windows and beautifully-wrought interiors , not to mention vestments of the churches and clergy. It reminds me of the Baroque period in Europe, particularly in Bach and Vivaldi.

This was not a stuffy, scholarly read. Nicolson was obviously passionate about the subject - he says he is a Christian, but doesn't go to church - and has made this book as readable as its subject.

If I Stay - and - Where She Went by Gayle Forman ✔✔✔

2011-05-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

I put these two books together, because the second one is a sequel. These are young adult books, and both were highly recommended in blogs that I read. I was intrigued by these books, first because the story is about a young classical cellist, Mia, and her boyfriend, Adam Wilde, who is a star in a rock band, and also because in the opening pages, Mia's family suffers a terrible tragedy, which Mia alone survives. The first novel is told from Mia's perspective, and the second one from Adam's, so it's interesting to see how events unfolded from one another's vantage point. These were easy reads for me, but entertaining enough.

I guess it must be bcause I now have a Kindle, but in the past month or so, I've been reading several books at the same time - my last three entries here have all been read at the same time, and I have three others on the go right now. I read whatever I feel like at any particular time. The fact that they're all non-fiction makes it more possible to do this, and actually as I'm writing this, I just received a book I won on Book Browse - My Reading Life by Pat Conroy, so I'm going to sit right down now and start it, so I guess I'm up to four at a time!

The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis✔✔✔

2011-05-29T19:55:00.000-07:00

I purchased this book because I had heard about it on Canada Reads 2011, and it actually won the title as "the most essential book of the decade", beating out The Birth House, which was my first choice. Now I'm considering recommending it for Book Club next year, not because it's the best book I've read this year, but because it covers a topic we've never had - politics, and Canadian politics at that. The subject is quite interesting right now since the Conservatives have a majority for the first time in years, the NDP have all these rookie MPs from Quebec, and Jack Layton wants to restore order and dignity to the house. In another year we'll see how things are doing, and it might be fun to discuss them from the vantage point of this novel, where the candidate does not want to run, but when he is elected, finds his political soul in doing what is right, not what will win him more votes next time.

The other interesting thing about this novel is that the author first offered the entire novel as a free podcast online in the hopes that someone would hear it and consider publishing it. The author's webpage has the complete podcast.

This book was my recommendation for Book Club next year, and was accepted by the group. We'll do it in October.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot ✔✔✔

2011-05-26T20:10:00.000-07:00

I copied this from Book Browse:

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia — a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo — to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family — past and present — is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

2011-05-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

This is our next selection for Book Club, and I will be presenting it. I think this is the third time I've read it - and each time I find something new. Olive is quite a person, and I guess what draws me to this novel, which is presented in thirteen short stories, is that I see myself, and many other women, in her. And Crosby, Maine is a small town, just like my own town, so I see many resemblances. Should be an interesting discussion!
I first posted on this book in May, 2009.

The Last Concubine by Leslie Downer ✔✔

2011-04-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

Heather dropped this off to me, I started reading it Thursday afternoon and I finished it today. It tells the stories of women in Japan in the early 19th century, just at the point in time where the old ways are supplanted by new ways brought about by rebellion and upheaval. It really was more of a historical romance than historical fiction, but it was interesting enough. Only two stars though. Good to read during the snowstorm, though!

Careless Love - The Unmaking of Elvis Presley ✔✔✔✔

2011-04-20T18:57:00.000-07:00

I've been thoroughly immersed in Elvis Presley ever since visiting Graceland. Reading these two volumes was a revelation in so many ways - so many things about Elvis' life I didn't know. The last time I was as emotionally affected by a biography of a musician was some twenty years ago when I read Beethoven's biography.

This second volume was sad a lot of the time as I watched Elvis go steadily downhill. The large quantities of prescription drugs that he took, the many doctors he had at his beck and call, the women who came into his life, his changes in temperament - there were times when I didn't like him too much, but then I would become sad when I saw how needy he was, how lonely he was even amidst his ever-constant companions.

He obviously never got over the death of his mother, and his relationships with women illustrate that over and over again. I think he even had a death wish in those last few years. - he certainly seemed obsessed by mortality.

The Colonel,too, was an enigma, and the author didn't appear to like him very mich - the same can be said for Ginger Alden, his last "girlfriend", who was with him when he died.

These books were extra-special for me - an excellent, gifted young man whose life was wasted away.

Last Train To Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick ✔✔✔✔

2011-04-08T18:19:00.001-07:00

I am an Elvis fan. Not enough to go to Collingwood every year for the Elvis Impersonator festivals, but I was always interested in his career, especially his meteoric rise to fame when I was 10 or 11 years old. I remember seeing him on The Ed Sullivan Show with all the screaming girls and his gyrations on stage ( I was watching the show at Helen and Jim's home in Edmonton - that I do remember), then reading about him in Photoplay and Modern Screen magazines. I also occasionally purchased Hit Parader and Song Hits magazines when my measly allowance covered it.

I sort of lost track of him in the sixties when I was studying piano so intensely, but I seemed to always know what was going on in his life. The day he died, I was visiting a friend here in KL with David (two years) and Karen ( two months old) along with me - her husband came up the stairs to tell us Elvis had died. I remember being sad, and I have always remembered that date.

This year we visited Memphis and Graceland on our trip home from Florida, and I found the Guralnick books in one of the Elvis souvenir stores at Graceland. I had long known about them, and wanted to read them, so it seemed appropriate to buy them as my own souvenir of Graceland and Elvis' life. I wish now I'd been able to read them first, as I think our visit, interesting and enlightening as it was, would have been even more significant.

Before we drove to Memphis, we stopped in Tupelo and visited Elvis' birthplace home and the church he attended with his parents, and the story of Last Train To Memphis begins there.

I learned so much about Elvis from this book - he was a bit of a loner as a child, was extremely close to his mother all of his life ( she died in 1958 ), always knew he would do "something with his life", was very religious, was scared and shy before performing, but became a different person onstage, to the point that he didn't even know he was making all those movements which defined his stage presence, was really and truly a polite, engaging, likeable young man whom everyone eventually admired and adored, even some of his harshest critics (except for Frank Sinatra, who must have been as jealous as all get out), who refused to take acting lessons because he wanted to be himself in his movies ( too bad- I never thought they were very good...), who respected and revered other performers who may have imitated his own particular style ( like Gene Vincent of Be-Bop-A-Lula, and Jerry Lee Lewis)

I also have the second book, which I'm anxious to read, too. These books are definite keepers!

The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine ✔✔✔

2011-03-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
Betty Weissmann has just been dumped by her husband of forty-eight years. Exiled from her elegant New York apartment by her husband's mistress, she and her two middle-aged daughters, Miranda and Annie, regroup in a run-down Westport, Connecticut, beach cottage. In Schine's playful and devoted homage to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, the impulsive sister is Miranda, a literary agent entangled in a series of scandals, and the more pragmatic sister is Annie, a library director, who feels compelled to move in and watch over her capricious mother and sister. Schine's witty, wonderful novel "is simply full of pleasure: the pleasure of reading, the pleasure of Austen, and the pleasure that the characters so rightly and humorously pursue..An absolute triumph" (Cleveland Plain Dealer).

The above is from Chapters Indigo website - I'm feeling lazy tonight. However, I must say I really enjoyed this book - a fairly light read, and certainly witty - I especially enjoyed the character of Felicity, the above-mentioned mistress.

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny ✔✔✔✔

2011-03-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

It's interesting that the last novel I sign out from our local library here in Florida was written by a Canadian! I've read four of Penny's novels now, and by checking The Brutal Telling, which I entered on this blog on June 10, 2010, you'll get some background into this particular novel which I've just finished.

Penny keeps us guessing on three separate levels here all through the book - from Gamache investigating a strange murder in an Anglo historical library in Quebec City, to his second-in-command, Beauvoir, re-investigating the accused killer from The Brutal Telling - and finding him innocent - then finally to a hostage-taking incident some months previously when both Gamache and Beauvoir were severely injured, both physically and emotionally. Two of these levels finally intersect, but this author is quite adept at writing mysteries, without undue violence, too.

A comment on the book cover that her writing could well be a model for students of this genre is spot on. She's a wonderful mystery writer! She obviously has a great affection for Quebec City and it brought back lots of memories for me of visiting there over the years.

Even Silence Has An End by Isabel Betancourt ✔✔✔

2011-03-10T14:40:00.000-08:00

This is the story of the author's six-year captivity by FARC - the people's army of Columbia - in the jungles of the Amazon. It was an interesting contrast to Unbroken, which I read earlier this year, because this book explores the relationships between people under such constant stress much more deeply.

"When you're chained by the neck to a tree, and deprived of all freedom - the freedom to move around, to talk, to eat, to drink, to carry out your most basic bodily needs - well, it took me several years to realize it, but you still have the most important freedom of all, which no one can take away from you: that is the freedom to choose what kind of person you want to be".

Ingrid never stopped dreaming of escape and did get away several times, only to be re-captured. The book is a treatise on the basics of life - fear, freedom, hope. She was often derided by her fellow captives, and suffered many indignities from her captors, forced to march many miles through dense jungle, with only her mother and children's broadcasts to hostages over the radio sustaining her - she was never allowed to speak to them, and they broadcast every day not knowing whether she was alive to hear them.

After finishing the book, I read some reviews, and found the readers' comments following them very interesting. Many people absolutely hate this woman, for being part of the "elite" in Columbia, for going into a dangerous region in the first place, and especially for suing the Columbian government after her release on the basis that she was not sufficiently warned about the area she was visiting at the time of her capture.

So the controversies that followed her time in the jungle have not really been resolved, including scathing remarks from some of her fellow hostages. But, for me, it was a good read, and I admired her spirit in facing each day with hope that this one might be the last in the jungle.

The Autobiography of Henry VIII by Margaret George ✔✔✔✔

2011-03-04T18:29:00.000-08:00

Margaret George writes excellent historical fiction, including Mary, Queen of Scots and Helen of Troy, and now this one, which I read for our Tudor theme study at April's book club meeting. She is easy to read, never sensational, and always remains true to historic fact.

The Tudors is a favorite subject of mine, and I've already read many books on this theme, but I picked this one - some 900 pages long- first because most of the books I've read deal with Anne Boleyn or Elizabeth I, and I wanted to know more about Henry's other wives, especially after Anne Boleyn. Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel, which I read last year, had Thomas Cromwell as its subject and I found it overly scholarly. This one was an excellent choice.

Henry is seen as a man who never got over the fact that his mother never loved him, or at least never demonstrated any affection towards him. You also see the loneliness of the reigning monarch, not knowing who to trust, even himself. It's also quite obvious that once Henry made up his mind about someone's treachery, whether real or suspected, or wanted to get rid of someone, like three of his six wives, that he never spoke directly with the object of his wrath, almost as if he knew if he did, he'd be talked out of it. He really was just a little boy who wanted a mommy!

Nothing To Envy: Ordinary Lives In North Korea by Barbara Demick ✔✔✔✔✔

2011-02-10T06:47:00.000-08:00

Demick follows the lives of six North Korean citizens over fifteen years, bringing to life what it means to be living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today, where displays of affection are punished, informants are rewarded and an indiscreet comment can send a person to prison for life, and all his family suffer from generation to generation as a result. The book also follows the journeys of these six persons as they become disillusioned with the government and finally realize, only after they've been able to leave by way of China into South Korea, how their country has betrayed them.

Each chapter of this book begins with a small photo of life in North Korea. The first chapter shows a satellite image of North and South Korea taken at night, where South Korea is bathed in light, and North Korea is completely dark, except for one little dot at Pyongyang, the capital city.

I quote from the first chapter: "North Korea faded to black in the early 1990s.With the collapse of the Soviet Union,which had propped up its old Communist ally with cheap fuel oil, North Korea's creakily inefficient economy collapsed. Power stations rusted into ruin. The lights went out......Even in parts of the showcase capital Pyongyang, you can stroll down the middle of a main street at night without being able to see the buildings on either side."

The citizens of North Korea are living life as if they were in a prison camp. The eternal, un-ending search for food, even to scooping up mud from the docks, spreading it over a roof till it dries, so any little speck of corn or rice can be extracted, the teacher who feels guilty because she knows as she eats a morsel or two for lunch that she will see several of her students die from starvation, and who feels guilty because it doesn't bother her anymore - this is a gut-wrenching book, made even more horrible by the fact that the reader knows the nightmare - and the majority of them don't even know it's a nightmare - continues.

Charlotte and Emily by Jude Morgan ✔✔✔✔

2011-02-07T05:47:00.000-08:00

I purchased this book after looking at it on the shelf at Borders for some time. I've always been fascinated by the Bronte sisters' lives, and Wuthering Heights is one of my favorite classic novels. The book wasn't available at the local library, so I finally decided to buy it - a good decision, because I found it one of the best historical fiction novels I've read.

Before reading it, however, I did read Jane Eyre, and I'm glad I did, because I could see so many details in this book which appeared in Jane Eyre - the awful, awful experiences in a girls' school, the terrible deaths of Charlotte's two older sisters as a result of this same school's discipline, to mention just two. Class differences certainly show themselves too, particularly through the families whose children were educated by Charlotte and Anne.

Although the novel is entitled "Charlotte and Emily", the story is definitely Charlotte's, and I wondered why this novel was also published under the title "The Taste of Sorrow". In following some links, I found a novel devoted to Emily, which I'll try to locate - plus some others - I feel a pull towards stories on literary giants, and there are lots!

I had a hard time deciding what to write here about this novel, because there was so much that spoke to me,so I've left it to goodreads.com to summarise the novel for me:

From an obscure country parsonage came the most extraordinary family of the nineteenth century. The Bronte sisters created a world in which we still live - the intense, passionate world of JANE EYRE and WUTHERING HEIGHTS; and the phenomenon of this strange explosion of genius remains as baffling now as it was to their Victorian contemporaries. In this panoramic novel we see with new insight the members of a uniquely close-knit family whose tight bonds are the instruments of both triumph and tragedy. Emily, the solitary who turns from the world to the greater temptations of the imagination: Anne, gentle and loyal, under whose quietude lies the harshest perception of the stifling life forced upon her: Branwell, the mercurial and self-destructive brother, meant to be king, unable to be a prince: and the brilliant, uncompromising, tormented Charlotte, longing for both love and independence, who establishes the family's name and learns its price.

JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte ✔✔✔✔

2011-02-04T06:45:00.000-08:00

I like to read at least one classic novel a year, and now that so many can be downloaded for free on Kindle, it was a matter of choosing which one. When I saw that a new film version of Jane Eyre will be released in March, I decided Jane Eyre would be the one.

Jane Eyre was first published in 1847, under the name Currer Bell, because Charlotte feared it would not be published if a woman's name appeared as the author.

Wikipedia has an excellent entry on this novel, exploring its many themes. While I was reading the novel, I was certainly aware of gender bias, class distinctions, the search for acceptance, plus passion and romance, the influence of religion, but the things that struck me as I read were first, the education of young women in those days amidst the most prejudicial males ( reminded me of our times, when the most strident voices for anti-abortion are male), and second, the often odd behaviour patterns of Rochester. Why did he lead her on so much to get closer to her - disguising himself as a gypsy, pretending to court Lady Ingram, misleading her into an almost bigamous marriage?

There's no question it's a highly literate novel, and a wonderful story, with many layers of meaning. Charlotte and her sisters lived a great life of full imagination even while being so secluded - it's amazing that she depicted life - especially romance - so accurately and so fully. I really can't recall whether I ever read the novel previously, but it was an engrossing, enlightening read. I love the sentence: "Reader, I married him" - I felt she was reaching out to communicate with all her readers down through the last 150 years, and it's almost as if she was talking directly to us all.

Still Missing by Chevy Stevens✔✔✔✔

2011-01-21T19:26:00.000-08:00

I read this in 24 hours! Annie O'Sullivan is a real estate agent who is just ending an open house at one of the homes she is selling when she is suddenly and violently abducted, taken to a cabin in the wilderness of BC, and held prisoner there for close to a year by her abductor, who controls every aspect of her life, including how often she can pee!

You know right from the get-go that she has survived this terrible ordeal, because she is relating her experiences to a psychiatrist after she returns to the world, but the story is not yet over- hence the title, Still Missing.

A can't-put-it-down story and a really exciting read.

Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates ✔✔✔✔

2011-01-21T18:59:00.000-08:00

Blonde is a historical fiction account of the life of Marilyn Monroe, one of the most intriguing stars of the 20th century. Apparently, Oates began this project as a novella of some 15,000 words, but became so fascinated by the subject that the novella became a novel of over 700 pages!

The author insists this is a novel, but those of us who were aware of the details of Monroe's life knew exactly who the Ex-Athlete, the Playwright, the President were. Marilyn always referred to herself as Norma Jean Baker- Monroe was a name given to her by MGM Studios, who at that time virtually owned their stars. Marilyn's greatest tragedy is that she never really knew exactly WHO she was - her mother was a paranoid schizophrenic who spent most of her life in a mental institution, and she never did find out who her father was. She spent most of her childhood in an orphanage, then in a foster home, where the woman of the house, Elsie Pirig, managed to get Norma Jean married off at the age of 16 because she was afraid her husband was lusting after her.

The only life of an artist that I've read or known about that was more tragic was Mozart's, and time and again in this novel her genius at acting was referred to again and again. We always think of Marilyn as the body, the platinum blonde hair, huge mouth and liquid eyes, and there's certainly lots of that - one chapter lists the names of the men and women she slept with in her lifetime, but also we see her talent, becoming the characters she was playing, how she was unfairly over looked for an Oscar nomination for Bus Stop, how when she went to England to do The Prince and the Showgirl she was derided by the British actors but only until they saw the rushes from the movie they were shooting and realized she'd out-acted them all.

Why the drugs, the absolute disregard for her body and how it was exploited by so many? She had no idea who she was, no one to guide her or provide a model, and it was obvious her mother, with her own multitude of problems, had never bonded with Norma Jean so she had no anchor. She so desperately wanted to love and be loved, but was treated over and over again like a toy. Just tragic - that's the only word for it.

Unbroken by Laura Hillebrand ✔✔✔✔✔

2011-01-09T19:07:00.000-08:00

The next time I think life is tough, or I'm not getting a break I deserve, or I complain about how I'm treated, I hope I think about Louis Zamperini, the subject of this book. Louis is now 93, the survivor of an odyssey like no other I've ever heard of, even more amazing that every event, every hardship, every example of man's inhumanity to man, or the tiny glimmer of spirit that kept the faintest hope alive actually happened.

I began reading this after Mike was about halfway through it, and read it in just a few days - jealously eyeing it while Mike was taking his turn reading it, anxious to see if Louis could possibly live through another day.

Everyone should read this book, if only to see a living example of true grit and courage. Would I - could I - ever be the tiniest bit like Louis? I doubt it, but just having Louis as a role model makes it possible.

FAVORITES OF 2010

2011-01-02T19:09:00.000-08:00

The top three books I read this year were: 1. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
2. Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue
3. We Were The Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

And the remainder:

The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger
Galore by Michael Crummey
This Body of Death by Elizabeth George
Losing My Religion by William Lobdell
Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Stout
Latitudes of Melt by Joan Clark
My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor
The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall ✔✔✔✔✔

2011-01-02T18:52:00.000-08:00

Finally, a book I couldn't put down! It had seemed like a long time since I added five checkmarks to a book, and this one was like a drink of cold water after a long, dusty walk. I just absolutely loved everything about it, and knew I would before the first page was completely read - the writing is conversational, humorous, and intelligent, the characters are so completely human with all their various idiosyncracies, and some of the events in this novel made me laugh so hard I cried, and also made me shed a tear or two of sadness, What more could you ask for in an excellent book?

Golden Richards has four wives and 28 children, but he's lonely, and finds himself heading for an affair. When you hear the title, your mind conjures up pictures of a stiff-necked patriarch, women in prairie dresses and long hair wound around their heads, children with pinafore dresses or breeches, shy smiles on their faces - but NONE of those images work for this family - the four wives are regular people, albeit with the odd issue here and there, the children are always fighting or conniving against one another, and through it all floats Golden, who is trying to recover from the death of Glory, one of his daughters, some three years earlier.

That's all I'm going to say - you just have to read it. This makes my list of all-time favorites. About 3/4 of the way through the book, I was already grieving the end of the story, and the wonderfully colorful people who make up this novel.

The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk ✔✔✔

2010-12-20T14:13:00.000-08:00

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 ✔✔✔

2010-12-15T20:27:00.000-08:00

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 ✔✔✔

2010-12-09T10:39:00.000-08:00

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 ✔✔✔

2010-11-30T19:05:00.000-08:00

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 ✔✔

2010-11-26T19:55:00.000-08:00

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.✔✔✔✔

2010-11-08T12:28:00.000-08:00

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.✔✔✔

2010-11-07T13:36:00.000-08:00

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.✔✔✔✔✔

2010-11-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔

2010-11-03T12:57:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔✔✔

2010-10-22T11:13:00.000-07:00

"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.✔✔✔✔✔

2010-10-16T15:42:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔✔

2010-10-11T07:59:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔

2010-10-09T09:33:00.001-07:00

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.✔✔✔

2010-10-09T05:42:00.000-07:00

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. ✔✔✔

2010-09-29T16:51:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔

2010-09-29T16:23:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔✔

2010-09-22T16:18:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔

2010-09-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔✔✔

2010-09-15T12:43:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔

2010-09-08T19:19:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✓

2010-09-07T05:54:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔

2010-09-05T18:29:00.001-07:00

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. ✔✔✔

2010-08-27T19:34:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔✓

2010-08-17T19:13:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✓

2010-08-07T06:05:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔✔

2010-08-04T13:16:00.000-07:00

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!

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby. ✔✔

2010-07-25T08:02:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔✔✔

2010-07-21T05:53:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔

2010-07-18T12:11:00.001-07:00

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✔✔✓

2010-07-12T17:13:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔✔✔

2010-06-25T17:29:00.000-07:00

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. ✔✔✔

2010-06-22T19:46:00.000-07:00

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. ✔✔✔

2010-06-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔✓

2010-06-05T10:30:00.000-07:00

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✔✔✔✔

2010-06-02T11:00:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔✔

2010-05-24T04:52:00.001-07:00

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.✔✔✔

2010-05-21T06:50:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔✔

2010-05-17T13:41:00.000-07:00

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. ✔✔✓

2010-05-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔

2010-05-03T11:13:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔✔

2010-04-12T13:54:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔✔

2010-03-28T07:29:00.000-07:00

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.✔✔✔

2010-03-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

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. ✔✔

2010-02-25T21:39:00.000-08:00

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.✔✔✔✔

2010-02-19T11:33:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-31T19:34:00.000-08:00

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.✔✔

2010-01-31T19:08:00.001-08:00

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.✔✔✔

2010-01-23T20:32:00.000-08:00

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.✔✔✔

2010-01-17T11:27:00.000-08:00

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. ✔✔✔

2010-01-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

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.✔✔

2010-01-12T13:17:00.000-08:00

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!