02Sept09 Read for part of task 25.7 ~ two word title.


** spoiler alert ** Oh my word...this book was too much (in a bad way). Too many metaphors, too many similes, too many examples spelling things out for us. As a character, the narrator was detached. Therefore I was detached. I really didn't care about him. I found Marianne much more interesting and thought the secondary characters were done well.There are a couple of characters and sections I feel could make for interesting books in their own right.I found the 'back-in-time' sequences dealing with examples of eternal love to be repetitive. The fact the author felt the need to explain his book - rather, his main character's 'redemption' - to us on pages 370 & 371 (the hardcover edition I read) irked me; did he think the readers were not thoughtful enough to know that for themselves? I didn't feel the book or Davidson's writing style to be spectacular - as has been hyped for so long. Perhaps the hype is/was the problem? Overall, I feel Davidson had an interesting idea and then tried to cram everything he learned into the book. I know I am in the minority when I say I did not like this book very much. I rate this book 1.5 stars.

02Sept09 Read for Task 5.6 ~ Halloween


Totally outside of my normal reading, but as part of the Fall Challenge we had to find a novel with a Halloween adjective.

This was a silly novel, but it was fun and I actually laughed out loud in parts. The character Lula is a hoot! It was also a super-fast read.I rate this book 2.5 stars.

03Sept09 Read for part of Task 25.7 ~ three word title.



This is Lansens' third novel. Her last book, The Girls, is one of my favourite books and her first novel, Rush Home Road, was a wonderful novel which I also loved. Her new work, The Wife's Tale, while well written with an interesting main character in Mary Gooch, was not as strong as her previous two works.

In this story the author references her other two novels. I found this a bit disconcerting. She is not writing a series although each story does take place in the same county she has invented in south-western Ontario, Canada. For me, the insertion of these points of reference seemed to affect the flow of the story. I was cheering for Mary and I did wonder how the story would unfold, so her character development and story telling were good. However,I felt Jimmy Gooch could have been more fully developed. I recognize the story was about Mary, but a bit more about Jimmy could have added to the story, giving it a bit more depth. I felt the ending to be a bit weak - slightly unfinished or hasty. I still believe Lansens is a gifted writer and story-teller but, for me,The Wife's Tale A Novel falls a bit short of her previous novels.
I give this three stars.

04Sept09 Read for task 15.6 ~ The Arts.



The film adaptation of the play is one of my favourite moviess, so I was eager to read this play.

The play was equally enjoyable to the film. There are, of course, some slight differences between the two, but the play is an amazing work that employs a nuanced use of the English language. The highly witty banter translated very well from written word to film. It would be amazing to see a live production of the work.

I have not read a play in several years and I truly enjoyed spending time doing so. I rate this play 4.5 stars.

05Sept09 Read for Task 25.7 ~ one word title.



I really loved the premise of Luck. It is tightly written and Barfoot gives us three very interesting main characters. My only issue with the novel is the structure of the time line. The first three sections are each one day in time. The fourth section jumps to one year later and I was let down by that plot device. I feel as though I missed out on some behind the scenes action/development. It is a minor complaint though. I think this would make for an excellent book group read. I give this novel 4 stars.

07Sept09 Read for Task 25.5 ~ fortune/prophecy.



This book is very well done. The structure is unique - it's a novel but reads almost like connected short stories as, beyond the first section, each following section offers a different character's perspective. The book deals with a few heavy subject matters and certainly will not be to everyone's taste. In fact, I think this is one of those books that people will either love or hate - no in between. I feel that Livesey writes very well about love, marriage, fidelity and trust. and has created a strong novel that makes you think. I rate this novel 4 stars.

08Sept09 Read for Task 5.4 ~ adoption.


From Publishers Weekly: "Based on her semi-autobiographical one-woman show of the same title, Larkin's debut novel takes a comedic but heartfelt look at issues of identity, heredity and self-acceptance. Pippa Dunn—British, 28 and living with her sister in West London—loves her adoptive parents dearly, but has rarely felt at home with the primness and very British emotional restraint with which she was raised, as her funny, anxious narration demonstrates.

When Pippa discovers that her birth mother, Billie, is an American, she feels compelled to travel to the U.S. to meet the the sweet, understanding, empathetic ethereal mother she's always imagined. Not surprisingly, both Billie and Pippa's birth father, Walt, fail to live up to her imagined ideals.

Although Larkin's premise leads to worthy reflections in Pippa's winning voice, awkward attempts to marry the birth-mother search to a conventional romantic comedy plot are less successful. Through a midbook e-mail exchange, we learn that Pippa met her soul mate, Nick (now a banker in Singapore), in a London park seven years before, but wasn't ready to feel love. Nick the banker-cum-painter is far too tortured and emotive to be believable, and the ensuing romantic revelations are predictable.

Pippa, however, is a complex, compelling character—truly an amalgam of her heredity and her environment—and readers will root for her as she uncovers her roots and finds herself."

I agree with most of this review. I did find the concept interesting, as well as the main character, but I found the whole story predictable. I still enjoyed reading this book. I give this book 3 stars.

09Sept09 Read for Task 25.8 ~ Nouns (person).



I loved the first two-thirds of the novel. I found Cleave's ability to give voice to a young, female, Nigerian character quite remarkable. I felt the idea for the story to be very original. I was so eager to follow wherever the tale was taking me. Towards the end, (I don't want to give anything away for those who haven't read it) the author uses a plot device that I just cannot reconcile. I know why he did it, but it does not fit with what I feel the character would have done. The story certainly makes you think about the atrocities endured by so many people in some developing nations.

There was/is a lot of hype for this book and I am always wary of books that are elevated in status. The description on the book jacket is a bit irritating ("We don't want to tell you too much about this book. It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it..."), although I'm sure it has been marketing gold! If you can get past these two elements, I do think the book is worth reading and that Cleave has created a memorable character in Little Bee. I rate this book as 3.5 stars.

11Sept09 Read for Task 25.1 ~ rhyme time.



I debated only giving this book one star but I didn't loathe the book, I just didn't get the point of the story. It was lovely and quaint and I did enjoy the fact that it is set in Edinburgh, but there was really nothing much else to it.

Now, I have only read The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by McCall Smith and that was quite a while ago. It was enjoyable. "The Right Attitude to Rain" is the third book in the "An Isabel Dalhousie Novel" series McCall Smith has created. Did I miss something by jumping into it at the third book? I don't think so. There was enough information given that I didn't feel lost with the characters or story.

**Spoiler Alert** To me, the only point I could reach is this is a story about the summer of Isabel's 42nd year and she is not a spinster loser. There is still hope for her.

A summer in the life of... does not match up to a day in the life of... (a la Mrs. Dalloway). I rate this novel 1.5 stars.

11Sept09 Read for Task 25.1 ~ rhyme time.



From book description: "Lorna Crozier’s new collection contains a community of poems whose words are lit from within. The book is a home that holds children and adults, the living and the dead. It is a brilliant gathering of poems with a richly dark seam of terrors, populated with lovers, friends, and relations both difficult and dear. Among its other loves are mimulus, prickly pear, a cockatoo, a stallion, “lilacs, literal and magical,” Waskesieu, and carpenter ants in leather aprons. Details, surfaces, shine in these poems which are nevertheless “obsessed with the invisible.” They move with great tenderness through the luminous quotidian, and, still deeply respecting the literal, shift into myth. The breadth and warmth of Everything Arrives at the Light will confirm and extend Lorna Crozier’s reputation as one of Canada’s most popular and accomplished poets."

I really loved this collection of poems.I rate this book 4.5 stars

13Sept09 Read for Task 15.5 ~ foreign languages.



I adored this slip of a story. The prose is refined and sparse with not one superfluous sentence.

The inside jacket description reads as follows:

"With this deceptively simple novel Anna Gavalda delivers an uncommon romance about the unpredictability of love, the toll it takes on its victims - both innocent and guilty - and the unanticipated resilience of its survivors. Caustic, authentic and humanely sensitive, Someone I Loved is a revelatory work of fiction."

This completely sums up how I feel about Gavalda's book. The story grabbed me from the start and I felt as though I was a part of the tale - as a silent observer of events as they unfolded. I can see this story as a theatre production. I think it would be brilliant on stage. The dialogue is wonderfully sharp and the relationship of the two main characters, father-in-law and daughter-in-law, is an unusual angle of approach.

FYI - The story is actually only 158 pages in length. The book comes with the English translation as well as the original French version of the story. Together both versions make up the 338 pages. I was so surprised I had reached the end, but then went "Hmmm, yeah, that works."

Gavalda has been noted as one of France's best and most successful writers. Between Someone I Loved and Hunting and Gathering (which is still my favourite book read this year) I can understand where the praise is coming from and look forward to reading more of Gavalda's novels.

My favourite quote from the book is this one (pages 149/150):

"Life is stronger than you are, even when you deny it, even when you neglect it, even when you refuse to admit it...It's incredible but that's the way it is. Life is stronger than anything. And who are we to be so self-important? We bustle about, talk in loud voices, and for what? What happens, afterwards? I rate this novel 4 stars.

16Sept09 Read for Task 15.5 ~ foreign languages.



This novel was originally published in French and I read the English translation.

I wanted more from this book. It was an awkward read for me ~ parts of it were terrific and parts were really not so great; I was eager to read, then working to read. The lack of consistency was a big frustration. The story and main character were both interesting and had so much potential but the plot had this odd arc off into a funny realm that didn't work for me. I am glad to have read it as I think Proulx used an intriguing writing strategy, but I am wondering what was lost in translation? I give this novel 3 stars.

17Sept09 Read for Task 25.3 ~ gay positive character.



Glass did a tremendous job creating interesting characters and wove them expertly into a subtly strong novel. It is certainly a character driven work that uses different themes and memories to tie it together. I enjoyed that each section (there are three) was from a different character's point of view. I was surprised by whom Glass chose to use as the focus for part three, but it worked very well and did complete the arc of the story. This isn't a neat, sweet story. It is funny, sad and challenging (in parts) and you are hoping the best for each character. The connectivity that is created through main characters who prefer solitude is terrific. I rate this novel 4.5 stars.

18Sept09 Read for Task 30.1 ~ dream vs. current job.



From the description:
"Here is the beautiful, tortured Victoria Page, torn between her passion for the ballet and the love of young composer Julian Craster. Here, too, is the cruel, seductive impresario Boris Lermontov, who will give Vicky the red shoes in which she will dance out her tragic destiny. The Red Shoes is a moving story to be experienced and enjoyed by anyone in possession of a sensitive soul" ~American Bookseller~

I first read this book when I was twelve. Revisiting the novel after all this time (I was about sixteen the last time I read it) makes me wistful for the past. The Red Shoes is full of life, hope, possibility and tragedy. I give this story 4 stars.

21Sept09 Read for Task 25.2 ~ related authors.



My brain is still lolling around trying to know what to make of this book. The only other time I have come away from a book and been puzzled about how I feel happened with DBC Pierre`s book Vernon God Little.

In You Shall Know Our Velocity!, there were moments of brilliance and also moments of mediocrity, moments I laughed out loud and moments I cringed. The style is certainly original but possibly to the detriment of the overall work.

Personally, I hold Eggers and the rest of the McSweeney's (&/or including this group of 30 something New York literati) posse - Vendela Vida, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Claire Messud, Jonathon Lethem - in some sort of awesome esteem and want to love everything they produce. They are an interesting and interested group of people.

I am going to ponder some more and update later. I rate this novel 2.5 stars.

22Sept09 Read for Task 5.7 ~ giving thanks.



From Amazon: In this collection of essays, each devoted to a particular pleasure at risk of being forgotten in our busy lives, Barbara Holland wittily encourages us to succumb to guilty indulgences such as bare feet, happy hour, chicken gravy, and calling in sick. She also celebrates the unabashed pleasures such as weekends, dawdling over the morning paper, gardening, and idle summer vacations. Ms Holland covers 67 pleasures in all, some of which you will instantly recognize, some of which it is never too late to start indulging in, and others that are just downright dangerous! Extremely engaging and often laugh-out-loud funny, this is a book to dip into every now and then, as a delicious antidote to the strains and stresses of modern life. I give this book 3.5 stars.

22Sept09 Read for part of Task 25.9 ~ self improvement.



The book is best read in one sitting, to maintain the flow and lecture-like feel. A lot of common sense wisdom is offered, but against the backdrop of terminal pancreatic cancer, well, Pausch's attitude and energy are incredible. Having watched him interviewed by Diane Sawyer last year, it was easy to transfer his mannerisms and enthusiasms and to hear his voice while reading this book. I think it is a great book to give to teenagers - for a bit of perspective on life. It was funny, touching and hopeful. I rate this book 3.5 stars.

23Sept09 Read for Task 25.10 ~ Halloween II.

24Sept09 Read for part of Task 25.9 ~ self improvement.



This is a great book and I would recommend it for anyone with an interest in writing. There are so many writing prompts to help get the creativity flowing. Each chapter is its own exercise and each chapter has been contributed by a different published author. I rate this book 5 stars.

27Sept09 Read for part of Task 25.8 ~ Nouns (thing).



This book was amazing.

By Jon Foro, Best of May 2008 Review on Amazon:
"On August 17, 1988, Pak One, the airplane carrying Pakistani dictator General Zia and several top generals, crashed, killing all on board --and despite continued investigation, a smoking gun--mechanical or conspiratorial--has yet to be found.

Mohammed Hanif's outrageous debut novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, tracks at least two (and as many as a half-dozen) assassination vectors to their convergence in the plane crash, incorporating elements as diverse as venom-tipped sabers, poison gas, the curses of a scorned First Lady, and a crow impaired by an overindulgence of ripe mangoes.

The book has been aptly compared to Catch-22 for its hilarious (though not quite as madcap) skewering of the Pakistani military and intelligence infrastructure, but it also can trace its lineage to Don DeLillo, doing for Pakistan what Libra did for JFK conspiracy theory, and Kafka's The Trial, with its paranoid-but-true take on pathological bureaucracy.

Recent events pushing Pakistan into the worst kind of headlines make A Case of Exploding Mangoes a timely and entertaining read, and when a mysterious bearded man called "OBL" makes an appearance at a Fourth of July party for U.S. military brass, we're coolly reminded of the fickleness of opportunistic policy in unpredictable lands."

I could not have written a better review. This book is sharply written, witty, and absurd. The characters are boldly alive and ridiculously flawed. There are moments of disbelief and moments of puzzlement. I want to now read more about actual events surrounding this mystery. Hanif has created an un-put-down-able and unforgettable novel. I give this novel 5 stars.

28Sept09 Read for Task 5.10 ~ time travel




Okay, so I thought the premise had potential. I am not a SF/Fantasy fan so it was hard to find a book to fit this slot that wasn't mostly in that genre. If not for the task, I wouldn't have read this book. I found the novel to be sloppy and inconsistent. The author is a self-proclaimed Jane Austen addict and that comes across in the story and reaches climax at a cringe inducing meeting between the main character and Jane Austen. There were parts of the book that were entertaining but mostly it was lame. Because I was entertained at moments, I rate this novel 2 stars.

29Sept09 Read for Task 25.2 ~ related authors.



I found Vida's style to be sparse and very compelling. I read this novel in one sitting as I didn't want to interrupt the flow. Vida raises big questions about identity, truth, belonging and connections to the past. In her acknowledgements, Vida states it was an essay she read that "made her curious about the kind of person who would see their past as unconnected to their present". This novel was the result of trying to answer that question. I give this novel 5 stars.

Jennifer wrote: "
27Sept09



This book was amazing.

By Jon Foro, Best of May 2008 Review on Amazon:
"On August 17, 1988, Pak One, the airplane carrying Pakistani di..."

Great. This book has now become the 562nd on my TBR list. Just Great. Glares at you.

Dionisia wrote: "Great. This book has now become the 562nd on my TBR list. Just Great. Glares at you.
"

Hi Dionisia!
*Snort* I have discovered, that along with all of the good things, "Use at your own risk" should be noted as a disclaimer due to the ease with which the TBR lists grow. I am sorry to add to your pile. :P

OOOH!! I should read Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead!! I love the film version.

Tanja wrote: "OOOH!! I should read Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead!! I love the film version."

Hi Tanya.

I highly recommend you do read it. It was nice to be able to savour the dialogue. Of course I kept hearing Tim Roth and Gary Oldman's voices, but that is totally cool!! ;)

02Oct09 Read for part of Task 25.8 ~ nouns (place).



I wanted to like this book so much, unfortunately I just didn't love it. I enjoyed certain moments, certain sentences but, overall, I found it quite repetitive. I liked the characters and the premise for the story seemed promising however I was never fully engaged or excited about the story. Robinson's style and prose were clean and there were beautiful moments, just not enough of them to hold me. I rate this book 2.5 Stars.

05Oct09 Read for part of Task 15.8 ~ geography ("D" - Democratic Republic of the Congo).



The first time I read this book I really loathed it (only 1 star). The writing was terrific, but the plot and characters were lacking for me. I became so distracted by my disdain for the father that I just couldn't get past it. We'll see how it goes second time around when I re-read it for the Challenge.

Well, second time was better than the first. I still loathed the character of the father (Nathan), but was able to set those feelings aside. The twins, Adah and Leah were most appealing to me ~ their stories and their voices. Orleanna, the mother, was alright but didn't impact me the way the twins did. The youngest daughter, Ruth May, was written well and I enjoyed how it was Ruth May who was the first to be accepted by the children of the village. The oldest daughter, Rachel, was a pain-in-the-butt and I don't think she really added any depth to the story, being so shallow. I do get the point of her story arc, but she was completely irritating. I couldn't wait to get through those chapters.

The history of the Congo is a complicated story to weave into a fictional tale. I think Kingsolver did a reasonable job, but overall I wasn't "WOWED" with this novel. I would suggest, if you have read this book before and didn't like it and have been debating reading it again, don't bother.

I give this book 2 stars.

09Oct09 Read for Task 5.9 ~ coming of age.



This novel is a little treasure.

The main character, Trond, reflects back on his life and, in particular, one life-altering, coming-of-age summer when he was fifteen. The novel is set in 1948 Norway, very close to the Swedish border. I enjoyed picturing the settings as I was reading about them.

Petterson's style of writing is efficiently sparse and the story flows beautifully. I was engaged with the tale immediately. The youthful innocence Trond exhibits at fifteen, along with his admiration and devotion to his father make him so endearing. As a sixty-seven year old man, he possesses a clarity and calmness that is enviable.

I had a similar feeling and reaction when I read My Ãntonia by Willa Cather.I would highly recommend Out Stealing Horses: A Novel. I rate this book 5 Stars.

13Oct09 Read for Task 10.10 ~ cats.



In his debut novel, Aravind Adiga takes on some very big issues: the division of social classes into haves and have-nots, the cultural imperialism of the First World, the powder-kegged anger that seethes among the world's dispossessed, and entrapment. Adiga has crafted an excellent novel that is entertaining but the story also causes you to pause and think about these big issues and the impossibility faced by those caught in a corrupt and impoverished life.

***Potential spoilers follow***

From The New Yorker ~ In this darkly comic début novel set in India, Balram, a chauffeur, murders his employer, justifying his crime as the act of a "social entrepreneur." In a series of letters to the Premier of China, in anticipation of the leader’s upcoming visit to Balram’s homeland, the chauffeur recounts his transformation from an honest, hardworking boy growing up in "the Darkness"—those areas of rural India where education and electricity are equally scarce, and where villagers banter about local elections "like eunuchs discussing the Kama Sutra"—to a determined killer. He places the blame for his rage squarely on the avarice of the Indian élite, among whom bribes are commonplace, and who perpetuate a system in which many are sacrificed to the whims of a few. Adiga’s message isn’t subtle or novel, but Balram’s appealingly sardonic voice and acute observations of the social order are both winning and unsettling.

I liked this novel a lot and would highly recommend it. This book would make for a great book group (F2F) read as there is so much to discuss. I rate this novel 4 Stars.

15Oct09 Read for part of Task 50.1 ~ senses,emotions, memory.



Mercy Beth Fanjoy is in a panic about her life and is trying to get certain things in order before she undergoes surgery. The characters were interesting and quirky and the town of Odell is based on Fredericton,New Brunswick, so it was cool to have a context of place.

The author has stated she feels this book to be a tragicomedy. There certainly are tragedies but I expected to laugh more. Mercy got into some funny situations but nothing was laugh-out-loud for me. The first two-thirds of the book were each set one day at a time in sequence. The last third of the book jumped weeks and months ahead in time and I felt as though a lot of details were left out. The end seemed abrupt.

This is Fitch's first foray into adult literature (she had been a children's author) and, overall, I did enjoy the story. My issues may have more to do with the editing. I rate this novel 3 Stars.

17Oct09 Read for Task 15.2 ~ alternative history.



"There is another 1985, somewhere in the could-have-been, where Thursday Next is a literary detective."

Great Britain, circa 1985, is a very different place. The Crimean War still rages on, after 130 years; Goliath Coporation has much say over the police run state of Britain; Wales is a independent socialist state and there are often border 'skirmishes'; propellered air-ships are a slow mode of transport; werewolves and vampires are problematic; pet dodos are not unusual and time travel is very common. More importantly, literature is revered and beloved. For pennies, corner 'Will-Speak' machines will quote Shakespeare; Richard III is performed, every Friday night, with audience participation a la Rocky Horror Picture Show; children swap Henry Fielding bubble-gum cards and figuring out the mystery of who really wrote all the Shakespeare plays is an on-going quest. A group of special operations (SO-27)"LiteraTec" detectives are charged with protecting fictional works from big criminal gangs trying to take advantage of the "lucrative literary market".

I enjoyed this novel and all of the creativity and inventiveness Fforde showed. It kept me on my toes ~ recalling history as we know it versus information written in the book. Each chapter starts with an invented quote which added another layer of humour to the story. The character names are ridiculous yet entertaining ~Jack Schitt, Victor Analogy, Millon De Floss. The notion of being able to transport into a novel has great appeal for me but the possibility of fictional characters being eliminated and great works altered is, for a book lover, a horrid concept.

I don't know that I have ever called a book a good romp, but I suppose that is what this novel is? I imagine if Monty Python and Douglas Adams had ever had a love child, it perhaps would have been Jasper Fforde. I rate this novel 4 stars.

From Publishers Weekly:

"Surreal and hilariously funny, this alternate history, the debut novel of British author Jasper Fforde, will appeal to lovers of zany genre work and lovers of classic literature alike."

19Oct09 Read for task 30.1 ~ dream job vs. current job



While the first installment of the Millenium Trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, was about publisher Mikael Blomkvist, this second book gives us a more complete story about Lisbeth's challenging history.

Lisbeth Salander is such an original and intriguing character. Her unique mix of master computer talent, highly defined morals, fighting spirit and crazy boxing skills rolled into a tiny, likely Asperger's afflicted, package makes the reader love her and cheer for her. Lisbeth possesses a photographic memory and an uncanny ability to grasp mathematics. She is a formidable chess player and an enemy few people could afford to make. Overall she is one rocking heroine and, as alluded to in the story, she is the new Pippi Longstocking, although definitely for adults and sporting new breast implants!

This story follows Lisbeth as she is implicated in a triple murder. The cast of characters, some familiar and some new, have widely varied opinions about who Lisbeth Salander really is. The subject of this novel deals with sex trafficking of girls from Eastern Europe in Sweden. We meet rogue agents of both the Soviet GRU and the Swedish Sapo trying to keep their crimes well hidden, thug members of a biker gang and learn of Lisbeth's family. They all interweave in a very absorbing story that kept me up two nights in a row.

As an aside, Lisbeth lugs a math textbook around through the novel and eventually comes up with Fermat's alleged elegant solution to his Last Theorem on her own, however the solution is not described in detail for the reader! I rate this novel 4 Stars.

20Oct09 Read for Task 10.2 ~ addiction.



From Amazon: "He would probably dispute it, but Gabor Maté is something of a compassion machine. Diligently treating the drug addicts of Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside with sympathy in his heart and legislative reform in mind can't be easy. But Maté never judges. His book is a powerful call-to-arms, both for the decriminalization of drugs and for a more sympathetic and informed view of addiction. As Maté observes, "Those whom we dismiss as 'junkies' are not creatures from a different world, only men and women mired at the extreme end of a continuum on which, here or there, all of us might well locate ourselves." In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts begins by introducing us to many of Dr. Maté's most dire patients who steal, cheat, sell sex, and otherwise harm themselves for their next hit. Maté looks to the root causes of addiction, applying a clinical and psychological view to the physical manifestation and offering some enlightening answers for why people inflict such catastrophe on themselves.

Finally, he takes aim at the hugely ineffectual, largely U.S.-led War on Drugs (and its worldwide followers), challenging the wisdom of fighting drugs instead of aiding the addicts, and showing how controversial measures such as safe injection sites are measurably more successful at reducing drug-related crime and the spread of disease than anything most major governments have going. It's not easy reading, but we ignore his arguments at our peril. When it comes to combating the drug trade and the ravages of addiction, society can use all the help it can get."

Two years ago, I had the opportunity to meet Maté and hear him give a talk and reading from this book. It was an amazing, mind opening experience. Dr. Maté is truly a remarkable person trying to improve a flawed system while advocating to empower those within society who continue to be marginalized. He offers dignity, humanity and understanding to a complicated issue, complex people and a down-and-out neighbourhood.

Maté has also addressed the issues of illness and learning disorders in other books. He offers insight and information that is sometimes interpreted as controversial but I feel he thinks, speaks and writes from a place of truth and is a person who is genuinely trying to enact positive social change. It is a rare individual that does not judge others and has the strength of empathy to put himself in another's shoes. I recommend all of his works very highly. I rate this book 4.5 Stars.

22Oct09 Read for part of task 20.2 ~ A, B, C



From Publishers Weekly: "What perfect timing for this optimistic, uplifting debut novel (and maiden publication of Amy Einhorn's new imprint) set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Mississippi, where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing about what disturbs her. The budding social activist begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies and mistrusts enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who's raised 17 children, and Aibileen's best friend Minny, who's found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers. The book Skeeter puts together based on their stories is scathing and shocking, bringing pride and hope to the black community, while giving Skeeter the courage to break down her personal boundaries and pursue her dreams. Assured and layered, full of heart and history."

This is a wonderful novel and I devoured it, not wanting to take a pause while reading, curious about where the story was going. I admit that I held my breath a lot during the reading as I kept waiting for something horrible to happen, never knowing when it might be sprung on the reader.

Stockett captures so many voices and does it in a way that seems very authentic. Having three narrators made the story so compelling and I appreciated the different perspectives. The book is set during a pivotal time in the Civil Rights Movement (1963-1964) and I think this work of fiction successfully gives the reader a glimpse at a very small slice of what life was like for one group of women during that time. Being a white Canadian woman (born in '67), I am quite removed from any authentic knowledge of that time but I think Stockett's intention was to show a truth and I feel she succeeded.I rate this novel 5 stars.

23Oct09 Read for task 5.8 ~ are two heads better than one?



From Publishers Weekly: "In a probing literary collaboration that moves from Greece to their home in Charleston, S.C., novelist Kidd (The Secret Life of Bees) and her daughter, Taylor, explore and record the changing stages of a woman's life. At 50, Kidd, a wife and mother who had found fulfilment as a writer in recent years, was approaching menopause and anxious about tapping the 'green fuse', or regenerative energy, for the next step in her life. Travelling to Greece with her daughter, Taylor, 22, when the latter graduated from college in 1998, Kidd recognized that her daughter, who had just received a stinging rejection from a graduate school, was also undergoing another kind of wrenching transformation—from child to adult and was faced with decisions about what to do with her own life. In passages narrated in turn by Kidd and Taylor, the two create a gently affectionate filial dance around the other, in the manner of the fertility myth of Persephone and her mother, Demeter. In travels through Greece, Turkey and later France, Kidd and Taylor found strength and inspiration on their respective journeys in the lives of Athena, the Virgin Mary and Joan of Arc, but mostly through a new understanding and appreciation of each other. Although the maiden-mother-crone symbolism grows repetitive and forced, their's is a moving journey."

I enjoyed this book a lot and would recommend it to all mothers and daughters. Kidd and Taylor complement each other very well in their writing styles and each chapter flowed nicely into the next. I appreciated the historical references and could picture the places I haven't visited through their vivid descriptions. I think this book touches on issues we all struggle with at one time or another ~ Where are we going? What are we doing? What is my worth? Reading about two different women looking for their own truths and meanings was comforting. I also liked the examination of the ever-evolving mother-daughter relationship. I rate this book 4 stars.

24Oct09 Read for part of Task 20.2 ~ Erin's A, B, C task.



Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Patillo was a pleasurable read ~ light and quick and a bit of an escape. English professor and Austen expert Emma Grant is heartbroken, after both her divorce and the collapse of her academic career, when an intriguing communication lures her to England. The bait ~ a possible cache of Jane Austen's unpublished letters. Her desire to inspect them is complicated by her renewed acquaintance with former best-friend and fellow English professor Adam Clark along with a series of Austen-related tasks that the guardian of the letters gives Emma. Yet through these tasks Emma learns about herself and her attitudes toward love, marriage and her place in the world. While the growing romance between the heroine and Adam is sweet, sweeter is the new sense of self that Emma gains. Written in the first person and includes some interesting Austen information, this is a book readers will drink down like a cup of comforting tea. I rate this novel 3.5 stars.

26Oct09 read for Task 10.6 ~ Native American Perspective



***Possible Spoilers*** Consider yourself warned! :)

Boyden is a natural storyteller. Both the Native tales of the north and the grim accounts of the war in France and Belgium have the ring of truth. His images can be subtly appropriate--raiders who go over the top are "eaten by the night"--and his characterizations are excellent, especially the three main players and Xavier's Canadian trenchmates. Eventually, Elijah seems to feed on the death all around him, becoming a "windigo," while Xavier begins to question the sanity of the war and his friend's growing madness, realizing "we all fight on two fronts, the one facing the enemy, the one facing what we do to the enemy." Not for the squeamish reader, this is a powerful novel that takes a new angle on a popular subject, "the war to end all wars."


From Books in Canada:
"In 1919, Niska, an old medicine woman, ventures into civilization to retrieve one of the two boys she reluctantly sent to war. She speaks of the townspeople: "I must look a thin and wild old woman to them, an Indian animal straight out of the bush." She expects Elijah Whiskeyjack to return, but is it Xavier Bird who gets off the train. He is a mere shadow of his former self; he is without a leg, addicted to morphine, and near death. The three-day road is a journey between life and death. Niska, the medicine woman, paddles Xavier in her canoe, and as they travel, in an attempt to keep him alive, she tells him her life story. In return he tells her of his and Elijah's terrible experiences in the First World War. As they travel, hovering over them like a dark cloud is the "Windigo", a terrible Indian spirit monster. A Windigo is what a man becomes after eating human flesh. Niska's father bravely killed a Windigo, but was tried by white men and died in captivity.
Xavier and Elijah grow up together, become fine hunters, and without understanding the consequences, enlist in the Canadian Army. They are sent to France where both boys, because of their extraordinary marksmanship, become snipers. They are eerily successful at what they do and become heroes of sorts, and legends among both the Allies and the Germans. "Elijah has reached 356 kills as of today, and these are only the ones of which he is quite positive. Today is a new personal record for one day and he says as much to the others . . . They offer congratulations . . . stare at the thin Indian with the sharp nose and blackened face."

The war scenes are some of the most violent and terrible ever put to the page, more shocking than most WWI writing, but authentic and realistic. While Xavier considers sniping a dirty job that must be done, Elijah revels in it, makes wild forays into enemy territory, risks his life repeatedly, and always comes away unscathed-at least physically. Like Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, Elijah descends into madness, and flirts dangerously with the legend of the Windigo. Eventually, Xavier is witness to soul-shattering events and has to make a terrible choice. The language is clear, the characters sympathetic, and only occasionally do Niska or Xavier use a word or two that seem out of place in their natural world. The descriptions of nature are brilliantly done: "I listen to the sounds of the night animals not far away. I hear the fox and the marten chasing mice. I hear the whoosh of great wings as an Arctic owl sweeps close by, and after that the almost silent step of a bigger animal, a lynx perhaps, keeping watch with her yellow eyes."

Three Day Road is as fine a novel as I have seen during the five years I have been reading first novels. My prediction is that it will win every award for which it is nominated, and that it will become a Canadian and international classic." This book has become one I recommend a lot. I rate it 5 stars.

28Oct09 last book read for task 20.2 ~ A, B, C (the letters I chose were H, I and J).



From Books in Canada:

"The oxymoron, “Boast of Quietness”, is the title of a poem by Borges, and serves as an epigraph to Kiran Desai’s equally paradoxical novel, The Inheritance of Loss, winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize. The silent burst of Borges’s title prepares the reader for his opening line: “Writings of light assault the darkness,” for the blind poet contrasts his humanity with that of the multitude, even as he differentiates his own hermetic world from Whitman’s openness. In contrast to Whitman’s opening line in “Song of the Open Road”-“Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road”-Borges ends his “Boast” with “I walk slowly, like one who comes from afar, so he doesn’t expect to arrive.”

Kiran Desai incorporates both poets in The Inheritance of Loss, as she explores the “open road” in a global context that combines America and India during the Nepalese border conflicts of 1986. “My name is someone and anyone,” writes Borges; Desai’s seventeen-year-old protagonist, Sai Mistry, takes part of her name from Desai and part from Rohinton Mistry, but she also partakes of the “sigh” of love and fatalism, as well as the mist and mystery that dominate the atmosphere of Kanchenjunga, the mountainous border region between India and Nepal, where much of the novel is set.

Desai’s opening paragraph hints at the Sublime: “All day, the colours had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths. Briefly visible above the vapour, Kanchenjunga was a far peak whittled out of ice, gathering the last of the light, a plume of snow blown high by the storms at its summit.” Desai observes a fine balance in these sentences, as well as in the overall structure of her novel, divided between this remote retreat in the Himalayas and the bustle of New York. Constantly oscillating between inner and outer, upper and lower, she brings the Sublime down to earth.

Just as the “inheritance of loss” works through an affirmation of negatives, so her descriptions of the mountains combine substantial and ethereal elements-like photographs developed through their negatives. With plume in hand, Desai paints light and darkness, height and depth in her poetic prose. The vastness of the first paragraph gives way to a domestic scene: “Sai, sitting on the veranda, was reading an article about giant squid in an old National Geographic.” In her seeming isolation, Sai reaches out to the larger world through her global magazine, where the giant squid extends its tentacles towards Kanchenjunga’s “wizard phosphorescence” - two macro-cosmic creatures in a surreal cosmos.

Meanwhile, to complete the domestic scene, Sais grandfather, the judge, sits in a corner playing chess, his dog Mutt under his chair, and the cook tries to light a fire in the “cavernous kitchen” with kindling where scorpions nest. Smoke from the kitchen mingles with the mist outside, obscuring everything; even the diagram of the giant squid coalesces with the murky vapours. Waiting for her mathematics tutor, Gyan, whom she loves, Sai contemplates the giant squid’s solitude and melancholy. “Could fulfilment ever be felt as deeply as loss?” She decides that love resides in the lack, not the contentment-hence the inheritance of loss for Sai and other characters in this novel, who have been orphaned in one way or another.

The giant squid, National Geographic, and the omnipresent mist transcend this isolated region, rising towards universals: “They sipped and ate, all of existence passed over by non-existence, the gate leading nowhere, and they watched the tea spill copious ribbons of vapour, watched their breath join the mist slowly twisting and turning, twisting and turning.”
That twisting and turning applies not only to the Dickensian fog transported to the former British colony, but also to an “Inflatable Globe” that Sai receives as a gift from National Geographic. Desai recreates the twists and turns of fate and history, for the open road closes when a gang of young Indian-Nepalese insurgents ransack the judge’s house.

In contrast to National Geographic’s order, this territory was always part of “a messy map...despite, ah, despite the mist charging down like a dragon, dissolving, undoing, making ridiculous the drawing of borders.” (The Dickensian note is unmistakable.) The open road continually narrows: optimistic frontiers turn to post-colonial doubts and diasporic labyrinths.

With a vision of romantic adventure, a Scotsman had built the judge’s house, but in reality it was built by the back-breaking work of Indian porters, “faces being bent slowly to look always at the ground-up to this site chosen for a view that could raise the human heart to spiritual heights.” Post-colonialism levels the earlier sense of the sublime, as Desai resigns herself to a fatalism that plagues India: “It was just fate in the way fate has of providing the destitute with a greater quota of accidents for which nobody can be blamed.”

On the other side of the globe, the cook’s son, Biju, tries to find his way in America in a number of fast-food joints. Displaced in the Diaspora, Biju cannot participate in Whitman’s light-hearted song; in a world where all roads are dead ends, he can merely join Borges, “like one who comes from so far away he doesn’t expect to arrive.” Desai’s “boast of quietness” extends to Biju’s father back in India: “A poverty stricken man growing into an ancient in fast-forward. Compressed childhood, lingering old age.”

With such compression and compassion, Desai captures an entire life, and that life can be multiplied a million times over. Down and out, Biju lives in a basement at the bottom of Harlem. “Biju joined a shifting population of men camping out near the fuse box, behind the boiler, in the cubby holes,” as far removed from the heights of Kalimpong as possible. By the end of the novel, Biju returns to his father, who has been stripped of his few possessions, a mere figure in a nightgown, a phantom against the mountainous backdrop.

If America represents a contemporary escape route for Indians abroad, England may be seen as the more traditional haven for the educated classes seeking opportunity in the larger world. The judge’s training at Cambridge includes forms of discrimination. His two neighbours, Lola and Noni, also Anglophiles, fill their bookshelves with Jane Austen’s novels and eat jam “By appointment to Her Majesty the queen.” The jam’s coat of arms, supported by a crowned lion and a unicorn contrasts with the spiders, scorpions, and snakes in the vicinity. Their domestic scene further highlights the imperial invasion of the remote mountainous zone, for Desai literally sees through the colonial enterprise with exact irony: “Their washing line sagged under a load of Marks and Spenser panties, and through large leg portholes, they were favoured with views of Kanchenjunga collared by cloud.” These sisters praise England’s cosmopolitan society where chicken tikka masala has overtaken fish and chips as the national dish.

By the end of the novel Sai again contemplates her world of National Geographic: “Of the judge’s journey, of the cook’s journey, of Biju’s. Of the globe turning on its axis.” Such a long journey is circular, as it spirals downward from mountains to characters downtrodden by fate and history. The open road narrows and closes in The Inheritance of Loss, but as the daughter of Anita Desai, Kiran has inherited considerable gains in the world of fiction." I rate this novel 4 stars.

31Oct09 read for task 10.3 ~ bears.

Setting Free the Bears by John Irving

I read this book in the late 80's so was curious if it would hold up for me. Clearly my memory of fondness for this book was greater than the story itself. **scratches head in puzzlement**. I think the issue is the fact that I have now read so many stronger novels by Irving that this one doesn't hold up in comparison. While I recognize each book as an individual accomplishment, Irving's writing has evolved. I read Irving's books from the beginning in the late 80's (dating myself, I know) and (in my mind)enjoyed all of them. Revisiting this book allowed me to see how much Irving has progressed with his writing, though his clear ability for unique story ideas has sustained. I do feel anyone who is a fan of Irving would gain perspective from reading all of his works, not just the 'big' ones. I rate this novel 2.5 stars.

Oh my goodness...I am so far behind with my postings. New additions coming soon... :)

Me, too. I've added a couple of books to my TBR based on your reviews :)

Tanja wrote: "Me, too. I've added a couple of books to my TBR based on your reviews :)"

Hey, that's cool Tanja. It is actually my goal, this afternoon, to get my updates and reviews added here. LOL! I am so busy planning the Winter Challenge that I am distracted from pretty much everything else!

I'm about to add all my reviews later this weekend. I'm too far behind!

So clearly did not get mine done (or even started for that matter). It's on the list for tomorrow!! 100%.

Edit: 21Nov @ 10:40 am...starting to add new reviews/books. Went over my spreadsheet and I have gotten all out of order. Sorry for the next batch, which have some books from October I neglected to post. DOH! I have a good excuse though...I was in hospital for two weeks so things got a tad wonky in many areas of my life. LOL!!

25Oct09 read for task 10.9 ~ The Civil War:

by Geraldine Brooks

From Publishers Weekly:
Brooks's luminous second novel, after 2001's acclaimed Year of Wonders, imagines the Civil War experiences of Mr. March, the absent father in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. An idealistic Concord cleric, March becomes a Union chaplain and later finds himself assigned to be a teacher on a cotton plantation that employs freed slaves, or "contraband." His narrative begins with cheerful letters home, but March gradually reveals to the reader what he does not to his family: the cruelty and racism of Northern and Southern soldiers, the violence and suffering he is powerless to prevent and his reunion with Grace, a beautiful, educated slave whom he met years earlier as a Connecticut peddler to the plantations. In between, we learn of March's earlier life: his whirlwind courtship of quick-tempered Marmee, his friendship with Emerson and Thoreau and the surprising cause of his family's genteel poverty. When a Confederate attack on the contraband farm lands March in a Washington hospital, sick with fever and guilt, the first-person narrative switches to Marmee, who describes a different version of the years past and an agonized reaction to the truth she uncovers about her husband's life. Brooks, who based the character of March on Alcott's transcendentalist father, Bronson, relies heavily on primary sources for both the Concord and wartime scenes; her characters speak with a convincing 19th-century formality, yet the narrative is always accessible. Through the shattered dreamer March, the passion and rage of Marmee and a host of achingly human minor characters, Brooks's affecting, beautifully written novel drives home the intimate horrors and ironies of the Civil War and the difficulty of living honestly with the knowledge of human suffering.

This was a wonderful book that will stay with me for some time. I love this novel and rate it 5 stars.

2Nov09 read for task 15.10 ~ Student/Teacher

Part (a) Student:

by Elizabeth Hay

Oh, LOVED this book! Elizabeth Hay is a great talent.

"Two sisters fell down the same well, and the well was Maurice Dove."

Acclaimed Canadian short story writer Hay's first novel, which was shortlisted for the prestigious Giller Prize in 2000, is a compelling and highly original debut telling the story of two sisters and the jealousy that irrevocably changes their lives when a young student comes to stay on their father's Saskatchewan farm in the 1930s.

Ernest Hardy is widowed, a single father raising two young girls on the rural prairies, when twenty-something Maurice Dove arrives from Ottawa to study the region's unusual weather patterns. Eight-year-old Norma Joyce, dark, fiercely intelligent, and inflicted with early puberty, claims Maurice from the first moment she sees him, albeit unrequitedly. Her sister, the "beautiful, saintly" Lucinda, 17, falls deeply in love. After Maurice leaves and his letters stop coming, Lucinda suffers a two-month-long deep depression.

Seven years later, the sisters cannot forget Maurice. The Hardy family inherits a relative's house and moves to Ottawa, on the same block as the Dove family home. What occurs between then teenaged Norma Joyce and the war-damaged Maurice brings to light a childhood betrayal significant enough to devastate everyone involved. Moving seamlessly through 30 years in Saskatchewan, Ottawa and New York City, Hay's novel offers up just the right combination of melodrama and melancholy.

Elizabeth Haywon the Giller Prize in 2007 for her book Late Nights on Air. I have devoured all of her works and adored each of them. I rate A Student of Weather 5 stars.

21Oct09

Part (b) Teacher:

by Tom Perrotta

From Publishers Weekly:
"Tom Perrotta knows his suburbia, and in The Abstinence Teacher he carves out an even larger chunk of his distinct terrain. Set in the northeastern suburb of Stonewood Heights, Perrotta's sixth book takes on the war between the liberals and the evangelists. When single mother Ruth Ramsay, the sex ed teacher at the local high school, tells her class that oral sex can be enjoyable, the Tabernacle of the Gospel Truth church begins its crusade. Believable or not, the school agrees to an abstinence curriculum and in marches JoAnn Marlowe with her blonde hair and pumps to instill in Ruth the tenets of the new program. Gone are the days of rolling a condom over a cucumber; now Ruth is required to promote restraint, which she does wearily and halfheartedly. These are heady days, when students rat out their teachers and the local soccer coach—Ruth's daughter is on his team—is a divorced ex-druggie and active Tabernacle member. When Tim leads the team in prayer, Ruth wrenches her daughter from the circle and the hostility between the opposing camps grows. Who is bad and who is good? Ruth's youthful promiscuity rises slowly to the surface, while Tim's struggle to stay sober makes him constantly confront his past. He's lost his wife and daughter—also on the soccer team—to his addictions, but now he's clean and married to a Tabernacle girl. His Jesus-loving ways, however, are in direct conflict with his desires, rendering him the most complex and likable character. When he loses his own battle with abstinence at a poker party, the finest scene in the novel culminates with his keying Jesus across the hood of an SUV parked in the drive. Ruth would gladly have sex if it would only come her way, and she also drinks on school nights. A less well-drawn complement to Tim, Ruth is a tolerant liberal with a newly toned body who plays therapist to her gay friends, but who can't accept that her children are interested in Jesus.The lesson is that everybody must give up something. Even Ruth's ex-lover, once a pudgy trumpet player, no longer eats to maintain his abs of steel. So what is lost when we cannot succumb to our desires? Who then do we become? The book is rife with Perrotta's subtle and satiric humour (the Tabernacle is seen as a place of diversity, while the punks, Deadheads and head-bangers of Tim's past are all predictably the same), but these questions get lost as the plot winds down. Issues of sex and religion that have shaken the town become, in the end, the story of what Ruth and Tim's newly forged relationship will soon become."

I have enjoyed Perrotta's other works - Election and Little Children more than this novel. I was engaged in the reading of The Abstinence Teacher but I had an underlying irritation throughout. Perrotta's style is always good and he has a great way of looking at suburbia. If you are a Perotta fan I would recommend this book. If you haven't read anythign by Perotta before, I would suggest starting with Little Children or Election or even Joe College as a first go. I rate this book 3 stars.

05Nov09 read for task 15.4 ~ science/science fiction



One Thursday at lunchtime the Earth gets unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. For Arthur Dent, who has only just had his house demolished that morning, this seems already to be more than he can cope with. Sadly, however, the weekend has only just begun, and the galaxy is a very strange and startling place.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is the first book within Douglas Adam’s classic and well loved “trilogy in five parts” Hitchhiker’s compendium.

The story

When Arthur Dent wakes up hung over one Thursday morning, he hasn’t the faintest idea that within a couple of hours, the world as he knows it will be destroyed to make way for a hyper-spatial express route through our star system, and he will be plunged into the strange and worrisome world on intergalactic space travel. He also doesn’t realize that his friend, Ford Prefect, is actually not an out of work actor at all, but a stranded alien from the planet Betelgeuse who was hitchhiking around the galaxy collecting data for the indispensable guide for savvy space travellers everywhere; The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

While Arthur thought he was having a bad time of it on earth, he didn’t realize that confronting the vast regions of space and time dressed in his dressing gown, desperate for a cup of tea, and realizing that his planet no longer existed would put a whole new dimension on the idea of having a bad time of it. Arthur and Ford get swept up by a wholly remarkable space ship, the Heart of Gold, which is powered by an improbability drive and has been stolen by Zaphod Beeblebrox, president of the galaxy. The ship also contains the other surviving member of the human race, Trillian, who Arthur had once failed to get off with. And of course, her two white mice.

The quartet, accompanied by Marvin the Paranoid Android, progress into the depths of space, accompanying Zaphod on a mission that he doesn’t actually know about. And when they reach Magrathea, a planet now shrouded to myth and superstition, Arthur learns that all on earth wasn’t quite as it seemed...
The style

Douglas Adams is indisputably hilarious. I don’t know how he did it, frankly, but even after having read this book for the third time, I still snickered at the funny bits. And The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is packed with funny bits. Adams has a talent for taking jokes and comedic elements just far enough - not too far, but not too staid and traditional either. His dry wit is evident in every line, and he knows exactly where to twist the plot back and pull all the apparently unrelated pieces together. All in all, it is really the only science fiction I’ve every had any time for in all my years of reading.

The plot goes all over the place, but as I mentioned above comes together cleverly at the end of the story. One of the elements of the writing and plot that helps to make the book flow are Adams’s character’s theories about time, and space, and inventions like the improbability drive. He is so convincing in his explanations, but also ridiculous enough that it’s funny instead of boring.Douglas Adams knows how to combining mathematical knowledge and wit to make something interesting. He does somewhat date himself by emphasizing digital watches so much (excitement about them is SO 1980’s!) but it’s not a big deal.

Adams’s characters are great fun also. Arthur is beautifully, quintessentially English, right down to his reserve, his longing for tea, and his ways of dealing with crises. Marvin is utterly hilarious also; and the way the other characters interact with him is so realistic it’s ridiculous. Look, the whole thing is just wacky and fun-filled and excellent reading, so if you’ve managed to live this long without reading it you should really do something to rectify the situation.

This book is for anyone with a good sense of humour and for those who think they will never like science fiction. However, if dry British wit is not appealing to you, this book may not be your best choice.
If you like this book, you would also like...

There are four others in the trilogy (I know, I know!) And Adams has also written a particularly funny couple of books about a holistic detective named Dirk Gently, well worth a read. I rate this book 5 stars.

07Nov09 read for task 50.1 (a) ~ senses, emotions, memories:

by Frances Itani

From Amazon: "In Deafening, Canadian writer Frances Itani tells two parallel stories: a man's story of war and a woman's story of waiting for him and of what it is to be deaf. Grania O'Neill is left with no hearing after having scarlet fever when she is five. She is taught at home until she is nine and then sent to the Ontario Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, where lifelong friendships are forged, her career as a nurse is chosen, and she meets Jim Lloyd, a hearing man, with whom she falls in love.

The novel is filled with sounds and their absence, with an understanding of and insistence on the power of language, and with the necessity of telling and re-telling our stories. When Grania is a little girl at home, she sits with her grandmother, who teaches her: "Grania is intimately aware of Mamo's lips--soft and careful but never slowed. She studies the word as it falls. She says 'C' and shore, over and over again. This is how it sounds."

After she and Jim are married and he is sent to war, he writes: "At times the ground shudders beneath our boots. The air vibrates. Sometimes there is a whistling noise before an explosion. And then, all is silent." When Grania's brother-in-law, her childhood friend, Kenan, returns from war seriously injured, he will not utter a sound. Grania approaches him carefully, starting with a word from their childhood--"poom"--and moves through "the drills she thought she'd forgotten…Kenan made sounds. In three weeks he was rhyming nonsense syllables."

A deaf woman teaching a hearing man to make sounds again is only one of the wonders in this book. Because Itani's command of her material is complete, the story is saved from being another classic wartime romance--a sad tale of lovers separated. It is a testament to the belief that language is stronger than separation, fear, illness, trauma and even death. Itani convinces us that it is what connects us, what makes us human."

This novel is so beautiful ~ the words, the sentences, the story, the flow. I rate this novel 5 stars.

07Nov09 read for task 25.4 ~ book/movie:

by Tom Perrotta

From Booklist: "Perrotta sent up the foibles of high-schoolers in Election (1998) and of Ivy Leaguers in Joe College (2000). Here, in warmly humorous prose, he takes on the thirty-something parents of young children. Handsome stay-at-home dad Todd, dubbed the Prom King by the moms at the playground, secretly grooves to Raffi and loves staging horrific train wrecks with his young son; he has flunked the bar exam twice and can sense his wife's increasing exasperation, but he can't force himself to study. Although Sarah has a Ph.D. in feminist studies, she is completely flummoxed by her toddler's temper tantrums and her husband's seeming infatuation with a pornographic Web site. Sarah and Todd fall into an unlikely affair, and although they know they are acting out of desperation to escape problems on the home front, their relationship is full of electric sex and genuine emotion. Perrotta, with a light but sure hand, expertly sketches the angst of the playground set and then amps up his material with a subplot involving a child molester. A fast-reading, wholly engaging novel."

I did find this novel to be a fast read and was completely engaged. I am always amazed with Perotta's ability to weave humour and angst so compellingly. I rate this novel 4 stars.