my mail delivery. Sorry for the extra item in your inbox.

Debbie

What a difference in a month! It beginning to look like spring although it sure hasn’t been feeling like it. Temperatures have been mostly single digits C (seldom above 50 F).

The trees are still pretty bare, but the grass is green and growing and the daffodils that we actually sodded over last year have returned. This brings me much joy.

In contrast, a friend helped me plant close to 200 daffodil bulbs in this new garden last fall. They were meant to fill the garden with a swath of yellow, and spill out onto the lawn (which they have done.) What a disappointment they have proved to be.

What’s in your garden right now? Are the spring flowers in your part of the world all finished?

P.S. Some of the book and product links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

This is the first time that I’m participating in the 20 Books of Summer challenge hosted by Cathy at 746books.

I’ve chosen my summer reading to include books from the Four Books in a Row challenge, suggested by Rebecca at Bookish Beck, the Bookbloggers Challenge run by Lynne at Fictionophile, and to complete the What’s in a Name Challenge hosted by Andrea at the Carolina Book Nook, but I’ve divided it into months for my ease of reference.

You’ll see that my July reading has a definite theme that, in fact, spills over a bit into August. And bonus: I was able to get all of these books off my own shelves, or in my Kindle library, except for four titles. Two of those I’ve put inter-library loan requests in for, but whether the libraries will be open remains to be seen. The remaining two, I’ll just have to bite the bullet for, and buy ecopies. (Total about $15 Canadian). Not bad for a whole summer of reading!

JUNE

1. One Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan
2. Summer House with Swimming Pool by Herman Koch
3. On Tour by Noel Streatfeild
4. The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King
5. Sweet William by Beryl Bainbridge
6. Something for Everyone by Lisa Moore

JULY

7. We are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan
8. Birdie by Tracey Lindberg
9. The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
10. The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegnor
11. One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow by Olivia Hawker
12. Birds of a Kind by Wajdi Mouawad
13. The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas
14. The Birds by Aristophanes

AUGUST

15. Birdcage Walk by Kate Riordan
16. Birdcage Walk by Helen Dunmore
17. Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
18. Hour Glass by Michelle René
19. Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey
20. Runaway by Alice Munro

I have one title held back that I reserve to swap in if one of these titles doesn’t work: Hoot by Carl Hiaasen. My dad recommended Hiaasen to me. Don’t you just love that cover? Have you ever read anything by Hiaasen?

P.S. The book links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

#4BooksinaRow #20BooksofSummer21 #BB2021FRC #WhatsinaName

P.P.S. I’m still trying to master this block editor thing, so my spacing is a little-not-so-much-what-I’d-like. Please bear with me. Thanks!

Twenty years ago, I had a small business decorating what I called “outdoor spaces”: porches, balconies, decks, patios, gazebos and so on. As part of my advertising as the haven maven, I wrote content for several online and print publications.

Yesterday, I found a piece I was particularly pleased with at the time, but which never found life in a publication. It’s especially appropriate around Oscars time, but there’s only one movie in this list that was made in this century, so I’m classifying it as ‘vintage’ rather than Oscars. Enjoy!

TOP TEN VINTAGE MOVIE OUTDOOR HAVENS

1. The absolutely most wonderful outdoor space in all of movie-making history must be the quintessential Adirondack-style screened porch in On Golden Pond. Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn’s portrayals of Norman and Ethel Thayer earned them Academy Awards in 1982.

2. My childhood dreams came to life in the musical number that Liesl and Rolfe danced around that fabulous gazebo in The Sound of Music. Nominated for ten 1966 Oscars, this musical saga of the von Trapp family took away five statuettes including Best Picture.

3. The widow’s walk that Colonel Behrani added to The House of Sand and Fog played an integral part in the plot of this 2003 drama. Who can forget Ben Kingsley and Shohreh Aghdashloo’s last afternoon together, watching the sun set from their precious balcony?

4. Last moments together play a recurring theme in movies and outdoor spaces. In the 1999 version of Anna and the King, Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat danced together in the royal gazebo the last time he held her in his arms.

5. Porch swings have often been associated with old-time courting, and so the scene in Witness in which Rachel and Daniel sat silently rocking spoke volumes and no dialogue was needed. Witness won two 1986 Academy Awards.

6. Hark – what light through yonder window breaks? The most famous balcony scene in history is over 400 years old. Willy Shakespeare would no doubt have loved Franco Zeffirelli’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, which copped two Oscars at the 1969 ceremonies.

7. Although the plantation setting might suggest lots of activity played out in outdoor living spaces, Gone with the Wind’s most memorable porch scene was when Melanie caught sight of Ashley’s return and fairly flew off the steps to run into his arms. GWTW was nominated for a phenomenal 15 Academy Awards in 1940 and won nine – including, of course, Best Picture.

8. Much of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is set on Matt and Christina Drayton’s elegant terrace overlooking San Francisco. At the 1968 Academy ceremonies, Katherine Hepburn won her second of four Oscars for this picture.

9. Forrest Gump and his mother lived in a rambling southern country home with one of movies’ most beautiful white painted verandas. It was from here that Jenny stepped down on her wedding day. Among the six 1995 golden statuettes that this movie won, was an award to Tom Hanks as Best Actor, and Best Picture.

10. Titanic swept the box office and the 1998 ceremonies, winning an astonishing 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. But wait—this movie was set on a boat- where was the outdoor haven? Of course—Jack declared himself King of the World – all the while standing on the deck.

Two decades on I find my tastes have changed slightly. My favourite in the list now? Depends on whether I’m in city or country mode.

City: Hands down, the Drayton’s SF terrace in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Country: that absolutely wonderful wrap-around porch in Greenbow, Alabama.

How about you?

P.S. Some of the book and product links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

I haven’t posted for six months. Mostly, it’s because I’ve been busy with many things including back surgery. But I had to compare this spring here in Nova Scotia with last spring – and any of the other 17 springs we’ve lived here. Yesterday morning was sunny! And warm! (well, relatively: nearly 10 degrees C / 50 F) It was a lovely day to spot clean a wool carpet and let it dry on the back deck.

The other (bigger) reason that I haven’t posted is that every time I thought I could set up a quick post, I ran smack up against the Word Press Block Editor. It frustrated me, angered me even. I tried all the tips from various bloggers who have found a way around it – but my screens didn’t match theirs and I couldn’t click on the buttons they said to.

Now I’ve determined that if Block Editor had been what there was when I started posting, I would have learned it. So I’ll learn it now. Please bear with me and forgive my mistakes over the next few weeks.

_{P.S. Some of the links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.}

Erin and Vinay host a Facebook group that sets up two 4-month reading challenges with competitions each year. Participants are required to read ten books in the four months of each challenge. The most recent BCBE has run from July 1st and ends October 31st. I believe the next one will run January to April 2021. I always complete this far too late to win any prizes, so I’d don’t even bother to tally my score. This is really great fun! #bookchallengebyerin

FREEBIE (min 200 pages): The High Rise in Fort Fierce by Paul Carlucci

Paul Carlucci is a Canadian author (who seems to go to great pains to disguise that fact) of mostly, if not completely, short stories.

High Rise is a collection of linked short stories that reveal a novel’s plot by the end of the book. Somewhere, I heard that Fort Fierce is modeled on Fort McMurry in northern Alberta, and home of a lot of Atlantic Canadians – so, of course, I had to read it.

It’s one of those books that you want to read again from the beginning – but I had to return it to the library. It’s rather brilliant, really. 4 stars

 
STARTS WITH “S”: So Big by Edna Ferber

So Big is a modern classic – and the winner of the 1924 Pulitzer Prize. It’s billed as the story of Selina Peake DeJong, but was really about her son Dirk, a nobody from a little truck farm in south Chicago who made it big. Wikipedia says it was modeled on a real-life woman.

I agree with Ferber who said of it: “It had no plot at all, as book plots go”, and further remarked that “it was a story of the triumph of failure.” 4 stars

 
Title has a PREPOSITION: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
4½ stars

 
ODD NUMBER in a series: Shadow Dancing by Julie Mulhern #7 Country Club Murders

This delightful murder mystery series is set in 1971 Kansas City. Despite the fact that I really don’t like romance in my murder mysteries and that Ellison Russel would probably snub me if we ever met, I can’t help but like her and root for her relationship with the handsome homicide detective (whom the author has styled on Steve McQueen).

All of the book titles in the Country Club Murders series are based on songs from the era, and the covers are all of the same design. Especially if you are of a certain age, you just have to try it. 4½ stars

 
SET IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY: Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry
4 stars

FEMALE POLICE Protagonist: The Birdwatcher by William Shaw #1 DS Alexandra Cupidi

It would take a lot for me to continue in a police procedural series and, even though I thought Cupidi was well-drawn and absolutely believable, this didn’t have it. The plot had just a few too many coincidences. 3½ stars

IMMIGRANT Main Character: Barnacle Love by Anthony de Sa

Five years ago, I found de Sa’s first book Kicking the Sky to be “heartbreaking and very human”, and I really wanted to like Barnacle Love as much. I just didn’t.

Like Carlucci’s Fort Fierce, this is a book of linked short stories, telling in chronological order the story of a Portuguese fisherman washed up in a storm on the shores of rural Newfoundland in the 1950s. Eventually, the family gets to Toronto, where the kids ride their bikes in the alley, as they did in Kicking the Sky.

De Sa, who is second generation Portuguese seems to draw heavily on his own family and their experience. 3½ stars

 
Title contains “THING”: Anything for Billy by Larry McMurtry

3½ stars

 
Book has an OCTOBER CONNECTION: Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins-Reid

(October 13th is National No Bra Day. Really.)
Enough said?
3½ stars

 
CITY, TOWN, VILLAGE etc. in title: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Oh – I’ve been wanting to read this for years, and now I can add it to Nonfiction November.

You all probably know that it’s about the 1893 Chicago’s World’s Fair AND about the completely mad serial killer H.H. Holmes and his World’s Fair hotel. It was riveting.

And I was so surprised to learn that the first Ferris wheel was steam-powered (duh) AND had whole rail cars where today we have one seat.

Also: I thought the “White City” was Chicago but it actually was a term applied to the main portion of the World’s Fair. 4½ stars

I may have made a mistake in how I entered this and might not even qualify – but it was fun anyway. Does anything look interesting to you?

P.S. Some of the links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

As I mentioned in my last post, Bookish Beck’s variation on Phyllis Rose’s The Shelf: From LEQ to LES: Adventures in Extreme Reading is for any set of four books in a row on my own shelf. I decided to choose from the books on my fiction shelves, filed by author surname. The letter M was my first dip.

The first book I tackled was Such a Long Journey which was Rohinton Mistry’s first book, published in 1991 and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, which was won that year by The Famished Road by Ben Okri. Mistry had published two short story collections prior to this first novel, but it was the magnificent A Fine Balance that catapulted him to fame in 1995.

Such a Long Journey is classic Mistry: straightforward in plot development, but taking the time to build the settings, as well as the characters. Mistry is a genius in drawing us pictures of everyday 20th-century India. We can feel Gustad’s frustrations, his fears – and his loyalties to old friends that embroil him unwittingly in dangerous activities. It was important for us to realize the corner that Gustad was in and that, despite the questionable nature of the deliveries he has to make, we are fully on his side.

I have also read Mistry’s third novel Family Matters, and recommend any of Mistry’s fiction to anyone interested in late twentieth century India. A Fine Balance appears on my list of all-time favourites. His marvelous writing talent is on in display in all of his books, although the circumstances of A Fine Balance (during the Troubles and Indira Gandhi) make it the most powerful of the three.
4 stars

Anything for Billy is the first of author Larry McMurtry’s books that I’ve read. I seldom hear much about it so I assume it wasn’t his best or, at least, his most popular. The book is fiction, based loosely (very loosely) on the last few days of the life of Henry McCarty aka William Bonney aka Billy the Kid. Billy was killed in a shoot-out at the age of 21, and that much remains the same in this book. But everything else is changed and/or imagined. Since we know how the whole mess ends, it’s almost painful to watch Billy swagger toward this death.

The narrator of Anything for Billy is spinning a yarn for us. It’s a yarn that is likely pretty accurate about the Wild West, but it’s just a yarn. 3½ stars

I have more books by McMurtry on my shelves and will definitely read them.

 
I had a choice of three books that W.O. Mitchell wrote and chose Jake and the Kid.

According to Wikipedia:

“An author of novels, short stories, and plays, Mitchell is best known for his 1947 novel, Who Has Seen The Wind, which has sold close to a million copies in North America . . and later a collection of short stories in 1961, Jake and the Kid which subsequently won the Stephen Leacock Award.”

Also, according to Wikipedia, I was really wrong in a previous post when I said ´My bet is that in the prairie provinces, the stories [in the Star Weekly] were by W.O. Mitchell.’ These stories were actually radio broadcasts of a series of the same name, which aired on CBC Radio between 1950 and 1956.

Mitchell grew up in Saskatchewan and most of his stories reflect a boy’s experiences growing up on the prairies. As I said in that earlier post, I’m keeping this book ‘forever’. 5 stars
 

And finally, there was The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell. This novel won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize regional prize (South Asia and Europe); was long listed for the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, was one of Time Magazine’s “Best Books of the Year” (#4 Fiction), was a Globe & Mail best book, and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. It was shortlisted for the 2011 Walter Scott Prize. It’s also my brilliant cousin’s (well, one of my brilliant cousins) favourite book so I approached it with some degree of trepidation, fearing that in my ignorance of the finer points of literature, I wouldn’t properly appreciate it.

The amount of research that had to have gone into The Thousand Autumns is phenomenal. Not only did Mitchell have to authentically create the Dutch East Indies trading post of 1799, and also Japan (not limited to the port of Nagasaki) of that time but, as well, the complicated relationships that the Japanese had with any foreigner to their land.

In the Reading Guide at the end of the book, Mitchell posits that historical fiction endures in popularity because “it delivers a stereo narrative: from one speaker comes the treble of the novel’s own plot while the other plays the bass of history’s plot.” Mitchell seems to have done a masterful job of all of these details and the book is fascinating for the window it opens onto the land and the time. It plays the treble and the bass equally well, and blends them into a harmonious whole.

The only complaint I have is the ending that seemed rushed to me – although at nearly 500 pages the story was probably long enough as it stands. 4½ stars

 
Now I have an empty space on my book shelf that I’m actually quite proud of and, surprisingly, have no urge to fill again. What about you? Would you want to get more books to fill that empty space?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

I’m always looking for a way to attack the unread books on my own shelves, so when Rebecca at Bookish Beck decided to host a new type of challenge, I decided to try it.

Her project is inspired by Phyllis Rose’s The Shelf –from LEQ to LES: Adventures in Extreme Reading for which Rose picked a shelf of the New York Society Library and after some housekeeping, read all the books on it. Rebecca’s is a variation for any set of four books in a row on my own shelf. See Bookish Beck for more details.

It was a lot of fun choosing the books to read and a great satisfaction in having an empty space on my shelf. I think I’ll probably play again with another letter.

I started with Such a Long Journey which was Rohinton Mistry’s first book. I was able to read it because of the Faber Firsts series which celebrated Faber’s 80th birthday and brought to light the first published novels of a variety of acclaimed authors. Some were the book that made their career and reputation; others, like Journey are not so well known. In 2009, there was a faberfirsts.com website but Norton blocked me from visiting today, telling me that it is a “known dangerous webpage”. I’ve never seen that message before, so Norton must have run into something.

I wasn’t able to find the cover that I have on my edition so this will have to do.

For those of you interested in such things, here is the list of Faber Firsts provided on the cover of Such a Long Journey:

William Golding Lord of the Flies
P.D. James Cover Her Face
John McGahern The Barracks
Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar
Peter Carey Bliss
Kazuo Ishiguro A Pale View of the Hills
Paul Auster The New York Trilogy
Orhan Pamuk The White Castle
Hanif Kureishi The Buddha of Suburbia
Rohinton Mistry Such a Long Journey

 
#4BooksinaRow

I’ll cover the other three books in this challenge in my next post. Have you read any of these “first books”? How did it compare to the author’s later works?
 

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

I’m not sure if I signed up officially for the very popular What’s In a Name challenge, hosted by Andrea at Carolina Book Nook, but I have been reading in order to finish it. Here are the titles I’ve read.

Title that contains an ampersand: Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I’ve also used this book for two other challenges this year. That’s probably the greatest satisfaction I’ll get out of it. Lots and lots and lots of hype, but I was disappointed. It just seemed clichéd.  

Title that contains antonyms: I had difficulty finding a title for this category but finally settled on Alice Munro’s Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. Somewhere in all those ‘ships’ there must be opposites. Munro also gets lots of hype – but it’s well-deserved and her work is enduring. I loved these stories.  

Title of four letters or less: Akin by Emma Donoghue. The problem with having such a phenomenally successful book as Room was, is trying to live up to it ever after. I did enjoy Akin, the story of an 80-year-old man given temporary custody of his eleven-year-old great-nephew just before his scheduled departure to Nice. It was, actually, delightful, if a little predictable.

Title that contains a given/first name: Autumn Laing by Australian author Alex Miller. I’ve had this book on my shelf for years, entranced every time I picked it up while dusting, by its cover. An elderly Autumn tells the story of an affair that she had with a man in her and her husband’s group of friends. These things are always entered into so selfishly, with little regard to the consequences, both short and long-term. The fact that it would happen, though, was evident from nearly the beginning, but Autumn kept us waiting far too long and I expected something much more spectacular by the time she finally got the story out. All in all, not really a very spectacular book.  

Title that has a reference to children: Jake and the Kid by W.O. Mitchell, a collection of short stories about a Canadian prairie farm boy whose dad is overseas in WWII, and the hired hand who’s keeping an eye out for him. Canadians of a certain age will remember the “magazines” that came with the weekend newspaper: Weekend Magazine or the Star Weekly, depending on where you lived. I think I read both over the years and as a teenager fell in love with the stories of Gregory Clarke.

My bet is that in the prairie provinces, the stories were by W.O. Mitchell. These are heartwarming family stories: the kid is loveable and naive about the ways of the world, and Jake is a hero – and not just the kid’s but also the reader’s. This book is going up on my “keep forever” shelf next to Greg Clarke.

Title with the word water, air, fire or earth: The Edge of the Earth by Christina Schwarz. The referenced edge of the earth is an island off the coast of California in 1898. The thing about Schwarz is that she’s enjoyable enough to read at the time, but other than scattered scenes,almost immediately I forgot what happened. I found the same thing when I read her highly acclaimed Drowning Ruth in 2012.

And that, as they say, is a wrap. Have you read any of these? Are you participating in this challenge this year?
 

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

When my daughter was young, she brought me a copy of The Root Cellar by Janet Lunn, set in what was then modern day (1970s) Eastern Ontario and in Civil War era New York and Washington, and asked me to read it. We both fell in love with that book and have had special copies over the years, mine autographed by the author when she was one of the speakers at Read by the Sea in 2006. Now my daughter is reading it to her daughter. I decided it was time for another reread so that it would be fresh in my mind and I would be able to intelligently discuss it with my granddaughter.

In my reread yesterday, I came across this passage:

They startled a big blue heron away from his breakfast. He gronked crossly at them as he took off, his huge wings pumping up and down like some great prehistoric bird.

photo: Pennington Seeds

 
Isn’t the word ‘gronk’ just a perfect fit? I can hear him making that noise but, as usual when I run across words I haven’t seen, I turn to the mighty Google for a definition.

Here are the results:

From the Free Dictionary:
1. A repulsive substance, typically the dirt and lint that collects between the toes. Aka toe-jam
2. To go to sleep
3. To crash or stop working, as in a car or a computer

From the Urban Dictionary:
1. A person that is totally lacking in fashion sense, motor skills and/or social skills. Usually an extremely unpleasant person or an unwanted guest, but sometimes just someone who embarrasses himself. (mainly in Australian slang)
2. The super virus /sexually transmitted disease that has resulted from New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski having sex with everyone’s girlfriends, wives and favorite porn stars (yuck!)

I don’t know about you, but I prefer the way Janet Lunn used it, decades before it was ruined by a football player.

How about you? Have you ever used the word ‘gronk’?

P.S. Some of the links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Even though Bill was soaked through from running errands on Tuesday afternoon, Hurricane Teddy turned out to be almost cuddly. We didn’t lose power or internet, and there were no branches down on the lawn. In fact, we had no clean-up at all. Not something you want to be out in, but not much of a storm either.

I’m on to thinking about other things. My inbox today contained a book review by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best, of a nonfiction book about death and grieving.

My inbox also contained mail from BookBub, with ebook bargains including this “lucid and inspiring guide to modern marital bliss”.

The covers are startlingly similar. Or is it just me?
 

P.S. Some of the links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

We’re going to be slammed tonight and tomorrow morning by the end of Hurricane Teddy, but the past three days have been golden.

We started to clear a portion of our back acreage this summer and came up with some rocks, all of which we have not yet found a use for. I don’t pay much attention to the landscape back here but every time I walk out of the barn, I see this display of “weeds” (maybe ‘wildflowers’ is more accurate?). It strikes me as an ephemeral thing of beauty.

What’s the last unexpected beauty you’ve found?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Yesterday, there was more snow; today was icier. Regardless, all of it was gone by noon.

There isn’t much in the way of spring here on Nova Scotia’s North Shore. But wait until next month!

P.P.S. Any links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

When I was in high school I read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and I was bowled over it. I always intended to read more by John LeCarré, so over the years I picked up his books here and there.

I now find myself with five of his titles on my shelf, and another book cull in progress. So I’ve decided to keep one of these listed below, so that I can read another LeCarré before I die. But which of these should I keep? Please help!

I have:
(from the George Smiley series)
#6 The Honourable Schoolboy (published 1977) and
#7 Smiley’s People (published 1979)

Standalone novels:
A Small Town in Germany (1968)
The Night Manager (1993)
The Tailor of Panama (1996)

I think I’d rather read a standalone than items published later in a series that I haven’t followed. But I’m open to one of the Smileys if it does standalone.

So what do you think? Was Le Carré’s earliest work his best? Or did he mature into a knock-out artist? What title do you recommend? I’m open to your thoughts, whether acquired by experience or reputation.

There’s space on my shelf for only one; all others are going the way of the charity store. Please help.

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Some of you may have been around in 2012 when I lost my mind and entered 63 (yep – you read that right: sixty-three) reading challenges, 48 of which I successfully completed.

Since then, I’ve sworn off challenges publicly.

Privately, I sometimes see if I can’t meet the criteria for a favourite few. This year I’ve decided to officially throw my hat in the ring for three challenges. Each of them can draw from books across a wide cross-section of topics and genres, and I like that variety. I hope to also make a couple of my months’ reading “thematic” because I always find that fun to do

So here are the three:

The very popular What’s In a Name, hosted by Andrea at Carolina Book Nook

the brand new Bookbloggers 2020 Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Lynne at Fictionophile,

and the first Book Challenge by Erin of 2020 which runs from Jan 1st to April 30th. Erin hosts this through a Facebook group

I’ve-sort of- picked out some titles already, but I’m not committing at this early date.

Have you entered any of these? Which challenges sound like fun to you?

PhotoBucket was down, guys! You might have noticed since every blinking image on my blog was “unavailable” for over a week!

Until I googled my problem, I’d been trying for three days to get my First Book photo to upload to my PhotoBucket account, so I missed getting this post up in time to join in with Sheila (again!)

ANYWAY – my first book this year was to be Marina Endicott’s The Difference. As with last year’s book, it’s by a Canadian author and I hope that sets the tone for me to keep including lots of Canadian writing in my 2020 reading list. I say ‘was to be’ because I’m not quite finished the Penelope Lively novel I started on December 31st. (blush) Endicott is next.

What are you reading first this year?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

We’re in Week 5 of Nonfiction November: New to My TBR. (If you need an introduction to Nonfiction November, please visit the original post on Julie Merilatt’s blog JulzReads. This week is being hosted by Rennie from What’s Nonfiction.
 

It’s been a great month of reading fabulous posts about supercali nonfiction books. I had to rein myself in to keep my additions to my TBR to a (baker’s) half-dozen.
 

I’m beginning to realize that essays are what thrill me in a nonfiction read. Three collections that I added this month:

How Life Imitates the World Series by Thomas Boswell.

Jane at Hotchpot Café tipped me to this one. I’ll be reading it and thinking of my late dad.

So You’re a Little Sad, So What? by Alicia Tobin.

Brandon at Every Read Thing says “I would put Alicia Tobin’s first book up against the best of David Sedaris – it’s that good. I had a great time reading this one and I hope you do too.”

And Tobin is Canadian!

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman.

RaiderGirl at An Adventure in Reading says: Feynman (winner of the Nobel Prize in physics) is “well known for popularizing physics, and his ability to tell a great story”. Science isn’t usually my thing, so I’m looking forward to stretching a little to take this one in.

Non-essay nonfiction that I added:

Shelleyrae at Book’d Out listed several books about true crimes by women. True-crime is another area I’m not usually much interested in reading but Cargo of Women by Babette Smith caught my eye.

Shellyrae said that it “focuses on the experiences of one hundred women who were sentenced to transportation to Australia, often for petty crimes, in 1829. It’s a fascinating exploration of their experiences as convicts.”

Sue at Whispering Gums reminded me that I must be the last person in the world to read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skoot. But since there are new readers being born every minute, if I tackle it this year, I won’t be last anymore (right?)

Deb at ReaderBuzz also prompted my memory- this time about H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald.

I’ve been meaning to put this memoir on my TBR pile for a while now.

And last but not least, as they say, Annabel at Annabookbel let me know that Julie Andrews has a sequel to her memoir Home, which has been sitting unread on my shelves for years.

Now I must get to it and read the follow-up that Annabel recommended: Homework: a Memoir of my Hollywood Years

That wraps up Nonfiction November for me. I’m looking forward to hearing what everyone else added to their TBR lists.

Have you read any of my additions? Which would you recommend that I read first?

P.P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

We’re into week 3 of Nonfiction November: Be/Ask/Become an Expert (if you need an introduction to Nonfiction November, please visit the original post on Julie Merilatt’s blog JulzReads. This week, I hope to be early enough to get my name in on the link-up, hosted by Katie at Doing Dewey

This past summer I had the pleasure of reading Celtic Knot, a fictionalized account of the assassination of Thomas Darcy McGee.

In school, we learned about McGee’s death, significant because his was the first political assassination in the new country of Canada, taking place just eight months after Confederation. Beyond that and the fact Fenians were allegedly somehow involved, I knew nothing. Although I realize that Ann Shortell, the author of Celtic Knot, took certain liberties with the facts as in any historical fiction, I am certain that I understand a lot more about the political situation in Canada at that time now that I’ve read this than I ever learned in school!

But, I’ve decided, not enough. Over the past 50 years, I’ve owned several cats, all of whom have been named after Canadian historical figures: (Sir Charles) Tupper, (Allen Napier) MacNab, Ikie (Isaac Brock), Laura (Secord), Nelly (McClung), (Pierre) Elliott (Trudeau), Fenian, and not least (Thomas D’Arcy) McGee. I think I have an unfed hunger for Canadian history!

My interest piqued, I found this two-volume biography of McGee by David Wilson: Passion, Reason, & Politics 1825-1857 and Volume 2 The Extreme Moderate 1858-1868. There are also free ecopies of McGee’s own writings: his poetry and Popular History of Ireland.

So – time and cost permitting – I’m going to become somewhat of an expert on Thomas D’Arcy McGee. Thanks to author Ann Shortell for rekindling that flame.

P.S. The protagonist in the novel Celtic Knot is McGee’s (fictional) Irish Catholic maid Clara Swift who was the closest to a witness to the murder that there was. Fifteen-year-old Clara is intelligent and observant and it is through her eyes that we see the tangled mess that is motivation for the alleged killer, the investigation, arrest and then trial of Jimmy Whelan. If you have any interest at all in Canadian history, political or not, I highly recommend that you read Celtic Knot.

Thanks to James who blogs at The Mirimichi Reader who brought this book to my attention, and to the author who kindly sent me a beautiful hardcover copy to read in exchange for my unbiased (except for my love of Canadian history!) review.

P.P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

We’re into week 2 of Nonfiction November: Book Pairings (if you need an introduction to Nonfiction November, please visit the original post on Julie Merilatt’s blog JulzReads. This week, I hope to be early enough to get my name in on the link-up, hosted by Sarah at Sarah’s Bookshelves
 

 
Since I didn’t read a great deal of NF this past year, I have only one real pairing – and not an original one at that. Way back in the spring when I was eagerly waiting for my turn to borrow Jennifer Robson’s The Gown from the library, one of the bloggers I read recommended the nonfiction book My Wedding Dress: True-Life Tales of Lace, Laughter, Tears and Tulle edited by Susan Whelan and Anne Laurel Carter. Unfortunately, I didn’t record who it was who mentioned this book; if it was you, please let me know so that I can give you credit, because it was delightful.

The editors, Canadian writers themselves, issued an invitation to a number of women writers, all with links to the Canadian writing scene, to submit an essay about their wedding dress. Amazon describes the book thusly:
“These are intimate stories about relationships; not just those between men and women, but between women and their mothers, friends and children. And, of course, with their wedding attire – a relationship that is sometimes simple, sometimes complex, but always fascinating in what it tells us about individual lives and aspirations.”

But don’t be put off by the lace and tulle: this book contains a wide variety of wedding dresses, some not dresses at all, and covers a lot of different types of weddings ranging from very traditional to not-even-close. Each essay is accompanied by one or more photos submitted by the author.

I loved every story – every one, I say.

I did read The Gown later in the year, but I was disappointed by it.

Would you have a story to tell about your wedding dress?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Although I’m a little late out of the gate for this event (if you need an introduction to Nonfiction November, please visit the original post on Julie Merilatt’s blog JulzReads; Julz is also hosting this first week) I hope to keep up as the month progresses.

Here’s the list of nonfiction books I’ve read since last November, from my highest rating to my lowest. I’ve included an asterisk next to those that I read at the urging of my fellow event participants.

1. *Oh, the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss
2. My Wedding Dress: True-Life Tales of Lace, Laughter, Tears and Tulle edited by Susan Whelan and Anne Laurel Carter
3. *Micro Living: 40 Innovative Tiny Houses Equipped for Full-Time Living by Derek “Deek” Diedriksen
4. The Golden Age of Murder: the Mystery Writers Who Invented the Modern Detective Story by Martin Edwards
5. The Clever Gut Diet: How to Revolutionize Your Body from the Inside Out by Dr. Michael Mosley
6. *The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life is Worth More than Anything You Can Buy in a Store by Cait Flanders
7. *Year of Clutter by Eve Schaub
8. *Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World by Benny Lewis
9. Marty Mann Answers Your Questions about Drinking and Alcoholism by Marty Mann
10. *Tree Houses: Fairy Tale Castles in the Air by Philip Jodidio
11. *A Glorious Freedom: Older Women Leading Extraordinary Lives by Lisa Congdon
12. The Blue Satin Nightgown: My French Makeover at Age 78 by Karin Crilly
13. *Between the World and Me by Ta-nehisi Coates

And two I did not finish:
* The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delaney Begins Her Life’s Work at 72 by Molly Peacock
All Things Consoled by Elizabeth Hay

 
Favourite and Most Recommended

The title of ‘favourite’ is a close race between My Wedding Dress and Micro Living, but, honestly, the book I recommended most was Dr. Suess’ Oh the Places You’ll Go. It probably seems flighty of me but I found some profound life advice in this book. You know: life is wonderful. Until it’s not. But pick yourself up, work hard, have patience, and life will be wonderful again, although perhaps in a different way. This book is so much fun to read that I think everyone should!

 
While many participants seem to have been reading memoirs, my nonfiction treats this past year have been, in large part, books recommended to me during last year’s event. I asked for advice on downsizing, simplifying, and major life changes after age 60. I received many suggestions, and have had some fine reading experiences this year because of them.

This year, I hope to broaden my nonfiction reading and beef up my TBR list with titles about a wider variety of topics. I feel a good month coming on!

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.