Books and tea on a chilly winter morning...

My steaming cup of chai tea is a welcome treat on this bright, chilly morning.  And I was hoping that the book I read last week would also be a welcome treat, but I was somewhat disappointed.

Sleeping in the Ground is Peter Robinson’s 24th “Inspector Banks” mystery, and if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you might remember that he is one of my favourite Canadian mystery writers.  I have read all of his books, even going back to read them in order after discovering his books and starting to read them mid-way through the series.  His latest book begins with a mass shooting at a wedding party in a cemetery just outside St Mary’s Church.  The gunman manages to escape and an investigation ensues.  Detective Superintendent Banks is called into the investigation shortly after returning home from the funeral of his first love, Emily Hargreaves, with whom he had a relationship 40 years earlier.  This death causes much reflection for our brooding detective, but he is forced to focus on the case at hand.  With five dead and four wounded, including a member of Banks’ team, DS Winsome, the search for the killer takes on a certain urgency, in the event that he kills again.  When the bride is a semi-famous model and the groom a military hero, certain questions arise:  Who was the real target?  Why at a wedding?  Was it personal, or was the target the institution itself?  Banks and his team follow the usual methods of uncovering clues and searching for suspects, and are rewarded in their efforts, only to discover the alleged murderer dead in his own basement, ostensibly the victim of suicide.  That should be the end of it, but there are certain things that just don’t add up.  When Banks, along with DI Annie Cabbot and DS Gerry Masterson, continue digging, they uncover clues that may connect it all to a decades’ old murder, but can they find the perpetrator before he claims yet another victim?  OK, this sounds good, and the opening scene is quite arresting, with the images offered to the reader coming straight from the shooter’s point of view.  And, like Martin Edgeworth (you’ll have to read the book to find out who he is!), this novel ticks off all the boxes.  But I felt that it was somewhat flat, lacking that zing that Robinson’s books often have, that certain je ne c’est quoi that leaves me feeling a little breathless and utterly satisfied once I reach the final page.  Granted, some of his novels are simply formulaic, like this one, but sometimes they really, hmmm, I think “shine” is the best way to describe it.  This one did not “shine” - it was rather ho hum in my opinion, but clearly I am in the minority, as I just read four or five reviews and they all rave about this book!  One of the things that really bugged me was that I couldn’t figure out where the title of the book fit in.  Who was “sleeping in the ground”?  Usually the titles are significant, or at least there is some connection to the story, but in this case, it seems tenuous at best.  And his usual character and/or relationship development also seemed to be lacking in this book. It was OK, but not one I would want to go back and reread just for fun.  But it did make me think about which of his novels I would gladly go back and reread anytime.  I loved the following books:  In a Dry Season (my first ever “Inspector Banks” novel), Aftermath, The Summer that Never Was, All the Colours of Darkness, and Children of the Revolution, and I loved the standalone Before the Poison.  I didn’t think this was one of his best, but if you are already a fan of Robinson and Alan Banks, then you should definitely read it.  

That’s all for today.  Stay warm and keep reading!

Bye for now…
Julie

Book club highlights on a balmy Sunday morning...

I’m sipping a steaming cup of steeped chai tea and enjoying a slice of freshly baked Date Bread on this positively balmy morning.  After a stint of -16 (feels like -30) days, the fact that it will reach a high of -8 this afternoon is thrilling for me - I can finally get outside for a good long walk without the fear of incurring frostbite!

We had a volunteer book club meeting yesterday, where we discussed Chris Cleave’s bestseller, Little Bee.  I had a copy of this book in my own collection because it is a popular selection for book clubs, but I didn’t have any idea what it was about, so when I added it to our list to start off the new year, I was really going into it blindly.  Thankfully, everyone seemed to either love it, or like parts of it well enough to finish it and contribute meaningfully to the discussion.  This book is told from alternating points of view.  Little Bee is a sixteen-year-old Nigerian girl who comes to the UK to escape certain death at the hands of soldiers.  Sarah is a woman in her mid-thirties living in the suburbs of London, editor of an edgy women’s magazine, mother of four-year-old Charlie (aka “Batman”) and wife of Andrew, a journalist for one of the more intellectual papers (I can’t remember which one, maybe the Times).   Little Bee and Sarah met two years earlier on a beach in Nigeria, near Little Bee’s village, when Sarah and Andrew had been on holiday.  A horrific event from that time unites them, and when Little Bee is released from the UK detention centre, she seeks out the only people she knows in England.  Their futures, bound together, are irrevocably altered, and it is left to the reader to discover the lengths to which one person will go to save another.  Sorry if this is vague, but I don’t want to give anything away, since part of the enjoyment of the book is the sense of discovery we feel as we piece the story together.  It was the most successful book club choice we’ve had in a long time, which is great for me to hear, as there's alot of pressure when selecting books, always wondering if people will like the book you chose.  During the past few meetings, our discussions have wandered away from the books frequently and for long periods, and I think it was partly due to the lack of interest or enjoyment in these selections, but for this book, we managed to stay on topic and find things to discuss for nearly two hours!  Here are some of the highlights from our lengthy discussion.  We all enjoyed the book, and agreed that it was well-written (one member said the writing was “beyond amazing”).  Some of us enjoyed one narrator more than the other, while others enjoyed the whole book equally.  We all agreed that Sarah and Lawrence were bland, wishy-washy characters, unable to make firm decisions, and inconsistent in their actions when they do decide on something.  They seemed to lack common sense, and were blind to the realities of the world. Even when faced with these realities, they refused to believe them or to believe that they could be affected by them.  We agreed that Andrew wasn’t a very nice person, either to his wife or his son.  One member felt that this story was unpredictable, that she didn’t expect and was surprised by many of the things that happened.  We agreed that Little Bee was wise beyond her years, and that some of the things she observed revealed great insight into the workings of the world.  One of the members used the term “paradoxical duality” to describe the horrendous contrasts in the novel, times when the author describes what one thinks or believes and contrasts it with the reality of the situation.  There are many of these contrasts throughout the book, and they are both shocking and revealing.  One member said she learned alot about the horrors of detention centres.  Through our discussion, we identified a common thread running through the story, the beach, and noted that the beach was never a safe place, that unpredictable things happened on the beach, and we thought that the beach, unlike the tourist compound, represented the “real “ Nigeria.  One member felt that the book was very disturbing, but also addictive - it was hard to put down, but she had to put it down.  We discussed the fact that these horrors are part of human history, that destruction and bloodshed has been taking place for centuries, actually since the beginning of time.  We discussed Little Bee’s need to find ways to kill herself in any situation, and that while she planned her death, she also fought death and fought to survive.  There were humourous bits in this book, too, particularly some of the things Little Bee says or observations she makes, the way she expresses herself when contrasting customs or traditions in England with those of her village (she compares British children hiding between the washing machine and the refrigerator and pretending to be in the jungle with African children hiding in the jungle and pretending to have a washing machine and a fridge).  There was so much more that we discussed, but I don’t want to give away any more of the plot, so you’ll just have to read it for yourself to find out what happens.  It was a great book club selection, and I would highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in reading about the immigrant experience.  

That’s all for today.  Enjoy the warm-ish temperatures, and keep reading!

Bye for now…
Julie

First post for 2018...

What a great way to start the new year, by reflecting on books and reading!  I had my steeped chai tea Sunday morning, so plain old Tetley today, along with what's left of my yummy Date Bar (I had to have a treat with my chai tea - Sunday wouldn’t be the same without it!)

It’s going to be a long post today, with two books to tell you about and a list of the Best (and Worst) of 2017.  I’ll start with the Young Adult novel I mentioned at the end of last week’s post, Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon.  I can’t remember where I heard about this book, but I bought it for both of my schools, and it has an amazing cover, so I thought it might be worth trying over the holidays.  This novel is told from the point of view of Madeline Whittier, a 17-year-old girl who has never been outside.  She suffers from a rare immune disorder, SCID, that makes her allergic to everything.  Thankfully her mother is a doctor who can care for her inside their hermetically-sealed home, along with her nurse and only friend, Carla.  Madeline’s life consists of Skyping with tutors, doing homework, reading, and family time with her mom, and she’s OK with this, she’s learned not to want what she can’t have.  Then a family moves in next door and Madeline’s structured life tumbles into freefall as she quietly and desperately begins to fall in love with Olly, a boy who lives in his own kind of prison.  Will Olly love her for who she is, with all her limitations, or are they doomed as so many young couples in literature have been for centuries?  I know, this book sounds much like other YA romantic dramas that have made their way to library shelves recently - I’m thinking specifically of John Green’s The Fault in our Stars, and Jesse Andrews' book Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, both of which were adapted into films.  Everything, Everything was also made into a film, which was released in the spring of 2017 - maybe that’s how I heard about this book.  Anyway, the book started out as a promising, if light, read - Madeline is an engaging heroine, smart, funny, and surprisingly upbeat, considering her situation.  The pages are made up of not just Madeline’s story, but also drawings, daily schedules, schedules of observations, text messages, email exchanges, etc, which bring the story to life and draw the reader in to share the experiences of a girl on the cusp of adulthood, her hopes and dreams, her struggles, and her resolutions.  Up to just past the middle, it was an “ok” book, not great, but engaging enough, a book I could easily recommend to most grade 7 or 8 students.  But then there was a major plot twist, and the story took off!  I can’t say anymore about it, but I read through the last half filled with anticipation, wondering what would happen next.  WOW, that really cranked my rating up a notch or two and it became "unputdownable"!  

And I got a book for Christmas from my avid-reader friend, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby.  I was familiar with this slim volume from past discussions with this friend, and the title rang a bell as well because it was adapted into a film a few years ago.  When my friend gave it to me, he said, “I know you don’t really enjoy reading memoirs, but…”  and I responded with, “At least it’s short!” (I soon learned the reason why it's so short). After finishing Everything, Everything, I had a few days left before I wrote my post and thought I could easily finish Diving Bell in that time, which I did. If you read the front and back flaps of the book, you would know that 44-year old Bauby was a successful man living in Paris, working as Editor-in-Chief of French Elle magazine, a journalist whose life up to this point had been full.  One day he suffered a massive stroke that left him in a condition known as “locked-down syndrome”, a condition wherein he was completely paralyzed… well, not completely, he was able to blink his left eye.  It was by using a special alphabet and blinking his eye that he dictated these pages, and I must say that I’m not quite sure what to make of them.  This is definitely not a traditional memoir. Each chapter describes something Bauby observed or experienced during his time in the hospital, such as the sessions with his speech therapist, or memories of his life before the stroke, such as the last time he saw his father.  He offers historical information about the origins of the Maritime Hospital in Berck and describes the other patients.  Basically he did what he could to stay “active” while being unable to move, describing his inner life and conveying his thoughts while being trapped in a body that refused to cooperate.  Are these the last words of a dying man (we know that he died shortly after the book was published in France), a plea to live, or an homage to life?  Although there were some sections of the book that revealed his despair, it was mostly filled with honest reflection and more than a few humourous passages (and his efforts to keep his mind active by dictating his memoir simply by blinking his left eye makes my feeble attempts to keep my own brain active by working halfheartedly at Sudoku seem pretty paltry by comparison!).  I would recommend this book to anyone who is feeling complacent about life, anyone who takes things for granted, as it is a reminder that everything could change in an instant.

And as always, it's time to review my reading experiences over the past year and share my Best Books list. While reviewing last year's books, though, I realized that I’m going to have to offer a list of Worst Books, too (it was not a great year of reading for me). I read 61 books and listened to 19 audiobooks and here are the best and worst of them:

Best Books (I really had to struggle to find titles for this list!):

*The Widow and The Child by Fiona Barton

*Gentlemen and Players and Different Class by Joanne Harris

Dead Wake by Erik Larson (nf)

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

A Game for All the Family by Sophie Hannah

(* better of the two)

Best Juvenile and YA (this list was easy!);

Ban this Book by Alan Gratz

The Burning Girl by Claire Messud

The Winnowing by Vikki VanSickle

OC Daniel by Wesley King

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

Best Audiobooks (also an easy list):

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

Just What Kind of Mother Are You? by Paula Daly

Before Nightfall Michael Cunningham

The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D by Nicole Bernier (on a previous “best of” list)

And my first ever list of Worst Books (these are books that totally failed to live up to expectation, but I finished them anyway):

The Woman in Cabin 10 and *The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

A Stranger in the House by Shari Lapena

First Snow, Last Light by Wayne Johnston

The Hypnotist’s Love Story by Liane Moriarty

(* worst of the two)

Worst Audiobooks:

The American Girl by Kate Horsley

The Calling by Inger Ash Wolfe

That’s all for today.  I hope 2018 is filled with many books that will inspire and entertain you, make you think deeply about life, make you laugh out loud, and give you comfort and wisdom in times of need.  Happy New Year!

Bye for now…
Julie

More children's books... yikes!!

On this wintry “White Christmas-y” morning, I was going to enjoy my steeped chai tea in a festive, seasonal mug, but decided that, in light of the book I’m going to talk about today, I’d dig out my “banned books” mug.

I read (or I should say “inhaled” - it took me just two days!) a new book by Alan Gratz this week, one that I recently purchased for my schools, Ban This Book.  It tells the story of Amy Anne, a grade four student who loves to read.  She is not popular, but has one best friend, Rebecca, and two younger sisters, Alexis and Angelina.  She lives in a crowded house and her mom works alot of overtime, so in order to make some time for herself, she goes to the school library after classes have let out and reads, telling her parents that she is taking part in various clubs after school.  When she goes to find her favourite book, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler and discovers it is not on the shelf, she turns to Mrs Jones, the librarian, for answers.  What she hears is unbelievable - this book has been withdrawn from the school library because a parent decided it was unsuitable for elementary school students.  And not just this book… a whole stack of them, fiction and non-fiction, have been deemed by this parent to be unsuitable.  This parent is an influential member of the PTA from a fairly wealthy family and supports many school board initiatives.  How is our book-loving heroine going to deal with this?  Shy, meek, never-speaks-up Amy Anne, along with Rebecca, devises a plan to keep these books available for students at her school - she forms the Banned Books Lending Library (B.B.L.L.) which she keeps hidden in her locker.  Soon more students join this fight against censorship as it threatens to grow beyond its bounds.  Can Amy Anne bring the school board around to her way of thinking and save the school library’s collection (and the school librarian!) before everything is ruined beyond repair?  If you have been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that Freedom to Read week is my favourite week of the year.  Scheduled for the week of February 25-March 3, 2018, it is a week I celebrate with my students by putting up a big display of many of their favourite books that have been banned or challenged somewhere, for some reason, in recent history, books like the Harry Potter series, Captain Underpants, Junie B Jones, even some of Shel Silverstein’s poetry collections, and I read a challenged book aloud to my students as well (I think this year it will be The Lorax by Dr Seuss, banned in a California school in 1989 because it portrayed the forestry industry in a negative light and would turn children against forestry.)  Anyway, now you can understand why I had to use my “banned books” mug!  This book was entertaining and humourous, but it also tackled a serious topic in a realistic and positive way, demonstrating that even kids as young as ten can make a difference if they stand up for what they believe in.  It was a fabulous book, a real celebration of all things books and reading, which explains the concept of censorship and freedom to read so well in a way that children can understand and appreciate. It will make a perfect read-aloud selection for my grade fives once I finish The Bad Beginning, and it's perfect timing, too, as I’ll be reading it during Freedom to Read week - how ideal is that?!

That’s all for today.  I hope to have an adult book to tell you about next week, although I’m in the middle of a Young Adult book right now that is well-written and engaging, too.  And also next week, a list of my favourite books from 2017. Merry Christmas!

Bye for now... Julie

Children's books on a blustery morning...

At this time of year, I usually try to read a few books for school, especially while I have time off over the Christmas holidays.  Since I’ve just been promoting the Forest of Reading Red Maple nominees with the Intermediate students at my schools, I decided to start with one of those.  

The Winnowing by Canadian author Vikki VanSickle immediately caught my attention for a couple of reasons.  I loved the title. "To winnow" means to blow a current of air through grain to remove the chaff. Such an ordinary word, though not one we come across often, but in the context of this novel, it is very sinister indeed. I loved the dark, brooding, mysterious cover.  I’ve read other books by this author, coming-of-age romantic novels which were very good, but this seemed completely different and I was curious to see how she handled it.  And since I’d just done book-talks for these ten nominees in four classes, many of the books were checked out, but this one was available at one of my schools, so I took advantage of the opportunity and started reading.  This novel is set in Darby, a small town famous for finding the cure for the Infertility Crisis and saving humankind. Marivic is a young woman who is just reaching puberty, which is signalled by the nightmare-ish dreams and extraordinary running ability she has recently begun experiencing.  But these are so much more than just nightmares and sudden physical ability; Marivic is “going ACES” (Adolescent Chronosomniatic Episodes) and has developed imps (Adolescent Physical impairments), something that happens to everyone in town at a certain age.  These are things young people both look forward to and also dread.  Once someone begins “going ACES”, they are sent to a hospital, where they will undergo a procedure called “winnowing”, which will alleviate these nightmares and remove the imps, but it may also affect memory.  Marivic’s best friend, Saren, has just been admitted to the hospital for winnowing, and Marivic is anxious to join her there.  Once admitted, she finds Saren and together they discuss what they expect will happen to them during this procedure.  Saren doesn’t want to be winnowed, which Marivic can’t understand; why wouldn’t she want these horrible ACES to stop and go back to being her normal self?  When they receive a message inviting them to a meeting at the pool in the basement of the hospital in the middle of the night, Marivic agrees to accompany Saren, but only to ensure her safety.  At the meeting, they encounter a young man who suggests that the government is behind the Infertility Crisis, and that the winnowing procedure is designed to keep people from remembering their past and also to thwart their newfound physical abilities, which, he claims, are not, in fact, impairments, but rather natural physical enhancements.  Marivic is ready to dismiss this as nothing more than conspiracy theory, but after she receives tragic news and she has glimpses of something sinister from her past, Marivic must determine how far she is willing to go to find the truth.  I love a well-written dystopian novel, and there are many Young Adult novels in this genre out there, but they are not all appealing to me.  This one, however, grabbed me immediately and kept me riveted until the very last page, which took me just two days to reach (I had a grade 8 student who was waiting for it).  Imagine The Giver (Lois Lowry) meets The Maze Runner (James Dashner) with a dash of X-Files thrown in.  I was struck by how well-written and polished it was, no stumbling around to keep the pace or tone consistent, which I expected, given that this is such a departure from VanSickle’s usual fare.  It explored her usual themes of friendship and coming-of-age, but in a completely new and fascinating terrain.  I was very impressed, and will recommend this to students (and adults!) who enjoy gripping dystopian novels.

That left me with less than a full week to read something else, so I picked up a short Juvenile novel that I had sitting at home for a while.  I’m always on the lookout for an interesting read-aloud that I can share with the grade 4 classes - right now I’m reading The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket, the first book in “The Series of Unfortunate Events”.  I’ve read this to classes in the past, and it’s fabulous, but sometimes I like to change it up a bit.  Hide and Seek by Peter Legaris is the second in the “Spy X” series, which I guess I didn’t realize until just now, as  I probably would have started with the first one, The Code, if I had known earlier.  This short, fun, engaging novel follows Andrew and his sister Evie as they relocate to a new home in San Francisco after their mother’s disappearance one year earlier.  They are sure they’ll never see her again, but on their first day at their new school, they begin receiving coded messages, and hope that their mother is alive and will find them is renewed.  But can they decode all the clues and find her before she meets with an unhappy end?  Filled with word puzzles and coded messages that need to be solved, this quick read was an entertaining way to spend a few distraction-filled evenings, and I would recommend this to middle-school students who are interested in reading lighthearted espionage chapter books.  It would not, however, be a good read-aloud, as there are many word puzzles and coded messages that would be difficult to share, but are integral to the story.

And I’m halfway through Black Water Rising by Robert Rayner, another Canadian author.  I received copies of this book from the author himself at the big library conference I went to last year - he even autographed them!  One of the students in a grade 6 class took it out and told me it was pretty good, but another student pointed out that there seemed to be quite a bit of swearing in the book, so I decided that I should read it to determine if it is appropriate for grade 6 students, or any students in my K-8 school.  This novel is set a small town in Newfoundland which sits on the banks of Black River.  The rains have been steady for days, threatening to flood the town if the hydroelectric dam isn’t opened, but the company that owns the dam, TransNational Power, is ordering the local manager, Willis Frame, to keep the dam closed.  Frame knows that flooding will occur in about 36 hours, and that the company sees the funds offered to help the townspeople repair any damage caused by flooding, as well as the environmental and ecological impact of flooding, to be a small price to pay for the extra power they can generate, all in the name of greed.  Frame’s son, seventeen-year-old Stanton, is caught between loyalty to his father, a man he believes is trying his best to do the right thing, and his love for his girlfriend Jessica, a young woman who is passionate about stopping the power company and keeping what remains of the river bank's natural ecology and environment intact.  When she gets involved with a radical eco-group from British Columbia, Stanton must decide what to do to save the town, his father, and his girlfriend, before time runs out.  So far, I’ve decided that the book is suitable for my library, and that the occasional swearing is included to enhance the setting and to portray the spirit of the characters.  I have colour-coded all my Young Adult novels to reflect suitability for different grades, so I think I’ll just change this one from grade 6 to grade 7 - the use of swear words isn’t excessive, just enough to jar the reader, making it effective, but still not a great choice for 11-year-olds.   I’ll finish it today and make a final decision at that time.

That’s all for today.  Stay warm and keep reading!

Bye for now…
Julie

Tea and treats on a snowy morning...

Big fat flakes are drifting outside the windows this morning as I sip my steaming cup of steeped chai tea and nibble on a delicious Date Bar.  The temperature has dropped significantly this past week or so, and it seems like winter is here to stay… not a bad thing in my opinion, but I know that not everyone would agree with me.  So if you hate winter weather, just think of it as a good excuse to stay inside with a hot beverage and read!!

I read two books for school this past week, one for my student book club and one that everyone is reading because the movie just came out.  My student book club just finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  These kids are in grade 8, and I thought it was somewhat mature for their age, but they wanted to read it, and I think they enjoyed it.  I won’t summarize the plot, since I’m fairly sure most people know about this book.  We are a group of three students plus me, and all but one of us enjoyed the second half of the book, around the time of the trial and onward, better than the first half.  But one of the boys said he enjoyed it all, right from the first page, the characters, the setting, the exploits of Jem and Scout, and he especially liked Dill… well, we all really liked Dill, his quirkiness and vulnerability.  Since we have just two weeks before Christmas break, which is not really enough time to start a new book, we’re going to watch the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird, which only one student has seen before.  One of these students is moving away at the end of December, so we’ll need to recruit new members - we thought that maybe if we called it the Book and Movie Club, others may want to join!  Our next book is going to be A Wrinkle in Time, which we will hopefully finish in time for the release of the movie in March.  (See, we really are a book and movie club!!)

And because everyone has been reading this book for the past four or five years, students and teachers alike, and because the film adaptation was just released in November, I finally read Wonder by RJ Palacio.  This novel tells the story of August Pullman, a fifth-grader who was born with mandibulofacial dysostosis, causing him to have severe facial deformity.  Due to his many surgeries in his early life, he has been homeschooled by his mother, but since his health has stabilized, his parents decide that it’s time for him to enter a local middle school, Beecher Prep.  Of course this is a difficult adjustment for him and for the students at the school, and he suffers significant ostracization and bullying, but he also manages to form some real and lasting friendships, too.  His experiences are equal parts positive and negative, and along with his supportive parents and older sister, he manages to make it through his first year at school, weathering all the ups and downs along the way.  There is much more to the plot, but I’m not going to get into the details.  And I’m not going to write much about my reading experience, either.  I get why teachers love it, I get why kids love it, but I just didn’t love it.  It was a super-quick and easy read, and I’m glad to finally be able to cross this off my list of “books I should read because everyone else has read it”, but… well, that’s all I’ll say about it.

Which leads me to think about why we read books, how we choose what we read.  I was talking about this with my sister-in-law recently, and it also came up yesterday while I was talking to one of my oldest friends.  Both of these people are avid readers too, and through each brief discussion, we determined that there is more to reading than just choosing books we “love”.  I thought about what would happen if I took a year off from all of my books clubs and didn’t read any books for school that I didn’t really want to read, and how that would change my “year of reading”, and I realized that it would be impossible to find enough books that I absolutely loved to keep me reading for a full year, that I would need to find 50+ books, and if I discarded every book I began just because it didn’t grab me and draw me in immediately, I would be left with very little selection, and would have to resort to rereading my favourites much more often than I already do.  And let’s not even consider audiobooks!  So why do we read what we read, and how do we choose, and stick with, books, even if we don’t love them?  There are many reasons to choose a book:  it’s a new one by a favourite author; it’s a book about which you’ve read great reviews; it’s one that everyone is reading; it’s a book you’ve been meaning to read for ages; or it has an interesting cover (yes, I’ll admit it, I really do sometimes judge a book by its cover!).  These are just a few reasons to choose books, but why do we finish books we don’t love (or as my friend says, books that “don’t change my life or my way of thinking”)?  Well, we might think it will get better by the end, that it will be worth the effort; we’ve already invested x amount of time reading it, time that would be wasted if we gave up; we don’t have anything else on hand that we would rather be reading; or we want to understand what all the fuss is about (this for bestsellers).  After considering all of this, I’ve determined that my year of reading would not look much different if I gave up book club and reading for school, so I guess I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing.

That’s all for today.  Stay warm and keep reading!

Bye for now…
Julie

Book club highlights on a clear, mild morning...

I have a delicious Date Bar from City Café and a steaming cup of steeped chai tea on the table in front of me, and of course a copy of the book we discussed at yesterday’s meeting, Sweetness in the Belly by Canadian author Camilla Gibb.

This bestselling 2007 novel is set in Ethiopia in the 1970s and England in the 1980s and early 1990s, and tells the story of one woman’s attempts to find peace and a sense of belonging.  The main character, Lilly, is British-born, and spent her very early years there, but her nomadic parents uprooted their family and traveled around the world, ending up in Ethiopia.  They pass away while Lilly is still quite young, and she is taken in and raised as a devout Muslim by the Great Abdal, a disciple of a great Islamic saint.  As a young woman, she spends many years in the ancient walled city of Harar, where she immerses herself in Ethiopian culture and Muslim traditions.  It is here that she meets the handsome Dr Aziz and falls in love, but this love calls into question not only her faith, but her entire way of life.  There is also great political unrest within the walled city and within the country as a whole, and everyone must do whatever is necessary to protect themselves and those they love.  Fast-forward  fifteen years, and Lilly is a nurse at one of London’s hospitals, a white Muslim woman who is doing her best to immerse herself in the Ethiopian culture in this British city where refugees struggle to make their way in this new reality while holding onto their traditions and beliefs, and also trying to reconnect with relatives who have disappeared during the revolution.  How will Lilly reconcile her faith with the reality of the conditions she sees all around her?  OK, this was not an easy read, not a Christmas- or winter-themed book, in fact, not at all the type of book I usually choose for us to read at end of the year, and I’m not sure why I put this one on the list.  When I started reading it, I groaned inwardly at the heaviness of the subject matter, sensing that my book club members would not appreciate another long-ish, heavy, probably-depressing book.  But as I read further, I was surprised at how much I anticipated moving forward in Lilly’s story, how beautifully Gibb wrote, and how quickly I read her words.  I felt that I learned so much about Ethiopian culture, Islamic faith, and the experiences and trials refugees face every day.  While this book was written ten years ago, I think it's still worthwhile to read today since we have so many refugees entering our country even now, and while they may be from other countries, I imagine their experiences are much the same.  I was very happy to have read this bestselling novel by Gibb, who based the story on her own personal observations and experiences during the time she spent in Harar as a young woman while conducting research for her thesis.  My book club members did not unanimously enjoy the book - well, “enjoy” isn’t really the right word.  I guess I should say that they were not unanimously as happy to have read it as I was, although they didn’t dislike it either.  One member said she preferred the sections set in Ethiopia more than the ones set in London, that the storyline in the London sections got tiresome after a while.  Interestingly, I really enjoyed reading these London sections because I felt that they seemed more hopeful than the parts set in Harar.  We discussed female circumcision, obviously not an uplifting topic but one that is important to acknowledge and learn about.  We discussed Lilly’s lack of belonging, the difficulties she faced in both countries because she didn’t really fit into either one.  We discussed the sense of family and community that existed in Ethiopia, that everyone takes care of everyone else, and one member commented that this still happens with the refugee communities here, that they see one another as part of a bigger family, and what challenges this may cause as it clashes with our own culture, beliefs and laws.  We also discussed the ways that political unrest can affect everyone and cause significant changes to one's traditions and way of life, something that we just don't think about here in our own insulated country. I think overall it was a successful choice for our group, just maybe not the best time of year, but I would definitely recommend this book for any book club, as it is filled with great discussion mpments.  For me, the best part about this book was the amazing writing.  When she writes about Dr Aziz, she says:  “For all his self-assurance it was such a humble smile, with a hint of sadness around the edges:  it was a smile to cup in one’s hands.”  And later:  “If she knew that I had kissed Aziz.  That I craved being in the dark with this man, that I daydreamed him into the pauses between sentences.” What brilliant expressions...

That’s all for today.  I see the sun is peeking out, so I’m heading out to enjoy the afternoon before I settle in to finish reading To Kill a Mockingbird for my students' book club meeting on Wednesday.  

Bye for now…
Julie