Indian Horse

Saul Indian Horse is dying. Tucked away in a hospice high above the clash and clang of a big city, he embarks on a marvellous journey of imagination back through the life he led as a northern Ojibway, with all its sorrows and joys. With compassion and insight, author Richard Wagamese traces through his fictional characters the decline of a culture and a cultural way. For Saul, taken forcibly from the land and his family when he's sent to residential school, salvation comes for a while through his incredible gifts as a hockey player. But in the harsh realities of 1960s Canada, he battles obdurate racism and the spirit-destroying effects of cultural alienation and displacement. Indian Horse unfolds against the bleak loveliness of northern Ontario, all rock, marsh, bog and cedar. Wagamese writes with a spare beauty, penetrating the heart of a remarkable Ojibway man.

I love this book! Like the blurb says it deals with the harsh realities of the 1960s Canada, the racism, cultural alienation.  What we learn in school does not cover this, yes we knew they took children from their parents. Tried to take their beliefs from them, tried to take their spirit, and in many cases their innocence and our schools don't teach us this.  This book gave me some insight, on how bad it really was.  I know alot of people don't want to talk about this, many deem this to be still very sensitive, but it needs to be done.  It was wrong, very wrong.  I want to thank Mr Wagamese for letting me experience it with his beautiful words.

Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese (5/5) Fiction; Published: Douglas & McIntyre (2012); New Author; New Release; Favorite Read 2012; Canada Reads; Canada Reads 2013; Library; Books 2012 (57);

Canada Reads 2013: The Turf Wars

We finally have the names of the panelists and their chosen books:

Olympic gold-medal wrestler Carol Huynh (B.C. and Yukon), Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese.

Saul Indian Horse is dying. Tucked away in a hospice high above the clash and clang of a big city, he embarks on a marvellous journey of imagination back through the life he led as a northern Ojibway, with all its sorrows and joys. With compassion and insight, author Richard Wagamese traces through his fictional characters the decline of a culture and a cultural way. For Saul, taken forcibly from the land and his family when he's sent to residential school, salvation comes for a while through his incredible gifts as a hockey player. But in the harsh realities of 1960s Canada, he battles obdurate racism and the spirit-destroying effects of cultural alienation and displacement. Indian Horse unfolds against the bleak loveliness of northern Ontario, all rock, marsh, bog and cedar. Wagamese writes with a spare beauty, penetrating the heart of a remarkable Ojibway man.

Ron MacLean, sportscaster (Prairies & the North), The Age of Hope by David Bergen.

Born in 1930 in a small town outside Winnipeg, beautiful Hope Koop appears destined to have a conventional life. Church, marriage to a steady young man, children-her fortunes are already laid out for her, as are the shiny modern appliances in her new home. All she has to do is stay with Roy, who loves her. But as the decades unfold, what seems to be a safe, predictable existence overwhelms Hope. Where-among the demands of her children, the expectations of her husband and the challenges of her best friend, Emily, who has just read The Feminine Mystique-is there room for her? And just who is she anyway? A wife, a mother, a woman whose life is somehow unrealized? This beautifully crafted and perceptive work of fiction spans some fifty years of Hope Koop's life in the second half of the 20th century, from traditionalism to feminism and beyond. David Bergen has created an indelible portrait of a seemingly ordinary woman who struggles to accept herself as she is, and in so doing becomes unique.

Charlotte Gray, historian and biographer (Ontario), Away by Jane Urquhart.

A stunning, evocative novel set in Ireland and Canada, Away traces a family’s complex and layered past. The narrative unfolds with shimmering clarity, and takes us from the harsh northern Irish coast in the 1840s to the quarantine stations at Grosse Isle and the barely hospitable land of the Canadian Shield; from the flourishing town of Port Hope to the flooded streets of Montreal; from Ottawa at the time of Confederation to a large-windowed house at the edge of a Great Lake during the present day. Graceful and moving, Away unites the personal and the political as it explores the most private, often darkest corners of our emotions where the things that root us to ourselves endure. Powerful, intricate, lyrical, Away is an unforgettable novel.

Actor and filmmaker Jay Baruchel (Quebec) Two Solitudes by Hugh MacLennan.

Hugh MacLennan's iconic 1945 novel Two Solitudes instantly became a symbol for one of Canada's most challenging dichotomies: the divide between French and English. The Tallard family stands in for the entirety of Canada: Athanase Tallard is born of an aristocratic French-Canadian tradition, while his beautiful wife Kathleen is of Irish heritage. Their son Paul, meanwhile, must reconcile the conflicting interests in his blood — he is at home speaking both French and English, but feels alienated from both cultures...and he is struggling to write a novel that will help define his Canadian identity. Two Solitudes won the Governor General's Award for fiction when it was published in 1945, and went on to become a classic work about Canadian identity.

Comedian Trent McClellan (Atlantic provinces), February by Lisa Moore.

In 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank off the coast of Newfoundland during a Valentine's Day storm. All eighty-four men aboard died. February is the story of Helen O'Mara, one of those left behind when her husband, Cal, drowns on the rig. It begins in the present-day, more than twenty-five years later, but spirals back again and again to the "February" that persists in Helen's mind and heart. Writing at the peak of her form, her steadfast refusal to sentimentalize coupled with an almost shocking ability to render the precise details of her characters' physical and emotional worlds, Lisa Moore gives us her strongest work yet. Here is a novel about complex love and cauterizing grief, about past and present and how memory knits them together, about a fiercely close community and its universal struggles, and finally about our need to imagine a future, no matter how fragile, before we truly come home. This is a profound, gorgeous, heart-stopping work from one of our best writers.

I can't wait to get started!  I'm somewhat ashamed to say I haven't read any of these books, but I'm looking forward to getting my hands on them very soon.

If you want more info on the books or the panelists visit here.

Canada Reads 2013 The Turf Wars

We're almost getting there.  The top five books of each region has just been released.  Now each of the panelists will represent a region and pick one of those five books to defend. 

The Atlantic Top 5:
Annabel by Kathleen Winter
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
February by Lucy Moore
No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod
The Town That Drowned by Riel Nason

The Quebec Top 5:
The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny
Ru by Kim Thuy
Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler
The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roi 
Two Solitudes by Hugh MacLennan

The Ontario Top 5:
Away by Jane Urquhart
The Day The Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Far To Go by Alison Pick
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies

The Prairies and North Top 5:
The Age of Hope by David Bergen
The Diviners by Margaret Laurence
The Garneau Block by Todd Babiak
Late Nights of Air by Elizabeth Hay
The Trade by Fred Stenson

The British Columbia and Yukon Top 5:
Bow Grip by Ivan E. Coyote
Everything was Good-bye by Gurjinder Basran
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson
Obasan by Joy Kowaga

The panelists and their chosen titles will be announced on November 29. It's getting exciting!

It's that time of year again...

Canada Reads 2013 is just around the corner, February of 2013...Yesterday the CBC, released the titles of the books.  This year (actually next year) there will be one book that represents a region of Canada: British Columbia and Yukon, Prairies and North, Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. Each province/region has narrowed down their lists to ten titles; not sure when the voting will begin, but I will definitely tune in soon to get more info. The list includes a few Canadian classics.

Here are the books nominated by region/or province:

Atlantic Provinces:

Annabel by Kathleen Winter
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery - one of my favourite books, ever! 
The Bay of Love and Sorrows by David Adams Richards 
Come Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant 
February by Lisa Moore 
Galore by Michael Crummey 
Glass Boys by Nicole Lundrigan 
No Great Mischief by Alistair McLeod 
Ragged Islands by Don Hannah 
The Town that Drowned by Riel Nason

Prairies and North:

Stolen by Annette Lapointe 
Cool Water by Dianne Warren 
Fall from Grace by Wayne Arthurson 
The Garneau Block by Todd Babiak 
Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay 
The Trade by Fred Stenson 
The Age of Hope by David Bergen 
The Diviners by Margaret Laurence - I love Margaret Mitchell, although my favourite is The Stone Angel, The Diviners is not too shabby either.
Who Has Seen the Wind by W.O. Mitchell - I'm sure I read this book in school, but for the life of me I do not remember it.  It may be time for a re-read.
The Englishman’s Boy by Guy Vanderhaeghe

Ontario:

The Amazing Absorbing Boy by Rabindranath Maharaj - I have this book in my TBR pit
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood - One of my favourite authors.  I have read the majority of her books, but I haven't read Alias Grace.  Shame! 
Away by Jane Urquhart - I have read this author, but not this book.
Clara Callan by Richard B. Wright 
The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Buchanan 
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje - I read this book ages ago...I remember loving it but not the movie.
Far to Go by Alison Pick 
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies - I read this book in high school.  I remember loving it back then, and I somewhat remember the plot.  Another re-read. 
Helpless by Barbara Gowdy 
Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb

Quebec:

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny - I love Louise Penny's Armand Gamamche series, I haven't read this book yet, but I'm definitely looking forward to it.
The Darling of Kandahar by Felicia Mihali 
De Niro's Game by Rawi Hage 
How to make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired by Dany Laferrière Illustrado by Miguel Syjuco 
Inside by Alix Ohlin 
Ru by Kim Thuy 
Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler - I have read Richler, but not this one.
The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy 
Two Solitudes by Hugh McLennan

British Columbia and Yukon:

The Canterbury Trail by Angie Abdou 
The Cure for Death by Lightning by Gail Anderson-Dargatz 
Bow Grip by Ivan E. Coyote 
Everything Was Good-bye by Gurjinder Basran 
The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon 
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese 
Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson 
Obasan by Joy Kogawa - Another book read during school.  Another re-read.
One Good Hustle by Billie Livingston 
Swamp Angel by Ethel Wilson

I'm ashamed to say that the majority of these books are all new to me.  I guess I will be having some fun looking them up at the library.

The Best Laid Plans

Here’s the set up: A burnt-out politcal 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.

I had several reasons on choosing this book. Canadian author, a satiracal story around Canadian politics and it was the winner of Canada Reads 2011. But the main reason is that I'm far behind in my Canadian Book Challenge and what I mean by far behind is that I only read one book so far.

I'm glad that I picked this book up. I truly enjoyed reading it. I found the setting, Ottawa inviting just as usual, although I could deal without the bitter cold of winter, having lived there for two years. It's a great feeling reading a book and knowing exactly where the author is describing. I loved the characters, Daniel, Angus, Pete1, Pete2, but my favorite was Muriel. Spanky and straight forward type of woman.

My only complaint was that I was expecting a more humorous book and don't get wrong there was alot to laugh at, but I didn't find it to be a laugh out loud type of book.

I'm looking forward on reading the author's next book, The High Road.

The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis (4/5) Fiction: Satire; Published: McClelland & Stewart (2007); The Stephen Leacock Award for Humour; 2011 Canada Reads Winner; New Author; Canada Reads; Canadian Book Challenge 4 (2); Books 2011 (10);

Life of Pi

Pi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.
The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional-but is it more true?

Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God.

I've been meaning to read this book for years. I've heard nothing but good things about it, and I've tried several times but I never managed to read past the first couple of chapters. Until I got over my moodiness and just sat down and read. And I'm so glad that I did. It was a wonderful book and I cannot believe it took me so long to actually pick it up and really give a try.

I loved the way the story is told by Pi (Piscine Molitor Patel) a sixteen year old from India. He's the second son of a zoo keeper/owner, he's curious about religion and their relationship with God, he loves animals and he wishes that he was more like his brother. A normal teenager. He's also the only survivor of a terrible shipwreck. Human survivor that is, there's Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger. This is their story. It's the story of their survival. But once he's safe and sound he's questioned about the facts of his ordeal. And until then you truly do not question his story. In the end I wasn't able to decide which story I liked the best. The story with the animals or the story with the people.

I only know that I loved the book.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel (5/5) General Fiction; Published: Knopf (9/2001); New Author; Canadian Reads; Canadian Book Challenge 4 (1); 1001 You Must Read (79); Books 2010 (74);

The Jade Peony

Chinatown, Vancouver, in the late 1930s and '40s provides the backdrop for this poignant first novel, told through the vivid reminiscences of the three younger children of an immigrant Chinese family. The siblings grapple with their individual identities in a changing world, wresting autonomy from the strictures of history, family, and poverty.

Sister Jook-Liang dreams of becoming Shirley Temple and escaping the rigid, old ways of China. Adopted Second Brother Jung-Sum, struggling with his sexuality and the trauma of his childhood in China, finds his way through boxing. Third Brother Sekky, who never feels comfortable with the multitude of Chinese dialects swirling around him, becomes obsessed with war games, and learns a devastating lesson about what war really means when his 17-year-old babysitter dates a Japanese man.

Mingling with life in Canada and the horror of war are the magic, ghosts, and family secrets of Poh-Poh, or Grandmother, who is the heart and pillar of the family. Side by side, her three grandchildren survive hardships and heartbreaks with grit and humor. Like the jade peony of the title, Choy's storytelling is at once delicate, powerful, and lovely.

The Jade Peony was one of those books that I lost myself in...I loved the setting, the 30's in Vancouver with immigrants and their children. The children grow up with the old country morals and tales while living in a different culture who doesn't necessarily understand where they are coming from. As a daughter of immigrants I can understand the confusion of blending the new and old.

Each sibling has a section in the book. Jook-Liang, the only sister, has a beautiful relationship with an elderly man, she loves hearing his stories and he loves to watch her perform. Jung-Sum, the middle adopted brother, struggles with belonging, remembering his biological parents and a sense that he is different from the other boys. And then there's the baby of the family, Sekky, who everyone think is brainless because of his health issues; he forms a interesting friendship with his babysitter and learns a difficult lesson very early in his life.

My only complaint was that it wasn't enough, I wanted to know what happened next.

The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy (4/5) Historical Fiction; Published: Douglas & McIntyre (10/95); New Author; Canadian Author; Canada Reads 2010; What's In A Name? (2); Year of the Historical (8); Canadian Book Challenge (12); Books 2010 (54);

Canada Reads 2010

Yes, it's that time of year again. Canada Reads begins on the 8th, and I cannot wait to discussion to begin.

Here are the books:

Good To A Fault by Marina Endicott. This book is being defended by Simi Sara. Here's the blurb:

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.

Nikolski by Nicolas Dickener. This is being defended by Michel Vézina. Here's the blurb:

Spring 1989. Three young people - Noah, Joyce and an unnamed narrator - leave their far-flung birthplaces to follow their own personal songs of migration. Each ends up in Montreal, each on a voyage of self-discovery, dealing with the mishaps of heartbreak and the twisted branches of their shared family tree.

With humour, charm and the sure touch of a born storyteller, Nicolas Dickner crafts a tale that shows the surprising links between garbage-obsessed archeologists, pirates past and present, earthquake victims, sea snakes, several very large tuna fish, an illiterate deep-sea diver, a Commodore 64, a mysterious book with no cover, and a broken compass whose needle obstinately points to the Aleutian village of Nikolski.

Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland. The books is being defended by Roland Pemberton (a.k.a. Cadence Weapon). Here's the blurb:

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.

The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy. The book is being defended by Samantha Nutt. Here's the blurb:

Jook-Liang, the family's only girl, and her brothers Jung-Sum and Sek-Lung (nicknamed Sekky) were all born in Canada, but their parents and the rest of the family are recent immigrants. The children grow up torn between the reality of their lives outside the family circle and the old-world traditions that prevail at home.

The children are drawn to figures from North American popular culture, from cowboys to Shirley Temple, but they're also captivated by the magical stories told by Poh-Poh, their grandmother. Her mythic tales feature ghosts, dragons and characters from Chinese folklore such as the Monkey King and the scary Fox Lady.

The three have very different experiences of life in their family and the world at large. Sekky, the youngest, witnesses a love affair between his Chinese-Canadian babysitter and a young man of Japanese heritage, which plays out against the backdrop of the racism that flourished during the Second World War.

The Jade Peony is a sensitive depiction of the collision between cultures that all newcomers experience — and the conflicts within families that can arise as a result. It's also a vivid evocation of the division between the world of adults and the world of childhood, rendered with insight, humour and grace.

Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie McDonald. This book is being defended by Perdita Felicien. Here's the blurb:

Fall on Your Knees begins in a small mining community in Nova Scotia in the early 1900s and moves to the battlefields of the First World War and then to Harlem during the Jazz Age and the Depression.
It all begins when James elopes with his 13-year-old bride, Materia Mahmoud, whose Lebanese father then casts her out and curses her.

Four sisters are born into the family: beautiful Kathleen, who sings like an angel, self-sacrificing and obedient Mercedes, naughty, rebellious Frances and pure-hearted Lily. There is hope, talent and passion in each of them, but each is affected in her own way by their father's hold on their lives.

Fall on Your Knees has been translated into more than 20 languages and has won numerous awards and accolades, including the Canadian Authors' Association Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book and the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award. It was also a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was selected for Oprah's Book Club in 2002.

Of the five books I've only read one, Fall on Your Knees years ago. It may be time to re-read it.

The Outlander

There are several reasons why I chose to read The Outlander by Gil Adamson. It's set in western Canada, it's written by a Canadian author, and it was nominated last year for Canada Reads. It didn't win but it was a definite favourite among some of the panel. And because it's it written by a Canadian I can use it for a challenge I'm part of, The Canadian Book Challenge 3.

In 1903, a mysterious, desperate young woman flees alone across the western wilderness, one quick step ahead of her pursuers. She has just become a widow - and her husband's murderer.

Gil Adamson's superb novel opens in heart-pounding mid flight and propels the reader through a gripping fugitive-on-the-run story with a twist: this time, the steely outlaw is a grief-struck nineteen-year-old girl. As the widow encounters characters of all stripes - wheedling, self-reliant, greedy, generous, lascivious, and occasionally trustworthy - the reader is irresistibly drawn into a brilliant, picaresque tale of one young woman's deliberate journey deep into the wild.

First of all let me begin by saying that it took me a while to get into the story. I truly began to enjoy it halfway through. I loved the suspense of the story, but I found that the flow at times was lacking, it was taking too long to explain certain things...I wanted to scream to "get to point already!", but I kept on reading. I enjoyed the widow's memories because it gave me the character background and the reason for her mental fragility.

I did not like the way the book ended. I actually had to read the last chapter twice, it didn't seem right to me. I wonder if I'm alone with that? Have you read it?

The Outlander by Gil Adamson (3.75/5) Historical Fiction; Published: Anansi (2007); New Author; Canadian Author; Canada Reads (7); Canadian Book Challenge 3 (7); Books 2010 (23);

The Book of Negroes

There are a couple of reasons why I read this book, and they are:

1. The author is Canadian and the story also has a Canadian connection, and because of that I read it for Canadian Book Challenge 3.

2. It was the last book standing on Canada Reads 2009. Yep, it's the winner. And as a personal challenge, I'm trying to read all of the books nominated for Canada Reads.

Here's the blurb for The Book of Negroes by Laurence Hill:

Abducted as an 11-year-old child from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea in a coffle - a string of slaves - Aminata Diallo is sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. But years later, she forges her way to freedom, serving the British in the Revolutionary War and registering her name in the historic "Book of Negroes". This book, an actual document, provides a short but immensely revealing record of freed Loyalist slaves who requested permission to leave the US for resettlement in Nova Scotia, only to find that the haven they sought was steeped in an oppression all of its own. Aminata's eventual return to Sierra Leone - passing ships carrying thousands of slaves bound for America - is an engrossing account of an obscure but important chapter in history that saw 1,200 former slaves embark on a harrowing back-to-Africa odyssey.

Lawrence Hill is a master at transforming the neglected corners of history into brilliant imaginings, as engaging and revealing as only the best historical fiction can be. A sweeping story that transports the reader from a tribal African village to a plantation in the southern United States, from the teeming Halifax docks to the manor houses of London, The Book of Negroes introduces one of the strongest female characters in recent Canadian fiction, one who cuts a swath through a world hostile to her colour and her sex.

Every once in a while I find a book that has the ability to bring me down on my knees emotionally. This book did that to me. I ran a gamut of emotions: wonder, confusion, sadness, grief, hopefulness and happiness.

I was hooked right from the beginning when Aminata is in London and talking to young children, and then she goes back to memories from home. Her abduction, and her grief of losing her loved ones, and her confusion was so real to me. I felt that I was going along with her, through her travels, through her experiences. I believe that she is one of the most interesting, courageous and wise character that I've ever read. It's a story of hope and survival.

I highly recommend this book. Just a word of warning, have a box of tissues close by, you will need it.

The Book of Negroes by Laurence Hill (5/5) Historical Fiction; Published: HarperCollins (2007); Canada Reads 2009; Canada Reads (6); 2009 100 + Reading Challenge (87); Canadian Book Challenge 3 (1);

Fruit

I've been trying to read all the books suggested - along with the winners - for Canada Reads. For those who are not familiar with it it's a week long radio show (usually around March every year). Five books are selected by celebrity panelists, they have to read all books, and discuss and defend their choices. Each day a book is voted off, and at the end one is the winner.

Fruit by Brian Francis. It was defended by Jen Sookfong Lee.

The blurb was taken from CBC Radio:

It’s 1984 in Sarnia, Ontario, and 13-year-old Peter Paddington is mortified. He’s overweight, has few friends and a crazy family and, to top things off, he’s just sprouted a pair of talking nipples.

When the ridicule of the bullies in his eighth grade class at Clarkedale Elementary grows too much to bear, Peter retreats into his own vivid imagination. At night, he seeks solace in his “Bedtime Movies” — glamorous narratives, where he is always popular, famous and, most of all, loved. But by day, those pesky nipples won’t shut up. When they threaten to expose Peter’s innermost secrets and desires, he is forced to come up with a new plan, one that will help him finally accept himself.

I was pleasantly surprised with this book. I had a preconceived idea that I wouldn't like it, but I was hooked from the first paragraph. Which I just have to share:

My name is Peter Paddington. I just started grade 8 at Clarkedale Elementary School. Six days a week, I deliver the Sarnia Observer and the other day my nipples popped out.

Then, I just sat and read. And laughed, and laughed.

All thoroughout the book I thought poor kid, he has no real friends, with a dysfunctional family, his mother going through Menopause and he's going through puberty, plus he has weight issues. But the book was written in way that made it funny, because you kind of remember going through the change as well. But what was really touching was his confusion, actually his questions about his own sexuality. He likes girls but doesn't feel anything for them. He prefers boys, but he's afraid that that would make him a freak. Poor Peter.

I enjoyed the ending. In a way it was about a resolution and sticking to it. Even though his nipples were still talking to him. Yep, really...You need to read this book!

It was time well spent.

Fruit by Brian Francis (4.5/5) General Fiction; Published: ECW Press (2004); New Author; Canadian Author; Canada Reads; 2009 100 + Reading Challenge (72);

Canada Reads 2009

Five books. Five days. Five celebrity panelists, defending their books. It all began yesterday.

Here are the five books chosen:


This book is defended by Avi Lewis.


This book is defended by Anne-Marie Withenshaw.


This book is defended by Jen Sookfong Lee.


This book is defended by Sarah Slean.


This book is defended by Nicholas Campbell.

This first book will be voted off today. I wonder which will be the first...

For more info you can visit the CBC, here's the link.

A Complicated Kindness

Last year I made a personal resolution, a challenge I guess you can say. I challenged myself to read more Canadian authors. And a what better way in selecting the authors and the books by using the CBC Canada Reads lists. The other plus in this was that I didn't have a timeline.

Not only did I read A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews for my Canada Reads Challenge but also for Book Awards II Challenge. A Complicated Kindness won The Governor General's Award in 2004.

Basically here's the story of a girl who is discovering herself, being a teenager is hard, but when you there are family member missing, it gives an added edge. Nomi's sister and mother both left, she now lives alone with her father in a Mennonite community which she feels that strangling her. She wants to break free, discover new things, live in the East Village (the one in NYC!), she wants to experiment. But the strong ties that her father has to the community and their way of life is too strong.

I want to share with you a paragraph from the first chapter, I love her humor, or I guess you can say her sarcastic humor:

We’re Mennonites. Five hundred years ago in Europe a man named Menno Simons set off to do his own peculiar religious thing and he and his followers were beaten up and killed or forced to conform all over Holland, Poland, and Russia until they, at least some of them, finally landed right here where I sit. Imagine the least well-adjusted kid in your school starting a breakaway clique of people whose manifesto includes a ban on the media, dancing, smoking , temperate climates, movies, drinking, rock’n’roll, having sex for fun, swimming, makeup, jewellery, playing pool, going to cities, or staying up past nine o’clock. That was Menno all over. Thanks a lot, Menno.

I found the idea of this book very interesting. I live very close to a Mennonite community, and I find them fascinating. I know a few and they're hard working, family oriented people, who follow different rules. I thought that this book would be more of a celebration of her individuality, but it really is a book about her self discovery. Her confusion, her wanting to know what happen to her mom and her sister rule her. I was expecting something and I get something totally different.

I found the way the book was written to be a little hard to follow the storyline. It jumps from present to past and back again without warning. Which confused me at times and I had to go back a couple of pages and re-read them again.

Overall I found the story just okay. There wasn't really anything that grabbed me, but I did find the last couple of chapters more interesting than the previous ones.

I do have to mention that this book was the winner of the Canada Reads in 2006. I guess a part of me can understand why this book was (and still is) so well liked, but I have problems with it being the favourite. Oh well....

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews (3/5) General Fiction; Published: Alfred A. Knopf Canada (2004); Canada Reads; Winner of Governor General's Award 2004; Book Awards II (5); 2009 100 + Reading Challenge (5); 2009 Support Your Local Library Challenge (3);

Canada Reads: King Leary

I've finished reading the third book for my version of Canada Reads. I made a personal challenge. I will read all the books listed for the CBC's Canada Reads challenge. I don't have a time line, let's face it reading thirty five books may take a while, especially when I tend to be very moody reader.

King Leary by Paul Quarrington, was selected and won Canada Reads 2008. The book was championed by Dave Bidini.

This was my first time reading Paul Quarrington. He's one of those authors that I've known about but never got around to reading.

Here's the blurb for King Leary (taken from Canada Reads):

Tracked down by a young advertising executive, King Leary is invited to Toronto to record a ginger ale commercial alongside the NHL’s newest hockey sensation.

Leary travels to the big city with his roommate and a slightly off-kilter male nurse, but he’s also accompanied by his ghosts: Clay Clinton, his one-time best friend and former hockey manager; Manny Oz, Leary’s challenger for the crown; and the hockey-playing monks of Bowmanville Reformatory, where Leary’s career began.

The trip is a sometimes hilarious, sometimes heart-wrenching odyssey that reveals the truths of Leary’s not-always-illustrious life.

It took me so long to read this book. Usually I can read a book in a few days, but this it took me over two weeks. Mind you, I was reading other books along the way, but I wouldn't be looking for others if this one kept my interest.

I did not dislike the book, I found it good, but there were areas that I struggled with. I found Percy Leary to be egotistical, lonely and mean spirited towards his children, but I enjoyed his memories, mainly the ones at the Bowmanville Boys' reformatory. Also I really liked how the book ends. I found that it was a fitting end for a hockey player.

King Leary by Paul Quarrington (3/5) General Fiction; Published: Doubleday Canada (1988); New Author; Canada Reads; 100 + Reading Challenge (18); Library book;

Canada Reads: Not Wanted On The Voyage

I've finished reading the second book for my version of Canada Reads. I made a personal challenge. I will read all the books listed for the CBC's Canada Reads challenge. I don't have a time line, let's face it reading thirty five books may take a while, especially when I tend to be very moody reader.

Not Wanted On The Voyage by Timothy Findley was a book selected on Canada Reads 2008, it championed by actor Zaib Shaikh.

I have read Timothy Findley before, I consider him to be one of the best, one of my favourites. I loved Pilgrim and The Piano Man's Daughter. So I was pretty excited about reading Not Wanted On The Voyage.

Here's the blurb:

Not Wanted on the Voyage is the story of the great flood and the first time the world ended. It is a brilliant, unforgettable drama filled with an extraordinary cast of remarkable characters: the tyrannical Noah and his indomitable wife, Mrs. Noyes; the aging and irritable Yahweh; a chorus of singing sheep; and a unicorn destined for a horrible death. With pathos and pageantry, desperation and hope, magic and mythology, this acclaimed novel weaves its unforgettable spell.

In my opinion the book started off great. I was fully interested in the story, in his point of view. But somewhere in the middle I started getting disinterested. There were times where I found it disturbing and others very touching. But I think the disturbing ones won out and really creeped me out. I felt for the women in this book, and my favorite character was a cat. Yep, a cat. I have a soft spot for cats, especially the black ones.

Overall I'm glad that I read this book. I loved the imagery, but it was a little too much.

Not Wanted On The Voyage by Timothy Findley (3/5) General Fiction; Published: Viking Canada (1984); Canadian Author; Canada Reads; Library Book;

Canada Reads: The Handmaid's Tale

I've finished reading the first book for my version of Canada Reads. I made a personal challenge, I will read all the books listed for the CBC's Canada Reads challenge. I don't have a time line, let's face it reading thirty five books may take a while, especially when I tend to be very moody reader.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood was a selected book on Canada Reads 2002, it was championed by former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell.

I've had this book in my To Be Read shelf, better known as the Pit, for a very long time. It's been recommended to my countless of times, but I never gotten a chance to read. I admit, that I've overlooked several times while I'm perusing the Pit. I'm so glad that I read it.

Here's the blurb:

In the world of the near future, who will control women's bodies?

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are only valued if their ovaries are viable.

Offred can remember the days before, when she lived and made love with her husband Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now....

I cannot believe that it took me so long to read this book. I loved it! I found it funny, moving and at times perturbing. It was one of the most powerful reads that I've experienced in a very long time. It brought me to tears!

Offred the handmaiden, the narrator of this story, and that's the only name we know her by. She's trying to live in a world that represses women, she's just a vessel, something to be used and when not needed any longer, she goes to next Commander. She longs for her husband and her child, not knowing where they are, she craves human touch (which is prohibited), she needs human interaction, but most of all she wants to feel. She's not living, she just going through the motions.

I highly recommend it!

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (5/5) General Fiction; Published: McClelland & Stewart (1985); Canadian Author; Canada Reads; Keeper;

Canada Reads 2008: We Have a Winner!

It's been a long week! But we have a winner:



King Leary was selected by Dave Didini.

Here's the blurb:

Percival Leary was once the King of the Ice, one of hockey’s greatest heroes. Now, in the South Grouse Nursing Home, where he shares a room with Edmund “Blue” Hermann, the antagonistic and alcoholic reporter who once chronicled his career, Leary looks back on his tumultuous life and times: his days at the boys’ reformatory when he burned down a house; the four mad monks who first taught him to play hockey; and the time he executed the perfect “St. Louis Whirlygig” to score the winning goal in the 1919 Stanley Cup final.

Now all but forgotten, Leary is only a legend in his own mind until a high-powered advertising agency decides to feature him in a series of ginger ale commercials. With his male nurse, his son, and the irrepressible Blue, Leary sets off for Toronto on one last adventure as he revisits the scenes of his glorious life as King of the Ice.

Canada Reads 2008: Fourth Book Off

The fourth book voted off:



Not Wanted On The Voyage was selected by Zaib Shaikh

Here's the blurb (taken from the publisher's site):

Not Wanted on the Voyage is the story of the great flood and the first time the world ended. It is a brilliant, unforgettable drama filled with an extraordinary cast of remarkable characters: the tyrannical Noah and his indomitable wife, Mrs. Noyes; the aging and irritable Yahweh; a chorus of singing sheep; and a unicorn destined for a horrible death. With pathos and pageantry, desperation and hope, magic and mythology, this acclaimed novel weaves its unforgettable spell.

Canada Reads 2008: Third Book Off

The third book voted off is:



Icefields was selected by Steve MacLean.

Here's the blurb (taken from the publisher's site):

At a quarter past three in the afternoon, on August 17, 1898, Doctor Edward Byrne slipped on the ice of Arcturus glacier in the Canadian Rockies and slid into a crevasse...

Nearly sixty feet below the surface, Byrne is wedged upside down between the narrowing walls of a chasm, fighting his desire to sleep. A stray beam of sunlight illuminates the ice in front of him with a pale blue-green radiance. There, embedded in the pure, antediluvian glacier, Byrne sees something that will inextricably link him to the vast yet disappearing bed of ice, and the people who inhabit this strange corner of the world. In this moment, his life becomes a quest to uncover the mystery of the icefield that almost became his tomb. Along the way, he encounters a series of eccentrics, each involved in their own quest: the explorer Freya; the industrialist Trask; the poet Hal; and the slightly mad Elspeth, Byrne's lover.

Within the deceptively simple framework of a tourist guidebook, Icefields takes a breathtaking, imaginative look at the human spirit, loss, myth, and elusive truths. Here is an impressive literary landscape, and an expedition unlike any you have ever experienced.

Canada Reads 2008: Second Book Off

Here's the second book voted off:



Brown Girl In The Ring was selected by Jemeni.

Here's the blurb (take from the publisher's site):

Brown Girl in the Ring tells the story of Ti-Jeanne, a young woman in a near-future Toronto that’s been all but abandoned by the Canadian government. Anyone who can has retreated from the chaos of the city to the relative safety of the suburbs, and those left in “the burn” must fend for themselves. To survive without traditional government, people in the inner city have had to rediscover old ways: farming, barter, herb lore. But now the wealthy want organs for transplants, and they begin to prey upon the helpless of the streets.

Ti-Jeanne is a new mother trying to come to grips with her baby and also trying to end her relationship with her drug-addicted boyfriend, Tony. But a passion still burns between the young lovers, and when Tony runs afoul of Rudy, the local ganglord, Ti-Jeanne convinces her grandmother Gros-Jeanne to help out. Gros-Jeanne is a Voudoun priestess, and it’s clear that Ti-Jeanne has inherited some of her gifts. Although Ti-Jeanne wants nothing to do with the spirit world, she soon finds herself caught up in a battle to the death with Rudy and the mother she thought she lost long ago.