Book Buzz

TIMOTHY TAYLOR

Chef Jeremy is owner operated of a increasingly popular bistro on the edge of cuisine in Vancouver. With a great staff the menu changes daily focusing of local ingredients. Unfortunately Chef is not a good manager, when one credit card is maxed he simply applies for a different credit card to keep the restaurant alive. He needs to sell the controlling interest (95%) to coffee mogul and former next door neighbour, Dante, owner of Inferno Coffee. The new restaurant is the extreme opposite of local trying to be as international as possible, as the controlling interest wants. Meanwhile he is developing a closer relationship to the Professor, his father, who lives in Stanley Park studying the homeless who live in the park.

Several subplots and all of the epicureanism as well as good writing make for a great read.

ANDREW X. PHAM

The subtitle is so provocative and sad, to have lived the majority of your life in a war zone. We are so blessed. I have often thought about Vietnam what a poor country. And then after all those years of war to be neglected by developed nations due to the US embargo.

Pham has these interesting ideas on memoirs as a foreword; “it seems to me as memorists, we are not historians, not even of our own lives. That is the job of biographers. Memoirs are our love letters and our letters of apologies, both. They hold our few gems, the noteworthy lessons of our journeys.

I did not set out to write my father’s biography. I have lent his life stories my words. ”

This superb book tell the author’s father’s story from 1940 when he was living in North Vietnam a rich landowner’s son, until 1976 when he is released from a communist reeducation camp. The father realizes that he still must leave his home country.

ANITA RAU BADAMI

When his daughter, studying in Canada, rejects her Indian betrothed to marry a foreigner, Sripathi disowns her telling her she is for bidden to return home. A clash between the old, ancient and new, modern values of Indian culture. This family is from the Brahmin cast. They look down on their neighbours from lower casts, especially the matriarch, Sripathi’s mother. But they are living in debt, in a house that is falling apart.

When the daughter is killed in a car accident along with her husband, Sripathi flies to Vancouver to pick up his granddaughter who he has never met because of his edict sentenced before she was born. There are many changes with the arrival of the child – a lot of blaming and healing. The book is slow but worth the time. It won the 2000 Commonwealth Prize for fiction.

MARC ACITO

Marc Acito is funny. College is a comic novel about a talented irresponsible teenager who schemes to steal his college tuition money when his wealthy father refuses to pay for acting school. Dad says business school at step mom’s urging.  Realistic no but side splitting yes. The sexual openess of the bisexual characters and the jock that is into drama does not ring true for the 1980’s but is still good for a laugh. Great for when you are in the mood for a light some what trashy read – pick this one up.

ROB HARASYMCHUK

Dingo parents his sister and his special needs brother since the death of their parents. But in many ways this loss had happened years ago: the father had withdrawen into alcohol, the mother, depression and mental illness. His need to support his family leads him into temptation and activities outside of what is legal. What starts as a drama turns into a thriller when Dingo last heist is a farm chemicals plant. Set in Saskatchewan and Saskatoon Dingo is a good read.

MARY-ANNE KIRKBY

For people who have lived in the prairie provinces and have had some experiences of seeing and dealing with Hutterites (even if only buying their produce at Farmer’s Markets) this memoir is most provocative. Kirbey writes of loving her childhood in the colony. The freedom of the children to explore nature, to develop strong bonds of friendship and kinship. The book is rich with fascinating detail of daily hutterite life. One thing that I had not realised was how fluid a colony could be, with some people joining the brethren and some leaving.

At age ten Mary-Ann’s father decided to leave the colony and took his family with him. She was devastated leaving her friends and extended family. For the first time her sibling were her only play mates. For the first time the family cooked their own food and ate together. At the colony children ate separately from the adults. The father left because he had never been accepted and respected on the colony. Off the colony the entire family had to fight and change for acceptance and respect.

Well worth the read.

ANNE ENRIGHT

“I was living my life in inverted commas. I could pick up my keys keys and go “home” where I could have “sex” with my “husband” just like lots of other people did. I didn’t seem to mind the inverted commas, or even notice that I was living in them until my brother died.”

This Irish family gathers for the wake and funeral of the youngest brother Liam. As Veronica goes to England to procure the body she tries to make sense of memories and family dynamics of this large and troubled lineage. Some of the time shifts are difficult to keep track of but this Booker Prize winner is well worth the read.

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.

RANDY PAUSCH

AKA The Song of the Eternal Optimist

Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less time than you think. – Randy Pausch

Pausch’s lecture ”Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” was every bit as upbeat and inspirational as the man himself. Rather than focusing on dying, it was a speech about living, about achieving one’s dreams and enabling the dreams of others, about truly living each day as though it were your last. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given three to six months to live.

The book THE LAST LECTURE elaborates on the processes of writing the lecture, of his life and loves, of his out look on life and death.

It is a truly inspirering book.

LLYOD JONES

A story about the power of storytelling. Mr Pip takes place in Bougainville (part of Melanesian) in the 1990s. Bougainville Copper Limited  was exploiting the island’s huge copper reserves. Resentment over the negative effects of the company’s activities on the area and the lack of any tangible benefit to the islanders erupted into conflict. Attempts at proclaiming the independence of Bougainville (Republic of North Solomons) have occurred twice, once in 1975 and the other in 1990. In the second case the government of Papua New Guinea moved to put down what became a secessionist movement. (http://en.wikipedia.org)

Mr Pip was the white man living on the island, isolated from the other villagers because of his colour. When school was closed because there were no teachers he volunteered to teach the local children. His first and most important teaching technique was reading aloud from his only book Dickens’ Great Expectations. So much of what was written was foreign to the students whose only  home was on a tropical paradise that was now at war. Yet the moral truths did shine through.

A must read. Well deserved Booker Prize Nominee.

TONI MORRISON

Morrison has never been one of my favorite writers. Her memoir that wined about how she was cheated by by the production company that made the movie the Colour Purple turned me right off. But I tried A Mercy. The characters come alive. They all have interesting backgrounds. The mercy of the title is a mother thrusting her daughter to be sold to a different slave owner because she feels that would be the lesser of two evils. And Jacob does treat his slaves well but he makes his fortune trading rum that in the making slaves would have been treated horribly. Worth a read.

AZAR NAFISI

From the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran (which was a much better book) THINGS focuses on the relationship between the author and her distant mother. It does offer insights into Iranian culture such as why child abuse is rampant and the politic whirling behind the family stories. A good book that needs skimming.

A NOVEL OF LOVE, MARY POPPINS & FENWAY PARK

STEVE KLUGER

A sweet, positive, feel good book about teens and for teens but worth reading by adults. But it is a world to good to be true. The two main characters TC and Augie decided that they were brothers at an early age and for years have had beds and dressers in each others bedrooms. TC is into baseball big time. Augie is into Broadway musicals big time. Throw into the mix a beautiful girl, a hot guy and a high school musical. It’s a fun uplifting read. Interestingly it is written as letters, texting, e-mails etc.

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

INDRA SINHA

ANIMAL’S tells the tragic story of the Bhopal incident of 1984 and it’s people who twenty years later are still fighting for justice and reparation from the Kampani (Union Carbide). Animal has never known a world that has not been filled with poison. His parent were both killed the night of the gas leak “drowning in their own blood.” His spine was was twisted so that he is forced to walk on all fours, his ass higher than his head. He was raised by Ma Franci,a French nun, who’s mind was distorted that night of poison so she forgot all languages except her mother tongue, French. 

There are places where the book drags but it is still an excellent read with an excellent theme. A must read.

BENJAMIN BLACK

Black writes interesting and unusual mysteries. His Christina Falls has been reviewed previously in this blog. In Lemur, journalist John Glass is contracted to write the biography of his powerful and wealthy father-in-law. But when he hires a researcher, the researcher is swiftly found dead, a bullet in his eye. What is being covered up?

Again this mystery has little police involvement. Not great but worth reading.

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.

ANTONIO SKARMETA

A Chilean classic, Postman is set before the ravishes of the Pinochet regime. Poetically written, it is the story of the young postman and his love and lust for the lovely  Beatriz. Postman has some of the most poetic erotic scenes written. It is also quite funny in parts, especially Beatriz’ mother.

Great read.

PETER MANSEAU

Songs begins on the night of a pogrom in Kishinev in Russia, while blood thirsty Christians were seeking Jewish blood, the narrator Malpesh is born in 1903. A lot of change is coming to central Europe. Malpesh is a poet, constantly writing on what ever surface he can find. He found a photo of a girl who as a child attended his birth and falls in love with  this girl. She is his muse but he discovers she lives in Palestine. Luck or fate (or are they the same thing) take him to the golden land: New York City. 

The ending looses energy but still well worth the read.

LAT