Sidebars and Book Talks

I sat in class yesterday morning beside my friend Peter. During the lulls and short breaks in the day's agenda, we had a quiet conversation about books. This talk, often in the form of scribbled notes, in the most unlikely of places, buoyed my spirits as I realized that I had found someone whose interest in books paralleled mine.

Peter recommended several books to me and I scrawled notes all over our case studies and agenda pages. From my scribbles, here are some of Peter's suggestions:

1. Life of Pi by Yann Martel


I had seen this book on several top ten lists and searched it out. When I read a brief summary of this 2002 Man Booker Prize winner for fiction, about a young boy adrift at sea with various animals, I have to say that I decided not to pursue this read, as it sounded a bit "too far out". (Unlike many of my friends who adore Mitch Albom, I struggled through the first part of The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and it became one of few books that I have ever abandoned).

So Peter, at your suggestion, I now plan to include this book in my 26 Books challenge for 2010.

2. The Road (Pulitzer Prize, 2007) by Cormac McCarthy

I have not read any of McCarthy's novels and looked into this one. This book is considered of 'the post-apocalyptic' genre as it deals with the journey of a father and son as they travel across the landscape of a destroyed civilization, seeking salvation. This read will be a great way for me to challenge myself, as I am virtually unread in this genre.

3. My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme


Here is a memoir that I know I will love. It has all the essential elements for me, a romantic post-war setting (France), interesting form (letters home, personal notes for recipes), and a love story (the author and her husband, Paul Child) that Julia let the world in on decades later and after the death of her husband. Prud'homme is the greatnephew of Child.

4. Push by Sapphire

Another great recommendation. A first novel by the poet Sapphire, the story is told from the point of view of "Precious" Jones, an illiterate teen living the brutal existence often associated with inner-city life. The movie version that hit theatres this November is entitled "Precious" and is not to confused with the 2009 release of the movie "Push" which is unrelated to this book. I've included the trailer below. Word is that Mariah Carey is receiving rave reviews for her performance (who knew?).



5. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

Peter cautions that the pace of this book is "a bit slow". I asked him if it was sad and he confided that it really was. See, here is another book that I had researched some time ago and again, as I so often do, talked myself out of it before I gave it a chance. For a synopsis, click the title above which is linked to the website dedicated to this story.



Thanks to Peter for all of these suggestions and the dialogue on books.

Favourite Irish and British Writers

I just finished reading Lessons in Heartbreak by Cathy Kelly, one of my favourite Irish authors. My cousin Lisa lent me a bag of books recently and so I picked this one up because it was a Kelly I hadn't read. (This is the first "traditional" book I've read in 7 months. I found it hard at first to adjust back to real paper from the virtual grayscale paper of my ereader. )

Lessons in Heartbreak weaves together the stories of Izzie, Anneliese, and Lily -- three characters related by family ties, each representative of a different generation. This is a more sombre book for Kelly as it deals with the issue of infidelity from several points of view. Izzie is Lily's granddaughter who lives in New York where she works for a modeling agency. She is involved in a relationship with a wealthy businessman who is "mentally separated" from his wife. She learns that her grandmother, Lily, has suffered a stroke back at home in Tamarin, Ireland and travels home to be at her side. Izzie's aunt, the long depressed Annaliese, uncovers the shocking truth of her 30+ year marriage around the same time. But I was most intrigued by Lily's storyline. The ailing 90 year old's past is slowly unraveled as the story progresses and we are taken back to wartime London where Lily trains to be a nurse, survives the bombing raids and indignities of class distinctions of that era.

I really liked that this was not a happy endings type of novel. And I never say that... I love happy endings. However, extramarital affairs by their nature cannot have fairy tale endings. Everyone gets hurt. In this novel, the characters all come to a sense of closure and in a sense there is more peace and contentment than "happily ever after."

Kelly writes with an interesting twist. One might expect Lily to narrate her own story, but she doesn't. Also, I loved how the prologue returns in the book.. not what I was expecting. Well, I didn't want to give away too many spoilers, but I definitely would recommend this story.

Now, if you're looking for a funny story by a British writer than I'd suggest reading anything by Catherine Alliott. I stumbled across Alliott's work in a local bookstore a few years back. With few expectations I dove into The Real Thing and then read Rosie Meadows Regrets. Hysterical, I mean hysterical. I laughed out loud, snorting, belly jiggling, hiccuping type laughter ... all the way through these two. The scene in The Real Thing where Tessa arrives at the summer house... classic! For anyone with young children, you will so get this. And Rosie Meadows, well, I needed oxygen to get through this. As my friend Lynda would say, TOO FUNNY!! I haven't read all of Alliott's work yet, sometimes its nice to save a few stories to savour over a holiday or weekend away. So, this Christmas, before I start my 26 books initiative, I'd like to read The Old-Girl Network, just for the laughs.

Join my New Year's 26 Books initiative!

Lately I've been struggling with the concept of time. "Time flies!" When will I ever finish all of my work? How is it Hallowe'en already? Christmas is just around the corner! The underlying theme being that time is a precious commodity and I never seem to have enough of it, and more importantly, fail to distribute any time for myself. It's ironic that we all seem to accept the concept of working overtime, yet we struggle with the idea of "living overtime." It shouldn't be that I'm creating Summer Reading Wishlists... I should commit time for myself to pursue my passion for reading all year round. And I really think that I should be able to do this free from guilt.
So, I'm intrigued by the original purpose of the book blog, "26 books." This idea began on Shane Richmond’s blog in 2006. As part of a plan to motivate himself to read more, Shane decided to read 26 books in a year. He completed the task with a couple of weeks to spare. For 2007, he decided to invite some friends to join him. The target was to have read and reviewed 156 books by the end of 2007. In fact the total was 167, although only 3 of the participants made it to the target of 26....
What a great way to establish a commitment for my love of reading throughout the year. So, I've decided to do the 26 books initiative and I plan to start in January. I haven't decided yet if I will pre-select the 26 books ahead of time (yesterday, I lamented in a blog post about the trouble with anticipated expecatations for great reads) or let the books come to me as the weeks roll by.
Anyone interested in joining this initiative with me? Are you a passionate reader but never have the time between work brought home, running kids to dance class, hockey, groceries, housework -- ok, well, I've never let this one interfere with my time-- making dinner, walking the dog, laundry --again, purely an example, but I think you get the picture? Let your New Year's resolution be about pursuing something that you love. For those of us who always choose the "I'll re-start my diet" resolution, this will support two resolutions at once. Put down the Hershey bar and pick up a decadent novel instead! Switch your focus from 2lbs a week to 200 pages a week. Get some exercise by walking the stacks at your local library or favourite bookstore.
We don't have to read the same books, in fact it might be interesting to hear comments and posts regarding many books as the year unfolds. An informal book chat versus a "book club."
Not sure what to start with? One of my favourite reads this year was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Send me a message or comment directly to this post to join the "26 books" movement.

Back to Blogging...... a Paperless Reader

I can't believe how much time has slipped by since my last blog post. The summer has passed quickly by, and I did manage to read several of the books on my Summer Wish List as I had previously posted. So here I am well into Autumn and finally returning to my blog.
One of the things that has captured my attention in the last few months was my birthday present, a Sony e-reader. I had wanted an e-reader for quite some time and since Kindle is so slow coming to Canada, I decided on the Sony PRS 505 model. Basically, I've gone completely paperless in my reading. The reader weighs about 9 oz and is enclosed in a leather cover to simulate a "book". The screen has several layers of grayscale technology and is essentially "virtual paper". There are various sizes of fonts and it did take me awhile to move away from large to smaller font sizes. There is no computer glare phenomenon with this device and I find that I read much faster because with a quick press/or toggle of a button, the page turns. The battery is good for about 7000 page turns. You can download text in pdf, lit form and the Sony files convert to lrf files. I have downloaded a converter that takes a file format such as .lit and converts it to .lrf and sends the file directly to my reader. I can purchase books through the online Sony book store and there are several sites where books can be shared or borrowed. Sony has reached an agreement with Google and over 500 000 texts in the public domain are available free online. (These are similar to Project Gutenberg files - so all the great classics are readily available. I've now got all my favourite Dickens and Austen novels on my reader.) My reader has 162 novels on the actual hard drive and then there are 2 slots for memory cards. I'm using one 2G card right now and have stored 1000 novels on this card and have 1.5G remaining. How amazing is that to have my own personal library at my disposal! I don't know if I'll ever read these 1162 novels, but to have the choice at my fingertips, wow! Its great for the cottage and works well out in the sunlight. Instead of carting a box of books with me in the boat, I bring my reader and my charger and I'm set. I also take it with me when I travel as it takes up such a small amount of space in my overnight bag. I can also download many work papers in pdf form to read while I am away. Ok, I've never done this, but its nice the option is available for me. There is the option to download my RSS feeds as well, but I primarily use this for my personal reading. I prefer to use my google reader on my PC for RSS, because then I can not only read these, but link to subsequent pages and view videos and pods, etc.
And speaking about personal reading, a few comments about Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. I read this with perhaps too much anticipation and felt really let down. I enjoyed the first two Robert Langdon stories, especially Angels and Demons and have to say that this third installment left me disappointed. Was it because of the location? Washington and Freemasons? I loved the European settings of the first two books. The Louvre, Paris, Rome, the Vatican... great history, very romantic. Maybe I've watched National Treasure one too many times, but I felt like I'd heard the storyline before. For me, very anticlimatic.
The other book that I'd been hyped up about was Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife. Without being a spoiler, ewww! The leg bit put me right over the top. I also found the erratic time traveling confusing, trying to keep straight the events of past, present and future. The Clare/Henry age difference, nude man, young girl scenario was a bit creepy for me. Henry was a downer of a character all the way through, and although I liked Clare, she was quite the downer enabler. I felt that I expended so much energy to get through this book. Am I getting too picky?
I'm not finished with the books on my Summer Wish List, but I'm wondering if by creating this list, through my anticipation of their greatness, I've set my expectations too high?
I really want to be swept away by a truly great book. Any suggestions?

Spring Reading, not Cleaning!

Well, my course is finished, my papers submitted and I finally have time to catch up on my reading. If you've been following my growing summer reading wishlist, then you'll know that I'm going to need an endless summer to finish all of these books. I'm getting ready to go digital with e-books (don't cringe, I love the feel and look and smell of traditional paper texts too, but I need to keep my eyes ahead in the digital world), so I'm picking up some of the 200 odd (paper) books I've purchased in the last few years and haven't found time for. Two of these were novels by Adele Geras. The first one I read was Hesters's Story. I loved it. The story takes place over several decades and the cast of characters each have their own story thread. It tugs at your heart, but not in a drippy, overly sentimental way. I'm currently reading Facing the Light. It too takes place over a 70 year time span and has the same formula of hidden family intrigue. Last night, I read until midnight. I think I have predicted "the twist" but that hasn't spoiled it for me. Its the type of book that you race to finish, but then are sad that it came to an end. I think that I must be a fan of contemporary/gothic sagas because this book is similar in format to The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield that I blogged about awhile back. Although Geras is a prolific writer, she has only published four adult novels. That leaves me waiting to read, Made in Heaven and A Hidden Life. The list grows again!


For those of you who enjoy Dan Brown's novels, look for the sequel to The DaVinci Code, The Lost Symbol (previously reported as being titled, The Solomon Key) to be released this September. It took Brown 5 years to research this next Robert Langdon adventure which takes place over a 12 hour timeframe. The novel is anticipated to be a huge hit due to the recent movie releases of The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons with 5 million copies being published in first print.

http://www.danbrown.com/the-lost-symbol.html

Animals are Great Role Models

I'm sure it will not be of surprise to my readers (its my blog, I can pretend that I actually have a following) that I have found yet another book to add to my summer reading list. We forgot to buy a lottery ticket for last night's draw, so I continue to be confined to a summer list. The book is called The Antelope's Strategy: Living in Rwanda After the Genocide. It made me think of a very moving video clip that I watched during a presentation on "Psychic Prisons" in my Organizational Management class (yes, the one I'm still writing a paper on...or as my cousin so beautifully put it, "spending too much time taking those silly, yet addicting facebook quizzes instead of finishing the paper). It seems that the "thing" to do these days in the world of academic presentations is to embed engaging and inspiring Youtube clips into power point presentations. And they are effective. Done well, they are humorous, powerful and thought-provoking. However, many seem to recycle through the loop and you can recite the text as it appears to the music track --- remind anyone of "Geese"?
This weekend, the presenter used a clip I hadn't seen before, about the special relationship between two animals, to illustrate her point on cohabitation and celebrating our differences.
The second clip I'm embedding somewhat follows this theme, except it extends to the bonds of relationships that can occur between animals and humans. I found it in a "most viewed" or "what's hot in google?" RSS feed. It also has a book link, but it didn't make the summer cut.

Two Unlikely Friends!




This clip is the reunion of Christian the Lion with his human friends. Christian's parents were zoo lions and as a cub, Christian was sold to Harrod's department store where the two friends purchased him. They brought Christian to their apartment for about a year before the decision was made to return him to his home, and to freedom.

I found a new author from watching a movie!

We rented a few movies over the March Break. My choice was The Other Boleyn Girl. I like historical fiction, especially the Tudor period. I particularly enjoy when the historical fiction is closely related to the known facts.

Typically I won't watch the movie until I've read the book first, but I didn't know that this movie was based on a novel by Philippa Gregory until my friend's 14 year old daughter told me so. She has enthusiastically read many of Gregory's novels. I had heard of the author but thought she was more in the romantic fiction genre, similar to say, Catherine Coulter. Its not that I don't read books from this genre, I do, but am picky with these.

So, I watched the movie the other evening, and it was very well done, beautiful cinematography, period costumes and settings, well acted. But was it true to the events of the time? I was intrigued and thought I'd check out the author's website. The best part of this site is that for every one of her novels she writes a page of background history surrounding the novel and also some professional research to support her findings. Gregory discloses how she attempts to fill in the gaps that history didn't record or has been unable to reach consensus on to tell the story in a first person narrative. This site alone is very interesting, I spent a long time immersed in reading the history of her characters.

So, my summer reading list expands again! I'm not sure which one to start with - I'm going to go through the novels and piece them together in a chronological timeline. I don't want to read about Queen Elizabeth I before Mary Tudor or their dad, King Henry VIII etc. If you are a Philippa Gregory fan and know which one comes first historically, please let me know.

(I'm sorry to report that I did indeed give up on The Historian. I gave it, for me, a valiant effort, almost 200 pages and finally pronounced it dead. I'm sorry the author spent 10 years researching and writing this book; I felt like I aged 10 years reading the first 200 pages. Just not that into it.)