Hamilton is a great writer (A Map Of The World, The Book Of Ruth, etc.). This new book is a very fine addition to her list of novels, a book about complex family relationships but mainly a coming-of-age story about a young girl who doesn’t want to grow up. Consequently, at times her behaviour is wildly erratic, both frustrating and endearing. Highly recommended.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26031214-the-excellent-lombards
Butler’s imaginative novel, written in 1979, uses time travel to explore two very different times and places: 1976 LA and Maryland in the early 1800s. Specifically, an African-American woman is transported multiple times to a time and place of slavery. The book explores how behaviour is influenced by context, of how a modern woman is required (or coerced) to take actions that enable slavery because of complex relationships and situations. This book has strong and compelling story-telling.
Sarah and I were introduced to Tammet as an interviewed author at the Blue Metropolis Literary Festival. Tammet is an autistic savant with incredible mathematical and linguistic skills. For example, he memorized the value of Pi (3.14 ….) to 22,514 decimal places and recited this in Oxford in a performance that was >5 hours. He also learned the Icelandic language in 7 days. He also has another rare characteristic: synesthesia, the ability to visualize numbers as colours, shapes and texture. In this book, Tammet describes his childhood as an “odd kid”, and his evolution to become an independent living fully functioning person who has a loving relationship with his partner Neil. This is a remarkable story.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/74812.Born_on_a_Blue_Day
Editors Note: Also of interest might be Daniel Tammet Ted talk “Different ways of knowing”
After the death of her husband, Frances begins to chronicle her life, her confessions, from marriage in the 1960s to 2006. She has been a Latin teacher so there are lovely passages about learning Latin in Italy. Her spiritual conversations (NOT confessions) with a Catholic priest provide a surprising element, along with some dialog with God. This is a very good read.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18594395-the-confessions-of-frances-godwin
This is a fabulously imaginative book that has the following sub-title: “A progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable”, so consult your dictionaries to also learn about panagrams. At its core, this is a cautionary tale about the evolution of institutional madness which is pertinent in this Trump world.
A surprisingly pleasant read about the intersecting story lines of occupants in a high-rise apartment. And one of the story lines involves Ian, a goldfish! Somer is a Calgary author, a new find.
Butala
writes wonderfully about the beauty of Saskatchewan, especially her descriptions of the grasslands flowing in the wind (e.g. Perfection of the Morning). This book describes the adventures of a French-Canadian newly-wed couple as they travel west from Quebec to homestead in Saskatchewan in the early 1880s. Butala’s description of the isolation and hardship of homesteading is beautifully written and compelling; the bitter cold of winter is especially evocative. The core of the book is a story of resilience for a headstrong young woman, Sophie. This is a great read. (As an aside, Butala has recently relocated to Calgary).
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25842762-wild-rose
Most of you know that I rarely read non-fiction, but this book was a very rewarding excursion into the world of non-fiction literature. MacDonald has written a really excellent book with three interacting themes: (i) the human emotion of grief precipitated by the the death of her father, with a detailed description of her emotional paralysis; (ii) an intense human-bird relationship because she decides to train a goshawk as a coping mechanism; and (iii) an examination of the author TH White who had a tortured life and wrote a book about training a goshawk in the 1930s. (TH White wrote the exceptional novel called The Once And Future King, a book that I rank in the top-ten books that I have read in my entire life). MacDonald’s book is wonderfully introspective about both the psychology of humans and birds, and the physiology of birds in relation to flight. A section of the book about the shared responsibility of hunting and killing is truly remarkable. This is a great read.
Faulks is a wonderful writer (Birdsong, On Green Dolphin Street) and his latest book is a worthwhile addition. The premise is simple: a diverse group of people are selected to attend a London party, so the book details the back stories. What is fascinating is the diversity: a Polish footballer playing for a new London team; a pot-head son of someone who is receiving an OBE and who needs a crash course in contemporary literature; a greedy hedge-fund manager (so lots about shady banking), and the list goes on – there is a related story of a woman Underground driver, a literate lawyer, and importantly a radicalized British-Muslim young man so a home-grown terrorist attack is planned. There is a wonderful rant about the decline of teaching in schools and so much more. Such rich story-telling – highly recommended.
What David Read 