Introspective book about relationships (my favourite topic); a single woman teacher and a Lebanese-Parisian family of three. The “woman upstairs” is a female construct – quiet, polite and causes no trouble; because of putting oneself down, becomes invisible and discounted. There is a terrific section describing the difference between longing and desire.
Trans Atlantic by Colum McCann
Trans Atlantic is a wistful Irish-American story that follows 4 generations of women. A beautiful book. (previous book = Let The Great World Spin) –
The Pope’s Bookbinder by David Mason
A memoir by a book lover, a book binder (briefly) but mostly a book seller in Toronto. As a memoir, mostly filled with anecdotes but a wistful look at the era of second hand bookshops that is disappearing.
Falling Angels by Barbara Gowdy
Another dysfunctional family book with abusive father, an alcoholic mother who dropped/threw a child into Niagara Falls (postpartum depression?) and three sisters who are the focus (how children cope). There is a chapter entitled Disneyland which is superb black humour; the next chapter is heartbreaking. Gowdy also wrote Fearless about a 9 year old girl who is abducted; the abductor is delusional and obsessed but amazingly becomes somewhat sympathetic because he tries to suppress his pedophilic tendencies. Both these books are tough reads but excellent.
September 2013
Notable titles:
- Winter’s End by Mark Helprin;
- The Ocean At The End Of The Lane by Neil Gaiman;
- Old Filth by Jane Gardam.
August 2013
Double Fault by Lionel Shriver;
And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
July 2013
- Majorr. Pettigrew’s Last Stand – Helen Simonson (very British story of honour and duty, unrequited love, racism and sexism …)
- The Boy In The Striped Pajamas – John Boyne (the tragedy of the holocaust from the contrasting viewpoints of two nine year-old boys)
- Behind The Scenes At The Museum – Kate Atkinson (her first book, excellent story-telling, both funny and sad; another “bad mother” book cf. Silver Star)
- The Painted Girls – Cathy Marie Buchanan (1880s Paris, three sisters and a dissolute single mother; one sister joins the ballet and is the model for Edgar Degas’ “Little Dancer Age 14”. A hard life)
April 2013
- Lionel Asbo (Martin Amis);
- Bone and Bread (Saleema Nawaz; complex relationship between sisters in a story set mostly in Montreal’s Mile End);
- How To Be A Woman (Caitlin Moran; stories about growing up in England, alternating between hysterically funny and insightful/poignant);
- The Tiny Wife (Andrew Kaufman; only 85 small pages but such an imagination)
March 2013
Y by Marjorie Celona (sad story of a child abandoned after birth and left at the YMCA in Victoria; her life in foster care and the back story of her mother and the events that led to the abandonment);
Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante (mystery involving a murder with the chief suspect being someone who is slipping into dementia).
What David Read 