The $50,000 ScotiaBank Giller Prize for Fiction was awarded tonight to Will Ferguson for his novel 419. The Scotiabank Giller Prize is Canada’s most distinguished literary prize, awarded annually to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English.

This year’s jury made this citation about Ferguson and 419:
“Will Ferguson’s 419 points in the direction of something entirely new: the Global Novel. It is a novel emotionally and physically at home in the poverty of Lagos and in the day-to-day of North America. It tells us the ways in which we are now bound together and reminds us of the things that will always keep us apart. It brings us the news of the world far beyond the sad, hungry faces we see on CNN and CBC and far beyond the spreadsheets of our pension plans. Ferguson is a true travel writer, his eye attuned to the last horrible detail. He is also a master at dialogue and suspense. It is tempting to put 419 in some easy genre category, but that would only serve to deny its accomplishment and its genius.”

You can read my review of 419 here. (So I was wrong. I’m glad.)

August was a bonanza-beach-bonus month for me. I gave myself time to devour a total of 15 books, of which nine were mysteries, my comfort food of reading. In case you’re not as enthralled with that genre as I am, I divided my list into two parts.

This post brings me almost up to date with my reading record!

NON-MYSTERIES

Firmin by Sam Savage (Fiction)
Firmin is a rat born in the basement of a Scolley Square bookstore in Boston in the early 1960s. His mother is an alcoholic and eventually deserts the family. Driven by hunger, Firmin makes a diet of Zane Grey, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and Jane Eyre. Strangely, as Firmin eats, he takes in the words (and meanings), becoming an extremely literate rat.
Told from Firmin’s point of view, the book is by turns hilarious, tragic and hopeful. I really liked the story and loved the cover, with its bite-size medallion taken out of the side. Best cover of my year, I’m sure, and a great example of the need for print books.
Read this if: you love the classics, or books in general. Basically, if you’re reading this post, you should read Firmin. 4½ stars

Practical Jean by Trevor Cole (Fiction, Canadian)
Jean Horemarsh has just returned to living with her husband after three months spent caring for her mother as she died of cancer. After watching her mother die, Jean is convinced no one should have to suffer the indignities of aging and illness like her mother did—and she, Jean Horemarsh, will take it upon herself to give each of her friends one final, perfect moment . . . and then, one by one, kill them.
The 2011 winner of the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, Practical Jean is wickedly funny and thought-provoking.
Read this if: you appreciate irony, or a darker shade of humour.
4½ stars

Heading Home: On Starting a New Life in a Country Place by Lawrence Scanlan (Non-fiction, Memoir, Country Living, Canadian)

You may know that my husband and I exchanged big city living for life in rural Nova Scotia nine years ago, so I’m always interested in books/memoirs about moving to the country. Scanlan, who moved from the city of Kingston to the village of Camden East, Ontario (pop. 250) has written one of the best I’ve encountered.
The book’s twelve chapters, each devoted to one month, chronicle a year in the life of the village. Heading Home is a beautiful piece of narrative non-fiction, yet it is packed with extremely practical advice for anyone yearning to start over in a country place.
Read this if: you are contemplating country life – or if you just wonder what it’s like. 4½ stars

A Recipe for Bees by Gail Anderson-Dergatz (Fiction, Canadian)
When Gail Anderson-Dargatz showed the manuscript of A Recipe for Bees to her divorced parents, it caused them to reconsider their sixteen-year separation. “My parents, Eric and Irene, are models for Karl and Augusta in many ways. I set out to show them how extraordinary their seemingly ordinary lives were.” She interviewed them during the writing of the book and as they read the work in progress, they began to talk about unresolved problems(…) Her parents were remarried on Christmas Day, 1998, some fifty years after their first marriage.
This is a lovely anecdote but it doesn’t really surprise me. A Recipe for Bees is a masterful examination of relationships, primarily the one between Augusta and her husband. At its heart are the life, death, and resurrection of an extraordinary marriage. With lots of beekeeping lore, this Giller Prize nominated (1998) story is as sweet as honey.
Read this if: you believe that the bonds of marriage should hold, for better or for worse. 4 stars

The Absolutist by John Boyne (Fiction, WWI)
“It is September 1919: twenty-one-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver a package of letters to the sister of Will Bancroft, the man he fought alongside during the Great War. But the letters are not the real reason for Tristan’s visit. He can no longer keep a secret and has finally found the courage to unburden himself of it.”
Most reviewers love this book. I’m more ‘meh’. The writing is superb and the story unfolds with just the right amount of tension from beginning to end. But I wasn’t blown away by the climax. I understand Will’s stand and determination to stick to it despite the consequences, and Tristan’s actions didn’t make any difference to the outcome. Maybe I’ve just read too many WWI novels recently.
Read this if: you enjoy WWI stories; you’re interested the relationships between soldiers during wartime; or if you approve of war in principle. 3½ stars

The Doll’s House by Rumer Godden (Children’s Chapter book)
The activities, sorrows, and joys of a family of dolls living in an old doll house are related from the dolls’ point of view.
It’s rather dated, but charming. Read this if: you ever played with a dollhouse – or wanted to (and who didn’t?) 3 stars

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MYSTERIES

The Dog Who Knew Too Much by Spencer Quinn
“Combining suspense and intrigue with a wonderfully humorous take on the link between man and beast, Spencer Quinn’s exceptional mystery series has captured widespread praise since its New York Times bestselling debut, Dog on It”. In the fourth entry in the series, The Dog Who Knew Too Much, canine Chet becomes the focus of dognappers, while his partner Bernie is looking for a boy who has gone missing from a wilderness camp in the high country. The Dog Who Knew Too Much is classic Spencer Quinn, offering page-turning entertainment that’s not just for dog-lovers.
I love this series featuring Bernie Little and his dog Chet who narrates the books. The mysteries are always suspenseful and solidly developed. But it’s Chet who makes this series. His love of life is exhilarating for me.
Read this if: you love dogs and mysteries – or if you just love dogs – or if you just like mysteries. (I really can’t be objective about Chet.) 4½ stars

Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear
The Maisie Dobbs series has been described by USA Today as ‘less whodunits than why-dunits, more P.D. James than Agatha Christie’ (USA Today) I’ve followed this series since Maisie debuted as a newly discharged WWI nurse in 1919, through Maisie’s growth during the 1920s. I particularly appreciate that Maisie’s life – her circumstances, her friendships, her personality with both strengths and flaws—has not remained static but has developed naturally as it might have in her time and place.

Set in 1933 London Elegy for Eddie, the ninth and latest Maisie Dobbs offering, has Maisie investigating the brutal killing of a street peddler from the working-class neighborhood of her childhood. It’s one of the best in a super series.
Read this: after you’ve read the rest of the series. Yes, each book in the series stands alone, but they’ll have greater impact if you’ve watched Maisie grow. If the period in Britain between the World Wars intrigues you, or you enjoy a strong but flawed female protagonist, you’ll particularly enjoy this series. 4 stars
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A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear
In the eighth book in the Maisie Dobbs series, A Lesson in Secrets, Maisie is working for the Secret Service at a pacifist college in Cambridge. The Secret Service is particularly suspicious of what they see as the country’s biggest threat: communism, while basically ignoring the rise of fascism and Nazism.
This is a solid entry in this series, and one with a slightly different perspective for Maisie. 4 stars

Dead Man’s Folly by Agatha Christie
The ‘folly’ of the title is actually an architectural term defined as “an eccentric, generally non-functional structure erected to enhance a romantic landscape.” Of course, the play on words using the more commonly understood meaning of the word is intentional. In this classic Christie, Adriadne Oliver arranges a mock Murder Hunt for charity and calls in her friend Hercule Poirot when a real body is discovered. Although this was published in 1956, it has the feel of one of Christie’s slightly older stories: the classic country estate, the Lord & Lady, the house guests, and so on.
In addition to the word play of the title, there is the gentle mockery of Christie herself, on whom Ariadne Oliver is said to be based. So she sets up a murder and doesn’t know who the murderer is. Very well-done, excellently clued but still perplexing mystery.
Read this if: you’re looking for a classic English country whodunit set in the mid-twentieth century. 4 stars

The Tragedy of Z by Ellery Queen (Barnaby Ross)
This is the third in the Drury Lane series (the Tragedies of X,Y &Z). Drury Lane is a blind, retired stage actor and a good friend of (the fictional) Ellery Queen. This was published in 1933, is melodramatic but oh-so-elegant. The mystery is fairly clued, but very difficult. I don’t think I’ve ever solved a novel-length Ellery Queen. 3½ stars

At Bertram’s Hotel by Agatha Christie
Miss Jane Marple takes a two week holiday at Bertram’s Hotel, of which she has fond childhood memories. So! It’s 1965 and Bertram’s hasn’t changed since King Edward V’s time. And that, dear reader, is part of the mystery. Although the hotel seems charming at first, it takes on a sinister face. There’s a great cast of vintage Christie characters, but Jane Marple plays only a peripheral part in the whole investigation.
Read this if: you’d like to see Christie acknowledge the modern world encroaching on her country-house-cozy formula that was successful and more or less unchanged for decades. 3 stars

QBI by Ellery Queen
A 1955 collection of EQ’s short stories, titled Queen’s Bureau of Investigation. The only one I came close to solving was the first one and it was over before I realized I wasn’t reading a full-length novel. Very enjoyable quick read – and it fulfilled two of my reading challenges – the ‘Q’ title in A-Z Reading Challenge and the ‘1955’ in Read the First Years of your Life Challenge.
Read this if: you enjoy short mysteries such as those found in Ellery Queen or Alfred Hitchcock magazine; or want short, intelligent challenges. 3 stars

Mystery of the Cape Cod Tavern by Phoebe Atwood Taylor
This book, published in 1934 is only the second P.A. Taylor I’ve read (the other was the debut in the series). We meet a different middle-aged spinster narrator who stumbles into a murder and happens to have handyman Asey Mayo at hand. This is a closed room mystery in that the culprit has to be one of the Tavern’s (aka Inn) guests. Or does it? There are a lot of comings and goings and secret passages for a house under police observation. It’s that that weakens the enjoyability of this mystery. I can suspend my disbelief only so far.
Read this if: you’re a fan of this series, or of tart New England ways. 2½ stars

Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie
In the 1973 Postern of Fate, we find Tommy & Tuppence Beresford retired and having just bought a new-to-them old house. There is an old mystery (from WWII) connected with the house, but the point of the book (if there is one) seems to be to catalogue all the books that Christie read and loved as a child. The writing, quite uncharacteristic of Christie, sounds as if the author was a doddering old woman (well, she was 83) who was dictating a vague idea of a story. (But, where were her editors?!) The book meanders, repeats, meanders some more. It was maddening, and I finished it only because it fulfilled two of my more difficult reading challenges – Birth Year Reading Challenge, and Vintage Mysteries – Lethal Locations. (Who knew that the “Postern of Fate’ was a gate into Damascus?)
Read this if: you are a complete Christie freak and want to know all about her childhood reading, or must read all of her work. Otherwise – don’t read this. 1 star for the Christie connection

Links for my CANADIAN readers:
Firmin
Practical Jean
Heading Home
A Recipe for Bees
The Absolutist
The Dolls’ House
The Dog Who Knew Too Much
Elegy For Eddie
A Lesson in Secrets
Dead Man’s Folly
The Tragedy of Z
At Bertram’s Hotel
QBI
Mystery Of The Cape Cod Tavern
Postern Of Fate

KINDLE editions:
Firmin
Practical Jean
A Recipe for Bees
The Absolutist
The Dolls’ House
The Dog Who Knew Too Much
Elegy for Eddie:
A Lesson in Secrets
Dead Man’s Folly
At Bertram’s Hotel
Postern of Fate

AUDIOBOOKS:
The Absolutist
At Bertram’s Hotel: A BBC Full-Cast Radio Drama

Yes – I’m still behind, but I’m running to catch up before I take some time off later this month. (What have I been doing until now, you ask, if not taking time off? Well, I’ve been busy with non-bookish things – and reading, of course.)

It took me ten days to get through Jane Eyre, so my reading list for July is pretty slim, and since it’s been over two months since I read any of these, my comments are short, if not sweet.

419 by Will Ferguson
Even though this Giller Prize short-listed novel opens in western Canada, the story is international. For into what part of the globe have the email scams that originate in Nigeria not penetrated? Here’s my review. 4 stars

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Widely reviewed, and winner of the 2011 Booker prize, this is hailed as a “novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting(.) The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning new chapter in Julian Barnes’s oeuvre.”. I dunno – maybe I expected too much. I couldn’t warm to the protagonist, and his discoveries just didn’t shake me. 3½ stars

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Too bad I missed this classic in my early teens – I would have loved it then: the romance, the period detail, the discovery of words. Now I think, “Attempted bigamy & gross deceit, and too many words.” 3½ stars

The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesay
Modern retelling of Jane Eyre. Sure, the basic plot was determined for Livesay but I give her points for the Icelandic connection. And it didn’t take a week to read. If you like Jane Eyre, you’ll probably like this too. 3½ stars

An Unmarked Grave by Charles Todd

The latest in the Bess Crawford mystery series, which I enjoy rather much. Bess is a nurse in WWI France, in this book dealing with (and falling temporary victim to) the Spanish flu. The period details seem spot on and the mystery was tight – a much better read than the authors’ previous outing in this series. 3½ stars

Falling Into Green by Cher Fischer
An ‘eco-mystery’, read on my Kindle. (How appropriate!) You can read my review here. 3 stars

Amazon links for For Canadian readers:
419
The Sense of an Ending
Jane Eyre
The Flight Of Gemma Hardy
An Unmarked Grave
Falling Into Green

Kindle editions:
The Sense of an Ending
Jane Eyre
The Flight of Gemma Hardy
An Unmarked Grave
Falling Into Green

If you’ve been around the Internet any length of time, no doubt you’ve received one of those Nigerian “I’ve millions in government money that needs to be smuggled out” or “please help this young girl escape her enemies” emails. These scams are called 419s. “The name comes from the section in the Nigerian Criminal Code that deals with obtaining money or goods under false pretenses.” Hence, the title of Canadian writer Will Ferguson’s latest novel, which has been short-listed for Canada’s prestigious Giller prize

Divided into four sections (Snow, Sand, Fuel, Fire), 419 opens in wintry western Canada with the apparently accidental (or perhaps homicidal) death of Henry Curtis, retired father of two grown children. After police determine that her father deliberately drove his car over a cliff to his death, Laura Curtis resolves to find out what drove her father to suicide, and left her mother with no assets. When she discovers that he was the victim of a 419 crime, she becomes obsessed with finding the author of the emails.

Meanwhile, over in Nigeria, we follow the stories of Winston, the author of those emails; Nnamdi, a boy/man from a Delta village that thrived on fishing until Shell Oil took over their land and killed the fish & more; Amina, a young woman refugee from a desert tribe; and Ironsi-Egobia, a truly monstrous crime boss in Lagos. The five story lines meet and run parallel, intertwine with, and oppose each other until the book reaches the totally unexpected (at least by me) climax that is seared into my brain.

The plot development in 419 seemed a bit uneven to me, and when Amina’s tale began, I was bewildered. But the book was always easy to read and parts of the story will never leave me. It was perhaps coincidental that I was reading at the same time The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard, in which she explains the exploitation of third world people and natural resources by large corporations. Nnamdi’s village seemed to be an almost living example. Maybe 419 wouldn’t have affected me as strongly as it did if I hadn’t been reading Stuff. But I was, and it did.

So – memorable story, a clearer understanding of third world exploitation, new knowledge about 419 schemes and what drives some people to perpetrate them, and a tragic climax; but uneven character and plot development. I rate it a 3.5 stars for the writing and an extra half for the STORY.

Will it win the Giller Prize? I think not. (BUT – I was wrong – it did win the Giller!) Should you read it? Oh, yes, definitely. 4 stars

For American readers: 419

Sub-titled How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing Our Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health — and a Vision for Change

An expansion of the 20 minute Internet film of the same name, the book The Story of Stuff explores the five facets of the linear economic system in use in North American today: extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal. You might want to watch the video before reading on. I promise: it’s anything but dry.

The overall message of both book and video is that our current economic system is not sustainable—because it is linear, and because it trashes the planet and people at every step. And Leonard makes this point over and over again. Not that the book is repetitious. No, it is that one arrives at the same conclusion at every step of the process, when faced with the facts.

We all recognize that life in 1900 was a great deal different from the way it is now. In the first half of the twentieth century, productivity skyrocketed in ‘developed’ countries: the assembly line reduced the time required to create products and the rapidly diminishing cost of computing power allowed for greater and greater automation.

“With this huge increase in productivity, industrialized nations faced a choice: keep producing roughly the same amount of Stuff as before and work far less, or keep working the same number of hours as before, while continuing to produce as much as possible. As Juliet Schor explains in The Overworked American, after World War II, political and economic leaders—economists, business executives, and even labor union representatives—chose the latter: to keep churning out the “goods,”: keep working full-time, keep up the frenzied pace of an ever-expanding economy.”

In her introduction to her book, Leonard says: “The belief that infinite economic growth is the best strategy for making a better world has become like a secular religion in which all our politicians, economists, and media participate; it is seldom debated, since everyone is supposed to just accept it as true.”

Retailing analyst Victor Lebow, quoted in The Story of Stuff says: “our enormously productive economy…demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption…we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.”

Leonard says in her film that a staggering 99% of what we bring into our homes today will be disposed of within six months. And our economic model has made this consuming easy: encouraging us with, among other things, buy-now-pay-later, planned & perceived obsolescence, & advertising.

Consumption is the mindset articulated by the chairman of President Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisors in the 1950s. He stated, “The American economy’s ultimate purpose is to produce more consumer goods.”

Think about that for a minute. Wouldn’t it be better, as Leonard points out, if the ultimate purpose of the economy would be to provide quality of life for citizens: good education, health-care, clean air, required infrastructure? As Leonard says: “Accepting and living by sufficiency rather than by excess offers a return to what is, culturally speaking, the human home: to the ancient order of family, community, good work, and a good life; (…) to a daily cadence slow enough to let us watch the sunset and stroll by the water’s edge; to communities worth spending a lifetime in(.)”

Leonard’s scenario is appealing – and many of us have reached a point in our lives where we are ‘simplifying’, often by getting rid of Stuff. “In today’s world, especially in the United States, we throw a ton of Stuff away. Out it goes—when we don’t know how to repair it, when we want to make room for new Stuff, or because we’re sick of the old Stuff. Sometimes we throw something out thinking it will be easier to replace later than to store it until we need it again. Sometimes we even consider throwing things away a cathartic activity and congratulate ourselves on a productive day of getting Stuff out of the house.”
Guilty as charged. It appears that simply getting rid of stuff is not the answer.

In the same quick, easy to understand and engaging manner that her film is presented, Leonard examines each step of the linear economic process in detail, providing greater particulars and statistics. Despite the details, the book is very readable (with the exception of the “production” step where the author almost lost me with the lists of toxic chemicals that are inserted into our stuff – the manufacturers’ fault, not the author’s). I liked this book so much that I bought a copy to loan to my friends, and to have on hand to refresh facts in my mind.

Since reading this at the beginning of the summer, I have been extremely conscious of what comes into my house – and even more so of what goes out. We’ve reduced our garbage to about half a bag per week. I have been diligent about finding homes for books, clothing and other items that I would have previously just tossed into the trash. (We’ve discovered that hard cover books are not accepted for recycling here in Nova Scotia but must be set out for ‘garbage’ (read ‘landfill’). We’ve solved this problem by removing all the hard covers and burning them, recycling the now “soft-cover” books.)

And I have talked about this book to whomever will listen.

But not everyone is happy with message of The Story of Stuff. Leonard has been accused of being anti-American, ant-capitalist, and unpatriotic. The American Family Association has condemned the video saying that it “implies Americans are greedy, selfish, cruel to the third world, and ‘use more than our share.’”

On the other side, the Story of Stuff project has been cited as a “successful portrayal of the problems with the consumption cycle”, and hailed as a ”model of clarity and motivation.”

If nothing else, The Story of Stuff has stirred up a great deal of controversy. 5 big stars

I urge you to read this book and talk about it to your family and friends. Do you agree with it or disagree? Is your “back up”? Is what the book promotes even feasible? Would you be willing to adjust to a lower standard of living (one that met all of your needs)? Tell me what you think.

P.S. And, yes, Leonard recognizes that books are a special case. “Books occupy an odd space in my relationship to Stuff: while I feel uncomfortable buying new clothes or electronics, I don’t hesitate to pick up the latest recommended title. I asked my friends about it and found I’m not alone in feeling like books are somehow exempt from the negative connotations of too much Stuff.” You probably feel the same way.

For Canadian readers: The Story of Stuff