Six powerful magicians are recruited to the secret Alexandrian Society and given the unique opportunity to become even more powerful. What is fascinating in this truly imaginative book is not what they can do, but their personalities and psychologies. They are willing to compete for a place in the Society (only 5/6 will “graduate”) so there is suspicion and meanness but also fear and apprehension. Think ambition in a magical library. What is the cost of their actions? The book’s subtitle is “Knowledge is carnage”, after all. Highly recommended.
Category: Book themes
The Atlas Paradox – Olivie Blake
The sequel to the Atlas Six. Five magicians, now members of the secretive Alexandrian Society, continue to study and learn. Can the library archives be sentient if some knowledge is withheld? As magicians become even more powerful, can they become gods? The price of power requires a choice, to pick a side. The intersection of dreams and time becomes an important factor in the apparent disappearance of one of the magicians. Overall, a very compelling story.
Our Missing Hearts – Celeste Ng
Imagine a dystopian America dominated by the Preserving American Culture and Traditions (PACT) act. Particular negative attention is directed at persons of Asian origin so Bird’s Chinese American mother disappears to protect her son. Now 3 years later, he receives a cryptic message and embarks on a quest to find her in a world of surveillance and suspicion. What is remarkable in this topical story is the importance of words and stories, and libraries and librarians. Highly recommended.
Babel – R.F. Kuang
This is an imaginative work of historical and speculative fiction. The context is all important: Oxford in the 1830s where scholars (professors and students) work in the Royal Institute of Translation, in an academic tower known as Babel. Is there power in words, in etymology? Words lost in translation can be added to silver bars to create magic: protective wards and the casting of spells. Academics can also serve colonialism; can change ever occur peaceably, or does profound change encompass the necessity of violence? What is striking in this book is the role of indecision and questionable motives. Highly recommended.
Hollow Kingdom – Kira Jane Buxton
An innovative treatment of apocalyptic fiction because the narrator is a domesticated crow called ST (you will have to read the book to learn the origin of this acronym). What happens to animals when a virus creates an addiction to the to the electronic world which devastates the human population (called MoFos by the crow)? Subject matter includes both violence and oddball humour. And finally, the setting of this conflict for survival is Seattle. Thanks Amy, for this recommendation.
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands – Kate Beaton
Ms. Beaton left her Cape Breton home in 2005, to work in the Alberta Oil Sands to pay off her University student loans. The stark black & white drawings in this graphic novel illustrate perfectly her loneliness and isolation, often dealing with overt misogyny in a hyper-masculine environment. And the environmental degradation and rampant capitalism amplify the human cost to the workers. Overall, a compelling coming-of-age narrative.
We Measure the Earth With Our Bodies – Tsering Yangzom Lama
This very impressive debut novel is Giller short-listed. Two sisters, Lhamo and Tenkyi, flee the Chinese invasion of Tibet to resurface in Nepal in the 1960s. Fifty years later, Lhamo’s daughter Dolma is living in Toronto with Tenkyi. This is a beautifully written book about female relationships, a truly epic story of displacement and survival, exile and loss.
This Is How We Love – Lisa Moore
Ms. Moore is a very fine writer (February, Caught) but this is her best book to date. A multi-generational story set in St. John’s creates a superb relationship book, of mothers mostly and children who are loved, neglected, lost and re-found. What makes a family? Do we ever really choose who we love? Warning: there is violence, a stabbing. And much of the story takes place in a legendary winter storm, a snow-mageddon! Overall: a rich tapestry of the sacrifice, pain and joy of loving, for tour-de-force storytelling.
Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead – Emily Austin
Gilda suffers from paralyzing anxiety with chronic panic attacks producing disjointed thought patterns. In short, her life is a messy disaster. And then she, a lesbian atheist, accidentally gets a receptionist job in a Catholic Church where she becomes obsessed with the death of her predecessor. The author of this first novel successfully navigates a tricky balance between hilarious events and some truly pathetic behaviour, so a story of angst and uncertain redemption.
What David Read 