Book Buzz

MARINA ENDICOUTT

Life changes drastically for Clara after a car accident. No one was hurt but the family in the other vehicle looked seriously injured – they had been eating a juicy bag of cherries. The family was all rushed to the hospital where it was discovered the mother was riddled with cancer. Out of guilt? or was it generosity of spirit? Clara opens her home to this rag tag bunch and finds she loves the chaos and clatter. For the first time she develops community. She even develops a relationship with her Anglican priest. Well worth the read.

DOUGLAS COUPLAND

THIEF is both hilarious and clever. Most of the book is written as diary entries, emails,letters,etc. Roger is a a down and almost out divorced, alcoholic father. Bethany is a young goth quickly going nowhere. They meet a Staples where they both work. Coupland is a master of the one-liner:

“You took her on a date to Denny’s? That’s so recovering alkie …”

“I’m going to have a vodka snack and pretend to help customers in the office furniture department. Then I’ll probably go through the aisles and look at all the plastic crap we sell and wonder about the chemicals in it, and what leftovers were flushed into the water system during manufacturing. I sometimes get the feeling that we’re having full-time one-on-one unprotected sex with the twenty-first century, exchanging fluids with the era: antibiotics, swimming pool chlorine, long-chain molecules, gas fumes, new car smell – all of it one great big condom-free involuntary love-in.”

“Setting up fresh little sheets of white paper for people to use to test magic markers is not a hope scenario. All people ever draw is squiggles.…Staples must die.”

“Brittany thought of her own DNA and the DNA of all the creatures surrounding her–quintillions of cells, all of them loaded with DNA, and all of that spiral DNA rotating as mechanically and passionlessly as a car’s odometer. Suddenly, she felt surrounded by billions of little odometers, a universe of churning and grinding and drilling and digging.”

READ

GAIL BOWEN

Light and fluffy as all Bowen’s mysteries are. This one mixes politics, prostitution and lawyers caught where they should not be at. It is actually one of her better books.

MICHEL TREMBLAY

This revisiting of a favourite author started when The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant was nominated for Canada reads. Also I had recently seen Tremblay’s play For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again. First Quarter is the follow up book to Fat Woman. It is 10 years later. The family is still living together but not that successfully. It all takes place within a day. The last day of school before summer holiday. There is conflict between the sister-in-law and conflict between the children, the fat woman’s son (Tremblay) and his cousin Marcel. Marcel is a deeply troubled soul. Ten years old, epileptic and insane. Tremblay is a wonderful writer.

MALCOLM GLADWELL

Decision making in the blink of an eye. Why it can be so effective but also why it sometimes fails. Blink is a book that says trust your gut. Gladwell is an intriguing  thinker. His discussion of ‘thin slicing’ is provocative: In a psychological experiment, normal people given fifteen minutes to examine a student’s college dormitory can describe the subject’s personality more accurately than his or her own friends.

Great read.

NEIL BISSOONDATH

Alec is a man of many secrets. A straight man with a flair for decorating, he found he wasn’t getting any business because he wasn’t gay. So he studied gay men in the village to learn how to pass as gay. As a gay man his success was enormous.

Sumintra is trapped in the role of dutiful daughter to her hard-working Indian immigrant parents. Their plan for her is of course an  arranged-marriage with a  suitable Hindu-Canadian man. Sue is also a woman of many secrets.

For both of them their relationship must be a secret.

Bissoondath is an excellent writer but the ending her is far stronger than necessary.

DAVID WALTNER-TOEWS

Canadian Mennonites in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In the early 80’s western governments were pouring alot of money into Indonesia trying to save it from communism even though president Suharto was violently suppressing freedom of speech and democracy. Abner Dueck is a veterinarian working on a project that is bring milk cows to Java. One asks why since drinking milk is not part of the South East Asian diet or culture. But some cows die under peculiar  circumstances. Dueck meets a seductive young Chinese woman who he thinks is looking for marriage as a way out of the country. Two friends turn up dead – murdered. He wants to find out why.

An interesting mystery. Good description of the local. 

I love reading about places I have visited. It brings back so many memories.

NICOLAS DICKER

Nikolski is a wonderful book of eccentric characters, strange events, broken families and oh so much more. It reminds me of the magic realism of south american literature. But it is Canadian. Dicker is Quebecois. The translator, Lazer Lederhendler, won a Governor General Award for his translation French to English. I’m not telling you much so you discover it on your own. The writing is wonderful, almost poetry.

MARIKO TAMAKI (words)

JILLIAN TAMAKI (drawings)

Skim is a graphic novel for young adults set in a girls’ academy in Toronto. “Skim,” aka Kimberly Keiko Cameron is would-be Wiccan goth. When her classmate Katie Matthews is dumped by her boyfriend, who then kills himself, the entire school goes into mourning. Major teenage drama. Apart from the main stream Skim falls in love with her neo-hippie English teacher, Ms. Archer. This made me think of the female teachers in Saskatchewan this past decade who have been charged with abuse after affairs with young girls. Suicide, depression, love, being gay or not, crushes, cliques of popular, manipulative peers, divorce, alternate spirituality, this book has all the teenage angst. 

KENNETH OPPEL 

Third in Oppel’s great speculative fiction series for young adults following Airborn and Starbreaker. This whole series has been a great read aloud set. My sons have been thrilled to listen to them all. Oppel has developed into a superb action/thriller writer for young people. And I have not been a fan of all of his work.

The books are set in an alternate universe where airplanes never developed because blimps were successful. Blimps succeeded in this alternate universe because the gas they used was not explosive. There are many little differences from our universe. The main character Matt comes from Lionsgate City (Vancouver). England here is called Anglettre. The French are a major power trying to develop a space program. One of the characters is a famous Canadian artist photographer E Karr. The world is so much the same but with little differences. Matt’s male character is balanced by a female Kate de Vries. Where Matt came from a poor family and has had to work for a living, Kate is the child of the rich. She devotes her life to science and the struggle for equal rights for women. The books take place at the turn of the previous century.

The series is a great read for young people and those young at heart.

BRIAN FRANCIS

2009 Canada Reads Nominee on CBC

I am not sure who I would recommend this book to. It is narrated by a 13 year old boy who is in grade 8 whose “nipples popped out” last week. There are not many kids in grade 8 that I would suggest that should read this book. Saskatoon Public Library did have it in their young adult section. Here is how the author Jen Sookfong Lee (The End Of The East) explains why she choose Fruit as her choice for Canada reads:

Here’s my defence of Fruit in a nutshell: 

Fruit by Brian Francis should win Canada Reads because every single one of us has felt like a stranger in our own bodies, confounded by our growths and seemingly nonsensical urges. Peter, the novel’s 13-year-old narrator, is appalled when his nipples begin talking to him. Don’t kid yourself; we’ve all had moments like this, when hormones and parents and high school all come together in a conspiratorial way to make us feel like aliens who will never, ever fit into the human race. And that’s why Fruit should be read by every Canadian, because somewhere, deep inside, we are all awkward adolescents who will never understand what our lives have become.   - The Fruit Is Out Of The Bag

Interestingly it seems obvious that the boy is gay but he doesn’t seem to realize it yet. Some of his fantasies start with girls and them drift to boys.

Definately an unusual read. It will be interesting to hear the discussion on CBC.

GIL ADAMSON

2009 Canada Reads Nominee on CBC

Outlander tells the story of Mary Boulton who lived at the turn of the century. She was “a widow by her own hand” (she shot her cheating husband in the thigh and watched him bleed to death). As a result she is being pursued by her husband’s two brothers. It is a story of incredible strength and determination as she learns to survive in the Canadian wilderness. Eventually she ends up in Frank, BC.

Good read.

RICHARD WAGAMESE

This is a grand book on the meaning of love, friendship and community. The main characters of this novel are street people. Four homeless friends who start going to the movies as a way of staying warm in the freezing Canadian winter. However they find they love movies and continue going even when the weather warms. They make a friend with a man that they meet at the movies. Their stories of what took them down to the level of living on the streets are gradually revealed. Well worth the read.

GUY DELISLE

Guy’s wife, Nadege, is a doctor with Doctors Without Boarders so this is not the first graphic novel that he has written about time spent in exotic locals. Burma has fascinated me since my visit in 1990. It it such a beautiful country, a jewel. Guy is at home in Rangoon with their son, trying to work despite the frequent lack of power. Nadege can only be in the field a week when she must then return to the capital to renew her passport. DWB in Burma is drowning in bureaucratic regulations. 

Though “Burma” is focused on Rangoon, it does open an interesting window into Burmese culture. Great read. I am looking forward to reading some of his past work and what he comes up with in the future. 

JANITA VAN DE VELDE

Postcards is a light fun read from a Saskatchewan author that is quite funny. I laughed out loud several times. It tells the story of Jenny’s round the world backpacking trip with her boyfriend, Johnny. The book is based on a trip she took with her husband.  And of course all their mishaps and misunderstandings.“I was inspired to write this book for several reasons,” says Van de Velde. “I wanted to give readers something to laugh about, because we could all use a little more humour in our lives. I also find it funny that no matter how old we get, we still attempt to hide the whole truth from our parents. Well worth the read when you are in the mood for something light.

DOUG CUTHAND

A must read for people interested in first nations culture, especially first nations culture around the Battleford’s. Cuthand has an interesting mix of history, culture, profiles of influential people and commentary. The chapter History As We See It is enlightening because of course history is written by the dominant culture (the victors). At 115 pages it is a very quick read.

LAWRENCE HILL

Negroes is an interesting book describing the lives of slaves, in particular the loyalist black community of Nova Scotia. I found that the book dragged with too much unnecessary detail. The book would have been better with 150 fewer pages. Still worth the read but plan on skimming, though other reviews are much different. Let me know what you think.

This is the story of Aminata Diallo, a young African girl from somewhere deep in Western Africa who at age 11 was stolen from her village and taken to the Slave Coast. The descriptions of the voyage to America was quite fascination. She was sold as a slave to an Indigo plantation owner and merchant.

Back in Africa, she had been taught by her mother how to be a midwife. They called it catching babies. When she had a baby both Meena and her son were sold – to different families. Her life is long hell. She does end up a free woman in Upper Canada but that is not as pleasant as she believes it will be.

PATRICK LANE

“To read this book is to enter a state of enchantment.” Alice Munroe

An exquisetly  written memoir from one of Canada’s great poets. Lane seamlessly weaves exquisite descriptions of his garden and the natural world with stories of his life. Lane wrote the book when he returned from rehab after kicking his addiction to alcohol and cocaine. Part of his healing is his connection to the natural world in his garden.
A must read.
“This is the best book I have read in a decade. Lane’s profound meditations on gardens and his own hard life are wise and deeply moving. Here is a classic memoir, wrought in prose as beautiful as the natural world that is his obsession and salvation.” – Guy Vanderhaeghe

SHARI LAPENA
“Harold was afraid of the dead. They were unpredictable.” These lines would have made an excellent start to this comic novel but actually they are from the middle. A funny look at life, death and in between. An ironic view of middle class family life: wife, husband, two children.

Harold is suffering from a mid-life depression, brought on in part by the death of his one-time best friend. His wife Audrey is trying to hold the family together while Harold escapes and their boys suffer teenage angst. Doesn’t sound funny but it is.

MIRIAM TOEWS

Hattie flies home from Paris when her niece phones for help. Hattie’s sister Min is again nonfunctional. The kids need help. Hattie gets help for her sister in an institution. The kids, she loads into the family van for a trip to find their long lost father.