Linda Spalding has won this year’s Canada’s Governor-General’s Award for English language fiction for her novel, The Purchase
Here’s the Globe & Mail’s story, citing winners for non-fiction, children’s fiction – writing and illustration, poetry, drama, and translation – for both the English language and French language categories.
October found me busy on a “workcation” and doing a thorough housecleaning in preparation for company. I ‘m still concentrating on books that will help me complete Reading Challenges, so there’s an eclectic line-up here. If you have reviews of any of these books that you’d like me to link to, please let me know.
This month-end summary catches me up until the end of November. Whew!
THE DIVINE RYANS
This won the first Thomas Head Raddell Award for the best Atlantic Canadian adult fiction in 1991. Set in St. John’s Newfoundland during the 1966-’67 hockey season, it centres on Draper Doyle Ryan, age 9, and the extended family in his home. They are known throughout St. John’s as the Divine Ryans because there were so many priests and nuns in the family. Our last family reunion, Uncle Reginald said, was known to the rest of the world as Vatican II.
His father died recently and Draper Doyle is seeing his ‘ghost’. Not to fear: the ghost is not the least bit supernatural, but rather psychological. Draper Doyle has “lost” a week of his life around his father’s death and funeral, and over this winter, in long talks with his Uncle Reginald, he (& we) discover the truth of what happened that week.
The Divine Ryans is a warm, funny and moving book about a boy’s coming to terms with his father’s death, and with his place in his family. I highly recommend it.
Read this if: just read it. 5 stars
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HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY
The novel is set in Wales in the 1880s and 1890s, during the reign of Queen Victoria and tells the story of the Morgans, a respectable mining family, through the eyes of the youngest son, Huw.
His five brothers and his father are miners but Huw’s academic ability sets him apart from his elder brothers and enables him to consider a future away from this troubled industrial environment.
Oh, what a beautiful book! The countryside, the language, the characters. There is much tragedy, but there is much joy as well. The only complaint I have is the truncated ending- very unsatisfying, and keeps it from earning a perfect 5.
Right, you – read this one too. 4½ stars
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TWENTY-SIX 
On May 9, 1992, a methane explosion ripped through the Westray coal mine in Stellarton Nova Scotia, resulting in the death of all twenty-six men underground at the time.
Twenty-Six by Leo McKay Jr. Is closely based on that event, imagining the lives of the fictitious Burrows family, affected by that disaster: a troubled collection of violent, alcoholic, and underemployed working-class men, and the women who put up with them.
Renamed Eastlake & set a few years earlier than actual, the mine and the explosion are major components of the book, forming the background of the plot. But the story is about people: father Ennis, desperately wanting to connect with his sons, and messing up every interaction with them. Elder son Arvel is having marriage problems; younger son Ziv despairs of having a future in his home, Nova Scotia.
The reality of employment prospects and life in rural Nova Scotia is deftly portrayed.
This has been on my reading list for some time so when my local librarian suggested that I read it for One Book Nova Scotia; I readily put my name on the reserve list. I’m glad I did – and now I’m investigating their suggested list of ‘Read-a-likes’.
Read this if: you’re interested in what it’s like to live with limited education and prospects in rural/small-town Atlantic Canada; or you’d like an introduction to the WestRay mine disaster. 4 stars
I also recommend you watch the 80 minute NFB film Westray, which focuses on the aftermath and the official inquiry. As in life, so in the novel: “No matter what the inquiry finds in their hearings, no matter whether a criminal trial takes place, and no matter the outcome if one does. His son is dead. Nothing is going to make his death right. Nothing can justify it, explain it, nothing can make it hurt less. His son is dead.”
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MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN
Double winner in 1981 of the Man Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Midnight’s Children begins with the birth of the protagonist Saleem Sinai at midnight Aug 15th 1947 – when the country of India, as partitioned from Pakistan, was also “born”.
Rushdie’s entire story is based on magical realism: Saleem discovers that he has supernatural mental powers that allow him to converse with all of the other children born in that hour, and that they too have ‘gifts’ of varying degrees.
Now that Saleem is dying, he is relating his story to his companion Padma. That story follows closely the course of history in Modern India, and involves also the illegitimate son of the former British estate owner, who was born at the exact moment Saleem was.
I’m not a fan of magical realism but sometimes can enjoy it. Not this time. Rushdie embroidered the telling too much for me – going off on tangents and asides until Padma (and I) were saying: You’re talking funny again. Are you going to tell (the story) or not?
Add to that that to really ‘get’ this book, you need a familiarity with the political players and events of the time that I don’t possess. I found the story was presented in such a way that it was difficult to learn.
Read this if: you have studied the modern history of India and would like a fanciful account of its birth and early years. 3½ stars
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THE CANADIAN FOOD GUIDE
I don’t think I’ve ever come across such an inaptly named book. Remember that “Canada’s Food Guide” with the “four basic food groups” that we studied in elementary school? Doesn’t this sound like that? Well, it’s not like that.
This slim volume is more a history of eating in Canada from the pioneer settlers until 1966 when this book was published. I found most interesting the comments on attitudes toward dining in the 1920s through the 1950s and the ‘modern’ take of forty years ago. Tastes and trends in food are always changing, especially in ‘immigrant countries’ such as Canada and the USA, and as a time capsule of the late 1960s, early 1970s, this is superb because it contains not only recipes but commentary. The recipes (which are not the bulk of the book) include such “old-time Canadian standbys” as butter tarts, lemon snow and apple crisp. Yum.
Read this if: you’re Canadian and you’re into cooking; you’re a history buff and would like to add an additional social perspective to your knowledge; or you’re looking for some “old-time” Canadian recipes. 3 stars
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THE MUSEUM OF DR. MOSES
This is only the second Oates I’ve read, the first being the more-or-less conventional We Were the Mulvaneys 
I found “Suicide Watch” to be the most memorable: told from the point of view of a businessman who has been called to visit his son in prison(?)/ psychiatric hospital(?) The businessman’s grandson & the child’s mother are missing, and the son isn’t talking. When he does open up to his father, he tells a chilling tale of mailing the boy’s body to his father – and then proclaims it all a test to see if his father would believe such a thing of him.
I’m checking my mail every day for parcels.
Read this if: you like short stories that can make your spine tingle; or you’re a Joyce Carol Oates fan. 3 stars
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A FISTFUL OF COLLARS
The fifth and latest entry in the wonderful Chet & Bernie series, featuring the PI team of Bernie Little and his canine partner Chet, who narrates the stories.
In this mystery, Chet & Bernie are hired to ‘babysit’ a well-known film star, known to go astray, while he is in town shooting a new movie. Nothing is ever as straight-forward as it seems, though, and the boys are soon digging up secrets from the past. For more plot details, see Shelleyrae’s full review at Book’d Out.
I love this series. You might think that a mystery narrated by a dog is too cutesie, but Quinn saves them from that with Chet’s professional attitude and zest for life. As he says: I started to cheer up, partly because Bernie told me to and partly because, well, how long can you stay down in the dumps?
Read this if: you enjoy a solid mystery that’s not overly cozy but still clean; you’re a dog-lover & a mystery fan; or you’re reading the series and want the latest installment of SoCal’s smartest PI team. 4 stars
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MOON OVER MANIFEST
This 2010 winner of the Newbery Medal is the heart-warming story of Abilene Tucker who is spending the summer of 1936 in Manifest Kansas learning from Miss Sadie (the Diviner) about Manifest in 1918.
(Note: Miss Sadie has no supernatural powers – just memories and a deep insight into people.)
Vanderpoole kept me on the edge of my chair waiting for the next 1918 installment in the alternating story. I had as much fun as Abilene matching up the people then with those in ‘current-day’ 1936.
There’s a good deal of sadness in the tale, but things do work out for Abilene in the end.
Although YA is not my preferred genre, I found this book enchanting – and would have loved it as a pre-teen. It should become a childhood classic. Recommended.
Read this if: you enjoy stories about small towns and how their histories are made; or you’re 11 years old and want to read a story you’ll remember for years. 4 stars
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JULIE OF THE WOLVES 
This unusual story of a 13-year-old Eskimo girl who survives in the Canadian Artic by ‘joining’ a wolf pack won the 1973 Newbery Medal. Julie of the Wolves is set in Alaska in what seems to be the early 1970s. Miyax/Julie (they all had two names, Eskimo and English) leaves an arranged marriage and sets out with some food to walk to her pen pal’s house in San Francisco. On the way, she learns self-reliance through the traditional ways, and finds her father.
Although it’s complimentary to the traditional Eskimos and their way of life: The people at seal camp had not been as outdated and old-fashioned as she had been led to believe. No, on the contrary, they had been wise. They had adjusted to nature instead of to man-made gadgets, and obliquely critical of the effect of the ‘gussaks’ on the Eskimo culture and society, there still seemed to me to be a bit of colonialism in the author’s presentation of Julie. Perhaps it’s only that the perspective is 40 years old.
Read this if: you’re interested in a period look at traditional Eskimo culture; or you’ve read Farley Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf
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KILMENY OF THE ORCHARD
This is the story of a substitute teacher at a rural school in Prince Edward Island who meets and falls in love with a mute girl. Other than her dumbness, Kilmeny is perfection itself, unbelievably beautiful (even the hands that help her aunt with 1910 rural housework), incredibly musically talented, and intelligent.
GAH! Beauty makes one desirable, Europeans are lower-class, happy, happy, happy endings are guaranteed. Gag me.
1 star for the descriptions of PEI because as the author says: Prince Edward Island in the month of June is such a thing as you don’t often see except in happy dreams. I might add that June in Nova Scotia plays out much the same.
Read this if: you like sappy romances and are willing to suspend disbelief for both characters and plot; or you feel you must read everything by Lucy Maud Montgomery. (I chose this simply because the title filled the “K” requirement – amazingly difficult to come by – for my A-Z Double Whammy Reading Challenge.)
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THE EYRE AFFAIR
This is the second time I’ve attempted to read Fforde’s Thursday Next’s series. The first in the run The Eyre Affair seemed a perfect fit for me right now since I’d read Jane Eyre earlier this year. But I just don’t get it.
I know lots of people love these books. Do you have any advice for me?
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BOOK DEPOSITORY has free world-wide delivery:
OR: Pick up some bargains at
OR
Amazon links for CANADIAN readers:
The Divine Ryans
How Green Was My Valley
Twenty-Six
Midnight’s Children
Pierre & Janet Berton’s Canadian Food Guide
The Museum of Dr. Moses
A Fistful of Collars
Moon Over Manifest
Julie Of The Wolves
Kilmeny Of The Orchard
KINDLE editions:
Midnight’s Children
A Fistful of Collars (Chet and Bernie Mystery)
Moon Over Manifest
Julie of the Wolves
Kilmeny of the Orchard
I don’t remember much about September but maybe that’s because I had my head stuck in books. In addition to reading Stephen King’s latest (which tallies in at 849 pages) I read ten other books, all but one of which bring me closer to achieving completion of the 63 Reading Challenges I’m participating in this year. I have just one more month of reading to summarize and I’m caught up.
Enjoy this month’s extra links!
LITTLE WOMEN
This classic story of one year in the lives of the March sisters of New England during the American Civil War justly holds its place of honour in American literary tradition. 
This is really a Young Adult novel and I’m sure that each young (or older!) reader identifies with one of the sisters: the eldest, Meg who is maturing into a young women preparing for marriage; Jo, the impetuous tomboy & alter ego of the author; home-loving and painfully shy Beth; and the creative & somewhat spoiled baby, Amy; and events in the book involve all sisters in turn. Each chapter of Little Women contains a gentle moral, espousing a value such as honesty, industry or thriftiness with time and money.
I found this much easier to read than other 19th century novels, perhaps because it was targeting a young audience. My edition had several charming illustrated plates by Jessie Wilcox smith.
Read this if: you’d like to have a glimpse of the home-front during the American Civil War; you love a story that teaches old-fashioned morals; or you enjoy gentle old-fashioned adventures. 5 stars
Suggested reading companion to Little Women: March
IN COLD BLOOD
In November 1959, two young ex-convicts robbed and murdered the Clutter family of four in Holcomb Kansas. A 300-word article in the New York Times about the crime interested the young Truman Capote enough for him to travel to Kansas to investigate the murders. Capote talked to locals, family, and police, ultimately compiling 8,000 pages of notes. After the criminals were found, tried, and convicted, Capote conducted personal interviews with both Smith and Hickock. It’s these that add the psychological interest to the book, which is written as narrative non-fiction.
In comparison to modern real-live crime books, In Cold Blood which keeps the gore to a minimum and focuses more on the criminals’ minds, may not be as compelling to some as I found it. But it chilled me to the bone, and contains what I think is the most unnerving line I’ve read in non-fiction, as the killer tells Capote: “I didn’t want to harm the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoke. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat.”
Read this if: you’re a fan of crime fiction; if you’re interested in how humans can sink without apparent reason to base behaviour; or you’d like to see how Capote wrote non-fiction. 4½ stars
THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ
This is one of those classics of Canadian literature that I’d been meaning to read since high school 40 years ago, and was always embarrassed to tell anyone that I had not.
Apprenticeship, published in 1959, is set in Montreal and in the Jewish summer resorts of the Laurentian Mountains. We follow Duddy Kravitz as a boy that, if you are a certain age, you might describe as a two-bit punk: he fought, stole from Kresge’s department store and split streetcar tickets so they could be used twice. 
But Duddy wants to “make” it so, in his teens and twenties, following his grandfather’s advice that “a man without land is nothing”, he wheedles and hustles his way through scheme after scheme to purchase land for development. Along the way, he finds out just what morals he will compromise for his dream.
I’ve come to this CanLit icon late in life: this is only my second Richler, but along with Barney’s Version
Read this if: you are interested in how other people achieve their dreams; you want to know about the Jewish experience in Montreal, Canada in the 1940s and ’50s; or you want an introduction to Mordecai Richler. 4 stars
CROW LAKE
This book won the Amazon.ca (formerly Books in Canada) First Novel Award for its author in 2002. Set in the near north of Ontario, Crow Lake tells the story of four siblings who lose both parents in a tragic accident one summer day, and their struggle to stay together and to fulfill their parents’ dream of them attending university. This sounds like a women’s novel, but it isn’t. And it isn’t the least bit a horror novel as the cover might suggest. My favourite quote: Memories. I’m not in favour of them, by and large. Not that there aren’t some good ones, but on the whole I’d like to put them in an airtight cupboard and close the door.
Doesn’t that make you want to find out why?
Read this if: if you enjoy family dramas or stories about the constrictions of unspoken class systems; or simply if you have siblings. 4 stars
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY
This classic, dug out of basement storage in our central library at my request, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1928. The copy I read was actually printed then, so was quite fragile.
The setting of this book is Lima Peru 250 years ago. One fateful day a bridge made of willows which for ages has spanned a deep gorge near the city, breaks, and five people plunge to their deaths. Brother Juniper, a monk, witnesses the accident and determines to trace the life stories of the five to prove his belief that each of them in some way deserved this fate, and that such a catastrophe was God’s will.
Thankfully, I found that Brother Juniper’s purpose in researching the characters paled to the characters themselves and their intersecting lives. Not only a study of Peruvian society of the 18th century, but also an unmasking of societal attitudes of the 1920s.
As an aside: A new biography, Thornton Wilder: A Life
Read this if: you love to see how lives intersect & the part circumstance plays in one’s destiny; or if you’re looking for a fairly short & not difficult-to-read classic to complete a reading challenge. 3½ stars
TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY in Search of America
In the fall of 1960, John Steinbeck set out with a well-stocked camper truck and his standard bred poodle named Charley, to travel across America. His route took him from New York up to Maine from where he turned east, eventually crossing the prairies to visit the California of his boyhood before heading back east and catching Texas on the way.
Travels with Charley is a fascinating look at the America of half a century ago and of Steinbeck’s perceptions and assimilations of it. Steinbeck himself admits these may not mirror any other person’s when he says: I cannot commend this as an account as an America that you will find [in 1960]. So much there is to see, but our morning eyes describe a different world than do our afternoon eyes(.)
At the beginning of the trip (and the book), the author gives the reader lots of personal details both about his adventure, the places he sees, and the people he meets. But as the book progresses, the story is recounted in greater generalities, and he drives hundreds of miles without talking to anyone.
This is understandable since as he says: This journey has been like a full dinner of many courses, set before a starving man. At first, he tries to eat all of everything, but as the meal progresses he finds he must forgo some things to keep his appetite and his taste buds functioning.
Steinbeck made the observation that When we get these [inter-state] thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing. We should all be glad he captured some of life as it was before that happened.
Read this if: you’d like a taste of a simpler country; you’d like to discover a time-capsule of society in mid-twentieth century America; or you’re a Steinbeck fan and would like to get to know the author a bit better. 3½ stars
11/22/63
When I was in high school, I read Stephen King’s Carrie
But reassured by recent reviews & synopses that 11/22/63 is not a horror tale but, indeed, is one of my favourite genres–time travel–I tackled this chunkster.
As everyone must know by now, the story concerns a time ‘hole’ from the present back to 1958 Maine. The dying owner of the diner where the warp is located exacts a promise from our protagonist, Jake, to ‘go back’ and prevent Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating John F. Kennedy in November 1963. Does Jake succeed in his mission? I’ll leave it to you to find out.
Stephen King has described his own work as the “Big Mac and fries” of literature. There are so many applications of that metaphor : mass marketed, branded, appealing to the eye, easy to go down, only moderately nutritious, and certainly not something of which one should make a steady diet. But as a treat – this beats James Patterson, for sure.
Read this if: you’re a fan of Time and Again
THE ILLUSTRATED MAN
I remember reading this in my teens and thinking it phenomenal, but my tastes have changed and I found it a little disappointing this time through.
The illustrated man of the title is covered in tattoos that come to life at night and reveal the stories herein. But the illustrated man is just a device to string together a collection of Bradbury’s (mostly) previously published short stories. Most of the stories are set on Mars or other space venues, or are in the future (including two ‘end of the world’ stories.)
The tales vary in quality and interest to me. The first one The Veldt is the one I particularly remembered from my first reading and is, in my opinion, the best of the bunch. It’s set in (what seems to be) the future, where a children’s playroom has interactive walls that provide atmospheric backdrop to their ‘play’. The Long Rain, the only story in this collection set on Venus, is also memorable from this reading, but the others all run together for me. It’s classic science-fiction, but it’s just not my genre.
Read this if: you’re a fan of short stories set in space; you’re a sci-fi fan who wants to cover the classics of the genre; or to celebrate Red Planet Day on November 29th. 3 stars
A JEST OF GOD
Another classic of Canadian literature and a huge disappointment for me as a fan of Margaret Laurence whose Stone Angel is one of my favourite books.
A Jest of God follows Rachel Cameron, a 34-year-old spinster school teacher in the small prairie town of Manawaka. Because it’s told in the first person from Rachel’s view, we are privy to Rachel’s thoughts. For most of the book there is a wide discrepancy between what Rachel is in her visible public life, how she deals with and appears to others, and what she really thinks and feels. Rachel’s life is dull – she lives with her mother and has no real friends. Then she meets an old high school classmate, visiting for the summer from the city, and begins an affair. That yields one of Laurence’s wonderful lines: “Some poisons have sweetness at the first taste, but they are willing to kill you just the same.”
Despite Laurence’s writing, I really had a hard time with this book. I didn’t like Rachel at all and wanted to slap her silly: she hated being misunderstood but never said what she thought. She mistook a physical affair based on lust for love, and became obsessed with Nick.
Read this if: you’ve seen the movie Rachel, Rachel and want to read the book upon which it was based; or you’re reading the entire Laurence canon, as I am. 3 stars
YELLOWTHREAD STREET
“If you’re a tourist in bustling Hong Kong, don’t venture into the seedy dancehall district of Hong Bay. Detective Chief Inspector Harry Feiffer and the cops of Yellowthread Street Station can tell you why.”
Published in 1975 when Hong Kong was still British-owned and (evidently) British-policed, this first in the series introduces us to the station staff and a few of the area streets, and not much else. There is very little plot, rather just the meandering day by day occurrences and interactions of policing in the largely Chinese district. There are 16 books in this series, so someone likes it enough to follow up. For its glimpse of Hong Kong in an easily readable format, 2½ stars
Read this if: you’re interested in a laid-back look at policing in British-held Hong Kong; or you need a book with the color ‘yellow’ in the title for a Colour Reading Challenge, and a ‘Y’ book in an A-Z reading challenge. (BAM.)
THE MINOTAUR TAKES A CIGARETTE BREAK
I picked this up for $2 on a sale table at Chapters but for the life of me, I don’t know why. Yes, it’s that Minotaur—the head of a bull on the body of a man—now living and working in small town America as a chef. I’ll give the author a couple of points for imagining the day to day difficulties of fitting into modern society, but I couldn’t discern a plot to the book. Others might feel differently – this book ranks surprisingly high on Amazon’s charts.
Read this if: you’re a real fan of Greek mythology and love new takes on old themes. 2 stars
BOOK DEPOSITORY has free world-wide delivery:
OR: Pick up some bargains at
OR
Amazon links for CANADIAN readers:
Little Women
March
In Cold Blood
Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
Barney’s Version
Crow Lake
The Bridge Of San Luis Rey
Travels with Charley in Search of America
11/22/63
The Illustrated Man
A Jest of God
Yellowthread Street
The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break
KINDLE EDITIONS:
The Complete Little Women Series: Little Women, Good Wives, Little Men, Jo’s Boys (4 books in one) .99¢
In Cold Blood
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
Crow Lake
Travels with Charley in Search of America
11/22/63
