Last post for February...

Once again, it is unseasonably mild on this Sunday morning as I enjoy a cup of chai tea and a slice of freshly baked Date Bread.  

This will be a very short post, as I am only halfway through the book we are going to be discussing next weekend with my volunteer book group, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson.  This novel is on all the book club lists and was a bestseller for ages, and I have enjoyed Atkinson’s books in the past, particularly her “Jackson Brodie” series, but I was sure I would not enjoy this book at all, as it does not in any way sound like my type of book (I added it to our list because I knew it was the only way I would try to read it).  The main character, Ursula Todd, born in 1910 in the English countryside, meets an unfortunate end before she even has a chance for her life to begin… until her life begins again, and she survives, only to meet an unfortunate end as a very young girl… and then her life begins again, and she learns to survive a little bit longer, until she once again meets an unfortunate end… and so on, and so on, and so on... I tend to prefer more linear stories, which this clearly is not. But I'm totally enjoying this book - it is awesome!  I’ll tell you all about it once I finish and we’ve had our meeting, but for anyone who is avoiding this book because it sounds too strange, I would urge you to give it a try.

And a few weeks ago I had some macarons as a treat with my tea and was wondering which book it was where I first read about and discovered these delicacies.  I have recently answered my own question - it was in Liane Moriatry’s The Husband’s Secret.  One of the character’s daughter-in-law gives her a box of these and when she tries one, she discovered that they really are as delectable as she’s heard they were.  I'm listening to this excellent audiobook right now, and enjoying every minute of it.

OK, that’s it.  Sorry for the short post, but the new kitty has taken up much of my free time over the past week.  Little Hannah seems to be fully integrated into the routines of the other cats now, so things should be back to normal soon.  Whew!  It’s a lot of work, but they’re worth it!

Have a great day!

Bye for now…
Julie

PS I forgot to mention in last week’s post that it was Freedom to Read week, my favourite week of the year, so I hope everyone took the opportunity to read a banned or challenged book!  I always read a challenged book to the students at my schools, and they are always amazed at the reasons for these challenges.  This year we read Dr. Seuss’s Hop on Pop :  check out this link to find out where and why it was challenged http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2014/04/toronto-library-asked-to-ban-violent-dr-seuss-book-hop-on-pop.html

Books and tea on another mild day...

The weather this winter has been so erratic, up and down, up and down, so it’s hard to know what to expect or how to dress from day to day.  It’s another mild weekend, which I will be taking advantage of soon, when I hang the sheets outside to dry… there’s nothing like the scent of the outdoors to lull me into a good night’s sleep.

I wasn’t sure what to read last week after finishing The Affinities.  I tried a couple of the library books I had piled on my coffee table, but none of them were grabbing me.  I tried a book by Kate Morton that I’ve been eyeing on my bookshelf for some time, but that also didn’t grab me.  I even tried a book that someone from work gave me, a huge historical novel by Philippa Gregory, and that almost grabbed me (I’ve set it aside to read later, when I have more time and can focus).  What I ended up reading was a book I got as a review copy when I was still reviewing books for the local newspaper (I’ve still got a stack of those for future consideration).  Funny Girl, by Nick Hornby, was a good read, but was surprisingly unfunny.  Set in the mid-1960s, it opens with Barbara Parker winning the title of Miss Blackpool, then escaping to London to follow her dream of making people laugh on screen, like her heroine, Lucille Ball.  She gets a job at the cosmetics counter of a department store, and a chance meeting with an agent leads to a new name and a new beginning.  In just a few short months, Sophie Straw will become the new little darling of British BBC comedy.  She shines as the lead female character of Barbara (and Jim), a sitcom about a mismatched couple and their misadventures.  The cast of characters in the book include Tony and Bill, the writers, who have known each other since their time in the National Service, the producer, Oxford-educated Dennis, who is in a loveless marriage to posh, intellectual Edith, and Clive, the lead male character, who dreams of greater things and fancies himself a “ladies’ man”.  Their adventures offscreen make up the bulk of the story, and the reader learns much about the joys and perils of working in television at that time in history.  Hornby knows his stuff where this is concerned, as he wrote the screenplay for the Oscar-nominated film, An Education.  It is a historical novel about the golden age of the BBC, and a look at the huge social changes that were taking place at that time in the popular culture of the 1960s. It is also a love story, and an exploration into the creativity and teamwork that go into producing a tv show.  It is a novel of youth, and aging, and the inevitable change that everyone faces, no matter how famous or good-looking.  And it is a defense of and homage to the value of  “Light Entertainment”. I’ve read a few other books by this author:  About a Boy and High Fidelity are my favourites, and they are very funny.  This book takes a more earnest look at the lifestyle of people in the entertainment industry at a period when society was changing so drastically and so rapidly. It is not satirical or critical, but takes a more gentle, nostalgic approach, a bittersweet look at a bygone era (sorry for all the cliches!).  It reminded me a bit of Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar (up until the part where Plath’s main character tries to kill herself and undergoes ECT treatments):  although Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel takes place a few years earlier than Hornby’s, both novels deal with the choices women had at that time.  It was certainly an interesting read, and very informative, so I would definitely recommend this novel if you are interested in Britain’s pop culture in the 1960’s, or the way tv shows, plays or movies are written and produced, or if you are already a Hornby fan - just don’t expect Funny Girl to cause many laugh-out-loud moments.

I got a new kitty this weekend, so there’s not been much reading going on - hopefully I will have a chance to get into a good book this afternoon.  Have a great day, and enjoy the mild weather!

Bye for now…
Julie

Happy Family Day!

OK, I take back what I said in recent posts about not believing that we will have six more weeks of winter.  Based on the very frigid temperatures this weekend, I can totally believe it!  Thank goodness for my hot cup of chai and the warm kitty on my lap!

In honour of Family Day, I’m happy to be able to tell you about a book I read last week that is, at heart, an exploration into what it means to be a family.  The Affinities by Toronto author Robert Charles Wilson tells the story of Adam Fiske, a graphic design student from the small town of Schuyler, NY who finds himself in the big city of Toronto with no friends, no connections, no money and no prospects.  He is not close to most members of his family, except his younger stepbrother, Geddy, an awkward teen, and his Granny Fiske, an elderly woman who really supports Adam in whatever he decides to pursue.  She is funding his graphic design education in Toronto, but when she becomes ill and the future funding of his studies is at risk of  drying up, he must consider other options.  He finally gives in to the temptation and decides to be tested for the Affinities, a series of tests that will determine to which, if any, social group he belongs.  It is a bit like Facebook, except it takes in all aspects of one's life, personality and total makeup and groups individuals together with other likeminded people - unfortunately, not everyone fits into these groups, which causes some social awkwardness.  These Affinities are named after letters in the Phonecian alphabet, and Adam is thrilled to discover he is a Tau,  one of the largest, most popular, and ultimately most “powerful” of the Affinities.  Suddenly, all his problems are solved - he finds a job, a place to live and a girlfriend as he joins his Tranche (his local group of Taus).  The only hitch is that members of each Affinity associate only with others in their group, and are expected to conduct minimal interactions with “outsiders”.  Founded by Meir Klein, the Affinities begin as a way to meet others of similar makeup, but over time, rivalries between Affinities develop.  Years late, Klein expresses concern about the way things have evolved, and has ideas about new and better ways to facilitate testing and interaction for these groups. When he is murdered while at a conference in BC, Adam and his immediate tranchemates are drawn into a complex plot as the dissonance within and between Affinities dovetails with greater geopolitical instabilities, most notably in China and India.  Can Adam find a way to move on with his life even as things seem to be falling apart?  And who should he ultimately trust, his fellow Taus or his family?  The summary of this book sounded awesome, and it started out really promising, but I found myself becoming more and more disappointed in it as the story went on.  I’m not sure exactly how to describe my reading experience, but I’ll try.  It was a short book (just 300 pages), but it seemed long.  I felt that it was too vague in many areas, lacking details about the Affinities in general, the Taus specifically, and Adam’s day-to-day life.  But it also had excessive detail about some things that seem inconsequential, although I can’t think of a specific example right now.  Anyway, it should have been a quick read, but it seemed to drag on and on until I finally reached the last page.  The ending almost redeemed this book, and I wonder if the “vagueness” was intentional, given the “big reveal”, so I have mixed feelings about recommending this dystopian sci fi novel.  It was definitely worthwhile, given our obsession with social media, so give it a try if you are in the mood for a light sci fi read.

And I finished listening to an audiobook that had nothing to do with families called The Pale Criminal by Philip Kerr, read by my favourite narrator, John Lee.  This novel is set in Germany in 1938, where there is a serial killer targeting young German girls who embody Aryan traits.  Former Police Detective-turned-Private Investigator Bernhard “Bernie” Gunther is contacted by Frau Lange to find out who is blackmailing her son, Reinhardt, over some love letters he sent to his lover, psychotherapist Dr Kindermann.  She also wants to get all the letters back, then let her son decide what to do with them.  Of course, being homosexual in Nazi Germany is a serious crime, and Frau Lange is worried about her son.  Bernie asks his partner, Bruno, to keep watch on a suspect’s house, but during this stakeout, he is killed and the suspect is found hanged in his apartment.  Bernie is then called back to the police force to help out in the search for the serial sex killer who is murdering young blond blue-eyed girls in Berlin.  He has no choice but to join the investigation and is given a team of officers to help him out.  This investigation takes him to Nuremberg, then to a seance in Berlin, all in an effort to uncover the truth.  What he discovers is a complex conspiracy involving members of the SS who may just get away with murder.  I only chose this book because of the narrator, but it was really interesting, with enough details and plot twists to keep me hanging on until the end, when, of course, all is revealed.  I just found out that this is the second in the Berlin Noir Trilogy by Kerr, so I will check to see if the other two are available for download.  

That’s all for today.  Enjoy the last day of the long weekend!

Bye for now…
Julie

First post for February...

On this spring-like morning, with pretty much all the snow melted away, it’s hard to believe that the groundhog saw his shadow last week and that we will have six more weeks of winter.  I don’t quite know how to feel about this - I like the winter, but the sun, the clear walkways, the sight of grass and even the scent of spring, is intoxicating.  It’s still cool enough for me to enjoy a steaming cup of chai tea while I think about my recent reading experiences.

But first I want to let you know that the Ontario Library Association Forest of Reading Evergreen 2016 nominated titles have just been announced: 

http://www.accessola.org/web/OLA/Forest_of_Reading/OLA/Forest_of_Reading/Forest_of_Reading.aspx?hkey=e913abbb-1687-438d-bc68-64eda110aeb1 

I have read many of these titles, and have written about them in earlier posts.  I hope you have a chance to read at least a few of these, and if you are in an area where your public library participates in the Evergreen Award program, please get out and vote for your favourite in October!   

My volunteer book group met yesterday to discuss Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, a sweeping saga of twin brothers, Marion and Shiva, born of the union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon into tragic circumstances in Ethiopia in 1954 as the country hovers on the brink of revolution.  Drawn to a life of medicine, despite being abandoned by their father, both brothers come of age in a home near the hospital where their parents work as surgeons and discover their differences even as they find comfort in their similarities.  But one woman will cause an irreparable rift between them and cause one brother to flee his homeland and seek refuge in America.  In the end, though, he must rely on the two people he trusts least in his life, the father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.  This book was recommended by one of my book club members, so I put it on the list, despite knowing nothing about it.  I found a paperback copy at a used book store some time ago, so I was read to begin reading it last Sunday after finishing my post.  Well, the book was over 650 pages, with fairly small print.  Yikes!  I was never going to finish it in time for the meeting!  And discovering right from page one that it was going to be a book filled with detailed descriptions of everything, including the settings and the medical conditions and procedures encountered at the hospital, I knew it was not the kind of book I normally enjoy.  So I admit to skimming the first 300 pages, at least getting the gist of the story.  But then it got really interesting, once the twins were growing up and nearing their teens, when, in my opinion, the story actually starts.  I found the political details of events happening in Ethiopia at the time (1960s-1980s) interesting and informative, and the account of one man’s experiences growing up at a time of so much unrest and uncertainty was moving and harrowing - I have since found out that this parallels the author’s own experiences.  The choices Marion was forced to make later in life were both realistic and yet unbelievable.  It was not an uplifting book by any means, so I was happy to reach the last page.  When I got to the meeting, I saw that three of my ladies still had bookmarks in their books.  One was about a third of the way through, one nearly halfway through, and one woman has about a quarter of the novel left to read.  The last member had listened to this as an audiobook, and she said it grabbed her from the very first sentence and she was hooked to the last paragraph.  Those who hadn’t finished still enjoyed the parts they read, and planned to finish.  They loved the details of the settings, saying they felt like they were actually there.  They all agreed that the book contained “nuggets of wisdom”, usually from Ghosh, one of the surgeons at the hospital where the twins grew up.  They found the historical and political details fascinating.  We discussed Obstetric Fistula, and female circumcision, both prominent issues in the book.  Unfortunately, with so few of us finishing the novel, we couldn’t really discuss very much, so we just spent the rest of the time talking about a variety of different things, often involving books.  One of the members said that her sister knows the author, as her sister lives in the part of India where Verghese has set his upcoming book, and this member has read his previous books, My Own Country (which she really enjoyed) and The Tennis Partner (which she didn’t enjoy as much).  Would I recommend this book?  It’s definitely been recommended by other sources, and was on the bestseller list for many many weeks when it was first published in 2009.  And I believe it is being made into a film.  So I would suggest that you might enjoy this book if you like sweeping sagas with lots and lots of detail, and you do not feel squeamish when reading (many, many!) details of medical conditions and surgeries.

My preference for books are the shorter books that get right to the point, and use language clearly and concisely.  I have three such books sitting on my coffee table right now, and am looking forward to reading at least one, maybe even two, of them next week.  

But for now, I want to get outside and enjoy the wonderfully bright, clear, early-spring-like day!

Bye for now…
Julie

Last post for January...

It’s hard to believe that this month is over and we’re halfway through winter, and yet  It’s so mild and rainy outside today that it feels more like spring… I hate when the seasons get all mixed up like this!  Good thing I have a hot cup of chai tea and a yummy Cranberry Scone from Future Bakery to cheer me up!  

I took advantage of the opportunity to read whatever I wanted to get to a book I’ve been meaning to read for quite some time.  Empire Falls by Richard Russo has been sitting on my shelf for years, I’ve really wanted to read more of this Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s work.  It ended up taking me two weeks to read, since I had many other things that I had to do in the evenings over the past couple of weeks, significantly cutting into my reading time.  I finally finished last night, just in time to tell you about it this morning.  This novel tells the story of a small American town not far from Boston and the people who live there.  Much of the town is owned by the wealthy Whiting family who live on the other side of the river, now headed by Francine Whiting, an elderly but intimidating woman whose motto is “Power and control”.  She not only owns the properties and businesses in the town, she feels that she owns the citizens of Empire Falls and has the right to orchestrate what goes on there and how the town is run.  Miles Roby is one such individual, someone for whom she has a certain fondness, but who may also turn out to be her greatest challenge.  Miles manages the Empire Grill, a diner that has been serving the townspeople of Empire Falls for decades.  Miles' mother, Grace, had worked for the Whiting family her whole life, first in the shirt factory, then as a personal aide to Mrs. Whiting.  When Grace became ill while Miles was away at college, he returned home to care for her and began working at the Grill.  Twenty years later, he’s still in the same place, just barely getting by, in the midst of a divorce he never wanted.  What holds him together and keeps him going is his awkward, intelligent, talented teenaged daughter Christine, nicknamed “Tick”, who prefers being with her father rather than her mother, Janine, and Janine’s fiance, Walt Comeau.  He also still holds out hope that he may finally have a relationship with Charlene, a waitress at the Empire Grill with whom he’s been in love since high school but who has always been just out of reach.  Miles, too, has been the reluctant recipient of adoration from Cindy Whiting, Francine’s daughter, who was crippled in an automobile accident when she was very young, leaving her dependent on the kindness of others.  Grace encouraged Miles to befriend Cindy, a request he undertook grudgingly.  Now Cindy is back, and, being the sole heir to the Whiting fortune, the time is right for Miles to make his move on her and secure his and Tick's financial future.  But Miles is haunted by memories of his past, particularly of a vacation he took with his mother when he was nine, when they spent a week at Martha’s Vineyard and spent time in the company of a mysterious stranger named Charlie Mayne.  And the pressures from the people around him to make a change, to take advantage of opportunities rather than just let life happen to him, are making life harder and harder for him to manage.  His brother David, a reformed alcoholic and excellent chef, wants to expand the restaurant’s menu, extend the hours, and even get a liquor license, to finally make the Grill profitable.  His soon-to-be ex-mother-in-law wants him to move on and leave her daughter to her fate as the new Mrs Comeau.  Cindy, of course, wants to finally have her love realized and returned.  But will mild-mannered Miles be able to get out from under Mrs Whiting’s thumb and make the right decisions for himself and his family while still maintaining his personal integrity?  That is the question that drives this slow-moving, detailed narrative.  It resembles a soap opera in style, but it contains many insights into the human condition,  the way people live their lives, and the things some people choose to do to keep their lives going.  I didn’t love this book, but I’m so glad I finally got a chance to read it.  It was very well-written, with skilled use of language, fully-developed characters, and complex relationships between townspeople, friends and family.  I think I may have enjoyed it more if I had never read John Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent, because it reminded me so much of that wonderful novel.  There were so many parallels, from the mild-mannered protagonist who could have achieved so much more in life but who suffers from thwarted ambitions, the daughter who is instrumental in directing his actions, and the small-town setting, mostly owned and controlled by a single wealthy individual, and filled with quirky characters whose stories intersect with the protagonist and influence how he perceives himself, his fate and his destiny.  It also reminded me of John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany, in that religion and the church play a significant role in shaping Miles’ experiences.  It was definitely a good reading experience, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys domestic fiction set in a small town. This book was also adapted for television and made into a mini-series starring Ed Harris, Helen Hunt, and many other well-known actors.  I haven’t seen it, but I’m interested in checking it out if I can get my hands on it somehow.  

And I just finished listening to an audiobook, The Most Dangerous Thing, by Laura Lippman, read by Linda Emond, who did an awesome job of capturing the many different characters’ voices and points of view.  This novel begins with Gordon “Go Go” Halloran spiralling out of control as he falls off the wagon and drives into the wall at the end of a street near his childhood home.  His death (accident or suicide?) brings together the remaining four in the circle of childhood friends whose experiences one summer may have changed their lives.  Gwen, Mickey, Tim, Sean and Go Go were inseparable at the end of the ‘70s, but after a particularly devastating experience during a hurricane, they drifted apart.  Now, decades later, the truth about the incident threatens to surface and these four individuals, now adults who should be ready to take responsibility, must decide not only how to handle the truth, but what the truth actually is.  Can adults be held responsible for acts they committed as children, when they believed they were choosing the best course in a situation where there is no clear right or wrong?  Lippman is most well-known for her “Tess Monaghan” series, but I prefer her standalone books, and this one did not disappoint.  It had a complex plot, well-developed characters, and addressed issues of childhood actions and truth in retrospect.  There were so many characters and time periods that it was often somewhat confusing, and I felt that the appearance of Tess Monaghan near the end felt totally out of place, but everything came together in a satisfying conclusion. All in all, it was the type of story I enjoy, dealing with shared experiences and family secrets, so it was a positive listening experience.  If you also like these complex domestic dramas with a mysterious twist, you may enjoy this one, too!

That’s all for today.  I want to try to get outside before it starts to rain… ugh!

Bye for now…
Julie

Book talk on a chilly morning...

I have no yummy treats to accompany my steaming cup of chai this morning, just a bowl of homemade applesauce mixed with cottage cheese, a surprisingly delicious way to compensate for my indulgences over the holidays!

My book club did not meet on Monday night as planned, due to the inclement weather that day.  I expected we might just skip this meeting and plan for a future date with a new book, but due to improved weather conditions and the enthusiasm and availability of people in the group, we ended up meeting on Thursday night, and it what a lively discussion indeed.  Just to quickly remind you, Liane Moriarty’s book What Alice Forgot tells the story of Alice Love, a 39-year old woman who, while at her Friday spin class, faints and falls off her bicycle, hitting her head and suffering a concussion.  When she awakes, she thinks she is 29 years old, newly married and expecting her first child.  She has forgotten everything that has happened over the past ten years, and is shocked to discover that she is a slim, fit, well-off mother of three children, and that she and her husband Nick hate each other and are getting a divorce.  Over the course of the book, as bits and pieces of her memory begin to return and as the people around her fill her in on what has been happening in her life, she wonders whether it would be better not knowing how she became who she is;  in short, she both wants her memories to return and also wants to remain blissfully ignorant.  In my last post, I hadn’t quite finished the book, but I wasn’t loving it.  It was a great premise, but it lacked the conviction of her other novels.  It didn’t quite seem believable, the characters were fairly flat and two-dimensional, the story dragged, the pacing was off, and the last bit where everything was explained felt as though Moriarty’s deadline for book submission was nearing so she stayed up all night, writing and wrapping  everything up quickly and neatly.  I was not alone in this opinion - we all agreed that this was not her best book, that it was an interesting, but not entirely believable, story.  We felt that she could have organized the book differently to keep readers more interested during the middle section, when things dragged.  One of our members, who recently turned 40, seemed to have enjoyed it the most, as for her, like Alice, that signified a turning point in her life, a cathartic time when she evaluated her life and, also like Alice, had to let go of the things that were no longer important.  (I wonder what a 29-year old reader would think of this book?!)  We all agreed that the ending felt rushed, and that the characters should have been more fully developed.  Some of us appreciated that there were three different storylines in the book, as revealed by Alice, her sister Elizabeth, and their adopted grandmother Frannie, and a couple of us agreed that Elizabeth was our favourite character, the one towards whom we felt most sympathetic.  But one of our members felt that Moriarty was trying to pack too much into the book, that she included these other storylines to appeal to all readers, including older readers (Frannie’s story) or women who struggled to have children (Elizabeth).  I hadn’t thought of that, but once she mentioned it, I could see how that made the novel feel somewhat “cluttered” and unfocused.  One member, who had read other books by the author, said it was almost as if this book was by a different writer, but we pointed out that there were similarities to her other books:  dealing with serious issues in a realistic, but also humourous, way, and presenting ordinary domestic situations but including a mystery that keeps the story going and the reader interested, as the solution is not revealed until the very last pages.  So all in all, this was a good choice for a book club discussion, but not one of her best books.

And I want to quickly mention that I went to see the film adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s book Room yesterday, and I thought it was very emotional, very moving and really well-acted.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the book, although I listened to it as an audiobook and did enjoy that format.  This book begins with a mother and her five-year old son living in a single room, held captive by Old Nick. The boy, Jack, has never been outside, so Room is his whole world - the only thing he knows about the world outside is through what he watches on TV, which he does not understand represents the real world. When their situation becomes precarious, Ma comes up with a plan for escape, and what ensues are the challenges that they face when they re-enter society. This book has two distinct parts, captivity and freedom, and I remember enjoying the first part of the audiobook better than the second part.  The film, however, focuses more on the second part, which I think really works. Donoghue wrote the screenplay, so hopefully she was able to transfer the things she felt were important from the book to the screen.  I would definitely recommend it, but be sure to bring lots of tissues!

That’s all for today.  Bundle up and get outside!

Bye for now…
Julie

Post on a snowy, snowy day...

I am appreciating my hot cup of chai tea this morning, as the cold weather seems to be here to stay.  I like this type of weather - it makes me feel invigorated just walking in the cold on a snowy trail.  And hot beverages are so much better when you really need to be warmed up.  I’m nibbling on some macarons that I bought from a bakery at the St Lawrence Market when I was in Toronto on Friday.  I have three flavours, Raspberry-Rosemary, Creme Brulee and Espresso.  They are so expensive that I’ve been savouring them over the last couple of days, but will finish them off this morning.  I first discovered these delectable treats in a book that I read for my “Friends” book club.  One of the characters raved about them, and I remember we all thought it was strange that this character was going mad over a box of macaroons.  A short time later, at a Volunteer Appreciation event, I came across little tiny layered treats in different flavours that represented foods from France, and they were called macarons.  I had one, and it really was worth raving about.  They are expensive, but worth enjoying as a treat every once in awhile… exactly what I’m going to do this morning!  As an aside, I can’t remember whether I read about these treats in My Husband’s Secret or The Elegance of the Hedgehog.  I put that question out to my book group, and hopefully someone will have the answer for me at our meeting tomorrow night.

I was facing a dilemma while I was cooking and baking this morning (macarons are a good treat now and then, but nothing beats homemade Date Loaf… mmm!!!) - I’m not quite finished my “Friends” book club selection, so I debated whether to finish the book before writing my blog, or writing about my opinions before finishing it, or just waiting until next week to write about our discussion.  I decided to summarize the book now and offer my initial thoughts, then give an update if anything changes after finishing it and/or having the group discussion.  The book is What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty, and it tells the story of Alice Love, a 39-year-old mother of three in Sydney Australia who, during her Friday spin class, falls off her bike, hitting her head and suffering a concussion.  She seems to recover nicely, except that she she has lost the memories of the last ten years - she thinks it is 1998, and that she is 29-years old, newly married to Nick, and pregnant with their first child.  What follows is her reentry into her life, where she discovers that she has not one but three children, that she is ultra-slim and fit, and that she and Nick are getting a divorce.  No one seems to want to give her any information about why they are separated; some find it hard to believe that she’s really lost her memory, while others just plain forget that she can’t remember things.  When she meets her “new” friends, she is shocked at their attitudes and behaviours, which she realized she, too, must share and approve of as the 39-year-old Alice.  She then meets her older husband and her children, and she is taken aback by the hostility of her oldest child and her husband towards her.  In short, she is horrified by the person she has become and the things she has done over the past ten years.  But is it too late to rectify these situations and change the future of her family?  This book has been recommended to me by various people in the past, particularly my massage therapist, who also loves to read.  This title was also on a Top 100 Best Book Club Choices list I found online, and I’ve read two other books by Moriarty which I really enjoyed.  So I thought I would love this one, too, but I found it really difficult to get into.  The beginning dragged, but it seemed to pick up a bit about a quarter of the way into it.  Unfortunately it never seemed to have the realistic feel of her other books; it is more like a fairytale, an “if I’d only known then what I know now” kind of story that never really works.  Now, granted, in the last 50 pages, it may all come together, but I don’t know how Moriarty could pull that off.  I find it hard to believe that no one is willing to fill Alice in on what has happened in the last ten years.  And I can’t believe that no one would drag her to a doctor when her memory loss continues for a week after her fall.  I’m curious what the other women in my group will say about the book, and will update you after the meeting.

I also finished listening to an audiobook on Friday, Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks.  This is a recent “James Bond” novel, and since I have never read any of the originals by Ian Fleming, I can’t really compare it.  But it was fast-paced, with a complex, international plot featuring nasty villains and a beautiful woman, although not the many “spy gadgets” that I would have expected from watching a few of the “James Bond” movies.  In this book, set in 1967, Bond is nearing the end of enforced sick leave after his last case, during which I inferred that he was badly hurt, both physically and emotionally.  He is called back to service early, but told that his performance is being monitored to see if he is still up to this type of field work.  He is instructed to gather information on Julius Gorner, a brilliant but psychologically disturbed megalomaniac with a deep-seated hatred of England.  It turns out that Gorner is running legitimate pharmaceutical factories, but also heroin factories,  around the world, with the intention of creating addicts and drug-slums all over England.  His one weakness is his deformed hand, which resembles an oversized monkey’s paw, and which is always kept covered with a white glove.  When Bond is sent to Tehran to find Gorner’s factory, he makes contact with Darius, the Persian agent known as “Pistachio”, who helps him make his way around the city and provides information on Gorner.  Bond has also been contacted by Scarlett Papava, a beautiful young woman who asks for Bond’s help in finding and freeing her sister, Poppy, who is being held in the clutches of Gorner against her will.  Together Bond and Scarlett must find a way to shut down Gorner’s factories and also to stop his plan to send in bombs to Russia, supposedly under the guise of a stolen British airliner so that, at the height of the Cold War, Russia would believe that the UK is waging war on them.  This farfetched plot is exactly what I would expect from a “Bond” novel, so it was not disappointing, although it’s not exactly the type of book I would normally choose.  Based on the few “Bond” movies that I’ve seen, I expected more sexual content, but there was little of that, which was totally fine with me.  It was OK, not a great book, but definitely worth listening to, as it kept my interest pretty much to the end.  

That’s all for today.  Stay warm, and Happy Reading!

Bye for now…
Julie