Book Buzz

WES FUNK

Baggage is a novel of a mennonite teen, Sam, moving into the city, Saskatoon, from his parents rather strict farm: no TV, but radio and lots of chores and church. After a few weeks of cooking school he gets a job at Vi’s, good home cooked food, nothing fancy. He works under Slash the middle age, gruff, pot bellied cook who slips out for a smoke when ever he has a chance. A couple of sisters do the majority of the waiting. Soon Slash is picking up Sam on his way to work as they become good friends and eventually more.

Baggage is a light read; highly unrealistic. But it is a feel good book of people taking care of each other, trying to build relationships and community. Good for when you want a trashy read.

JESSICA BLAND

Raised by a single mother with no father in the picture, seeking a father’s love, the fear that everyone will abandon you as he did, and a selfish and emotionally-distant mother to boot. Tessa’s mother is totally self-absorbed.  She dragged fourteen year old Tessa an ashram. Once there her mom enters the guru’s inner circle. She is so in love with Guru that she abandons her daughter. Nessa is put on a grounds crew and there meets Colin, a twenty year old mechanic who is hired from outside to work on the ashram’s vehicles. They fall into love and lust but why a twenty year old is infatuated with a fifteen year old child makes no sense to me. The young adult novel is actually quite a page turner. Interesting insights into Ashram life and drugs.

Robyn Harding

Love the title, H S Horror Story. The narrator , Louise, is on the periphery of the in group because she is friends with Sienna who is at home with these girls. Of course they have a major falling out. Sienna’s mom has sex with Louise’s father. Who is too blame for the wrecking of two homes. Louise’s mom sees this as an opportunity to pull her life together and soon she is moving on closing the door on the previous relationship with the dad. One interesting twist is that Louise knows that Sienna’s hot, cute new boyfriend is having sex with her gay friend.

Sex Maniacs brings up many issues. A good read.

MATTHEW RETTENMUND

Would have been better named Hustler Culture. What happens when a hustler falls in love. The narrator is a fussy prostitute; fussy because he is very selective about his “dates”. He also has two room mates. Joe lusts after him. He lusts for Andrew. Andrew  is interested in the narrator but doesn’t like the hustling. But selling his body is all that he knows.

Boy has many funny parts, especially the “sexual index” at the back of the book.

ISABEL ALLENDE

Island is a rich historical novel of racism and slavery. The first part takes place in what will become Haiti on Sainte-Domingue. Tete is bought by a French sugar plantation owner who rapes her when she is 11. She has two children fathered by her owner. The second one she is allowed to keep. Allende’s strong descriptions of the brutality that slaves lived with all their lives are chilling. The sugar trade in the Antilles was often called “blood sugar.” When the slaves rebel Tete saves her owners life and is promised her freedom and her daughter’s freedom. They flee to New Orleans where the story drags somewhat.

Allende is one of my favorite authors. But this is not one of best works. Still it is a good read.

JOHN LATHROP

Set in the Arabian Gulf, Contract is a romantic, espionage, thriller novel. After more than a decade Steven Kemp and Helen resume a liaison while their building is being attacked by Saudi terrorists. But are they terrorists or are they freedom fighters? And what is the difference. They survive the siege and continue their affair under the nose of her diplomat husband. Harry is a a commercial attaché at the American Embassy.  It is an interesting look a expat culture. But the novel is too wide sweeping to maintain coherency. The book needed serious editing.

MICHAEL ZADOORIAN

Seeker is a road book. We often hear about road movies but rarely if ever road books. John and Ella are in their eightys. John’s Alzheimer’s dementia is getting worse. He has good moments and bad moments. Ella, dieing of cancer, has decided to stop treatment. They decide to have one more road trip exploring Route 66 which stretches across the states to California. They want to see the ocean and go to Disneyland. Their children are horrified. They even threaten to call the police. They want their Mom to continue treatment for the cancer and they want to see Dad in a home where he can’t wander off. Seeker is a touching tale of adventure and self realization.

A good read.

AUDREY NIFFENEGGER

Lies and secrets. The amazing relationships of twins. Twin daughters of a twin. Cemeteries centuries old. Supernatural. Ghosts. Afterlife. Feeling trapped. Wanting escape. Amazing twists and turns.

A must read. Definitely a page turner, especially as the end approaches. Though I found it difficult to visualise this book set in modern time. I wanted to dress the twins in Victorian clothes. Interesting. Horrible view of the afterlife.

THE TYGER                     William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

JEFFREY ROUND

Time for a trashy, light mystery.  P-town is the story of Brad Bradford an undercover detective. When Brad receives an anonymous tip that his former lover has been killed in Province Town, Brad goes to deal with the body. He leaves his assignment of stopping a possible assassination of the Dali Lama in New York.  P-Town is portrait as heaven on earth. Especially for gay people. But more people are dieing in P-Town on a daily basis. Brad stays to solve the crime. The book is a campy look as the under world of gay life and death. Fun read.

NICK NOLAN

Jeremy Tyler has had a difficult life. Dad died, Mom lost to booze and drugs. At 17 he is taken by grandparents he never knew he had. Totally rich, they want him to just like his dad had been. Go to the right school, dress right, meet the right people. Make something of himself.

This gay coming of age story is trite. Not worth the time. Main character are dropped midway through the book. Give it a miss.

WEI HUI

Shanghai describes  the self-obsession of the young modern Chinese. At times I found it difficult to visualize this being China. It seems more like LA or New York than what I thing about China. It gives readers a glimpse of what the young in Shanghai think about life today.

The story is semi-autobiographical, about a young writer’s love affairs with a Chinese and a German. She loves her Chinese boyfriend, but he is impotent. He is also a drug addict. She describes sexual frustration but when she meets a married German businessman  she finds herself having sex with him. The story centers on her obsession with both men and what they represent to her. The impotence of the Chinese and the virility of the German is an interesting juxtaposition.

It an interest new look at China but definitely not a must read.

ANNE MICHAELS

A beautifully written, poetic phrases pour from the pages, but plot wise unsatisfying novel. It me against the critics on this one. VAULT has been longlisted for the Giller Prize. The background to this poetry are the dam building projects in Quebec in the 50′s and Egypt in the 60′s. Perenial problem is what do we do with the people whose land is flooded. Avery is an engineer in both projects. He met his wife Jean on the former and lost her during the later. All is well at this point but three-quarters into the story Michaels interjects a new character into the mix and fogets about Avery until the last few pages. She has an affair with an old man, an artist. And a new background Warsaw pre, during and post WWII. What Avery thinks or how he feels is not there which creates a large gap in the tapestry of Vault.

Quote: “–Please go.     His words turned her cold. But he did not let go.   She gradually felt her longing was not separate from his. The slow, impossible, surrender to what was true. He did not let go, and in this union, his confession of aloneness was as close to love as all that had yet passed between them; as close as love is to the fear of love.”

Read it for the language. Forgive the breach in the tapestry.

ANDRE ACIMAN

An impressive novel, this love story of Elio and Oliver. Elio is a seventeen year old boy at his parents villa in Italy. Every year his father, a respected literature professor, takes an intern for the summer to help with his papers, work on his own writing, to enliven the discussion in the house and to enjoy the Mediterranean  in the summer. This summer the intern was Oliver with impressive literary credential, American movie star looks and charming. The story is narrated by Elio as an adult. Though on the surface a gay novel, both young men have relationships with women. Too much of the story is Elio’s adolescent angst whining about Oliver’s coming and going. Which to me really emphasized the inherent power and age difference between the two. But the the ending of the book is strong which pulls it all together.

“Are ‘being’ and ‘having’ thoroughly inaccurate verbs in the twisted skein of desire, where having someone’s body to touch and being that someone we’re longing to touch are one and the same, just opposite banks on a river that passes from us to them, back to us and over to them again this perpetual circulation where the chambers of the heart, like the trapdoors of desire, and the wormholes of time, and the false-bottomed drawer we call identity share a beguiling logic according to which the shortest distance between real life and the life unlived, between who we are and what we want, is a twisted staircase designed with the impish cruelty of M.C. Escher . . . He was my secret conduit to myself — like a catalyst that allows us to become who we are, the foreign body, the pacer, the graft, the patch that sends all the right impulses, the steel pin that keeps a soldier’s bone together, the other man’s heart that makes us more us than we were before the transplant.”

PETER MAYLE

I was in the mood for something light; I had already discarded several books as being unreadable when Pastis appeared. Pastis is an anise flavoured alcohol associated with Provence a southern area of France. A poor little rich CEO, driven ad executive wants to get out of the fast lane. Simon had just completed divorcing “the bitch”.  He does it by creating a hotel in a village of Provence with encouragement and help from his romantic interest.

The most interesting character, Ernest, his valet extrodinaire, obviously gay, has kept his home and executive life in order for years. Superb organizer, Ernest sets up and runs the hotel. His dream job and in the sunny south of France. The best part of the book is the fun of  creating the hotel. The subplot of thieves and kidnapping is poorly handled. But then again it is light reading fun.

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.

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.

CATHERINE SANDERSON

Sanderson’s autobiography is a story of escaping a decaying relationship by falling in love with another man she met through her blog Petite Anglaise. The author is a young English woman living in Paris; loving all things French. The first blog she ever read was Belle de Jour penned by a high-class call girl. Blogging caught her imagination and soon became her hobby if not her life. “Petite Anglaise” became a highly successful blog. She called her partner Mr. Frog and her daughter Tadpole. Her blogging community became a great source of support. She met “Lover” and discovered an intense loving relationship. He soon professed his loved and quickly suggested that they consider having a child together. But as time passed he came to discover that he was in love with Petite Anglaise not Sanderson herself. But how it all resolves? You need to read.

A good light read, especially for people interested in blogging.

ANDREW DAVIDSON
A man burned beyond recognition, a beautiful stranger come to be his saviour add up to a page turner of a book. Some of the descriptions of the healing of burn victims are nasty but at the same time interesting. Descriptions of monastic life in a nunnery in medieval Germany also captivating, especially the scriptorium. A sculptress, in a trace, laying on stone waiting for the gargoyle trapped within to reveal itself to her so she could release it. The couples’ love waiting 700 years for fulfillment. I always hate to say too much other than I loved it. It was hard to put down.

GENE WILDER

My first thought that the famous comedian would write a crazy off the wall type of novel but this is actually a sensitive, romantic easy read. Jeremy is a violinist who is sent to a Swiss resort/asylum after having a complete nervous breakdown on stage. A most public humiliation. The story is of his healing through love. Romantic through and through.