Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner

This is the first book I have read for Canada Reads 2010, and I can safely say I was not swooned the way I should have been. Yes, it was good. But it didn’t grab me the way the winning book of this competition should.

The book has three main characters; Noah, Joyce, and the unnamed narrator. Unbeknownst to them, they are all related by blood. They don’t know each other but their lives intersect frequently in the book, often indirectly, through their relationships to secondary characters and to places. All three characters struggle with issues of identity and the book is about each of them pursuing paths to discover who they really are. The book is set mostly in Montreal, over a period of about 10 years.

Nikolski is about identity; each character is trying to find out who they really are and where they belong. The book ends up showing us that desperately holding onto the past isn’t the way for a person to find themselves. The book doesn’t offer readers a “Hollywood ending”. At the end of the book, none of the characters are left with any real satisfaction regarding their search for themselves.

Identity is also important when considering the objects associated with the characters in the book. Noah learned to read with road maps while travelling through central Canada with his vagabond mother. Joyce spent hours during her childhood looking again and again at her father’s maps, trying to feel less trapped by the small fishing village where she lived. The unnamed narrator wears - and obsesses over - a five dollar plastic compass that was given to him by his father who abandoned him. Strangely, the compass always points toward Nikolski, a small Aleutian village where (we later learn) his father (Jonas Doucet) settled down, and eventually died. And let’s not forget the three headed book which represents the three main characters and their lives being bound together by common themes, but still not quite belonging together as one, unanimous, story.

Fish are a major symbol in this book. Fish relate to Joyce’s life growing up in the fishing village, and also to Jonas Ducet (father to Noah and the unnamed narrator, uncle to Joyce) working on fishing boats. Fish are also responsible for the intersection of the lives of the three main characters as the Poissonnerie Shanahan is the fish store where Joyce works, and is also owned by Noah’s roommate Maelo, and is also known to the narrator. I also can’t help but consider the phrase “just another fish in the sea”. This would be in a non-romantic sense of course, although I can’t help but think about the night Joyce spent with the narrator, and I am still unsure about whether or not they had sex (keep in mind they are cousins, but but don’t know it). Just the same, I think of that saying more as a statement about Noah, Joyce, and the narrator being three of many lost souls associated with Jonas Doucet. At the end of the book, when we find out the narrator received a letter when his father (Jonas) died, the narrator mentions that Jonas’ co-workers were responsible for letting family and friends know of his death by going through “dozens” of letters to and from different people. This implies that there were possibly (and likely) more than two women that Jonas had children with.

Water is also an important symbol, frequently referred to. Whether it’s Sarah’s fear of water, the constant mention of islands, the relation Noah makes between the prairies and the ocean, the Venezuelan floods, Joyce’s obsession with being a pirate, the flooding basement, sea monsters, etc. The list goes on and on with references to water. Water is a difficult symbol to parallel to anything because of its ambiguity, but in this story, water is most often linked to fear, destruction, and loss.

One of the things I really don’t like about this book is the disappearance of several important secondary characters. The author allows the reader to become attached to these characters and it doesn’t seem right the way they are omitted from the story just when you want to know more about them. For example, Sarah (Noah’s mother) disappears from the book completely after Noah leaves her to go to University in Montreal. We don’t know if any of Noah’s letters ever make it to her and we never learn her fate. We also don’t know what happened to Arizna (Noah’s lover, but more importantly, the mother of Noah’s son Simon) with the flooding in Venezuela. I just can’t grasp how not allowing the reader to know the fate of these characters contributes to the story in a good way.

Another thing I didn’t enjoy is that the narrator remained unnamed. Maybe this served some deeper purpose that I missed completely, but I feel like the narrator was going to be revealed as some mystery character that would fill a missing link, but he remained unnamed. It is possibly a link to the identity issues in the story, but I didn’t think it did anything except take away from the story.

The book does have a funny side. One I particularly enjoy is when Joyce and the narrator are in the flooded basement to find the compass they dropped down the heating vent, the narrator talks about his long-time fear of the furnace. The narrator proceeds to tell us the manufacturer’s plaque on the furnace says “Levi Athan”. Considering that the furnace “ate” the very important compass, this is pretty funny.

I haven’t decided yet if I am going to read the original French version (I have never compared a French book to an English translation or vice versa). While I understand how people can appreciate this book for its imagery, character development, and intertwined plot, I don’t think this will be my pick for Canada Reads 2010 because it just didn’t grab me the way a good book should. A book being recommended to all Canadians should be a real gem, and unfortunately, Nikolsky isn’t one.

Book Information

Title: Nikolski

Author: Nicolas Dickner

Translated by: Lazer Lederhendler

Year of 1st publication: 2005

Publisher: Knopf Canada

Pages: 290

Awards (for French-language edition):
Prix des libraires 2006
Prix littéraire des collégiens 2006
Prix Anne-Hébert 2006 (Best first book)
Prix Printemps des Lecteurs–Lavinal

Purchased at: Chapters Bay & Bloor

Reading Time: 5h11m

Rating: 3/5

Rogers Writers' Trust 2009 Winner

I apologize for being a little late on this one. 

This year's winner (in case you haven't already heard, although I'm pretty sure you have by now) is:

The Golden Mean
Written by Annabel Lyon
(Random House Canada)

Prize: $25,000

An acclaimed Canadian short-story writer's breakout first novel, which vividly imagines the friendship between the philosopher Aristotle and the young Alexander the Great.
As The Golden Mean opens, Aristotle must postpone his dream of succeeding Plato at the Academy in Athens when he is forced to tutor Alexander, a prince of Macedon. At first the philosopher is appalled at living in the brutal backwater of his childhood, but soon he is drawn to the boy's intellectual potential and his capacity for surprise. But is Aristotle's mind any match for the warrior culture that is Alexander's birthright?

Told in the frank, earthy and engaging voice of Aristotle himself, and bringing to life a little known time and place, The Golden Mean traces the true story of this remarkable friendship. With sensual and muscular prose, Lyon reveals how Aristotle's genius influenced the boy who would conquer the known world.


The other finalists were:
Fences in Breathing
Written by Nicole Brossard
Translated by Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood
(Coach House Books)

Generation A
Written by Douglas Coupland
(Random House Canada)

Too Much Happiness
Written by Alice Munro
(McClelland and Stewart: A Douglas Gibson Book)

Eva’s Threepenny Theatre
Written by Andrew Steinmetz
(Gaspereau Press)

Each finalist was awarded: $2,500
 
For more information, please go to: The Writers' Trust

Hunger Games - Book Three - Announced!!!

OH BOY!  OH BOY!  OH BOY!

Today Scholastic announced the release date for the next Hunger Games Book; August 24th, 2010! 

I can't write this fast enough because I am far too excited.  The book's title hasn't been released, but the date is exciting enough.  Just in case you haven't read the first two books in the young adult series by author Suzanne Collins, the book titles are "The Hunger Games" and "Catching Fire".  This storyline is gripping, intense, and highly addictive... so get reading!

Newsweek's Top 100 Books of All Time (A Printable Version!!!)

Of all the top 100 book lists I have seen, this one is the closest to what I agree with.  Although some people disagree with me, I really think that fiction and non-fiction should be on seperate lists.  Having said that, this list is the best marriage of the two.  I may tweak it in the future to reflect more than just the 10 sources Newsweek used to create it, but for now, here is a printable copy (because it was VERY difficult to find one online when I wanted it).  Enjoy!

Newsweek's Top 100 Books of All Time
1. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
2. 1984 by George Orwell
3. Ulysses by James Joyce
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
5. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
6. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
7. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
8. The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer
9. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
10. Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
11. Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
12. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
13. Middlemarch by George Eliot
14. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
15. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
16. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
17. One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
18. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
19. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
20. Beloved by Toni Morrison
21. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
22. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
23. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
24. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
25. Native Son by Richard Wright
26. Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
27. On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
28. The Histories by Herodotus
29. The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
30. Das Kapital by Karl Marx
31. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
32. Confessions by St. Augustine
33. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
34. The History of the Peloponnecian War by Thucydides
35. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
36. Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
37. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
38. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
39. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
40. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
41. Holy Bible
42. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
43. Light in August by William Faulkner
44. The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois
45. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
46. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
47. Paradise Lost by John Milton
48. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
49. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
50. King Lear by William Shakespeare
51. Othello by William Shakespeare
52. Sonnets by William Shakespeare
53. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
54. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
55. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
56. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
57. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
58. One Flew Over the Kuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey
59. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
60. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
61. Animal Farm by George Orwell
62. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
63. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
64. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
65. Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
66. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
67. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
68. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
69. I, Claudius by Robert Graves
70. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
71. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
72. All the Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren
73. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
74. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
75. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
76. Night by Elie Wiesel
77. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
78. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
79. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
80. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
81. The Day of the Locust by Theodore Dreiser
82. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
83. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
84. His Dark Material by Philip Pullman
85. Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather
86. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud
87. The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams
88. Quotations from Chairman Mao by Mao Zedong
89. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature by William James
90. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
91. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
92. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money by John Maynard Keynes
93. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
94. Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves
95. The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
96. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
97. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X
98. Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey
99. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
100. The Second World War by Winston Churchill

Source: http://www.newsweek.com/id/204478

Canada Reads 2010 - A great way to participate!

If you are looking for a great way to participate in Canada Reads 2010 other than the CBC web site (which is lacking a bit in the ability to participate), go to Roughing It In The Books Blog .  Not only do these girls post great reviews, but they are having a book challenge in conjunction with the events going on for Canada Reads. 

Also, check out the video from the unveiling on Q TV:



More to come for Canada Reads 2010!!!

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

Annie is a childless, romantically unsatisfied, late thirty-something who has stayed in a comfort-for-comforts-sake relationship with Duncan for a decade and a half. Duncan is Annie’s dull, unappreciative long term live in boyfriend who is obsessed with Tucker Crowe; a reclusive musician from the 80s who hasn’t been seen or heard from in over 20 years. Much to Duncan’s dismay, when an advanced copy of the first Tucker Crowe album released in over 20 years (an acoustic version of his hit album Juliet, newly titled “Juliet, Naked” ) shows up at their house, Annie listens to it first in spite of Duncan’s profound love for the long lost Tucker Crowe. When Annie’s response to “Juliet, Naked” is negative, Duncan is furious but agrees to post a review she has written to his Tucker Crowe fan website so that perhaps she can learn how wrong she is by reading the “expert” responses to her incorrect review. To Annie’s surprise, the real Tucker Crowe writes her an e-mail thanking her for her honesty and for recognizing that “Juliet, Naked” is essentially a piece of crap and he only allowed it to be released to make some much needed money. This sets forth a chain of events that change Annie’s life and cause her to wonder “what’s it all for?”.


Juliet, Naked feels like a drawn out, awkward, internet courtship between two regretful and unhappy people. It doesn’t come with a sugar coated ending but it also doesn’t blow up in your face in a “wow, really?!” sort of way. The book is a little on the dull side, and aside from the occasional laugh-out-loud joke or bout of sarcasm, it lacks any serious feeling or depth. I want to call it a romcom, but it lacks the romance and doesn’t contain enough comedy to fit into that category on its own. Reading Juliet, Naked you will find yourself wondering where the story is heading with anticipation, only to find out that it leads nowhere. Much like Annie, you’ve wasted your time watching two older people try and find happiness the wrong way and making the same mistakes all over again.


Book Information
Title: Juliet, Naked
Author: Nick Hornby
Year of publication: 2009
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Pages: 406
Awards: n/a
Purchased at: Chapters
Reading Time: 7h19m
Rating: 3/5

CBC - Canada Reads 2010 BEGINS!!!

The time has come for Canada Reads 2010.  The books were announced Dec 1st, 2009.  Below is a list of the contenders.  I am going to read and review each book before the final countdown.  The books are:

Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
Defender: Perdita Felicien
Set largely in a Cape Breton coal mining community called New Waterford, ranging through four generations, Ann-Marie MacDonald's dark, insightful and hilarious first novel focuses on the Piper sisters and their troubled relationship with their father, James. Winner of the 1997 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, it was a national bestseller in Canada for two years, and it has been translated into 17 languages.

Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland
Defender: Roland Pemberton aka Cadence Weapon
Generation X is Douglas Coupland's acclaimed salute to the generation born in the late 1950s and 1960s--a generation known vaguely up to then as "twentysomething." Andy, Claire, and Dag, each in their twenties, have quit "pointless jobs done grudgingly to little applause" in their respective hometowns and cut themselves adrift on the California desert. In search of the drastic changes that will lend meaning to their lives, they've mired themselves in the detritus of American cultural memory. Refugees from history, the three develop an ascetic regime of story-telling, boozing, and working McJobs--"low-pay, low-prestige, low-benefit, no-future jobs in the service industry." They create modern fables of love and death among the cosmetic surgery parlors and cocktail bars of Palm Springs, disturbingly funny tales of nuclear waste, historical overdosing, and mall culture.A dark snapshot of the trio''s highly fortressed inner world quickly emerges--landscapes peopled with dead TV shows, "Elvis moments," and semi-disposable Swedish furniture. And from these landscapes, deeper portraits emerge, those of fanatically independent individuals, pathologically ambivalent about the future and brimming with unsatisfied longings for permanence, for love, and for their own home. Andy, Dag, and Claire are underemployed, overeducated, intensely private, and unpredictable. Like the group they mirror, they have nowhere to assuage their fears, and no culture to replace their anomie.

Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott
Defender: Simi Sara
Absorbed in her own failings, Clara Purdy crashes her life into a sharp left turn, taking the young family in the other car along with her. When bruises on the mother, Lorraine, prove to be late-stage cancer, Clara-against all habit and comfort-moves the three children and their terrible grandmother into her own house. We know what is good, but we don't do it. In Good to a Fault, Clara decides to give it a try, and then has to cope with the consequences: exhaustion, fury, hilarity, and unexpected love. But she must question her own motives. Is she acting out of true goodness, or out of guilt? Most shamefully, has she taken over simply because she wants the baby for her own? What do we owe in this life, and what do we deserve? This compassionate, funny, and fiercely intelligent novel looks at life and death through grocery-store reading glasses: being good, being at fault, and finding some balance on the precipice.

The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy
Defender: Samantha Nutt
In this remarkable first novel, three young children -- a sister and her two brothers -- come of age in an immigrant Chinese family in vancouver during the early 1940s. Intertwined with the stories of the children are the experiences of their elders, Old Wong and Poh-Poh. Side by side, the five family members survive hardships and heartbreaks with grit and humor, discovering a new land -- without forgetting their common ground.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Nikolski by Nicolas Dicknet and translated by Lazer Lederhendler
Defender: Michel Vezina
Intricately plotted and shimmering with originality, Nikolski charts the curious and unexpected courses of personal migration, and shows how they just might eventually lead us to home. In the spring of 1989, three young people, born thousands of miles apart, each cut themselves adrift from their birthplaces and set out to discover what - or who - might anchor them in their lives. They each leave almost everything behind, carrying with them only a few artefacts of their lives so far - possessions that have proven so formative that they can't imagine surviving without them - but also the accumulated memories of their own lives and family histories.


To follow Canada reads please visit: http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/

The Carnivore by Mark Sinnett

Told from the viewpoints of a man and a woman in a troubled marriage, The Carnivore by Mark Sinnett is nothing short of torrential. Ray, a retired policeman, and Mary, a retired nurse, are an older couple reflecting separately on their life together. Ray is dying of emphysema and is trying to relive the heroics of his past through the appearance of a Toronto reporter, who is eager to revisit the events of Hurricane Hazel for the upcoming 50th Anniversary of the disaster. Ray is a hero in the eyes of Torontonians for his actions during the Hurricane in 1954, and is enjoying his last chance at glory. However, he conceals from the reporter the deeper, more shameful story relating to his marriage, his mistress, and the unfortunate collision of the two resulting from Hazel’s arrival in their lives.
Ray and Mary each reflect on the events leading up to, and resulting from, Hazel’s wake and how it left their marriage forever strained. Mary, a devoted and virtuous wife, shows that obligation to beliefs and forgiveness won’t always make things easier and happier in the end. Ray, a man weakened by desire and manipulated by addiction, shows that guilt, regret, and responsibility, aren’t enough to curb you from hurting those you love. Ray never denies his own self-interest and his greed for life, but he also never apologizes for it, even in his final moments.

Suffocation and drowning are recurring themes in the book. They come up repeatedly, especially with the obvious water related deaths due to the Hurricane and also with Ray’s inability to breathe due to his emphysema. But there are also less obvious occurrences of these themes. Most notably, the idea of how both Ray and Mary feel they are suffocating in their marriage to one another.

The story flips from past to present and offers shocking and ironic twists along the way. Sinnett leaves you guessing about the sordid details of the story until the very end. He also successfully paints a detailed portrait of 1954 Toronto for those who may not have been around to see it. The incorporation of the landmarks and events of that time into the novel make the fictional part of the story that much more real.

This story is about human nature and Mother Nature, and the disasters that both can produce, leaving tragedy in their wake. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a realistic look at the sacrifices you should, and shouldn’t, make for a partner, and the importance of being honest with oneself. A good drama and a fantastic first read of this author. I look forward to reading his other work.


Book Information
Title: The Carnivore
Author: Mark Sinnett
Year of publication: 2009
Publisher: ECW Press
Pages: 253
Awards: n/a
Purchased at: n/a
Reading Time: 6h 19m
Rating: 4/5

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Olive Kitteridge is a harsh, opinionated, stubborn woman... alive only through the 13 short stories being told by those around her. She is a retired schoolteacher, a mother, an unaffectionate wife, and a friend to almost no one. While Olive's involvement may only be minor in some of the stories, each still serves a purpose in allowing the reader to know and understand Olive and the small town of Crosby, Maine. Olive Kitteridge is about the intricacies of life; how everyone is connected in ways that seem unexpected, but believable. It's also about growing up, getting old, and the joys and heartaches that come with both. The book looks at the consequences of opening your mind too late and how fateful and tragic that can be. This book also shows that there really are two sides to every story and the necessity of seeing things from all sides. While some parts of the story are overly dramatic, everyone can relate to some or many of the story's characters. All families - and towns for that matter - have skeletons hidden away, only to be revealed by those who are willing to share. This book is about how the picture perfect can be anything but and to stick to your guns, as Olive does. It encourages acceptance of one’s own skeletons and the idea that imperfection really can be beautiful.

Book Information
Year of publication: 2008
Publisher: Random House
Pages: 270
Awards: 2009 Pulitzer Prize - Fiction
Purchased at: Bryan Prince Bookseller
Reading Time: n/a
Rating: 4/5

People of Sparks by Jeanne Duprau

     I was hesitant to start this book because I didn't particularly like the first book in the series, City of Ember.  This book had the same plot outline as many other books.   Also, it had the repetitive messages we find so often in children's literature "treat other the way you would like to be treated" and "war benefits no one", but offered nothing beyond that.  This book lacks fresh ideas.  The People of Sparks starts where The City of Ember leaves off; Lina and Doon escape from their underground city to find a whole new world above with things like trucks, seasons, and even the sky.  They leave instructions for the people of Ember to follow them, hoping for a life better than what they left behind in Ember.  While there are many unknown things in this new world for Lina, Doon, and the refugees of Ember, there are also quite a few things missing.  For example, the city of Ember drew its energy from a large electric generator, whereas Sparks (and the world Sparks is in, presumably future Earth) has no electricity.  Along with many other things, electricity became extinct after what the people refer to as "the disaster".  As Sparks tries to accommodate the 400 or so refugees who have made their way to Sparks from Ember, resources deplete quickly and tensions rise.  There is a buildup of conflict between the two groups which inevitably leads to fighting.  However, long story short, they sort it all out and decide that it's more productive to be nice to each other than to fight.  Needless to say, The People of Sparks is nothing new.  It's unfortunate because Duprau seems to be an imaginative and creative writer, but somehow fails to grab the reader's attention and pique curiosity.  I don't think I will be continuing this series because I haven't really grown attached to the story the way you should by the end of the second book in a series.  There is no intrigue; no hidden plotlines, no unanswered questions, no character mysteries.  It lacks a certain, forgive the pun, spark.

Rating: 2/5

2009 Giller Prize goes to Linden Macintyre!

Congratulations to Linden Macintyre for winning the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize for The Bishops Man.  The ceremonies were held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto tonight.  The cash prize for winning the Giller is $50,000.00.  It is one of the most covoted awards in the Canadian book industry.

For those of you who may be interested, here is a brief synopsis of the book:
" Father Duncan MacAskill has spent most of his priesthood as the "Exorcist" - an enforcer employed by his bishop to discipline wayward priests and suppress potential scandal. He knows all the devious ways that lonely priests persuade themselves that their needs trump their vows, but he's about to be sorely tested himself. While sequestered by his bishop in a small rural parish to avoid an impending public controversy, Duncan must confront the consequences of past cover-ups and the suppression of his own human needs. Pushed to the breaking point by loneliness, tragedy and sudden self-knowledge, Duncan discovers how hidden obsessions and guilty secrets either find their way to the light of understanding, or poison any chance we have for love and spiritual peace."


The competing finalists for the Giller were:
The Bishops Man by Linden Macintyre (Obviously!)
The Disappeared by Kim Echlin
The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels
The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon
Fall by Colin Mcadam

To purchase any of the books, you can visit:
http://community.indigo.ca/toptens/Giller-Prize-2009-Shortlist-Fiction-Editor/566001.html

Push by Sapphire

Push by Sapphire is the unsettling story of Precious; a young, obese, illiterate, black woman who is a long time victim of sexual abuse by both her mother, and father.  The story takes place in Harlem and is told by Precious herself.  The book starts out when Precious is pregnant with her second child by her father.  Someone (a female teacher) refers Precious to an education facility for struggling and troubled teenaged women because of her pregnancy, and also because -- the reader can assume -- Precious is not like other girls her age.  The story goes back in time to detail Precious' earlier years, when people recognized the abuse and wanted to help but couldn't and also when people could help but chose not to.  The author doesn't hold back the horrid details of Precious' abuse. At times you are crying for Precious, but also, for anyone else whose life this story could be based on.  The book is mainly about Precious' realization of her situation and her struggle and determination to escape from it.  While her physical escape happens early in the story, her mental escape is a struggle she is faced with throughout the book.  With the help of an institution called Each One Teach One (a place for troubled young women to learn the basic skills to complete their GED), Precious, along with the other female students at EOTO, learns how to enjoy life, become independent, and most importantly, love herself.  Her teacher, Blue Rain, and her fellow classmates are a driving force in Precious' eventual transformation from a victim of abuse to an independent young mother.  Keep in mind however that this story is a tragedy, and without giving away too much, it's important to know that it doesn't have a fairytale ending. 


The story is tragic, without a doubt.  It will make you cry, hard, but also it will make you laugh.  The book is written as though Precious were the author; with misspelled words and poor grammar to emphasize not only the fact that Precious is illiterate and struggling, but also to make the story more personal; like a journal.  This book is a definite must-read for anyone interested in women's studies. 
 
The film is coming out shortly, but I have to be honest, I don't think I will be able to stomach it.  The truth is, as much as this story is fictional, it is based on reality.  Precious might be a made up character, but she is based on many women whose lives correspond very closely with the horrors in this book.  For those of us who don't live those realities, this book is a bit of a shocker, but also a real eye opener. 

Rating: 4/5

Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair

Just a quick note to everyone who lives in Boston!!!  The Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair is running from November 13th, 2009 to November 15th, 2009.  I will be attending and think this is going to be a great event for book lovers.  It is at the Hynes Convention Centre in Boston.  You can buy your tickets and get more information at http://www.bostonbookfair.com/ .  Also, to book our hotel I used a really great site called http://www.priceline.com/ which has a feature that you can bid on hotel rooms based on star rating, neighborhood, etc.  I have never been to an Antiquarian Book Fair before so I am pretty excited.  Hope to see you there!

Payback by Margaret Atwood

Considering the spotlight on finances as of late, I assumed this would be another book about debt facts on both personal and public levels. What piqued my interest was that the author is Margaret Atwood, who I would have never pictured writing any book about money or finance. The book is actually about debt from a cultural, historical, religious, and moral standpoint. It is a refreshing and unique look at the world of debt throughtout the ages to the present day. It is not only about the value of debt but also the fictitiousness of debt. I have read Atwood in the past, but never any non-fiction. This was very different from her usual work, obviously, but it doesn’t fall short by any means. It shows her ability as a literary genius to take her knowledge of literature and culture, and use that knowledge to analyze debt in north american society today. She uses her knowledge in a way that I don’t think an economist could have and ends up surprising you at the end of the book, when you realize these facts aren’t simply scattered bits of trivia but rather seeds of information to allow the reader to see the bigger picture at the end. Witty, as she often is, and brilliant, as she always is, this book is truly a shining moment for Atwood because it breaks any assumptions about how limited she is in her writing. This book is something I would recommend to historians, economists, environmentalist, and book snobs alike


Rating: 4/5

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

This book was a good one to read, especially with Halloween coming up. It’s about the Salem Witch Trials and the idea that maybe real magic isn’t as hokus pokus and abracadabra as we think (well, actually, maybe a little MORE abracadabra than we think). It’s about Connie Goodwin, a stressed out graduate student recently accepted into the PhD program she always hoped for. Shortly after her acceptance, Connie’s wacky and hugely misunderstood mother tells her that her grandmother’s long abandoned house has accumulated a hefty amount of unpaid property taxes and that it needs to be sold to pay the bill. Connie grudgingly makes a promise to her mother that she will spend her summer cleaning up the old house and making it sellable after its many years of neglect. Things start to get spooky when Connie discovers that the women in her life, past and present, weren’t always what they seemed to be and that the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. The book goes back and forth between the present day and 15th/16th century Salem to tell the story of a large group of women who were fatally misunderstood. It talks about the perils of being a successful woman, past and present. It also talks about religion as a scapegoat, which is often something that comes up when discussing the Salem Witch Trials. What makes this book even better is the author’s own family connection to Elizabeth Proctor and Elizabeth Howe; two women who experienced the Salem Witch Trials. Elizabeth Howe, sadly, did not survive them, which makes this story hit home as she is a character in the book. Also, the author’s own background in American and New England Studies offers authenticity to the more historical aspects of the book. I was particularly fond of the background information that the author provides at the end of the book because it legitimizes a lot of what she is saying and makes you realize how much of the book really is non-fiction. While the real magic bits are a bit much for me, it does make you wonder if there is more than meets the eye. This is a great new read and I look forward to more books by Elizabeth Howe.

Rating 4/5

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

This novel was an exceptional read; both intimate and horrifying. Any book that is difficult to put down automatically get’s the thumbs up. It grabbed and held my attention in the first 10 pages, something even good books fail to do in the first 100. It is the first McCarthy novel that I have read and I enjoyed it more than I expected. It is the ominous and somewhat perilous journey of a father and son clinging to the hope that there is some good left in a raped and ravaged world. The story is about their continued journey down “the road” to find some sort of salvation in what used to be the United States but is now a cannibalistic, violent, and desperate, society of outlaws, nomads, rapists, murderers, and thieves. At times, The Road’s disturbing imagery is difficult to stomach, although McCarthy never goes as far as it seems he will. This probably works in his favour since at several points in the book I almost put it down because I became so afraid of what would happen next. An author who can inject a reader emotionally like that is certainly not lacking in his craft. A tool that McCarthy uses throughout the book to do this is false foreshadowing; planting seeds for things the reader assumes will happen, but never do. This adds to the suspense and fear that McCarthy creates for his audience. It also contributes to the fear of the unknown, which is a major consideration of this story. The plot doesn’t really thicken, which adds to the simplicity and nothingness that the book is supposed to make the reader feel. This book conveys more emotion than any other book I have ever read. McCarthy forces the reader to experience fear, sadness, and desperation alongside the main characters. There are a few things I didn’t like. The dialogue is difficult to follow at times and can be repetitive. Also, the use of proper names is nearly non-existent, but this seems to serve a purpose. For example, the father and son (as well as the few other characters that come along in the story) have descriptive terms to identify them rather than names; i.e. the man and the boy. The few proper names that are found are mostly brand names. One example of this is Coca Cola, when they find one last can of Coke inside a beaten vending machine in a long abandoned and pillaged grocery store. Much of the book is description as McCarthy isn’t just telling a story of loss, but also painting a picture about what post-apocalyptic America may look like. My interpretation of this book, aside from the message that the world is consuming itself to the point of complete extermination, is the true terror in the unknown. It is about the terror of being alone. It is also about the necessary attachment to god and faith when there is nothing else left to believe in. The Road is also an interpretation of raw human nature at the most desperate and destitute of times. The Road is definitely a new addition to some old favourites in post-apocalyptic literature. I look forward to reading more of McCarthy’s work down the road.

Rating 5/5

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

This book is not nearly as frightening as it is unbelievable. We learn what the main subject of the book is very quickly; a perfect murder. It’s supposed to be the perfect crime; you kill my father and I will kill your wife. We are strangers, so we have no link to each other’s victims except this meeting. This is what Charles Bruno suggests to Guy Haines on the train where they meet for the first time, and improbably, they quickly get into a conversation about murdering each other’s burdens. The way Bruno injects himself into Guy’s life after this is sly, but is also unconvincing. We are told that the murder of Miriam (Guy’s wife from which he is seeking a divorce) is Bruno’s first murder. However, Bruno does it with such ease and eagerness that he seems more like a seasoned killer than an amateur. While some read this book to be a deep look at the criminal mind, to me it is more a light skim of human guilt and it’s reactions. The reader is given more description about the superficial things like food and appearances than deep emotional and personal experiences. Later on in the book, when we find out how successful Guy is in his career, it’s surprising because Guy’s life is never described with much depth. There is also a lot we never learn about Bruno or his past, but this doesn’t seem necessarily intentional. While I do see the allusions of incest, specifically in Bruno’s descriptions of his own mother, I never see the homosexual references that everyone seems to describe when talking about Highsmith’s writing. Bruno’s descriptions of Guy seem to be more about envy than attraction. Bruno is fascinated and jealous of Guy’s world, and Bruno lives in that world through his platonic but obsessive relationship with Guy. Also, Bruno’s death is simpler than it should be and seems like an easy way to get rid of a character to allow the book to end the way Highsmith intended. This book is the original, male, and most importantly, less frightening, version of Single White Female. Not the story I expected it to be and certainly not as much depth as a lot of people seem to give it credit for.

Rating 3/5

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

This was an enjoyable read. It says on the back cover of the book that it is a love letter to reading, and I whole heartedly agree. The story is simple and its beauty lies in the emotion Setterfield gives her characters for the reader to experience. The story is more felt than simply understood. This novel has gothic elements, which I enjoy very much, and the story keeps you guessing until the very end like a good mystery (minus the cheese). The main character, Margaret Lea, is the quiet and reserved daughter of a bookshop owner. She also has a hobby of writing biographies about select people, preferably deceased. Miss Vida Winter is an internationally loved author on her death bed looking to finally tell her life story to someone worthy and capable of properly recording it. The two characters come together to once and for all go through the true life of Vida Winter, something many people before Margaret had attempted but failed. By mixing the present with the past in a way that makes the reader experience both, this novel is a true example of great storytelling. While I don't personally relate to the experiences of twin life (I may have had I been a twin myself), I do appreciate the way in which Setterfield reflects the good and bad found in all families. She brings to light the fact that every family has skeletons and coming to terms with ones own family secrets allows a person to understand more about themselves. I would love to see a film adaptation of this book and look forward to reading more novels by this Setterfield. A fabulous debut!

Rating 4/5

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

I found this book to be extremely disappointing in the end. I read Mystic River a few years ago and loved it, so I was surprised when I read “Shutter Island” and found it to be the complete opposite. This book was a definite let down. The book was well written, well plotted, and full of guessing and suspense up to the last 50 pages or so. Lehane takes the easy way out and ends on something similar to the old “and then he woke up for that really bad dream and lived happily ever after” which I feel is the ultimate slap in the face to the reader. The worst part was, it wasn’t even that surprising because about halfway through you realize something isn’t right and the back of the book even alludes to it. Even though it was only the ending that did the damage, it reflects poorly on the book as a whole because the reader walks away unsatisfied and unfulfilled. Anyone can create the beginning of a great plot, it’s tying up the ends and delivering the end that is the real trick, and Lehane fails to do this. I know the movie is coming out in the fall and I am hoping it isn’t a let down as well. I would not recommend this book to anyone because there is nothing more disappointing than putting time into reading a book only to realize the author didn’t put that same time into writing it. Thumbs down.

Rating 1/5

The City of Ember (First Book of Ember) by Jeanne DuPrau

The idea of a place like Ember is frightening. From the beginning of the book, the reader is aware of the physical seclusion and isolation of the city of Ember and its citizens. Seclusion from what, however, the reader does not know. The “Builders” of Ember manufactured the city a long time ago, but the reader doesn’t learn why until the end of the book by reading a journal left by one of the first citizens of Ember. The reader also learns immediately about the important instructions the “Builders” have left for when the city expires, that is, the calculated amount of time when Ember’s citizens are supposed to exit the city. This is because of the calculation of when supplies will run out and also how long it will take for the “new world” to be safe. Through the adventures of the books two main characters, Doon Harrow and Lina Mayfleet, “The City of Ember” is a prelude to something more. It details the discovery of the accidentally lost instructions and how two 12 year olds put the pieces back together to find out how to exit the city and hopefully save the people they know and love, as planned out by their ancestors. This book also addresses issues of conservation, minimalistic living, and is very much about appreciating the abundance that the world we live in has to offer. This book also ended on a great note, leaving the reader wanting answers but not feeling unsatisfied. While the writing and dialogue is simple, it doesn’t lack good storytelling. This book may have been better if written for an older audience, but is entertaining nonetheless.

Rating 4/5

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

I loved the first book so much I managed to get my hands on an ARC for Catching Fire. I finished the book in one sitting and it is just as extraordinary as the first. It picks up almost right where the first book leaves off with Katniss and Peeta's return home to District 12. This book focuses less on the Games and more on the unrest that Peeta and Katniss' defiance of the Capitol has created throughout most of the Districts. It is just as gut wrenching and heart breaking as the first. The story is chilling and draws the reader into the harsh yet frighteningly realistic dystopian society of Panem. Collins is a magnificent writer and I can't wait to read the third and final book!

Rating 5/5