The Book Mine Set

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

2012-02-29T23:59:00.001-05:00

Canada Reads 2012- They picked a winner for Canada Reads? True story.

2012-02-09T23:07:00.006-05:00

A year or so ago, a Filipino restaurant opened in Yellowknife. My wife and I were very excited. We love Yellowknife, and for the most part think it has a surprising lot to offer, considering its relatively small size. A wide variety of restaurants, however, is lacking (especially compared to Whitehorse which is only marginally larger). Unfortunately the Filipino restaurant was poorly managed and it folded in a mere month or two. What bothered me about this is the effect that it could have. Will people be reluctant to open another Filipino restaurant now? "Someone tried that before and it didn't work." Nooooo!!! It could work, it just needs to be run better!

I'm a little afraid such a thing could happen with non-fiction's status in Canada Reads. I don't know what their ratings were for the Canada Reads debates this week, but from my perspective there's been little hype about it in the blogosphere this time around. Granted, I've been very busy and sick and totally distracted, so maybe it's just me, but today when I checked the CBC site, I was shocked to find that not only were the debates this week, but they've even picked a winner already (Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter).

Assuming for a moment that it wasn't just me, that there really was a lack of public interest this year, I really hope people don't blame it on the non-fiction approach. I'd suggest it had more to do with the fact that they tried too hard to keep interest up ever since the books were announced back in the fall. It seemed like every day since then Terry Fallis or the in-house producing team was blogging something about the books. They even had the debating panelists share their thoughts on their chosen books well in advance of the debates. Really all they had left for debate week was the daily vote-off. If you spend all day at the udder, you'll just get sick of milk. Not a real saying, but who cares.

So next year, I really hope they try going back where they started. Let the panelists decide what books to champion (including non-fiction, if they want). Canada Reads needs to be kept simple and low key. The excitement will build from there.

Reader's Diary #800- Maggie Tiojakin: The Long March

2012-02-06T00:01:00.000-05:00

Ever protested? I have, just once, back in university. I forget exactly what it was over, something about rising tuition costs I think. I don't even remember if we got what we wanted.

It wasn't the exciting time I hoped it would be. There was no tear gas, no riot police, no protestors being dragged away by the hair. I'm sure the cause, whatever it was, was important to us at the time, but I suspect lots of people were there, like me, to see what this protesting stuff was all about. Isn't it a rite of passage for university students?

"The Long March," by Maggie Tiojakin, is also about a university protest, but it is not Canadian. When Mara states, "I’ve never had to stand up for anything in my life," however, it's a statement many of us could probably make. The protest in "The Long March" is for government reform. "Impeach the president!" they shout. Maybe I still hold some Vancouver hockey riot resentment, but I think of the lack of meaningful protests in Canada: either we have it so good here that we have little to protest or maybe we've just grown too apathetic. "The Long March," shows us that even where protests are needed and have the potential to institute real change, the cynics and protest tourists are not Canadian concepts.

"The Long March" also employs a technique that we don't often see: flash forwards. Instead of flashing back, the story jumps ahead to tell us how the day ends, then goes back to the present. It's a neat little trick that makes us feel more sympathetic to the story's characters.

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

5th Annual Canadian Book Challenge- 7th Update

2012-02-01T08:26:00.002-05:00

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)

2012-01-31T23:59:00.000-05:00

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

2012-01-30T00:01:00.000-05:00

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

2012-01-25T21:53:00.002-05:00

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

2012-01-23T00:01:00.000-05:00

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

2012-01-16T00:01:00.002-05:00

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.)

Reader's Diary #795- Mad Magazine presents Harry Potter

2012-01-11T00:01:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I blogged about a graphic novel adaptation of the Hobbit. Today I'm blogging about a MAD Magazine Harry Potter special edition. It's only January but I'm pretty sure I've sealed the deal on the 2012 Geekiest Northern Blogger Award.

I used to say I wasn't really into comics as a kid. Then, after getting into alternative graphic novels as an adult, I began to read more and more cartoonists mentioning MAD Magazine as an influence. Hey, I thought, I had stacks of MAD Magazines as a kid! So I wasn't all that into superheroes, I was still a comic geek. What a relief.

The last MAD Magazine I ever read was about 13 or 14 years ago. My girlfriend, who'd found out I was into MAD as a child, bought me one as I was recovering from wisdom teeth surgery and a nasty case of dry socket. The MAD Magazine helped and I ended up marrying said girlfriend.

Flash forward to 2011. I've just finished reading the last Harry Potter book to our first born child, and we're both going through Hogwart's withdrawal. Then, as I'm passing the magazine stand at the local Co-op, who should I see but Alfred E. Newman, all decked out as Harry Potter himself. MAD Magazine spoofs all 8 Harry Potter movies.

It was a little more raunchier than I'd remembered-- either times have changed or a lot went over my head as a child--but for the most part it was the same old MAD: a lot of put-downy puns (Alpo Dumbledork), a lot of self-aware jokes ("That's okay. In every movie, this is where the whole school turns against me for no reason"), and plenty outside pop-culture and political references thrown in for good measure (although a joke about a "shambling undead creature on the loose in the streets of London" referring to Amy Winehouse instead of the death eater behind her was more unsettling than funny-- though in their defense, that particular spoof was written before her death). Plus it had a few old MAD standbys like Fold-ins and a "MAD look at" and other features all related to the whole Potter franchise.

I was also quite enlightened about the role of a good illustrator. I was nearly finished, I was enjoying some spoofs way more than the others, when I realized that all 8 were written by the exact same author, Desmond Devlin. Not that Devlin couldn't have been off his game for some of the movies (heck, the real movies also fluctuated in quality), but when I went back to see why, the problem with those I was less than crazy about was mostly with the illustrations. My favourite illustrator of all those who participated was Mort Drucker, who was drawing for MAD even when I was a kid. That was followed by the art of Tom Richmond, whose work closely resembles Drucker's. But my least favourite by far were those drawn by Herman Mejia. To be fair, none of these artists could get Hermione right, but Mejia couldn't even capture Harry. And when the titular star of the whole series is off, it's too much of a distraction.

Still, it was a welcome walk down memory lane. My daughter, however, will have to wait a while yet before I let her read it. How old was I when I had my first MAD Magazine? I hope she's older than that-- to save her from eternal geekdom if nothing else.

Reader's Diary #794- J.R.R. Tolkien, adapted by Charles Dixon, illustrated by David Wenzel: The Hobbit (Revised edition)

2012-01-10T00:01:00.001-05:00

Never having really been into fantasy books, I was always lukewarm towards J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books. I've tried plenty of other fantasy novels and they all seem to rip off Tolkien, so I can at least appreciate the legacy. But I found the books too long and too self-indulgent. However, I quite enjoyed Peter Jackson's adaptations-- one of the rare instances when I've enjoyed the movie more than the book-- and those, plus the promise of a Hobbit film later this year, made me finally get around to reading it.

Sort of. Knowing how my son loves comics, and knowing how he's also a huge Harry Potter fan, I figured a graphic novel version of the Hobbit might be a good place to start. And while he did enjoy it, it certainly wouldn't have the appeal to a child the way that Rowling's work would-- even if she did borrow a good many of her ideas from Tolkien. The Hobbit throws one into the fantasy world with no build up and doesn't have a child protagonist, even if Bilbo is childlike in many ways. Half the attraction of Rowling's books is the way the reader (or listener if you're doing a read aloud), gets to discover the magic for the first time along with Harry.

As for this adult, I was again underwhelmed by the Hobbit. I know a lot of people say they prefer the Hobbit to the Lord of the Rings, but I'd disagree. It probably sounds hypocritical seeing as I just complained about the length of the Lord of the Rings, but at least it was an epic. The Hobbit felt somewhat pointless. And maybe it's a problem with this abridged graphic novel version, but it never seems clear why Bilbo was included in the first place. Sure he proves his worth in helping the dwarves, but why Gandalf insisted on his inclusion in the adventure is never really explained.

It was mildly entertaining, and it would probably have been more so without having read or watched the Lord of Rings first. David Wenzel's illustrations are quite well done, giving the book a dark fairy tale sort of feel rather than typical comic book fare. Still Charles Dixon's adaptation is eating at me. Based on the quantity of written description-- much more than the typical graphic novel where most text is dialogue-- I'd venture to guess that little was left out. However, I still have to wonder.

Not to worry, I plan on reading the original version to my daughter later this month. Then I'll be able to not only form an opinion on Dixon's adaptation, but on The Hobbit as Tolkien intended.

Reader's Diary #793- Teolinda Gersão, translated by Margaret Jull Costa: The Woman Who Stole the Rain

2012-01-09T00:01:00.001-05:00

Recently I read another blogger-- a white blogger-- say that she loved to read First Nations literature because she found it challenging. I appreciated and agreed with this assessment on all levels: from my experience, and please allow me to make some generalizations, it is different than literature written by other Canadians; it is challenging for us white folks who didn't grow up in that culture; and I also love it for exactly those reasons.

I was reminded of first nations literature today while reading Teolinda Gersão's "The Woman Who Stole the Rain". Basically a man goes to Lisbon on a business trip, gets put into an extravagant presidential suite after a booking mistake, and overhears a conversation between two African cleaning ladies who entered his room without knowing he was still there. The conversation becomes a second story, perhaps a parable, that takes place in Africa. The businessman is taken aback by the story, unnerved but a little unclear as to why.

What I loved about "The Woman Who Stole the Rain" is how well it captured my feelings after reading some first nations literature. The slight discord between this man's world and the world the cleaning ladies had drawn his attention to, must be no less discordant than the setting of the cleaning lady's tale and the businessman's suite. There's a subtle friction that underlies the whole story. You get the sense at the end that no learning had taken place, but that the potential was there. I loved it.

Thanks to Teddy for pointing out this story last week.

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

Reader's Diary #792- Scott Chantler: Two Generals

2012-01-04T00:09:00.003-05:00

You'll most likely get sick of my talking about my March break in France, if you aren't already at that point, but doggone it I'm excited and a lot of my reading until will be influenced by that vacation. Two Generals, by Scott Chantler, revolves around the Allied invasion of Normandy.

Normandy is one of our planned stops, and I have mixed feelings about it. I feel like I'm going out of patriotic obligation rather than anything else. But I've never been a war buff and feel slightly disrespectful every time I say that. Is it wrong that I usually find war books and movies boring?

Two Generals isn't boring, but it's nothing new either. Seeing a drawing of a dismembered arm or a body lying dead on a beach isn't shocking. It's not that I'm desensitized by images of war, but it's just what I'd expect to see in a war. Only in real life it would affect me. I've yet to read the book or comic, or watch the movie, that doesn't pale in comparison to what I ~~imagine~~ can't imagine it's really like.

There are some touching moments in Two Generals. Through Scott Chantler's grandfather, Law Chantler, we are given a rich portrait of a Canadian soldier-- his friendships, his worries, his heartbreaks, and so on. The artwork is quite well done, as I expected (I was a fan of his Northwest Passage earlier). The book is even put together well, with an elastic strap attached to use as bookmark. I just wanted to feel something more.

If I'm being completely honest, I worry about that in Normandy. What if I don't feel a connection? How horrible would that be? Perhaps I lack the ability to really grasp the reality of it all. Or am I over thinking this? Counselors?

Reader's Diary #791- The Good News Bible: Isaiah

2012-01-03T00:01:00.000-05:00

Reading the Book of Isaiah felt like a very long game of That's Good/ That's Bad. You know the game best illustrated in the Simpsons' "Tree House of Horror III" episode:

Shopkeeper: [Homer has agreed to purchase a Krusty doll for Bart's birthday] Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse!
Homer: Ooh, that's bad.
Shopkeeper: But it comes with a free frogurt!
Homer: That's good.
Shopkeeper: The frogurt is also cursed.
Homer: That's bad.
Shopkeeper: But you get your choice of toppings.
Homer: That's good!
Shopkeeper: The toppings contain potassium benzoate.
[Homer looks puzzled]
Shopkeeper: ...That's bad.
Homer: Can I go now?

Except in the book of Isaiah, it's without the humor, the good things have been replaced by God's promise of a glorious future and the bad things have been replaced by God's wrath. It just seems to go back and forth. As a character, God is certainly hard to get a handle on in the Book of Isaiah.

From a historical standpoint, it's more than a bit disheartening. I hate to generalize an entire region, but there are certainly pockets of the middle East that have seemingly been fighting forever. To read the Old Testament and see that that the areas and people who were fighting back then are much the same as the ones that are still involved with so much hostility, it's enough to make one want to throw up his hands in frustration. If you've been at war for thousands of years, isn't it a cultural norm at this point? How can something this ingrained ever be stopped?

Another point of interest in the Book of Isaiah was all the talk about other gods. It's not the first Bible book in which other gods are mentioned and I always find them fascinating when they are. In this particular book, however, the idea of one god is really hammered home. Yet I'm a little surprised, especially considering that the Bible has been interpreted six ways to Sunday, that lines such as "besides me there is no god" haven't been read to mean "besides me there is no god for you," meaning that there are other gods out there but they're for other people. Then, this is more of a theology question and at this point that's a depth far deeper than I'm intending to read. Still, curious, is it not?

Reader's Diary #790- Louis Becke: The Fisher Folk of Nukufetau

2012-01-02T01:38:00.005-05:00

A little over a year ago my wife and I first discovered, through a Sporcle trivia game, the existence of a tiny Pacific nation known as Tuvalu. Since then it's become a bit of an obsession of ours. It easily tops our bucket list of travel destinations and whenever anyone starts one of those crazy "if you won the lottery..." talks we find ourselves explaining where Tuvalu is. To go there right now we'd quite simply need a lot more time and money. You first need to get yourself to Fiji and wait for either a Tuesday or a Friday to fly in. The entire country, made up of several islands, has roughly 10,000 people. I once read that less than 100 tourists take the journey each year, though I can't find the source again so I have no idea how accurate that is.

In any case, I decided to see if I could find a short story about Tuvalu or by a Tuvaluan author. "The Fisher Folk of Nukufetuan" is by Louis Becke (also known as George Lewis Becke), an Australian who spent some time in Tuvalu (then the Ellice islands) in the late 1800s.

"The Fisher Folk of Nukufetuan" isn't a particularly exciting story. It's simply a recount of a fishing with the locals. But it at least has some interesting historical and anthropological stuff. I found a part about atuli, a type of small fish, that spawn annually upon the shores pretty fascinating, mostly because it reminded me of the capelin, a similar sized fish that spawns in great numbers on the shores of Newfoundland. When I went to Hawaii I was surprised to see that a dolphin trainer was feeding them capelin, which he told be came from Newfoundland (he also went on to describe where that was.) Since Tuvalu is so much closer, I wonder why they don't use atuli?

I was also interested, though a little less positively, in the somewhat colonialist attitude of the author. He basically peer pressures a local minister into consuming alcohol. It's such a part of the author's culture that he simply can't grasp that someone would not see the virtues of alcohol and doesn't rest until the minister finally gives in. Perhaps it's easy from a modern standpoint to see how the introduction of alcohol into a culture isn't always the blessing Becke seemed to think it was. Not that I think we've progressed that much since. A few years ago, after my wife and I had taken a trip to Churchill, Manitoba, we were excited to hear that a contestant on Jeopardy was about to share an anecdote about his time there as well. That excitement quickly waned. Apparently, this particular gentleman wanted to share with Alex how he improved the culinary palette of the locals. Could you believe, he asked, that they simply boil their mussels in ocean water? Fortunately he was able to give these poor saps a new lease on life with his introduction of a white wine cream sauce. Well la dee da. It seems the attitude of tourists who expect to teach the locals a thing or two hasn't gone away completely.

Which brings me back to our wish to go to Tuvalu. It looks like a trip to the remote island is becoming even more of an impossibility. Composed of such low lying islands, global warming and rising water levels is increasingly making the future of Tuvalu look dire. There are no natural lakes on the island and so they rely on rainwater but back in October a state of emergency was declared due to an unprecedented drought. We've given some thought to "volunteer tourism" for when our kids are older, but I get the impression that a thirsty family of tourists wouldn't exactly help matters. Who wants to get in the way? Plus, there's a fine line between genuine help and being that guy on Jeopardy.

For now, I've to make my peace with armchair traveling to Tuvalu. But even that has proven to be difficult.

Links: Tuvalu Tourism
Tuvalu Islands.com

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

The 5th Annual Canadian Book Challenge- The Halfway Roundup!

2012-01-01T00:01:00.028-05:00

Happy New Year!!! Whew, we did a lot of reading in 2011 didn't we? Below you will find links to all those books we reviewed for the 5th Canadian Book Challenge. It's a lot of work to compile, and I'll apologize in advance for the many mistakes I'm sure I made, but it's also a labour of love. I was quite impressed by the variety in our reading choices. Towards the end I was trying to come up with Canadian authors who did not yet reviewed for the challenge, and it was easier said than done. Ooops, look like we missed Mowat... nope, someone squeezed him in. And so on. But that gave me an idea for January's mini-challenge. Here is a-- by no means exhaustive-- list of Canadian authors that somehow escaped us in the first half of the 5th Canadian Book Challenge:

Lisa Moore, Cathleen With, Anita Daher, Bernice Morgan, Jean Paré, Donna Morrissey, Roch Carrier, Michel Tremblay, Timothy Taylor, Susan Musgraves, Hubert Aquin, Steve Zipp, Barbara Reid, Sherri Fitch, Jean Little, Christian Bok, bpNichol, Paul Glennon, Andrew Pyper, Zachariah Wells, P.K. Page, Kevin Major, Jessica Grant, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Michael Kusugak, Eric Wilson, Joy Kogawa, Robert Service, Patrick Lane, Lorna Crozier, Randall Maggs, Stephen Leacock, Stacey May Fowles, Frank McCourt, Monique Proulx, Susan Juby, Jocelyne Allen, Leonard Cohen, Thomas King, Gregory Scofield, Naomi Klein, Kit Pearson
Yann Martel, Rohinton Mistry

Read and review any of the authors above in January and you can have your name entered into a random draw for a wonderful prize pack kindly donated by Random House. Read more than one and you'll have your name entered each time. (For every qualifying review, I ask that you let me know in the comments of this post!) Here are the prizes for the "Missing in Action" mini-challenge:

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

Isn't that a stellar prize? More on last month's prize winners later. In the meantime, check these out...

The 5th annual Canadian Book Challenge - Halfway Point reviews:

Abdou, Angie
- The Bone Cage (John)
- The Canterbury Trail (Corey, Raidergirl)

Adamson, Gil
- The Outlander (Melissa)

Almond, Paul
- The Deserter (Shonna)

Amaral, Joe
- Understanding Jesus (Sharon)

Anderson, T.
- Monad 12. 21. 12 (Sarah)

Archbold, Rick
- Canada, Our History (Nicola)

Arden, Jann
- Falling Backwards (Shan)

Armstrong, Kelley
- No Humans Involved (Jules)
- Personal Demon (Jules)
- Waking the Witch (Sarah)

Assiniwi, Bernard
- The Beothuk Saga (John)

Atwood, Margaret
- Bluebeard's Egg (Jules)
- The Handmaid's Tale (Buried in Print)
- In Other Worlds (Shonna)
- Moral Disorder (Bybee)
- Oryx and Crake (Neal, Bybee)
- The Penelopiad (Jules)
- Wilderness Tips (Bybee)

Auxier, Jonathan
- Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes (Nicola, Heather)

Awumey, Edem
- Dirty Feet (Amy)

Bachman, Randy
- Vinyl Tap Stories (Teena)

Badoe, Adwoa
- Pot of Wisdom illustrated by Baba Wagué Diakité (Buried in Print)

Bainbridge, Susan
- Hoarfrost and Cherry Blossoms (Shonna)

Barclay, Linwood
- The Accident (Luanne, Teena, Paulina, Shonna)
- Clouded Vision (Jennifer)
- Never Look Away (Kristin)

Bastedo, Jamie
- Tracking Triple Seven (John)

Bates, Judy Fong
- Midnight at the Dragon Cafe (Teena)

Beaton, Kate
- Hark! A Vagrant (Chris)

Behrens, Peter
- The O'Briens (Shonna)

Beiser, Kim
- The Very Fine Frog illustrated by Rachel Berman (Irene)

Benison, C.C.
- Twelve Drummers Drumming(Luanne, Raidergirl)

Benns, Roderick
- The Legends of Lake on the Mountain (Wanda)
- The Mystery of the Moonlight Murder (Mysteries and More)

Beresford-Kroeger, Diana
- The Global Forest (Shonna)

Bergen, David
- The Time In Between (Wanda)

Berry, Michelle
- This Book Will Not Save Your Life (Shonna)

Berton, Pierre
- Vimy (Medea)

Bezmozgis, David
- The Free World (Shonna, Shan, Buried in Print, Jules)

Blaise, Claire
- The Meagre Tarmac (Buried in Print)

Bogart, Jo Ellen
- Big and Small, Room for All illustrated by Gillian Newland(Medea)
- Capturing Joy: The Story of Maud Lewis (Nicola)

Bowen, Gail
- Deadly Appearances (Bill)

Bowering, Ian
- The Art and Mystery of Brewing in Ontario (Swordsman)

Boyden, Joseph
- Three Day Road (Jules, Kathy)
- Through Black Spruce (Kathy)

Bradley, Alan
- I Am Half-Sick of Shadows (Luanne, Nicola, HRO, Chris, John)
- A Red Herring Without Mustard (Kristin)
- The Sweetness at the Bottom the Pie (Pussreboots)
- The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag (Kerrie)

Braid, Kate
- To This Cedar Fountain (Melwyk)

Brand, Dionne
- Ossuaries (John)

Brett, Brian
- Trauma Farm (Melissa)

Brewster, Hugh
- Deadly Voyage (Nicola)
- Prisoner of Dieppe (Nicola)

Brooks, Martha
- Queen of Hearts (Paulina)

Brown, Chester
- Louis Riel (Jocelyne)

Bruce, Charles
- The Township of Time (Steve)

Buckler, Ernest
- Ox Bells and Fireflies (Steve)

Burgess, Tony
- Idaho Winter (Corey)
- Ravenna Gets (Buried in Print)

Burnard, Bonnie
- Suddenly (Pooker)

Cameron, Elspeth
- And Beauty Answers (Buried in Print)

Cannon, Kevin
- Far Arden (John)

Chantler, Scott
- The Sign of the Black Rock (Franklin)
- Tower of Treasure (Franklin)
- Two Generals (Franklin)

Choy, Wayson
- The Jade Peony (Jules, KS, Melissa, Anita)

Choyce, Lesley
- Raising Orion (Melwyk, Shonna)

Christie, Michael
- The Beggar's Garden (Buried in Print)

Clarke, George Elliott
- Whylah Falls (Buried in Print)

Clarkson, Adrienne
- Room for All of Us (Shonna)

Coady, Lynn
- The Antagonist (Shonna, Shan, Buried in Print, Jules)
- Play the Monster Blind (John)

Coakley, Lena
- Witchlanders (Christa)

Cole, Trevor
- Practical Jean (Suzanne)

Collins, Gerard
- Moonlight Sketches (Raidergirl)

Comeau, Joey
- One Bloody Thing After Another (Shonna, Buried in Print)
- Overqualified (Buried in Print)

Compton, Valerie
- Tide Road (Raidergirl)

Conlin, Christy Ann
- Heave (Ordinary Reader)

Connelly, Karen
- Burmese Lessons (John)

Cooke, Darwyn
- Catwoman: Selina's Big Score (Franklin)

Coupland, Douglas
- Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People illustrated by Gordon Roumieu (Shan)
- Microserfs (Franklin)

Cox, Daniel Allen
- Krakow Melt (Buried in Print)

Coyote, Ivan
- Missed Her (John, Buried in Print)

Croza, Laurel
- I Know Here illustrated by Matt James (Medea)

Crummey, Michael
- Galore (Gavin)

Daar, Abdallah and Peter Singer
- The Grandest Challenge (John)

Davidson, Andrew
- The Gargoyle (Christa, Melissa)

Davies, Robertson
- The Cunning Man (Steve)
- The Rebel Angels (Kate)

Davis, Tanya
- At First, Lonely (Amy)

Degrace, Anne
- Flying With Amelia (Melwyk)

Den Hartog, Kristen
- And Me Among Them (Shonna)

Desrochers, Suzanne
- Bride of New France (Shonna)

Deverell, William
- Snow Job (Mysteries and More)

DeWitt, Patrick
- The Sisters Brothers (Christa, Michelle, Giraffe Days, Corey, Shan, Bybee, Buried in Print, Swordsman, Jennifer)

Di Vito, Tina
- 52 Ways to Wreck Your Retirement (Teena)

Dixon, Sean
- The Many Revenges of Kip Flynn (Shonna)

Doctor, Farzana
- Stealing Nasreen (Buried in Print)

Doctorow, Cory
- Little Brother (Sarah, Heather)

Dolan, Sandra
- Wooden Boats and Iron People (John)

Donoghue, Emma
- Room (Jules, Barbara, Irene)

Duncan, Elizabeth J.
- A Killer's Christmas in Wales (Shonna)

Dunklee, Annika
- My Name is Elizabeth illustrated by Matthew Forsythe (Medea)

Echlin, Kim
- The Disappeared (Gavin)

Ede, Amatoritsero
- Globetrotter & Hitler's Children (Amy)

Edson, Jerrod
- The Making of Harry Cossaboom (Wanda)

Edugyan, Esi
- Half-Blood Blues (Buried in Print, Shonna, Shan, Christa, Jules)

Einarson, John
- Four Strong Wings with Ian Tyson and Sylvia Tyson (Shonna)

Ellis, Deborah
- The Heaven Shop (Heather)
- No Ordinary Day (Amy)

Ellis, Sarah
- That Fatal Night (Nicola)

Elton, Sarah
- Locavore (Melissa)

Emery, Anne
- Death at Christy Burke's (Shonna)

Endicott, Marina
- Good to a Fault (Jules)
- The Little Shadows (Buried in Print)

Epperly, Elizabeth Rollins
- The Fragrance of Sweet Grass (Claire)

Fairfield, Leslie
- Tyranny (Pussreboots)

Fallis, Terry
- The High Road (Jennifer)

Farrow, John
- River City (Jennifer, Shonna)

Featherstone, Charlotte
- Seduction & Scandal (Giraffe Days)

Ferguson, Will
- Coal Dust Kisses (Irene)
- Why I Hate Canadians (Irene)

Ferguson, Will and Ian Ferguson
- How To Be a Canadian (Irene)

Ferguson, Ted
- Strange Days (Teena, Swordsman)

Files, Gemma
- A Rope of Thorns (Corey)

Findlay, Jamieson
- The Summer of Permanent Wants (Heather)

Findley, Timothy
- Spadework (Buried in Print)
- You Went Away (April)

Fitzgerald, James
- What Disturbs Our Blood (Buried in Print)

Fleming, Ann Marie
- The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam (John)

Forler, Nan
- Winterberries and Apple Blossoms illustrated by Peter Etril Snyder(Two Canadian Readers)

Francis, Brian
- Natural Order (Kathy, Shonna, Teena, Jennifer)

Fung, Mellissa
- Under an Afghan Sky (Shonna, Melissa)

Gallant, John
- Bannock, Beans and Black Tea illustrated by Seth (Wanda, John)

Galloway, Steven
- The Cellist of Sarajevo (KS, Melissa)

Gammel, Irene
- Making Avonlea (Claire)

Garner, Hugh
- Cabbagetown (Steve)

Gartner, Zsuzsi
- Better Living Through Plastic Explosives (Buried in Print, Shan, Shonna, Jules)

Gaston, Bill
- The Cameraman (Pooker)
- The Good Body (Steve)

Gay, Marie-Louise
- Stella, Princess of the Sky (Pussreboots)

Gerson, Carole and Gwendolyn Davies
- Canadian Poetry (Buried in Print)

Gibb, Camilla
- The Beauty of Humanity Movement (Teddy)

Gibson, William
- Zero History (Gavin)

Gibson, William and Bruce Sterling
- The Difference Engine (Canuckoid)

Gilmour, David
- The Perfect Order of Things (Shonna)

Glass, Eleri
- The Red Shoes illustrated by Ashley Spires (Erin)

Goodfellow, Margaret and Phil Goodfellow
- A Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Toronto (Buried in Print)

Gopnik, Adam
- Winter (Buried in Print)

Goyette, Sue
- Lures (Wanda)

Graham, Georgia
- The Lime Green Secret (Heather)

Graham, Gwethalyn
- Earth and High Heaven (Claire)

Gray, Charlotte
- Gold Diggers (John)
- Mrs. King (Melissa)

Green, Lyndsay
- Teens Gone Wired (Irene)

Greenslade, Frances
- Shelter (Shonna)

Gregory, Leland
- Canaduh (Teena)

Griggs, Terry
- Invisible Ink (Buried in Print)
- The Silver Door (Buried in Print)

Gruen, Sara
- Water for Elephants (Medea)

Gunn, Genni
- Solitaria (Buried in Print)

Hamilton, Ian
- The Water Rat of Wanchai (Kristin, Heather)

Hamilton, Lyn
- The Xibalba Murders (HRO)

Hanrahan, Maura
- Sheilagh's Brush (Shonna)

Harris, Amy Lavender
- Imagining Toronto (Buried in Print)

Harris, Doug
- YOU comma Idiot (Corey)

Harvey, Kenneth J.
- Blackstrap Hawco (Pooker)

Hawley, Linda
- Dreams Unleashed (Sarah)
- Guardian of Time (Sarah)

Hay, Elizabeth
- Alone in the Classroom (Kathy, Shonna, Judi)
- Late Nights On Air (Barbara)

Heard, Christopher
- The Suite Life (Teena)

Heidbreder, Robert
- Drumheller Dinosaur Dance illustrated by Bill Slavin and Esperanca Melo (Medea)

Helm, Michael
- Cities of Refuge (Franklin)

Helwig, David
- Saltsea (Ordinary Reader)

Highway, Tomson
- The Rez Sisters (John)

Hill, Lawrence
- The Book of Negroes (Judi)

Holdstock, Pauline
- Into the Heart of the Country (Buried In Print)

Hopkinson, Nalo
- Brown Girl in the Ring (Canuckoid)

Horvath, Polly
- The Pepins and Their Problems illustrated by Marylin Hafner(Pussreboots)

Hossack, Darcie Friesen
- Mennonites Don't Dance (Shonna)

Houston, James
- Running West (Gypsysmom)

Humphreys, Helen
- Afterimage (HRO)
- Coventry (Raidergirl)
- Coventry (Melissa)
- The Reinvention of Love (HRO, Raidergirl)

Hutchins, Hazel and Gail Herbert
- Mattland illustrated by Dusan Petricic (Medea)

Hay, Elizabeth
- Alone in the Classroom (Jennifer B)

Hayes, Derek
- The Maladjusted (Shonna)

Holborn, Hannah
- Fierce (April)

Hooton, Matthew
- Deloume Road (Gavin)

Howard, Blanche
- Dreaming in a Digital World (Melwyk)

Hutchison, Margaret
- Tamarac (John)

Itani, Frances
- Deafening (Kathy)
- Requiem (Shonna)

Jacob, Suzanne
- Fugitives (KS)

Jacques, Edna
- My Kitchen Window (Gypsysmom)

Jiles, Paulette
- The Color of Lightning (Nicola)

Johnston, A. J. B.
- Endgame 1758 (Swordsman)

Johnston, Wayne
- A World Elsewhere (Shonna, Buried in Print)

Kalla, Daniel
- The Far Side of the Sky (Shonna)

Kamara, Mariatu
- The Bite of the Mango with Susan McClelland (John)

Kats, Jewel
- Cinderella's Magical Wheelchair illustrated by Richna Kinra (Irene)
- What Do You Do to Help Your Body? illustrated by Richna Kinra (Irene)

Kay, Guy Gavriel
- The Fionavar Tapestry (Claire)
- The Lions of Al-Rassan (Claire)
- A Song For Arbonne (Claire)

Keefer, Janice Kulyk
- The Green Library (Wanda)

Keith, Esme Claire
- Not Being on a Boat (Shonna)

Keller, Betty
- A Thoroughly Wicked Woman (Shonna)

Khan, Rukhsana
- Big Red Lollipop illustrated by Sophie Blackall (Pussreboots)

Kim, Susan and Laurence Klavan
- City of Spies illustrated by Pascal Dizin (Pussreboots)

King, James
- Etienne's Alphabet (Buried in Print)

Kinsella, W.P.
- Miss Hobbema Pageant (Medea)
- The Moccasin Telegraph (Medea)

Kok-Shurgers, G. Pauline
- The Remains of War (Nicola)

Kostash, Myrna
- Prodigal Daughter (Melwyk)

Kostick, Ken
- The $10 Gourmet (Irene)

Kulling, Monica
- In the Bag! illustrated by David Parkins (Nicola)

Kupesic, Rajka
- The White Ballets (Nicola)

Laferrière, Dany
- The Return translated by David Homel (Buried in Print, Shonna)

Lafleche, Isabelle
- J'adore New York (Sharon)

Lansens, Lori
- The Girls (Kathy)
- The Wife's Tale (Raidergirl)

Lapena, Shari
- Happiness Economics (Melwyk)

Laurence, Margaret
- Dance on the Earth (Bybee)
- The Fire-Dwellers (Jules, Gypsysmom)
- Long Drums and Cannons (Amy)
- The Prophet Camel's Bell (Anita)
- This Side Jordan (Anita)
- The Stone Angel (Kate, Debbie)
- The Tomorrow-Tamer (Anita)

Lawson, Mary
- The Other Side of the Bridge (Melissa)

Laycock, Marcia Lee
- Cassie (Sarah)

Leavey, Peggy Dymond
- Mary Pickford (Swordsman)

Leavitt, Sarah
- Tangles (Shonna)

Leckie, Keith Ross
- Coppermine (Shonna)

Lee, Jen Sookfong
- The Better Mother (Shonna)

Lemire, Jeff
- Essex County (Claire)
- Sweet Tooth: Animal Armies (Teddy)

Lindquist, N.J. and Nelles, Wendy Elaine (editors)
- Hot Apple Cider (Sharon)

Lockhett, Jerry
- Captain James Cook in Atlantic Canada (Swordsman)

Ludwig, Sidura
- Holding My Breath (Pooker)

Lunn, Janet
- Shadow in Hawthorne Bay (Medea)

Lyall, Ernie
- An Arctic Man (John)

Lynes, Jeanette
- The Factory Voice (Ordinary Reader, Pooker)

MacDonald, Ann-Marie
- Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) (Claire)

Macdonald, Jake
- With the Boys (Pooker)

MacFarlane, David
- Summer Gone (AvidAnita)

MacGregor, Roy
- The Last Season (Steve)

MacIntyre, Linden
- The Bishop's Man (Kristin)

Maclear, Kyo
- Spork illustrated by Isabelle Arseneault (Medea)

MacLennan, Hugh
- The Watch That Ends The Night (Melissa)

MacLeod, Alexander
- Light Lifting (Pooker)

MacLeod, Alistair
- As Birds Bring Forth the Sun (Raidergirl)

MacLeod, Hilary
- Mind Over Mussels (Shonna, Chris)
- Revenge of the Lobster Lover (Chris)

Maharaj, Rabindranath
- The Amazing Absorbing Boy (Buried in Print)

Manguel, Alberto
- A Reader on Reading (Claire)

Manicom, David
- Anna's Shadow (Melwyk)

Martinez, Jessica
- Virtuosity (Christa)

Mason, Mike
- The Blue Umbrella (Nicola)

Mayor, Chandra
- All the Pretty Girls (Pooker)

Mayr, Suzette
- Monocerous (Buried in Print)

McCarthy, Julia
- Return from Erebus (Melwyk)

McCaslin, Susan
- Demeter Goes Skydiving (Melwyk)

McClintock, Norah
- Victim Rights (Shonna)

McCole, Caitlin
- All About Eve (Sarah)
- Ex Cineribus Resurge (Sarah)

McIntosh, D. J.
- The Witch of Babylon (Kristin)

McKay, Ami
- The Birth House (Medea)
- The Virgin Cure (Luanne, Amy, Shonna)

McKenzie, Catherine
- Spin (Heather)

McLean, Stuart
- Stories From the Vinyl Cafe (Melissa)

Meister, Soizick and Kallie George
- Mr. M (Shonna)

Michaels, F.S.
- Monoculture (Buried in Print)

Mitchell, Shandi
- Under This Unbroken Sky (Gavin)

Mitchell, W.O.
- Who Has Seen the Wind? (Ordinary Reader)

Mofina, Rick
- In Desperation (Kerrie)

Molloy, Kathleen
- Dining With Death (John)

Moloney, Susie
- The Thirteen (Corey, Luanne)

Montgomery, Lucy Maud
- Akin to Anne (Medea)
- Anne of Avonlea (Sharon)
- Anne of Green Gables (Pussreboots)
- Christmas With Anne (Raidergirl)
- Kilmeny of the Orchard (Sharon)

Moore, Brian
- The Luck of Ginger Coffey (Buried in Print)

Mootoo, Shani
- Valmiki's Daughter (Jules)

Moroney, Shannon
- Through the Glass (Anita)

Mowat, Farley
- Bay of Spirits (Ordinary Reader)

Munro, Alice
- Lives of Girls and Women (Anita)
- Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You (Buried in Print)

Munsch, Robert
- Andrew's Loose Tooth illustrated by Michael Martchenko (Bybee)
- Boo! illustrated by Michael Martchenko (John)
- The Fire Station illustrated by Michael Martchenko (Medea)
- Get Out of Bed! illustrated by Alan and Lea Daniel (Bybee)
- I Have to Go! illustrated by Michael Martchenko (Bybee)
- Show and Tell illustrated by Michael Martchenko (Bybee)
- Thomas' Snowsuit illustrated by Michael Martchenko (Bybee)

Murphy, Derryl
- Napier's Bones (Sarah)

Narsimhan, Mahtab
- The Tiffin (Nicola)

Nason, Jim
- The Girl on the Escalator (Shonna)

Nason, Riel
- The Town that Drowned (Melwyk, Chris)

Nickel, Barbara
- Hannah Waters and the Daughters of Johann Sebastian Bach (Ann)

Oatley, Keith
- Therefore Choose (Ordinary Reader)

O'Bannon, Mark
- The Dream Crystal (Sarah)

Off, Carol
- Bitter Chocolate (Buried in Print)

Ohi, Ruth
- Chicken, Pig, Cow (Medea)

Oliver, Craig
- Oliver's Twist (Shonna)

O'Malley, Bryan Lee
- Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (John)

Ondaatje, Michael
- The Cat's Table (Jules, Shan, Buried in Print, Gavin, Shonna)
- Divisadero (KS)
- The English Patient (Kate)

O'Neill, Heather
- lullabies for little criminals (Raidergirl, Jocelyne)

Oppel, Frank (compiled by)
- Tales of the Canadian North (John)

O'Reilly, Sean and Kevin Hanna
- The Clockwork Girl (Nicola)

Owens, Ann-Maureen and Jane Yealland
- Canada's Maple Leaf illustrated by Bill Slavin and Esperanca Melo (Nicola)

Page, Kathy
- The Find (Shonna)

Palmisano, Richard
- Journeys into the Unknown (Teena)
- Overshadows (Teena)

Peacock, Shane
- Bone Beds of the Badlands (Nicola)
- Eye of the Crow (Pussreboots)
- Monster in the Mountains (Nicola)
- The Dragon Turn (Nicola, Christa, Two Canadian Readers)

Pelley, Rhonda
- Island Maid photography by Sheilagh O'Leary (Medea)

Penny, Louise
- Bury Your Dead (Raidergirl)
- The Cruelest Month (Buried in Print)
- Dead Cold (Buried in Print)
- A Trick of the Light (Mysteries and More, Shonna)

Perkyns, Dorothy
- Last Days in Africville (Wanda)

Phillips, Edward O.
- Queen's Court (Melwyk)

Pick, Allison
- Far to Go (Suzanne)

Pilkey, Brent
- Lethal Rage (Shonna)

Pool, Annelies
- Iceberg Tea (John, Melwyk)

Poulin, Jacques
- Autumn Rounds (Irene)
- My Sister's Blue Eyes (Irene)
- Volkswagen Blues (Irene)

Preston, Allison
- Sunny Dreams (Pooker)

Price, Ray
- Yellowknife (John)

Price, Steven
- Into That Darkness (Shonna)

Proulx, E. Annie
- The Shipping News (Pussreboots)

Rachman, Tom
- The Imperfectionists (Judi)

Redfern, Christine and Caro Caron
- Who is Ana Mendieta? (Amy)

Rehner, Jan
- Missing Matisse (Shonna)

Reynolds, James*
- An American Prisoner at Fort Malden and Quebec in the War of 1812 *author's name speculated (Swordsman)

Ricci, Nino
- The Origin of the Species (Ann)

Rice, Waubgeshig
- Midnight Sweatlodge (Pooker)

Richards, David Adams
- Facing the Hunter (Shonna)
- For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down (John)
- River of the Brokenhearted (Ann)

Richardson, Bill
- Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast (Ordinary Reader)

Richardson, C.S.
- The End of the Alphabet (Pussreboots)

Richler, Mordecai
- The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (Neal)
- Joshua Then and Now (Bybee)

Ritchie, Charles
- An Appetite for Life (Claire)

Robinson, Peter
- Bad Boy (Kerrie)
- Before the Poison (Luanne, Shonna)
- Gallows View (Heather)

Robinson, Spider
- Callahan's Con (Canuckoid)

Rosenblum, Rebecca
- The Big Dream (Pooker)
- Once (Pooker)

Ruby-Sachs, Emma
- The Water Man's Daughter (Shonna)

Ruddock, Nicholas
- The Parabolist (Giraffe Days)

Russell, S. Thomas
- A Battle Won (Swordsman)
- Under Enemy Colors (Swordsman)

Sale, Medora
- The Spider Bites (Teena)

Sands, Lynsay
- Hungry For You (Giraffe Days)

Sapergia, Barbara
- Dry (Pooker)

Sawyer, Robert J.
- Flashforward (Canuckoid)
- Wake (Jules, Canuckoid)
- Watch (Canuckoid)

Scowcroft, Ann
- The Truth of Houses (Melwyk)

Seelig, Adam
- Every Day in the Morning (Slow) (Buried in Print)

Seesequasis, Paul
- Tobacco Wars (Suzanne)

Segura, Mauricio
- Black Alley (Shonna)

Shatner, William
- Shatner Rules with Chris Regan (Shonna)

Sherrard, Valerie
- Watcher (Teena)

Shields, Carol
- The Box Garden (Raidergirl, Michelle)
- Jane Austen (Melissa)
- Small Ceremonies (Raidergirl)
- Unless (KS, Melissa)

Simonds, Merilyn
- The Convict Lover (Melissa)

Singh, Jaspreet
- Chef (Buried in Print)

Skibsrud, Johanna
- The Sentimentalist (Gavin)

Skrypuch, Marsha Forchuk
- Enough illustrated by Michael Martchenko (Irene)

Slater, Sean
- The Survivor (Kristin)

Smallman, Phyllis
- A Brewski for the Old Man (Kerrie)

Smart, Elizabeth
- By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (Gypsysmom)

Smith, Alisa and J. B. McKinnon
- The 100-Mile Diet (Melissa)

Smith, Joshua
- Battle for the Bay (Swordsman)

Smith, Rick and Bruce Lourie
- Slow Death by Rubber Duck (Buried in Print)

Soan, Hazel
- 10 Minute Watercolours (Melissa)

Socken, Paul G. (editor)
- Intimate Strangers (Anita)

Sooley, Jill
- Widows of Paradise Bay (Melwyk, Raidergirl)

Speers, Megan
- Wanderlust (Melwyk)

Staunton, Ted
- Morgan's Secret (R)

Stevens, Chevy
- Never Knowing (Shonna, Luanne)

Stinson, Kathy
- Red is Best illustrated by Robin Baird Lewis (Medea)

Strange, Marc
- Follow Me Down (Shonna)

Sutherland, Kate
- All in Together Girls (Irene)

Sylvester, Kevin
- Splinters (Heather)

Tamaki, Mariko
- Emiko Superstar illustrated by Steve Rolston (Medea)

Tardif, Cheryl Kaye
- Skeletons in the Closet (Kerrie)

Taylor, Drew Hayden
- Bootlegger Blues (Heather)

Taylor, Patrick
- An Irish Country Doctor (Jules)

Theriault, Denis
- The Postman's Round (Irene)

Thomas, Audrey
- Isobel Gunn (Melissa)

Thornley, Scott
- Erasing Memory (Kristin)

Thurston, Tom
- Strongman (Swordsman)

Tidball, Lee
- Princess Reborn (Irene)

Toews, Miriam
- The Flying Troutmans (Geranium Cat, Ann)
- Irma Voth (Shonna, Sharon)

Townsin, Troy
- Canadian Jingle Bells illustrated by Jennifer Harrington (John)
- A Moose in a Maple Tree illustrated by Jennifer Harrington (John)
- The Night Before a Canadian Christmas by Jennifer Harrington (John)

Trafford, Matthew J.
- The Divinity Gene (Pooker)

Treggiari, Jo
- Ashes, Ashes (Sarah)

Trenholm, Hayden
- Defining Diana (Darlene)

Tsiang, Sarah
- Dogs Don't Eat Jam illustrated by Qin Leng (Medea)

Turner, Wesley B.
- The Astonishing General (Shonna, Swordsman)

Twain, Shania
- From This Moment On (Irene)

Urquhart, Jane
- A Map of Glass (Jules)
- Sanctuary Line (Buried in Print)
- The Stone Carvers (Kathy)

Vaillant, John
- The Tiger (John)

Van Camp, Richard
- Angel Wing Splash Pattern (April, John)
- The Lesser Blessed (Shannon)

Vanderhaeghe, Guy
- A Good Man (Buried in Print)

Van Rooy, Michael
- An Ordinary Decent Criminal (Bill)
- Your Friendly Neighbourhood Criminal (Gypysmom)

Vassallo, Jonathan Ryan
- The Kingstonians (Christa)

Vernon, Steve
- The Lunenberg Werewolf and Other Stories (Chris)
- Sinking Deeper (Nicola)

Vyleta, Dan
- The Quiet Twin (Buried in Print)

Wagler, Ira
- Growing Up Amish (Sharon)

Walker, George A.
- A Book of Hours (Melwyk)

Warren, Dianne
- Cool Water (Pooker, Ordinary Reader, Gavin)

Weston, Robert Paul
- Dust City (Heather)

Wharton, Thomas
- Icefields (Buried in Print)

Whitall, Zoe
- Holding Still For as Long as Possible (Amy, Teena)

Whiteford, Jennifer
- Grrrl (Jocelyne)

Wiersema, Robert J.
- Bedtime Story (Pooker)

Williams, Ian
- You Know Who You Are (Buried in Print)

Winter, Kathleen
- Annabel (Raidergirl, Corey)

Winter, Michael
- The Death of Donna Whalen (Kathy)
- This All Happened (Pooker)

Wiseman, Adele
- The Sacrifice (Anita)

Wishinsky, Frieda
- Arctic Storm (R)
- Crazy for Gold (R)
- Danger, Dinosaurs! (R)

Withers, Pam
- First Descent (Nicola)

Wiwa, Ken
- In the Shadow of a Saint (Buried in Print)

Woods, Bruce A.
- Between Two Worlds (Irene)

Wright, Laurali R.
- Acts of Murder (Kerrie)
- The Suspect (Kerrie)

Wright, Richard B.
- Adultery (Kathy)
- Clara Callan (Erin, John)
- The Age of Longing (Irene)

Ye, Ting-xing and William Bell
- Throwaway Daughter (Pooker)

Yee, Paul
- Blood and Iron (Nicola)

York, Allison
- Fauna (Buried in Print)

Zentner, Alexi
- Touch (Shan, Buried in Print)

And the prizes for last month's prize, in which readers were challenged to read and review a book by a foreign-born Canadian goes to Melissa, who read Coventry by Helen Humphreys. Humphreys, if you didn't know (and I didn't), was born in London, England. For her efforts, Melissa wins this wonderful prize back from Cormorant Books:

Pablo Urbanyi's Silver:

Pan Bouyoucan's The Tattoo:

Finally, did you do any roundup posts of your 2011 reading? Want to share? Mine are her: fiction, comics/graphic novels, short stories, nonfiction. Share your links in the comments below!!!

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

2011-12-31T23:59:00.000-05:00

My Year in Review 2011- Fiction

2011-12-29T19:22:00.000-05:00

Finally, the last of my year end countdown lists: fiction (not including poetry and plays). My reading total is only slightly higher in 2011 than in 2010, but the overall Canadian content is definitely higher. Owing to the fact that this year I started the 5th annual Canadian Book Challenge, I've tried to up my Canadian content to levels even the CRTC could be proud of. Here, from my least favourite to favourite, are my 2011 fiction reads:

25. Guy Gavriel Kay- Ysabel
24. Louis Maistros- Anti-requiem
23. Margaret Hutchison- Tamarac
22. Frank Oppel (compiled by)- Tales of the Canadian North
21. Kathleen Molloy- Dining With Death
20. Bernard Assiniwi- The Beothuk Saga
19. Ben Mikaelsen- Touching Spirit Bear
18. Sylvia Olsen- Yellow Line
17. David Adams Richards- For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down
16. J. K. Rowling- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
15. Jamie Bastedo- Tracking Triple Seven
14. Angie Abdou- The Bone Cage
13. Alan Bradley- I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
12. Richard Van Camp- Angel Wing Splash Pattern
11. Mordecai Richler- The Incomparable Atuk
10. J.K. Rowling- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
9. Lucy Maud Montgomery- Anne of Avonlea
8. J.K. Rowling- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
7. Linden MacIntyre- The Bishop's Man
6. Ivan Coyote- Missed Her
5. J. K. Rowling- Order of the Phoenix
4. Corey Redekop- Shelf Monkey
3 Richard B. Wright- Clara Callan
2. Amanda Boyden- Babylon Rolling
1. Lynn Coady- Play the Monster Blind

Which of these have you read? Any strong agreements or disagreements?

Reader's Diary #789- Alan Bradley: I Am Half-Sick of Shadows

2011-12-29T18:17:00.004-05:00

While far from my least favourite novel of 2011, it's definitely one of my year's biggest disappointments. For the past few years all I've heard of is Alan Bradley: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie,
The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, Red Herring Without Mustard-- 3 of the most popular Canadian titles in recent years. When I saw that there was a Christmas-themed Flavia de Luce mystery, I jumped at the chance to finally see what all the fuss was about (mine was a free review copy).

Unfortunately I still don't know. Feeling quite underwhelmed by the whole thing, I suspected that maybe this was Bradley's first misstep in the series. Perhaps it was just a poor time for me to be jumping in. Alas, reading all the positive reviews of this book-- equal to the previous three-- I'm left to conclude that the problem is with me.

I found the whole thing rather silly. A movie production crew shows up film at Flavia's family estate just before Christmas. They wouldn't wait until after? Then, conveniently, they all get snowed in on the night a murder takes place-- leaving a house full of suspects. Flavia, whom everyone seems so gung-ho about, came across as a two-dimensional caricature: a precocious eleven year old girl who compares everything to chemical reactions and who confides in Dogger, a family assistant, who seems a little too reminiscent of Punjab from Annie. Without these connections I wasn't drawn into the mystery at all and could hardly have cared less who committed the crime.

Last week I supposed, after reading an equally underwhelming Sherlock Holmes story, that mysteries are perhaps not for me. I can see how people would consider them comfortable diversions, but I'm still not sold on the genre.

Reader's Diary #788- Frank Oppel (Compiled by): Tales of the Canadian North

2011-12-29T13:51:00.004-05:00

Tales of the Canadian North, a 500 page collection of essays and short stories from the late 1800s and early 1900s, was the most difficult book for me to get through in 2011. It wasn't the worst book I read this year, but it was certainly a tough slog. Not only was it 500 pages, but each page was divided into 2 columns and the font was ridiculously small. And a good many of the stories were so monotonously boring.

But not all. It was a bit of a surprise for me in one regard. Given the title, I expected it mostly to be north of 60 stories. For the Canadian Book Challenge I'm aiming to read 13 of such books. While I'll include this book in my total as some of the stories were indeed set that far north, it seems that "Canadian North" was more loosely defined here as the Canadian outdoors. Though given that a great number of the authors were American adventure travelers, I guess all of Canada was technically the north.

Tales of the Canadian North is full of manly men and canoes. Some are clearly fictional accounts, some are clearly not, some deal with outdoor peril, the others deal with murderers and traitors. It was interesting to see such a pan-Canadian book feel so similar no matter the province or territorial setting. For all the modern talk about our regional differences, there is certainly a common vein in our collective history.

Of course these are all told by a certain type of author as well. Though I recognized few authors besides Canada's Charles G. D. Roberts, it became apparent early on that they were all white, outdoor enthusiasts, hunters predominately, and as many of them* seemed to easily be able to put their (mostly American) lives on hold and hire guides to take them through the wilds of Canada for several months at a go, I'd venture to guess that most were also independently wealthy. Many of the stories originally appeared in the American publication Outing magazine. So the common vein and feel of the stories may also have been a product of a very narrow perspective.

It's also a very dated perspective. For the most part the "Indians" are untrustworthy and inferior and woman are irrelevant (unless betraying someone). Any nostalgia for the good old days of exploring the great unknown, matching your wits against nature, and so on are tampered by the bigotry. But still, Tales of the Canadian North gives an informative, albeit limited, view of Canadian history.

*The complete list of authors listed in order of first appearance: Lawrence Mott, William Bleasdell Cameron, Andrew J. Stone, William Davenport Hulbert, P.T. McGrath, Tappan Adney, Agnes C. Laut, Therese Guerin Randall, Leonidas Hubbard Jr., Charles G. D. Roberts, Geo. W. Orton, H. Christie Thompson, R. G. Taber, Herman Whitaker, A. Hyatt Verrill, Fitzherbert Leather, Frank H. Risteen, John C. Martin, Vingie E. Roe, Emerson Hough, James C. Allan, W. A. Fraser, Robert Dunn, Rex E. Beach, Robert T. Morris, A. J. Stone, Maximilian Foster, Ernest Ingersoll, Caspar Whitney, Edwin C. Kent, Riley H. Allen, Duncan Campbell Scott.

Reader's Diary #787- J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

2011-12-28T17:15:00.002-05:00

. 7 books, 8 movies. My daughter and I have finally finished the series. And we're both of mixed feelings about the whole thing. It was a wild ride, and was definitely a bonding time for the two of us these past 2 years. But now it's over and it's hard to imagine another series that will win us over as much. I've considered getting the Tales of Beedle the Bard but figured it best to just leave the series and Rowling for a while. My kids and I both loved Jeff Smith's Bone series as well, but none of the spin-off projects have lived up to the original, to the point where I think it soured the original experience. Why risk that with Harry Potter?

I quite enjoyed the last book. With Dudley's apology and Hedwig's death so early on, I think Rowling did a remarkable job setting the tone for the novel to follow: one of closures and tragedy. Holy cow, talk about a high body count! It's a bloodbath worthy of Shakespeare himself. Meanwhile there are also a few crucial plot problems worthy of M. Night Shyamalan-- nothing as bad as Goblet of Fire, though, so I still enjoyed it.

I was taken aback by the language though. No f-bombs or GDs, but loads of damns, hells, and a few bitches and bastards thrown in for good measure. I admit I censored when I read it aloud. My daughter is 8 and though I didn't initially think we'd make it to the last book in the series at this age, I changed my mind based on my daughter's maturity. As for the language, it's not that I necessarily think hearing it would damage her, I'm sure she's heard it on the playground before or read it in the graffiti around town, but I just couldn't bring myself to say them in front of her. But I'm sure my censorship won't damage her either! I also don't think Rowling is necessarily wrong to have written it in. Harry and his friends are all 17 at this point, mild swearing is tame compared to what 17 year olds actually say and do.

And now we try to find our next series.

The 2011 Book Mine Set Short Story Online Anthology

2011-12-27T00:01:00.002-05:00

52 weeks, 52 short stories. Here, ranked from least favourite to favourite, are the 52 stories I read in 2011-- or links to my reviews of them. Everyone of these stories were available for free online at the time I read them, and embedded in each review are links to the stories themselves, but no promises that all the links are still active. If you'd like to read more short stories in 2012, I hope you consider participating in Short Story Mondays.

52. John R. Little- "Following Marla"
51. Owen Wister- "Mother"
50. Justin D. Anderson- "Colloid"
49. Oonah V. Joslin- "A La Descartes"
48. Daniachew Worku- "The Voice"
47. Sherry D. Ramsey- "Little Things"
46. Hayden Trenholm- "Like Monsters of the Deep"
45. Michael J. Cunningham- "Family Thanksgiving"
44. Stephen Crane- "A Dark Brown Dog"
43. Alice Dunbar-Nelson- "Violets"
42. Langston Hughes- "Thank You, M'am"
41. Guy de Maupassant- "A New Year's Gift"
40. Helene Christaller- "Brother Robber"
39. Anton Chekhov- "Easter Eve"
38. Joan Sennette- "Amanda's Special Gift"
37. Ania Vesenny- "Lace"
36. Evan Hunter- "The Last Spin"
35. Sharon Erby- "Parallel"
34. José Eduardo Agualusa- "If Nothing Else Helps, Read Clarice"
33. Clarice Lespector- "The Hen"
32. Eden Robinson- "Minnows"
31. Badriyah Al Bishr- "The Well"
30. Arthur Conan Doyle- "Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle"
29. Song Zelai- "Jingzhen, Taiwan 1978"
28. Kate Chopin- "Old Aunt Peggy"
27. Dorothy Parker- "A Telephone Call"
26. David Barthelme- "City of Churches"
25. Gaustave Flaubert- "A Simple Heart"
24. Isak Dinesan- "The Blank Page"
23. Wayne Johnston- "Catechism"
22. Luigi Pirandello- "War"
21. Margaret Atwood- untitled doctor/ corpse story
20. Steven Mayoff- "Milk, Milk, Lemonade"
19. Leena Krohn- "The Three Buddhas"
18. Poppy Z. Brite- "Marisol"
17. Donna Tartt- "A Garter Snake"
16. John Geddes- "Only Five Minutes"
15. Alexandre Dumas- "Solange"
14. John Buchan- "Skule Skerry"
13. Charlotte Perkins Gilman- "The Yellow Wallpaper"
12. Lawrence Hill- "Meet You at the Door"
11. William Lychak- "Stolpestad"

The Top 10!!!

10. Wame Molefhe- "Where is the Rain?"
9. Kathleen Winter- "Madame Poirier's Dog"
8. Ray Bradbury- "The October Game"
7. Stephen King- "Herman Wouk is Still Alive"
6. Nicole Krauss- "The Last Words on Earth"
5. Susan D. Rogers- "A Poor Boy's Piano"
4. Sarah Selecky- "This Cake is for the Party"
3. Barbara Bruederlin- "Buona Sera, Kiss Me Goodnight"
2. Tim Waggoner- "When God Opens a Door"
1. Panu Trivej- "The Sky Blue Jar"

(*not including short stories I read in anthologies)

Reader's Diary #786- Guy de Maupassant: A New Year's Gift

2011-12-26T00:01:00.000-05:00

Interestingly, there seems to be way more stories about "the other woman" than "the other man" but Guy de Maupassant's "A New Year's Eve Gift" takes it from the latter's perspective.

The story opens with a man about to sit down, on New Year's Day, to write New Year's greetings to his friends. A charming scene. However, when he begins to write a letter to a woman named Irene, it is clear she weighs more heavily on his mind. Suddenly his concentration is broken by a knock on his door. It is Irene herself and she is clearly quite shaken.

I won't go further, and I especially won't state the ending, though I have to say I found the whole thing quite despicable. It's a well-written story and interesting, I suppose, but it left me feeling icky.

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

Ho. Ho. Ho.

2011-12-25T00:01:00.001-05:00

GIFSoup

Merry Christmas!

My Year in Review 2011- Comics and Graphic Novels

2011-12-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

A lot less graphic novels for me this year, but I was up in my nonfiction so I guess things balance out. Here, from my least favourite to favourite, is my recap of the graphic novels I read in 2011:

11. Liam O'Donnell and illustrated by Mike Deas- Wild Ride
10. Nicolas de Crécy, translated by Joe Johnson- Glacial Period
9. David Lester- The Listener
8. Ann Marie Fleming- The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam
7. Von Allan- the road to god knows...
6. Bryan O'Malley- Scott Pilgrim vs The World Vol. 2
5. Neil Gaiman, illustrated and adapted by P. Craig Russell- Coraline
4. Kevin Cannon- Far Arden
3. Josh Neufeld- A.D. New Orleans After The Deluge
2. Katsuhiro Otomo- Akira Volume 2
1. Bryan O'Malley- Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life Vol. 1

Still to come, fiction and short stories...

My Year in Review 2011- Nonfiction

2011-12-21T13:05:00.004-05:00

I love end of year lists-- other people's end of year lists. My own lists just reflect how out of touch I am with anything new. But I'll happily use your best of 2011 reading/ music/ movie lists to influence what I read/ listen to/ watch in 2012. Trendsetter, I am not.

The following list, therefore, is merely a ranking of what I've read in nonfiction this year. Very few were actually published in 2011. From worst to best, in my lowly opinion, here they are:

15. Karen Connelly- Burmese Lessons
14. Dr. Abdallah Daar and Dr. Peter Singer- The Grandest Challenge
13. Alex Debogroski- King of the Road
12. Ray Price- Yellowknife
11. Alice Blondin-Perrin- My Heart Shook Like a Drum
10. Nils Andrew Thompson- Looking For Momo in Tomo Domo
9. Albert Canadien- From Lishamie
8. Charlotte Gray- Gold Diggers
7. Annelies Pool- Iceberg Tea
6. Sandra Dolan- Wooden Boats and Iron People
5. John Gallant- Bannock, Beans, and Black Tea illustrated by Seth
4. Pierre Berton- Prisoners of the North
3. Miriatu Kamara- The Bite of the Mango
2. Ernie Lyall- An Arctic Man
1. John Vaillant- The Tiger

Stay tuned for fiction, graphic novels/comics, and short stories...

Reader's Diary #785- Dr. Abdallah Daar and Dr. Peter Singer: The Grandest Challenge

2011-12-21T12:13:00.003-05:00

If you took the old adage about teaching a man to fish and added a bit about teaching a man to teach his community to fish and making sure they had access to a lake and a cheap source of bait, you'd have (besides an awkwardly long adage), the premise behind Dr. Abdallah Daar's and Dr. Peter's Singer's The Grandest Challenge.

You'd also have the book written for the layperson, which doesn't seem to have been a focus for either author or editor Sarah Scott. The Grandest Challenge promises to discuss how science can bring an equality to world health issues and how obstacles preventing that from happening can be overcome. I wanted to love this book, I suspected it would be a case of "preaching to the choir." I didn't love it and the choir was virtually ignored.

Towards the end of the book, they talk about the launch date of the Grand Challenges Canada initiative. "The room," they wrote, "was packed with notables from business, science and government." It's those three groups the book seems aimed at. But not belonging to any of those groups, it felt like I wandered into the wrong conference room. I tried to make my peace with the fact that I seem to be being told that besides my monetary donations, I have nothing to offer to the world's health crisis. Fine, I thought, I had no aspirations to be the next Stephen Lewis either but I admire what he does and a book about him or by him would still be interesting. But even as a spectator, The Grandest Challenge is not interesting. It's confusing and killed by endless repetitive examples.

The vaccine regimen consisted of priming with a canarypox vector carrying three synthetic HIV genes, followed by booster inoculations with two recombinant envelope proteins from two types of HIV (clades B and E).

Oh. I think I can find my way out.

Reader's Diary #784- Arthur Conan Doyle: The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

2011-12-19T00:01:00.000-05:00

I finally found a Christmas story not about feeding the hungry. Though it does involve a Christmas goose, so I guess it's still food-related.

Actually, except for the goose (which is a pretty important part of the story), it has very little to do with Christmas. I am considering going to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie at some point over the holidays, and this is a Sherlock Holmes story, so there's also that.

"The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" is a pleasant enough little mystery that begins with Holmes profiling a man based solely upon the condition of a found hat. I don't often read mysteries, but when I do I always feel on guard and sort of like the author and I have entered into a contest of wits. Can he slip enough clues past me without my having figured out the culprit? I did guess who it was in this story, though it had more to do with the predictable way these stories are set up than any real giveaway. I don't think mystery is a genre I would ever really throw myself into, but it's fine for an occasional diversion.

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

Reader's Diary #783- Troy Townsin and illustrations by Jennifer Harrington: 3 Canadian Christmas picture books

2011-12-17T15:18:00.004-05:00

I once offered Kraft Dinner and a hockey puck as a prize in my Canadian Book Challenge. Lord knows I'm not against Canadian stereotyping. Canadian Jingle Bells, A Moose in a Maple Tree, and the The Night Before a Canadian Christmas, by Troy Townsin and illustrated by Jennifer Harrington, abound in such stereotypes. The children who are nestled have visions of poutine instead of sugarplums. I should love these books. Sadly, I don't.

What went wrong? First and foremost it's the poorly scanning poems. Try this to the tune of the "dashing through the snow" part of Jingle Bells: Up in Nunavut/ among the caribou/ we see an inuksuk/ and a seal-skin canoe. Awkward, right? Try this one from The Night Before a Canadian Christmas: He touched his finger to his nose and/ just stepped out into the night,/ where his beaver team were on/ the deck having a snowball fight.

Plus I'm not so sure about Townsin's references. Santa's reindeer, for instance, were replaced by beavers named Gretzky, Trudeau, Shania and Loonie, Bob and Doug, Suzuki and Toonie. Cute, but I'm not sure how many of these kids would get. It's less problematic than the the difficult rhythm of the poems, as kids don't need to get all the references and like the movies aimed at this age group, I'm sure it's just to keep the adults smiling. But I just suffered through the latest Chipmunk movie and I'm less tolerant. (Seriously, a "I'm king of the world" joke? No kid gets the Titanic nod and every adult is tired of that joke from a thousand other spoofs. Enough!)

And the illustrations, while passable, aren't spectacular enough to save these books.

But it is Christmas, and I should say on a positive note, after hearing them all on the previous day, my son did, on his own accord, choose the Moose in a Maple Tree book for a nighttime read-aloud. I would agree that it's the most tolerable of the 3 books but his endorsement should mean more than mine in any case.

I should also add the disclaimer that these were given to me as review copies and partial proceeds from the sale of these books go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. I hope you realize what a moral dilemma it gave me to give such a negative review. So to ease my guilt I've donated $60 (the cost of these 3 books) to the Make-a-Wish foundation. In the meantime, if I've discouraged you from buying Townsin's books but you still want to find some Canadian titles for the holidays, I made this list a few years back and just last month, fellow blogger Medea came up with this list. And give generously to the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

Reader's Diary #782- Joan Sennette: Amanda's Special Gift

2011-12-12T00:01:00.001-05:00

A few morality thoughts this week. First, how do you feel about Google books? Each Short Story Monday I highlight a short story that I find for free online. But this week I wanted to read a Canadian Christmas story and couldn't find any except for some at Google books. I know Google books is controversial but at least they provide a link to the publisher and the anthology, Tales of Christmas, in which Joan Sennette's "Amanda's Special Gift" appears is found at Breakwater Books for just $2, if you're interested.

2nd morality thought: last week, Teddy Rose, avid Short Story Monday participant, commented on my review of "Brother Robber":

I don't usually read Chrismas stories because I don't celebrate the holiday. However it sounds like a good message. I just hate Christmas stories that send the message to not let people starve on Christmas, because it seems to me they should never starve.

I thought the comment interesting, especially as I'd not really noticed that there was a preponderous amount of such stories. However, when the first story I stumbled upon this week also dealt with hungry people at Christmas, I thought maybe Teddy was onto something. So then I reflected upon the rest of her comment.

Of course, it's true, no one should starve at any time of the year. So why then am I, as I'm sure many people are, more likely to donate food at Christmas then other points of the year? And is this necessarily a bad thing? I'm not suggesting that I'll find an easy answer, but I do want to try and address her very valid observation.

I have a number of reasons. One, if I was personally homeless at Christmas, I think I'd find the day even more difficult than the others. Christmas is a special time for me and to be that down and out at this time of the year would be almost unbearable. If someone could alleviate my hunger, if someone reached out to me, I think it would help lift my spirits. But even if I did not celebrate Christmas, I think seeing others being happy and well-fed and even frivolous, would make my situation feel even worse. Again, knowing that I was at least considered on that day, might help. I say this all without ever having been even close to such a situation, and I don't presume to know how homeless people might feel. Yes, I realize that they, as would everyone, prefer to always have food, not just at the holidays, but if taking it one day at a time, Christmas is a good a day as any, I would imagine. And if I can't afford to be donating food everyday, there's certainly no harm in making it Christmas day is there? I would hope that if everyone donated at Christmas, food banks might even take in a surplus and use it for the other 364 days of the year-- no different really than if they made an arbitrary day Food Donation Day. Say March 3rd. If Christmas shoppers want to spend some cash on something less frivolous, even if just to ease their conscience, is that bad? Should food banks not take advantage of this? Again, I don't really know. To me Christmas is a peaceful, hopeful time. If I donate some food or clothes or whatever to someone less fortunate at Christmas, I hope it provides some temporary relief, and I hope long term relief is just around the bend.

On that note, "Amanda's Special Gift" is about Amanda, a little girl who has her first encounter with a homeless woman. She decides to help her out and her enthusiasm for the task is caught by those around her. But seeing the potential in everyone, it leads to a lifelong career for Amanda. I've given away the ending, I know, but it captures the hopefulness that I feel at Christmas while, most importantly for this post, hopefully addresses Teddy's concern about charity beyond Christmas.

Anyway, thanks to Teddy for the food for thought. Pardon the pun.

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

Reader's Diary #781- Richard B. Wright: Clara Callan

2011-12-07T00:00:00.002-05:00

My faithful readers might recognize Richard B. Wright's Clara Callan as the book that has somehow eluded my clutches the longest. I've had this paperback since it was first released in 2002, though I didn't buy it. Back in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut the laundry room at our our apartment building was an anonymous book trading depot. We'd read a book, stick it on a shelf in the laundry room, take someone else's donation, and no one ever discussed it. There couldn't have been more than 25 couples in the whole building, we were all reading each others' books, we were all even social with one another-- yet no one ever said, "what did you think of the Life of Pi?" Odd. It was there I picked up Richard B. Wright's Clara Callan. Unlike the others, however, it never made it back to the laundry room. It traveled with me as we moved back to Newfoundland, then back to Nunavut (this time trying out Iqaluit), and 3 years ago found itself in a suitcase full of books trekking its way over to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories.

Why has it taken me this long? If I'm being totally honest, the size definitely didn't help. I'm never keen to begin any book more than 300 pages or so. If I don't like it, that's a long commitment. But then, since 2002 I've read many books longer than 300 pages, many even longer than the 531 pages of Clara Callan. The cover also made me reluctant:It doesn't look all that exciting, doesn't look like they were marketing the book toward my gender (on my edition they chose a blurb from Chatelaine to grace the front rather than the Globe and Mail quote they stuck on the back). It's also described as "powerful" and "moving," which is most often code for pretentious and boring.

But enough of all that. I've finally read it and it was definitely worth the 9 year wait. It's an absolutely wonderful book. Clara Callan takes place in the mid 30s, and features the written correspondence between Clara Callan, a 3o+ year old school teacher from a small town in Ontario, with her sister and a friend living in New York.

It's not a fast-paced thriller, there's not a lot of suspense, and it's a very character driven book. In that regard many might consider Clara Callan to be quite typical of 20th century CanLit. Yet I found myself thinking of Jeff Lemire's Essex County graphic novels. Story-wise, it too was very typical of CanLit. Yet, it's the story-telling that sets both books apart. Of course, epistolary fiction isn't exactly a modern idea (going back to Dracula and earlier), but it's still not the norm, and it was definitely the form to tell Clara Callan's story. Not only does it capture the historical period, it also makes the story more manageable to take in. I'd read several letters and diary entries each night and it felt more like nibbling than trying to wolf down a lengthy chapter.

It helped that Clara was so likeable. Certainly that's not a prerequisite for a protagonist, but it helped in this case. Especially when readers must sense what a private individual she was. It could almost make a reader feel special to be privy to her thoughts, knowing more about her life and thoughts than even her neighbours. At the end I felt so connected with Clara that I even took exception to a blurb on the back from Kirkus reviews which called the book, "a wrenching chronicle of time passing and opportunity lost." Not only do I feel like whoever wrote that review missed the mark entirely, I found myself protective over Clara. Opportunity lost? Anyone who feels that Clara didn't take advantage of loads of opportunities has clearly got some major hangups against rural life. Clara's life may not have been for everyone, but at least for the four years in which this story takes place, she made the most of it.

And that I find myself talking about her as if she's real, as if I'm proud of her, would have been happy to know her? That's no small accomplishment. Great character, great book.

Reader's Diary #780- Helene Christaller: Brother Robber

2011-12-05T00:01:00.000-05:00

Last week Margot at Joyfully Retired linked to this story at The Plough, which offers up a large assortment of Christmas tales. "Brother Robber" is listed amongst the Christmas stories for children.

Written by German writer Helene Christaller in the early 1900s, "Brother Robber" involves two monks. One, Brother Francis (later to be known as St. Francis of Assisi) chastises the other for turning away some hungry visitors because they were known robbers.

The overall message is of course a warm one, and as Margot pointed out, suitable for Christmas. Though listed as "for children," it's not juvenile. It's clean and appropriate for children, certainly, but it doesn't come that it was written specifically for children.

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

5th Annual Canadian Book Challenge- 5th Update

2011-12-01T00:01:00.001-05:00

I guess the colder weather be credited with November's high book count. Over 120 Canadian books read and reviewed for the challenge, making last month the most successful month since we began back in July. Personally, I've slowed down. November is a very hectic time for me at work, plus I'm sort of stuck in a couple of clunkers at the moment. But it's nice to see everyone else picking up the slack. I'm really taken aback by how many people who have met their 13 quota already. If you haven't though, don't fret. There's 7 months left and as I hope I've gotten across by now, it's not meant to be a race.

While certainly not a new topic, in November there seemed to be an upsurge in people talking about the very definition of Canlit. The Globe and Mail pondered whether or not Canadian novels were Canadian enough, the CBC got in on it, and the discussion even went international, prompting a Finnish newspaper to interview a few of us Canadian book bloggers for our thoughts. While I doubt anyone is seriously looking for any resolutions, it's still a worthwhile conversation. I encourage you to check out the above links and add your two cents.

On a similar note, this month's prize pack celebrates Canadian immigrant writers. Shields, Ondaatje, Munsch-- it's hard to imagine our literary landscape without the contributions of such authors. And they're just a drop in the bucket. This month, if you're a Canadian Book Challenge participant and you read and review a book by a foreign-born Canadian author, let me know in the comments below and you'll be eligible to win this wonderful prize pack kindly donated by Cormorant Books:

Pablo Urbanyi's Silver:

Pan Bouyoucan's The Tattoo:

The winner of the Scholastic Canada prize pack last month was Shonna! Shonna will receive the following prize pack:

Dear Canada: That Fatal Night by Sarah Ellis

and also by Sarah Ellis: A Prairie as Wide as the Sea:

Prisoner of Dieppe by Hugh Brewster:

And Shot at Dawn by John Wilson:

And courtesy of Kids Can Press, the following people will receive copies of Franklin in the Dark, 25th anniversary edition (just in time for Christmas!): Kate, Gypsysmom, Melissa, and Medea. Could you all (and Shonna) please send me your mailing addresses?

If you celebrate Christmas, hopefully there'll be some Canadian books under your tree this year (my wishlist includes Scott Chantler's Two Generals and Esi Edugyan's Half-Blood Blues). And if you don't celebrate Christmas, I still hope you get a chance to get cozy with a Canadian title. Just don't forget to review them! Share your links at the round-up post here.

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

2011-11-30T23:59:00.000-05:00

Guest Post- Ann Weir's First 4 Reviews for The 5th Canadian Book Challenge

2011-11-29T19:56:00.003-05:00

The Origin of Species – by Nino Ricci

Nino Ricci’s The Origin of Species tells the story of Alex, a graduate student living in Montreal in the 1980’s, and the diverse set of characters he interacts with on a day-to-day basis. Alex is dissatisfied and distant in most aspects of his life, unable to focus on his work, avoiding his therapist and being generally uncomfortable in his friendships and relationships. He lives largely absorbed by his past, notably by his experiences with his Swedish lover Ingrid and his past live-in girlfriend Liz. A disturbing incident in the Galapagos Islands, which is described in the second half of the book, continues to haunt him.

Nino Ricci’s writing has a lyrical quality and The Origin of Species is a beautifully written book. The diversity and character of the city of Montreal are nicely described, making me want to join Alex on one of his walks around the city. The story is populated by a diverse set of interesting characters, the inspiring Esther, the courageous Maria, Alex’s colleague Jiri who intrudes on Alex’s life and Desmond, Alex’s irksome Galapagos travel companion.

However, the personalities of Ingrid and Liz are ill defined and hard to relate to. It is also difficult to like Alex, or to understand what others see in him. When his experiences in the Galapagos Islands are revealed, the cause of his current problems becomes clearer. After understanding this part of Alex’s life, the story seemed to hang together a bit better for me. But despite being touching and thought provoking, the lack of a sympathetic main character made The Origin of Species a challenging and long read.

Hannah Waters and the Daughter of Johann Sebastian Bach – by Barbara Nickel

Barbara Nickel has written a book for all ages with Hannah Waters and the Daughter of Johann Sebastian Bach. The story is set equally in modern day Saskatchewan, where 12-year-old Hannah Waters has moved with her father after the tragic death of her mother, a professional violinist, and in Cohen, Germany in the 1720’s, the home of Catharina Dorthea Bach, aged 11, the only daughter of Johann Sebastian Bach. The two girls “meet” while experiencing stressful times in their young lives and imagine they see and hear each other while listening to or performing music.

Two common threads connect the girls lives, the first being their relationships with their parents. The struggle each girl experiences with her respective fathers is woven nicely throughout the story. While Catharina struggles largely in isolation, Nickel provides Hannah with other adult figures to rely on, with the benefit of adding some interesting characters to the book. The girls also share a love of Bach’s “Concerto for Two violins in D Minor”, also known as the Bach Double, one of Bach’s most famous and respected works. Nickel plays with the timing of when Bach composed the piece to fit the storyline. Both girls fall in love with the music, for Catharina as Bach composes it and for Hannah as she studies it. The time-stretched friendship is an unusual concept and in this case, it feels real, balanced nicely between imagination and reality.
Although written as a pre-teen story (ages 11+), I would also recommend this book for adults as it is a thoroughly enjoyable and uplifting read.

River of the Brokenhearted – by David Adams Richards

David Adams Richards’ River of the Brokenhearted is a family saga of three generations of the King family which is set along the banks of the Miramichi River in New Brunswick. After several setbacks in England, George King immigrates to New Brunswick in the 1920’s and marries the much younger Janie McLeary, a New Brunswick native of Irish descent. George and Janie are both talented musicians and after several failed attempts at business, George decides to buy a movie projector and open a theatre. Their success puts George and Janie at odds with Joey Elias, a successful local businessman. Joey has a relationship with the Druken family, also recent immigrants who coincidentally have a long standing feud with the King family carried over from England. The book covers the relationship between the Kings, the Drukens and Joey Elias over the next 75 years.

Having read a lot of Richards’ novels before, the themes of envy, greed and pettiness are familiar, as are the inclusion of some very sad and some very brave moments. However, I found his writing style different in this story, which is told from the viewpoint of Janie and George’s grandson Wendell. It reads very much like a story someone is telling their children or grandchildren about their family’s history. I felt a great deal of warmth and sympathy for Miles King, Wendell’s father, as he weathers the cruelty Rebecca Druken, one of the few truly evil characters that Richards has created. I found Miles’ respect and love for his wife and children so touching, rounding out his fascinating character. If you are a Richards fan, I think you will really enjoy this book.

The Flying Troutmans – by Miriam Toews

The Flying Troutmans is the story of a struggling family based in Manitoba who head out on an unusual road trip south of the border. Hattie Troutman returns home from Paris after receiving a desperate call from her 11 year-old niece Thebes. Hattie’s chronically mentally ill sister Min is in serious trouble and Thebes turns to Hattie, needing help for herself, her mother and her 15 year-old brother Logan. After successfully delivering Min to the psychiatric ward, Hattie, who is feeling overwhelmed at home with the two kids, decides to take them on a search for their estranged father Cherkis. With little to go on, Hattie packs up the kids and a van and heads south.

The story mainly focuses on Hattie’s growing relationship with Thebes and Logan and on their brother/sister relationship. The dialogue in this book is so well written, feeling absolutely natural and being quite funny at times despite the underlying sadness of the story. Thebes and Logan are great characters: quirky, funny, mature and talented. The author uses a series of flashbacks to shed light on Hattie’s relationship with Min and their parents as well as on Min’s experiences as a mother. The memories of Min with her children were the most touching, helping me to understand the source of their confidence and optimism. One of my favourite conversations Hattie has with Logan occurs while he is playing basketball:
“What do you think about when you shoot?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh really? You just concentrate entirely on shooting?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Do you worry that the ball won’t go in?”
“No, I always believe that it will. Every time.”
“Seriously? Even when you’ve missed a bunch of shots?”
“Yeah, I think it’s gonna go in every time.”
“And then, so, when it doesn’t go in do you feel all disillusioned?”
“No, not at all, ‘cause I’m always sure the next one will go in.”

I found it took a few chapters to warm up to this book, as Hattie’s situation is very difficult at first. But with a bit of a twist at the end, I felt genuinely happy and optimistic for Hattie, Min, Logan and Thebes.

Reader's Diary #779- Sarah Selecky: This Cake is for the Party

2011-11-28T00:01:00.000-05:00

For the record, I'm a bigger fan of Margaret Atwood than Stephen King. Atwood crafts a sentence like nobody's business, but-- and this is odd considering his specialty is supernatural horror-- I'd give King the points for capturing domesticity.

I thought of this while reading Sarah Selecky's "This Cake Is for the Party" in November's Walrus. The 2nd sentence goes, "David is on the couch, cleaning under his fingernails with a corner of his Safeway card, and I’m in the kitchen, plucking red petals off a mini-rosebush plant, hoping they’re edible." No character in an Atwood novel would ever use a Safeway card. That's classic King.

And yet the story is far from supernatural horror-- it's about a couple going to visit friends who have recently engaged for a celebratory party. It's a subtle piece. It's a typical relationship, not perfect, and it probably won't last but this is never stated. It has the whitish smell of an orange just before it turns moldy and inedible. This is more Atwood.

King and Atwood make an interesting recipe for a story, I'd say.

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

Reader's Diary #778- Leena Krohn (translated by Anselm Hollo) : The Three Buddhas

2011-11-21T00:01:00.001-05:00

As I mentioned yesterday I was contacted recently by a journalist named Verna Kuutti from Finland who was writing an article about Canadian literature. In return, it got me to thinking about Finnish authors.

Fortunately I was able to find a short story by Leena Krohn, a Finlandia Prize winner for literature, online. "The Three Buddhas" was originally written in Finnish but translated into English by Anselm Hollo.

Interestingly, much of the earlier part of the story is set in Japan. Still not down from the high of my Japan vacation two years ago, this was a pleasant surprise. It also had one of the best sentences I've read this year. Talking about Finland's stunted trees, she writes, "Their wood is dense and tough, their annual rings remain as narrow as engagement rings." I find that simile very poetic.

"The Three Buddhas" is an interesting story about believing in the supernatural, getting subtle messages or hints from some great beyond. As a skeptic who'd actually like to believe in magic, the story spoke to me. Rationalizing everything as a coincidence is my specialty. The most logical explanation usually isn't a ghost. But it would be nice.

I didn't love "The Three Buddhas" mostly because it felt like two stories in one, but the first half I quite enjoyed.

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

Finnish your CanLit

2011-11-20T17:15:00.006-05:00

Recently I and a bunch of other Canadian lit bloggers were contacted by a Finnish journalist writing about contemporary Canadian literature. I just visited Bella's Bookshelf where Steph posted her answers to the questions. I was quite impressed with her answers and felt, in hindsight, that I may have rushed mine. But I was even more impressed with the discussion that developed in the comments following her post. In the spirit of keeping that discussion alive, I've decided to follow her lead and post my responses as well. Feel free to disagree. In fact, looking it over again today, I think I even disagree with myself on a few points. In particular, when asked about a common factor that would describe the newest generation of Canadian writers, I reply that there are more female novelists than males. I have no idea if that's true and it was pretty irresponsible of me to suggest it. I'm sure that's just one of the points people may take exception to, but if something does bother you please let me know! As for the recommended book blogs and websites, I apologize in advance if I didn't include your blog. I just picked a few that came to mind and that would change at any given moment.

Enough with the disclaimers and apologies, here are my responses:

This year most of the nominees for important literary prizes were relatively fresh names. Do you think a generation shift is happening in Canadian literature? Or is it something that the media invented?

I do think there's a generational shift. Fairly or not, I think the younger generation considers the old club as stuffy: boring and way too serious. I don't think the media invented it at all. In fact, I think the media has held on to its hero-worship of some of old guard of writers longer than the general public. To be fair, the new generation of readers can also be somewhat fickle. There are, of course, some exceptions (Miriam Toews springs to mind), but fewer new authors will ever achieve the fan base of Margaret Atwood or Carol Shields. Not that the next great talent isn't out there, I just think newer readers are bigger risk takers. Instead of sticking with an author they know will be a safe bet, they want to try new names, new styles, and so on.

Could you name five of the most interesting writers that have published their first book after 2000?

1. Jeff Lemire 2. Scott Chantler (You'll note that my first 2 choices are actually graphic novelists. While still meeting some of the usual resistance, for the most part graphic novels are being accepted into Canada's literary scene with open arms. Definitely not the superhero variety - though Lemire does that, too-- I think Canada could lead the way with literary comics) 3. Joseph Boyden (Probably one of the more traditional novelists, in terms of style, on this list. But even with the shift in styles, it's good we aren't throwing out the baby with bath water.) 4. Stacey May Fowles (who does quirky right) 5. Ivan Coyote (technically, her first book came out in 98, but close enough. The master of self-reflection, Coyote's writing challenges social norms but with such humour people actually listen.)

Is there a common factor that would describe the newest generation of Canadian writers?

For starters there seem to be more female novelists than males. Other than that, I'd say quirkiness. The quirkiness is a mixed blessing. Certainly not as stuffy as before, but sometimes the quirkiness feels so forced it's hard to relate to any characters. And while urban literature is definitely on the rise, rural lit is still quite popular here despite most of our population living in larger centers.

What are the strengths of contemporary Canadian literature compared to literature coming from other countries?

We're actually getting a pulp fiction, or pop fiction, base now with genre writers like Alan Bradley, Robert J. Sawyer and Kelley Armstrong leading the way, but I think Canada is odd in that this is new. We've always been a literary sort of country. We've never had a Stephen King or Dan Brown equivalent. And while that might make us sound snooty, I do think the newer Canadian writers are "lightening up" so to speak, and the result is intelligent but entertaining writing.

Canadian indie music is quite well-known around the word – do you think Canadian literature could become an international brand, a guarantee of quality and a certain freshness? Or is it artificial to try to group young writers by labelling them ”Canadian literature”?

Hmmm, I'm not sure. On the one hand, I'd like to think that our novels speak of common human conditions, but on the other hand, Canada's identity issues (defined more by what we aren't than what we are) shape our writing. We're coming, I think, to terms with our personality being a disjointed personality. I hope that it, and the locales and references, would be of interest to outside readers, but I'm not in a position to judge that. While I love Canada's indie music scene and that it's gotten world recognition, I think a book is more personable than a 4 minute song.

Do you think there is a favorable and supportive climate in Canada for the emergence of new talents?

I'm sure a writer could answer this better than I, but I suspect so. I've heard some people knock the number of awards and writers festivals that we have, but I think promotion and recognition could only be a blessing. A couple of years ago Alice Munro withdrew her name from the Giller Prize shortlist as she stated she'd won twice before. That's support at its finest.

Does the wider public read contemporary writers?

Absolutely. Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants and Emma Donogue's Room have had amazing success, for instance.

If somebody abroad wants to follow what happens in the Canadian literary world, what sources (blogs/websites) should they follow?

The Book Mine Set, of course. Chris at Bookarama. The Keepin' It Real Bookclub. And the Globe & Mail online book page is quite good.

Reader's Diary #777- Isak Dinesen: The Blank Page (

2011-11-14T00:01:00.000-05:00

Isak Dinesen, a pen name for Danish author Karen Blixen, was the author behind Out of Africa, "Babette's Feast," and Seven Gothic Tales. I, however, was completely unaware of her or her writing until yesterday when I looked for a short story from Denmark. Though she died in 62, she certainly seems to have her fan base even still. Check out this website all about her life and works, maintained by Linda Donelson, a Dinesen scholar for over 30 years.

I set out to read "Babette's Feast" but couldn't find a free online copy so settled instead on "The Blank Page." It's framed as a story being told by an old lady who makes her living telling stories, as did generations of women before her. I get the impression Dinesen is describing a Gypsy character, though that term is never used. Fortunately the frame is as interesting as the story that follows, of a Portuguese convent that displays bedsheets donated from the royal family, sheets from the wedding nights of the princesses. It's a bit of a meandering story, but you do see the ending coming a little ways off. It's fascinating, and makes a strong case for the untold stories of the world.

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

Saturday Word Play: Book Mine Set Review Wordles

2011-11-12T00:01:00.001-05:00

Years ago, my future wife and I worked summer jobs on a crew of groundskeepers at Memorial University. Many days during our down times someone would throw out a simple trivia game: Name a band starting with N. Name an Al Pacino movie. And so on. It'd pass the time and was mild fun until one particular girl on the crew insisted on making it about her: Try and guess my favourite song! Who knows my favourite food? Irritating, but we've since had loads of fun at her expense. She's now the go-to reference when we make fun of self-absorbed people.

But today I'm the pot calling the kettle black. I'm turning all the attention on me. (Which is the point of a blog after all!) Really, I was just goofing around with Wordle, making word clouds of some of my past reviews to see how obvious it would be as to which book I was referring. How many can you recognize? Note: I think I've chosen some of the better known books than the more obscure books I've reviewed. I've also removed any reference to words in the title and the author's name.

As always, try to do all 10 at home but only answer 1 in the comment section. That way 9 others will have a chance to play along. Click on each Wordle for a larger image.

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Like Wordles? Try my Quotable Wordles from 2 years ago.

Reader's Diary #776- Sandra Dolan: Wooden Boats and Iron People

2011-11-10T01:07:00.004-05:00

Published by the Mary Kaeser Library Board, I wasn't sure what to expect with Sandra Dolan's Wooden Boats and Iron People: The History of Fort Smith, NWT. With no offense intended to the board, I can't imagine they're often in the business of publishing, and outside of Fort Smith residents, I don't expect they'd count on a wide audience.

Which is unfortunate. Wooden Boats and Iron People is a charming book. With glossy photos, well-planned layouts, and most importantly, stellar writing, it comes across as a professional publication. And for Canadian history buffs, it's every bit as entertaining and enlightening as stuff published by large companies.

This summer I read a history of Yellowknife by Ray Price. For the most part I enjoyed it but complained that it got tedious with insignificant details. At a hundred pages, Dolan's writing is far more concise and yet covers much more ground. She starts way back in the days when Fort Smith was covered by the Wisconsin Ice Sheet and follows right up to the present day. She touches on treaties, the church, the schools, the fur trade, the role of Fort Smith as a transportation hub, John Franklin, mayors, landslides, and believe it or not, a whole lot more, without, amazingly feeling rushed.

As a bonus, I also found a few surprises. First-- and this actually relates more to all the northern nonfiction I've been reading lately-- is the interconnectedness of the towns in the Northwest Territories. Coming from a small outport in Newfoundland, I'm used to the idea of small remote towns being isolated and developing in a largely independent setting. While I'd have expected the towns of the Northwest Territories to be likewise, I'm quickly finding that's not necessarily the case. First off, the aboriginal people seemed to move around much more and secondly, as much trade and development depended on life along the various rivers, one town's growth had direct bearing on another. It seems they were not as isolated from one another as I'd assumed.

Secondly, it would appear that one of Fort Smith's largest resources is politics. I was quite taken aback by how many familiar politicians came from this town of about 2500 people. As the fourth largest town in the territory, it seems to have a disproportionate share of well-recognized faces. Good on them!

Wooden Boats and Iron Boats is by no means an objective book and is celebratory in tone. However it's also not an embarrassing tourist brochure that's high on praise, short on facts. It's an educational and entertaining read.

Reader's Diary #775- Tomson Highway: The Rez Sisters

2011-11-09T00:35:00.002-05:00

Knocking the 2nd book off my Canadian Confession list, The Rez Sisters also completes my reading trek around the country for the Canadian Book Challenge (I used this one for Manitoba as Highway was born there, but it is set in Ontario).

It's also the first play I've read for this edition of the Canadian Book Challenge. I usually like reading plays, though I also usually suppose that seeing it performed would be the superior approach. I don't have any doubts with The Rez Sisters that I'd enjoy it more in person. Granted, it would depend on the acting and they'd certainly have their work cut out for them with this one.

The six sisters (some with each other, some half sisters, some in-law) are too hard to differentiate. The only really stand out characters are an adopted daughter who is a mentally handicapped adult and a bird character. I'm not sure what the problem is. When I see the various character issues broken down as is done here, it seems like it should have rather easy to distinguish one from the other. Perhaps the shared rough-around-the-edges personality overrode the facts. Then again, this many close relatives of the same gender, same generation, and same hometown are bound to have some things in common, aren't they? Maybe it was the frenetic pace that was too distracting to the individual personalities. On their quest to raise enough money to afford a trip into Toronto to attend the world's largest Bingo, I can't even remember who fought who, who wanted to be a country singer, who was sleeping with Big Joey, though I know all this stuff happened. But I figure with a well paced performance and with a strong cast who infuse their own interpretations into the roles, it would an entertaining play. Whether or not it's a depressing play would be up to the audience and/or the director's vision. While no one can argue that The Rez Sisters doesn't have a dark side, the hope you walk away with could be determined by whether or not a lack of positive change is the focal point, or if the relationships of these women is the focus.

Reader's Diary #774- Luigi Pirandello: War

2011-11-07T00:01:00.001-05:00

(With no disrespect to Mr. Pirandello, I find his photo a little creepy. It's not him, it's the photography.)

With Remembrance Day coming up, I figured I'd take a moment to read a story about war, so I Googled war + short story and this one was right at the top. Which is quite good because as it turned out, I really enjoyed it.

"War" by Luigi Pirandello takes place on a train. A mother and father are off to see their son before he heads to the front. They are understandably upset, but soon they realize they are sharing a car with other parents who know exactly what they are going through. However, instead of drawing support from one another, they soon get into a heated debate about who has it worse. Itself could be a comment on the cause of wars.

Finally, one man appears to be the voice of reason. We soon see, however, that there's a time to think with the brain and a time to feel with the heart. Pirandello makes a strong case that we often get those times confused.

I quite enjoyed this story and it's quite short, so I'd recommend checking it out.

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

Reader's Diary #773- J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2011-11-04T00:54:00.005-04:00

I learned a new world today: penultimate. The second to last in a series. Good to know. Likely I'll forget it, but good to know for now.

Especially as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince feels like a penultimate book. There are fewer flashbacks and recounting of past details, as if there is an assumption (a fair one) that few readers are likely to pick up this book without having some similarity with the previous story. And while there is a definite climax, it still feels like a stepping stone to the grand finale. I'm not complaining of this, just noting that the feel of this book is quite different.

Also differentiating the book are a few other style choices. In particular, Harry appears later in this book than in any of the previous books (he's not even in the first two chapters) and thankfully little time is spent on the Dursleys. And while Voldemort doesn't appear in the flesh himself, his presence is definitely felt and having him held back makes the reader both dread and look forward to the final showdown yet to come. Unlike the last book in which some readers complained about Harry's moodiness, he seems more focused and matured in this book.

My daughter took Dumbledore's death pretty hard, but her fury towards Snape gave her something else to focus on. She's too nice to admit it, but you can tell she wants blood. As for me, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is neither my favourite, nor least favourite in the series, but it felt necessary.

5th Annual Canadian Book Challenge- 4th update

2011-11-01T00:02:00.002-04:00

Another month, another 80+ books read. Last month's roundup included a couple of war books (perfect for the upcoming Remembrance Day), some past Canada Reads champs and contenders, a cookbook, and a handful of books with very long (more than 5 words) titles. Check them out, and please leave some comments when you read one another's reviews!

I know we've just finished Halloween, and I know how much we hate seeing Christmas decorations in the stores already, but I wanted to offer next month's prizes as potential Christmas presents. I also have to get them in before the year is out, seeing as both lots of prizes are celebrating anniversaries that happened in 2011:

1. From Scholastic Canada, it's the tenth anniversary of their wildly popular historical fiction for young readers series, Dear Canada:

That Fatal Night by Sarah Ellis

It is May 1912, one month after the horrific sinking of the Titanic, and twelve-year-old survivor Dorothy Wilton is sent home from school in disgrace when she strikes another student. Although she's expelled, her sympathetic teacher encourages Dorothy to write an account of her experience on the ship, with the hopes that it will help Dorothy come to terms with her trauma.

and also by Sarah Ellis, A Prairie as Wide as the Sea:

Ivy Weatherall and her family leave a comfortable life in London for the promised riches of Canada's expanding West. Expecting to make their fortunes on Uncle Alf's ranch, the Weatheralls are shocked to find themselves living in a sod hut on a rented farm. Ivy is determined to taste life to the fullest, whatever hardships she may encounter. Writing in her diary, she recounts learning the new skills expected of a young farm girl. She struggles to help the family survive, but ultimately learns that responsibility brings its rewards.

But that's not all! Also included in this Scholastic Prize, in honour of our war veterans, comes 2 books from their newest series, I Am Canada aimed at 9-12 year olds: Shot at Dawn, by John Wilson, and Prisoner of Dieppe, by Hugh Brewster:

Alistair "Allie" Morrison lets his friend Mackie talk him into enlisting for WWII, even though he’s only 18. After months of endless training, Allie is eager for battle. But his first action is not just any battle . . . it’s the disastrous raid on the German-held port of Dieppe.

The reality of trench warfare comes as a shock to Allan McBride. Like many other young soldiers, he enthusiastically signed up for the chance to join the war effort and be a part of the fighting. But after months in the ravaged battlefields, watching men, including his friend Ken, get blown up by German shelling, something in Allan snaps and he leaves his unit, believing he is “walking home to Canada” to get help for a friend.

Whew! Pretty awesome prize pack, right? You might want to win them for a son, daughter, a niece, a nephew, a friend of the family, or if you're like me maybe you still enjoy reading youth fiction, for yourself.

But that's not the only give away this month. From Kids Can Press, I also have 4 copies of Franklin in the Dark to give away. Can you believe Paulette Bourgeois and Brenda Clark's lovable turtle has been with us for 25 years? This anniversary edition of the book that started it all comes loaded with special features such including a look at the original manuscript, letters from the author and illustrator, and a collection of Franklin success stories.

With the Scholastic Prize Pack and the 4 individual copies of Franklin in the Dark up for grabs, you've got an awesome shot at a prize this month. All you need to do, if you're a Canadian Book Challenge participant, is either write in the comments below what your favourite Canadian children's book or YA novel is or better yet, review such a book in November as one of your November's reads (remember to come back here and let me know!), and you'll have your name entered in five random draws. Good luck!

Last month's prize pack was up for grabs for any participant who reviewed (and linked to) an award winning Canadian book. That prize goes to Shonna, for reviewing David Bezmozgis' Giller shortlisted The Free World. Congratulations Shonna, you've won these wonderful books, generously donated by HarperCollins Canada. Enjoy:

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What are your reading plans for November? Has Canada Reads inspired you to read more nonfiction? Any new releases that you can't wait to get your hands on?

Don't forget to keep reviewing Canadian books in November. Share your links at the round-up post here.

Reader's Diary #772- John R Little: Following Marla

2011-10-31T00:01:00.002-04:00

John R. Little's "Following Marla" opens with a soon-to-be bride revealing to her soon-to-be groom that she had once faked her own death and changed her identity in order to get out of an abusive relationship. Remember that from Sleeping With the Enemy?

Silly Hollywood beginning, made even sillier when you realize it's not even essential to the plot of the rest of the story. Basically the bride, Marla needs to die in order for the rest of the story to happen. But at the hands of an abusive husband who had believed her dead and coincidentally on her wedding night? Good lord this is stupid.

Then there's rest of the story. I admit, he was beginning, ever so slightly, to draw me in at this point. The new husband, Andy, kills himself to go to the afterlife and get her back. But then I realized that premise too was ripped off from What Dreams May Come and that John R. Little needs to watch less movies.

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

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

2011-10-31T00:01:00.001-04:00

Reader's Diary #771- Robert Munsch and illustrated by Michael Martchenko: Boo!

2011-10-30T18:25:00.006-04:00

Robert Munsch is a marketing genius. Someone having a new baby, line up for your copy of Love You Forever. Know a kid into hockey? Just One Goal makes a perfect gift. And of course, how about those holidays? Primary teachers just love themed classroom libraries, and you'd be hard pressed to find a Halloween collection in Canada that doesn't include Boo! written by Munsch and illustrated by long time collaborator Michael Martchenko.

You've got to admire that savvy, even if you're not wild about his books. As for me, I like Munsch in small doses. Essentially, you've read one Munsch book, you've read them all. Their formulaic, no doubt about it, but kids at least seem to love the formula. Drop in ample doses of repetition, escalate the silliness, and you can just about plug any plot in there.

In Boo! the silliness revolves around Lance, a boy determined to have the scariest painted face on Halloween. Not even a remotely scary book, it does have a chuckle or two as Lance proceeds to frighten the living daylights out of people answering their doors to trick-or-treaters. They pass out, he proceeds to rob them of their candy (it's Munsch, so such a moral issues is, as is typical, ignored). Finally he meets a teenager who might just be his match in the scary face department...

As usual, I enjoyed Martchenko's art, which it seems, in his later career is getting more retrospective. He seems to have a hidden trademark of sticking a pterodactyl somewhere, regardless of its relevance to the plot or setting. Likewise, he seems to be adding more characters from past books. At the end of Boo! we see someone dressed as the Paperbag Princess. Of course this too might be marketing, as younger readers are getting introduced to the back catalogue of Munsch.

You'd be correct in assuming that I have mixed feelings about Munsch books. Fortunately, my kids don't pick up on it. They are easy books to adapt and they're as fun as you make them. I read the characters with silly voices, and in Boo! my son loves to read the "Boo!" parts, at which I scream way too loudly for a bedtime read.

At age 6, Boo! is a perfect Halloween read.

(And according to this interview, he has written a couple Christmas books that are-- as of yet-- unpublished. $)

Reader's Diary #770- David Adams Richards: For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down

2011-10-25T23:45:00.002-04:00

It was back in August that I revealed the 20 glaring omissions in my Canadian reading and I've finally knocked it down to 19. I hope I'll be able to express my feelings towards those 19 better than this one.

In some ways For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down is very typically Canadian. It's set in rural Canada, it's depressing as all hell, and lacking any trace of humour. Is a bleak style better than no style? I guess.

But in another way, it's different from a lot of Canadian writing of which it shares its sense of melancholy. Carol Shields, Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence-- none of these women write with as much sparseness as Richards. His sentences are short and blunt. It seems to fit the feel of the book. And again, I can't really say if that's a good thing or not.

One of the wounded being hunted down, and the most important person at that, is Jerry Bines. He's just been acquitted of a murder and returns home to a Miramichi, New Brunswick mill town. He's under a microscope, he's feared, he's idolized. He's also quite misunderstood, arguably even by himself.

This is one of the rare cases where I found the blurbs on the back cover essential to my interest and understanding of the book. In particular, quotes from the Canadian Forum ("Invested with a passion and acuity that strip away false fronts of smug misunderstanding and ideological or moral comfort...") and Whig-Standard, Kingston ("Richards wants us to avoid easy explanations, the ones that separate us from 'the wounded' and just explain them away.") helped me focus on particular characters and their motivations.

Recently a friend of mine remarked that we're not meant to understand serial killers, pedophiles, and the like. Not understanding is what separates us from them. I've had that thought before, and I found myself nodding in agreement. But I have to admit, like the quotes above suggested, there's a certain comfort in that thought. I can't understand it, therefore I'm a better person and I move on. The characters in For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down are not content to settle for enigmas, they draw quick, black and white conclusions. If David Adams Richards is able to challenge both us types in a single go-- those content not to understand and those who mistakenly believe they do-- then great. Who doesn't love a challenging book?

The catch to that is a book that smacks of cynicism. Everyone's wrong? I'm not saying a book needs to be comforting (it's not Chicken Soup For The Souls of Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down), but I had to fight the feeling that I was having a finger wagged in my face. My hope is that what Richards was really was saying was this: it's true that we can't hunt the wounded down, we can't explain away their ills, but it's important to try, and really try, anyway. Our futile attempts keep us human.

Then, I could be way off.

Reader's Diary #769- Tim Waggoner: When God Opens a Door

2011-10-24T00:01:00.002-04:00

Remember the old horror movie victims who seemed to make all the wrong decisions? Checking out that noise in the basement? That never ends well. If you've ever wondered what goes on in the heads of these people or if you've shaken your head at the implausibility of it all, then Tim Waggoner's "When God Opens a Door" is for you.

Through Darrell, Waggoner finally takes us inside the mind of such a person. It's still more horror than psychological thriller but it's almost an equal balance. I didn't come away sympathizing with Darrell, but I think I understood him. Most importantly, I was creeped out. A great story for Halloween. Thanks to Carol at Carol's Notebook for introducing me to this story.

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

Trivial Sunday- Sequel? I had no idea.

2011-10-23T01:30:00.002-04:00

The first book was wildly popular, the 2nd not so much. Can you name the unpopular sequels to the these popular titles?

Feel free to do all 10 at home, but only answer 1 in the answers below. That way 9 others will have a chance to play along. Try to answer the question you feel would be the most difficult.

1. Farley Mowat- Lost in the Barrens (aka Two Against the North-- see last week's quiz)

2. Island of the Blue Dolphins- Scott O'Dell

3. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory- Roald Dahl

4. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams- Wayne Johnston

5. Forrest Gump- Winston Groom

6. Holes- Louis Sachar

7. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs- Judi Barrett

8. Trainspotting- Irving Welsh

9. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings- Maya Angelou

10. Catch 22- Joseph Heller

(Like reading obscure sequels? Why not write a review for my equally obscure blog, the not-so cleverly named "The Obscure Challenge." Also, feel free to add another lesser known sequel below!)

Canada Reads 2012- The Hype and Gripe

2011-10-19T23:22:00.002-04:00

For those of you that still care, Canada Reads is back once again with another installment of their annual literary smack-down. And though book sales will soar and it'll no doubt be the number one book related program in the country, the naysayers will also be out in force. I've been the flag-waving super-fan, I've been the vitriolic super-annoyed. In the past couple of years however, I've been working on my moderation skills. I'd still consider myself a fan, but a true fan can still recognize when things aren't exactly as they should be. In fact, a true fan should because true fans care enough to seek improvement. In that spirit I bring you my praise (the hype) and my complaints (the gripe):

The Hype:
1. This year they're trying nonfiction. It's going to be interesting to see how a panel will handle these books. Will they focus on writing quality? The importance of the topics? Both? It's nice to see the Canada Reads crew experimenting with new approaches.
2. Return to older books. Last year they restricted it to books published in the past 10 years and I missed the opportunity to discover books I'd missed for whatever reason the first time around (King Leary, Rockbound, etc).

The Gripe (Unfortunately I have more of these):

1. This year they're trying nonfiction. Yes, I know, I'm hard to please. I do like nonfiction, but with the insane changes last year and now this, I admit it: I miss the old show. And besides, couldn't they just allow panelists to choose nonfiction if they wish? Is there something saying that nonfiction and fiction can't compete with one another? They've had poetry, short stories, and graphic novels take on novels, granted unsuccessfully, but what's to say nonfiction would suffer the same fate? If you look at book sales, nonfiction can certainly hold its own. But making it solely nonfiction? I'm not sure I like where this is going. Will next year's competition be restricted to cookbooks? Instructional manuals? Works of Margaret Atwood? Opening up the competition is a good idea, but only if they genuinely open it up.

2. The Top 40, the top 10, the top 5. We get it. CBC wants to milk this baby to death. Not content to simply announce the 5 books in November as was the tradition, readers are now asked to suggest and vote on their favourite books to create a top 40 list, which leads to another vote to arrive at a top 10, and then the five panelists will pick a book from that list to defend in the spring. Again, part of this plan is admirable-- fans get a chance to be part of the action. But this was my biggest beef with the program last year and biggest beef with the program this year. We're left with panelists who are potentially only there for publicity sake. Sure they pick the final five, but from a very short list. Compare this with panelists from past shows who were free to pick from any fictional Canadian book of their choosing. Who do you think would be more passionate about their choices? Don't say that last year's panelists seemed passionate because it doesn't compare when people are debating for the sake of debating versus debating for something they really care about. And besides, if they want to truly let fans participate we all know how they can do it: add one or two or five to the debating panel.

3. The lack of transparency. On the surface Canada Reads looks like it's all about transparency. It's one of the reasons that fans, like myself, appreciate the show. If you've ever wondered what conversations go on behind the scenes for the Giller or Governor General's Prizes, Canada Reads should be right up your alley. But the voting process this year seemed fishy. Here's a comment I submitted to their website, which they published but neglected to answer:

Just a thought from us impatient folk who submitted our recommendations and have yet to see them posted: could you please offer an explanation of your process? Will all recommendations eventually be posted or are they screened in some way? How long should we wait until we inquire about whether or not you actually received our recommendation? If our recommendations don't get published online, are they still considered when you do your final "support" tally for the top 40?

When they asked for submissions, they said that the 40 books with the most votes (i.e., nominations) would make the almighty top 40 list. Fine, so my submission (Cassie Brown's Death on the Ice) probably didn't enough submissions. However, I don't think it was given a fair chance. You see, each day they published some submission "highlights." They apparently got thousands of submissions, so I understand that they couldn't publish all of them. However, when they publish some submissions while the vote counting is still underway, the daily published submissions are more likely to get more votes. If, for instance, my Cassie Brown suggestion was published, who's to say that other people wouldn't say, "Hey, I remember that book! It was great! I should nominate it, too." Instead they published four or five submissions for Karen Connelly's dreadful Burmese Lessons, which in turn made the top 40 list. I'd ventured to guess that maybe they were simply publishing the submissions that already appeared in the lead. But then, they also published three or four nominations for Charlotte Gray's typo-ridden Gold Diggers and yet it was her Mrs. King that made the cut. If it had a rhyme or reason, they really should have communicated it better. Otherwise, it looked like the producers manipulated the outcome, picking their favourites and promoting them accordingly (sometimes working, in the case of Connelly's crap book, or not working, in the case of the Gray's Gold Diggers). In any case, mine wasn't the only comment of complaint, and while I understand that they don't have to, can't, and shouldn't address every single whiny letter they get, there were a bunch of us with similar complaints, their credibility is shaky enough as it is, and clearly they got the damn complaints as they moderated the comments and still chose to publish them.

If you read all the above, I assume you care somewhat about the program. If you do, go check out the top 40. Vote if you want and/or voice your concerns with the direction of the program. I personally want it to succeed, but I think the producers need to sit down and seriously discuss what the fans want and question where they want the show to go.

Reader's Diary #768- Panu Trivej (translated by Marcel Barang): The sky-blue jar

2011-10-17T00:01:00.002-04:00

If Walter Mitty was a bit more fatalistic, if James Thurber explored meta-fiction, if, if, if...

From what I gather from "The sky-blue jar," Panu Trivej would love that he inspired this "what if" game. It's exactly the kind of story I love. It's playful but thoughtful, easily read but encourages multiple reads.

It's also not the Thai sort of story I expected. By most accounts, "The sky-blue jar" could almost be anywhere. Short of the character names, there are hardly any cultural markers to anchor the story. I like this from time to time. I've felt that way about northern books, for instance. You almost never read a novel about someone getting divorced or visited by aliens in the north. No, usually our books involves someone getting lost in a canoe. It's not that getting lost in a canoe can't be interesting and that writers shouldn't sometimes write about such a thing, it's just that not every facet of our lives here depends upon us being in the north. Trivej proves the same about Thailand.

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

Trivial Sunday- AKA

2011-10-16T00:01:00.001-04:00

For political reasons, for financial reasons, for cultural reasons, for legal issues, for inexplicable reasons, sometimes books are found under various names. Below, I've given you some popular book titles. Do you know the alternate names?

Feel free to do all 12 at home, but only answer 1 in the answers below. That way 11 others will have a chance to play along. Try to answer the question you feel would be the most difficult.

1. Lost in the Barrens - Farley Mowat
2. Someone Knows My Name - Lawrence Hill
3. The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul - Deborah Rodriguez
4. Shadows in the Sun - Wade Davis
5. What the Stones Remember - Patrick Lane
6. Cross Stitch - Diana Gabaldon
7. Northern Lights - Phillip Pullman
8. "A Visit From St. Nicholas" - Clement C. Moore
9. Ten Little N*ggers - Agatha Christie (the book, not the play)
10. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J.K. Rowling
11. Schindler's List - Thomas Keneally

Bonus: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (according to Jerry Seinfeld)

Reader's Diary #767- Karen Connelly: Burmese Lessons

2011-10-11T20:21:00.003-04:00

One of the first things to strike me about Karen Connelly's Burmese Lessons was the lack of Canadian reference. True, it is a memoir of her time in Burma (or Myanmar as I know it), but as a fellow traveler I find it hard not to compare countries I visit to Canada. In fact, Connelly spends more time comparing Burma to Greece than to her home for the first 17 years of her life (and the country which partially funded her trip there). But I'm not the patriotism police, I merely found it curious. For those who stick it out for the duration, readers are rewarded on page 425 with a bit of insight as to where the Canada avoidance comes from.

The second thing that struck me was how little I liked this book, not to mention--and I truly hate to say this-- the author. Did you ever read Corinne Hoffman's The White Masai? Admittedly, I have not, but I did see the movie and I had similar feelings watching that I as did while reading Burmese Lessons. I also had Pulp's Common People (the William Shatner cover) stuck in my head. Replace Common with Foreign in that song, and you'd almost have Hoffman's and Connelly's philosophy summed up. As if sleeping with a local and pretending it's love is somehow a superior souvenir.

Do I sound harsh and judgmental? I wrestled with that for 300 pages, trying my hardest to give Connelly the benefit of a doubt. She was young, I told myself (she was 27), and young people are supposed to be naive and make mistakes, that's how they learn. Enjoy the energy and freedom of youth, I said. But nuts to that. Her irresponsibility amounted to selfishness and I couldn't take it. Especially when

I had expected to read about Burma, not some silly pseudo-love story. One or two pages about the torture of Burmese dissidents and a couple hundred pages of the author having unprotected sex with a man she just met? Self-indulgent or what?

I can't believe this book has gotten good reviews. It even won the Governor General's Award? You people must be a patient lot.

Reader's Diary #766- Michael J Cunningham: Family Thanksgiving

2011-10-10T11:04:00.004-04:00

Michael J Cunningham, as far as I can tell, is probably not the same Michael Cunningham that wrote The Hours. I could be wrong, but I doubt many Pulitzer Prize winners are submitting their short stories to Backhand Stories.com where, according to their submission guidelines, writers don't get paid.

Not that there still couldn't be gems to be found for free, of course. Over the past few years of hosting Short Story Mondays I've found many wonderful and free short stories online, by well known and lesser known authors. I can't say, however, that I'm particularly ~~impressed with~~ thankful for Michael J Cunningham's "Family Thanksgiving."

"Family Thanksgiving" begins with the author describing how at family gatherings he finds himself taking mental vacations. The sky here, he muses, could be the sky over the Bahamas, and thus, with his mind elsewhere, he can cope with familial stress. Though I disagree that the skies are the same wherever you go (it's been my experience they are shockingly different), I can relate at least to the sentiment.

But that's where my attachment to the story ended. I found the narrator, to be honest, too annoying. With a little more humility, this story about an extended family thanksgiving could easily have been a Stuart McLean tale. With more crotchetiness, it could have been a Mordecai Richler story. But somewhere in between doesn't work and many of the jokes just aren't funny.
I suspect others at this shindig don't particularly enjoy being near Uncle Jack any more than he enjoys being near them. I picture the family sitting on a beach, sipping pina colladas, and soaking up the sun, when suddenly they look up to see Uncle Jack staring down out them-- they all look at one another and scream, and suddenly they're all back in an autumn leaf strewn backyard, having to face reality that they're stuck having Thanksgiving together.

I, on the other hand, am quite thankful for my small family of four this year. No offense to uncle Jack.

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

Reader's Diary #765- William Shakespeare: All's Well That Ends Well

2011-10-07T01:12:00.003-04:00

Last year, on another blog, there was a debate on the merits of reading challenges. A frequent beef against challenges seemed to be that quantity is often pushed over quality. People shouldn't rush books, the folks on this side argued, they should take the time to savour the book, to question it, analyze it and so on. But surely they wouldn't advocate for the way I read William Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well either. I didn't rush it, that's for sure, but I think I lost more by taking too much time.

To read a play is to accept that much will be lost in this usually unintended format. Written for the stage, I know I will not benefit from the performances, the costumes, the direction and so on. So, when I read a play I usually like to read through it quite quickly. If I get get an idea of the story and characters I want to run with it. Otherwise, as was the case with this play which I read piecemeal over the last month or so, I found myself forgetting who was who, I didn't really connect with anyone, and I had to keep reviewing the plot.

The plot isn't bad, even if the characters aren't exactly likeable. In a nutshell, a woman named Helena convinces the King of France to force a man named Bertram to marry her. Bertram feels he is too good for Helena, and though he doesn't disobey the king, goes off to war before consummating the marriage. Helena follows him without his knowing, many people assume she is dead, and Bertram tries to sleep with another woman but unknowingly sleeps with Helena instead. They wind up together at the end, but it's hard to decide what the point of all this was. Nothing really ended up well, except perhaps that two equally despicable people ended up together and in all likelihood would make each other miserable.

I read this play because it was set in France and, as I've said a few times here, we're planning a family vacation there in March-- though I doubt very much I'll recognize anything of France from a 15th century play written by an Englishman!

Reader's Diary #764- Ray Bradbury: The October Game

2011-10-03T00:01:00.000-04:00

The weather in Yellowknife at this point in the year is pretty much what most Canadians expect to get about a month from now. This past weekend the leaves, which had previously changed colour, took the final plunge, and on Saturday we had snow flurries-- they were short lived but it was snow nonetheless. Our kids will once again be trick or treating in the snow. When you move to the north you very quickly learn to buy the Halloween costumes a few sizes too big to ensure they fit over the snowsuits. In other words, we cope, right?

Well, not always and not exactly. Ray Bradbury's "The October Game" begins with a scene of a man named considering using a gun on his wife Louise. He decides against it, however, as it would not make her suffer enough. I'll state what I hope is the obvious here: I don't relate to Mich on that front. However, when Mich starts to contemplate October and what it foreshadows, I did find myself relating somewhat. You'd think, seeing as I actively chose to live in the north I'd be more of a winter person. Overall I don't hate it, I suppose, but I know how Mich can feel overwhelmed by it and come October almost fear it. It's darker, colder, and oh so long. Unlike Mich-- and this is an important distinction to make-- I am comforted that I have a loving family to help pull me through the bleakness of winter. Mich has a family alright, but he certainly doesn't appreciate them. October is the perfect setting for this story.

"The October Game" is dark and scary, but fun in a "Lamb to the Slaughter" sort of way. There is however one "problem." I use the quotation marks here not for sarcasm, but for doubt. Trying not to give anything away, there is a logistical question about three quarters of the way in, in that I have to ask whether or not it was intentional on Bradbury's part. More specifically, and again trying to avoid spoilers, one particular paragraph jumps to another without any mention that much time has passed. However, for the ending to be interpreted the way most readers would likely interpret it, there would need to be a sufficient time lapse. Was it a mistake on Bradbury's part not to directly address the time issue or did he intentionally omit it to plant seeds of doubt about what actually happened? Read it and decide for yourself.

Bonus: I also found an online comic version here.

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

5th annual Canadian Book Challenge- 3rd update

2011-10-01T00:02:00.002-04:00

I'm glad to see that most have you did not slow down in your Canadian reading last month. I, on the other hand, have almost come to a screeching halt. I've returned to work and am currently stuck in the middle of a couple of clunkers. Sure I managed to finish Richard Van Camp's Angel Wing Splash Pattern and Angie Abdou's The Bone Cage, but I'm definitely not coming close to the reading machine I was this past summer.

Collectively in September we read and reviewed over 80 Canadian books, not the least of which included a how-to watercolours books, a review of one of last month's prize giveaways, and a short story collection with a bizarre title. Some participants have just begun while others are well on their way. Good job to everyone.

Last month's prize, generously donated by Ronsdale Press, and consisting of these books:

1. Strongman: The Doug Hepburn Society- Tom Thurston

2. I Have My Mother's Eyes: A Holocaust Memoir Across Generations- Barbara Ruth Bluman

goes out to Swordsman, chosen randomly from those who submitted names of Canadians of whom they'd like to read a biography, autobiography, or memoir. Swordsman would like to find a biography on Joseph Wilcox, whom he refers to compellingly as the "ultimate Canadian traitor."
I'd not heard of Joseph Wilcox before but Swordsman seems to know so much, I'd encourage him to write the biography himself!

This month's prize is awards-based. In September the Scotiabank Giller Prize announced its long list, with the short list set to be announced on October 4th. I'm still annoyed as all hell that two thirds of the judges are not even Canadian, but I promised myself not to rant about that again, but it looks like I just did. Stupid-Giller-garbage-face-aside, I acknowledge the financial boost and most importantly, the increase in readership that a prestigious award can bring, and so next month I encourage you to read Canadian winners and nominees, of any award. If you're a Canadian Book Challenge participant, you read and review an award winning or nominated Canadian book in October, and come back here to leave a link to your review in the comments, your name will be entered in a random draw to win this wonderful prize pack from HarperCollins Canada:

1.

This Dark Endeavour, a prequel to Frankenstein. Kenneth Oppel is the award winner of numerous awards including the Governor General Award, the Michael L Printz Honor Book Award, and the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for children.

2.

Emma Donoghue's Room was the winner of the Rogers Writers Trust Award for fiction and was shortlisted for both a Governor General Award and a Man Booker Prize. And while it's not yet an official award, Room was also the most reviewed book of the 4th edition of Canadian Book Challenge.

And don't forget to keep reading and reviewing Canadian books in October. Share your links at the round-up post here.

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

2011-09-30T23:59:00.000-04:00

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)

*Forgot to add your August review links in August? Not to worry! Feel free to add them in September. Also, check out this months Canadian Book Challenge contest.

Guest Post- Judi Witzig's review of Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay

2011-09-30T09:13:00.002-04:00

Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay

Elizabeth Hay has written a beautiful painting of a story of two generations of women living and loving their lives back and forth across the plains and cities of Canada. Hay’s descriptions of the lands, fields and forests that the story inhabits provide a setting that binds the characters together. The story begins with the murder of a young girl, out picking chokecherries, but the narrator Anne, is introduced well into the first chapter. Anne is the next generation, and her story is intermixed through the sharing of the story of her Aunt Connie, a teacher and her mother’s sister. Tragedy, like this murder, stalks those around her, striking intermittently but repeatedly. Few men populate this book and the three with telling roles in the story, Parley, Michael and Syd, serve as the loom on which Elizabeth Hay weaves the stories of these women’s lives.

The story ripples out across the countryside with the story of Connie as a young woman, teaching in a rural school. Parley is the school’s headmaster, Michael is Connie’s struggling student and Syd the Board of Education traveling evaluator. Connie’s story begins with her teaching, Parley’s understated wooing of Connie, and then of his treachery with Michael’s sister through his staging of a play – Tess of the D’Urbervilles. The ensuing death of Michael’s sister leaves a stain on each of these three lives. Syd is introduced, providing guidance and surety through the aftermath. A chance encounter years later during a train ride finds Connie, now a newspaper reporter, on a train with Parley and his wife and step daughter. All survive the train crash however lives are again stained in its aftermath.

Michael returns and through Anne’s affair with him, we learn of his and Connie’s love affair. The later affair brings a strain and creates a separation between Connie and Anne. Connie’s affair with Michael leads to the end of her brief marriage to Syd. Connie seeks out Parley in his self-imposed incarceration in a sanatorium after establishing another school across the provinces. The visit provides no satisfaction to either Connie or Parley who takes his own life in the subsequent years.

Anne’s story comes more into focus at this point in the story, usurping Connie’s which serves as the parallel to Anne’s growing self-awareness. It is the excavation of Connie’s story that brings the story of Anne and her artist mother. Michael reappears again at the end of his life, the continuing essence that binds the women. Syd too reappears, the survivor. Alone in the Classroom ends gently with Anne’s memories of Connie, Michael and a chance encounter with Paley’s surviving step daughter set forth in her writing. Her own search for self and identity tied back, as she learns, to another’s death in the same train crash that spared Connie and Parley.

Hays' female characters provide strong insights into what makes them tick. Yet the men in the lives of these women blow like the wind, sometimes strong and destructive, sometimes gentle and caressing – tugging and pushing at the lives the women lead. Alone in the Classroom is a compelling read that I enjoyed while sitting on the shores of Lake Ontario.