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!!!
Monday, December 7, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
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
Thursday, December 3, 2009
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/
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/
Sunday, November 22, 2009
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
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
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
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