false 8359 13374 1582433224 9781582433226 196 <![CDATA[A Complicated Kindness]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166552037m/13374.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13374.A_Complicated_Kindness 3.56 1102 "Half of our family, the better-looking half, is missing," Nomi Nickel tells us at the beginning of A Complicated Kindness. Left alone with her sad, peculiar father, her days are spent piecing together why her mother and sister have disappeared and contemplating her inevitable career at Happy Family Farms, a chicken slaughterhouse on the outskirts of East Village. Not the East Village in New York City where Nomi would prefer to live, but an oppressive town founded by Mennonites on the cold, flat plains of Manitoba, Canada.

This darkly funny novel is the world according to the unforgettable Nomi, a bewildered and wry sixteen-year-old trapped in a town governed by fundamentalist religion and in the shattered remains of a family it destroyed. In Nomi's droll, refreshing voice, we're told the story of an eccentric, loving family that falls apart as each member lands on a collision course with the only community any of them have ever known. A work of fierce humor and tragedy by a writer who has taken the American market by storm, this searing, tender, comic testament to family love will break your heart.

"Miriam Toews has written a novel shot through with aching sadness, the spectre of loss, and unexpected humor.... It might seem an odd metaphor to use about someone who has authored such a vivid, anguished indictment of religious fundamentalism, but Miriam Toews writes like an angel." -David Rakoff, author of Fraud

"Nomi Nickel is a sassy 16-year-old whose mother and sister have bolted from their Mennonite community, leaving Nomi with her off-kilter father in a repressive town where rebellion is severely punished." -O, The Oprah Magazine

"Miriam Toews's brilliant third novel, A Complicated Kindness...is told in Nomi's cocky, brooding voice." -New York Times Book Review

"There have been a lot of Holden Caulfield knockoffs since 1951, but few authors have been as successful as J.D. Salinger in channeling adolescent angst in a way that's as charming as it is profound. Miriam Toews hits that elusive mark with her new novel. In fact, A Complicated Kindness just may be a future classic in its own right." -Philadelphia Inquirer

"At times [Nomi is] all bravado and sardonic wit regarding her faith, but beneath that is a 16-year-old who's spent sleepless nights praying for her family's salvation. By way of Jesus Christ or John Lennon, she's never quite sure." -Ruminator Review

"In Toews's canny hands, Nomi is as vivid and exasperating as any teenager running amok." -Seattle Times

"The wry 16-year-old, trapped in a tiny Mennonite community in southern Manitoba, earns readers' sympathy and adoration from her first angst-drenched rage." -Bloomsbury Review

"Offering incisive reflections on life, death and Lou Reed, the black-sheep Nomi is clearly wise beyond her years, and her voice is unique. The road to anywhere else may be rough for her, but her angst-ridden journey is unforgettable." -People Magazine

]]> 8359 3.62 2312 481 2940207 0307397491 9780307397492 129 <![CDATA[The Flying Troutmans]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255891100m/2940207.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2940207.The_Flying_Troutmans 3.71 464 The Flying Troutmans is about a family on the verge of spinning off its axles and a road trip that just may keep it together.

When Hattie receives an SOS call in Paris from her eleven-year-old niece, the decision to return to Canada is slam-dunk easy, because she’s just been dumped by her boyfriend. But when she arrives back, her sister, Min, is on her way to the psychiatric ward, and Hattie is left to take care of Min’s children, Thebes and Logan. When she realizes that this may become a permanent arrangement, Hattie hatches a plan. Without much more than an old address to go on, the three of them set off on a wild road trip to find the kids’ long-lost father.]]> 8359 3.62 2312 481 125897 1582433461 9781582433462 30 <![CDATA[Summer of My Amazing Luck: A Novel]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171906675m/125897.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125897.Summer_of_My_Amazing_Luck_A_Novel 3.52 151
Eighteen-year-old Lucy and her flamboyant friend Lish are two of the single moms who live in Have-a-Life, a housing project for single mothers better known as Half-a-Life. Lucy has no idea who the father of her son is, while Lish still pines for the father of her twins. Fathers aren't around much at the project. They're mostly the kind of people whose heads get cut out of pictures.

Life is tough for Lucy and Lish: Little Red Wagons and cheap strollers are the only way to get to and from the grocery store, and it's hard to make ends meet. So when Lish suggests a harebrained road trip in search of the fire-eater, Lucy can't help but be excited. They borrow a van held together with coat hangers and electrical tape, load it up with kids and clothes, and hit the road. Lucy tells her story in a wry, bittersweet voice that marks her as a literary sister to Nomi Nickel, the beloved narrator of Toews's A Complicated Kindness. ]]> 8359 3.62 2312 481 125896 1582433402 9781582433400 23 <![CDATA[A Boy of Good Breeding]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171906674m/125896.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125896.A_Boy_of_Good_Breeding 3.52 130 Life in Winnipeg didn't go as planned for Knute Corea-McCloud and her daughter, Summer Feelin'. But moving back in with her parents in Algren, Manitoba, and working for the longtime mayor, Hosea Funk, has its own challenges: Knute finds herself mixed up with Hosea's attempts to achieve his dream of meeting the Prime Minister-even if that means keeping the town's population at an even 1500. It's not an easy task, with citizens threatening to leave, Summer Feelin's father threatening to move back, Hosea's lady friend looking to move in, and one Algrenian on the verge of giving birth-to twins or possibly triplets. Hosea's search for his own roots takes us back to Algren's days as an outpost prairie town, when his mother, Euphemia, was seduced by a mysterious cowboy. Discovering the true identity of that cowboy fuels Hosea's many obsessions and just might reveal whether he is, indeed, a boy of good breeding.

Miriam Toews's inimitable humor and her largerthan- life characters bring small-town Canada to life. A Boy of Good Breeding is a big-hearted, hilarious novel about finding out where you belong.

]]> 8359 3.62 2312 481 125898 0676977189 9780676977189 7 <![CDATA[Swing Low: A Life]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171906675m/125898.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125898.Swing_Low_A_Life 4.16 58
Apart from its brief prologue and epilogue, Swing Low is written entirely from Mel Toews’s perspective. Miriam Toews has her father tell his story from bed as he waits in a Steinbach hospital to be transferred to a psychiatric facility in Winnipeg. Mel turns to writing to make sense of his condition, to review his life in the hope of seeing it more clearly. He remembers himself as an anxious child, the son of a despondent father and an alcoholic mother, who never once made him feel loved. At seventeen he was diagnosed with manic depression (now known as bipolar disorder). His psychiatrist’s predictions were grim: Mel shouldn’t count on marrying, starting a family or holding down a job. With great courage and determination, Mel went on to do all three: he married his childhood sweetheart, had two happy daughters and was a highly respected and beloved teacher for forty years.

Although Mel was able to keep his disorder hidden from the community, his family frequently witnessed his unravelling. Over the years this schism between his public and private life grew wider. An outgoing and tireless trailblazer at school, he often collapsed into silence and despair at home. Ironically, in trying to win his family’s love through hard work and accomplishments, he deprived them of what they yearned for most: his presence, his voice. Once he retired from teaching – "the daily ritual of stepping outside himself" – Mel lost his creative outlet and, with it, his hope.

In the Globe and Mail, author Moira Farr described Swing Low as "audacious, original and profoundly moving." She added: "Getting into the head of your own father – your own largely silent, mentally ill father, who killed himself – has to be a kind of literary high-wire act that few would dare to try.… Healing is a likely outcome of a book imbued with the righteous anger, compassion and humanity of Swing Low."]]> 8359 3.62 2312 481 2940206 3827007313 9783827007315 0 <![CDATA[Kleinstadtknatsch]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2940206.Kleinstadtknatsch 5.00 1 8359 3.62 2312 481 7384907 0307397513 9780307397515 0 <![CDATA[The Flying Troutmans]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7384907-the-flying-troutmans 0.0 0 8359 3.62 2312 481