Hillbilly Elegy

Finished April 14
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

I had this book on my shelf at home for a while, and finally was prodded to read it by it being my book club read. It is a personal book, about the author's own experience of an absent father, an addict mother who wasn't often there for him, two grandparents that raised him for the most part, and an older half-sister who tried to do what was right for him as much as she could.
It is a story of being raised in both the factory towns of Ohio and the hills of the Appalachians. It is about those around him who adjusted well to the urban life, and those who did not. It is about poverty, and the rise and loss of American manufacturing jobs, about how education and home life combine to keep children on the path towards a happy and fulfilling life.
I enjoyed it, but also was aware from other reading that I've done, that it only shows part of the story of America. The more stories we learn from the many different experiences, help us to understand what is right and what is wrong with the current situation, and hopefully those that set policy read and listen and learn from stories like this.

A Catalog of Birds

Finished April 7
A Catalog of Birds by Laura Harrington

This novel takes place in 1970 with the main characters Billy Flynn and his younger sister Nell. Billy has an amazing affinity for birds. From a young age he watched them, drew them, and knew their sounds. He always wanted to fly, and when the war in Vietnam started, he signed up. He flew helicopters in the war, but has now returned home, damaged and hurting. His hearing has been affected, and his right arm, meaning that he can no longer draw like he did.
Billy's parents are supportive, and so is Nell. Nell's best friend was Billy's girlfriend, but she has suddenly gone missing, and no one seems to know where she is, or whether she left of her own accord. Billy's best friend Harlow also did his time in the war, and came back changed. He tried college, but now works as a mechanic at a local service station.
Billy and Nell both have their own secrets, and they hold them close. Billy has nightmares about his, and their father Jack tries to talk to him about it, citing his own period of nightmares following his stint in World War II. Billy and Nell's other siblings aren't as close, but they still play roles here.
This is a story of a bond between siblings, but also a story of coming of age, of the terrible effects of war, and of loss.  A beautiful read.

My Sign-up for the 13th Annual Canadian Book Challenge

Well WWell, I am extra excitied 

Well, I'm extra excited to sign-up for the forthcoming Canadian Books Challenge, because I'm also taking on the role of host this year. I hope we'll get lots of participants this year, and read lots of great Canadian books. 

I like to read serendipitously so I haven't got a list going. I'll be looking to be inspired by all you other readers participating. 

The FAQ and signup for the challenge are here. This should be a fun year.

13th Annual Canadian Book Challenge!

Hi! I'm so excited to be taking over as host for this Reading Challenge. I've participated for years, and love the idea of promoting Canadian books and authors. I've created an FAQ page for the Challenge, that also is the Sign-up page. You can sign-up anytime and the review link-up post and participant progress chart will launch on July 1st.

Do Not Become Alarmed

Finished April 4
Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy, read by the author.

This book has a lot going on, and more depth than I first thought. Liv and Nora are cousins who have always been close. Liv, a director, introduced Nora, a teacher, to her husband when she had a party that included some of the people involved in one of her films, Raymond is an actor who's had a decent amount of success, allowing Nora to stay at home with their young children, Marcus, eleven and June, six. He's also black, so the kids are mixed race.
Nora had a difficult relationship with her mother, who has died recently, and Liv suggested that the two families, including Liv's husband Ben, and childredn Penny, eleven and Sebastian, eight. take a cruise for the holiday season instead. The cruise leaves from the California coast and goes down the coast of Mexico and Central America.
On board they meet an Argentinian couple that they become friendly with. The couple has two teenage children, sixteen and fourteen.
Mostly they all stay on board the ship and enjoy the amenities, with the adults in particular enjoying the ability to check the kids into the Kids' Club and do their own thing. But as they reach a country that Liv regards as relatively safe, (unnamed, but evidently Costa Rica) they look at doing one of the shore excursions. Liv suggests zip-lining at a location that also has animals, but then the Argentinian man invites the guys for golf with a guy he knows that lives there. So the three women and the kids go on the excursion, an accident causes them to be diverted, the woman and the guide become distracted, and the kids disappear.
The story is told from multiple points of view, including both adults and children. So while the reader knows what is happening with the kids, the parents do not, and always seem to be a step behind what is going on.
There is also a side story of a young Colombian girl Noemi, who is being taken by her uncle from her home with her grandmother to her parents who are in New York illegally.
This is a story of many things, from white privilege to organized crime to migrants. Some of the characters are definitely unlikable, such as Penny, while others have more complex personalities. I liked Marcus quite a bit. I enjoyed the read and the ideas here.

The Summer of Sunshine and Margot

Finished April 4
The Summer of Sunshine and Margot by Susan Mallery

This novel takes place over a few months. Margot and Sunshine are fraternal twin sisters, raised by a grandmother, who has since passed away. Margot has gone to college and used her people skills and her love of travel to become an etiquette coach. She is particularly good at helping people adjust to new cultural situations. She has just been hired by Bianca, an older actress, well-known for her spontaneous and inappropriate behaviour that is engaged to a diplomat from a small European country. Bianca wants to make this relationship work. Meanwhile, she is living with her son Alec, an academic with an interest in history who has made a home of an historic monastery. Bianca wants Margot to live in while she coaches her.
Margot finds the monastery fascinating and uses her off time to explore the building and the grounds. She also becomes friendly with Alec.
While successful, Margot has a weak spot for her old boyfriend, a man who has dumped her repeatedly, but keeps coming back expecting to resume where he left off. Margot is determined that he won't be in her life again, but with a family history of women making bad relationship choices, she isn't hopeful for a better relationship.
Sunshine didn't go to college, finding herself easily diverted from her goals by the interesting men she's met along the way. She's had a spotty career as a nanny, making great connections with the children, but often leaving everyone in the lurch when someone attracts her interest. She too, is determined to stay the course in her new position as nanny to eight-year-old Connor. She's also determined to get her college degree, signing up for her first course. Connor's father Declan is worried about his son as the two recover from the relatively sudden death of Connor's mother from cancer. He has a busy career as a landscape architect, and needs some stability in his son's life. Sunshine and Declan prove to be sounding boards for each other as they each move forward in their lives.
This was a fun read, and I liked the relationship between the sisters, which was close without being cloying.

21 Things You May Not Know about The Indian Act

Finished April 3
21 Things You May Not Know about The Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality by Bob Joseph

I took my time reading this as I wanted to think about some of the things outlined here more deeply. There are so many things to be ashamed of about this piece of legislation. It was a way that the government reneged on the nation to nation agreements that had been agreed upon in the treaties, and tried to separate the people from their culture. In spite of saying they wanted to have the native people adapt they constricted them from accessing the markets available to other Canadian, separated families, and tried to prevent people from talking amongst themselves.
Everything done under the Act was done against the indigenous people, not for them, and when others tried to speak out about the wrongs being done, they were silences as well.
I think all Canadians should read this and think about how they would feel if they were the ones subjected to this Act.

Montaigne in Barn Boots

Finished April 1
Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles through Philosophy by Michael Perry

In this book Perry talks about his discover of Montaigne's writings, his affinity for many of his musings, and his own take on the philosophical ideas in Montaigne's work. This is an intensely personal book, as he talks about his own moments of doubt and his worries.
I've always enjoyed Perry's books, and this was no exception.
Perry has read Montaigne in translation, but also read many of the critical works about both Montaigne himself and his writings. He cites some of these ideas in his nine essays, as he delves deeper into the ideas of Montaigne.
His essay titles here illustrate the way he brings his own life into the ideas. In the first Reading Like a Chicken, where he talks about pecking his way around Montaigne gives us a glimpse into his approach to his philosophical reading. In Roughneck Intersectionality, he talks about the differences in background between himself and the philosopher and the things they have in common. In Confound the Fool, he talks about the unending quest for understanding human nature. In Shame, he reveals his own angst and failures around expectations and outcomes. In Marriage, he talks about Montaigne's unusual relationship with his wife, and his own marital dynamics. In Amateur Aesthetics he talks about his own cultural influences, the subjective nature of beauty, and about the importance of context. He says

I am free to savor six kale chips and an episode of It's Okay to Be Smart then dive into a tub of Costco Cheese Balls and a four-hour Reno 911 binge-watch. "I now, and I anon, are two several persons," Montaigne once said, the upshot being, the "other people" necessary to achieve the cosmopolitan state of generative tension required for aesthetic fruition sometimes reside within the same body.

something I can definitely relate to. In Kidney Stone Wisdom, he compares Montaigne's experiences with the plague of kidney stones, and his own. While Montaigne talks about his ongoing experiences as a chance to strengthen his character before witnesses, Perry summarizes his less dignified response to the experience and expands it to include other bodily frailties more evident with age, and how some of these have provided edifying lessons.
In Meditating on Faith, Perry discusses his own experiences with religion, meditation and yoga. From his fundamentalist Christian upbringing to his introduction, via his wife, to yoga and meditation, he shows his questioning nature. He talks about the struggles with monkey mind, yet how

Whether it is due to having been raised in a large family or just general wiring, I am able to withdraw deep into my head in nearly all circumstances. As a shy person I sometimes go into public to write, which may seem counterintuitive but in fact self-consciousness is a catalyst for withdrawal. The presence of strangers compels me to lower the louvers and focus directly in on the task at hand.

He ends with What to Do, a summary of what he takes away from reading Montaigne. He says,

It seems that somewhere around my current life stage, people make one of two moves: Some stiffen, dig in their heels, and attempt to block the future; others reinvigorate life by blending it with the spirit of youth. I hope I will -- and I am working to -- bend toward the second. I am not talking here about the embarrassment of an oldster trying to vibe with the kids. Nor am I talking about abdicating principles. I am talking about offering a hand, opening new doors, and sometimes -- when new blood is best -- stepping aside and standing down. 

An edifying and satisfying read.

Bina

Finished March 26
Bina by Anakana Schofield

This novel is unlike anything I've ever read. I loved the writing and the character right from the stary, and I could barely put it down. I've already talked it up to one of my co-workers.
Bina is the narrator of this tale, writing her thoughts, her warnings, her remarkings on bits of paper she finds around her house, such as the back of receipts. She is talking to the reader, and makes that clear a few times by what she writes. The book is divided into titles sections, some quite short and others very long. The first one, a short one is Warnings and the first page of that makes clear that that is indeed what this is meant to be. The second page of this section has Bina introducing herself, and one of the first things she makes clear is her name. It is pronounced Bye-na, not Bee-na.
This information is followed by an address to the reader

I don't know who you are, or the state of your life. But if you've come all this way here to listen to me, your life will undoubtedly get worse. I'm here to warn you, not to reassure you

Bina repeats herself a lot, wanting to make clear the message that she is trying to get across to the reader, yet still trying not to implicate herself in anything she shouldn't.
As her story gradually becomes more clear, you begin to understand what she has been accused of, and what she has actually done.
I liked her. She is feisty and wants to make sure others don't make the same mistakes she made. She is looking back, recognizing where she made a wrong move, and regretting some of the things she did. Bina is a nice woman, a woman that genuinely cares about people, and that is both her strength and her weakness. She knows that she has been taken advantage of, but isn't sure what she should have done to get out of it, only how she could have not got into it in the first place.
This is a story of people. People like Bina, who care about other people, and people like Eddie, who don't. Bina is a survivor, but one who struggles greatly.
The book has footnotes that are helpful in providing additional explanation, with some reaching back to a previous book by the author that I haven't read, but am now intrigued to.
Her first two warnings are about letting in men into your life. One comes via a ditch, and one comes via a door, and neither one led to good times for Bina.
So that is what the next two sections of the book are Ditch and Door. When Bina needs to think, or escape a situation, her refuge is her bed, or in the Irish language, Leaba, thus the name of the next section. She prepares herself well when she enters her bed, as she is not doing this for the first time in her life. As she herself writes,

When I go to bed, I really go to bed. Alone. All alone. There's no one invited in. There's no one to invite in. The first time I went to bed I didn't get back up for two months. This time I haven't counted. 

The last section, a long one, is Remarkings, and again she is clear about this. She writes

My name is still Bina and these are my remarkings.
Remarkings are different from warnings.
But you will find warnings within the remarkings
If you are careful enough to notice them.
And if you don't, I can't help you.
It's how it has to be.

As you can perhaps tell from the quotes above, the book has bits written in free verse, a nice way to place the words that makes them even more meaningful. Sometimes Bina refers to herself by name as if she is talking about someone else. Other times she talks in first person. There is a lot of beautiful wordplay going on here, and I loved it. I can hear her voice in my head, and I'm listening.

Lying in Wait

Finished March 19
Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent

This psychological suspense novel starts with a crime, the murder of a young woman, but only gradually reveals the motive as we get deeper and deeper into the book. The viewpoint alternates between a few characters. Lydia Fitzsimons is a middle aged woman, who I understood had issues right from the start. She seems a bit detached from the people around her, in her own little world. But she's definitely not stupid, as some of her choices show.
Laurence is her only son, and as the book begins, he is in high school. He's a young man who doesn't fit in well with his peers, and has no real friends. He's overweight, and can be both perceptive and disingenuous. When he does finally make a friend, he chooses someone who is also unpopular, but for very different reasons.
Karen Doyle is a woman raised in very different circumstances. Her family didn't have much, but she was close to her older sister Annie, the rebellious one in the family, and knew her parents cared about her, even if they weren't demonstrative about it.
The two families are drawn together, because the woman that either Lydia or her husband Andrew killed (you're never really quite sure whose action was the final one) was Karen's sister Annie.
As the story develops and time passes, we see the characters in different ways, and I changed how I felt about them as the story unfolded.
An interesting read.