* not with ink

Last day of the year. Last books of the year. Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories - Truman Capote . The only fiction I read during the semester, this was for a book club meeting that I didn't make it to (thanks a lot, winter cold!). However, I enjoyed it immensely. Not only the title short story, but the three others included in this small volume. I would like to read more Capote. And watch the classic film adaptation with Audrey Hepburn. As soon as the semester ended, I ravenously picked up more fiction. Actually, that's not entirely true. Before I hit up any fiction, on the silent retreat, I leafed (leaved?) through several books in the monastery guest house's little library, skimming a bunch of Nouwen, and ultimately sitting down to read this book: Christian Mystics: Their Lives and Legacies Throughout the Ages - Ursula King . I enjoyed this and found it utterly fascinating. For one, it features several women of prominence in their own time and culture...

I'm reading faster than I'm writing these days, so here is a snapshot of May-July's books: The Sacred Journey by Frederick Buechner . A fantastic spiritual memoir that my friend Aimee lent me back in October. I delayed reading it, because I knew I wouldn't want to finish it. Then I read it slowly and in pieces, and I loved it. Here are my 3 favourite excerpts:  Listen. Your life is happening. You are happening. You, the rooster, the clock, the workmen, your stomach, are all happening together. A journey, years long, has brought each of you through thick and thin to this moment in time as mine has also brought me. Think back on that journey. Listen back to the sounds and sweet airs of your journey that give delight and hurt not and to those that give no delight at all and hurt like Hell. Be not affeard. The music of your life is subtle and elusive and like no other - not a song with words, but a song without words - a singing, clattering music to gladden the heart...

Folks, I'm falling behind on my book recaps, and I bet you're all desperately sad. (note: sarcasm) Here are a bunch of recent reads: I picked up A Recipe for Bees by Gail Anderson-Dargatz because of how much I had enjoyed The Cure for Death by Lightning . Of the two, I prefer Death by Lightning , but the Recipe for Bees is not without merit. It is, in some ways, Stone Angel -esque. The protagonist, Augusta, reflects back on her life as she ponders the meaning of a vision that seems to indicate her death is approaching. She remembers other moments of "second sight" and walks through the difficult years of her marriage. She is sharp and honest, demanding and insecure - like all of us. I imagine that I will face my own aging and mortality, failures and insecurities much like Augusta does. What I'm not sure is whether I like her for it, and by extension, whether I will like myself. At the end of the day, it's a decent read, and my heart is soft toward Augu...

Dang. After my last "book report" about how beautiful I found The Winter Vault , I hesitated to start a new read; how would anything be half as good? Then I picked up this book: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close , by Jonathan Safron Foer. I opened it knowing only that it was about a boy who lost his father in the Twin Towers, and had been made into a film that was considered not-as-good-as-the-book. And really, that is all one needs to know.  But it is so much more than that. It is the story of three generations, of love and loss and secrets and space and the way family is intertwined, for better or worse. It is surprising and wrenching, and a little bit magical. The tension was too intense for me at times (in the best way possible), and I found myself needing to take small breaks, setting the book on my lap, reminding myself to breathe, and sipping on iced tea in the sun. Another highly recommended read, particularly if you like inquisitive children, WWII history...

I finished reading The Winter Vault over a month ago. Then I wrote this post. But I didn't publish it because it is inadequate in its attempts to hint at how beautiful and poignant I found the book. I loved The Winter Vault , by Anne Michaels. A gentle, eloquent unfolding that centers around love and loss (as all stories do) and the travels of one particular couple, Avery and Jean. Toronto, Montreal, Holland Marsh - I love reading books set in places I can picture. There is so much woven all around their propelling drama. The dislocation and relocation of entire cities. Architecture and engineering, creation & destruction, the temporality of art… grief that cannot be shared. Did you know that in 1960, over 100,000 Nubians from Sudan and Egypt were relocated for the construction of the Aswan Dam ? Or that a few years earlier, 6,500 small-town inhabitants along the St. Lawrence River were moved for the construction of a power dam? Neither did I. I still think abou...

They say not to judge a book by its cover, but  The Cure for Death By Lightning  by Gail Anderson-Dargatz hooked me with two details on the front: The title! What!? The little stamp that tells me it was nominated for the Giller Prize. And you know what? I was not disappointed. Not only is the protagonist a teenage girl named Beth (everyone loves a Beth!), but the story itself is quite riveting as an eclectic and often awkward group of characters navigate farm and family tensions in a village near Kamloops, BC, during WWII. One of my favourite details is how the author wove recipes and home remedies (including the cure for death by lightning) into the story. In fact, I had planned to write out a few of them before returning the book to the library...but completely forgot. I may go back and flip through just to pick them up! Don't get the idea that this is a glorified cookbook, somehow. It is an emotionally weighty and somber story that highlights the importance of...

I seem to be on a short-story kick! At the library again, and on the Recommended Reads shelf, I spotted an author whose name I recognized, not for her fame, but for her hometown, her place of employment, and her three degrees of separation from my life (maybe only two, actually). Although I never took a course with her, she teaches at my alma mater. Though I've never met her, she is friends with one of my mother's closest friends. So I picked up The Dolphins at Sainte-Marie  by Sandra Sabatini. And I loved it. Such a wide range of stories - some about the same characters, but not all - that touched on life's heartache and injuries and injustices and wrongs, particularly through the eyes of the young. As an added bonus, references to Liverpool St and the Woodlawn Cemetery reminded me that several of the stories took place right in my hometown. All were in the familiar landscape of southern Ontario. Definitely a recommended read. Poignant, sad, moving stories. I think S...

A couple weeks ago, I stopped in the library just to pass ten minutes time before an appointment nearby...and I walked out with three books. Of course. I've already told you about Ru (read it - short, concise, lovely) and now on to the two other books. Blueprints for Building Better Girls  - a collection of short stories by Elissa Schappell, I was intrigued by the title.Very intrigued. And the framework - interconnected short stories - is one of my favourites. So I picked it up. And it was good. Realistic, gritty, sometimes awkward stories of a variety of relationships, mostly romantic, over several decades. I wanted more stories about multiple characters, which is a definite positive. Nothing wow-ed me in a profound way, but it was decent literature. Something a bit darker than your average vacation read, but not much work to get through. Life is About Losing Everything  by Lynn Crosbie. Again, the title drew me in. As did the cover design. And the back cover, which descr...

I forgot that I am blogging through this year's reads (unofficially, although I guess this makes it official) and have finished TWO books in the past week. Away  by Jane Urquhart  was one of the CBC's Canada Reads finalists. While it didn't win, it is the only one of the 5 books I've read (and am likely to read). I quite enjoyed the way she weaves a generational family story with the history of both Ireland and Canada, and then sprinkles in some poetry and magic. I love the lyricism of Urquhart's writing, and found myself easily drawn into the world she portrays. And this is the most  magic realism  I've seen from a Canadian author  (anyone know of other magic realist Canadian lit?). I have to admit, though, that I was disappointed on two counts. First, I was bothered by the lack of explanation for why  the main character is leaving her lakefront home (it is a distinct possibility that she mentions this and I managed to miss it). But without that piece...

Way back when I was a youth, my sister was reading Tess of the D’Urbervilles for school. I picked it up and flipped it open and read a few random pages and it seemed so dramatic and moving and exactly all the things I loved in my romanticized view of the 19th century. This is the memory I had, and in the back of my mind I thought I would one day read it. Fast forward a decade and a half, and I still hadn’t read it, but then I got a Kobo, and all of a sudden, the Gutenberg Project means ALL THE CLASSICS OF EVER are available to me, for free. Convenient. So I downloaded twenty, and decided to start somewhere. With Thomas Hardy and the sure-to-be-fantastic Tess. Well. It is engaging and engrossing and, folks, oh-so-depressing. I am not opposed to depressing novels, but there was something about this one that just wouldn’t let me go. I pressed on, groaning and skimming and praying for things to have some little slice of hope… On Sunday night, as I was trying to force myself onw...

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain was my second non-fiction read for 2013. A hugely popular book last year, this examines both our cultural bias towards extroversion as well as the physiological commonalities shared by "introverts." I found it encouraging and validating, as a self-professing introvert - albeit one who often functions as an extrovert. WHICH is a thing this book discusses. On many pages, I found myself wanting to shout, "THIS IS ME!" to whomever was closest at the moment, or to compile all the anecdotes and walk around handing them out to those whose lives most intersect with my own. There is a chapter on introversion & Asian culture, which tends to value it more highly than our North American culture does, and another chapter on parenting introverted children... (for those to whom either is applicable, I highly recommend these chapters) I am not keen to be prescriptive in how we label our...

My first non-fiction read of the year was The Authenticity Hoax . It is, in short, a book about the meaning of life and our search for significance. These two quotes essentially summarize the main argument (although tracing the history and trajectory of our culture’s status competitions is, I think, worth the read): “The quest for authenticity is about searching for meaning when all the traditional sources no longer have any sound, rational justification.* This book is an exploration of the quintessentially modern attempt at replacing these sources with something more acceptable in a world that is not just disenchanted but also socially flattened, cosmopolitan, individualistic, and commercialized…Absent from our lives is any sense of the world as a place of intrinsic value, within which each of us can lead a purposeful existence. And so we seek the authentic in a multitude of ways, looking for a connection to something deeper in the jeans we buy, the food we eat, the vacation...