Report from Book Expo Canada, Part Two

I've done a first wade through the publishers' catalogues (and I should state here that I don't have nearly all of them) and on first impression - it's going to be an exciting fall. At first glance I'm not seeing a lot of "big name" authors but again that could be because I didn't pick up catalogues from a lot of the publishers (I can only carry so much before I become more of a stooped wreck than I already am). Some of the publishers are mailing the catalogues to me and for the rest I'll probably peruse their fall lines on their websites.

This is all in preface to this disclaimer: These are the books which I personally am looking forward to hearing more about and perhaps reading. This is in no way a reflection on what I think is going to be a big hit this fall nor am I suggesting that any author is publishing a "bad" book by not listing it here.

Okay, with all that stuff out of the way, here is the beginning of my list. I'll probably post this over several days because there are a lot of books (more than I could possibly read between now and the end of the year to be honest).

Raincoast Books
* Atomic Sushi by Simon May (August 2006)
* Terry Jones' Barbarians by Terry Jones & Alan Ereira (August 2006)
* Windflower: a Novel by Nick Bantock & Edoardo Ponti (August 2006)
* The Museum of Lost Wonder: a Graphic Guide to Reawakening the Human Imagination by Jeff Hoke (September 2006)
* Reading, Writing, and Leaving Home: Life on the Page by Lynn Freed (September 2006)
* Remainder by Tom McCarthy (September 2006)
* So Many Ways to Begin by Jon McGregor (September 2006)
* Empress of Asia: a Novel by Adam Lewis Schroeder (October 2006)
* The Joke's Over: Bruised Memories of Gonzo: Hunter S. Thompson and Me by Ralph Steadman (October 2006)
* The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia (October 2006)
* Zugzwang: a Novel by Ronan Bennett (January 2007)

Farrar, Strauss and Giroux
* Was She Pretty? by Leanne Shapton (November 2006)

Coach House Books
* Miss Lamp: a Novel by Chris Ewart (already in print)
* King by Tanya Chapman (October 2006)
* The River of Dead Trees: a Novel by Andree A. Michaud; Translated by Nathalie Stephens (October 2006)

The Dundurn Group
* The Restoration of Emily: a Novel by Kim Moritsugu (already in print)
* Does Your Mother Know by Maureen Jennings (September 6, 2006)
* Deadly Sin: a Chief Inspector Bliss Mystery by James Hawkins (January 2007)
* A Sharp Intake of Breath by John Miller (January 6, 2007)

Vehicule Press
* Dead Man's Float by Nicholas Maes (August 2006)
* Optique: Stories by Clayton Bailey (September 2006)

Fitzhenry & Whiteside
* Keturah & Lord Death by Martine Leavitt (August 2006)

Simon & Schuster Canada
* Palestine: Peace or Apartheid? by Jimmy Carter (October 2006)
* The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly (November 2006)
* American Bloomsbury: Louise May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work by Susan Cheever (December 2006)
* Gideon the Cutpurse: Being the First Part of the Gideon Trilogy by Linda Buckley-Archer (already in print)


tags: books Book Expo Canada reading fall books 2006 publishing Raincoast Books Farrar, Strauss and Giroux Coach House Books Dundurn Group Vehicule Press Fitzhenry & Whiteside Simon & Schuster

Report from Book Expo Canada

I've been meaning to post this since Monday night but I think I required a bit of time to digest everything I observed.

First off, even though Monday was supposedly "slow", compared to Sunday, at Book Expo Canada (BEC) I was amazed at how many people were around. The place was hopping and there were many well-known authors available for for signings - Guy Gavriel Kay, Brad Meltzer, Tommy Chong.

I have to admit that standing in the long lines for autographs did not appeal, so I focused on visiting the smaller presses for author signings and took the opportunity of the "quieter" day to visit with a few of the publicists and get a handle on some of the exciting offerings for summer and fall.

Here's what I'm going to be reading for review over the next few months (reviews to come later) in anticipation of summer and early fall releases:
1. Conduct in Question by Mary E. Martin (in print, sequel to be released shortly)
2. The Abode of Love: Growing Up in a Messianic Cult by Kate Barlow (September 8, 2006 from Goose Lane Editions)
3. Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett (October 2006 from Harper Collins)
4. The Uncrowned Queen by Posie Graeme-Evans (June 6, 2006 from Atria)
5. The Garneau Block by Todd Babiak (August 15, 2006 from McClelland & Stewart)
6. Drina Bridge by Jim Bartley (July 11, 2006 from Raincoast Books)
7. The 25 Pains of Kennedy Baines by Dede Crane (August 10, 2006 from Raincoast Books)
8. Before I Wake by Robert J. Wiersema (August 8, 2006 from Random House)
9. The Book of Fathers by Miklos Vamos (July 25, 2006 from Abacus)
10. The Testament Of Gideon Mack by James Robertson (September 5, 2006 from Penguin)

I'll be posting further updates with information on other Summer and Fall releases once I get a chance to peruse all the publisher's catalogues.

My overall impression? There are many really exciting books being released from small and large publishers alike. It's a great time to be a reader!

BOOK REVIEW: When the Rivers Run Dry by Fred Pearce

“Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.” Rime of the Ancient Mariner – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Fred Pearce has been writing and consulting on environmental issues for decades. A highly respected and internationally acclaimed science writer, his newest book, When the Rivers Run Dry: Journeys into the Heart of the World’s Water Crisis, addresses the issue that many scientists contend will be the cause of future world conflicts – the world is running out of water. Earth is awash with water; however, usable water is at a premium. The last sentence of Pearce’s introduction states: “Water, after all, is the ultimate renewable resource.” The question therefore becomes: How is it possible that we are using more water than can be renewed?

Pearce’s contention is that the Western water “footprint” on the rest of the world is a major problem. On average, the water used to feed and clothe most of us for a year takes between 1,500 and 2,000 tonnes, more than half the contents of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. As most of what we eat and wear is grown and manufactured in other countries, we are importing vast quantities of what economists refers to as “virtual water.” What we wear and eat influences the hydrology of producer regions, resulting in a yearly global trade estimated at a thousand cubic kilometers - twenty River Niles.

The small measures we take each day, using low flush toilets or turning off the water while we brush our teeth, while useful on a local scale, have little influence on the majority of water usage. In a system where 11,000 litres are needed to produce the patty used in a McDonald’s Quarter-Pounder, a global solution must be found.

Pearce suggests that the countries currently undertaking massive irrigation projects for food production must reconsider their water usage, weighing the environmental impact of transportation against water depletion. Instead of turning deserts into agricultural land to grow wheat, in some cases using three times as much water as the global norm, countries need to consider importing wheat and other food crops from countries with a lower water cost. New economic models must be developed to consider the true cost of producing food.

When the Rivers Run Dry is an unflinching look at current water situation in more than 30 countries. Just three countries - India, China and Pakistan – account for the usage of more than half the world’s total use of underground water, one-sixth of the world’s usable water. Some of the world’s largest aquifers are under desert sands; however, these aquifers cannot be replaced by rain and in some cases the water being drawn from deep within the earth is thousands of years old. This water is a bank account we are draining dry, dooming the aquifers to extinction: “When a river runs dry, it is very visible. But underground water is invisible…and few in the corridors of power talk…about a slow-burning disaster that will one day affect hundreds of millions of people.” When the water in the world’s aquifers fails, food shortages will follow, undermining the world’s ability to feed itself.

Pearce puts forward that “water flows uphill to money.” If we hope to weather a global climate certain to become more extreme with shifting patterns of precipitation, the world’s governments must stop focusing on the money and instead look at the best interests of the world’s rivers, wetlands and aquifers. Attention must be paid to deteriorating municipal water systems and investments made to fix the potable water leaking into the ground; in some cities, as much as 40% of a city's potable water disappears this way. New attention must be paid to traditional methods of living in harmony with the world’s rivers rather than attempting to tame the rivers through dams and man-made irrigation channels. Desalination of water from the oceans, for agricultural use is still an incredibly cost-prohibitive undertaking.

As David Suzuki states in the foreword: “This...is an urgent warning and a call for action that we must not ignore.” Pearce has delivered a difficult message that should be required reading for all concerned citizens.

Fred Pearce is an environmental and development consultant at New Scientist. Writing about environmental and water issues for more than twenty years, his next book, With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change, is scheduled for release in February 2007.

See the review at ReadySteayBook - When the Rivers Run Dry.

BOOK REVIEW: Natural Flights of the Human Mind by Clare Morrall

“To me, the world of fiction has always been more satisfactory than the world of reality.” Clare Morrall

Peter Straker lives in silent penance on the Devon coast in an old lighthouse, kept company only by his two cats and the seventy-eight voices he hears in his mind and dreams. Twenty-four years ago, Straker was responsible for their deaths in a horrendous train crash and has lived in self-inflicted exile ever since. He spends his days reconstructing the lives he destroyed by gathering snippets from the families left behind.

Imogen Doody’s husband left for work one day and never came home, leaving her a bitter, cantankerous shell. Working as a school caretaker, she receives a surprise inheritance of a cottage in the Devon village where Straker does his weekly shopping. Slowly a reluctant friendship develops and with it, the opening of each to possibility.

It is difficult for any author to release their second novel after critical acclaim on the scale received by Clare Morrall’s Astonishing Splashes of Colour. Morrall handles her sophomore book with grace, choosing to create a more introspective novel. Natural Flights of the Human Mind is told in the alternative perspectives of Straker and Imogen. Periodically, Morrall interrupts these perspectives with the dialogues Straker carries on in his head with the seventy-eight dead. Thrown into the tide of these shifting perspectives are vignettes of the moments leading up to the accident as experienced by various members of the seventy-eight. Like the photographs and letters Straker collects from the living relatives, these vignettes are word photographs, creating an image of the deceased that is occasionally at odds with the one conjured in their dialogue with Straker.

Straker and Imogen are damaged people living in their own fiction. Straker is filled by the seventy-eight he carries with him, so caught up in the silent dialogue moderated by Maggie, one of the seventy-eight, that his silent penance has become a fictional escape. Hidden within her rage and stubborn self-reliance, Imogene finds only further pain. Straker relies on routine and autistic patterning to stave off the world. For him, “Thoughts should be logical. They should run on straight lines so that you can see the beginning and end.” The meeting of these two polar opposites, destined from the first word to be cataclysmic, becomes a story of redemption and healing through Morrall’s deft handling of her subject.

Straker has lived for many years with his only jury being the seventy-eight and his two cats, Suleiman and Magnificent. Like their namesake, Suleiman the Magnificent, The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, the cats sit as his judge, ruling him by opposing any self-deception; however, it is only in regaining his own voice and sharing his crime with Imogen that Straker begins to receive redemption.

Morrall has offered her fans and critics a novel rich in emotion and pain. Natural Flights of the Human Mind is a testament to the damage families can wreak and the repercussions for the community as a whole.

Clare Morrall’s first novel, Astonishing Splashes of Colour, was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2003. The publishing world was caught off guard by Morrall's nomination, not because she was the first debut novelist shortlisted, but because Astonishing Splashes of Colour was published by Tindal Street Press, a new publisher, and only 7,000 copies of the book were in print at the time. Morrall lives in Birmingham, England where she teaches music and continues to write.


P.S. The cover image shown is from the UK version of the book.

See the review posted at ReadySteadyBook.


tags: books book reviews natural flights of the human mind clare morrall man booker prize

BOOK REVIEW: Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn

What do you get when you take a frustrated late-night DJ who's also a closet werewolf? An engaging new heroine ironically named Kitty!

Carrie Vaughn has entered an already crowded market with the first of a new fantasy series based around her character Kitty Norville, a young urbanite who is also a werewolf. Vaughn's novel competes winningly with the likes of Katie MacAllister and Kim Harrison.

Kitty and the Midnight Hour falls out on the excellent side of the "pack." The plot premise intrigues: Kitty has barely settled into her role as the host of the hottest new call-in advice show for the "supernaturally disadvantaged," when suddenly the Powers That Be (of the supernatural world) order a hit on her--while she's on the air!

While people try to figure out if she really is "supernatural," Kitty wants to figure out who wants her dead, avoid being taken out by the assassin--and get her show syndicated. Add a full exploration of the social dynamics of the werewolf pack, and you have a delightfully well-written novel.

One of the Vaughn's key strengths is how very real her novel is. Some of the better-known paranormal novels are so far divorced from reality that it definitely is a work of fantasy. Having been a midnight-shift DJ, I can certainly recognize many of the characters who call in.

Kitty could easily be your friend or the late night DJ you listen to on the radio. Her struggles ring true, as does her quest to figure out her place in the world and sort out the tangled mess of personal relationships and power dynamics around her. It all adds up to a character readers can connect to.

The added bonus is the "soundtrack" Vaughn includes in her acknowledgements. A great collection of classic Goth with a twist. A superb addition to the genre, I eagerly await Kitty's future adventures--as well as more of the eclectic soundtracks.

A delightful story of self-realization as Kitty learns to accept her inner wolf, while discovering the true strength of the inner Kitty.

See the review at Armchair Interviews - Kitty and the Midnight Hour.


tags: Carrie Vaughn werewolves vampires book review Kitty Norville

BOOK REVIEW: Teeth in a Pickle Jar by H.B. Milligan

Megan hasn't had an easy life. Her first sexual encounter leads to a delightful daughter--and a loveless marriage that comes complete with Annabelle, a mother-in-law who gives new meaning to the idea of hauteur and arrogance. After a year of getting by and enduring, Megan has had enough and she leaves Paris, and the husband, for New York City, and her own overbearing mother.

For years Megan devoted herself to providing a good home for her daughter Hayley, trying to provide a balance for the emotionally cold world of Hayley's father and the domineering presence of Mamma. Suddenly Brent, a much younger man, enters the picture, throwing Megan's world into turmoil. Will Megan throw away a chance at true happiness or will she take the leap, regardless of what her Mamma has to say?

H.B. Milligan has crafted a novel of discovery out of some fairly stereotypical plot lines: WASP-ish upper crust society mirrored against the ethnicity of recent immigrants; an overbearing mother of ethnic origin; young single mothers whose lives are relived by their daughters; and finally a middle-aged woman robbing the cradle.
Rather than a formulaic romance novel, Teeth in a Pickle Jar is about searching, discovering anew the shadow our past can cast on our present. Wrapped in a story of a May/December romance, Milligan has constructed a morality play that causes the reader to pause and reflect.

Is it truly better to cling to the hurts we know than to gamble on potential happiness? If Brent is what waits at the end of the journey, then I for one vote for happiness!

Throwing all these disparate plots together with a crazy title like Teeth in a Pickle Jar shouldn't work, but Milligan's pen delights, creating an entrancing tale of self-discovery, friendship and romance.

See the review at Armchair Interviews - Teeth in a Pickle Jar.

BOOK REVIEW: Me, Dead Dad and Alcatraz by Chris Lynch

Elvin Bishop is a creature of routines. He and his Mom have been on their own for many years, and Elvin likes his family of two, plus dog. Then one day his dead Uncle Alex appears sitting on the couch in his living room, determined to turn Elvin's life upside down. Alex wants redemption by "fixing" Elvin's life, to make up for him running off with the money left Elvin and his Mom by his Dad.

Elvin doesn't want fixing--in fact, he doesn't want anything to change. What follows is a struggle of wills between Elvin and Alex, causing Elvin to question everything and everyone around him. Me, Dead Dad and Alcatraz is truly a novel about redemption and finding yourself.

Like all great stories of finding oneself, much of what Elvin goes through is "cringe-worthy"--most readers will be able to relate to Elvin's experiences and empathize with him. Chris Lynch has created a voice for Elvin that rings with honesty, and it adds up to a great coming of age story, filled with humor and humanity. Readers may wish to read Lynch's earlier works featuring Elvin, Slot Machine and Extreme Elvin, before moving on to Me, Dead Dad and Alcatraz.

See the review at Armchair Interviews - Me, Dead Dad and Alcatraz.

My Perfect Vacation

I just discovered the perfect vacation thanks to Marilyn Stasio at the New York Times Review of Books. Here's what she had to say in a recent article on the summer's line-up of new mystery novels.

I once gave a new college graduate what I thought was a great gift: a month's stay at an inn on Cape Cod and a laundry basket stocked with beach towels, flip-flops, suntan lotion, sunglasses and mystery novels. The kid came back tanned and fit, but exhausted from cycling up and down the Cape in search of livelier scenes than the stodgy inn where I had stuck him. The books were returned unopened.

Thinking back on it, I'm still convinced that a stretch of time on a quiet beach with a stack of mysteries is the perfect gift. My only mistake was not giving it to myself. Making up for that now, I've rented a place on the Cape and am packing my own laundry basket of books.

I'm off to add a few of her recommendations to my wish list of summer reading: Shamus in the Green Room by Susan Kandel; Framed by Tonino Benacquista; and They Died in Vain: Overlooked, Underappreciated and Forgotten Mystery Novels by Jim Huang

BOOK REVIEW: The Monsters of Gramercy Park by Danny Leigh

The Monsters of Gramercy Park by Danny Leigh draws the reader into a haunting tale of need and a struggle for power between two determined personalities. Wilson Velez, the convicted felon and leader of the Sacred Incan Royals, needs a reason to live after years of the harshest segregation known in the American prison system. Lizbeth Greene, the celebrated novelist known for the extreme violence that has haunted her life, is looking for her next book. The coming together of these two people to create a true recounting of Wilson's life sets in motion a train of events leading to a truly horrific outcome.

While not your typical blood and gore thriller, this book is perfect for the reader who likes to be kept guessing. Throughout, manipulation and tension keep shifting the foundation upon which the novel is set. Many times I felt the rug pulled out from under my feet as what I believed to be true was ripped away.

Danny Leigh does a great job in fleshing out his characters. Just when you think you know who they are, knowledge is turned on its head and you are left scrambling for a foothold. While Wilson and Lizbeth were not characters I liked, I was compelled to keep reading their story. Several times I found myself ranting out loud at Lizbeth, something a book has not caused me to do in years.

This is a novel that will leave the reader thinking and second-guessing for days to come. Highly recommended for readers who don't want their endings tied up in a box with a pretty bow.

See the Review at Armchair Interviews - The Monsters of Gramercy Park.

BOOK REVIEW: Innocence by Kathleen Tessaro

As the title implies, Innocence is about three young women in London, learning about themselves as they leave home for the first time and attend acting school. Fourteen years later, as Evie faces a turning point in her adult life, she flashes back to the days of "innocence" that lead her to where she is today.

When she is on the mark, Kathleen Tessaro writes prose you want to roll your tongue around and savor like fine wine. It is dense, delectable and begging to be spoken aloud--"In summer, the fig tree drops its heavy fruit to form a thick, gooey compote on the pavement below...." Her gift for descriptions draws you in, setting the mood for her characters, "It's like a house in a Victorian play; overflowing with life, busy with knowledge and experience. Even the dogs lolling about on the oriental carpet are engaged in battles of good versus evil."

I thoroughly enjoyed her debut novel, Elegance, but in my mind her sophomore effort, Innocence, is the more fulfilling read. This is most likely due to Evie who, from her impassioned defense of love at age eighteen--to her contemplation of her co-worker: "Each week, I marvel in fascination at the fragments of R. Fitzroy's life as they unfold before me." Evie reminds me of myself.

Evie's confusion as she stands at the crossroads, unable to make a choice in any direction, can find resonance for all of us.

See the review at Armchair Interviews - Innocence.

BOOK REVIEW: Three Views of Crystal Water by Katherine Govier

Three Views of Crystal Water by Katherine Govier tells the story of Vera, a young Japanese-Canadian at a crucial crossroads in her life. The story is told against the backdrop of the days leading up to World War II.

Vera's young life has been full of familial loss--first her father left their family to follow his pearl lust to Japan and the pearl trade, then her mother commits suicide and finally her grandfather dies. Left alone, Vera travels with her grandfather's widow to Japan to live among the ama divers, women who live with unprecedented freedom. Used to loss, Vera exhibits a skittishness in joining the life of her new village, and she is slow to trust. Vera slowly begins to develop her own luster as she takes control of her destiny. She learns the skills of the ama divers while gaining a sense of her own identity, defined by who she is rather than by those who have left her.

Alternating between Vera's story and that of her family, we slowly gain an understanding of what has driven them in their passion for pearls. The shadowy world of Japan fighting a battle for Asian domination is the perfect foil for Vera's tale.

This is a quiet, intimate novel with a shifting surface, as changeable as the pearl at the heart of the tale. The language is enthralling and Katherine Govier evokes a time and location that to many is shrouded with mystery.

Three Views of Crystal Water is a window into a story overlooked by many when studying World War II.

See the review at Armchair Interviews - Three Views of Crystal Water.

BOOK REVIEW: House of Many Gods by Kiana Davenport

Ana grows up in a small house on the western coast of Oahu, Hawaii, living with three generations of her rambunctious extended family. Like her mother before her, Ana has been abandoned, raised by this group of illegitimates, notorious within their community of poor, native-Hawaiians. The first of her family to attend college and become a physician, Ana moves to Honolulu and eventually meets Nikolai while participating in rescue efforts after a hurricane devastates the neighbouring island of Kaua'i.

House of Many Gods is told from the perspectives of three narrators; Ana, Anahola (her mother, sometimes also referred to as Ana), and Nikolai. Initially each character's path is told independent of the others and as the novel develops, the paths move inevitably toward each other. While in the beginning the narration of both Ana and Anahola adds a great deal of confusion for the reader, further into the novel the multiple perspectives add significant depth to the story.

Ana spends much of the novel isolated, using everything as a shield to protect her heart and keep the world at arms length. When Rosie finally tells Ana the truth, that she rejects everything messy and human and is just like her mother, I wanted to curl up and escape Ana's feelings of mortification. Kiana Davenport writes Ana with such reality that I experienced the loneliness, terror and confusion along with her.

At the same time, since Davenport has so cleverly told the story from multiple perspectives, I also want to reach out and shake Ana out of her self-indulgence and guardedness. House of Many Gods captures the imagination, drawing the reader into the search for self experienced by each character.

House of Many Gods is a character driven novel but it is also a work specific to its time in history and the peoples under siege. Oahu and Russia are characters that are shaped by their time and events. History shapes both people and countries and perhaps this is the most important message Davenport shares with us, drawing the parallels of history between native-Hawaiian and Russians peoples.

While Davenport skillfully plays with techniques, using three narrators and three languages throughout the book, her techniques never interfere with the narrative. This is a mature work that will stand up well to repeated readings and study.

Read my review at Armchair Interviews - House of Many Gods.

BOOK REVIEW: Queen of the Underworld by Gail Godwin

Emma Gant, fresh out of college, has set her feet firmly on her own path. Leaving behind an impossible family situation, she charts her course for Miami to take her place on the staff of the Miami Star and by the side of her married lover.

It is the summer of 1959, Cuba has been betrayed by Castro and floods of Cuban refugees are arriving in Miami. Emma is quickly enmeshed in the lives of those sharing her hotel. Her predetermined plans for her life quickly falter as different views on life make inroads into her consciousness. With her lively intelligence and curiosity, Emma is determined to keep control of her own situation.

In Queen of the Underworld, Gail Godwin helps the reader experience Emma's search for her essential "Emma-ness", set against a background of chaos, both historical and physical. The concept of "usurpation" is one on which Emma spends a great deal of time. All around her is a physical reminder of this, displaced Cubans now calling the hotel home. However, Godwin draws out this theme in Emma's work, relationships and in the relationship with her married lover.

The use of language in this work also operates on several levels. Emma's neophyte status in the world means that, despite her desire to be seen as a woman of the world, she is continually faced with concepts, history and words she does not know. Daily she is reminded that she can't understand the spoken word around her in her new home and wonders how she would react if she not only had to face a new life but also one where she could not speak the language. Godwin has plotted her story in a way to show the similarities between Emma's life and those of the Cubans around her, using this mirror to reflect to Emma how she is both the usurper and the usurped.

Emma is an engaging heroine drawn vividly to life by an author of great talent. The passion and questioning exhibited by Emma mesmerizes the reader, drawing you into a life beginning surrounded by utter change.

Read my review at Armchair Interviews - Queen of the Underworld.

BOOK REVIEW: The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster

Good opening lines and paragraphs are tough to find but Paul Auster came up with a doozy for The Brooklyn Follies: "I was looking for a quiet place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn, and so the next morning I traveled down there…" The I is Nathan Glass; divorced, retired insurance salesman, estranged from his daughter, lung cancer patient (in remission) who's looking for a place to die. To wile away the moments until then, Nathan begins by consigning to paper the human blunders, foibles, inane act and embarrassments committed by himself and others. He calls these his "Brooklyn Follies."

Soon after his arrival in Brooklyn, Nathan runs across his nephew Tom, working at a local bookstore. A scholar destined for greatness, Tom has derailed and after years of penance driving a taxi cab, has chosen to sell rare books. What follows is a story of redemption, lost souls and the lives that intersect with Nathan and Tom's saga.

Nathan is a lovable rogue. He exists in the calm eye of a storm while all around him chaos rules. His reentry into Tom's life helps Tom regain his will to live and slowly reengage life. The novel thrusts the reader into this storm, disorienting the smooth flow of plot by adding new characters and continually altering the pace. The chaos is thrilling and serves to absorb the reader more fully into the search of the main characters.

Near the end of Brooklyn Follies, Auster shares a thought that permeates the novel: "Most lives vanish. A person dies, and little by little all traces of that life disappear." Nathan goes on to wonder who publishes books about the forgotten one. Auster has answered that question with The Brooklyn Follies, a novel chockfull of forgotten ones and little lives. Redemption for Nathan and another enthralling read from a master novelist for those of us fortunate enough to enter his Brooklyn.

As Auster reminds us, "Never underestimate the power of books."

Read my review at Armchair Interviews - The Brooklyn Follies.

Movie Recommendation

I went to see Night Watch (NOCHNOI DOZOR), a new film that's playing at the local rep cinema. As the film's website says:

NIGHT WATCH (NOCHNOI DOZOR) is the first installment of a trilogy based on the best-selling Russian sci-fi novels of Sergei Lukyanenko (which also includes Day Watch and Dusk Watch). This visionary horror fantasy film features a dazzling mix of mind-blowing effects, adrenaline-fuelled action and suspenseful terror.

NIGHT WATCH (NOCHNOI DOZOR) was an instant smash hit in its native Russia when it was released in July 2004 shattering all previous box office records. Made for a mere $4 million, the film surpassed both LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING and SPIDER-MAN 2 at the Russian box office. Internationally acclaimed, it was also Russia's contender for the 2004 foreign language Oscar® award.

The film is dark, visionary and incredibly cool. I would highly recommend it and I will be ordering my copies of Sergei Lukyanenko's books today.

Night Watch is being released by William Heinemann (in English) at the end of July and the sequel Day Watch is scheduled for release in January 2007. No word yet on a release date for Dusk Watch, the final volume in the trilogy.

Weekend Reading

It's been a crazy week and I am very tired. I slept in way too late today and I think I might have thrown off my sleep schedule just a bit.

So, the mandated cleaning is taking second place to reading. I'm pleading tiredness but really I've been sucked in by When the Rivers Run Dry: Journeys into the heart of the world’s water crisis by Fred Pearce. Completely enthralling is all I will say at this point and utterly terrifying at the same time. Along the lines of an accident waiting to happen. I'll post my review once I'm done.

BOOK REVIEW: Confessions of a Teen Nanny by Victoria Ashton

In an effort to get all my past reviews posted here to create "archives", over the next few weeks I'll be adding some reviews published in 2005. They're all great books so check them out!

Anyone who loved Bergdorf Blondes or Mean Girls is going to love Confessions of a Teen Nanny.

Liz and Adrienne have been best friends since they were little. When friends of her boss need a new nanny, Liz convinces Adrienne to sign on for a two-week stint with precocious eight-year-old Emma Warner. Adrienne and Liz quickly get sucked into the lifestyle of the rich and famous lived by Emma's older sister Cameron--and very quickly their lives spin out of control. How they find their footing in this glamorous world is a delightfully, fast-paced romp.

Told in short, snappy chapters, Ashton has evoked a world where one keeps expecting Paris Hilton to step out of the elevator. Heavy on style and ferociously paced, occasionally the reader is left wishing for a bit more character development.

Sure to appeal to all young fashionistas-- and a few Moms and older sisters may try to sneak off with it, too!

Originally posted on Armchair Interviews.

BOOK REVIEW: The Priest's Madonna by Amy Hassinger

In 1896 Bérenger Saunière, the priest of Rennes-le-Château, suddenly became very wealthy. Has he uncovered clues leading to the hidden treasure of the Knights Templar or information that he is using to blackmail the Catholic Church?

The Priest’s Madonna by Amy Hassinger is based on historical facts: there really was a priest named Bérenger Saunière who came into a great deal of money and whose housekeeper Marie was rumoured to also be his lover. The villagers of Rennes-le-Château dubbed her “the Priest’s Madonna” and Marie carried Bérenger’s secrets to her grave, even though many suspected she knew the truth behind his wealth. Hassinger has taken historical fact, woven in possibility and created a riveting novel that gives Marie a voice to tell her story of faith and doubt, desire and chasteness.

Comparisons will inevitably be made to The Da Vinci Code; however The Priest’s Madonna is more than a clone. While the mystery of what Bérenger may have found is tantalizing, Hassinger’s novel is about relationships and faith, about love, obsession and the consequences of our choices.

Marie and her family moved to Rennes-le-Château in the Languedoc region of France in 1884. Initially receiving a chilly welcome from the villagers, they are integrated into the village life more fully once the new priest begins to board with them. Marie is drawn to the handsome young priest and eventually becomes his housekeeper, eschewing opportunities for marriage and a family of her own.

Marie’s story is told in counterpoint to that of Miryam (Mary Magdalen), the woman many suspect was the lover of Yeshua (Jesus). In the question and answer section of her website, Hassinger addresses why she chose to interweave the Marie/Bérenger story with that of Mary Magdalen/Jesus.

“The parallels with the Marie narrative are clear: forbidden love between a woman and a holy man, the themes of spiritual sickness and health, of faith and doubt, the search for what is meaningful and holy in the physical world.”

Both Marie and Miryam are educated beyond the norm for the villages where they are raised. These strong women are plagued by doubts, demons and seek truth no matter what the cost. Marie chooses to continue to learn, to investigate the Cathars who had settled her area of France and in so doing, learns that the Church is fallible. She chooses to imitate Bérenger, to “imitate his daring, to honor my own thirst for truth over doctrine.” Learning helped both women on their journey to become the consorts of spiritual leaders.

By juxtaposing Marie and Miryam’s stories, Hassinger has crafted a novel that illustrates the timelessness of her themes. Interweaving the history of France at the turn of the twentieth century, scenes of ancient Judea, and the romantic and religious journey of a spirited and intense heroine, The Priest’s Madonna transcends its historical setting, becoming a novel for the seeker within all of us.

The Priest’s Madonna is Amy Hassinger’s second novel, the follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut novel Nina: Adolescence. Hassinger also wrote Finding Katahdin: An Exploration of Maine's Past published in 2001. A graduate of Barnard College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she received her MFA in fiction writing, she and her family make their home in Urbana, Illinois.

See the review posted at The Book Depository - The Priest's Madonna.

Black Books, a favourite TV show

I don't know about you but there is so much for me to love about British TV shows. My hands-down favourite? Black Books...it's just so...black!

Thanks to Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind for bring this fabulous link to my attention. This is Bernard in all his glory, enjoy.

My Hor-O-Scopes, Courtesy of Crazy Aunt Purl

It's that time of the month again chez Crazy Aunt Purl - Hor-O-Scopes. Given the fracas from last month, and the general bleck of May, I have high hopes for June. What gives that hope you ask? Why the bold section below! Bring on the joy June...

SCORPIO (Oct. 24 - Nov. 21)
I heard it through the Pissed-Off-At-Astrology Grapevine that Scorpios were really unhappy with the way most of last month went. How do I know this? Did you not hear all the Cancers also complaining that Astrology had FAILED us, and we were giving up stars altogether, and also, hand me that bottle of Cabernet right now before I smack you upside the head with this here mean and ugly stick? So, June is here, and I know you're still kind of mad about May, but you simply cannot get revenge on a whole month, so you must let it go. The problem is of course Saturn (Damn you, fat planet of hardship!) and take it from someone who just spent seven long years wandering in the desert of Saturn, it does get better. The best thing about you and June is your real willingness to try new things to revitalize your life. It's rare that ya'll don't dissect through the consequences or results of all your actions, and this month you will feel liberated and (mostly) care-free, willing to travel to a new place, meet new people, all of it with a who-knows-what-could-happen attitude. This, Scorpio, is a very positive development. Walk lightly, and leave the mean and ugly stick for someone else. Maybe the Virgos could use it.

Paul Auster wins Spain's 2006 Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature

I saw this today on Rake's Progress:

Paul Auster, author of novels including "Mr. Vertigo" and "The New York Trilogy," has won Spain's Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature for 2006, the prize giving foundation said on its Web site.

Auster, 59, also writes poetry and has written screenplays for movies including "Smoke" and "Blue in the Face." He is considered one of the "most relevant" U.S. authors of his generation, the Prince of Asturias Foundation said.

His work "creates a literary universe around chance and the search for identity, where reality and fantasy invade people's every day space," according to the foundation.

Congratulations to Paul Auster. I really enjoy his work and I was lucky enough to read and review The Brooklyn Follies last fall.

BOOK REVIEW: Even Vampires Get the Blues by Katie MacAlister

The fourth entry in Katie MacAlister’s paranormal romance series featuring the Dark Ones is sure to satisfy her many fans and earn her some new ones. Full of her trademark sense of humour and kooky characters, Even Vampires Get the Blues is the story of Paen, a Moravian Dark One doomed to spend his life in search of the woman who can redeem his soul. There’s just one problem – Paen doesn’t believe in love.

Samantha Cosse, a half-elf recently kicked out of the Order of Diviners, has just opened her own private investigation agency with her cousin Clare, a lingerie model in denial about her status as a flower-eating faery. Sam and Paen’s paths cross when he hires her to track down the Jilin God, a lost statue that he needs in five days' time or else his mother's soul is forfeit to a demon.

Featuring many of the denizens of the Otherworld met in previous novels – Guardians, Diviners and Mages to name a few – MacAlister continues to flesh-out the fascinating world inhabited by her supernatural heros and heroines. In Even Vampires Get the Blues MacAlister provides more of the history and creation of Moravians through Paen’s hunt for the Simia Gestor Coda. The Coda is rumoured to contain the details about the origins of Dark Ones, including a way to unmake the curse binding them to their soulless state, without involving a Beloved.

The secondary romance of Clare and Finn, Paen’s brother, helps to offset the tension caused by the time-limited quest for the Jilin God. Their playful interaction helps lighten the tone to one in keeping with reader’s expectations of MacAlister’s works.

New York Times bestselling author Katie MacAlister writes historical, contemporary, paranormal, and young adult romances (as Katie Maxwell), paranormal thrillers, and historical mysteries. Fans unable to wait until May 2007 for the next Dark Ones romance will be able to get their fix in September 2006 in the paranormal anthology Just One Sip, featuring the short story "Bring Out Your Dead.”

See the review posted at Curled Up with a Good Book - Even Vampires Get the Blues.

BOOK REVIEW: Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife by Sam Savage

Firmin begins life at a disadvantage. Born the runt of the litter to an alcholic mother sheltering in the basement of an independent bookstore, Firmin begins to eat pages of books in order to survive. When Firmin realizes the books he’s digested have given him the ability to read, his love affair with literature is born. Existing through a daily diet of nourishing classics, Firmin quickly becomes an outsider existing in a no-mans land between what he is (a rat) and what he wishes to be (human). Sam Savage’s Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife can be read as a quirky little tale about the book-loving rat in all of us, or as a philosophical look at life. It is a witty novella and a powerful homage to a life lived through and around books and the enduring influence of great writers.

Firmin’s initial consumption is rather indiscriminate, one book tasting much like any other. Soon however, Firmin notices subtle flavour differences between works and as his understanding of literature develops, his need for literal consumption diminishes. Firmin reads and “lets the books center my dreams, and sometimes I dreamed myself back into the books.” Any true booklover has often wished to disappear into a book; the weak becomes strong, the housebound travels and the voiceless thunders speeches to the masses. Firmin finds relief from his outsider status by becoming the characters, “I must constantly remind myself, sometimes by means of a rap on the head, that Eisenhower is real while Oliver Twist is not.”

The name Firmin comes from the Latin Firminus meaning “firm” and is the name of several early saints, but Firmin the rat is anything but firm or saintly. He worships at and is torn between two temples; Pembroke Books and the Rialto movie theatre; knowledge and lust; sages and his “lovelies” (the ethereal actresses that parade nude through the late night movies at the Rialto).

Savage positions before the reader these two elemental aspects of humanity; the earthy nature of the body and the spiritual realm of the mind. By casting this dichotomy into the body of a conscious rat, he is able to mock our delusions and perceptions. Holding a mirror up to our souls in the character of Firmin, we question our essential selves and our understanding of reality. Should our perceptions be taken as true or, like Firmin, do we delude ourselves into believing we are other than what we are?

Both of Firmin’s temples offer an escape from reality and the pull from both is strong. By casting the theatre into the role of seducer, Savage resurrects the worry that movies will destroy books. While today it is clear that books have survived the assault of movies and television, the concern for the relevance of the great works of literature in modern society continues.

Savage holds a doctoral degree in Philosophy from Yale University so it should come as no surprise that this slim volume is full of more questions than answers. Whether Firmin, capable of consciousness and immersion into the great works of fiction, is a better mirror for humanity’s frailities because he is a rat is difficult to state. What is apparent is that Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife merits repeated readings for Savage has filled its pages with much food for thought. This gem of a book should be a treasured addition to any bibliophile’s bookshelf.

See the review posted at ReadySteadyBooks - Firmin.

BOOK REVIEW: One Mississippi by Mark Childress

Daniel Musgrove’s family has moved six times in 10 years. That’s what happens when your Dad is a saleman for TriDex, a company that moves its sales force around every year or two to keep them on their toes. Daniel’s mother is thrilled to be moving home to the south, closer to family and a place where her toes will finally be warm, but the Musgrove children are decidedly unhappy.

Things quickly go from bad to crazy in characteristic Mark Childress style. On the drive to Mississippi the van carrying all the Musgroves’ belongings is destroyed in an accident. Daniel and his siblings start at their new school on the first day of court-ordered integration. A few months later their Granny dies and crazy Uncle Jacko comes to live with them. All of these are minor happenings compared to Arnita Beecham, a beautiful black girl, winning Prom Queen and, later the same night, being run down by another student as she bicycles home. Suddenly the hidden tensions rise to the surface, spiraling ever further out of control. The match that finally sets it all alight - Arnita comes out of her coma believing she is white.

One Mississippi carries on in the trademark narrative style of Crazy in Alabama and Tender, a form descended from generations of front porch storytelling sessions - luminously descriptive, yet full of caustic wit. Childress peoples his novels with exaggerated characters, misguided do-gooders and desperate loners, all in their own way demanding the reader’s empathy and understanding. The South is a strong character by itself in Childress’ novels, for it is only in these expertly crafted settings that his novels can exist. Time and place demand as much attention as the people strolling casually across the page.

Childress writes coming of age stories particularly well, effortlessly transporting the reader to the awkward days of adolescence.

“In high school it’s all about how you walk down the hall – whether you stroll through the flow or dart along the edges, whether you hold the stack of books on your hip with one hand (guys) or press them two-handed to your chest (sissies and girls.) Notes are scribbled and passed, rumors fanned and blown down the hall.”

One Mississippi feels like you’ve stepped into a world where the air is thick enough to chew, the lemonade is tart enough to kill a three-day thirst and the neighbours are friendly enough to invite y’all over for some southern fried chicken. This is the perfect read for the long, hot days of summer.

See the review at Armchair Interviews: One Mississippi.

BOOK REVIEW: The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugrešić

“…stimulating the memory was as much a manipulation of the past as banning it.”

The Ministry of Pain (Ministarstvo boli) explores what it means to be a refuge, to live in exile from your country. Told through the eyes of Tanja Lucic, a temporary teacher in the Department of Slavonic Languages at the University of Amsterdam, Dubravka Ugrešić’s novel follows Tanja’s journey as she and her students explore their memories of a lost country, language and the meaning of language.

Throughout The Ministry of Pain, Ugrešić invokes the idea that the life of an exile is like living in a fairy tale or a parallel world. Early in the novel Tanja states:

“I had the feeling I might well – if like Alice I should lose my footing and fall into a hole – end up in a third or fourth parallel world, because Amsterdam itself was my own parallel world. I experienced it as a dream, which meant it resonated with my reality. I tried to puzzle it out just as I tried to interpret my dreams.”

Fairy tales provide resolution, heros winning and justice prevailing. In a world of chaos, Ugrešić expresses that the simple plots and “literary heroes who are brave when ordinary people are cowardly, strong when ordinary people are weak, noble and good when people are mean and ignominious,” are what appeal in a country where “languages were used to curse, humiliate, kill, rape, and expel.”

For émigrés, exile means defeat and dysfunction. On her return from a trip to Zagreb, Tanja meets another émigré who councils her to forget anything as a way to create a new life for herself. Through his voice, Ugrešić suggests that for émigrés time moves slower than reality. Those left behind have moved on and adapted to the new reality while émigrés are still stuck in their own time. The return home means a return of the memories, and a search for a fairy tale land that no longer exists. To achieve peace and a release from the past, émigrés must forget using the “miraculous little erasers we all have in our brains.”

Ugrešić’s fundamental questions appear to be these: For those lost in time and place, does forced remembrance equal torture? Can pain lead to reconciliation, a penance that allows émigrés to live outside their former country without guilt? Ugrešić has created a novel that leaves the questions without answer, compelling each reader to search inside for an answer.

In The Ministry of Pain, there is much discussion among Tanja’s students on the value of Yugonostalgia: the yearning for a country and culture that have vanished into the maw of history. Ugrešić’s gift is in creating a novel that functions both as Yugonostalgia and a paean to the resilience of the human spirit.

Dubravka Ugrešić was born in the former Yugoslavia (Croatia), left her homeland in the 1993 and currently resides in The Netherlands. A novelist, essayist, and literary scholar, The Ministry of Pain is her seventh work to be published. Her books have been translated into over twenty languages. Ugrešić has received several international awards, including the Italian Premio Feronia 2004 (previously awarded to José Saramago, J.M. Coetzee, Günter Grass, Ismail Kadare, and Nadine Gordimer).

Michael Henry Heim, a professor of Slavic languages and literature at UCLA, translates works written in Russian, Czech, German, Serbo-Croatian. The Ministry of Pain is the fourth work by Ugrešić in whose translation he has been involved.

See the review posted at Curled Up with a Good Book - The Ministry of Pain.

Thoughts on a Saturday

There is something about being wide awake at 3 am that makes getting up at 5:30 am rather difficult - so my day started without much sleep. It was already a busy morning at the Mennonite Relief Sale when I arrived shortly before 7 am. The plant tent had done some pretty brisk business on Friday night, selling over $2,000 of plants in a few short hours. The tables were looking rather picked over but more plant donations kept arriving throughout the morning so we were busy pricing and selling house plants, perennials and vegetables/herbs.

I picked up several new house plants: a really healthy coffee plant, a philodendron, Dracaena and a tiny baby palm. Hopefully I be able to find them all the proper light and humidity to keep them healthy.

I've spent most of the rest of my time reading and will have some new reviews to post as soon as they are posted on the review websites. David Long's new novel The Inhabited World causes a lot of reflection and Mark Childress returns to small-town life in the south of the 1970's in One Mississippi. Both will be out in early July.

For pure kooky fun, grab Shanna Swendson's Once Upon Stilettos, as ArmchairInterviews.com says, it's chick lit for the Buffy and Bewitched crowd.

Next on the reading pile? The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue, Ticknor by Sheila Heti and The Dodecahedron by Paul Glennon.

Type Books: Toronto's Newest Independent Bookstore

I'm posting this for my friends who don't read BookLust's great blog. Toronto has a new independent bookstore so you must all go forth and shop! You can find this gem at 883 Queen Street West and business hours are as follows: Mondays – Wednesdays and Saturdays from 10:00am to 6:00pm, Thursdays and Fridays from 10:00am to 8:00pm, and Sundays from noon to 5:00pm. Type's website is still under construction but given how cool their logo is, I can't wait to see the website in all its glory.

I know where I'll be going on my next trip into Toronto.

BOOK REVIEW: It's the Crude, Dude: war, big oil, and the fight for the planet

This review has been submitted to Alternatives Journal but I do not know when/if it will be included in their publication.

The Iraq Invasion as Smokescreen: Fight for Democracy or Oil?
It’s the Crude, Dude: war, big oil, and the fight for the planet, Linda McQuaig, Toronto: Anchor Canada, 2004, revised and updated 2005.


“…the Middle East, with 2/3 of the world’s oil and lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.” Dick Cheney, November 1999

Linda McQuaig, a journalist well-known for taking pokes at the big myths, now focuses on the largest. In It’s the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil, and the Fight for the Planet, McQuaig aims squarely at the debate no one is having - Why was information on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction falsified and why did the United States want to invade Iraq? During the 18 months since the falsification came to light, no commission or committee has been convened to investigate. It’s the Crude, Dude is an attempt to bring into perspective the US’s actions in Iraq by positioning them within the historical perspective of their behaviour in the Middle East, and their quest to control the world’s oil resources.

McQuaig posits that the Iraq invasion was already planned to serve the interests of Big Oil when Cheney was still CEO of Haliburton. Once George W. Bush took office, two key policies to benefit the oil industry were immediately implemented: withdrawal from the Kyoto Accord and the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. Bush and Cheney have continually put the interests of Big Oil before those of democracy, global law and the American citizen. The “war on terror” has provided the smokescreen of “national security”, creating the illusion that there are no competing interests at work within Bush’s administration.

The oil shortage has already begun, mostly unacknowledged by officials, and, thanks to NAFTA, Canada gave up its right to reduce oil exports to the US, unless we reduce our own consumption by the same amount. McQuaig believes this wake-up call needs to be heeded and the reliance on oil reduced if Canada hopes to weather the coming war between China (second in oil consumption) and the US over oil.

At a time when the world’s focus should be finding renewable energy sources and environmental conservation, the current US administration is rolling back environmental protections and promoting reliance on oil.

McQuaig doesn’t put forward anything Canadians don’t already know or suspect. It’s the Crude, Dude provides a starting point for the discussions that must happen, framing the research and statistics in a clear, concise manner understandable by the average concerned citizen.

2006 Mennonite Relief Sale in New Hamburg, Ontario

I'm putting in a plug for the annual Mennonite Relief Sale being held this Saturday (May 27)in New Hamburg, Ontario. This event involves 2,000+ volunteers each year and since 1967 has raised more than $12 million for the relief efforts of Mennonite Central Committee.

What will you find at the sale? The famous quilt auction, lots of great food, homemade pies, indoor and outdoor plants, and a tent featuring items from Ten Thousand Villages.

Events start at 7:00 am at the Fairgrounds in New Hamburg and the Quilt Auction usually begins at 8:30 am. For a partial preview of this year's quilts, visit the online gallery. Maps to New Hamburg can be found here.

If you're in the area, this is an event you shouldn't miss. As an added bonus, many people in New Hamburg hold their annual garage sales on Saturday.

Initial musings on finishing "The Ministry of Pain"

First I have to say wow...totally not what I expected from the blurb on the jacket. Incredible writing and I have to admit that I wish I could read Croatian to have the experience of reading this in the original.

I wanted to read this prior to reading the postings in the Book Group at Words without Borders or any of the interviews with Dubravka Ugresic. I didn't want others' comments to affect how I read the book, which is my general practice when reviewing a book.

There is so much going on in this book that I need to digest. I hope to have a review up here shortly - in the meantime I can suggest is that you go and grab a copy of this book and read it as soon as possible. It's well worth your time.

Long Weekend

After so much posting on Tuesday, I went into a dry spell. I've been writing so many reviews lately that I had lost any words to put here.

Today's a new day and the start of the weekend that I always think of as the beginning of summer. I'm not sure why other than warmer weather beginning and this being the first long "party" weekend...which so does not go with it being the celebration of Queen Victoria's birthday. Yet this is traditionally a party weekend. The name most people call it by is the "May 2 - 4" weekend (a two - four is what we call a case of beer in Canada) since May 24 is the office Victoria Day.

All this rambling leading to one point. It's a long weekend, Monday is a holiday, summer is officially starting here at the Eclectic Closet - party on!

BOOK REVIEW: Jane Jacobs: Urban Visionary by Alice Sparberg Alexiou

"Designing a dream city is easy, rebuilding a living one takes imagination." Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs coined the phrase “sidewalk ballet” to describe the chaos she believed created livable cities. An advocate for increased density and diversity in urban settings, she believed that nothing is safer than a city street that everybody uses, one that is not too long, with a mixture of workplaces and residences where “the eyes on the street” provide a secure environment. In Jane Jacobs: Urban Visionary, Alice Sparberg Alexiou has created a lively portrait of one of the leading thinkers on cities and urban renewal.


Self-taught, Jacobs gained her ideas by questioning everything she observed and read. She spent long periods walking the streets of New York City, noting the bustle and rhythms of neighbourhoods and natural gathering points. The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jacobs’ seminal work, gathered these observations and shared her groundbreaking opinions on rebuilding cities. Fiercely opposed to the human toll caused by the bulldozing of America’s slums, Jacobs’ work challenged the establishment, as did many groundbreaking works of the Sixties.

Refusing to cooperate with Alexiou’s biography and asking her publisher not to facilitate the book, Jacobs claimed the biography distract from her writing. Alexiou displays obvious admiration for her subject; however, she is not blind to Jacobs’ shortcomings. One of the strongest criticisms of Death and Life was its failure to address the race question by analyzing communities where access to capital was impossible. Alexiou makes the case that Jacobs never did addressed race.

Jacob’s words and passion were the weapons that she marshaled in her battle, her razor-sharp language so at odds with her down-to-earth appearance. Opponents like Roger Starr, a former New York City housing administrator, found that her appearance was misleading; "What a dear, sweet character she isn't."

Right up until her death on April 25, 2006, at the age of 89, Jane Jacobs continued to work. Perhaps this tribute by New York Times best sums up her life and career: "Jacobs’s legacy can be seen in the New Urbanism, in the landmark-preservation movement and in the brain cells of architecture and city-planning students everywhere."

Alexiou’s work is timely. The battles Jacobs fought are still with us; the exodus to the suburbs continues while New Urbanists argue the benefits of intensification and SUVs replace pedestrians in ever increasing numbers. Alexiou’s writing style helps the reader feel comfortable with Jacobs’ message, one needed now more than ever, before the “sidewalk ballet” is lost forever.

See the review posted at Armchair Interviews: Jane Jacobs

The Ten Books One Would Save in a Fire

Found this interesting exercise on A Work in Progress and just had to fill it out myself. Taken from A Passion for Books: The Ten Books One Would Save in a Fire (If One Could Only Save Ten)

So this raised an interesting question for me - do I save the books it would be difficult to replace (i.e. those that are out of print or terribly expensive to replace in hardcover) or those I truly love.

I decided to do two lists and see how they compare.

The Ten Books One Would Save in a Fire (If One Could Only Save Ten)- based on books I love:
1. Persuasion by Jane Austen
2. A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes
3. Make Way for Lucia by E.F. Benson
4. The Jeeves Omnibus: No.2 by P.G. Wodehouse
5. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
6. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
7. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
8. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
9. Mama Day by Gloria Naylor
10. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

The Ten Books One Would Save in a Fire (If One Could Only Save Ten)- based on the difficulty to replace the books in hardcover or at all:
1. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
2. Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
3. Bloodsmoor Romance by Joyce Carol Oates
4. Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins
5. Mama Day by Gloria Naylor
6. Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality by Paul Barber
7. The Comedians by Graham Greene
8. English Eccentrics by Edith Sitwell
9. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (Great Grandma received this as 3rd prize in one of her classes in 1931.)
10. Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen

Not sure what to think after completing the two lists. Any thoughts?

BOOK REVIEW: After Helen by Paul Cavanagh

In 2004 the London International Book Fair held its inaugural “Lit Idol” contest modeled on the popular “Pop Idol” television show. Submitted as a 10,000-word manuscript, with accompanying two-page story outline, Paul Cavanagh’s After Helen was selected as winner out of a field of 1,500 competitors. Cavanagh’s completed novel (substantially more than 10,000-words) was picked up by HarperCollins Canada and released with a relative lack of fanfare when compared to the publicity surrounding his “Lit Idol” win.

After Helen is the story of the relationship between Irving Cruickshank and his daughter Severn, as they deal with the death of Helen. Irving, still reeling from the loss of his wife, has no idea how to deal with a teenage daughter. Severn, walled up inside herself with grief and anger, is quickly spinning out of control.

The match thrown into this powder keg is the reappearance of famous author Jack Livingston, Helen’s old lover. He is in town to promote his new novel - a tale of a young girl’s search for the truth about her bloodline, and a mother who has left her, set against the backdrop of Sir John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition. After meeting Jack at a book signing, Severn disappears and Irving’s memories of Helen come brilliantly to life as he chases the daughter he fears lost to him forever.

The question critics and readers will ask is this – does this “Lit Idol” winning, debut novel measure up to the bar set by its early promise?

Cavanagh chose to structure his novel in a discordant manner, alternating chapters told in the past and present. The reader is on a journey of discovery with Irving; however, we have only the briefest hint of current knowledge against which to position the flashes of his developing relationship with Helen. This disjointed narrative is unsettling for the reader, pushing one into feelings of anxiety and unease that invoke an immediate empathy for Severn and Irving.

Despite the deep connection the reader feels with Irving, the roller coaster of emotion brought on by the flashes between the birth of his relationship with Helen, and life after her death, quickly becomes overwhelming. Empathy turns to frustration as Irving’s tendency to function as an emotional doormat becomes more apparent. Just as the reader wants to leave the ride behind, Cavanagh pulls the book back onto the rails by having the storylines of the past and present converge.

Like the fictional author Jack Livingston, Cavanagh has taken a true-life plot and used it to cast light on modern day relationships. Whereas Livingston used Helen’s story to cast light on Franklin’s doomed expedition, Cavanagh has used the obsession of the explorer with the frozen north to look at the emotional wastelands that exist after a family member dies.

“Severn and I are no different. We’ve both become lost searching for Helen in a landscape of bitter emotions that we can barely begin to understand. It’s about our own survival now.”

Emlyn Rees, one of the “Lit Idol” judges, commented on Cavanagh’s eye for the little details that bring characters to life. It is his skill in evoking the sense of a character that distinguishes After Helen.

“I claw my way to the edge of the bed. I can’t summon the energy to sit up, so I lie on my belly and let my legs slide off the bed until I’m kneeling on the floor, my face still planted on the mattress…I feel like a little kid saying his bedtime prayers.”

Cavanagh has shaped engaging, realistic characters and, despite some irritation with Irving and Helen, After Helen is a promising debut. The little details show his developing ease with his craft, and vindicate Cavanagh’s win of the inaugural “Lit Idol”.

See the review posted at ReadySteadyBook: After Helen

BOOK REVIEW: The White Rose by Jean Hanff Korelitz

In a complete departure from her previous novels, Jean Hanff Korelitz’s third novel is a modern retelling of Richard Strauss’s comic opera Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose). Set in Manhattan and the Hamptons, The White Rose is the story of Marian Kahn, a professor and discoverer of the eighteenth-century adventuress, Lady Charlotte Wilcox, and Marian’s much younger lover Oliver, son of her oldest friend. Married for many years, and comfortably settled in her relationship, Marian is stunned to discover the passion that explodes when she meets a grown-up Oliver. Their relationship is a source of joy and misery for Marian, one that is made more difficult by the arrival of Marian’s cousin Barton, in town to announce his engagement to Sophie, a young graduate student in Marion’s department. As the lives of the four become increasingly entwined, Korelitz has many opportunities to meditate on love and its relationship to time.

Compared by many reviewers to Edith Wharton, Korelitz has a keen eye for the vagaries of the privileged classes. Reexamining New York Society’s views on adultery, social climbing, wealth and status, Korelitz presents the old money position through the characters of Marian and Caroline, Oliver’s mother, and the cutting views of gossip columnist Valerie Annis. The satire on this position is represented by Marian’s cousin Barton and contrary views are portrayed through Oliver, with much of the commentary coming in the voice of the adventuress Lady Charlotte.

One of the central points explored in The White Rose is whether happiness can come from wealth or status. Marian suggests that if people followed the example set by Lady Charlotte, they’d be happier.

“If she [Lady Charlotte] had gotten too attached to the idea of happiness coming from wealth or status, she would have spent most of her life feeling that she’s lost her chance to be happy, but she never linked those ideas together.”

Marian seems to be questioning herself in this passage, raising the question of why she can’t be free like Lady Charlotte and be happy with Oliver, overturning the status quo and walking away from society’s expectations of her. The characters in The White Rose fall out on two sides of this entrenched debate, lined up in the camps that fit with their place in New York Society’s hierarchy. Caught up in Society’s expectations, Marian seems unable to stir from the torpor induced by her wealth and position. Her minor rebellions from this set role – her affair with Oliver, publishing her work on Lady Charlotte and her relationship with Soriah, a fan of her book - still are not enough to enable her to follow the lead set by the adventuress.

Despite Marian’s mundane existence, she seems to exist in a world apart, her own “Aubergine Time”:

“There is a time in each day that is neither afternoon nor evening but something breathless in suspension between them when every particle of air is briefly infused with fierce, fierce color, one instant so utterly there, than gone.”

The White Rose provides a window into this time in Marian’s life, that moment when she is poised to choose between what is comfortable and a chance at happiness. Marian’s story causes us all to question what we would do when faced with our own “Aubergine Time.”

Jean Hanff Korelitz is the author of a book of poems, The Properties of Breath, and two previous legal thrillers, A Jury Of Her Peers and The Sabbathday River. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey with her husband, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon, and their children.

See the review as it is posted at Curled Up with a Good Book: The White Rose.

Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugresic

Today's reading item is Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugresic. It got bumped up the queue since the discussion groups started today at the Words without Borders Book Club.

For an interesting interview with Ugresic, visit the House of Mirth (thanks to the Literary Saloon for the link).

And check back, my review will be posted soon.

When worlds collide

Lately my reading appears connected. This week I was reading an advance copy of the new biography of Jane Jacobs (Jane Jacobs: Urban Visionary) and learning a great deal about the bulldozing "urban renewal" schemes of the 60s in major US cities. Then today I picked up Firmin by Sam Savage and it is sent in 1960s Boston, in a part of town (Scollay Square) designated for demolition and "renewal".

Makes me wonder what is going to connect next...

BOOK REVIEW: Every Mother is a Daughter by Perri Klass & Sheila Solomon Klass

What is it that makes the bond between mother and daughter so different from any other relationship? Is it the shared experiences? Or is it as Perri Klass and Sheila Solomon Klass contend in their book Every Mother is a Daughter: the neverending quest for success, inner peace, and a really clean kitchen (recipes and knitting patterns included) that every mother is also a daughter?

Klass and Solomon Klass have collaborated to write this engaging exploration of their relationship and the extent to which each has mirrored the life of their own mother. Both are published authors with distinct voices that fit well in a collaborative effort. Klass, a pediatrician, has a column in Knitter’s Magazine as well as writing non-fiction and fiction books. Solomon Klass is a retired English professor who writes fiction for adults and children.

Every Mother is a Daughter explores the stereotypes of gender and roles, especially as they pertain to the all-important role of feeding a family. Solomon Klass, raised in New York during the depression by Orthodox Jewish parents whose marriage was full of bitterness and conflict, internalized many of her mother’s fanatical beliefs about women’s roles. Escaping the bleakness of her silent childhood home right after high school, Solomon Klass carried many of her mother’s admonishments into her own marriage: men were not allowed in the kitchen; dinner must contain a starch, a green vegetable, a protein, and a fruit; and women should get dressed immediately upon rising.

Klass, born in Trinidad but raised in New Jersey, gently teases her mother for her quirks while marveling at her bravery and independence. While Klass deviates from her mother’s frugality and insistance on home cooked meals (dinners are often eaten out), she has carried on her mother’s legacy in raising strong and independent children, while working full-time herself.

Reflecting on all stages of their lives, Klass and Solomon Klass create a memoir written in two voices, the most compelling being the section on “Becoming a Mother, Becoming a Grandmother.” Solomon Klass writes so meaningfully on sharing the birth experience with her daughter that the experience stays with the reader for days.

As Solomon Klass states “this whole book is really about lives so blended as to be inseparable.” Perhaps that is all anyone wants, a relationship with their Mother that is so positive that all their lives are blended, not just childhood. Every Mother is a Daughter is a loving testament to the powerful bond between mother and daughter.

See the review as it is posted at Armchair Interviews: Every Mother is a Daughter.

Reading the World 2006

Would someone please help me understand how I missed this? And not just this year but last year also! The mind boggles...

From their website -> Reading the World 2006 is an exciting collaboration between booksellers and publishers to help bring international voices from around the world.

So even though it's already part way through this year's event, I'm going to try and do my part. Interestingly enough, I'm already reading The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugresic (Translation by Michael Henry Heim), published by Ecco for review at Curled Up with a Good Book. I'll have to see what other international authors I can read yet this month.

Thanks to Chekhov's Mistress for promoting this important concept.