The end of an era
George Whitman died at the grand old age of 98 this week in Paris. He was the owner of one of the most famous English bookstore in the world. Situated on the left bank of the Seine River, Shakespeare and Company was home to many a wandering bibliophile for more than half a century. Whitman allowed would-be writers and travellers in need of a bed to crash in the store in exchange for some help around the shop. One such person was Jeremy Mercer from Ottawa who ended up writing a really great book based on his “adventures” in Shakespeare and Company. The book is called When Time was Soft There and it’s a great and timely read.
I can’t resist wandering into every bookstore I see. It drives my friends crazy. And I love it when I discover a new Canadian author, which sometimes happens when you just wander up and down the isles. Erasing Memory is Scott Thornley’s first book. He’s well known in the design industry. He designed the Gemini Award for the Academy of Canadian Television, as well as the logos for Mary Poppins and The Little Mermaid. He’s obviously very creative, and his creativity has translated really well into his first mystery novel. Set in the southern Ontario industrial city of Dundurn (hmmm… it sure smells like Hamilton to me) senior police detective MacNeice (Mac to his buddies in the force) and his team are called to the discovery of a murdered young woman. Lydia Petrescu’s body is found in a summer cottage, dressed in an evening dress, with the Schubert Piano Trio playing in the background. Right away he is reminded of his wife’s recent death… they both had the mark that distinguishes dedicated violinists – that telltale bruise under the chin. Lydia was very talented, and had just graduated from the Conservatory. The appalling, gruesome circumstances of her murder lead the team to uncover her family’s connection to longstanding grievances in Eastern Europe, and MacNeice and his team set out to discover who killed Lydia and why. All the characters are well written and interesting, but as hard as I tried I could not remember MacNeice’s first name, and I couldn’t find it when I flipped through the book afterwards. Maybe he doesn’t have one – yet. I’m hoping there will be many books in this series.* This first book is great start to a new career path for someone who is obviously very talented.
Wow, Wow, Wow!! What an amazing woman and what an amazing story. I can pat myself on the back for finding this book all by my lonesome. What made me choose it? A comment from a reader on the web said “In 5 years of our book club… this was only the 2nd book that was unanimously loved by our whole group.” The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor is written by Sally Armstrong. You probably recognized her name from Homemaker’s Magazine. More recently, she’s an author and human right’s activist, reporting from Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and Afghanistan. Her great, great, great grandmother, Charlotte Taylor, was one of the very first women to settle in what is now New Brunswick. As a young girl she fled from England to Jamaica with her family’s black butler, causing such a rift in the family that she never heard from any of them again. When Pad, her lover, dies she’s alone in this far off land with no prospects of a decent life anywhere near what she left behind in England. Through the grace of Commodore George Walker she ends up on a ship bound for the east coast of Canada where she’s told she can soon catch another ship back to her family in Britain. But she never sets foot on that ship. How can she, she’s pregnant with a black servant’s baby. From the moment she sets foot on Canadian soil, her life story becomes mingled with the history of New Brunswick. She lives among the Mi’Kmaq for awhile, marries 4 times (all husbands die tragic deaths) and manages to raise 10 children. It is a totally engrossing story that at times made me think that all generations of women since are slightly wimpier than the last. I just can’t imagine the hardship, loss, vulnerability, and back-breaking work that she was forced to endure. This is a riveting book. It’s found in the fiction section of the bookstore, but based on fact. Armstrong did a huge amount of research into her family tree to pull it all together, and she does it really well. She’s a wonderful writer. I can see why any book club would unanimously agree that it is one of their favourites.
Thanks to Leslie at my favourite local bookstore for recommending this book. She was bang-on – I really liked it. The Villa Triste by Lucretia Grindle (published by McArthur & Company) is divided into two parts, one takes place in the past ( during the war in Italy in 1943) and the other in present day Italy. It’s like reading two books in one. Usually I don’t like books that flip back and forth in time, but this one is so clever – the past is written in a different typeface than the present so you automatically know where you are in time when you see the print. Smart, and helpful. Which is what you need when you’re reading a book that is 562 pages long. During the war sisters Isabella and Caterina Cammaccio become part of the Partisan movement in Italy helping people escape the Nazis. They become very skilled at their efforts, Caterina is a nurse and is able to move about a little more freely than most people and Isabella uses her love of hiking and knowledge of the outdoors to the movement’s advantage. Fast forward to the present day and 3 members of the Partisan movement are killed, one by one, and Alessandro Pallioti, a senior police officer in Florence soon realizes that their deaths must have something to do with their involvement in the Partisan organization during the war. It’s the only thing the 3 have in common. He sets out to find as much as he can about the past and how it could be connected to the present. At one point in the book, about 2/3 along I though it began to drag a bit (remember it’s 562 pages), but by then I was so intrigued and hooked on knowing what was going to happen, I kept going. And I’m glad I did because the story picked up, and definitely didn’t disappoint in the end. My only criticism was that many people had aliases during the war, and I got a bit confused with who was really who, especially with all the Italian names, but that didn’t matter. This is really a wonderful book. I’d never heard of Lucretia Grindle before, but I’m desparate to read her other book called The Faces of Angels - it was chosen by BBC’s Front Row as one of the six best thrillers of the year.
Take note… Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (published by Vintage) is one of the best books I’ve read all year, and I’ve read some amazing books. It’s the story of Shiva and Marion Stone, twins whose parents are an Indian nun, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, and British surgeon Thomas Stone. Their mother dies in childbirth and their father flees the country leaving Shiva and Marion to be adopted by Hema, the gynecologist who delivered them, and Ghosh, a surgeon in residence at Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (It’s really Mission Hospital, but how it ends up being called Missing Hospital is a story all on it’s own.) The book spans decades (46 years and 4 months), and takes the reader from Addis Ababa to New York and back again. Quite naturally I guess, the twins have a shared fascination with medicine and this is one of the themes of the book. It’s also about love and hate, belonging and longing, history and revolution. It is a grand book, and Verghese has pulled it off magnificantly. There are so many interesting characters and sub-stories to this book that I can’t even begin to write about them. His description of how the meskel flowers turn the hillsides into gold on page 1, and how “It was Matron’s intent that Missing resemble an arboretum, or a corner of Kensington Gardens, or Eden before the Fall.” set the stage for the reader’s imagination to fall victim to the well crafted, very intriguing, really well written 667 pages to follow. Verghese is himself a doctor so the medical facts are intricate and really fascinating, and I can only imagine the research and amount of info on Ethiopia he had to sift through to cull everything into this really, really well written story that will stay with you long after you’ve read it. Now, the hard part is finding something to read after this. ***** for this book!
I love it when I discover a gem of a book all on my own that I’ve never heard of before. It confirms that my book radar is still working. I picked up a copy of Sisters of the Sari by Brenda L. Baker (published by Penguin) to take on holiday, and once I started I couldn’t put it down. Kiria Langdon, the CEO of a major company, arrives in Chennai, India on holiday and discovers that her luggage somehow made its way to Beijing. Her reaction… “Well, this sucks”. Right off the bat I knew this was going to be a good book. When you’re left with no clothes, other than the totally inappropriate ones you’re wearing, the first thing you want to do is go shopping. Circumstances go wrong from the get-go, Kiria is robbed, and left standing on the street, with no way to get back to her hotel. She’s rescued by Santoshi… a short woman in a frayed green sari with a skeletal body and no teeth who looks about 60. She takes control of the situation, escorts Kiria back to her hotel on the bus (which she pays for) and then takes her leave. Kiria is determined to pay this woman back. And that’s how the story starts, all in the first few pages. When Kiria sees that Santoshi lives in a shelter for women, she becomes obsessed with the idea of building decent housing for the poor, working women in India. Reluctantly Santoshi agrees to help Kiria, and the New Beginnings Women’s Hostel slowly emerges. There’s a host of other interesting characters, situations, and descriptions that all make this a really wonderful read. Lots of humour too. As you can imagine, nothing goes according to plan. Each woman ends up on a personal journey of discovery, Kiria through Indian culture, and Santoshi when she realizes there’s a world outside the shelter. In “real life” Brenda worked in the computer field, then moved to India, where she volunteered by writing funding proposals and teaching English to women in shelters, and now she’s back living in Ontario. She’s walked the walk, and now she’s talking the talk. Her book is a definite must. Read it before the summer is over – you won’t be disappointed.
The End of The Wasp Season (published by McArthur & Company) is the first book I’ve read by Denise Mina but it won’t be my last. I’ve been meaning to try one of her books for ages, and when I saw the title I thought the timing was perfect. It’s a great mystery, set in Scotland, with DS Alex Morrow, who is heavily pregnant with twins, leading the investigation into the murder of Sarah Erroll. Sarah, recently returned from New York, and is found bludgeoned to death at the bottom of a staircase in her mother’s home. With her mother having recently died of alzheimers, it means a host of ”carers” (a word I hadn’t heard before) have been trouping in and out of the house for ages, providing ample suspects for Alex & her gang of officers to investigate. Add to this the suicide of millionaire banker Lars Anderson, which may or may not be linked to Sarah’s death, and you’ve got a multi-level mystery, full of intrigue, that never lets you down. Her characters are well written, and the internal troubles at police headquarters certainly add background to the tension already in the air. Ditto Alex’s personal life. My only complaint is that her description of the victim was a bit too graphic, but I just ploughed through and kept going. It’s a really good book, right to the very last page. And of course, with a title like this, it’s the perfect summer read. Check it out.
Finally!! I’ve got something new to recommend. I’ve been going through a very dry spell this past month or so. Nothing I’ve read was worth mentioning, and some of the books I never even finished. But Tampered by Ross Pennie (published by ECW Press) is just what the doctor ordered (that’s an “in joke” people – Pennie is a doctor). I loved his first book, Tainted, so when I discovered he had a new one I rushed right out and got it… but I didn’t want to read it right away – yes, I’m weird like this. I just wanted it there – waiting, something to really look forward to during the short, hot summer. Then… It got hot, and I just couldn’t wait any longer. So… The characters and the setting are the same as in his first book - Dr. Zol Szabo, Hamish Wakefield, Caledonia Medical Centre, and even the city of Hamilton (which I love - for personal reasons), they’re all back. This time there’s trouble brewing at Camelot Lodge, a facility for seniors where the octogenarians are falling like bowling pins from a bout of what looks like listeria. Combine that with some C Difficile and Dr. Zol and Hamish are up to their eyeballs in trouble, trying to discover where the nasties are coming from. Add to this cocktail questionable medication that some senior’s are taking and you’ve got a giant problem that needs to be solved pronto before anyone else dies. This book is so current – C Diff is in the news right now in Southern Ontario, and last year there was this epidemic of listeria that made everyone shun deli meats for months. Don’t be put off by the fact that this is a medical mystery, it’s not a blood & guts book (way less so than a Kathy Reichs’ books), just really great writing with a medical theme. It’s a fantastic read, full of info that certainly made me wonder about the medical system, and now I’m sorry I’m finished. Check it out – Pennie is one author who deserves way more attention than he gets.