I know I’ve vowed to join no more challenges this year, but Rose City Reader just posted these first two and they’re only three books each. They run from 01Feb10 to 31Jan11.

The Battle of the Prizes American Version pits winners of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction against the winners of the National Book Award.

The first book must have won both prizes (6 books meet this criterium), the second book is a Pulitzer Prize winner only and the third book is a National Book Award winner only.

These are my selections, subject to change:

1) Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
Proulx has followed Postcards , her story of a family and their farm, with an extraordinary second novel of another family and the sea. The fulcrum is Quoyle, a patient, self-deprecating, oversized hack writer who, following the deaths of nasty parents and a succubus of a wife, moves with his two daughters and straight-thinking aunt back to the ancestral manse in Killick-Claw, a Newfoundland harbor town of no great distinction.

2) one of:
March by Geraldine Brooks (ready for pickup at the library)
Brooks’s luminous second novel, after 2001’s acclaimed Year of Wonders, imagines the Civil War experiences of Mr. March, the absent father in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. An idealistic Concord cleric, March becomes a Union chaplain and later finds himself assigned to be a teacher on a cotton plantation that employs freed slaves.

The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer (has been on my own shelves unread for years)
The true story of Gary Gilmore, who in 1977 became the first person executed in the United States since the reinstitution of the death penalty. Gilmore, a violent yet articulate man who chose not to fight his death-penalty sentence, touched off a national debate about capital punishment. He allowed Norman Mailer and researcher Lawrence Schiller complete access to his story. Mailer took the material and produced this immense book…What unfolds is a powerful drama, a distorted love affair, and a chilling look into the mind of a murderer in his countdown with a firing squad.

or

Empire Falls by Richard Russo (just sounds great)

In his biggest, boldest novel yet, the much-acclaimed author of Nobody’s Fool and Straight Man subjects a full cross-section of a crumbling Maine mill town to piercing, compassionate scrutiny, capturing misfits, malefactors and misguided honest citizens alike in the steady beam of his prose.

and

3) Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (in my pile of TBR library books)

McCann’s sweeping new novel hinges on Philippe Petit’s illicit 1974 high-wire walk between the twin towers. This extraordinary, real-life feat by French funambulist Philippe Petit becomes the touchstone for stories that briefly submerge you in ten varied and intense lives. It is the aftermath, in which Petit appears in the courtroom of Judge Solomon Soderberg, that sets events into motion.

The Battle of the Prizes British Version pits winners of the English Man Booker Prize against winners of the Scottish James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

The first book must have won both prizes (only 3 books qualify), the second book is a Man Booker Prize winner only and the third book is a James Tait Black Prize winner only.

These are my selections, subject to change:

1) Last Orders by Graham Smith
a quiet but dazzling novel about a group of men, friends since the Second World War, whose lives revolve around work, family, the racetrack, and their favorite pub. When one of them dies, the survivors drive his ashes from London to a seaside town where they will be scattered, compelling them to take stock in who they are today, who they were before, and the shifting relationships in between.

2) Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

This is a story of mid-19th century England and Australia, narrated by a man of our time and therefore permeated with modern consciousness. Oscar is a shy, gawky, Oxford-educated Church of England minister with a tortured conscience; Lucinda is a willful, eccentric Australian who sinks her family inheritance into a glass factory; and the basis for the star-crossed love that develops between them is a shared passion for gambling; and

3) The Secret Scripture by Sebastien Barry
The latest from Barry (whose A Long Way was shortlisted for the 2005 Booker) pits two contradictory narratives against each other in an attempt to solve the mystery of a 100-year-old mental patient. That patient, Roseanne McNulty, decides to undertake an autobiography and writes of an ill-fated childhood spent with her father, Joe Clear, A cemetery superintendent who is drawn into Ireland’s 1922 civil war.

AND

Since I’m reading books for the British Battle of the Prizes, I thought I may as well enter the Typically British Challenge hosted by Book Chick City.

It’s likely that I’ll read 8 British novels this year, but I want to enter at the Bob’s Your Uncle level because I love that phrase, and every time I hear it, I think “No, Bob’s my father.” It’s sort of bittersweet.

Bob’s Your Uncle requires me to read 6 novels by British authors in the 2010 calendar year.

1. The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice

Mrs. Q, Book Addict, is hosting (for the first time) a challenge of her invention: The Canadian Authors Challenge 2010.

I love CanLit and think I’ll fairly easily be able to complete the 10 books. (Mrs. Q: we need some titles on these levels. From the heart of Nova Scotia, I’ll contribute Bluenoser. What do you think?)

I’m looking forward to this one. And while we’re on the subject of things Canadian:

Chapters/Indigo link for Canadian readers:
The Shipping News
March
Empire Falls
Let The Great World Spin
Last Orders
Oscar and Lucinda

Or, even better, buy from an independent book seller by searching this site that has links to independent booksellers across North America.

P.S. If you click through the affiliate links in the book titles, you may notice a different cover. I like to see the cover that’s on the copy I read – and it’s usually different than Amazon.com because they display the American release, and I read the Canadian. Again, the links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

We’ve had rain and temps above freezing all week, and last night when I went to bed, there was no snow to be seen. I thought I’d show you a real contrast from last week.

Alas, this is what I awoke to. That’s a main highway out there. There’s a wind gusting to 50 mph from the south (?!), which is the other side of the house, that blowing a icy mist of snow across the roads.

The Diplomat’s Wife
by Pam Jenoff

From Patty Engelman at Booklist:
After working in the Jewish resistance in Kraków, Poland, Marta Nedermann is rescued from a Nazi prison by American soldiers. A simple gesture of human comfort by a soldier named Paul is etched in her mind, and when she sees him again in a camp for displaced persons in Salzburg, Marta is overjoyed. They meet again in Paris and become engaged, only to have Paul die in a plane crash. Marta is now scared, pregnant, and alone in a strange city. Simon Gold, an English diplomat, needs her language skills, and he wants her as well. They marry, and two years later, the English government taps Marta for help in finding a traitor in the British intelligence corps, sending her on an undercover mission.

From Publishers’ Weekly:
Marta goes on a dangerous mission to Poland, where a Communist takeover is imminent and where the seesaw plot takes more than one surprise twist.

I didn’t quite know what to expect from The Diplomat’s Wife, having not read Jenoff before.

The mystery was more than decent: although the identity of the mole was not difficult to figure out, the ‘hows’ and ‘whats’ were not so evident–in fact, were a complete surprise.

But, at its heart,The Diplomat’s Wife is a historical romance. And that is my only complaint: the accidental meetings between Marta and Paul were just too numerous to be believable. But then, I don’t care for romances and have a very low tolerance level for such devices.

If you do like historical romance, then you’re in for a treat with this. Enjoy!

I read this courtesy of my local library.

The Diplomat’s Wife satisfies four of my reading challenges: the Historical Fiction Challenge, the New To Me Authors Challenge, the Support Your Local Library, and 100+.

Chapters/Indigo link for Canadian readers:
The Diplomat”s Wife

Or, even better, buy from an independent book seller by searching this site that has links to independent booksellers across North America.

P.S. If you click through the affiliate links in the book titles, you may notice a different cover. I like to see the cover that’s on the copy I read – and it’s usually different than Amazon.com because they display the American release, and I read the Canadian. Again, the links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Technorati Tags: The Diplomat’s Wide, Pam Jenoff, Marta Nederman, Paul Mattison, Polish resistance, Polish underground, WWII, World War 2, communist takeover of Poland, Simon Gold, historical romance,

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald; Graphic novel version by Nunzio DeFilippis & Christina Weir; Illustrated by Kevin Cornell

When Fitzgerald penned Benjamin Button in 1922, he enthusiastically called it “the funniest story ever written” and hoped to write more pieces like it and The Diamond as Big as the Ritz. Publishers and the public, however, had a different idea as evidenced by an anonymous letter by a reader in Cincinnati:

Sir–I have read the story Benjamin Button in Colliers and I wish to say that as a short story writer you would make a good lunatic. I have seen many peices (sic) of cheese in my life but of all the peices of cheese I have ever seen you are the biggest peice. I hate to waste a peice of stationary on you but I will.

I had a somewhat more favorable reaction to the story of the unfortunate Mr. Button, who was born an old man and grew younger rather than older.

I was unable to find a copy of the full text of Fitzgerald’s story, but the graphic novel edition purports to be “complete with Fitzgerald’s original text”. I suspect that the text included was indeed the author’s but I’m not convinced that it was the full text of the story since Fitzgerald tended to be wordy. Nonetheless, there was more than enough, along with the illustrations and the speech bubbles, to tell the story in detail.

The 2008 movie starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett was a tour de force of digital enhancement. It won Academy Awards for Art Direction, Makeup and Visual Effects, as well it should have. (Rent DVDs online with Zip.ca or Blockbuster.com )

Critics were divided, some (NY Times, Variety) seeing it as a wonderful film and others, not so. I’m on the side of the Times.

Generally, I like movies that are based on books to stick fairly closely to the original. In this case, I’m willing to make an exception. Other than the title and the general concept of a man “aging” younger, there are NO similarities between Fitzgerald’s story (hereafter called the “book”) and the film.

In the book, Benjamin was born in a Baltimore hospital in 1860, as fully grown adult–a seventy-year-old man–who can talk & thinks like an adult. He’s raised by his father, spending company in his early days with his elderly grandfather. When he is in his early twenties, and appears about fifty, he marries a younger woman who likes “older men”. As the years pass, Benjamin loses interest in his wife as she becomes middle-aged and he grows younger.

His troubles applying to Yale (at 18 but looking 60), his time in the army during the Spanish-American War that began in 1898, his subsequent years as a football hero at Harvard (at 60 but looking 18), and his attempt at re-enlistment in 1914 for the Great War are wryly comically portrayed by Fitzgerald.

As the years progress, Benjamin hands over the family Wholesale Hardware business to his son Roscoe, and as an moody adolescent ends up living with Roscoe and eventually attends kindergarten with his grandson as he thinks more and more like a child.

The movie has Benjamin being born in 1918 in New Orleans as a wizened baby who is literally thrown away by his father and lands on the steps of an old-age home where he is taken in by one of the attendants and raised as her own.

The old age home is a clever device – who would question an old man there, even if he acted like a three year old, which he did, since the movie version has Benjamin born as a child physically and mentally. That works until dementia sets in when he looks about 12 years old. Then the script picks up the book’s version of his regressing intellect & knowledge.

The love story that is central to the movie version is completely an invention of the screenwriter, and is completely opposite to what happens in the book.

And the movie version made the elder Mr. Button’s fortune the result of buttons, rather than hardware. You decide if that clever or if it’s cheesy. I rather liked it. After all, the whole story is a fantasy.

Differences aside, I greatly enjoyed the movie and much of my enjoyment came from the period sets throughout the twentieth century. Some critics make the charge that the movie is too long, coming in at just under three hours, but I think that it needs that time to progress through the decades and to tell Benjamin’s story: a man who seemed not greatly affected by major history (other than the World Wars) and who just seemed to have life happen to him, rather than to make life happen.

Brad Pitt played Brad Pitt – in various make-ups and with a multitude of digital enhancement, both to look young and to look old. Cate Blanchett, also the recipient of age-altering techniques, was far more credible as Daisy (a tip of the hat to Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby name for his wife Zelda).

Although I was initially disappointed that I was able to get only this graphic issue of the story, I found the book to be a pleasure to read (and to re-read). It, no doubt, is true to the original story and makes it accessible to both younger and older readers alike.

The book reminded me of the Illustrated Classics of such books as the Prince and the Pauper that my brother & I devoured in the mid-sixties. But they were comic books. This is an elegant, 5.75 x 8.25 inch hardbound edition whose sepia toned pages are a treat to read.

My copy is overdue from my local library.

Benjamin Button satisfies three of my reading challenges: the Read the Book, See the Movie Challenge, the Support Your Local Library, and 100+.

Chapters/Indigo link for Canadian readers:
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button And Other Jazz Age Tales

Or, even better, buy from an independent book seller by searching this site that has links to independent booksellers across North America.

P.S. If you click through the affiliate links in the book titles, you may notice a different cover. I like to see the cover that’s on the copy I read – and it’s usually different than Amazon.com because they display the American release, and I read the Canadian. Again, the links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Technorati Tags: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, F. Scott Fitzgerald, graphic novel, Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt, 2008 Academy Award for Make-up, 2008 Academy Award for Visual Effects, 2008 Academy Award for Art Direction, growing younger, Hurricane Katrina, on-line movies in Canada, order movies on-line in Canada, DVDs by mail in Canada, DVDs by mail, Blockbuster online, Zip.ca, Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir, Kevin Cornell

The sun is very bright today and the sky achingly blue. I thought you might enjoy this study in shadows, looking north.

Raven Black
by Ann Cleeves
This is Book One of the Shetland Island Quartet and winner of the 2006 Duncan Lawrie Dagger (U.K.) for Best Crime Novel

On the remote island of Shetland, Fran Hunter is walking home when she spots a splash of red in the deep, white snowdrifts, with black ravens flying above. What a perfect picture it makes, she thinks. But on closer inspection, she finds that the “perfect picture” is the dead body of local teenager Catherine Ross, whose red scarf has been used to strangle her. Suspicion immediately falls on recluse Magnus Tait, who was accused–but never convicted–of kidnapping another girl eight years earlier. Policeman Jimmy Perez, assigned to the case, isn’t convinced of Magnus’ guilt. As he investigates, he uncovers a web of sinister secrets, strange superstitions, petty rivalries, thwarted love, and illicit affairs–the dark underbelly of Shetland’s tight-knit community.

This is the first Ann Cleeves work that I’ve read and, once again, I praise the web-site Fantastic Fiction where I can find out what series an author has written and the chronological order of the books in each; and our public library system which allows me to borrow from other library systems in our province – in this case, it was the Annapolis Valley Regional Library that lent me this book.

The Shetland Islands seem a romantic setting for a murder that is decidedly unromantic. Cleeves draws the Shetland island community as closed and suspicious of outsiders, as it likely is–much like most other islands around the world.

If guilt for this murder has to be pinned on someone local, then simpleton Magnus Tait is the obvious choice. Most people in the community have already decided he was responsible for the disappearance of a young girl eight years previous. But the reader knows Magnus didn’t do it – or did he?

The setting is a little bleak, the detective a little low-key, the subject matter a little dark (but not as taut as, say, a Kathy Reichs serial killer novel), but the plot advances steadily and evenly and there are plenty of clues to the identity of the murderer. But, since there’s also plenty of red herrings, it’s unlikely you’ll figure out who it is until the end of the book. Cleeves manages to make nearly everyone in the area appear to be a possible suspect. In my mind, that is one of the marks of a really good mystery. And this is one.

I’d like to read the other four books in this series (White Nights, Red Bones, and Blue Lightning). Recommended for mystery fans.

A solid four out of five stars.

Reading Challenges: Raven Black satisfies six of my reading challenges: the Colorful Challenge, the First in a Series Challenge, the Book Awards Challenge, the New To Me Authors Challenge, the Support Your Local Library, and 100+.

Chapters/Indigo link for Canadian readers:
Raven Black

Or, even better, buy from an independent book seller by searching this site that has links to independent booksellers across North America.

P.S. If you click through the affiliate links in the book titles, you may notice a different cover. I like to see the cover that’s on the copy I read – and it’s usually different than Amazon.com because they display the American release, and I read the Canadian. Again, the links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Technorati Tags: Raven Black, Ann Cleeves, Shetland Island Mystery, Jimmy Perez, Magnus Tait, Shetland Island Quartet, Duncan Lawrie Dagger, 2006 winner, Fantastic Fiction

One Hundred Shades of White
by Preethi Nair

Maya, her mother Nalini, and her brother Satchin have left a carefree life in India to come to England. But when Maya’s father disappears, leaving only deceit and debt behind, they are left to fend for themselves in a strange, damp land. Maya, though, doesn’t know of her father’s betrayal. Nalini, determined to preserve her children’s pride, tells them that their father died in an accident and, as their struggle to make a life begins, whole realities are built on this lie. But even a white lie cannot remain hidden forever—and when the truth resurfaces, it changes everything

The title refers to that lie — that husband/father Raul dies a hero’s death rescuing a young boy from the path of an oncoming car; the truth is that Raul had a second family in America and deserted Nalini and the children in London. Nalini muses:

My mother said that to lie is the coward’s way and that truth is whole, like black or white. But what if there are a hundred shades for truth?

Not knowing the truth about her father leads Maya to think in a certain way about her life, her relationships and her mother’s relationships. When she learns the truth, her world shifts beneath her.

I thought the characters of Nalini and Maya were well-developed and the contrast between the warm, fragrant, familiar life in India and the cold, plain, foreign way of life in England was made very clear.

There’s a decent story in this book, which is told alternately through the eyes of mother Nalini and daughter Maya. BUT the book is rife with spelling, grammatical and structural errors that were serious distractions from the plot. Nair’s editors let her down big-time on this one.

I would normally have given this book 3.5 stars (out of five) but I can’t really recommend it as it stands. I’ll have to give it 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Reading Challenges: 100 Shades satisfies four of my reading challenges: the Colorful Challenge, the New To Me Authors Challenge, the Support Your Local Library, and 100+.

Chapters/Indigo link for Canadian readers:
One Hundred Shades Of White

Or, even better, buy from an independent book seller by searching this site that has links to independent booksellers across North America.

P.S. If you click through the affiliate links in the book titles, you may notice a different cover. I like to see the cover that’s on the copy I read – and it’s usually different than Amazon.com because they display the American release, and I read the Canadian. Again, the links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Technorati Tags: Preethi Nair, One Hundred Shades of White, 100 Shades of White, life in India, immigrants in England, deserted by father

Bud, Not Buddy
by Christopher Paul Curtis

This book won the 2000 Newbery Medal for “the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children” and the award is well-deserved.

Set in Flint and Grand Rapids Michigan in 1936, the story covers three tumultuous days in the life of Bud Caldwell, orphan, age 10. Bud’s single mom died when he was six and he has lived in the orphanage and various foster homes since. Bud’s already wise to the system. So wise that he can feel sorry for the six-year-old who’s being sent to a foster home in the most recent “deployment” from the orphange.

…Six is a real tough age to be at. Most folks think you start to be a real adult when you’re fifteen or sixteen years old, but that’s not true, it really starts when you’re around six.

It’s at six that grown folks don’t think you’re a cute little kid anymore, they talk to you and expect you to understand everything they mean. And you’d best understand too, if you aren’t looking for some real trouble, ’cause it’s around six that grown folks stop giving you little swats and taps and jump clean up to giving you slugs that’ll knock you right down and have you seeing stars in the middle of the day. The first foster home I was in taught me that real quick.

(If that doesn’t break your heart, what will?) To cope with his world in which children must be “too wise, too soon”, and can’t trust any adult, Bud has composed “Bud Caldwell’s Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself”. Sprinkled randomly throughout the book (#3, #63, #29, #16 etc), they’re a melange of timeless childhood advice, hilarious reasoning, and poignant realizations.

Bud’s busting out of the padlocked shed his newest foster parents have locked him in, and he’s off to find his unknown father. When she died, his mother left a half-dozen small stones inscribed with letters and numbers, and five different flyers for the jazz band Herman E. Calloway and the Dusky Devastators. Bud is convinced that Herman E. Calloway is his father.

This is a young adult book that will be enjoyed by adults and adolescents alike. Bright and polite Bud narrates his own story and, although he relates the precarious position of an orphan during the Great Depression, he never sounds like he feels sorry for himself. Life is full of unpleasant situations but with his self-authored book of “Rules and Things…”, he can find a way to deal with anything. You’ll be uplifted by his story.

I rate Bud, Not Buddy 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Reading challenges: This book satisfies no fewer than six(!) of my reading challenges:Ten Categories Challenge (Young Adult), the Book Awards Challenge, the Historical Fiction Challenge, the New To Me Authors Challenge, the Support Your Local Library, and 100+.

Chapters/Indigo link for Canadian readers:
Bud, Not Buddy

Or, even better, buy from an independent book seller by searching this site that has links to independent booksellers across North America.

P.S. If you click through the affiliate links in the book titles, you may notice a different cover. I like to see the cover that’s on the copy I read – and it’s usually different than Amazon.com because they display the American release, and I read the Canadian. Again, the links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

My copy of Bud, Not Buddy was borrowed from the public library.

Technorati Tags: Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud Not Buddy, 2000 Newbery Medal winner, award for children’s literature, Herman E. Calloway, Flint Michigan, depression-era orphanage

An e-mail invitation has me thinking about getting a group together this weekend and going sleigh riding. There’s more than one place within 20 minutes of our house where we could do this, but one of my favorites is the Sugar Moon Farm.

Husband and wife team, Scott Whitelaw and Quita Grey have a thriving maple syrup business in the Cobequid Mountains in Earltown NS. They use these gorgeous draught horses in the sugaring work and in winter, before the sap starts to run, for sleigh rides through the woods. There are also hiking trails for snowshoeing and crosscountry skiing.

We often take friends to the “sugar shack” for breakfast, and sometimes go, just us, if we have a weekend morning available.

In the city, one can just keep warm in winter, at a movie theater or a bowling alley or a mall. Those venues are at least an hour’s drive from here.

Want to sleigh ride, snowshoe, or hike in the beautiful outdoors? No problem. This is the sort of winter activity that is often easily available in the country.

What about you? What kind of winter activity do you enjoy: city or country?

Disclaimer: I am NOT an affiliate of Sugar Moon Farms nor am I in any way compensated by them. I received an e-mail about the sleigh rides from them today and decided to share because I simply love the place!

Technorati Tags: Sugar Moon Farm, draught horses, draft horses, maple sugaring, sugar shack, maple syrup, sleigh rides, all-you-can-eat pancakes, Chef’s night, hiking trail, Nuttby Mountain, Earltown NS, Rogart Mountain Trail

Snow Treasure
by Marie McSwigan

The forward to Snow Treasure says:

On June 28,1940, nearly a year after World War II broke out in Europe, the Norwegian freighter BOMMA reached Baltimore with a cargo of gold bullion worth $9,000,000…..The gold, it was reported, had been slipped past Nazi sentries by Norwegian boys and girls!…So that no harm might come to the brave children, the captain would not tell the location of the fiord (where the freighter hid and to which the children brought their sleds).
For many years the story was believed true. But over 60 years later, there is no proof that it ever really happened. We do not know. But we do know that the story captures tjhe courage of many children who, caught up in the war, have helped their country in a time of great danger.

Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Norway in April 1940. This story tells of a group of 25 schoolchildren, ranging in age from 8 to 12, who purportedly moved several tons of gold from a hiding spot which had been carved from the forest and the snow, directly past a Nazi encampment to a designated spot where they buried the gold and built snowmen as markers. This went on for weeks and was supposedly never detected even though the children were mere feet from Nazi soldiers daily.

It’s very difficult for me to believe that this story is true. No doubt the freighter captain used it to deflect attention from the actual resistance fighters who loaded the ship. If it was true, after the war the children would certainly have told people and there would be much oral history to support it.

Tidbit: The freighter Bomma has been renamed in the story as the Cleng Peerson, a little bit of irony since Peerson was a pioneer who led the first group of Norwegians to emigrate to the United States.

I couldn’t warm to Snow Treasure, “a story of courage and adventure”, although I’m aware that it’s considered a minor classic. Part of that is the writing style which seemed dated and a little clunky. In addition, I think it undermines the awareness of the true danger that ones in Nazi occupied countries faced.

Also, I was slightly rankled by the way that the elderly servant Per Garson spoke. His speech had the cadence of a Norwegian speaking English – an effect that was unnecessary and out of place, since he would have been speaking Norwegian like everyone else, and not a second language.

Written in 1942 and published just months after the U.S. entered WWII, it’s a fine piece of war propaganda that encourages all good little boys & girls to support their country during wartime. It no doubt felt to many a child who collected tinfoil & weeded a victory garden like a warm pat on the back for being part of the war effort.

But I’m still only lukewarm.

Reading challenges: This book satisfies five of my reading challenges:Ten Categories Challenge (older than I am), Decades Challenge, the New To Me Authors Challenge, the Support Your Local Library, and 100+.

Link for Canadian readers:
Snow Treasure
Or, even better, buy from an independent book seller.

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.

Technorati Tags: Marie McSwigan, Snow Treasure, Nazi occupation of Norway, gold bullion, Bomma, Cleng Peerson

This has got to stop! Last challenge?

The Book Awards Challenge is very generous with its guidelines, requiring me to read 10 award winners from 10 different awards in the next ten months.

1. John Newbery Medal winner for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children (2000): Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis

2. The Duncan Lawrie Dagger winner for best crime novel (2006): Raven Black by Ann Cleeves

The Lacuna
by Barbara Kingsolver

I truly love Barbara Kingsolver’s writing: I think that The Poisonwood Bible is one of my top ten books of all time. So I was prepared to thoroughly enjoy The Lacuna – and I most certainly did.

It’s told in the format of the life story of one Harrison Shepherd, who was taken from Washington and his American father, to Mexico by his mother who was a native of that country. The first two decades of Shepherd’s life are spent in Mexico – first on a coastal island and then in Mexico City at his mother’s serial (mostly married) lovers’ houses or “mistress flats”, with the exception of two years spent at an American boarding school.

In his mid-teens, he finds employment mixing plaster for one of Diego Rivera’s murals. He becomes part of Rivera’s household, and in due course, works as a translator and secretary for Lev Trotsky when Rivera and his wife, the artist Frido Kahlo, provide sanctuary for that enemy of Stalin. Eventually Trotsky and his entourage move households and Shepherd then works directly for Trotsky.

After Trotsky’s assassination, Shepherd leaves Mexico and throws his lot in with the post-war optimism in America. Since boyhood he had been fascinated with the Aztec civilization and he becomes a best-selling author of historical fiction set in that era.

During WWII, the American propaganda machine cranked out pro-Russia messages. Roosevelt gritted his teeth and shook hands with Stalin, Eisenhower accepted a medal from him. After the war, Russia was no longer an ally and so began the anti-Stalin, anti-communism campaign that engulfed a nation and set Russia up as the worst kind of enemy.

I grew up in the 50s and 60s and can testify that we were taught that “communism” was almost the equivalent of a four-letter word: something evil and wicked. The campaign was effective – and it affected Shepherd significantly. (More information than that will be a spoiler.)

Shepherd’s life story is told in various forms: a first chapter that he wrote himself when he briefly considered writing his memoirs; following chapters supplied by either various notebooks of his or are observations of his assistant, Violet Brown. It’s an interesting, if initially a little confusing, presentation. Although Trotsky’s crusade to depose Stalin might be a little tough-sledding to read, it is critical to the plot.

As always, Kingsolver’s research is impeccable. She brings to life the ancient Aztec civilization, explains the passions of Rivera and Kahlo’s Mexico, and captures the rabid patriotism that was the result of the “committee to investigate anti-American activity”.

The titular lacuna – the round hole – appears throughout the book in different guises, some that surprise.

Besides learning about all of these topics, I hope you’ll be moved to consider the destruction that xenophobia in the form of blind nationalism can wrought.

I rate The Lacuna 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Reading challenges: This book satisfies three of my reading challenges:the Bibliophilic Book Challenge, Support Your Local Library, and 100+.

Link for Canadian readers:
The Lacuna

Or, even better, buy from an independent book seller.

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.

Technorati Tags: book review, Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna, Harrison Shepherd, communist threat, committee, anti-american activity, Diego Rivera, Frido Kahlo, Lev Trotsky, Leon Trotsky, Violet Brown

I just have to try a few more challenges! This First in a Series Challenge, hosted by Royal Reviews, should be easy because I always look for the first book in a series when I’m reading a new author or a new series.

The Addicted level requires me to read 12 books.

1. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley The first in the Flavia de Luce series

2. Raven Black by Ann Cleeves The first in the Shetland Quartet featuring Jimmy Perez

3. The Body in the Belfry by Katherine Hall Page The first in the Faith Fairchild series

The Historical Fiction Challenge, hosted by Royal Reviews offers nearly unlimited diversity. I love it!

The Addicted level requires me to read 12 books.

1. Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis – 1936 Michigan U.S.A.

2. Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan – 1939 Nazi-occupied Norway

3. The Diplomat’s Wife by Pam Jenoff – post WWII Europe

4. Beside a Burning Sea by John Shors – 1942 South Pacific

5. The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice – 1954 London

Technorati Tags: Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud Not Buddy, Pam Jenoff, The Diplomat’s Wife, Beside a Burning Sea, John Shors, Eva Rice, The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets

This challenge is a little tougher and may require me to read some non-fiction, something I often skip.

I’m entering the Bibliophilic Books Challenge at the Litlover level that requires that I read six books that focus on books or reading.

1. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

I generally enjoy reading prize winning literature, but find that because of availability, the prizes end up being Canadian or American.

I do however, recognize the high regard in which the Man Booker Prize, originating in Britain, is held. I’d like to read more Booker prize winning novels but I think I need to start slowly, given the number of other challenges I’ve entered already. So I’m entering the Complete Booker Challenge at the Longshot level, at which I must read 6 longlisted nominees.

This 2010 challenge is a part of the ongoing Complete Booker Project.

Here’s the complete lists of past years nominees and winners.

Unless some sweetness at the bottom lie,
Who cares for all the crinkling of the pie?
The Art of Cookery, William King

Hurray for Flavia de Luce! She’s an intelligent, feisty, funny, and down-to-earth eleven year old and the heroine of this smash hit debut novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Canadian author Alan Bradley.

Set in 1950 in rural England, the story unfolds in Flavia’s family home, Buckshaw – a mansion of many vintages, which is crumbling around her. The estate is just outside The village of Bishop’s Lacey to which Flavia can easily travel on her trusty bike, Gladys.

One afternoon, Flavia’s father opens the door to find a dead bird with a postage stamp on its beak on the doorstep. The next morning, Flavia finds a stranger’s body in the vegetable garden.

Being a lover of chemistry (Flavia says: “What intrigued me more than anything was finding out the way that everything, all of creation – all of it! – was held together by invisible chemical bonds), and an inquisitive person, Flavia decides to solve the mysteries despite police opposition to her involvement.

Okay, I like detective novels with a good mystery. I love books set in the middle decades of last century – especially if they’re in a rural setting – and add points for that rural setting to be in Britain. So Sweetness had a head start in my books.

But this book deserves a spot on everybody’s reading list. It is impeccably written – the characters are satisfactorily developed (except for her father I thought), the plot advances quickly and evenly, there are enough clues to solve the mystery but plenty of red herrings to throw you off the scent. Perfect score!

Bradley has another Flavia de Luce mystery The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag, scheduled for release on March 9th (2010). I will be certain to be reading it!

Link for Canadian readers:
The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie

Reading challenges: This book satisfies four of my reading challenges: Support Your Local Library, What’s In a Name (category #1), First in a Series and, of course, The 100+ Challenge.

Technorati Tags: book review, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley, Flavia de Luce, girl detective, girl chemist, Buckshaw, Bishop’s Lacey, Horace Bonepenny, postage stamps, The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag

This has to be the end of the challenges I take on! This one sounds like it can be fit around some of my other challenges so I’m giving it a go.

Hosted by Book Dragon’s Lair, it requires that I read four books, one for each season. The titles must have a season, not holiday: winter, fall, autumn, spring, summer.

Technorati Tags: reading challenges, reading through the seasons, book titles with seasons

What are you reading Mondays is hosted by J. Kaye’s Book Blog

It’s been a slow couple of weeks reading-wise; not quite sure why. Over the past two weeks I managed to finish reading:

1. Fellowship of Fear (A Gideon Oliver Mystery)
by Aaron Elkins

Before Kathy Reichs’ Tempe Brennan and television shows like Bones, there was Aaaron Elkins’ Gideon Oliver, physical anthropology professor.

The Fellowship of Fear is the first of Gideon’s adventures (currently sixteen books). Published in 1982, it draws its tension from the cold war between Russia and the U.S.

Here’s my review.

P.S. I love the lists at Fantastic Fiction and the public library that allow me to read any series in order. YAY for both.

2. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
by Alan Bradley

Unless some sweetness at the bottom lie,
Who cares for all the crinkling of the pie?
The Art of Cookery, William King

I borrowed this from the library as well, although I waited several months after I placed a hold on it.

The debut novel for Canadian author Alan Bradley, Sweetness was a smash hit last year. Imagine my surprise to find it’s a murder mystery – almost a “cozy” – and quite good enough to warrant its own review.

P.S. If you click through the affiliate links in the book titles, you may notice a different cover. I like to see the cover that’s on the copy I read – and it’s usually different than Amazon.com because they display the American release, and I read the Canadian.
P.P.S. Canadian readers interested in any of these titles can click through at the bottom of this post. Or, even better, buy from an independent book seller.

And, yes, they are all affiliate links which means that I earn a small amount if you purchase after you’ve clicked through from this post.)

Links for Canadian readers
Fellowship Of Fear
The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie

Technorati Tags: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley, debut novel, Canadian author, Flavia de Luce, Horace Bonepenny, Aaron Elkins, Fellowship of Fear, Gideon Oliver, physical anthrpologist, solving crimes from bones

Before Kathy Reichs’ Tempe Brennan and television shows like Bones, there was Aaaron Elkins’ Gideon Oliver, physical anthropology professor.

Fellowship of Fear is the first of Gideon’s adventures (currently sixteen books). Published in 1982, it draws its tension from the cold war between Russia and the U.S.

Recently widowed, Gideon has taken a leave from Northern California State University to take on a stint teaching at the United States Overseas College (“bringing college courses to Our Boys in Europe”). His travels take him to Heidelburg in Germany, Sicily, and Madrid.

Unknowingly set up to act as the mule for classified army information, Gideon is set upon by thieves, and nearly killed in an automobile accident and its aftermath. This draws the attention of the Security Police who assign officer John Lau to work with Gideon and protect him.

Gideon is able to win John’s confidence by looking at some charred bones – a tibia and a jaw bone – and accurately determining the height & weight and the age & nationality of the deceased – and that he was left-handed and smoked a pipe (honest).

Gideon is a likeable character, although not a saint. John Lau takes the reader a little longer to warm up to, but that also reflects Gideon’s experience with the relationship.

Although I greatly enjoy the detective work in Kathy Reichs’ work, the tension created by a stalking serial killer is a little too “thrilling” for me. This book, centering on “who’s the Russian spy?”, allowed me to enjoy the forensic work at a tension level I can tolerate. In fact, I more than tolerated: I really liked this book and will probably read at least another in the series.

P.S. If you click through the link in the book title, you may notice a different cover. I like to see the cover that’s on the copy I read – and it’s usually different than Amazon.com because they display the American release, and I read the Canadian.
P.P.S. Canadian readers interested in this book can click through at the bottom of this post. Or, even better, buy from an independent book seller.

And, yes, they are all affiliate links which means that I earn a small amount if you purchase after you’ve clicked through from this post.)

Link for Canadian readers
Fellowship Of Fear

Technorati Tags: Aaron Elkins, Fellowship of Fear, Gideon Oliver, physical anthrpologist, solving crimes from bones