Post on a chilly, dreary morning...

It’s been a dreary weekend so far, but the relentless rain of yesterday has thankfully stopped and the temperature has dropped significantly overnight, so I expect it’s going to be a good day for a brisk walk.  Right now I’m enjoying a steaming cup of chai and a delicious Date Bar, my “breakfast of champions” for a Sunday morning.

I recently checked author websites for new or upcoming books by three of my favourite authors, Peter Robinson, Robert Rotenberg and Michael Robotham (I like to call them “the other three R’s”!), and was pleased to discover that all three have books coming out in the new year.  But as I was perusing their previously published books, I came across one of Peter Robinson’s books that I wasn't familiar with, Many Rivers to Cross.  I put it on hold at the library and when it arrived, I realized that I hadn’t yet read it, so that was my book choice for this past week.  This is the 26th installment in the “Alan Banks” series, and it was predictably good, focusing on immigrants and hate crimes, sex trafficking and the drug trade.  The body of a young Middle Eastern boy is found stuffed in a rubbish bin on the East Side Estates and Banks and his team are tasked with finding the killer.  The first problem they face, however, is the inability to discover the boy’s identity or even determine where he was originally from.  Their search leads them to various unsavoury characters in Eastvale, as well as the Albanian Mafia, as they explore unfamiliar areas and neighbourhoods in this small but ever-growing North Yorkshire town.  Running parallel to this investigation is the story involving Zelda, Ray Cabbott’s partner and a super-recognizer, who works part-time for the NCA identifying individuals involved in sex-trafficking. When she shows up for work one day, she finds that her boss, Mr Hawkins, has died in a house fire, a fire that is suspiciously like the one from which Banks narrowly escaped in a previous book.  Could Phil Keanes, the rogue art forger, be somehow involved in the abduction and trafficking of girls?  The plots develop at a steady pace throughout the novel until we reach a satisfying conclusion that answers all of this reader’s questions, while also leaving room for the expectation of yet another Banks novel.  It was interesting, but I’m finding Robinson’s more recent books to be rather dry, not as… hmmm… I want to say “juicy” or “meaty” as his earlier works, but being a vegetarian, I dislike those terms.  Maybe I’ll just say that the storylines seem less substantial; they seem to be less interesting, less deep, and less involved than previous plots and stories, and the growth, development and interactions with and between characters seems to be lacking.  Still, it’s worth reading if you are already a Peter Robinson fan, but I wonder, as I’ve wondered after reading other recent “Banks” books, if perhaps it’s time for him to write standalones or start another series.  Or here’s an idea:  maybe he should write books from various team members’ points of view.  I would love to read a novel told from Annie Cabbott’s viewpoint for a change.

And speaking of writing a series from various points of view, I just finished the audio version of a standalone by Tana French, The Searcher.  French has written a number of mystery novels as part of “The Dublin Murder Squad” series, each told from the point of view of a detective from the previous book, quite a novel idea (pun totally intended!).  I’ve read a few of these books and have enjoyed them very much.  I’ve also listened to another of her recent standalones, The Witch Elm, which I really, really enjoyed.  The Searcher, unfortunately, did not live up to my admittedly high expectations.  Cal Hooper, a retired Chicago detective, buys a broken-down farmhouse in a tiny Irish town with the intention of settling down in a small rural community where he can leave crime and violence, as well as his unhappy past, behind.  But when a kid named Trey seeks him out, his cop instinct kicks in.  Trey’s older brother, Brendan, is missing, and Trey is certain he didn’t just run off and abandon his family the way their father did years before.  Reluctantly, Cal gets sucked into the mystery, and his less-than-discrete inquiries slowly reveal the hidden truth that lies beneath the surface of this seemingly serene community, one dirty secret at a time.  This novel was just way too long.  There.  I said it.  French is an amazing author and I hate to be critical, but it’s the truth.  It’s too long, and nothing much happens until the last third of the book.  The Witch Elm was also very long, and I had issues with some of the main character’s meandering introspections, but the story still managed to move along at a satisfying pace.  But this one, not so much.  The story ended up being interesting, and the conclusion was satisfying, but it just took so darn long to get there that I wasn’t really even paying attention at that point, which was unfortunate.  Perhaps with these bigger novels, I should actually read the book so I can skim if necessary - with an audiobook, there is no skimming allowed.  

That’s all for today.  

Bye for now…
Julie

Book club highlights on a chilly December morning...

We don’t have much snow right now but it’s quite chilly outside today.  Good thing I have a steaming cup of chai and a slice of freshly baked Date Bread to keep me warm as I write about our recent book club discussion.

For my Volunteer Book Club, I normally choose a book that is either seasonal or something that ends in December (for example, A Year on Provence by Peter Mayle) for our last meeting of the year.  But for yesterday’s meeting, I chose a decidedly un-seasonal novel, The Testaments by Margaret Atwood.  I started the meeting by apologizing to everyone and wondering aloud what I could have been thinking when I added this to our list for December.  But they were very kind and said that it was OK… thankfully they all enjoyed the book!  Here is what I wrote when I read it for the first time last year: 

“The Testaments is the long-awaited sequel to Margaret Atwood’s classic The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian novel that asks the question, “What would happen if the world were ruled by (certain) men?”  I had to qualify that, as I’m sure there are some men out there who would not force all women into servitude, even if it were allowed and strongly encouraged.  But let’s face it, it’s been proven time and again that people who are given supreme power over others will inevitably abuse it.  Everyone knows what society is like in Gilead, whether from reading the book or watching the series, so I won’t spend any more time on that.  Instead I will focus on this new book, a novel that I think was brilliant in its own way.  The Testaments takes us back to Gilead fifteen years after the closing of The Handmaid’s Tale, and offers a look at how the society has developed and changed.  It is told from three different points of view, the testaments of Aunt Lydia, Agnes Jemima and Daisy.  We know Aunt Lydia from the previous novel, but fifteen years later, she is the most powerful woman in Gilead, whispering straight into the ear of Commander Judd.  Agnes Jemima is a precious flower, a girl who, at thirteen, is destined to become the new wife of a powerful, and much older, man.  And Daisy, at sixteen, is a sassy teen living in Toronto who will play a pivotal role in the Mayday operation to bring Gilead down.  I don’t want to give anything else away because the mystery surrounding these three characters and the ways their stories become intertwined is what makes this book a real page-turner.  I hate to compare novels, but while The Handmaid’s Tale was introspective and character-driven, The Testaments is more plot-driven.  Both showcase Atwood’s amazing use of language and her supreme skill at subverting it to create an eerily chilling atmosphere that is shockingly believable.  But in The Testaments, Atwood manages to also offer readers a Gileadean political espionage thriller that kept me staying up late and getting up early to read “just a few more pages”.  My only complaint, if you can even call it that, is with the timing of the stories, but I think I need to read it again before I make any comments, as it was probably just me rushing through it that left me feeling as though it didn’t flow as well as it could have.  Against my better judgement, I read the reviews and they were not great.  One reviewer said “...if The Handmaid’s Tale was Atwood’s mistresspiece, The Testaments is a misstep.  The Handmaid’s Tale ended on a note of interrogation:  ‘Are there any questions?’  Those questions were better left unanswered” http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190906-book-review-the-testaments-by-margaret-atwood.  I have to disagree with all of this.  In my opinion, she probably never wanted to write a sequel; it’s been 35 years since The Handmaid’s Tale was published, so if she really wanted to write a sequel, I’m sure she would have done so before now.  With the popularity of the series, it is likely that she felt extreme pressure to write this and answer the very questions she probably intentionally left for readers to ponder.  Like The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments ends with notes from a Symposium on Gileadean Studies, in which she writes:  “It is gratifying to see such a large turnout.  Who would have thought that Gilead Studies - neglected for so many decades - would have gained so greatly in popularity?  Those of us who have laboured in the dim and obscure corners of academe for so long are not used to the bewildering glare of the limelight” (p 408).  I think this is a direct reference to the sudden and immense popularity of her earlier work.  She is a brilliant writer who can get away with weaving these types of jibes and comments into her narrative and have it flow perfectly - or jarringly - for the reader.  The most memorable part of this book for me is when Aunt Lydia, describing how she became an Aunt, talks about her time in the Thank Tank, not so much what happened to her there, but the process leading up to and following her time there, as well as the phrase, “Thank Tank”.  Unlike the reviewer quoted above, I loved this book.  As with a film adaptation of a favourite novel, the reader (or watcher) has to realize that this is a separate entity from the original and judge it on its own merit.  I highly recommend this book, even if you haven’t read The Handmaid’s Tale,  but you would at least have to have watched the series or be familiar with the setting.”

I still agree with these comments, even after a second reading, but I had better luck figuring out the timing of the three testaments, and noticed a comment in the “Symposium” notes at the end that explained it, something I guess I missed the first time around.  I am so thankful that my book club ladies enjoyed this much more than last month’s selection.  The first thing everyone said was that, after reading it, they had more respect for Atwood, something they grudgingly admitted.  I don’t really understand that, since I have always appreciated her writing, even though I don’t love everything she’s written, so perhaps this selection has added a few more readers to her already-huge following.  We discussed Atwood’s wit and “wicked humour”, the power of women when they work together, and the foolishness of men who think they are invincible.  One member commented on Aunt Lydia's cunning and determination to plot and plan every action for fifteen years to achieve her ultimate goal of exposing Gilead for what it really was. We talked about the timeliness of this story, as well as The Handmaid’s Tale, and discussed how, when she first published it in the mid-1980s, it seemed impossible, but now both books are very nearly reflections of our reality.  We discussed how the restrictions in Gilead are similar to our COVID restrictions, such as no contact, the shunning of people who don’t follow the rules, and how masks are similar to the wings the handmaids wear, among other things.  We talked about clothing, and some of my ladies remember not being allowed to wear pants to school except on gym days, as well as outdated dress codes in the workplace. They also had some difficulty following the timelines, but not enough to diminish the enjoyment of the reading experience.  I asked if they thought the voices of twenty-two-year-old Agnes Jemima and sixteen-year-old Daisy sounded convincingly youthful.  Atwood is, after all, in her early 80s - we agreed that all of the characters seemed credible.  One member who listened to this as an audiobook said that Ann Dowd, the actress who played Aunt Lydia in the series, was the narrator, which added to the listening experience. The word "brilliant" cropped up in our conversation quite frequently. All in all, it turned out to be a great book selection and a great discussion to end this most unusual year, and we can only hope, as in the last chapters of The Testaments, for better days ahead.

That’s all for today.  I have lots of things to do and I want to get started.  Have a wonderful day!

Bye for now…
Julie

PS For next year's December meeting, I chose Sophie Kinsella's Christmas Shopaholic!

Children's books on a brilliant morning...

I’ve got a steaming cup of chai and a slice of freshly baked Banana Bread to keep me company on this brilliantly sunny, mild morning.  I plan to take full advantage of the gorgeous day before the rain and snow hit us in the next few days.  But first, I have two children’s books to tell you about.

I decided to read as many of the short juvenile chapter books from my shelf upstairs as I could this past week, and was disappointed to have only finished two, but they were both wonderful books.  The first was Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt.  This book was published in 1975, and I was a child at that time, so how was it that I’d never heard of it until I started working in my current job?  This novel focuses on the Tuck family, mother, father and two sons, who inadvertently disrupt the life of ten-year-old Winnie Foster, whose family own the woods in the near distance from the Tuck home.  They come across her one morning as she sits alone in the woods contemplating running away, and because she witnesses their conversation, they kidnap her in order to explain their situation.  What they reveal is that they’ve discovered a spring in these woods whose water, if drunk, stops you from aging beyond that moment.  But immortality is not all it’s cracked up to be, and the Tuck family want to warn Winnie not to tell anyone about this spring and also not to drink from it.  What ensues is a kidnapping, a swindle and a murder that is as gripping as I’ve ever encountered in a children’s book.  This story holds more meaning and lessons than is conceivable for such a short novel, and I would highly recommend it to just about anyone.

I also read The Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.  This novel, published in 1977, is also one I don’t recall ever hearing about until recently.  This makes me wonder what I was reading when I was young… I was reading all the time, but these two books (and who knows how many others!) seemed to have escaped my notice.  Anyway, this book is about the bonds of friendship and the ways we deal with loss.  Jesse Aarons wants to be the fastest runner in the fifth grade.  Over the summer, he practices every morning before doing his chores on the family farm.  His two older sisters seem to have their mother wrapped around their little fingers, and his younger sisters don’t have to do anything around the house since they are so young, so the bulk of the chores, and their mother’s wrath, fall on Jess’s shoulders.  He is a shy, artistic boy who must hide his talents from his parents and his fellow classmates for fear of being shamed or ridiculed.  When the Burke family move into the ramshackled home down the road from Jess, he dismisses them outright, as no one ever stays long in that house.  But then he meets Leslie Burke, who is in his class and ends up being the fastest runner in their grade.  Jess’s whole being resists Leslie’s overtures of friendship, but he eventually breaks down and they form an unlikely twosome, a bond that is sometimes the only thing that keeps Jess going.  They create the magical kingdom of Terabithia in the forest behind their farms, and of course they are the king and queen of the kingdom.  Time passes and their friendship deepens.  One day, when Jess is distracted by an offer that feeds his own needs, tragedy strikes and he is plunged into grief and also feelings of guilt.  He eventually overcomes the deepest pangs of his grief and begins to use his newfound strengths to become a better, kinder, even braver person.  This novel had me in tears by the end, and, like Tuck Everlasting, I would highly recommend this slightly longer children’s novel to anyone who enjoys a coming-of-age story that rings true.

That’s all for today.  Time to get outside and enjoy the sunshine.

Bye for now…
Julie

Books and tea on a snowy morning...

How is it that we seem to have so much precipitation on Sundays?  Today we are expected to have snow all day long, but I will try to get out for a walk this afternoon regardless, a bit like the Robert Frost poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”.  

I read a rather disappointing novel last week, To Tell You the Truth by Gilly Macmillan.  This thriller centres on bestselling crime writer Lucy Harper, a woman who seems to have it all, a successful writing career, a handsome, loving husband, and the completion of her latest book.  But all is not what it seems:  Lucy is still struggling to come to terms with the disappearance of her younger brother Teddy when she was just nine year old and Teddy was four, a disappearance that was largely her fault.  Thankfully, she’s always had her imaginary friend Eliza with whom to share her deepest emotions and darkest fears, someone from whom she can solicit advice;  in fact, Lucy had become so dependent on Eliza’s presence throughout her years growing up that she even based her books, the “Eliza Grey” series, on her.  When Lucy starts seeing physical manifestations of Eliza, though, she knows things have gone too far, but her attempts to sever their relationship prove to be ineffective.  Her relationship with her husband, Dan, also seems to be faltering as he makes more and more changes to their lives that bring Lucy closer to her traumatic past.  When Dan also goes missing, Lucy is at the centre of the investigation, and she must try to discover what happened to him, and also to Teddy, before she loses her freedom… and possibly her sanity.  This is the latest novel by an author whose works I’ve enjoyed reading in the past, but reading it was like reading an early novel by a writer whose later works I’ve enjoyed and now I've decided to read his/her early novels.  It was so much less polished and skillful than Odd Child Out, What She Knew and The Perfect Girl, something you would expect from early works, not later novels.  Anyway, I kept at it until the end because I thought it might turn out to be really good, which is what happened recently with Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson, but alas, it was disappointing to the very last page.  I guess if this was a first foray into Macmillan’s books, I might have thought it was OK, but I don’t think I as a reader was wrong to have greater expectation from a seasoned writer like her.  Anyway, it wasn’t the worst thriller I’ve read recently, but it was certainly not the best.

OK, I’ve got to go, as I’ve had a number of distractions this morning, so this short post has taken several hours to complete.  Get outside and enjoy the snow!

Bye for now…
Julie

Books and tea on a rainy autumn morning...

The stretch of mild sunny weather last week seems to be mostly at an end, and I have to say that I’m very happy about this.  I love crisp November days, seeing the stark bare branches of the trees silhouetted against the grey sky, and feeling the chill in the air that makes you want to take a long brisk walk, a gentle nudge towards the winter weather to come. But enough about my ideal fall weather...  I have a book and an audiobook to tell you about today as I sip my steaming cup of chai and enjoy a slice of freshly baked Extra Banana-y Banana Bread and a delicious Date Bar.

Last week I read The Good German by Canadian author Dennis Bock, which was both not what I expected and also exactly what I expected.  In November 1939, German anti-fascist Georg Elser attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking Nazi officials in Munich by planting a bomb at a beer hall where they were holding a Nazi rally.  The explosion did not kill Hitler, who left early that day, but it did kill a number of other Nazi officials and wounded many others.  He was imprisoned and finally sent to Dachau, where he died in 1945.  Imagine if that assassination attempt was successful.  We assume that this would stop the war, but Bock proposes another, much more sinister scenario.  What if, rather than stopping the Nazi movement, it only strengthened their efforts after Hermann Göring assumed the Chancellery?  In Bock’s novel, Göring signs a non-aggression treaty with American president Joseph Kennedy to keep the US out of the war.  What follows is a look at what this alternate history might look like if Elser's attempt had been successful.  From the summary on the book jacket and from reviews, I expected this to be more of a political novel, a bit of speculative fiction, as Margaret Atwood calls it.  I didn’t think this was what Bock usually writes, so I was intrigued to see how he would manage it.  What I got instead was a novel exploring the effects of war on those left behind, a coming-of-age story set in a small Canadian town under Soviet rule.  This is exactly what he usually writes about, so I was somewhat disappointed that he wasn’t writing outside his “comfort zone” but not overly so, as I just changed my expectation and got on with the reading.  It was an interesting novel, exactly as interesting and compelling for me as The Ash Garden, also by Bock.

I was going to write about the audiobook I finished listening to last week as well, but time seems to be moving very quickly this morning and I have lots of other things I still need to do, so I’ll just mention it briefly.  I listened to Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, which was very interesting, and the narrator, Cathleen McCarron, did a fabulous job of bringing the story and characters to life.  This story centres on Eleanor Oliphant, a 30-year-old woman working as an accounting clerk in a small graphic design company in Glasgow.  She is lonely, socially awkward, and clearly has endured some major traumatic events in her past.  When she inadvertently becomes involved in a situation with a colleague, she slowly finds the healing power of connection and friendship.  That’s all I’ll say about it, except that I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys books about social misfits, loneliness, and the redemptive power of connection (think A Man Called Ove).  

That’s all for today.  Grab a good book and curl up for the afternoon.

Bye for now…
Julie

Post on an unusually warm November morning...

I know it’s nearly mid-November, but it’s felt like mid-September these past few days, and it will feel this way for a few more days yet.  Strange that last Monday I wore my winter coat and boots to work, and yesterday I wore sandals and no jacket.  It’s definitely unusual, but I may as well enjoy it while it’s happening.  It’s not too warm to enjoy a steaming cup of chai and a delicious Date Bar, though, and that’s what I’m doing right now as I write this post.  

My Volunteer book club met yesterday, first time back in the Community Centre since March, to discuss the classic Henry James novella, The Turn of the Screw, an eerie read for this spooky time of year… or is it?  Most people are familiar with the basic premise of this story. Even if you haven’t read it, you’ve probably seen one of the movie or Netflix adaptations, but for anyone not familiar with it, here’s a quick summary:  An unnamed young woman is hired by a man in London to work as a governess in a large house in the remote English countryside, caring for and teaching his young niece and nephew.  While there, she begins to suspect that the children are at risk of becoming “corrupted” or possessed by two malevolent spirits, those of the former governess and the uncle's valet/manservent.  Unfortunately, no one else in the house sees these ghosts, but she is convinced that Flora and Miles are in imminent danger, and that it is her job to protect them at any cost.  The situation spirals out of control until the story reaches a tragic end.  This novella is supposed to be a classic study in evil, a ghost story to set the bar for all other ghost stories, but the first time I read it, I didn’t get that part.  I’ve seen the original 1961 film version, “The Innocents” with Deborah Kerr, and found it to be quite haunting, and so I’ve always thought that it was just me, that I was not intelligent enough to understand this novella.  I’m happy to say that it’s not just me!  My whole group found this to be a terrible slog - we all agreed with the comment one of the members made about it:  “So many words!”  Another woman said that she’s never read so many words and learned so little.  My long-held belief that the works of Henry James are just too difficult to read has now been confirmed.  The main point of our discussion was whether the ghosts really existed or whether they were all in the governess’s imagination.  Was this less a ghost story than a study in hysteria and psychological deterioration?  My text had many critical pieces in the second half of the book, and I found those to be at least as interesting as the work itself, shedding light on the dense prose as studied by those much more learned than I.  And several of the book club members also read the introductions or critical reviews and shared what they discovered.  We all thought that the ghosts were not real, and that the poor children being left at the hands of such an unstable and ultimately destructive woman was a crime.  We discussed the role of the absent uncle, who did not want to be bothered about the children at all.  We discussed social class and the way it affected the relationship between the governess and the housekeeper, Mrs Grose.  We discussed the underlying tone of sexuality in the narrative, a narrative that was supposedly written directly by the governess and sent to her friend many years later.  Was the governess in love with the uncle, and also with the children to some extent, and suffering sexual repression?  We all thought it would be interesting to find out what happened after the story ends, “Another Turn of the Screw” perhaps?  We also discussed what the title might mean.  In the end, it was a great discussion, and everyone agreed that there was so much more to talk about than they originally expected.  I am now interested in going back and skimming to find sections where something actually happens and piecing the story together that way, much as you would a set of plastic dinosaur bones, all the better to review this plot and decide what I think about it without all the filler words that made it feel much like plodding through deep mud.  Thank goodness it was short! (but it felt so long!!) I’m hoping people like our next book selection a bit better.

That’s all for today.  Get outside and enjoy the mild, sunny day!

Bye for now…
Julie

First post for November...

I've been busy this morning filling my extra hour with many little tasks in the kitchen, as well as giving my cats some well-earned extra attention.  But now they’ve gone off to have cat naps in their favourite spots and I’ve got a steaming cup of chai and a delicious Date Bar, as well as a slice of freshly baked Date Bread, to warm me up on this chilly, rainy morning.  

I read a really interesting book this past week, Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson.  I don’t remember how I heard about it, but I’m so glad I did!  Malcolm Kershaw is a middle-aged widower who owns a used bookstore in Boston, and each day is much like the next, until one snowy afternoon when an FBI agent shows up at his door asking him about a blog post he wrote nearly two decades before, a post he called “Eight Perfect Murders”.  This post listed what then-mystery-fiction-reader Malcolm considered the eight best, cleverest, and most “unsolvable” murders in fiction, including Agatha Christie’s The A B C Murders, James M Cain’s Double Indemnity, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.  Now Agent Gwen Mulvaney thinks that someone has discovered this list and is re-enacting these murders, but in real life.  Malcolm is more than willing to help uncover any links to these possible crimes, but things become more complicated as further details about the backgrounds and histories of various characters are revealed.  I don’t want to give away anything more, as I don’t want to spoil it if you decide to read it, but suffice it to say that I will try never to assume anything about anyone ever again, especially used bookstore owners!  At first it seemed a simple, straightforward, darkly funny, yet “light” mystery, but the more I read, the darker and more complex the story became, this twisting, turning, metafiction page-turner that moved so fast I had to stop and catch my breath before reaching a relatively satisfying conclusion.  It began as a “Canadian Tire” book but quickly turned into a “Lee Valley” read that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys dark, complex psychological thrillers.

That’s it for today.  Enjoy your extra hour, whatever you do, and remember to make time to read!

Bye for now…
Julie