Tagged: CanLit

First (Wrong) Impressions by Krista D. Ball

First (Wrong) ImpressionsMy rating: 2.5/5 stars

Published: May 28th, 2013

Source: Review copy from the author

Synopsis:

Lizzy Bennet’s fundraising mission is to keep her homeless centre’s clients well-fed through a cold prairie winter. She meets the snobby and pompous William Darcy of Fitz & William Enterprises. While she’d never dare ask him for help, she can’t stop bumping into him — sometimes, quite literally. But when Lizzy’s campaign is cut short by the disappearance of her sixteen year old sister, William and his younger sister step in to help the woman they want to make part of their family. Inspired by Jane Austen’s classic, Pride and Prejudice, First (Wrong) Impressions is Lizzy’s quest for happiness, security, and love in the 21st century.

An important caveat to this review: this isn’t the type of book I would pick up on my own, so I was a little dubious from the get go. My long-term readers know I have certain… snobbish tendencies when it comes to literature, and the term “fan fiction” makes my skin crawl. Jane Austen fan fiction is an industry in it’s own right, moving out of the online shadows in recent years, with the success of mash ups like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and more literary rewrites like Death Comes to Pemberly. I thought I would give this a whirl as part of Austen in August, and after chatting on Twitter, author Krista D. Ball kindly gave me a review copy.

First (Wrong) Impressions gave me a case of just that; it didn’t end up being exactly what I thought it would at the start, and that’s a good thing, because my first impression was a paint-by-number retread of the source material, plopping 18th century characters into 21st century settings. As I pushed forward, my defenses were broken down by Ball’s humourous one-liners and, eventually, by her creativity in using very modern scenarios to show us a new side of Elizabeth (Lizzy) Bennett. Continue reading →

Reading Roundup: June 2013

Reading Roundup June 2013

50 Shades and 1001 Books rubbing shoulders. Scandalous!

The Moby Dick Read-a-Long continues through July, but so far? So fun. We’ve got a small group, but I love having the weekly writing prompt, and I’ve had discussions both illuminating and hilarious with my readalongers. I’m not used to having to talk about a book before I’m finished, so it’s taking me out of my comfort zone. That’s a good thing, I believe.

I’ve actually finished Moby-Dick, way ahead of schedule, and I’m not sure how I’m going to sum it up. It’s one of those classics that’s so widely regarded that it seems presumptuous to even give it a rating. Who am I to give it four stars? Continue reading →

Reading Roundup: May 2013 Blogging Breakthrough

TBR Pile

A literal To Be Read Pile.

Last month I committed to writing a little bit everyday. I didn’t quite make it, but I blogged TWELVE times this month, which is like WHOA compared to my usual two posts. My secret is to let go of perfectionism. Not every post has the most perfect picture, or every book title and twitter account linked. It’s that kind of thing that makes me spend too much time obsessing rather than just writing and interacting, which is kind of the point of blogging, for me.

Any of you bloggers out there have tips to keep a good blogging streak going?

Books Read

  • Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer. 5 Stars. The night I finished this book, I bawled for an hour. I was doing that thing where you flip ahead to make sure something awful wasn’t about to happen, because if it was, you need to mentally prepare. But I couldn’t prepare for the ending, obviously. Just go read this, please. Review coming once I can emotionally handle it.

Books ObtainedThe Outlander

  • The Road by Cormac McCarthy. People recommended this book to me a few times after my post about dark and depressing reads. My mom found it at a used book sale for $2. Score!
  • The Outlander by Gil Adamson. Another score at the book sale, and I just realized it’s the Canada Reads selection from a few years back – my copy has a different cover. Excited for this one. You had me at “19 year old widow by her own hand.”
  • Dance, Gladys, Dance by Cassie Stocks. I was very fortunate to get a signed copy of this Leacock Medal winner courtesy of Matt at NeWest Press. Pickle Me This calls it feminist and smart. Sounds good to me.

Books I Want to Read

Swimming to Elba

  • Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels. Cannot for the life of me remember where I read a review, but I know I added it to the list immediately. I also know it won the Orange Prize in 1997 and that’s good enough for me.
  • Molotov Hearts by Chris Eng. Read about this punk rock YA book over at Alexis Keinlen’s blog. What can I say, a boy with a mohawk broke my heart once.
  • Swimming to Elba by Silvia Avallone. Sounds like a good coming of age book. Will pick it up despite annoying cliche “girl facing away” cover.
  • She Rises by Kate Worsley. Read this review at She Reads Novels and added it to the list when I read “reminds me of Sarah Waters.”

On the Blog

I officially posted enough this month to justify a recap.

Reviews

#MobyDick2013 – Moby Dick Read-A-Long

Events, Memes, and Randomness

What’s Next on Reading in Bed

#MobyDick2013 continues, I’ll probably start planning my beach reads for July (I like to plan ahead) and a #yegbooks fall preview. Stay tuned!

The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje

The Cat's Table

My rating: 5/5 stars

Release date: August 30, 2011

Publisher: McLelland

Synopsis:

In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy boards a huge liner bound for England. At mealtimes, he is placed at the lowly “Cat’s Table” with an eccentric and unforgettable group of grownups and two other boys. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, the boys find themselves immersed in the worlds and stories of the adults around them. At night they spy on a shackled prisoner — his crime and fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt them forever.

With the ocean liner a brilliant microcosm for the floating dream of childhood, The Cat’s Table is a vivid, poignant and thrilling book, full of Ondaatje’s trademark set-pieces and breathtaking images: a story told with a child’s sense of wonder by a novelist at the very height of his powers.

Is there such thing as an earworm, for text instead of music? A wordworm? If so, I have had a wordworm, off and on, since finishing The Cat’s Table. I find myself mentally rereading the end this passage compulsively:

We stepped back, further into the darkness, and waited. I saw the man move the strap of her dress and bring his face down to her shoulder. Her head was back, looking up at the stars, if there were stars. Continue reading →

NeWest Press Spring Spectacular: Local Literary Love

Rebecca Campell

Rebecca Campbell. Photo credit Brie Binicki

The Edmonton Book Bloggers were out in force last night, rubbing shoulders with the #yegbooks elite at the NeWest Press Spring Spectacular. This was only my second author reading, and had a very homegrown vibe compared to the Michael Ondaatje extravaganza back in March.

When I say homegrown, I don’t mean unprofessional. The event was very well run. Roast Coffee House was an almost perfect venue (just too hot), and Chris Craddock’s MCing was both brief and funny, which is exactly what you want from an MC. I thought it was strange to have a musical act, but Tyler Butler was fantastic, and gave the proceedings a nice, mellow vibe. Major shout out to NeWest’s Matt Bowes for pulling this event together.

Corinna Chong Reading

Corrina Chong. Photo credit: Brie Binicki

We haven’t even talked about the readings!

  • Jenna Butler read from her poetry collection Seldom Seen Road. She was so poised and confident, and her work is beautiful. I was nodding along with her descriptions of small town prairie life.
  • Rebecca Campbell was up next, and she blew my mind when she read my favourite passage from The Paradise Engine. Rebecca seemed a little nervous, and stumbled on a few words, but she dropped the f-bomb like she owned it. She really showed off the power of her prose (read my review).
  • Marguerite Pigeon read from the thriller Open Pit. I admit that I had no interest in this book before, but she left us hanging and gave such a wonderful preview of her characters that I think I’ll pick it up on my Kobo soon.
  • Finally, Corinna Chong read from Belinda’s Rings, and chose a funny excerpt followed by a dark one that hinted at the contrasts in her stunning debut novel (read my review).

I encourage you to check out the other Edmonton bloggers for their take. Rick from The Book-A-Week Project has a post up already (keener!) and Brie from Eat Books is working on hers. We also welcomed Elizabeth from Gossamer Obsessions to our little club, and I ran into author Jennifer Quist who posted this recap, including a hilarious account of our awkward “don’t I know you from somewhere” introduction.

I leave you with my night went in tweets and pictures. This is how I felt while getting ready to leave the house:

This is me with authors Corinna Chong and Rebecca Campbell, who both recognized me (omg) and were so lovely to talk to:

Corinna Chong, Moi, and Rebecca Campbell

Corinna Chong, Moi, and Rebecca Campbell. Photo credit: Brie Binicki

And here’s my haul. Why yes, that is a signed copy of Cassie Stock’s Leacock Medal winning novel, Dance, Gladys, Dance. Jealous?

Three Paradise Engines, Two Belinda’s Rings, one Dance, Gladys, Dance, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Anna From Away: Too Sexy for the States

I was notified by Goodreads that D.R. MacDonald has a new book coming out this month called The Ice Bridge. I really enjoyed his last novel, Anna From Away (see a brief review here,) so I clicked over and started reading the synopsis. Soon I realized that The Ice Bridge is Anna From Away under a different title. And different cover image. And a just slightly different description.

A little digging revealed that Anna From Away was published in Canada by Harper Collins Canada on September 11, 2012, and The Ice Bridge was published in the USA by Counterpoint on May 14, 2013.

Let’s compare and contrast:

Anna From Away by D.R. MacDonald     The Ice Bridge by D.R. MacDonald

Compare this line from the synopsis of Anna From Away:

Part erotic love story, part quest for home and heart, Anna From Away is a superbly crafted tale of love after love, a novel rich in atmosphere and infused with lyrical descriptions of land and sea. 

To the synopsis of The Ice Bridge:

Part love story, part moral fable, and part quest for home and heart, The Ice Bridge is a superbly crafted tale of love after love, a novel rich in atmosphere and infused with lyrical descriptions of land and sea.

Why was this book positioned as an erotic love story in Canada, and as a love story/moral fable in the States? In my opinion, “erotic love story” is pushing it a bit, but, sexual attraction and betrayal do play a big role in the story, and there is one sex scene in particular that is pretty darn steamy. In this post-Fifty Shades world, what is the American publisher afraid of but putting that out there?

Sexiness aside, the American title and cover are so BORING. I was really drawn to the cover of Anna From Away, but there’s nothing about The Ice Bridge that makes me want to read it.

I’m going to see if I can find anyone at Harper or Counterpoint who can tell me more. What do you think? The States just can’t handle all that maritime sexiness?

The Magic of Saida by M.G. Vassanji

Magic of Saida

My rating: 4.5/5 stars

Release Date: September 25, 2012

Publisher: Doubleday Canada

Thank you Brie of Eat Books for giving me a copy of this book.

Synopsis:

The Magic of Saida tells the haunting story of Kamal, a successful Canadian doctor who, in middle age and after decades in North America, decides to return to his homeland of East Africa to find his childhood sweetheart, Saida. Kamal’s journey is motivated by a combination of guilt, hope, and the desire to unravel the mysteries of his childhood–mysteries compounded by the fact that Kamal is the son of an absent Indian father from a well-to-do family and a Swahili African mother of slave ancestry. Through a series of flashbacks, we watch Kamal’s early years in the ancient coastal town of Kilwa, where he grows up in a world of poverty but also of poetry, sustained by his friendship with the magical Saida.

This world abruptly ends when Kamal is sent away by his mother to live with his father’s family in the city. There, the academically gifted boy grows up as a “dark Indian,” eventually going to university and departing for Canada. Left behind to her traditional fate is Saida, now a beautiful young woman. Decades later, Kamal’s guilt pulls him back to Kilwa . . . where we discovers what happened to Saida during a harrowing night of sinister rites. This complex, revelatory, sweeping and shocking book, is a towering testament to the magical literary powers of M.G. Vassanji.

This book humbled me, repeatedly.

When I read the blurb and saw “East Africa,” I thought, great! I just did a bunch of research on East African culture (for work,) so I am gonna get ALL the cultural references. I was hardly past the first page when I realized that, um, no. First of all, my research was on Somalia and Ethiopia, and East Africa encompasses way more than just those countries.  Continue reading →

The Paradise Engine by Rebecca Campell

The Paradise Engine Rebecca CampbellMy rating: 4/5 stars

Release date: May 1, 2013

Publisher: NeWest Press

Thank you to NeWest Press for sending me an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis: 

While working to restore an historic theatre in a seedy part of the city, a graduate student named Anthea searches to find her best friend, lost to the rhetoric of an itinerant preacher and street mystic. Almost a century earlier, Liam, a tenth-rate tenor, visits the same theatre while eking out a career on the dying Vaudeville circuits of the day. In both eras, an apocalyptic strain of utopian mysticism threatens their existence: Anthea contends with a nascent New Age movement in the heart of the city while Liam encounters a radical theosophical commune in the deep country along the coast of British Columbia, who appear to be building … something.

The Paradise Engine unfolds across a colourful backdrop of labour organizers, immaculately-attired cultists, ambitious socialites, teenage lovers, basement offices and innumerable coffee shops.

If you like stories with a clear resolution, this book may frustrate you. This one’s all about the build up, with multiple perspectives weaving in and out and around each other and almost converging. That’s not a criticism; it’s what makes the book brilliant. The Paradise Engine takes place in a world with two possibilities: either everything in life is a coincidence, or nothing is. And both possibilities are terrifying. Continue reading →

CanLit Confessions

The English Patient by Michael Odaantje

The cover is totally blah, too.

Tomorrow night I’m going to the MacEwan Book of the Year event featuring Michael Ondaatje. Not only will I be at an event with grown ups and out of the house after 7:00pm, I will also get to hear the iconic Canadian author read from his book The Cat’s Table and take home a signed copy. I hope it fares better than my last signed book (see the footprint incident.)

I have to tell you something, though. I’ve never read any of Ondaatje’s books. It gets worse: I started The English Patient but didn’t finish it. I am a book-finisher, so when I DNF, that’s pretty bad. I read the synopsis for The Cat’s Table and it sounds pretty far removed from The English Patient, so I want to give it a try. I’m still going to feel like a straight up poser at this event, though.

Here are a few more shameful CanLit Confessions. Please share yours!

1. I’ve only read two of Margaret Atwood’s books, and I only liked one of them (The Handmaid’s Tale, duh.) Surfacing was a little too out there for me, and her books are just not high on my list of priorities right now.

2. I hated Fifth Business by Robertson Davies. Yeah, I was forced to read it in high school, but I was also forced to read books that became favourites (CanLit classic The Stone Angel was one,) so I can’t use that excuse.  I just read the plot summary over on Wikipedia and I think a reread is in order. I forgot about the “he wanted it so badly” part. That’s a killer line.

3. I hated The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordechai Richler. I was forced to read this in high school too. In fact, I often get Fifth Business and Duddy mixed up, which is pretty silly, now that I’ve read the plot summaries of each. No desire to reread this one though.

4. Until recently, I’d never heard of M.G. Vassanji. I just finished his latest novel The Magic of Saida. It was difficult to get into, and challenging to read, and brilliant, just brilliant. The guy has won two Giller Prizes. Where the heck have I been?

5. I’ve only read one of Alice Munro’s books. Too Much Happiness was so utterly devastating that I’m kind of scared to read more, though I know that I must.

6. I don’t understand all the fuss about Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Fall on Your Knees. I should have loved it. I wish I had loved it. I did not.

7. I have no clue how to pronounce Ondaatje. I guess I’ll just call him Mike.