The Indextrious Reader

Christmas time is here....

2009-12-08T12:21:00.005-05:00

Oh, it is that time of year again, the time when whole days disappear and you don't even realize that it has been a week since you read anything or even looked at your own blog....yes, Christmas time. I can't believe how neglectful I have been of my own reading and of my poor little blog in the last few weeks. Christmas is a busy time and I have been busy, doing quite a bit of sewing which I can not share here as some of the recipients read my blog! ;)

But I will share a couple of great crafting sites I've discovered lately - if you want some inspiration for last minute gifts, try one of these:

Sew Mama Sew - most crafters know this site, but I have had fun looking through it, especially her November posts, in which she lists an entire month's worth of fabric based gift projects. Wow. Lots to inspire you here.

Just Something I Made - This is my favourite new crafting blog - and more than that, it is a wonderful blog full of inspiration for all kinds of creativity. Author Cathe Holden is a graphic designer and has an amazingly creative turn of mind. She shares tons of her graphic work from vintage books and advertisements, free to download, to use for crafts, business logos, blog buttons etc. She just asks that you don't use her images and turn around to sell them. I spent literally hours looking through this site last week! (artsy-crafty button above by Cathe)

Make + Do - I came across the above site due to a random mention on this Canadian Living craft site (which runs all year round as well). There are lots of more traditional crafts here, lots of knitting, which I am hopeless at, but some other good ideas and good links too.

Tomorrow -- back to regular programming with a review of a book on journaling.

The Blythes are Quoted

2009-12-02T10:38:00.001-05:00

The Blythes are Quoted / Lucy Maud Montgomery; edited and with an afterword by Benjamin Lefebvre

Toronto: Viking Canada, 2009.

This is the restored, full version of a collection first published in 1974 as The Road to Yesterday. That version was expurgated, removing some of the darker elements of the stories, and all of the poems and dialogues which Montgomery had inserted between sets of stories. Anything new by LMM is exciting to me, and I was eager to read this.

I loved it; it was such a delight to be discovering something new in her voice - now I want to go back and read all her novels again, starting with the Anne series. The title comes from the fact that all of the short stories have some reference to the Blythe family; what they will think of the action, their children's behaviour, the good Dr. Blythe's advice, and so on. Everybody seems to know them! There is poetry between the short stories which is attributed to Anne Blythe, with some of it presented as her son Walter's as well. I really enjoyed the poetry interspersed with the stories in this book; a lot of LMM's poetry is very old fashioned; rhyming, full of overblown descriptions of nature and so on. But in this book we see some of her later poetry, and while it is still formal (she despised free verse) there are a couple of very touching pieces which break free from the adoration of nature and the sentimentality which characterizes much of her poetry. Perhaps it was just her changing outlook; in one of the stories a character says that believing all children are equally lovable is "sentimental piffle". Along with the poetry we have short dialogues from the family (and Susan Baker!) responding to the poems and referencing occasions from the past, which readers of the series will recollect from earlier books.

A couple of the stories really are very dark, for example we have a woman avenging her illegitimate daughter by murdering the daughter's abusive husband -- and no one knows that the faded older woman is both the birth mother and the murderer. Even more scandalous, she shows no shame when admitting it on her deathbed. Another story is amusing, if a bit risqué, as a man seeks out the woman he believes he loved when a young man, neglecting his own wife to do so (she was only his second choice after all). He gets his comeuppance when the youthful crush turns out to be bonkers and drives him madly around the countryside, in his pyjamas. Okay, it really was quite funny. There are shades of spiritualism, thwarted love, illicit affairs, cruelty to children and wives, all sorts of things one wouldn't associate with the author of Anne of Green Gables. Of course, if you've read the recent biography, The Gift of Wings, or any of LMM's journals, that darkness won't really surprise you.

But there is also a sad echo of Lucy Maud Montgomery's own troubles during WWI; the book is arranged so the first half is prewar and the second postwar. There are poems by Walter Blythe included, and as fans of the Anne series know, this is the romantic, literary son who dies in the war. There are family dialogues following the poems, and in these the sense of loss and sorrow is clear. LMM had extreme difficulty dealing with the tragedies of war, and the final poem in this book reflects a sense of the futility of war. The manuscript was apparently delivered to her publisher the day she died, in 1942. I wonder what part her view of the war which was then underway played in the themes of this book. It is a sad, powerful, fascinating and priceless restoration of the complete work that LMM originally intended. An absolute must have for any fan of Montgomery, and highly recommended to those new to her work.

Canada Reads, 2010 lineup

2009-12-01T13:14:00.011-05:00

Well the lineup of books and their defenders has been announced for Canada Reads. There is already a #CanadaAlsoReads hashtag to follow on twitter which is bringing up some interesting titles from readers which are more intriguing to consider, at least for me.

The five books which will be under discussion for Canada Reads are:

The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy (defended by Samantha Nutt)

Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott (defended by Simi Sara)

Generation X by Douglas Coupland (defended by Roland Pemberton, aka Cadence Weapon)

Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner, trans. by Lazar Lederhendler (defended by Michel Vezina)

Fall on your Knees by Anne Marie Macdonald (defended by Perdita Felicien)

These are all sturdy Canadian reads, all quite well known already, I'd say, except for perhaps Nikolski (which is, incidentally the only one I've read from this list, and I quite enjoyed it). There is always the question, is Canada Reads there to promote lesser known or older books, or just to talk about books which are familiar and more easily accessible? I guess it just goes by panelist choice, but the only book I'm enthused about this year is the one chosen by the one writer on the panel.

But I do have to admit, I don't usually read along with lists like this, so it really doesn't matter too much what I think: I know that each of these books will by this time have a waiting list at my library. Do you have a favourite on this list? Do you read along with Canada Reads, or is there another similar event in your area that you follow?

Top 10s: the first list

2009-11-30T22:02:00.005-05:00

Now that the month of November is over, meaning that NaNoWriMo is over, I have a lot of blogging to catch up on! I was so busy writing for NaNo that I did neglect this poor blog somewhat. But on the positive side, I have many reviews to post over the next couple of weeks!

I thought I'd ease back into things by participating in this week's Weekly Geeks assignment. This is a carry-over from last week, a request to post your favourite books so far this year, out of those which were published in 2009. I have my yearly roundup to post in a few weeks, which will cover all my reading this year, but for now I thought I would share a list of 10 great books I've read in 2009 which were also published in 2009.

1. Broken / Karin Fossum (mystery/literary)

2. Come, Thou Tortoise / Jessica Grant (literary fiction)

3. Family Album / Penelope Lively (literary fiction)

4. The Incident Report / Martha Baillie (literary fiction)

5. The Good Mayor / Andrew Nicoll (literary fiction)

6. The Children's Book / A.S. Byatt (literary fiction)

7. The Sweetness at the bottom of the pie / Alan Bradley (mystery)

8. The Earth hums in B flat / Mari Strachan (literary fiction)

9. In Bed with the word / Daniel Coleman (non-fiction; literary discussions, spirituality)

10. Where our Food comes from / Gary Paul Nabhan (non-fiction; food issues, sustainable agriculture)

Year of Readers: Update

2009-11-26T10:05:00.006-05:00

Since it is nearly the end of November, I wanted to give an update on my Year of Readers progress. Only one month left before all books read and all monies raised are totalled up...still time to donate a bit if you were thinking about it this year. :)

The charity I've been reading for this year is PLOW (Public Library on Wheels), an outreach program created by the library I work at, focused on family literacy. It goes out to smaller, rural centres and provides storytimes and book lending services, as well as organizing regional celebrations for Family Literacy Day in January.

I haven't been active enough in finding sponsors this year, I do feel a bit guilty about that. But still, my activities have drawn some local interest to PLOW and my family, friends and coworkers have supported the effort. A couple of my coworkers were even brave enough to pledge a certain amount per book read - I did warn them that I'd read 180 books last year!

This year's totals to date: Books read, 167.

A little less than 2008 -- so far. Please check out my Canada Helps giving page if you are interested in joining in at the eleventh hour. And do go take a look at the Year of Readers blog to see what everyone else is reading for this year; lots of good bookish charities if you want to find one to support. Thanks again to Jodie at Book Gazing for organizing this year-long reading effort!

Mathilda Savitch by Victor Lodato

2009-11-23T11:14:00.003-05:00

Mathilda Savitch / Victor Lodato
Toronto: Random House, c2009.
304 p.

I read this a few weeks ago and haven't had a chance to mention it yet. That's too bad, because I found it to be a very entertaining read and wish I would have shared my enthusiasm while it was still fresh. Still, I do want to talk about this book a little; it's been getting a fair amount of attention but I think it can stand a lot of discussion -- there's a lot in it.

It is the story of Mathilda Savitch, thirteen years old, precocious and obsessed with her sister's recent death. Her sister Helene was pushed in front of a train a year before and Mathilda is trying to understand what happened. She doesn't know how her parents can be destroyed by grief and yet not be making every effort to find Helene's killer. The event is tearing apart Mathilda's family, with her mother sunk into her own depression and her father working every day and isolating himself from the emotions swirling in the household. Mathilda herself feels overlooked, and as the book opens she states: I want to be awful. I want to do awful things and why not.

She spends the rest of the book acting out, doing things that perhaps a girl of thirteen really shouldn't be doing; hacking her sister's abandoned email account, taking the train alone to find her sister's lover and question him, sleeping over at her neighbour's house after sneaking out alone (in his bedroom, in his bed, with him in it as well). She becomes a troubled child, but one who is determined to discover the truth about Helene's death. It's a tale told from a very strong character's perspective; Mathilda's voice is consistent and very believable, a young girl on the cusp between childhood and a more knowing adolescence.

Mathilda is a wonderful creation; she is conflicted, both loving and hating her parents, both idolizing and revealing the flaws of her deceased sister. She has a sassy voice and is a clever and intrepid addition to the phalanx of fictional girl detectives. Her creative attempts to find solutions to the questions she holds regarding Helene's death are always entertaining though just on the edge of being just too cheeky. Fortunately, the end of the book offers us the hope that her psychic trauma is resolved, or has the potential to be resolved. The portrayal of all members of her family, parents and Helene herself, are really well done. They are all full characters with personality, and individual lives outside of their relation to Mathilda. I enjoyed finding out more about them as the novel progressed and small facts were added to the story about each of them and their motivations for acting the way they did, even if Mathilda hadn't been aware of these elements previously. Lodato does a great job of giving us all this information in a way that Mathilda, the narrator, would naturally discover; some of the information that we read and are able to comprehend as signs and hints to the real story, Mathilda herself does not understand. She is just passing on her observations, without knowing what the deeper meaning of such behaviours or statements by others could be. This novel is so well constructed and suspenseful to its conclusion.

However, there were a few points that weren't so marvellous for me. At times the influence of Catcher in the Rye comes through a little too strongly for my taste, and Mathilda starts sounding eerily close to Holden Caulfield. I'm thinking of one scene in particular. But that could just be because, unlike Lodato, I don't actually like Catcher in the Rye very much. The very Caulfield preoccupations Mathilda reveals could have been toned down just a little, to my tastes, but again, I never did like Holden. Also, Mathilda's tentative sexual explorations felt a bit unnecessary to me, I am sure she had some interests in those areas but it wasn't my favourite part of the story; I didn't like her neighbour whom she was interested in sexually. The tempo of the narrative is rapid, full of action and Mathilda's manic voice pulling us forward, but it did feel a little like Lodato wasn't sure where to conclude the book. After Mathilda's final discovery, the book kind of just stops. There is no grand conclusion but as I mentioned earlier, there is the possibility held out that Mathilda and her family will be okay.

Still, I enjoyed this book a lot and would definitely recommend it. The main characters are wonderful and the voice of the novel is refreshing and entertaining. Mathilda's road through grief was touching, funny, and very bittersweet. She is a convincing narrator and you want her to find the truth and be able to move on with her life. The truth will become evident to the reader much earlier than to Mathilda, and this engenders a lot of sympathy for her struggles. This was an original book that I liked despite my initial reservations. I'm glad I read this one; Mathilda has stayed with me.

Interview with Victor Lodato in Experience Toronto

Other bloggers' opinions:

Luanne at A Bookworm's World likes it, but also mentions the disconnect between theme and cover art

Deanna at My Tragic Right Hip liked it and compares it to other adolescent narrator driven stories

Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea was drawn in by the narrator's voice (and had a copy with the cover I prefer)

Library Loot!

2009-11-20T21:51:00.007-05:00

I've been too busy getting ready for the craft show I was a part of this week to do much reading, and certainly to do much blogging. Now it's over (yay!) and while it was fun, now I can just relax and read some new books. Ahhhhh. (and here's one of my flower quotes for your entertainment)

To celebrate, I want to share some of the great books I've brought home with me this week. I haven't done a library loot post in a while; I've been so busy I've mostly just been adding books to the list to bring home some other time. But since I finally have time to read again, I'll share my finds with you! I'm snatching some book descriptions from the publishers this week as I haven't had time to write up proper summaries myself, sorry.

The Spare Room / Helen Garner

From Publisher: The Spare Room is the extraordinary writer Helen Garner's first work of fiction in fifteen years, and an intense, moving investigation of the boundaries and limits of friendship. As the novel opens, Helen lovingly prepares the spare room in her home for her dear friend Nicola, who is coming to visit for three weeks while receiving controversial treatment for late-stage cancer. From the moment Nicola staggers off the plane, gaunt and hoarse but still somehow grand, Helen becomes her nurse, her guardian angel, and her stony judge. The Spare Room tells an unforgettable story of the complex humour, rage, and compassion that informs and changes a lifelong friendship.

The Heart Specialist / Claire Holden Rothman

I've been hearing a lot about this one, and it is published by one of my favourite Canadian publishers, Cormorant Books. I'm thinking this might be a good one for my upcoming list of books to read for the Women Unbound Challenge!

From Publisher: Inspired by the life of Doctor Maude Elizabeth Seymour Abbott, The Heart Specialist is the story of a woman pursuing her dream at the dawn of the twentieth century. Stripped of a regular childhood when her father is accused of a horrific crime and abandons the family, Agnes was never considered ladylike. She is drawn to the wrong things, such as anatomy and dissection, which lead to her calling as a doctor. Yet despite a rapid rise to stardom in the medical community, she finds herself up against the same glass ceiling faced by women in her field.

Find a quiet corner / Nancy O'Hara

From Publisher: Going beyond daily meditation, Find a Quiet Corner teaches us effective ways to release stress, boost energy, tap into creativity, improve our well-being, and above all, achieve spiritual fulfillment. Readers will benefit from its lessons on how to increase self-awareness and personal satisfaction through careful attention to breath.

Little Fingers / Flip Florian; translated from the Romanian by Alistair Ian Blythe

From the Publisher: In a small town in the mountains, a mass grave is discovered. Public prosecutors, journalists and former political prisoners arrive ; the issue becomes the main topic for the press and a daily source of political wrangling. The explanation that it was a crime perpetrated by the communists (in the 1950s) seems the most likely. Petrus, an archaeologist, researches old archives, visits and listens to the town’s old folk, seeking a convincing lead, in order to quell the furore surrounding the bones. As the credibility of the military prosecutors is zero, given their ties to the former and current regimes, a number of investigating Argentinean anthropologists arrive in the small mountain resort. Their verdict is disappointing for a country where communism murdered wholesale and mutilated lives: the mass grave is the product of the mediaeval Black Death and not red machineguns.

Heavy Words lightly thrown : the reason behind the rhyme / Chris Roberts From Publisher's Weekly: A librarian by night and a London tour guide by day, Roberts deploys an informal style of scholarship to dazzling effect, transforming a catalogue of familiar nursery rhymes into a treasure trove of tantalizingly slippery archaisms, hidden etymological layers, arcane associations and buried meanings. Having explained how the Victorians sanitized nursery rhymes' traditionally earthy content, Roberts attends to each ditty separately, printing obscure variants and tracing historical references, from British constitutional history to bygone pagan customs. Unlocking the secret meanings of the past, Roberts also finds plenty of refreshingly straightforward modern-day analogies for the nursery rhymes—the chanted taunts of the average British soccer fan illustrate certain rhymes' original tone and purpose. In a fluidly digressive style, he debunks accepted theories and confidently asserts his own.

I also received my first e-book ever from an author & her publicist this week! I'm excited to see how I like reading it in that format. It's a book on journaling (a topic I love to learn about, practice, and share information on); specifically about journaling for caregivers. It looks great; watch for a review soon. It's called:

You want me to do what? / B. Lynn Goodwin

From Lynn's website: Writing relieves stress and saves lives. As a caregiver, you spend every spare minute driving to medical appointments, stopping at the pharmacy, cooking, answering questions, paying bills, and helping with matters that used to be private. Why write about it? Journals never argue. They let you vent, expound, rationalize, elaborate, and imagine best and worst outcomes. They let you breathe. A journal welcomes your questions and invites you to explore and analyze possible answers. Journals never talk back. Journals let you finish your thoughts and offer silent, unconditional acceptance. Writing gives perspective and restores sanity. Writing is a lifeline as well as a record. Writing saves lives. Do not underestimate its power.

So that's what I have ahead for myself this week. Let's see if I get as much reading done as I hope to!

Deck the halls...

2009-11-14T17:38:00.014-05:00

Despite the absolutely gorgeous sunshine and nearly 20 degree weather today, it is still only six weeks until Christmas! One of my favourite things about the pre-Christmas season is the appearance of church bazaars and craft shows. I love to make things for my family and friends but I am not a super crafty kind of girl -- most of the things I know how to make I've already given in years past. So, bazaars and craft shows are the next best thing; handmade crafts by people from my local area. I have the satisfaction of knowing I am supporting local business and finding some great, unique gifts. Today I had the chance to go the to Rotary Club's "Rotary Arts and Crafts Christmas Show", an annual tradition. It's a large show with crafts, jewellery, cosmetics, food products and even some books and music. I bought a variety of items, but this is my score for this year:

(the crazy pencil in the background is there for size comparisons!)

Utterly new and unlike anything I've bought there before, these are pins created from the pages of vintage dictionaries, hand colorized, and lacquered. The artist, Vivian Hutcheson, is from a small town just down the road called Shakespeare, where she runs a wonderful shop called Green Cottage Gallery. She specializes in masks, as seen on her Etsy page, but has a variety of other things like these pins (and others using poker cards & sayings) as well. How could a good, book loving librarian pass up one of these pins? Well, I couldn't, and although I wanted to buy about six of them, I kept myself under control and only bought one for myself and one for a gift. I couldn't resist the hoop skirt pin for the lovely image and for the addition of the word "hoose-gow" at the bottom ;)

So many great discoveries to make at shows like this, and they make me admire crafty people even more. I will be participating in a craft show myself again this year; but it is more of a small, inhouse one with only a handful of participants - I am making pictures with quotes and dried flower bits, they are one thing I can make and enjoy creating - but will mainly be featuring my health products (it's a show for anyone who has a side business besides the one we all have in common, to raise money for the United Way). A much craftier participant is my coworker who has an Etsy page as well, Needle Pulling Thread. Looking forward to some fun and some fundraising!

Karin Fossum's Broken

2009-11-13T22:42:00.007-05:00

Broken / Karin Fossum; translated by Charlotte Barslund.
London: Vintage, 2009, c2008.
264 p.

I've read all of Karin Fossum's mysteries: she is a Norwegian writer who has a marvellous series of thoughtful yet bleak crime novels, in the recent Scandinavian mystery tradition. Featuring Inspector Sejer, they are about the human implications of crime on victims, police, wider society and the perpetrators themselves. They have a strong sense of place, and unforgettable imagery. They are very good, and since I don't generally enjoy dark, police based mysteries, I have been surprised at how much I admire her work. So I knew I wanted to read this book as soon as I heard it was being published -- but this is not one of the Inspector Sejer novels. In fact it is a standalone, and an unusual one. It is also one of the best books I have read this year.

Though this isn't quite a crime novel it is very suspenseful, and has a natural tension which builds up throughout. There are two narratives underway; as the book begins we are in the company of a middle aged writer, home alone and on her way to bed. Once it's dark she realizes there is a man entering her house, coming into her bedroom. After her fear dies down she realizes he is one of her characters, who has jumped the queue outside her home, so eager is he to have his story told. She gives him a name, Alvar Eide, and this begins the second narrative, the story of Alvar's quiet and very orderly life.

Alvar is a man who likes things in his life to be fully under his control. He works in an art gallery, almost entirely alone; he has his habitual lunch, the same every day; he goes home to his quiet apartment where he reads and sometimes indulges in a glass of sherry. He considers getting a cat but then decides it would be too needy for his taste. His life is running along smoothly until a point of conflict enters his story: a young girl, a heroin addict, turns up in the gallery one winter day and he kindly gives her a cup of coffee. His actions have far flung repercussions as she keeps returning, then appears at his apartment door, throwing his controlled existence off its centre.

Interspersed with the tale of Alvar's struggles are chapters in which the writer discusses the trajectory of the story with Alvar himself. He is a character who finds it hard to demand anything but is desperate to know what the writer is going to do to him. These chapters are full of musings on the creative process, of discussions about free will and destiny which apply both to Alvar's actual story and the ability of the writer to control the direction of the story. They are brilliantly thought provoking interludes and make this book into something really special. Although it could have seemed gimmicky with a lesser writer, Fossum has such control over both elements of the book that both are equally fascinating. Alvar is illuminated as a character within and outside of his actual story, he becomes an extremely sympathetic character as we see him struggle with the idea of somebody else directing his life -- and the thought that his character is his destiny.

It's a seriously brilliant book, I really loved it and will be recommending it to all the writers I know, and to readers who are interested in metafictional devices. I was also struck by what a perfect fit this book is for NaNoWriMo: it begins and concludes in the month of November, and it is partially about the writing process itself. Despite Fossum's straightforward, generally unadorned prose, there are moments of pathos and of poetry, moments that made me stop and consider my own reactions to the ideas in the book. It's beautifully written, original, and has the deepest empathy for all its characters, including the author's doppelganger - our narrator. Again, amazing book, one of my top five this year for sure.

Green Books Campaign: In Bed with the Word

2009-11-10T13:00:00.023-05:00

*logo by Susan Newman

This review is part of the Green Books campaign. Today 100 bloggers are reviewing 100 great books printed in an environmentally friendly way. Our goal is to encourage publishers to get greener and readers to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books. This campaign is organized by Eco-Libris, a a green company working to green up the book industry by promoting the adoption of green practices, balancing out books by planting trees, and supporting green books. A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on Eco-Libris website.

In Bed with the Word : reading, spirituality, and cultural politics / Daniel Coleman

University of Alberta Press, c2009.

142 p.

First things first: since I received this book as part of the Eco-Libris Green Books Challenge, I would like to mention why this book qualified. The University of Alberta Press states that it is committed to protecting our natural environment, and thus this book is printed on Enviro Paper, which contains 100% post-consumer recycled fibres, and is acid and chlorine free.

And not Green, but really nice, is the fact that in addition to the Green printing information on the back of the title page, the copy editor and the indexer are credited by name! I appreciated seeing that.

Besides the good start it gave me to read the Green cred and the nice acknowledgement of the other publishing professionals involved in creating this book, the actual size and feel and cover of the book were enticing. I chose this specific book from the selection at the Green Books campaign because I have been doing a lot of research into the meanings and purposes of reading in the last few months; as a librarian I have a strong interest in figuring out both how and why we read. This book is a fabulous addition to my collection in this area, and it is one I will continue referring back to.

Coleman's view of spirituality and reading is that spiritual longing is primarily a reaching outward for the Other; reading enables us to place ourselves into the mind of that Other we are searching for, that ever present absence that is not-us. He divides the book into five chapters, each of which discusses the same kind of idea from different perspectives. The first and third chapters were most intriguing to me: Reading & Longing, and Posture. What posture will we take when reading? What state of mind, to receive the full benefits of a reading experience? What, in our approach to reading, makes it a spiritual exercise? This book is full of fascinating, illuminating answers to these questions, and it raises others that I want to explore further. The author gave a series of classes based on this book, he tells us in the introduction, and by halfway through I was wishing I could have been there during that time -- there is so much to this book that lends itself to discussion and deep thought! Here are a couple of quotes from the book, where Coleman is talking about what makes reading 'spiritual' in the way he means it:

Reading is spiritual because it simultaneously emphasizes and spans this divide between the self and other, between the reader and the author, between the reader and the world, between the reader and God. We develop right posture when as readers we recognize the structure of absence or distance across which we long to pass, when we recognize our limitation and isolation, and when we discern the suppressed or hidden possibility of connection and belonging to the Other who seemed so far removed.

Reading can give us practice in important spiritual disciplines; it can help us develop our capacity for attention, it can increase our ability to listen, and it can help us develop mental organization and alertness. Reading can draw us out of ourselves and can give us practice in listening to the less obvious that's always going on around us. It can give us daily experience in reaching across the structure of absence so that we learn to read the present signs of the Other even in the Other's absence and, by that means, put ourselves in contact with communities that would not be available in our own time and place.

It is hard to pull ideas out of this book to share with you, as it is all one long interconnected thesis -- you are really best off to pick up a copy if this is a topic you are interested in. Coleman writes in a flowing style that, while academic, is also engaging and includes moments of quite lovely storytelling in its own right. His discussion of the topic, while dependent on concepts of spirituality coming from St. Augustine and on the purpose of words as signposts, from Derrida, is easily comprehended by a reader who is fascinated by the deeper meanings of the actual practice of reading itself, not just spirituality as evidenced by content of a text. I've really enjoyed this one and have flagged at least 20 passages to reread and ruminate on.

But the third part of this book's subtitle is "cultural politics". There is a place for this among the discussion of reading and spirituality; they all tie in together. I think it is best expressed by this excerpt on the front flap of the book:

Reading is not solely an exercise to feed one's inner life. Rather, eating the book -- not just nibbling at it, or having a little taste here or there, but eating it wholesale -- produces a changed person, an empowered person, a different kind of person, and changed people means social and political change, too, not just personal change.

So, in conclusion (otherwise I'll just keep excerpting the book until I've copied it all out!), this is a wonderful exposition of the links between reading and a spiritual way of approaching the world. It was a great read, a text to be savoured and not rushed through; if that kind of work appeals, please do find a copy of this excellent Canadian book and then share your impressions of it as well.

Highly recommended.

Your Personal Renaissance by Diane Dreher

2009-11-07T14:25:00.006-05:00

Your Personal Renaissance: 12 Steps to finding your life's true calling / Diane Dreher
Cambridge: Da Capo Press, c2008.
x, 276 p.

During this week of entertaining light reading, I also tried something a little different. I've had this book for a while now (I received it via Dreher's publicist) and have been feeling a bit guilty that I haven't said anything about it yet. I actually quite enjoyed it!

I don't read a lot of self-help but this one seemed unusual, and intriguing. It bases its ideas on elements of a Renaissance life. And I mean, really Renaissance -- Dreher, who has a PhD in Renaissance literature, takes elements from the lives of Da Vinci, Michelangelo and their crowd to illustrate how to improve our modern and more banal existences. As a fan of both Renaissance literature and history, I found that the comparisons to Renaissance life were useful for me. Dreher uses the 12 step template, giving us four steps with which to discern our true calling, and then eight more to put our calling into practice. Each chapter has exercises and quizzes to increase our knowledge of ourselves, and include many examples taken from Renaissance lives.

In brief, these are the Renaissance habits Dreher feels we could all benefit from in our search for our true calling, our desire to create a meaningful life and legacy:

Discernment:

Discovery: Realizing your joys and talents
Detachment: Clearing the path within
Discernment: Embracing your values, living with heart
Direction: Turn your ideals into action

Making it work:

Faith: Trusting your life and world
Daily Examen: Staying on course
Renaissance community: Gaining support from mentors and friends
Contemplation: Finding your inner oasis of peace
Creativity: Making your life a work of art
Reading and Reflection: Exploring new worlds within and without
Physical Exercise: Building strength and wisdom
Discipline and Dedication: Bringing your dreams to life

The organization of the book enhances its usability -- each chapter builds on the previous one to encourage the reader to continue the initial forward movement creating by discerning one's joys and talents. There are also tons of endnotes for each of the chapters, enabling much further research into the articles and websites she references. The index is also well done and very helpful, which isn't always the case with books in this area.

One of the parts I really enjoyed was the chapter on Reading and Reflection. Whew, I thought, at least I am getting one part of this right already! I like what she says about the power of reading to create momentum in life, to open our eyes to opportunity, to assist in our growth both personally and as a society. She says:

Reading can liberate your spirit and support your own personal Renaissance today. It can introduce you to other lives, like the people you're meeting in this book, and help you develop new skills and pathways for moving forward in your calling. Reading can also lead to reflection, revealing new insights about yourself and the patterns of your life.
I was also intrigued by the way Dreher includes physical exercise as part of this program. So often in books about digging out your real desires and longings for a life purpose, the focus is on a person's mental and emotional, and sometimes spiritual, aspects. But the physical is a part of the whole person, and to my chagrin I know that when I am not moving and feeling connected to my physical body, every area suffers. I appreciated her focus on all parts of a person's life, and on our interconnection with everyone around us, our responsibility to look outward as well as to our interior landscape. It was a balanced read, free of the easy solutions and clichés of some books in this field. The only difficulty I had was that quite a few of the questions in the early chapters focused on recalling the hopes and dreams you had in childhood, seemingly a common approach in books such as this. My problem is that I really don't remember much about childhood at all, no matter how much I think about it, so I never find these exercises very helpful. But that's just me; or does anyone else have only vague recollections of this era of their lives?

This book caught my attention more than I had anticipated, and I am going to reread it and try a few of the exercises. I think it would be useful for anyone interested in exploring what it is they really want to do, or those at the beginning of their work lives who might need a little inspiration about which direction to take. I enjoyed her approach and her obvious knowledge of the subjects of this book, both the Renaissance and positive psychology.

You can read an excerpt at her website if you'd like to get a taste of her writing style.

Botswana on Screen: Filming Alexander McCall Smith

2009-11-04T16:10:00.005-05:00

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Prepared for the screen by Anthony Minghella and Richard Curtis

As I am all about Alexander McCall Smith this week, I also decided to watch episodes of the first season of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, as represented onscreen. (it's now available on DVD) I've found that it is quite different from the books in many ways: new characters added who didn't appear in the stories, a slightly different tone to the storytelling, settings changed around a bit, and of course characters look and act in a way that strangely enough does not mirror what I had imagined! I'm not too fond of a couple of character 'types' that have been added in, and it does have a few flaws. Still, I have been enjoying it. This week especially, a week in which every day has been cold and grey, I have enjoyed watching a beautiful setting full of sunshine and cheer.

Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi are well cast, and Rra Matekoni is perfect. The episodes have been written using various cases from the books, not necessarily in the same order or with the same concurrent actions -- for example, by halfway through Season 1, Mma Ramotswe and Rra Matekoni are not engaged as yet, not even likely to be at this point. And there is no mention of any adopted children; I suppose for dramatic action in a film there need to be fewer complications than in a novel which has much more time to introduce you to the characters. I have seen some reviews which call this production twee or shallow, but I don't agree with that assessment. I think anyone who has enjoyed the books will probably enjoy these as well, even with the differences I've mentioned. There are enough similarities to make it all seem familiar, and seeing the landscape of Botswana and some of its people is very engaging. It's beautiful to watch and listen to, and I still have half of the first season to watch!

Here are a couple of clips to intrigue you, the first a short trailer which I hope will intrigue you:

And here is Alexander McCall Smith himself talking about filming his books:

Lost Art of Gratitude

2009-11-03T08:55:00.002-05:00

The Lost Art of Gratitude / Alexander McCall Smith

Toronto: Knopf, c2009.
362 p.

I did say I've been having a bit of a McCall Smith fest this week; he has so many books out at the same time that it is next to impossible NOT to have a new one to dig in to! This one is the latest in the Isabel Dalhousie series, set in Edinburgh. I love this series because I like Isabel quite a lot. She is a philosopher and edits a philosophy journal, so there is a lot of scope for moral asides and ethical ponderings, an aspect of McCall Smith's writing which I appreciate very much. In these later books she has a baby, which is not my favourite bit of this series by a long stretch, but at least it seems to make Isabel happy! And I like to read him writing about Edinburgh - the love of the city comes through strongly and makes me want to hop on the next plane and visit, to see all the landmarks and to soak in the atmosphere that he describes so evocatively.

This installment of the series brings Isabel a few more conundrums to deal with; her arch nemesis Professor Christopher Dove accuses her of publishing an article which is full of plagiarism. Isabel is more than equal to this charge however, and neatly performs an end run on his scheming. She experiences the enmity of her niece Cat when she and her partner announce their plans to marry (this could be a result of the fact that Isabel's partner and father of her child is her niece's previous boyfriend) -- but Cat comes up with her own fiancé in response, a tightrope walker named Bruno, which you just know won't end well. Isabel also re-encounters Minty Auchterlonie, a wicked woman to whom Isabel gives a second chance, hoping that she is not as awful as she seems. And Brother Fox, a wild fox who has been spotted in Isabel's garden since book 1, comes to require Isabel's help. It is all in very much the same style as the previous books in the series, but does not feel repetitious in any dull way. It reveals shades of all the characters which add to their fullness, and feels like a visit to old friends.

Like always, reading the latest by McCall Smith adds quotes to my collection, and encourages a slow read, or a reread of favourite passages. There is something quaint about his writing, a habit of writing passages that can stand alone. I find this quality in a lot of the Victorian fiction I read; there is always more to copy out in older books somehow -- but it is a quality I greatly enjoy.

Next up is a new Mma Ramotswe story, to be published in early 2010 -- hurrah! But before then I'll be talking about a different take on Mma Ramotswe...that of HBO. I've been watching the series on DVD this week and will chat about those a little later.

Corduroy Mansions

2009-11-01T11:06:00.000-05:00

Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while will know of my love for Alexander McCall Smith. I've talked about his work before; I have read it all and have few critical faculties when it comes to his books - I love them all. This week I have been having a bit of a McCall Smith fest; I received Corduroy Mansions recently, the first volume of his newest serial novel, set in the Pimlico area in London. The second set in this series, entitled The Dog who Came in from the Cold, is now running serially in The Telegraph - you can follow along reading or listening to the podcasts as read by Andrew Sachs. It follows a varied cast of people loosely connected with the apartment block known as Corduroy Mansions, dealing with their ins and outs, moral dilemmas and love affairs.

I have read all the 44 Scotland Street novels, newspaper serials set in Edinburgh, and especially love some of the characters in those books, like Bertie the eternal 6 yr old, or the cameos made by Ian Rankin. But in this series, the setting is London, and that does make a difference. When I read La's Orchestra Saves the World, a stand-alone novel with another English setting, I noted the fact that England doesn't seem to be as powerful in his writings as does Scotland or Botswana. That remains the same in this serial novel, and although the setting is not as much of a character as in his other work, the foibles of the human characters are still amusing and engaging. In this series, some of the themes connected to the characters' occupations are art, wine, and dogs -- the same things that appear in the Edinburgh stories, but here they appear quite differently. It is fascinating to see how these preoccupations take on different lives in this setting. Anyhow, it was an enjoyable read, with, reliably, some ponderings about the wider meaning of life itself. Here is Alexander McCall Smith himself, talking about the citizens of the Corduroy Mansions world in a Telegraph interview. At the Telegraph you can suggest what you think should happen to the characters next, or you may even want to follow the wonderful canine Freddie de la Hay on Twitter. Yes, the dog tweets.

If you enjoy McCall Smith, or want a handy slice of daily reading that is an entertaining 'soap opera' of sorts, try picking up Corduroy Mansions, or catching up online and reading along to The Dog Who Came in from the Cold. Great fun.

Jackson's Haunted Hill House

2009-10-31T10:08:00.002-04:00

The Haunting of Hill House / Shirley Jackson

New York; Toronto: Penguin, 2006, c1959.

182 p.

So, for my last choice for the RIP Challenge this year I finished the classic Haunting of Hill House, just in time. I am glad I finished it before the sun went down; it is the expectation, the waiting for something horrific to occur that I found to be the scariest part of this reading experience.

For anyone who doesn't know the premise of this novel, it is as follows:

Dr. John Montague desperately wants to find a real haunted house to study, and comes across Hill House. He writes to many people who have had some supernatural experience in their lives hoping that some of them will take him up on his offer to spend time in Hill House as his assistants. Only two do: Eleanor, a 32 yr old single woman who has spent her life caring for her mother, now deceased; and Theodora, a free spirited woman who is taking a break from her partner after nasty words were exchanged. Along with these two, a member of the family who owns Hill House, Luke Sanderson, joins in and they all spend a week together waiting for something to happen. The house itself is "not sane" -- built so that all angles and surfaces are not quite even, the architecture itself unsettles the group. The house seems to know who the weakest link is, and aims right for her. The housekeeper is creepy but refuses to stay in Hill House after dark, and as things begin to heat up, the nights get quite terrifying.

Jackson is very adept at writing in a polished and calm manner which belies what is really going on. Each character thinks they are handling the pressure well; only through various exchanges do we see their private fears revealed. Psychological terror is key -- each of them is waiting for something to happen, and even when something does occur, not all of them experience it. Is it real? It is a mental projection? The uncertainty adds to the fear, and there are some bloodcurdling scenes, as when Eleanor grips Theodora's hand in the night trying to stay calm in the face of noises at the door - except when she screams and the light goes on she sees that Theodora is just waking up, in her own bed.

This classic is written in the tradition of literary ghost stories, and as such does not have overt scenes of horror or gore. That's what I like about it -- the horror is all psychological, and though I read it and didn't think it had affected me, when I was thinking about it later, at night, in the dark, it began to really creep me out. I could admire the excellent writing while I was reading it, but the atmosphere of the book is truly frightening. Hill House is quite a creation, and it is most definitely the main character, determined to get its way. Well worth reading after all this time, this was the perfect novel with which to celebrate Halloween and the end of this year's RIP Challenge.

Bookish Bits this week

2009-10-25T10:29:00.001-04:00

I just have a few interesting bookish tidbits to share this weekend. I was planning on writing up another review, but have been busy with work, plus jumping around to catch up with all you Read-a-thoners! Also, my brain is fatigued due to a 4 hour train ride Friday that stretched into 10 hours thanks to delays. Argh. The worst part was, I ran out of books to read! Nooooo!!! >:0

Anyhow - at least I have a few interesting links to share:

Books & Authors - this Gale database was highlighted at the workshop I went to, and it seems really handy to discover connections between books. If your library subscribes to it you'll get more functionality but it's fun to explore as it is.

Ok, this one is really neat, especially for someone my age who was a HUGE Duran Duran fan back in their heyday (remember, I was only in junior high at the time)! On their website, Simon LeBon has a feature called Simon's Reader, in which he talks about books and the experience of reading and of writing reviews. It's quite fantastic! And there's an archive of entries all the way back to 2002, though there are only a few books a year. You have to take a look at this. Actually, the whole website has a lot of fun content on it. (to get to Simon's Reader, click on "writing" on the menu for that option)

Here's an Australian site called My Favourite Book - it is a set of booklists, celebrity recommendations and personal book-related stories sent in by readers. There's even a section specifically for Young Readers.

If you want to listen to some authors reading from their own works, Vanity Fair has a feature called "Writers Reading". They are mostly popular books, like the recent book by Paul Schaeffer, or Tracey Morgan's "I am the new Black", although there are a few memoirs of more serious tone like that by a woman whose parents were arrested as enemies of the Soviet Hungarian state. Fascinating to hear ten minutes or so of each author. And while you're over at Vanity Fair, try out the Proust Questionnaire, a survey Proust himself filled out twice during his life -- there's a new book filled with celebrity answers to this survey, and your answers are compared to theirs; it's kind of fun to try!

And for some random bookish love, try these British sites:
Reading for Life

The Reader Organisation

And for any other librarians out there, check out Opening the Book - I love their approach!

Mitchell's Under this Unbroken Sky

2009-10-17T12:15:00.000-04:00

Under this Unbroken Sky / Shandi Mitchell

Toronto: Penguin, c2009.

354 p.

This is the second Canadian Book Challenge choice I finished last weekend. It's about Ukrainian immigrants in Canada, set in the 1930's - both elements which appeal to me. Also, this is possibly The Book that spurred Victoria Glendinning's recent sniffy complaint about the boring tendency of Canadian fiction to focus on the past and forebears such as "Granny who spent her youth in Ukraine".

I loved the fact that this story was completely about a Ukrainian family in Alberta and their trials in the promised freedom of a new country. Teodor Mykolayenko, his wife Maria and their five children come to Canada, alongside Theo's sister Anna, her two children, and her nasty husband Stefan, a former army officer who is not adjusting well to becoming a nobody, a Bohunk on a hardscrabble homestead. Taking Theo, a character who had already suffered greatly in WWI and under Stalin, then drawing a portrait of the not much improved life of the family in the so-called land of plenty was illuminating. Their problems arise from climate (this is the Dirty Thirties), from miscommunication, from racism among Canadians of English backgrounds, and from the horrors they bring within themselves. The role of Ukrainians in agricultural settlement of the Canadian West was huge; even today the present day Ukrainian population of Canada is the third largest in the world, after Ukraine and Russia. This novel delineates the true difficulties that these homesteaders faced, and the relentless hard physical work it was to clear land and produce enough to feed and keep one's family. It also reveals the isolation that could result when a family left their homeland knowing they would never return, forced to rely on one another even when those relationships were not always friendly. Theo ends up caring for his own family and for Anna's, Stefan only reappearing when all the hard work is done and he wants to claim the spoils.

Unfortunately, I found this novel to be a bit narratively unsettling. I don't like the historical present tense very much in any case, but here especially I felt it didn't sit quite right with the story. Also, it is clear that the author is a filmmaker: she describes the action of the story in a series of images -- beautifully evoked, but the timeline was a little hard to follow as imagistic set pieces trumped straightforward narrative progression. It's not that I expect "this happened, then this, then this"; but a little causality and character development would have helped me to really believe the shocking conclusion. I was confused by the dates given in the preface and through the story, not being quite able to place all the events in sequence.

Also, it was really bleak. I know that the lives of settlers were very hard; poverty, drought, isolation, hunger all abounded, but surely there were a few good times as well. Every single awful thing that happened to Ukrainian settlers didn't have to be experienced by this hard luck family! The grimness of the book doesn't really lighten up; all the children are fairly miserable, obsessing over the few things they do possess -- a heart shaped stone, a chicken, a ball of dough representing Christ. Even when they are playing they are somehow subdued and afraid. The adults are necessarily stoic in the face of all this misery, Theo and Maria especially, while Anna goes a bit mad and her husband Stefan is a caricature of a drunken, self important bully. His final disappearance is questionably set up - would he really behave in such a manner? And I felt the same at the climax of the story - I was taken aback by the action; Theo's character throughout didn't seem to suggest that he would finally act as he did.

However, this is a B&N book club choice in the States, and seems to have been received very well. Many people with a lot more literary cred than I have love this book. It may feel very new and unexpected to people with no knowledge of Ukrainian settlement of Western Canada, in particular, and if it does enlighten people as to the presence of Ukrainians whose hard work settlement depended upon then I am very glad.

It was a thought provoking read about characters that overall I was quite interested in. Mitchell included a few interesting non-narrative additions such as a couple of recipes, and a description of period photos (not the photos themselves). There were some nicely drawn elements even if as a whole I found it just okay. But I really would have appreciated a few more sunbeams breaking through the lowering clouds of this unbroken sky.

Here is Shandi Mitchell talking about her book:

A few other opinions:

Rhapsodyinbooks wholeheartedly recommends it

nfmgirl from Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World gives it 9.5 out of 10 stars

Aritha van Herk weighs its pros and cons at the Globe and Mail

Sidura Ludwig: Holding my Breath

2009-10-16T10:43:00.002-04:00

Holding My Breath / Sidura Ludwig

Toronto: Key Porter, c2007.

266 p.

I also got through two of my choices for the Canadian Book Challenge over the Thanksgiving weekend (there's a lot to be said for days off!)

Here's the first one I read -- it's set in Winnipeg, Manitoba in the 50's & 60's, among the Jewish community. Beth Levy is a young girl when her grandmother dies and she and her parents move into the family house, taking responsibility for Beth's two aunts, Carrie and Sarah. Carrie is a grown woman but Sarah is a teenager, much younger and less interested in tradition than her elder sisters.

The story moves through the years from Beth's childhood until she is ready to spread her wings and head away for college. Each chapter is from Beth's point of view but focuses on different moments in her upbringing; her mother's rise into the highest ranks of the Jewish women's organizations and her concern for tradition and keeping her family close by; her aunt Carrie's fixation on her long deceased brother Phil and on a secret that she keeps for many years; and her aunt Sarah's dissatisfaction with life in Winnipeg and her longing to escape - which she does in later years.

The telling is quite measured and subdued: there seemed to be a little too much telling at the expense of showing, at least to my taste. However, I did find the story interesting because it was about a situation that I knew little about, that of the Jewish community in Winnipeg, and I also enjoyed getting to know some of the characters. A few of the minor characters especially were quite intriguing; some of Beth's friends were people I would have liked to get to know. I also liked Beth's interests in life -- even though it is the 60's she is fascinated with science, especially astronomy. This interest is formed partly from her aunt Carrie sharing Phil's love of the stars with Beth since childhood, but the result is that Beth studies astronomy and physics in college. This leads to the crisis point of the novel: Beth is offered a graduate student position in Chicago and with her aunt Carrie's help overcomes the sense of duty drilled into her in order to achieve her dreams. She discovers throughout the novel that she is not her mother, nor her aunts, but is made up of a mixture of family traits -- and that she has to choose which parts of her character are most important for her to develop.

Overall, it was a good first novel but a little slow moving. It didn't grab me, but it did illuminate aspects of Canadian life that I was unfamiliar with in a way that kept me reading. I think that the difficulty I had with it was that I preferred Aunt Carrie to Beth so would have been more intrigued by the story Carrie might have told; but that is my own bias, not a fault of the book. It is still an eminently readable story which just might be a favourite of another reader - don't pass it over on my opinion alone.

Other readers:

Boston Bibliophile gives it a "to borrow" rating

The Literary Word rates it a favourite

Dovegreyreader calls it a pleasure to read

It's my Birthday, and I can throw myself a party if I want to...

2009-10-15T13:42:00.016-04:00

Ok, so it is my birthday today, and what am I doing? My last children's program of the fall session, actually! Since they fell on the same day I decided to make an occasion of it and throw myself a party -- me and fifteen 3 yr olds! ;) It was hilarious fun; all the moms and grandmas also got into it and we had a wonderful morning. Here's the treats I made (vegan chocolate cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World) but I adapted them to child-size servings.

And if anyone is interested, here are the books I ended up reading in between all the singing and dancing.

1. Happy Birthday, moon / Frank Asch.

I find this series of books by Asch, featuring Bear and often his friend Bird, always work with this age group. And they are highly adaptable to many themes. Plus I really like them!

2. The Surprise / George Shannon; illus. by Jose Aruego & Ariane Dewey.

This one tells us about Squirrel who wraps himself up in a series of nesting boxes as a birthday present for his mother. It is really cute and all the boxes are different shapes and colours which is useful for interactive questions with the kids.

3. The Surprise Party / Pat Hutchins

Another old book, but one I enjoy reading. Rabbit is going to have a surprise party, but as the message gets passed along it gets increasingly garbled. It is a fun take on the game of Telephone, but all the animals get the invitation by the end and they have their party.

4. The Party / Barbara Reid

This one is a rhyming story about a big family party for Grandma's 90th birthday. It has the amazing illustrations of Barbara Reid; made with plasticine and really, really colourful.

5. Happy Birthday to you, Blue Kangaroo / Emma Chichester Clark

And the final story, from one of my absolute favourite series, about Lily and her Blue Kangaroo. Here Lily is having a birthday party that is ALL about pink (and funnily enough every single little girl present today was wearing pink). Poor Blue Kangaroo feels neglected and wanders off to wrap himself up in a sock and feel sad. Lily ends up by saying that she loves both pink AND blue. It's adorable.

Read for your Life: Gold's prescription

2009-10-14T22:48:00.001-04:00

Well, it's been a long and unintentional blog break! I've been so busy with life and with reading that I didn't realize how long it had been since I last added something here. Whoops. Oh well, I've spent so much time reading that now I have lots of goodies to share with you. I've been especially busy reading a lot of non-fiction, some of it for fun and some of it work related. Here's one that is kind of both -- it's about reading, but more than that, it's about the importance of reading fiction and literature to find our way through this life. It was fantastic.

Read for your life: literature as a life support system / Joseph Gold
Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2001.
380 p.

This book is a classic in the field of bibliotherapy. It is also a wonderful read in itself. Dr. Gold is a therapist who was first an English professor, so his expertise both in counselling and in literature is inspiringly thorough. Here he discusses what reading fiction can do for individuals, both in a general, developmental way, and in the context of specific wellness issues such as depression or issues stemming from childhood trauma.

But the joy of reading this one, for me, was just in its love for the power of literature. Gold reaffirms all the things that constant readers like us believe about the value of reading and of reading fiction in particular. For librarians who are interested in Reader's Advisory, it is essential reading -- and there is a wonderful (though long) readers' questionnaire at the end which could assist in developing similar tools; it discusses preferences according to mood, thematic interest, setting, etc. But besides the useful elements, there is also great enjoyment in his thoughtful statements about literary life.

Here's a quote about habitual reading:

Reading fiction is good for you, and important and necessary to you. Go ahead and do it. It is not a fringe activity or "merely" entertaining; it is profoundly useful as part of normal development in a civilized, literate community. ... Reading is not necessary for our survival, if by survival we mean eating and staying warm. It is necessary to our larger survival, however, to an enriched, aware life in which we exercise some measure of control over our well-being, our creativity and our connection to everything around us.

And then there are a few statements that I loved, as they reflect the experience of blogging about books, in my opinion:

The act of reading is essentially private, but the consequence of reading is a shared experience, first with the writer, often with some other reader of the same book. ... Reading can be like calling someone to the window to share a scene that is important to the viewer. Through the window of story we can look out together on a world of experience that would otherwise be invisible to the other, retained in a private past.

There's not a lot I can say about this book without quoting it in its entirety. I loved it -- the principles he bases his practice on, his literary suggestions, his absolute belief in the primacy of fiction in creating a civilized, self-aware world, his obvious love for literature, and many more elements of the book all appealed to me. In fact, this is a book I am going to have to buy for my own use; I've already renewed it to the limit from my library! I've read it twice and have made notes, and have also searched out his second book, written much more recently, called The Story Species. That one seems to be more about the historical significance of storytelling in human history - still intriguing.

So, if you have any interest at all in how literature can improve and comfort and expand our lives, this comes highly recommended. Full of ideas on the uses of literature, this is a great resource for both people in the fields of librarianship or bibliotherapy, but is also a wonderful read for anyone with a passion for the primacy of reading (and specifically, of fiction) in our everyday lives.

October begins...

2009-10-02T10:33:00.007-04:00

It's already October, I can hardly believe how time has been flying! Time to review my various challenges and see how I'm doing (among other things). October is one of my favourite months: fall weather, pumpkin scones, cocoa, chrysanthemums and opals as the month's symbols, oh, and my birthday :)

To begin:

The Canadian Book Challenge 3. Well, somehow in September I didn't finish a single Canadian novel for this challenge. I did read a few Canadian YA novels that I've yet to review, but in October I am planning on finishing and reviewing the 3 Canadian novels set on the Prairies which I've already begun reading. These three are:

Holding my breath / Sidura Ludwig

- set in Winnipeg amongst the Jewish community in the 50's & 60's; narrator is first person, a young woman named Beth Levy (it is pretty interesting already, two chapters in)

Under this Unbroken Sky / Shandi Mitchell

- set on the Prairies in general, this is a historical novel, a tale of a Ukrainian family of settlers who seem to go through unremittingly gloomy days. We will see.

The Niceman Cometh / David Carpenter

- set in Saskatoon, this novel by the fiction editor of Grain magazine promises to be somewhat humorous and hopeful even though it is about a young boy's experiences of the losers his single mother gravitates toward. Promises to end well.

And now, for the 4th Annual RIP Challenge -- luckily I was able to finish and review two great books for this challenge in September, leaving me only two which I must finish this month (although there are many more which I want to finish!) I've begun Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca and just want to keep reading it; wow, it's good!

And speaking of the RIP Challenge, now that it is October there is another site to explore that is rather ghastly and ghoulish - the Halloween Studio Trick or Treat online tour. This is set up by the artist at Scratching at the Window and features a whole group of artists & crafters to explore. There is also a link to our favourite challenge: try to find it!

And in other October news, if you'd like to find something Magical, Mysterious or Musical to read this month, pop over to Chumley & Pepys Books where we are having an October MAGIC, MYSTERY & MUSIC SALE. New items added every week so check back!

Wordless on a Wednesday

2009-09-30T18:47:00.009-04:00

I have two very intriguing books to discuss today -- both from Porcupine's Quill Press, in their new series of wordless novels. Both of these are books which use images to tell a story; as the publisher states:

The aim of this project is to publish wordless books created using the relief printmaking techniques of linocut, woodcut or wood engravings. Each book will feature original work created by contemporary printmakers. The reason for choosing relief printmaking to illustrate these stories is not only to pay homage to the artists who started the tradition of the wordless novel but to help revive interest and appreciation of the rich qualities of line and texture indicative of relief printmaking.

I had no familiarity with this tradition before receiving these books. However, being the kind of reader who must follow a new thread of interest, after reading these I did a little research into their history. Both artists mention the influence of Frans Maserell, a Belgian artist who is considered the master woodcut artist of the 20th century. He created the wordless novel, a story told in a series of single page woodcuts. There is a lot more to learn, and coincidentally there is a recent book on this very topic, entitled Wordless Books: the original graphic novels, by David A. Berona.

Anyway -- on to the books!

Let That Bad Air Out: Buddy Bolden's last parade / Stefan Berg
Erin, ON: Porcupine's Quill, c2007.
140 p.

This first novel in the series tells us the story of Buddy Bolden, jazz artist of New Orleans (b.1877-d.1931). Bolden is credited with being one of the first jazz musicians, but he died young and in disgrace: he collapsed during the parade which is the subject of this book and was sent to an asylum, where he later died. (Buddy Bolden is also the subject of Michael Ondaatje's Coming Through Slaughter, the only one of Ondaatje's books I've ever managed to finish.)

The way this is laid out is as follows: beginning with a short 2 page introductory essay about the topic, and a one page explanatory essay by the author, the remainder is single sided linocuts, sharp black and white images taking us through the day of the parade. The images are intriguing, and the storyline is fascinating, but personally I would have liked more detail in the images to provide more narrative complexity. Still, it is a good start to this series and has a lively topic to explore.

Back & Forth / Marta Chudolinska
Erin, ON: Porcupine's Quill Press, c2009.
187 p.

This one, brand new, really caught my fancy. The artist is creating a novel in a genre sparsely populated by women, and yet the structure works so very well for this story. The story moves "back and forth" between Vancouver and Toronto, as the main character flashes back to her previous life in TO -- this is shown by switching the colour of the prints; Vancouver is an orangey colour while Toronto is in black and white. We see our main character alone at the beginning, and then begin to understand what is going on when we see the progression of a relationship in flashbacks. The smallest details tip us off; a glance, a puff of breath in cold air, a look of expectation on a face.

I found the narrative line of this wordless novel very easy to follow, and very evocative. The use of varied perspectives in the linocuts gives a sense of spaciousness, of an observing, outside eye. For example, in the first image we are looking down at a bedroom from above; in another, we are looking up a staircase leading out of the subway; in yet another we have the character barely appearing as she stares out the bus window and there is a real of movement in the print. I enjoyed this book, and as I haven't had a lot of experience with this type of story, I was relieved to find it engaging and quite complex. I would like to see more from Chudolinska, who is also a bookbinder and painter in addition to printmaking.

Thanks go, once again, to Porcupine's Quill Press for letting me experience these fascinating books which are outside of my regular reading routine. Nobody else makes me explore so many new things so often!

Reckless Appetites by Jacqueline Deval

2009-09-28T10:07:00.002-04:00

Reckless Appetites: a culinary romance / Jacqueline Deval

Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, c1993.
196 p.

Another foodie book...but I enjoyed this one more than the Barbery I recently read. I was surprised that I enjoyed it more, however, as it is not really a traditional novel. Reckless Appetites tells us the tale of Pomme Bouquin, whose father is a chef; she is following in his steps. She is also hugely influenced by food writers, especially Colette. The storyline, as much as it can be followed, is that Pomme is trying to seduce her English lover Jeremy through a sumptuous meal: she reads through Colette as well as other writers and shares it all with us. Then Jeremy rejects her, and spurs her toward revenge. Mixed in with this narrative are some letters back and forth between her father and a French chef, sharing ideas for a literary themed dinner extravaganza (and through which we discover Pomme's inherited tendency toward betrayal and self centredness). There are also a couple of chapters written as food essays by Pomme as if published in a magazine, a chapter by Jeremy, another chapter by Pomme's American lover who is languishing in a Singapore jail, and throughout, always recipes. It's a bit of a mash-up but somehow I was utterly fascinated by it. All the literary language, the positive wallowing in food writing, and the multiple recipes were great. Pomme's character drives the tale: she is absolutely convinced of her own centrality to the world and her seductive, irresistible nature.

That said, if you're looking for a plot driven novel this is not it. If you like an essayistic tone and a lot of differing perspectives on the idea of food and its relation to comfort, civilization, and literary inspiration, then you may enjoy it. Also, much of the book is recipes - actual historical recipes from Dickens, Colette, Hannah Grasse and more. So, if you like reading recipes -- and I mean reading them, picturing the process of making them and imagining the results -- you will find much more depth to the book. If you tend to skip over recipes in books then this one will probably annoy somewhat, as at least a quarter of the book is in recipe format. I personally love reading recipes like novels (which could explain my 80+ cookbook collection) so I found this part of it vastly entertaining even though I have no intention to ever make any of them. There are also many tidbits about literary figures thrown in; one I found intriguing was a mention of Zola - in 1862 he found a job working in the shipping department of Hachette publishers! ;)

There is one chapter written by Pomme's American lover who is now stuck in a jail in Singapore; many reviewers have commented that it is out of place. It doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the storyline; however, it does give Deval some space to bring up some fascinating ideas about hunger and its significance culturally and morally. As opposed to the luxurious celebration of foodstuffs in the rest of the book, this chapter is a little more austere, and I think interesting for that reason.

I enjoyed her writing style and the collage effect of all the different techniques employed in telling this tale. Deval herself provides some insight into her approach in a couple of quotes from various places in the book; together they give us some indication that this structure is something she worked at quite deliberately:

A writer cannot create great works by writing to formula. Likewise, the best cooks are the ones who put something of themselves into the endeavor, not merely follow a set of instructions. Cooking and writing -- for Pomme believes that of all the arts, these are the closest allies -- when done with intent to achieve perfection, are demanding and very personal forms of work...

What Pomme wants her students to understand is that whether one's choice of artistic expression lies in literature or cookery, there's no point in doing either unless the creation is the best possible, the most deeply satisfying experience first for the artist and then for others, the thrill of creation born as much from the process as from the result. The pleasure a cook takes in composing a soufflé that holds its delicate, airy form is akin to what a writer feels when he has written the perfect story, or novel, or poem, knowing that it's good, very good, and couldn't be made better. ...

Room exists in the world for all sorts of bouillabaisse. Serious cooks must not close their minds to other ways of seeing and sensing and tasting. Acknowledge the artistry of another cook. You may become better for your willingness to learn.

I think if this book would have been published today it would have garnered much more attention, as the reading public is possibly more attuned to this kind of genre-less cut and paste style of fiction than it was in the early 90s. Web reading has perhaps accustomed us to following something through even without a strong narrative thread. In any case, I found this to be a very enjoyable, intelligent read. Definitely for anyone with an interest in food writing, or in literary feasts, or in a creative use of fictional style. I'll be rereading this at some point, I know.

Physics Novels that make a Big Bang

2009-09-24T21:05:00.000-04:00

To celebrate the return of my new favourite tv show, The Big Bang Theory, I've created a new book list. Here are a few suggested novels which use physicists as characters or physics itself as a large part of the storyline (and no, I haven't read all of them, yet):

1. Changing Light / Nora Gallagher
I read this one in 2007, and thought it was very, very good. It features Eleanor Garrigue, a painter living in New Mexico in the 1940's, and her encounter with a Los Alamos physicist on the run, Leo Kavan. Those two main characters, plus Eleanor's friend Father Bill, represent Art, Science and Religion -- and there is much to discuss in 1945 Los Alamos. Really intriguing story, and enjoyably well written.

2. Oh Pure and Radiant Heart / Lydia Millett
A strange novel, this features Ann (a librarian) and her husband Ben (a gardener) and the time travelling figures of Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard and Enrico Fermi. The last thing these three physicists remember before appearing in modern Sante Fe, New Mexico, is the blast of the Trinity test, the first explosion of a fission bomb in the 1940's. It is a wild ride from thereon in, and I think the theme is summed up nicely by Jeff at Bearcastle Blog: Their story read to me like an allegory of how scientists who love science and who have strong ethical centers (except maybe Szilard!) could have nevertheless ended up creating the nuclear bomb. They overlooked so much for working on the sweet problem.

3. Anna's Shadow / David Manicom
A new release from Vehicule Press, this novel is set in Moscow, early 1990's, and 2007 North America. Adrian Wells is a young diplomat who is assigned to watch Anna Mikataev, a particle physicist whose work has political repercssions. As the publisher puts it:
Scientific romance, or post-Cold-War thriller colliding with the new war on terrorism? If only Adrian Wells could be sure what kind of story he was caught up in. ... In the small basement room where Anna Mikataev lives, the force fields of sub-atomic particles, individual lives, and the politics of terror all meet.

4. The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer / Carol Hill
A cult novel from its publication, this is the story of Amanda Jaworski, physicist, astronaut, and roller skater extraordinaire. She is training to become the first person to travel to Mars, and when she does get to space she ends up battling with an mysterious being made of light, the Eleven Million Mile High Dancer, who embodies feminine power. The publisher states that "this ambitious novel is a rich and comic blend of physics, feminism, and political farce". And, Amanda has a marvellous cat named Schrodinger. Gotta love that!

5. Eifelheim / Michael Flynn
A science fiction novel nominated for a Hugo award in 2007, this is a story of first contact. But, the year is 1348, and a medieval churchman is the first to meet the Krenken, a race of giant grasshoppers. Yay, giant alien bugs. Just the book for me ;) All reviews I've seen praise his excellent depiction of the medieval mindset, and that alone makes me want to read it. There are also portions of the book set in contemporary times; a theoretical physicist and a cliometric [math] historian are both trying to figure out why the medieval village of Eifelheim disappeared suddenly during the years of the Black Plague and was never resettled like most other places.

6. Einstein's Dreams / Alan Lightman
This is the first novel by former working physicist Alan Lightman, who has gone on to write a few more novels and well as popular science books. This one is a brief set of meditations on time, framed by the idea that Einstein is mulling over all kinds of possible worlds. A beautiful little novel, it began Lightman's fiction career on a definite high note.

7. Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist / Russell McCormmach
Set in 1918, at a time when physics was changing irrevocably, this book details the thoughts of elderly physicist Victor Jakob, at the end of his career. His musings give us the history of physics and scientific life in the 19th century: the upheavals in science were enormous and right at this time classical physics was being overtaken by a much wilder modern approach -- it was the beginning of quantum physics and the ideas of relativity, and this poetic novel reveals the significance of those changes.

8. Properties of Light / Rebecca Goldstein
A novel full of crisp, intelligent writing and many academic conundrums, this features three physicists: Samuel Mallach (old, forgotten genius), his daughter Dana, and wunderkind Justin Childs. Justin rediscovers an old formula created by Mallach and wants to resolve it: it would be a way to reconcile quantum mechanics and relativity. When the Mallachs hear his intention, they manipulate him into marrying Dana; but professional jealousy, hubris, and the single minded pursuit of scientific truths unravel their relationships and they spiral down into a gothic morass of hatred, betrayal, suicide and more.

9. The Wave Theory of Angels / Alison MacLeod
Two sisters, a physicist for a father, an experiment with wave theory at the lab; and suddenly the elder sister is displaced in time, existing in two places at once -- today and feudal France. The two families are essentially identical: Giles, stone carver in France of 1248, has two daughters. The elder, Christina, is in a coma for no obvious reason. Skip to 2001: Giles Carver, physicist, is trying to figure out why his daughter Christina has fallen into a coma. Younger daughter Marguerite has a big part to play in deciphering the story's events. There are also many other parallels drawn between the two worlds. Fascinating stuff.

10. Particles and Luck / Louis B. Jones
Reasons to be grateful for a back fence: you're a whiz kid physicist and your neighbour is a divorced, bankrupt pizza restaurant owner. Or, in this case, both of these characters band together against a faceless corporation to build their own fence in the middle of one Halloween night. Mark Perdue, rich and established theoretical physicist, is drawn into the scheme by his hapless and yet somehow convincing neighbor Roger Hoberman. This sets the stage for a novel of ruminations on life, luck, coincidence and subatomic particles. It's been described as "hilarious", "quirky", "gracefully written", "an engaging novelistic equivalent of a unified field theory".

11. The Book of God and Physics / Enrique Joven
A thriller featuring a Jesuit teacher who joins a group fascinated by the secrets encoded into the famously undecipherable Voynich Manuscript. From the publisher: Written in an unknown language and illustrated with enigmatic drawings that no one has been able to interpret, the work first surfaced in the court of Rudolf II of Bohemia. This same Bohemian court also gave refuge to two of the greatest, and most controversial, scientific minds of all time: famed Dane Tycho Brahe and German Johannes Kepler. Is there a connection between Voynich and the brilliant scientists who frequented the court? Could the manuscript perhaps be the codified findings of either Brahe or Kepler, written in a special language to conceal their scientific discoveries from the Church and its brutal Inquisition?

12. The Beautiful Miscellaneous / Dominic Smith

Nathan's father is a middling successful particle physicist. He and Nathan's mother wanted -- expected -- a genius child. Alas, Nathan is eminently, conclusively normal. Until he is 17, that is, when he has an accident and wakes up with a brain injury that has left him with genius-like propensities. He is sent off to a school for prodigies where he makes friends, of necessity, with the consort of differently gifted oddballs. There, together, they must come to terms with their varied mental abilities as well as heavy parental expectations, learning to be true to themselves and their need for a social as well as a mental life. This sounds a bit YA after-schoolish in this brief summary, but isn't at all. It's actually quite moving; funny and sad and thoughtful all in one.

And to finish off our scientific study, lolcats, of course!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Crafty RIP Tour

2009-09-23T09:07:00.006-04:00

Just a quick note for all you crafty Halloween lovers out there --

Explore this Halloween blog tour of crafters' studios, put together by a friend of mine, a soft sculpture artist of Scratching at the Window.

It's a great October event to support artists as well as raise money for Bat Conservation International (where you can even adopt a bat!)

There's a neat little interactive map to explore which goes live October 1st; give it a go. There's even a link to our favourite spooky Reading Challenge...will you be able to find it?