Nora Ephron is who I call the “author of the month”. We all know she’s a fantastic screen writer, but she’s also an author who’s book I Feel Bad About My Neck is well worth reading. It’s not new. I read it a few years ago. It’s a small book and I completely devoured it on a train between Toronto and Ottawa. It’s thought provoking, funny as hell, and you will recommend it to everyone after you’re finished. Guaranteed. It becomes like a chain letter, on and on the recommendation goes. The reason I’m telling you to read it now is that she has a new book out called I Remember Nothing and this book is the reason that it’s everything Nora Ephron right now. It’s on my winter reading list and I only hope I can hold on long enough to enjoy it when the snow flies and the temp falls. It will require real effort on my part. But I think you should read I Feel Bad About My Neck first. She wrote this book when she was 62 I think, and time has passed and she’s now 69. Read them in chronological order to get a real feel for the woman and her take on aging. We need more women like her who are willing to tell it like it is. Cheers Nora!!

This is a really powerful book. My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor (published by Penguin Books) is an amazing story. Jill Taylor wakes one morning in 1996 and discovers that she’s having a stroke. She’s 37 years old and is a Harvard trained brain scientist. Within hours she couldn’t walk, talk, read, write or remember any of her life. This is her story. The amazing part is that she fully recovers (but it takes many painful years), and she says the stroke was a blessing and a revelation to her. Not many people would think this, but she tells how she discovered feelings of well-being that she never experienced before. There is a very interesting chapter called “Finding Your Deep Inner Peace”… it well worth studying. She underwent brain surgery, and had to relearn everything. I can’t begin to tell you the obstacles this woman faced… talk about courage and determination! This is also a great book to read if you know someone who has had a stroke. She lists 40 things she needed the most after she had the stroke that everyone should pay attention to, such as “come close, speak slowly, and enunciate clearly”. The book isn’t large (under 200 pages) and it certainly is well worth reading.

This book is amazing.   C’mon Papa: Dispatches from a Dad in the Dark by Ryan Knighton (published by Random House) is a really fascinating read. Knighton discovered at age 18 that he suffered from a condition called retinitis pigmentosa. This meant that slowly, very slowly, he would go blind. This book is about him and his newborn daughter Tess. How he coped, or didn’t, and how he learned to bond with his daughter without being able to see her. In otherwords, how he learned to be a Dad. There was a huge amount of trial and error, and a huge dose of creativity too. Imagine trying to put a diaper on a baby when you don’t know what’s where and most importantly, what you’re going to find where! Imagine trying to stick a soother into a wailing baby’s mouth without sticking it in her eye. Try crossing the street with her in the baby carrier strapped to your chest with just your white cane. It’s a story full of humour, love, courage, exasperation, and frustration. The best line in the book for me was when Ryan went to a convention for stay-at-home Dads and some guy asked him if he had a picture of his daughter with him and he thought to himself  that he barely had one in his mind, let alone in his wallet. He said “Sorry, blind guy thing. I forgot.” This book isn’t meant to be a pity-party. Knighton is a wonderful writer. His one-liners are fantastic (he teaches English at Capilano University). If you’re looking for something different to read this summer, this is a good choice.

Anyone interested in the whole local food movement or the 100 mile diet philosophy should add Sarah Elton’s new book Locavore From Farmers Fields to Rooftop Gardenshow Canadians Are Changing the Way We Eat (published by Harper Collins) to their reading list. It’s a really good read, full of interesting info about the food industry in Canada today. I was especially intrigued by the story of the giant Toronto Food Terminal and how management from Los Angeles, New York and Chicago’s food terminals (which are significantly larger than Toronto’s) come north to learn about Toronto’s operation. It produces a mere 10 million kilograms of waste a year (a mere!!) thanks to it’s fantastic recycling program. Amazing when you think of the size of the city and the amount of food the terminal sees on a daily basis. I loved the chapter on local cheese in Quebec (yum), and what’s happening with wheat in Saskatchewan and how farmers, growers, and even ordinary citizens all across the country are trying to create a more sustainable food system. If you’re a “Foodie” this is definitely a book you’ll want to read. And if you’re not, read it anyway… we really need to get moving and changing the whole food industry in Canada for the better and this is a “feel good” book about what’s happening all across the country.

Have you heard about this book? It’s not new… nearly three years on the New York Tmes Bestseller list…a New York Times Notable Book… winner of multiple awards…the “Number One Book Sense Reading Group Pick”. The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls (published by Scribner) is a definite winner. But somehow I’ve missed the buzz because up to a few weeks ago I’d never heard of it… something is wrong here folks!! I am losing my grip. Anyway, this book is a memoir that elevates the phrase “disfunctional family” to an entirely new level. It is so shocking and so full of extraordinary moments that I just couldn’t put it down. And I couldn’t stop laughing… something that might shock some of you because usually disfunctional relates to abuse and neglect and alcohol and, yes it’s all there, but somehow when Walls relates events, they are so unbelievable that you just have to laugh… like living in an old railway depot and not having any furniture but her mother deciding that they really need a piano, and how getting it into the house doesn’t exactly work as planned. Bizarre, strange, shocking, unbelievable, and sad are all words I’d use to describe this book. Guaranteed it will captivate you and you won’t be able to put it down. I discovered others found it just as funny as I did so be prepared to laugh inspite of all the hardship Walls and her siblings endured. And it’s fantastic material for any book club.

Walls’ second book, Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel, is now on the shelf at your local bookstore.  It tells the story of her grandmother Lily who we meet in the first book. If it’s anything like her first book, it will be captivating. I haven’t read it yet, but certainly intend to.

I really like author Michael Pollan. His previous books, The Omnivores Dilemma and In Defence of Food, rank right up there on my list of must reads. His new book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual (published by Penguin Books) is chock-a-block full of good advice that’s written in plain English and easy to digest (more than you can say about some processed foods eh). It’s a quirky little book, about the size of a small pocket book, just 140 pages in total, and there are lots of pages that just have a single paragraph on it with info like … “avoid food products that make health claims” and “if it came from a plant, eat it, if was made in a plant don’t”. Not a whole lot of words, but a whole lot to think about in relation to what we eat.  Once again he doesn’t disappoint with his advice. Remember, he’s a journalist, not a nutritionist, but his recommendations are food for thought for everyone confused by all the info out there just now when trying to decide what to eat. This book is flying off the shelves out there right now in local bookstores. Pick up a copy, it’s not expensive.

Freeman Patterson is one of THE most respected nature photographers. He has written 11 books, has held photography workshops all over the world, and has received numerous awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Nature Photography Association. His book The Garden (published by Key Porter Books) is a joy to read and a sight to behold. Gardening and photography go together like salt & pepper and if you’re lucky enough to have the knack for both, or even just one, this is definitely a book you’ll want to read. And even study. Comments about his garden and his life … “My garden grows wilder as I grow older.”  and “The importance of beauty to our lives requires no explanation, and we never need to explain our reasons or apologize for actively seeking it out.” are peppered throughout the book alongside amazingly beautiful photographs. He also says ”Gardening always requires a degree of imagination.”  and I imagine myself in summer out there with my camera in hand trying to capture my garden in a light reflective of his stunningly beautiful book. Freeman Patterson I’ll never be, but I hope to “improve with age” as I learn more about the joy of photographing my garden. Just look at the book cover… is this beautiful or what?!

If you’d like to have a peek at some of my photos, check out my new photo blog at www.lindasphotojournal.com

I read Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert (published by Penguin Books) years ago when it first came out so this is not a new book on my list of recent reads, but I thought it worth mentioning because I’ve recently discovered that it’s STILL on the best-seller list… 134 weeks and counting. Quite a coup for any author. The book is essentially divided into 3 sections, the first taking place in Italy (the “eat” bit), then India (the “pray” bit) and finally Indonesia (the “love” bit). Personally I read the book for the India bit… her stay at an ashram intrigued me and I wanted to know more about it. And I wasn’t disappointed. Anyone who’s ever taken a yoga class should read this book. It’s fascinating. I was not as intrigued or interested in the other parts so I won’t comment on the “eat” or “love” sections of the book. Now Gilbert has a follow-up book on the market called Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage (the love part really worked!), and I’m sure it will be every bit as popular as it’s predecessor.

On Sunday Nov 22nd I had the wonderful opportunity to hear Jamie Oliver… THE Jamie Oliver… aka The Naked Chef… speak at Roy Tompson Hall in Toronto. He was fresh from filming in Huntington West Virginia where they did a show similar to the one he recently produced in Britain which became the backbone of his new book Jamie’s Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals (published by Hyperion). His mission is to get people to stop eating junk food and start cooking at home. Something so simple, but for those who’ve never cooked a decent meal in their lives it’s a huge challenge. In his book Jamie highlights some of the people who took advantage of the opportunity given by him to “pass it on” … learn a few recipes from him, then go and teach those recipes to others who in turn will pass them on to others. The documentary he produced for the Food Network based on his attempt to teach ordinary Brits to cook is fascinating TV. He deserves the highest praise for what he’s done in his career, which besides teaching ordinary folk to cook, also includes revamping the whole school lunch program in Britain and opening a restaurant where he trained disadvantaged youth to be the chefs . I think he is one of the most influential young people around these days.  The book, Jamie’s Food Revolution, is a cookbook, the recipes are easy to make and delicious, and even if you never make a single one the book is a joy to read and look at. Even great for gift-giving. And by the way… he is just as charming and good-looking in person as he is on the telly.

Jane Christmas’ third book, Incontinent on the Continent: My Mother, Her Walker, and Our Grand Tour of Italy, (published by Greystone Books) was a great book to take along on a trip, since it’s about a trip. Though mine wasn’t nearly as grand as hers was. Jane decides to try and make amends with her aging mother by taking her on a 6 week trip to Italy. What  a wonderful way to try and connect with a mother she felt alienated from and at odds with for most of her entire life. Mum loves art, architecture and antiques and there’s no better place to find them all than in Italy. Her father’s dying wish was “try and get along with your mother”. She said he might just as well have asked her to win the Nobel prize, that’s how daunting his request was. But it becomes obvious that this is not going to be any ordinary trip to Italy. Her mum is, as she says, ”between 65 and 100″ years old, has multiple medical problems (which require an enormous amount of prescription medication), uses a walker (and occasionally needs a wheelchair), and is not easy to get along with (she’s constantly telling Jane “do something with your hair”). Why Jane would even attempt this is a mystery to me!  Anything that sounds more like work than fun at my stage in life is given VERY serious consideration. And she often wonders the same thing on this romp through Italy. Travelling with a handicapped senior is like travelling with a small child – the same enormous quantity of stuff to lug around, early bedtimes, and lots of cranky moments where you just want to throw up your hands and go home. It’s a fun book though, except for the background of constant rain, and her observations often surprised me. Did they eventually “bond” like Jane had hoped they would?  Read it and see for yourself.