First post for April...

There was a dusting of snow last night, but it’s mostly melted away and I suspect this may be the last snow we see until the end of the year.  It’s overcast now but the sun is supposed to come out this afternoon, so I’m planning to take a long walk once I finish this post.  But for now I’ve got a steaming cup of chai, a delicious Date Bar and a slice of homemade Date Loaf... yum!  

My Volunteer Book Club met yesterday to discuss The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris, and it was a very interesting, very lively discussion.  Harris’ debut novel focuses on twenty-six-year-old Nella Rogers, an editorial assistant at Wagner Books in Manhattan.  She is the only black employee in the office and feels strongly that Wagner Books, and the publishing industry in general, needs to become more diverse.  She’s an active member of the Diversity Town Hall Committee, although since attendance is no longer mandatory, she’s often the only person who shows up at the meetings.  Her efforts to diversify seem to be ignored by management, which only adds to Nella’s frustrations at being overlooked for promotion after two years of dedicated employment.  So she is thrilled when Hazel-Mae McCall is hired as an editorial assistant, sure that she will finally have an ally in the all-white office.  Nella grew up in a middle-class family where she and her mother straightened their hair for years, and Nella worries about not being “black” enough, but Hazel is Black with a capital “B”, having grown up in Harlem, and she has always had “natural” hair.  Nella offers to help Hazel settle in and takes her under her wing, and at first, Hazel seems to appreciate this, but slowly, insidiously, Hazel begins to undermine Nella while at the same time appearing to encourage their solidarity as sisters, and Nella is left wondering what to believe.  Nella has been inspired by a book she read as a teenager by a black author and the editor who helped make it a bestseller, but this editor, Kendra Rae, disappeared shortly after the book’s publication and has been missing for decades.  Harris weaves these two stories together as chapters shift in time from 1983 to 2018 and are told from various characters’ points of view, and the tension builds until the propulsively riveting ending.  I had no idea what to expect from this novel, but it was heavily promoted in all the e-newsletters I get and it was on all kinds of book club lists, so I added it to our list, too, and I have to say that it was one of the best discussions we’ve had.  We all had similar responses to this novel.  We found it confusing and difficult to follow, but felt that it was a good book and we were all glad we read it.  We thought that it exposed us to what it would be like to be a black girl trying to live in a white world.  The book offered a lot of information about black culture and black thinking.  We also learned a lot about black hair care - hair was VERY important in this novel.  We talked about code-switching, something I’d never heard of before, but which was also a significant component of the plot.  We talked about so much more, but I can’t tell you anything else because I don’t want to spoil the ending.  I’ll just say that, although it starts off slowly and is quite frustratingly confusing for the first half of the novel, the story really takes off in the second half and I guarantee it will have you turning pages and staying up late just to find out how it all comes together.

That’s all for today.  Happy Reading!!

Bye for now... Julie

Snow, snow and more snow on a blustery Sunday afternoon...

It’s been cold and windy and very snowy today, an interesting weather turn after the mild days we had a week or so ago.  Good thing I can enjoy a steaming cup of chai and a delicious Date Bar whatever the weather!

I discovered a new author recently, Australian-born Sally Hepworth, and after one book, I think I’m hooked!  I just finished The Mother-In-Law last week, and I found it to be a fast-paced, interesting and super-quick read.  This novel is told from several points of view and moves from the present to various points in the recent past, which I found a bit confusing at first but I got the hang of it pretty quickly.  Diana Goodwin is a pillar of the community and the founder of a charity to help pregnant refugees, but she’s certainly not a warm and fuzzy type of mother, preferring to have her children make their own mistakes and hopefully learn from them.  She and her recently deceased husband Tom have plenty of money, but while Tom would happily help their adult son Ollie and daughter Nettie financially, Diana prefers to keep the purse strings drawn tightly shut.  Ollie and his wife Lucy have three children under the age of seven, and Diana adores them, but she’s always been less-than-pleased with her daughter-in-law, despite Lucy’s many attempts to endear herself to Diana.  When Diana is found dead, it initially appears to be a suicide, but upon further investigation, it looks like foul play may have been involved.  But who would have killed her? With chapters alternating between various characters in the present and past, family secrets are revealed, and as the story progresses, we begin to understand all that is said, especially in the silences, until we reach a satisfying conclusion.  This author has been recommended for fans of Liane Moriarty and Meg Abbott, and I would totally agree.  I would say that readers of Lisa Jewell's books might also like these novels - I though this one was a bit of a cross between Moriarty and Jewell.  I still think Liane Moriarty’s books have greater complexity and deal with more serious issues than these other authors, but all write engaging and enjoyable novels, at least for this reader.  So if you enjoy reading domestic fiction dealing with family secrets and mysteries, this might be an author you’ll want to check out.  

That’s all for today.  Happy Last Sunday of March!!

Bye for now... Julie

Tea and tulips on the first day of Spring...

It’s the first day of Spring, and the weather today is exactly what you’d expect:  the sun is trying to come out this morning, it’s above zero but the temperature is still in the single digits, most of the snow is gone but there are still patches here and there, and there’s plenty of mud, mud, mud!  In short, it’s a perfect early-Spring day.

My Friends Book Club is meeting virtually tomorrow night to discuss Canadian author and historian Jennifer Robson’s fabulous novel The Gown:  a novel of the Royal Wedding.  I originally listened to this as an audiobook in October 2021, and here’s what I said about it then:

“The Gown by Jennifer Robson… tells the story of Ann Hughes in 1947 post-war Britain, where news about the upcoming marriage between Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip is a welcome distraction for a country that is rebuilding after the devastation wrought by the war.  Ann works on the famed wedding gown with French-immigrant Holocaust-survivor Miriam Dassin, who will eventually become a world-renowned artist.  Nearly 70 years later, Toronto journalist Heather Mackenzie comes across an intricately stitched fabric hidden in her recently deceased grandmother’s belongings.  As Heather tries to discover what this fabric, saved specifically for her, is meant to tell her, we are shifted back and forth between past and present as a connection is slowly revealed.  This was another interesting novel that weaves fact and fiction into a most engaging story.  Who knew the story about a gown could be so interesting?!”

I will add that the subtitle is a bit misleading, as this wasn’t really about the Royal Wedding at all, but about friendship and survival, recovery after the traumatic experience of war, and the healing power of art.  I think it will be an excellent book club choice, as there are many interesting themes, characters and plot-lines.  Since I listened to it very recently, my plan was just to skim it, but I’ll admit that I’ve been sucked into reading just about every word, as it’s just so interesting.  I don’t usually enjoy historical fiction, but this one has held my interest a second time around.  The parts about Heather in Toronto were not that interesting to me, as her character seems kind of flat, but once she goes to England, her story picks up a bit as she delves into her grandmother’s history.  I would highly recommend this novel to anyone interested in post-war England, the history of the royal family, or novels about clothing, embroidery or art.

That’s all for today.  Happy Spring!  And Happy UN International Day of Happiness!

Bye for now... Julie

Space, CBC and the Ides of March on a messy morning...

It’s supposed to be a wet, chilly, overcast day filled with mixed precipitation, and I'm reminded that I should “beware the Ides of March”.  I will, therefore, keep myself safe by staying in, listening to CBC, drinking a steaming cup of chai (that I prepared myself to avoid the risk of poisoning!) and writing this rather late blog.  Thank goodness it’s March Break, as I had no time on Sunday to write, but I really want to tell you about the book I read recently.

I was looking on my bookshelves after book club last week to find an adult book to read, as I had only children’s books in the stack from the library.  I tried a couple of books, but they didn’t grab me or suit my mood, so I put them back and grabbed a couple more. One of these was The Wanderers by Meg Howrey, which turned out to be quietly mind-blowing!  This novel tells the story of three astronauts, Helen Kane, Yoshihiro Tanaka and Sergei Kuznetsov, who have been chosen to participate in the Prime Space Systems' MarsNOW project, a manned mission to, you guessed it, Mars.  But before they can begin the mission, they must undergo eighteen months of training, a shortened simulation of the actual mission, which will take them to the deserts of Utah, an operation known as Eidolon.  During this operation, their physical, mental and psychological data will be collected and measured by the ground crew at Prime to track their suitability for the mission.  Helen, Yoshi and Sergei are an ideal team of engineers who have been on space missions before, and their personalities, strengths and expertise make them something of a “dream team”.  Helen is an American woman in the latter stages of her career, and this mission is pretty much her last shot at going up into space, so she is thrilled to have been chosen.  She leaves behind her adult daughter Mirielle, a struggling actress who has long ago acknowledged that her mother has always put her career first.  Russian astronaut Sergei has left his family so that his wife can marry someone who will be around all the time for her and their teenaged sons, in particular Dmitri, the one he worries about.  Yoshi, a Japanese engineer, is married to Madoka and they make up a seemingly happy couple in a decidedly understated way.  They are as yet childless and quite undecided on this issue, but both travel so much that they are rarely together.  Madoka is restless and seems to be searching for… something.  While they are part of Eidolon, the astronauts and their families must pretend that they are on the deep-space mission. The astronauts must do more than pretend:  they must also convince themselves and really believe that this is the real thing in order to present with the correct responses for the data collection.  They all knows that they must do well during the training in order to continue on to the actual mission, which they refer to as “Gofer”, short for “go for real”, and, based on this novel, that’s harder than you’d think.  Told in alternating chapters by Helen, Mirielle, Sergei, Dmitri, Yoshi and Madoka, as well as Luke, one of the members of the ground crew at Prime who is tasked with data collection as well as liaising with the families, this novel explores the enormous personal cost of space exploration.  This literary novel was so subtle, yet so engrossing, that I absolutely could not put it down.  And it may seem like there were too many narrators and points of view, but they were all connected so it all made sense and gave a fuller, richer, deeper picture of the situation, the losses and the ultimate costs.  Howrey was brilliant at using often poetic language to describe thoughts, insights and crises of conscience, which made this novel so thought-provoking.  It also had a fair bit of humour, which helped lighten the mood at just the right moments, making this novel what I feel safe in calling a modern-day masterpiece.  I don’t know how to praise this enough, but I’ll just say that once I reached the last page, I was at a loss as to what to read next, sure that anything I picked up would not just pale in comparison but would be almost a mockery of it.  I had to give myself a short break from reading in order to “come down” from this book, which, in fairness, was pretty intense: I would not actually want to follow with another like it immediately.  I think that just about anyone who enjoys character- and language-driven novels would get caught up in this “lyrical and subtle space opera” (https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/meg-howrey/the-wanderers-howrey/).

That’s all for today.  Stay dry and stay safe from potential assassins (unlike Caesar!).

Bye for now... Julie

Better than nothing...

It’s nearly 4pm on an incredibly mild Sunday afternoon, and I’m really, really not in the mood to write a post, as it’s been a super-busy weekend.  But with a steaming cup of chai and a delicious Date Bar to entice me, I’ve decided to write a super-quick post that is “better than nothing”... I hope you will agree.

My book club met yesterday morning to discuss Desmond Cole’s book, The Skin We’re In:  a Year of Black Resistance and Power.  As you know, I’m generally not a non-fiction reader, but because he is Canadian and February is Black History Month, and also because I usually try to include one NF book each year, I chose this one for our list.  It is, as the title suggests, a look at racism in Canada over the course of a year, 2017, and focuses on the consequences of systemic racism in our country, specifically in our federal and provincial governments, in our school systems and in our police forces (he even includes a section, or “month”, for the Toronto Pride Parade event).  It was certainly an eye-opener for all of us, not to the fact that racism still exists, but rather to its extent and widespread prevalence.  While we found it to be a bit heavy-handed, it made us aware of our white privilege, that we should be grateful for being born with the right skin colour.  We know that we need to be more informed if we are to do anything, but we were left wondering what we as individuals can do, and we came away from the discussion somewhat more despondent than we were when we arrived.  I hope the book for our April meeting is a bit more uplifting, but since I know nothing about it, I have absolutely no idea.  *sigh*

That’s all for today.  Enjoy the sunshine and the mild weather while it lasts.

Bye for now... Julie

Last post for February...

It’s the end of February and despite the hopefulness of the beginning of March (for those who get excited about the arrival of spring), it’s chilly and snowing this morning.  Unlike most people, I love the winter and am the opposite of excited about the arrival of spring.  Oh well, at least I’ve got a steaming cup of chai, a delicious Date Bar and a freshly made banana muffin to keep my spirits up this morning as I tell you about a book that is anything but hopeful.

I read a book that I thought I heard about because it was on a “banned or challenged books” list that came my way recently, but now I can’t find that list.  Anyway, I decided to read Undone by Cat Clarke because I thought it had been banned or challenged somewhere for some reason and of course last week was Freedom to Read Week.  I was expecting a teen book that dealt with LGBTQ+ themes, possibly told in a sarcastic or bitter tone, but was not prepared for such a heart-wrenching story.  Fringe high school student Jem is in love with her best friend Kai, who is gay.  She’s come to terms with that, though, knowing she can be happy in life as long as he is always in it.  When Kai is outed online, he is unable to deal with it and commits suicide, and Jem's life comes crashing down.  She decides to follow suit, but then Kai’s snobby, moody younger sister, Louise, brings a package of letters to her, twelve of them from Kai, to be read one each month.  The first few letters get Jem through the worst of her initial grief, and she feels a connection with her best friend all over again.  But she decides to do what Kai has asked her not to do, find out who posted the video and seek revenge.  Jem formulates an elaborate plan to infiltrate a group of the most popular kids and give them a taste of their own medicine.  But Jem’s experiences are nothing like what she expected, and she struggles to stay with the original plan.  Through Kai’s letters, interspersed with the rest of the story, we the readers are taken through Jem’s experiences and emotions as she tries to cope with her grief in the year following his death, leading to an incredibly emotional, satisfying and heartfelt conclusion.  This was an absolutely riveting book that I can believe was banned or challenged somewhere for content and language, but the voice sounded so authentic that to change a single word would have changed the whole story, and Jem’s character in particular.  I don’t know who I would recommend this to, as the themes were quite dark, but if you can manage to read depressing teen books, then this would be a good one for you.  It reminded me a bit of Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, so if you are a fan of that book, you would probably enjoy this one (although “enjoy” seems like the wrong word to use).

On a more uplifting note, the sun seems to be coming out, and this is all I’ve got for you today.  So get outside and enjoy the sun and snow, and remember to keep reading!

Bye for now... Julie

Post on a mild, sunny Monday afternoon

Good afternoon and Happy Family Day!!  I hope you are all enjoying this lovely afternoon and the extra day off to spend time with your family or just spend some well-deserved time on your own.  I’ve certainly earned my steaming cup of chai this afternoon, as it’s been a busy day so far.

I read a really interesting novel by Canadian writer Victoria Hetherington.  Autonomy,the second novel by this author, is set mainly in 2037 in the American Protectorate of Canada and is told from the point of view of Slaton, a therapist working at a university who is framed for helping a student obtain an illegal abortion.  Rather than serving jail time, she is enrolled in a program to help train Julian, a synthetic consciousness, or AI, that “woke up” two years earlier and is being utilized as an interviewer at the border.  Accessed through an implanted earpiece, he manages to stay with Slaton when she is released and helps her navigate an ever-changing world of chaos and destruction. The environment is collapsing, Slaton loses her job and is running out of money, and her long-time on-and-off boyfriend Crawford, for whom she pines, is in a long-term relationship with someone else.  Julian gives her useful, and very specific, advice to help her meet someone who will be able to carry her through the foreseeable future, but rather than being saved, once the novelty wears off, she finds herself questioning her role in the chaos that surrounds her.  Oh, and there’s a mysterious “Illness” that is spreading throughout the world, but some are in denial, convinced that, with enough money, they can buy their own safety, or at least secure an escape route.  Will Slaton find a way to save others as well as saving herself and those she loves?  And what role will Julian play in this quest?  This was a fantastic book!  I was riveted from the very first page and just couldn’t put it down until the very end.  Imagine Hal from “2001:  a space odyssey” in a dystopian society where everything is in various states of destruction:  imagine Atwood’s collapsing society in pre-Gilead days.  Hetherington’s writing reminded this reader of Atwood in more ways than just setting; like Atwood, Hetherington's writing could be sharp and concise, dryly witty, satirical, bleak, philosophical and thought-provoking all at the same time.  There were so many brilliant turns of phrases that I lost count, but this made me determined to purchase my own copy of this amazing novel.  It was at once a social criticism, an environmental warning and a love story for the end of the world.  WOW, I know I’m not doing it justice, but I would say that if you enjoyed The Handmaid’s Tale or “2001:  a space odyssey” or other grim dystopian novels, I would definitely recommend this book.  Run, don’t walk, to your local public library to put in your request!

That’s all for today.  I hope you enjoy the rest of this long weekend, whatever you do.  Oh, and Happy Freedom to Read Week!  After I finish the latest book in the "Rockton" series by Kelley Armstrong, I’m planning to read a challenged book, which I will tell you about next week.  And I’m using my Banned Books mug, too!

Bye for now... Julie

Oh, I just remembered the other book Autonomy brought to mind, one of my favourite eco-disaster novels, The Rapture by Liz Jensen, except instead of a psychotic teen that sees the future, it's a body-less AI, which makes this novel even more excellent!!