5th Annual Canadian Book Challenge- February Roundup (Sticky Post -- Scroll down for most recent post)

How to add your link:
1. Click on the icon above
2. Add a link to your review. (Please link to your specific review, not an entire webpage.)
3. Add your name and in parentheses the title of the book, such as John Mutford (Anne of Avonlea)

Also, in the comment section below, tell me your grand total so far. (ex. This brings me up to 1/13)

5th Annual Canadian Book Challenge- 7th Update

Last month, a very hectic month for me, evidenced by the fact that I'm a little unsure how it got by so fast, was still quite a productive month for the Canadian Book Challenge participants. As a collective we read and reviewed over 90 Canadian titles in January.

And a hearty congratulations goes out Teddy Rose, who participated in last month's "Missing in Action" mini-challenge. For her efforts, Teddy will receive this wonderful prize pack, kindly donated by Random House:

Yann Martel- Beatrice & Virgil
John Vaillant- The Tiger
Michael Crummey- Galore
Jamie Zeppa- every time we say goodbye
Andrew Pyper- The Guardians
Anne Michaels- The Winter Vault



For February's pack, if you're a Canadian Book Challenge participant and this month if you read and review a Canadian book written by an author who identifies as either L, G, B, or T, let us know in the comments below this post, and your name will be entered into a draw for this prize pack, generously donated by Arsenal Pulp Press:

1. Missed Her by Ivan Coyote

2. Anticipated Results by Dennis E. Bolen

In the meant time, we have an extra day in February this year. Can you fit in an additional Canadian book this month? Share links to your reviews here.

5th annual Canadian Book Challenge- January Roundup (Sticky Post -- Scroll down for most recent post)

How to add your link:
1. Click on the icon above
2. Add a link to your review. (Please link to your specific review, not an entire webpage.)
3. Add your name and in parentheses the title of the book, such as John Mutford (Anne of Avonlea)

Also, in the comment section below, tell me your grand total so far. (ex. This brings me up to 1/13)

Reader's Diary #799- Kurt Vonnegut: Harrison Bergeron

It's been years since I read any Vonnegut, so when Julie at Read Handed reviewed his "Harrison Bergeron" a few week's back, providing a link to the story online, I figured it was as good a time as any.

"Harrison Bergeron" is set in the U.S., 2081. It's a dystopian world where everyone is equal. Gone are the days when someone can excel above others due to physical or mental abilities. Such people are now forced to wear handicapping devices to keep them on par with the rest of society. Getting an enlightened thought? Suddenly a loud, thought-disrupting sound will blare through your head. Ballerinas who can jump higher than others must wear weights to keep them down.

As Julie remarked in her review, the other half of that equation is missing. If there's some Flowers For Algernon type surgeries that bring those already living with handicaps up to the average level, Vonnegut doesn't mention them. Which, I suppose, doesn't really matter since the premise falls apart with close scrutiny anyway. What about children-- are they equal to adults? Or old people with deteriorating health, supposing that happens in the future-- how can they be equal, in terms of physical ability, to a healthy 25 year old? He mentions that no one is even more attractive than another, yet we'd also have to assume that everyone is cloned to look identical, would we not? Or how does he avoid people having personal tastes?

But I think Vonnegut realized the implausibility and the questions that would arise. I suspect that's why he went the short story route instead of a novel. I also suspect that's why he stretched beyond satire into tall-tale territory. In one scene, the title character is said to be forced to wear a clown nose to "offset his good looks." Vonnegut is clearly making a point and clearly having a ball doing it. Unlike most dystopian lit that seems to use fear to warn us where we might be headed, here Vonnegut uses humor to make the message easier to digest.

(Did you write a post for Short Story Monday? If so, please leave a link in the comments below?)

Reader's Diary #798- Jessa Gamble: The Siesta and the Midnight Sun

A few years ago one of the local high schools opted for later class times in the morning. They're just one of many high schools all across North America that have chosen to go the same route, citing studies about adolescent sleep deprivation, optimal learning times and other research proven benefits. I'm guessing that Gamble would be happy to note that we're not all slaves to the clock and that the science of sleep finally seems to be getting some respect.

Sleep and its relationship to internal and external clocks and calendars is the focus of Jessa Gamble's The Siesta and the Midnight Sun.

Written in a popular science vein, The Siesta and the Midnight Sun filled with quirky facts and fascinating studies. It's somewhat erratic, but for the most part I didn't care about Gamble's riffing on the theme of time. There were some times when her point was either tenuous or loss altogether and those were a bit more problematic. As interesting as it might be that the Dorset people, the predecessors of the Canadian Arctic who most people think went extinct, may have actually been absorbed into the later Inuit genealogy, I'm not sure what it had to do with rest of the book.

Though the Dorset story was Gamble off on a tangent, it helps illustrates why I still quite enjoyed the book, despite the apparent lack of direction. Based on our shared biology, there are certain sleep needs we all have. Yet based on our latitude, there are certain environmental cues we can't ignore and that interact with our biology. As the title suggests, The Siesta and the Midnight Sun, is a globe-trotting book. In order to question the efficiency of the increasing globalization (read: capitalization) of time, Gamble shares sleep-related anecdotes from cultures all over the world. Travel and sleep-- two of my favourite pasttimes (except when bed bugs are involved).

Reader's Diary #797- William S. Burroughs: The "Priest" They Called Him

Do you listen to music when reading? I used to, but as I now most often read in bed, it's not as easy to do so anymore. But, sometimes certain songs seem to complement stories wonderfully. I also used to create my own soundtracks to accompany my reviews. It was fun to try and come up with five songs that I thought would make a nice pairing. Not sure why I got out of doing that. I can see it making an interesting eReader experience. Turn to page 8, for instance, and Nina Simone starts singing "Pirate Jenny." Wouldn't that be cool?

William S. Burroughs' "The 'Priest' They Called Him" first appeared in a collection of his short stories called Exterminator in 1973. However it is perhaps best known now as a Kurt Cobain rarity, an unlikely collaboration recorded almost 20 years later-- Burroughs reads and Cobain provides the soundtrack.

At first I wasn't sure the music worked. The music begins as a noisy, grungy version of "Silent Night" (the story is set on Christmas Eve) and becomes more unrecognizable as it moves forward. I didn't have a sweet clue what Burroughs was saying over the distracting music. But then when I found the story (or lyrics) online and could follow along, the story made more sense and actually, so did the music.

"The 'Priest' They Called Him" is about a junky, known as "The Priest," trying to get his fix. He steals a suitcase, seems unfazed by its gruesome contents, and pawns it for drug money. It's a seedy tale, and the redemption at the end is the sad sort that only a fellow junky could find uplifting. To me it's a squalid, sad affair. It's well-written nonetheless. I quite enjoyed the parallel between the suitcase contents and a later moment in the story.

In that regard, Cobain's music fits and yet doesn't fit. The unpleasant dirtiness of the sound complements the story quite well. But the tempo and rhythm does not. Where the story dips and rises, the music does not follow suit. It's also odd that the one piece of music I recognized, a snippet from "Silent Night" is found near the beginning of the story, when I rather think it suits the ending better. It's almost as if Cobain's soundtrack works in the opposite direction from the story-- which makes me wonder if the discord wasn't intentional.

(Did you write a post for Short Story Monday? If so, please leave a link in the comments below.)

Reader's Diary #796- Jason Lawson: The Date

From New Brunswick author Jason Lawson comes "The Date," a short story about a young man named Frankie who's on his first date with a girl named Amanda.

"The Date" starts off somewhat strong. There's a subplot about Amanda's father, who used to work with Frankie, being newly unemployed. The father likes Frankie and sees him as a salt-of-the-earth type guy. His daughter usually dates snobs and Frankie might be good for her. Unfortunately the father's employment woes are quickly forgotten and while the theme of snobbery continues, it's not handled well.

Just as Frankie and Amanda are about to go into a fancy Japanese restaurant-- a first for Frankie-- they bump into one of Frankie's friends and co-workers named Mort. Mort is presented at first as a humorously unrefined character. Normally well-liked, Frankie is now mortified (pardon the pun), that Mort will ruin their evening, especially when Amanda invites Mort and his girlfriend along to the restaurant. At first, as a reader, I think we're supposed to feel a couple of emotions. While we can sympathize with Frankie's embarrassment, we're also supposed to see that underneath it all Mort is still a decent guy. At least that's the way these tales usually go. However, if that was Lawson's intent, it fails miserably when he decides to make Mort such a rude jerk. Just because one is not used to drinking expensive wine is certainly no excuse to be mean to your waiter. Although that behaviour is nothing compared to the racism towards the Japanese employees. That no one calls Mort on his unacceptable behaviour and that the two girls even seem to find it to be wildly entertaining, just ends up turning the whole thing into a disgusting mess. I'm shocked by the comments following the story that people found this funny and turned Mort into some sort of folk hero.

Stranger, but less offensive, is the oddly dated language. The lead is named Frankie, shows up for his date in a suit, and refers to it as "calling on your daughter" to Amanda's father. It took a Jackie Chan and a K-Car reference to finally make it clear that the story wasn't set in the 1950s.

This story was eventually worked into a self-published eBook. Hopefully some of these issues have been resolved, but I'm not planning to find out any time soon.

(Did you write a post for Short Story Monday? If so, please leave a link in the comments below.)