Finished March 28
The Curved Planks by Yves Bonnefoy, translated by Hoyt Rogers
This book of poetry, translated from the French, is my first experience with Yves Bonnefoy. The poems evoke nature and feeling and have wonderful turns of phrase. I loved the line "Our mouths besotted / With the smell of grass." Another one that caught me was "Memories passed through their sleep / Like boats in the fog, stoking their fires / Before they head upstream."
I took my time over this collection, to savor it and enjoy the word, put together so elegantly. A wonderful collection of poems.
Monday, 28 March 2011
Dahanu Road
Finished March 28
Dahanu Road by Anosh Irani
This is a very sensual novel, appealing to the senses. Zairos Irani is a young man, close to his grandfather Shapur. As he spends time with the old man, he is told stories of the past. He is also the one to find a worker's body in the orchard, and he finds himself drawn to the man's daughter. Kusum also finds herself drawn to Zairos and at the basis of this is a memory from her childhood. Zairos has lived a life of idleness and his first moves are hesitant. As the both find themselves defying taboos with their relationship, it is Kusum who has the strength. Their story also leads back to the story of Shapur and Banu, Zairos' grandparents.
We see the age-old conflict between the landowning Iranis, and the local tribal Warlis who work for them. Zairos discovers this history is part of his family story as well. This book has humour and sadness, but it is the evocative nature of the writing that makes it come alive.
This book is one of the ten finalists for the 2011 OLA Evergreen Award.
Dahanu Road by Anosh Irani
This is a very sensual novel, appealing to the senses. Zairos Irani is a young man, close to his grandfather Shapur. As he spends time with the old man, he is told stories of the past. He is also the one to find a worker's body in the orchard, and he finds himself drawn to the man's daughter. Kusum also finds herself drawn to Zairos and at the basis of this is a memory from her childhood. Zairos has lived a life of idleness and his first moves are hesitant. As the both find themselves defying taboos with their relationship, it is Kusum who has the strength. Their story also leads back to the story of Shapur and Banu, Zairos' grandparents.
We see the age-old conflict between the landowning Iranis, and the local tribal Warlis who work for them. Zairos discovers this history is part of his family story as well. This book has humour and sadness, but it is the evocative nature of the writing that makes it come alive.
This book is one of the ten finalists for the 2011 OLA Evergreen Award.
Sunday, 27 March 2011
The Daughter's Walk
Finished March 27
The Daughter's Walk by Jane Kirkpatrick
This is a book that appealed to me as soon as I saw it. Based on a true story, this novel takes the facts that exist about this young woman and weaves a story around them.
In the late 1890s, Helga Etsby and her daughter Clara agreed to walk from Spokane, Washington to New York City. This was a story that was hushed up by Helga's family, and I became interested after reading a book about that walk called Bold Spirit. The book tells a shorter story of the walk from the daughter, Clara's, point of view and then goes beyond it. The author had also heard the story and was intrigued that Clara distanced herself from the family for many years and changed her name. She did a lot of research around Clara, and was able to find out a few things about her. She took this and family memories as well as other research and built this wonderful story around it. The story fills in where the facts leave off, but feels like it could have happened this way. Clara comes alive here and becomes her own person, something she didn't do in the earlier nonfiction book. I really liked the way the author took the facts and built a story around them that fit. This was a great read and very interesting.
The Daughter's Walk by Jane Kirkpatrick
This is a book that appealed to me as soon as I saw it. Based on a true story, this novel takes the facts that exist about this young woman and weaves a story around them.
In the late 1890s, Helga Etsby and her daughter Clara agreed to walk from Spokane, Washington to New York City. This was a story that was hushed up by Helga's family, and I became interested after reading a book about that walk called Bold Spirit. The book tells a shorter story of the walk from the daughter, Clara's, point of view and then goes beyond it. The author had also heard the story and was intrigued that Clara distanced herself from the family for many years and changed her name. She did a lot of research around Clara, and was able to find out a few things about her. She took this and family memories as well as other research and built this wonderful story around it. The story fills in where the facts leave off, but feels like it could have happened this way. Clara comes alive here and becomes her own person, something she didn't do in the earlier nonfiction book. I really liked the way the author took the facts and built a story around them that fit. This was a great read and very interesting.
Friday, 25 March 2011
Breath of Angel
Finished March 24
Breath of Angel by Karyn Henley
I received this as a prepublication copy from Library Journal and had never read anything by this author before. This is the first book in The Angeleon Circle series, and from the series and book titles you can see that angels are the theme here.
The main character is Melaia, a young priestess/chantress, who witnesses the murder of a messenger in her temple courtyard. Shortly after this event, the murderer shows up there, but while he did the act as a hawk, he now appears in his human form. He asks for a tale to be told. As Melaia discovers, the tale she tells is not complete and the version she tells has elements missing. As Melaia travels to the royal court, she ends up caught up in the feud between the two brothers of the tale, and takes refuge with a group of angels who are trying to set things right. There she finds that order can only be restored by one who has "the breath of angel, blood of man," and Melaia herself has a large role to fill in the story.
I found the story interesting and engaging, and would be interested in reading the rest of the series. I could see this appealing to teen readers based on Melaia's age and her growing awareness.
Breath of Angel by Karyn Henley
I received this as a prepublication copy from Library Journal and had never read anything by this author before. This is the first book in The Angeleon Circle series, and from the series and book titles you can see that angels are the theme here.
The main character is Melaia, a young priestess/chantress, who witnesses the murder of a messenger in her temple courtyard. Shortly after this event, the murderer shows up there, but while he did the act as a hawk, he now appears in his human form. He asks for a tale to be told. As Melaia discovers, the tale she tells is not complete and the version she tells has elements missing. As Melaia travels to the royal court, she ends up caught up in the feud between the two brothers of the tale, and takes refuge with a group of angels who are trying to set things right. There she finds that order can only be restored by one who has "the breath of angel, blood of man," and Melaia herself has a large role to fill in the story.
I found the story interesting and engaging, and would be interested in reading the rest of the series. I could see this appealing to teen readers based on Melaia's age and her growing awareness.
The Book of Unnecessary Quotation Marks
Finished March 23
The Book of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks: a celebration of creative punctuation by Bethany Keeley
This is one of those short, humorous books that have you chuckling as you read. As a lover of words, grammar and punctuation, I was naturally drawn to this one.
It includes photos of signs with quotation marks in, surprise surprise, unnecessary places. Keeley groups them into categories like "Work", "Restaurants", etc. and a short comment is included with each one.
It really does make you wonder what goes through people's heads when they are making these signs. It also reflects sadly on our educational system that people misuse quotation marks so badly.
A fun book.
The Book of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks: a celebration of creative punctuation by Bethany Keeley
This is one of those short, humorous books that have you chuckling as you read. As a lover of words, grammar and punctuation, I was naturally drawn to this one.
It includes photos of signs with quotation marks in, surprise surprise, unnecessary places. Keeley groups them into categories like "Work", "Restaurants", etc. and a short comment is included with each one.
It really does make you wonder what goes through people's heads when they are making these signs. It also reflects sadly on our educational system that people misuse quotation marks so badly.
A fun book.
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
Atlantic
Finished March 23
Atlantic: great sea battles, heroic discoveries, titanic storms, and a vast ocean of a million stories by Simon Winchester, read by the author
Having read other books by Winchester, I was delighted to pick up this one and even more so to discover that he was reading it.
He uses a very interesting structure to tell the story of the Atlantic Ocean, Shakespeare's Seven Ages. He begins the book by telling of his own first experience of travelling the ocean, going over to Montreal on the Empress of Britain in 1963 (by coincidence, my birth year!). Then he talks about the structure he will use.
For the first age "At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse's arms" includes the physical and geographic history of the ocean, how it came to me and what it consists of. The second age, "the whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school", tells the story of discovery. We see the various expeditionary trips across, the misconceptions, the discovery that it was really a bridge to a new land, and all the things we learned about it.
The third age, "the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress' eyebrow" includes the ocean in art. We hear of poems, prose, paintings, architecture, and music. This is a wealth of wonderful references to the influence of the Atlantic in culture. The fourth age, "a soldier, full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth" covers the wars fought across and in the Atlantic and they include many battles. The fifth age, "the justice in fair round belly, with good capon lin'd, with eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws, and modern instances" includes trade and commerce. Covered here is not only the trade across the ocean, and around the ocean, but also the commerce of the ocean's wealth, marine life. We see the wealth of the ocean in the fisheries within it.
The sixth age, "the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, with spectacles on nose, and pouch on side, his youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide, for his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, turning again towards childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound" covers the shrinking of the ocean. This is the easy crossing of the ocean, using the new technology of flight; the diminishing of its fisheries due to overuse; the effect of pollution both in and above it, and the lack of respect man has paid to it. The final section, the seventh age, "second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything" looks at the future of the ocean. Will it be able to overcome what we and nature have done to it? Is there hope for new life? As the world warms and ice melts, and the ocean grows, how will that affect those who live around and on it? Will it fight back with more large natural events like hurricanes and tsunamis? Raising lots of interesting questions, this section offers new information, ways to look forward and hope for the future.
Winchester finishes with another personal experience, an Atlantic shipwreak on the skeleton coast that captured his imagination and drew him to search it out and leave his own mark.
As usual, Winchester takes a large topic, makes it come alive and allows us to see its many aspects, and ignites our imaginations. Wonderful.
Atlantic: great sea battles, heroic discoveries, titanic storms, and a vast ocean of a million stories by Simon Winchester, read by the author
Having read other books by Winchester, I was delighted to pick up this one and even more so to discover that he was reading it.
He uses a very interesting structure to tell the story of the Atlantic Ocean, Shakespeare's Seven Ages. He begins the book by telling of his own first experience of travelling the ocean, going over to Montreal on the Empress of Britain in 1963 (by coincidence, my birth year!). Then he talks about the structure he will use.
For the first age "At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse's arms" includes the physical and geographic history of the ocean, how it came to me and what it consists of. The second age, "the whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school", tells the story of discovery. We see the various expeditionary trips across, the misconceptions, the discovery that it was really a bridge to a new land, and all the things we learned about it.
The third age, "the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress' eyebrow" includes the ocean in art. We hear of poems, prose, paintings, architecture, and music. This is a wealth of wonderful references to the influence of the Atlantic in culture. The fourth age, "a soldier, full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth" covers the wars fought across and in the Atlantic and they include many battles. The fifth age, "the justice in fair round belly, with good capon lin'd, with eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws, and modern instances" includes trade and commerce. Covered here is not only the trade across the ocean, and around the ocean, but also the commerce of the ocean's wealth, marine life. We see the wealth of the ocean in the fisheries within it.
The sixth age, "the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, with spectacles on nose, and pouch on side, his youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide, for his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, turning again towards childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound" covers the shrinking of the ocean. This is the easy crossing of the ocean, using the new technology of flight; the diminishing of its fisheries due to overuse; the effect of pollution both in and above it, and the lack of respect man has paid to it. The final section, the seventh age, "second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything" looks at the future of the ocean. Will it be able to overcome what we and nature have done to it? Is there hope for new life? As the world warms and ice melts, and the ocean grows, how will that affect those who live around and on it? Will it fight back with more large natural events like hurricanes and tsunamis? Raising lots of interesting questions, this section offers new information, ways to look forward and hope for the future.
Winchester finishes with another personal experience, an Atlantic shipwreak on the skeleton coast that captured his imagination and drew him to search it out and leave his own mark.
As usual, Winchester takes a large topic, makes it come alive and allows us to see its many aspects, and ignites our imaginations. Wonderful.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Climbing Patrick's Mountain
Finished March 20
Climbing Patrick's Mountain by Des Kennedy
Patrick Gallagher has made a life in Vancouver hybridizing roses. He names his roses after the attributes of beautiful women. Patrick is from County Cork, Ireland, a place he fled twenty years ago. He finds out that his home in Vancouver is under threat and, hoping to find a way to save it and his roses, agrees to lead a garden tour to Ireland. His past in Ireland comes back to haunt him in various forms when he arrives in his birth country. With lots of information about gardens and plants, particularly roses, and Irish history, I found the story an interesting one. Patrick has never really dealt with his past, and this visit brings it all back. He must finally deal with that which he ran from.
Climbing Patrick's Mountain by Des Kennedy
Patrick Gallagher has made a life in Vancouver hybridizing roses. He names his roses after the attributes of beautiful women. Patrick is from County Cork, Ireland, a place he fled twenty years ago. He finds out that his home in Vancouver is under threat and, hoping to find a way to save it and his roses, agrees to lead a garden tour to Ireland. His past in Ireland comes back to haunt him in various forms when he arrives in his birth country. With lots of information about gardens and plants, particularly roses, and Irish history, I found the story an interesting one. Patrick has never really dealt with his past, and this visit brings it all back. He must finally deal with that which he ran from.
The Wonderful O
Finished March 19
The Wonderful O by James Thurber
This is a classic I hadn't come across before, and I have to say I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected to. Parts of it seemed to ramble off the narrative.
The story is that a pirate with a map meets up with another pirate with a boat and crew and they sail to the island of Ooroo where there is supposed to be treasure buried. The map they have doesn't have the location of the treasure, so they ransack the island looking for it. The captain of the boat hates the letter O and gradually tries to rid the island of it, either by taking the Os out of words, or getting rid of the things and animals that have the letter O in their names. There are good islanders that plot to defeat these evil man, and a bad islander (a lawyer of course!) who plots against his fellow islanders. There are 4 words that contain the letter O and that are important words for the islanders. They must find them all.
I found the book interesting and it reminded me of another book I read (that I enjoyed more) called Ella Minnow Pea.
The Wonderful O by James Thurber
This is a classic I hadn't come across before, and I have to say I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected to. Parts of it seemed to ramble off the narrative.
The story is that a pirate with a map meets up with another pirate with a boat and crew and they sail to the island of Ooroo where there is supposed to be treasure buried. The map they have doesn't have the location of the treasure, so they ransack the island looking for it. The captain of the boat hates the letter O and gradually tries to rid the island of it, either by taking the Os out of words, or getting rid of the things and animals that have the letter O in their names. There are good islanders that plot to defeat these evil man, and a bad islander (a lawyer of course!) who plots against his fellow islanders. There are 4 words that contain the letter O and that are important words for the islanders. They must find them all.
I found the book interesting and it reminded me of another book I read (that I enjoyed more) called Ella Minnow Pea.
Saturday, 19 March 2011
Pearl
Finished March 19
Pearl by Mary Gordon
This novel had been on my to-read list for some time, and I finally got around to it. The story is told by a narrator external to the story, yet who occasionally refers to their own existence, a very different outlook.
Pearl is an American studying the Irish language in Dublin. Maria is her mother. Joseph is Maria's best friend, a man who has played the role of substitute father in Pearl's life.
The story is told from the viewpoint of all three characters, yet still externally to them. Pearl has become involved with a political group in Ireland and has been tutoring a dyslexic teen, when things go horribly wrong. Pearl decides that she must use her life to become a witness to the tragedies and, after starving herself, handcuffs herself to the flagpole at the American embassy. As Maria and Joseph travel to Dublin, and try to figure out how to help Pearl, we see the backgrounds of all three characters and what has brought them to this point in their lives. We also see their struggles to find the path forward.
I found this novel very interesting. It raised some relevant philosophical questions and looked at roles and relationships.
Pearl by Mary Gordon
This novel had been on my to-read list for some time, and I finally got around to it. The story is told by a narrator external to the story, yet who occasionally refers to their own existence, a very different outlook.
Pearl is an American studying the Irish language in Dublin. Maria is her mother. Joseph is Maria's best friend, a man who has played the role of substitute father in Pearl's life.
The story is told from the viewpoint of all three characters, yet still externally to them. Pearl has become involved with a political group in Ireland and has been tutoring a dyslexic teen, when things go horribly wrong. Pearl decides that she must use her life to become a witness to the tragedies and, after starving herself, handcuffs herself to the flagpole at the American embassy. As Maria and Joseph travel to Dublin, and try to figure out how to help Pearl, we see the backgrounds of all three characters and what has brought them to this point in their lives. We also see their struggles to find the path forward.
I found this novel very interesting. It raised some relevant philosophical questions and looked at roles and relationships.
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
The Incident Report
Finished March 16
The Incident Report by Martha Baillie
This novel has an intriguing format. With the narrator, Miriam, an employee of the Public Libraries of Toronto, in the Allan Gardens branch, the book begins with a form used by the library to report on incidents that take place in the library. The rest of the book is in the form of short (sometimes very short) incident reports that consist of descriptions of events that take place in the library, in her personal life, or in her past. It was a very different way to tell a story and yet it worked in a very good way. The short sections made it easy to change scenes, introduce new characters and emphasize certain events.
Of course, as a librarian, I could also relate to some of the strange encounters one has with patrons, and the rewarding ones. A very interesting read with a few surprises along the way.
The Incident Report by Martha Baillie
This novel has an intriguing format. With the narrator, Miriam, an employee of the Public Libraries of Toronto, in the Allan Gardens branch, the book begins with a form used by the library to report on incidents that take place in the library. The rest of the book is in the form of short (sometimes very short) incident reports that consist of descriptions of events that take place in the library, in her personal life, or in her past. It was a very different way to tell a story and yet it worked in a very good way. The short sections made it easy to change scenes, introduce new characters and emphasize certain events.
Of course, as a librarian, I could also relate to some of the strange encounters one has with patrons, and the rewarding ones. A very interesting read with a few surprises along the way.
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