Holiday Reading List 2012

With a nice long holiday break from school reading and no midterm exam, I am free to read what I want for the next 5 weeks.  I am sharing with you below a few of the books I am hoping to read over the holidays.  The list is probably a little TOO ambitious, but oh well. 

I have put some Canada Reads books on here (The Tiger and Prisoner of Tehran) but not all of them because I don't think I can read non-fiction for 5 straight weeks.

So here are the books I hope to read over the holidays.  Feel free to share your opinions, reviews, etc.  And happy holiday reading!

The Antagonist - Lynn Coady

I am currently reading this book and enjoying it. It was a finalist for the Giller this year.

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

This is the cover of the original 1843 edition (obviously not what I am reading).  I have wanted to read this book every Christmas for a few years and think that this year I might finally do it.

Foundation - Isaac Aminov

I recently found The Hamilton Book Club Meetup Group and this is their book for January.  I am hoping to join this group and would like to participate in January.

Klee Wyck - Emily Carr

 This is the first book I have to read next semester for Can Lit, so I would like to get a head start over the holidays.

Pursuasion - Arlene Dickinson

 I don't read a lot of business books, but I love Arlene Dickinson from Dragon's Den.  She represents everything that I think a good business person should be.

The Tiger - John Vaillant

 This is one of the two Canada Reads 2012 books that I plan to read over the holidays.  This year all of the books are non-fiction.

Prisoner of Tehran - Marina Nemat

This is the second Canada Reads 2012 books that I plan to read over the holidays.








 

The Sense of An Ending - Julian Barnes

This is the winner of the Man Booker Prize 2011. 

Canada Reads 2011: The Contenders

Today the contenders for Canada Reads 20011 were announced... and my guesses were WAY off!  Oh well...

Just the same, here is the list of the contenders and defenders.  Listen to CBC Radio One on February 7th, 8th, and 9th 2011 at 11:00am (EST) for the hour-long debates.  The defenders will engage in a fierce battle to the death radio debate about the books that will result in one final winner; the Canada Reads 2011 CHAMPION! (Sorry, I'm a little over zealous...) 

Without further delay, meet the books and their defenders:

The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis
Published by: McClelland & Stewart
Defended by: Ali Velshi (Awards Winning CNN Anchor)

About (from the publisher):

This book beat out work by Douglas Coupland and Will Ferguson because it is very, very good — a terrific Canadian political satire.

Here’s the set up: A burnt-out political aide quits just before an election — but is forced to run a hopeless campaign on the way out. He makes a deal with a crusty old Scot, Angus McLintock — an engineering professor who will do anything, anything, to avoid teaching English to engineers — to let his name stand in the election. No need to campaign, certain to lose, and so on.

Then a great scandal blows away his opponent, and to their horror, Angus is elected. He decides to see what good an honest M.P. who doesn’t care about being re-elected can do in Parliament. The results are hilarious — and with chess, a hovercraft, and the love of a good woman thrown in, this very funny book has something for everyone.

The Birth House by Ami McKay
Published by: Knopf Canada
Defended by: Debbie Travis (Design Mogul)

About (from the publisher):

The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare, the first daughter to be born in five generations of Rares. As a child in an isolated village in Nova Scotia, she is drawn to Miss Babineau, an outspoken Acadian midwife with a gift for healing. Dora becomes Miss B.’s apprentice, and together they help the women of Scots Bay through infertility, difficult labours, breech births, unwanted pregnancies and even unfulfilling sex lives. Filled with details as compelling as they are surprising, The Birth House is an unforgettable tale of the struggles women have faced to have control of their own bodies and to keep the best parts of tradition alive in the world of modern medicine.

The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou
Published by: NeWest Press
Defended by: Georges Laraque (Former NHLer and Philanthropist)

About (from the publisher):

Digger, an 85 kilo wrestler, and Sadie, a 26-year-old speed swimmer, stand on the verge of realizing every athlete’s dream—winning a gold medal at the Olympics. Both athletes are nearing the end of their careers, and are forced to confront the question: what happens to athletes when their bodies are too worn to compete? The blossoming relationship between Digger and Sadie is tested in the intense months leading up to the Olympics, as demanding training schedules, divided loyalties, and unpredicted obstacles take their draining toll. The Olympics, as both of them are painfully aware, will be the realization or the end of a life’s dream.

Essex County by Jeff Lemire
Published by: Top Shelf Productions
Defended by: Sara Quin (Indie Musician, Tegan and Sara)

About (from the publisher):

Where does a young boy turn when his whole world suddenly disappears? What could change two brothers from an unstoppable team into a pair of bitterly estranged loners? How does the work of one middle-aged nurse reveal the scars of an entire community, and can anything heal the wounds caused by a century of deception?

Critically-acclaimed cartoonist Jeff Lemire pays tribute to his roots with Essex County, an award-winning trilogy of graphic novels set in an imaginary version of the Ontario county where he was born. In Essex County, Lemire crafts an intimate study of one community through the years, and a tender meditation on family, memory, grief, secrets, and reconciliation. With the lush, expressive inking of a young artist at the height of his powers, Lemire draws us in and sets us free.

Unless by Carol Shields
Published by: Random House of Canada
Defended by: Lorne Cardinal (Gemini Award Winning Canadian Actor, Corner Gas, North of 60)

About (from the publisher):

Reta Winters has many reasons to be happy: Her three almost grown daughters. Her twenty-year relationship with their father. Her work translating the larger-than-life French intellectual and feminist Danielle Westerman. Her modest success with a novel of her own, and the clamour of her American publisher for a sequel. Then in the spring of her forty-fourth year, all the quiet satisfactions of her well-lived life disappear in a moment: her eldest daughter Norah suddenly runs from the family and ends up mute and begging on a Toronto street corner, with a hand-lettered sign reading GOODNESS around her neck.

GOODNESS. With the inconceivable loss of her daughter like a lump in her throat, Reta tackles the mystery of this message. What in this world has broken Norah, and what could bring her back to the provisional safety of home? Reta’s wit is the weapon she most often brandishes as she kicks against the pricks that have brought her daughter down: Carol Shields brings us Reta’s voice in all its poignancy, outrage and droll humour.


For more info, go to CBC - Canada Reads

Canada Reads 2011 - Top 10

I am a little late in posting the top 10 for Canada Reads 2011.  This year will be a competition of previous books.  The final 5 will be announced this Wednesday, November 24th 2011.

I submitted my entry for the CBC's contest to guess the final five.  Below I have listed the final 10, and any marked with a * are my guesses for the final 5. 

Come back and visit on Wednesday as I will be posting the final 5 so that everyone can get reading!


The Final 10:

The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis
The Birth House by Ami McKay*
The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou
The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill*
Bottle Rocket Hearts by Zoe Whittall
Essex County by Jeff Lemire
Life of Pi by Yann Martel*
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden*
Unless by Carol Shields* 

To read interviews and articles and/or participate in discussions and contests, go to the CBC Books - Canada Reads 2011's main web page by clicking here.

Review: Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'neill

This book is heartbreaking.  Lullabies for Little Criminals is Heather O'Neill's debut novel.  It won Canada Reads 2007 plus a slew of other awards, rightly so. 

It's the story of Baby; a young girl growing up in Montreal's Red Light District.  Baby faces realities that "regular" children (even many adults) don't ever come close to experiencing.  Baby's mother died when Baby was very young.  Baby struggles constantly with the idea that she is motherless, questioning it frequently.  Baby's father, Jules, is a young parent and heroin addict who is more nurturing high than clean.  Baby's lack of good guidance is apparent throughout the story especially when Baby's personal reflections intermingle childhood curiosities with adult analogies.  Living sometimes together and sometimes apart, Jules and Baby's living situation changes many many times throughout the book, which seems to span the length of roughly 2 years.  From foster homes, to dingy hotels, to homeless shelters, to rehabs; there is never a place called "home".  This is proof of the instability in Baby's life.  Baby is constantly left to her own devices, most often during times when support and strong role models are most essential to her well being.  She makes many poor choices mostly due to her lack of (good) guidance.  Throughout the story, Baby meets many characters who never become fixtures in her life; kids in a foster home, street kids at a community centre, homeless people, prostitutes, school friends, drug addicts, social workers, etc.  The only two characters who play a constant role in Baby's life are Jules (her father) and Alphonse ** SPOILER ALERT** (her adult lover and eventual pimp).  This seems to cause a lot of tension for Baby considering how different both characters are in regards to the roles that they play in Baby's life. 

The book's ending is somewhat hopeful, although you don't truly feel like Baby will ever recover from what she has been through.  You don't feel like you, the reader, will recover either.  Baby is a representation of all kids in these circumstances, which I am afraid to say is probably more common than we are willing to admit.

This book is not for the faint of heart.  It is graphic, disturbing (especially the detailed descriptions of the physical and sexual abuse of kids), and at times can be uncomfortable to read. Based on my very limited knowledge of street life, it feels like it may also be frighteningly realistic. This book is a mix of the everyday realities of puberty and the world of drugs, prostitution, abuse, and street life for any kid in these.  This is a suggested read for anyone stuck in the bubble like me; sheltered by a life where a support network of great friends and family is a given. This book makes you want to reach out and take care of Baby, and never let her go.

Book Information
Title: Lullabies For Little Criminals
Author: Heather O'neill
Year of publication: 2006
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 352
Awards: Canada Reads 2007
Purchased at: Can't remember
Rating: 4.5 / 5

The Outlander by Gil Adamson

All I have to say is (but not really because there is a full blog post)… Wow! Excellent book!

I really enjoyed The Outlander by Gil Adamson. Right from the beginning I was locked in to the story of Mary Boulton. She is a young woman who has just killed her husband and is now on the run from his brothers; a pair of vengeful twins with flaming red hair and cold dispositions who will stop at nothing until they find her.

Mary snapped and killed her abusive husband after the death of their newborn baby. It can be presumed that the baby died due to the violent rapes and constant abuse her husband committed against her, even during her pregnancy. She shot him in the leg with his own gun and let him bleed to death slowly on the floor of their cabin in the woods. She buried him behind their little cabin in the woods and after the discovery of what she had done, she runs away knowing what fate awaits if she is caught.

Part of the driving force for Mary’s initial madness is the discovery that her husband is not only abusive, but also unfaithful. The life in which Mary ended up was far from what she expected, having grown up in a middle class home as an only child. Her family had its difficulties, but nothing compared to what she faced with her new husband after their marriage. Mary running away after killing her husband ends up being her pathway to true freedom and independence.

Along her travels Mary meets some excellent characters, including the Reverend, the dwarf, the cat-skinning giant, and last but not least, William Moreland (a.k.a. the Ridgerunner).

This wild tale is set in the beginning of the 20th century, when it’s shocking for a woman to wear pants and stand up against her husband no matter how abusive. The book takes the reader into the mountains of western Canada to enjoy the view of the land and explore the madness of a broken woman on the run as she struggles to find food, shelter, refuge, and her sanity.

I grew really attached to Mary as I read this story because she is a strong woman who makes you feel for her, but not pity her.

Gil Adamson’s talent is well proven in this great Canadian story. I am looking forward to reading her short stories as well. I recommend this book to anyone looking for adventure, love, and strong women who wear pants.


Book Information

Title: The Outlander
Author: Gil Adamson
Year of publication: 2008
Publisher: House of Anansi
Pages: 400 pages
Awards: Canada Reads Nominee 2009, Amazon.ca Books in Canada First Novel Award 2008
Purchased at: Chapters
Rating: 5/5

Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott

I was so happy to finally read a book I enjoyed so much. Good to a Fault is an honest look at people, stereotypes, and as its title suggests, what it really means to be good.

Good to a Fault is about an impressively (and annoyingly) kind but lonely middle-aged woman named Clara Purdy. At the very beginning of the book Clara’s car, and her life, collide with the Gage family (3 kids, 2 parents, and a hostile grandmother). The book is set in motion not only by the car crash but also by the discovery that the family’s matriarch, Lorraine, has cancer. Clara very kindly welcomes the struggling Gage family into her own home while Lorraine spends what is presumed to be her final days in the hospital seeking treatment for her illness. Clara is subjected to countless ungrateful acts by certain members of the Gage family but embraces her new life. Clara quickly falls in love with the children and treats them as though they were her own, mending her personal wounds from her missed chance of having a family. When there is a shocking turn of events closer to the end of the book, the reader is faced with a lot of questions about personal values and stereotypes. The reader is also faced with the bigger question about the difference between what is good and what is right, and how to decide the difference and similarities between the two in tough situations.

This book engaged my emotions in a way no book has in a while. At times it infuriated me (as I am not nearly as patient or understanding as Clara). At times it made me sad. But also, it made me laugh-out-loud and put a smile on my face. Also, being the OCD neat-and-tidy freak that I am, this book made me realize that spilled milk is, well, just spilled milk. Life is messy, and incidentally, that’s what makes it more interesting and memorable. My dad bought me a mug that says “A Clean House is the Sign of a Wasted Life” and this book proves that (nothing like taking life wisdom from a novelty mug).

This book taught me a lesson about how easy it is to unknowingly stereotype people from different walks of life without acknowledging it. It is easy to convince yourself that you couldn’t possibly think that way, but this book slaps you with a great big “YES YOU DO THINK THAT WAY – NOW DEAL WITH IT!”. The part in the book that comes to mind for this **SPOILER ALERT** is when Clara goes to the hospital to find Lorraine better and ready to go home to reclaim her family and resume her life. Lorraine tells Clara that she isn’t entitled to raising the children just because she dresses better, has more money, is well spoken, etc. After reading this part in the book, the reader realizes that it’s easy to root for Clara because of these things, but that it isn’t right. I thought about how I assessed the situation with the children in the book and realized that these were the reasons I used to legitimize my feelings that Clara should keep the kids as well.

The only thing I didn’t buy into was the religious aspect of the book. I know in her interview for Canada Reads, Marina Endicott mentioned that this book has a lot to do with God, but I didn’t feel that way at all. Aside from religious poems/passages throughout the book and the fact that Clara and her peers are all churchgoers, I didn’t see anything in this book that made me think about God or his existence.

I couldn’t finish this post without saying how much I enjoyed the dynamic characters in this book. Endicott has a phenomenal ability to sculpt characters make them feel so real that you know them personally. All of the characters are perfect pictures of regular people in everyday life. However, if I had to pick a favourite character then it would be Darwin. He was so important to this story. He kept everything balanced. Without Darwin, this story would not have been the same; there would have been a lot more hostility and a lot less warmth. I also think an honourable mention is in order for the Bunts for their impeccable hypocrisy. Everyone has a couple of these people in their neighbourhood (I hope it’s not you) and in a story about domestic life and its imperfections, nasty neighbours fit in perfectly.

I think Good to a Fault is a fantastic pick for Canada Reads 2010, and although I have only read one other book on the panel so far, I think this will be a difficult read to top. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a good read, no pun intended.


Book Information
Title: Good to a Fault
Author: Marina Endicott
Year of publication: June 2009
Publisher: Broadview Press
Pages: 416
Awards: 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best Book Award -- Canada and the Caribbean
Purchased at: Chapters Queensway
Rating: 4/5

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

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!!!

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/