My Nerdy Friend

It’s a bit late in the year for this, but in order to confirm that I’ve checked items off my 2023 reading challenge, I should probably share what the challenge was that I set for myself! With credit to the podcast Reading Glasses, I separated my challenge list into two parts: “books” and “activities”. This is how it fell out:

Books:

1. Read a favourite book of a close friend or loved one
2. Read a graphic novel
3. Give a book a second chance (basically, try again to read a book I previously abandoned)
4. Read a book by a non-cis-white author
5. Read a book by a local PEC author

Activities:

1. Figure out my wheelhouse and my doghouse (a fun list coming in Dec, and yes, “wheelhouse” will definitely include murder mysteries!)
2. Write a blog about the books I have read (since you are reading this, check!)
3. Read at least 2 books per month
4. Buy books from independent booksellers, ideally local stores OR borrow from the library
5. Read more diversity

If you haven’t heard of or listened to the Reading Glasses podcast, I encourage you to check it out. There is plenty of range, and you should be able to find a reading topic that appeals to you. Beach reads, anyone? How to give up on a book that you are hating? How to bust out of a reading slump? You name it.

Better Living Through Birding, by Christian Cooper

You all know Christian Cooper. Think back to the early pandemic days of May 2020, when a Black man went birdwatching in Central Park and encountered a Karen* by the coincidental name of Amy Cooper who was walking a dog off-leash in an on-leash area. Short version: Christian asked Amy to put her dog on a leash and Amy told Christian she was going to call the police and tell them an African American man was threatening her life in the park. On the same day the George Floyd was murdered the police, I am not sure how this can be construed as anything other than a threat to cause harm or even death. There is no excuse for her behaviour. She is a terrible person.

[Aside: as a now-avid birder, I can attest that during migration season, which May certainly is, migrating birds are looking for places to stop on their journey to fuel up for the next stage of flight, and several species of birds are ground-foragers. Which is partly why there are on-leash areas in parklands, and which is why I’m sure Christian wasn’t taking “no” as an answer. I’ve had my own run-ins with off-leash-entitled dog-walking Karens*, and those people suck. Just put your damn dog on a leash!]

Irrespective of the viral park incident, Christian Cooper has led a very interesting and colourful life. His book is not a response to the park incident (although he does cover it in the second to last chapter), but the park incident may well have sparked the writing of it. Ultimately, it’s a biography of his life, growing up a gay, nerdy, Marvel-loving, Black man who finds himself enamored with birding at a young age. He sprinkles life lessons as well as birding pro-tips throughout, and segues elegantly between his birding experiences and what birding brings to his life. (This is what the book “Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder” wanted and failed to be.)

Although I bought this book for the birding (and to support Cooper, who absolutely deserves to have us all buy his book), it turns out that it also checks a box for me: read more diversity.

*With sincere apologies to my cousin Karen, who is one of the nicest people I know, and is most definitely not a “Karen”!

Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This is my “give it a second chance” book. My wonderful Vancouver book club chose this book back in 2015 and I gave it up mid-way through. There is no particular reason other than I just couldn’t stay interested. There was SO MUCH talk about Ifemelu getting her hair done!

For this second chance (check!) I borrowed an e-copy from the library (check!) and read it over a couple of weeks. It was still a slog for me, TBH, but this time I did finish it and I’m glad I did. Truthfully, I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it, either. I suspect that it was too much a character-based book and I am mostly a plot-based reader. There are moments that I did love – when Ifemelu is writing her blog. And there are moments that I did not love – when the characters are sitting around talking philosophy. In fact, I’m going to just go right ahead and add “characters discussing philosophy” to my doghouse right now!

And that’s it for August. Stay tuned for September, when I read a book that makes NO SENSE to me whatsoever. Revel in my bookish ignorance!

Well, I am still largely favouring fun murder mysteries, however July did see a bit of branching out into adventure, a First Nations reckoning, and the annihilation of the universe! Cool!

Furbidden Fatality, by Deborah Blake

According to the fun, bookish podcast “Reading Glasses”, Furbidden Fatality is a “cozy mystery”. A cozy is more or less defined by the fact that all the nastiness, like murder and swearing and sex, takes place off page, and the detectiving is carried out by an amateur sleuth living in a small community. It’s possible that a pun-based title is also a necessary attribute. Basically it’s the Harlequin Christmas Movie of the reading world.

In this case, our smalltown amateur sleuth is super-cute Kari (even her name is cute), who uses a modest* lottery win to buy a local pet sanctuary, only to find herself embroiled in a murder investigation that she must solve herself because the local police just don’t seem to be trying all that hard. She is aided by a super-cute kitten and the super-cute local vet, as well as a refreshingly assorted group of girlfriends and sanctuary volunteers. I have no prior experience that allows me to rank this against other “cozies”, or even against any Harlequin Christmas Movies, but I can say it’s a very satisfying read. I’d argue it’s best enjoyed while wearing woolly socks, drinking hot chocolate that’s overflowing with mini-marshmallows, and sitting in front of a fire on a snowy winter day.

*modest by today’s billion-dollar Powerball and Mega Millions examples

Living with Cannibals & Other Women’s Adventures, by Michele Slung

Every now and then, a book comes along that underscores the disservice done to women over the centuries, from the belief that we aren’t strong enough to carry a firehose that therefore should not be permitted to be firefighters to the accepted position that monthly menstrual cycles make us prone to hysteria and lack of pragmatism and therefore should not be trusted with truly important things like leadership and decision-making.

Enter Living with Cannibals, a book that tells the stories of 16 adventuresome women – 8 from centuries past and 8 who are, as of the time of writing, still at the height of their extraordinary achievements. Here are a few of the women chronicled in the book. Louise Arner Boyd who, in the early 1900s, travelled extensively through the Arctic, including exploring and surveying Greenland. Fanny Bullock Workman who, in the late 1800s, travelled eight times to climb and mountaineer through the Himalaya. Catherine Destivelle who is a renowned free-soloing mountaineer and was not only the first woman to complete many climbs, but in fact the first person, male or female. Ida Pfeiffer, who in the late 1700s, travelled twice around the world, journeying an estimated 32,000 km by land and a staggering 240,000 km by sea. Isabella Bird Bishop, who in the mid 1800s, road horseback 800 miles through the Rocky Mountains despite suffering from chronic spinal ailments.

If I could add one more woman to the list of adventurers, I would choose Jade Hameister, who skied to both the North and South Poles by the time she was 16 years old, making her the youngest person to have completed this “Polar Hat Trick”. And yet still, after posting a Youtube video speaking about about her desire to achieve this goal, a multitude of misogynistic comments were posted, including “make me a sandwich”. FFS. But, not one to let this go unnoticed, when she did finally reach the South Pole, she uploaded a picture of herself on Facebook offering up a sandwich to anyone willing to come and get it. Jade is my hero.

Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey

What a good book this is! Think Veronica Mars drama blended with Harry Potter magic. Drama means a murder mystery, and our private detective in this case is “muggle” Petunia Dursley Ivy Gamble, a melancholy, functioning alcoholic who’s twin sister is a magically gifted teacher at Osthorne Academy for Young Mages. Ivy is called upon to investigate when a murder occurs on the school property. Given that Ivy dislikes her twin and loathes all things magical, you just know that fun times are in store. Mix in some magical tropes like prophecies and a Chosen One with some YA tropes like teenage angst, immaturity, and confused sexual identity. Blend it all up with wonderfully precise writing and you have a triple-layer chocolate fudge cake of a book!

Five Little Indians, by Michelle Good

In May 2021, the remains of 215 children were found on the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School in BC. On June 23 of the same year, 751 unmarked graves were found on the site of the Marieval Indian Residential School in SK. On June 30, 182 more unmarked graves were found near Kootenay Indian Residential School in BC. To date, more than 2,700 unidentified suspected graves have been located. It is Canada’s great shame. We Canadians need to remember that this was allowed to happen, and that for many of us, it was still happening in our lifetime. The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996. 1996!!! It is estimated that there are 80,000 survivors alive today, who suffer from trauma that we can’t even imagine.

Michelle Good’s book provides an navigable path towards understanding just a few of the long-term impacts of the residential school system on survivors, and their friends and families. The story is told through the lens of 5 First Nations teenagers as they “age out” of the residential school system, and attempt to find healing. It is masterfully written in a way that makes it easy to understand and empathize with these characters, when in fact I suspect the full extent of survivor trauma is actually unimaginable. This is an important book, and a step towards understanding reconciliation from a different perspective than we might be used to or be comfortable with.

The End of Everything (Astronomically Speaking), by Katie Mack (@AstroKatie)

Capping off the month is a book that looks, with refreshing humour, on the various ways in which our universe could eventually meet its demise. Will it collapse under its own weight in a reversal of the Big Bang that started it all? Will it continue to expand, getting colder and darker until it becomes a uniform sheet of nothingness? Or will something even more insane occur that changes all of the physics in the universe such that nothing that exists today could continue to exist, including us? I’m sure you’re thinking this all sounds very science-y, or worse, very quantum-y, but let me assure you that Katie Mack has physics story-telling abilities that rival Carl Sagan. I promise you that if you read this book you will a) laugh a lot and b) understand more than you are probably thinking. Happily, there’s no need to worry. With one possibly alarming but unlikely exception, the astronomical end of everything is billions and billions of years away.

Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens

This book is nothing like I expected. Somewhere between the title and the book jacket summary (“for years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove … she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand”) I expected this to be a modern day Jungle Book, with the “marsh girl” being raised by animals. Which, frankly, barf. BUT … an injustice has been done! The “marsh girl” has a real name that isn’t Mowgli, it’s Kya. And she wasn’t raised by animals, she was raised by her dysfunctional family who abandon her one by one, leaving her to be looked after by her abusive father until she is reasonably old enough to know how to take care of herself. On her own, she associates with people from the nearby town as little as possible: Jumpin’, who sells Kya gas and buys mussels from her; Tate, who teaches her to read and to count; Mabel who provides clothes and feminine products (can I just say, thank GOD for a book that acknowledges that young women need feminine products on a very regular basis, regardless of their heroics volunteering as tribute in the hunger games, or casting spells, or dating vampires?? FFS)

Anyhoooo …. The book quickly becomes a satisfying murder mystery intertwined with Kya’s efforts to just survive, all the while documenting the local flora and fauna to surprising success. I recommend it!

Blackwater Bluff, by S. M. Hurley

I picked this book up at the local Local Store from a display stand of Prince Edward County authors. Mostly I picked it because I’ve been to the bluff featured on the cover (yes, that’s how I pick books, by the familiarity of their cover art.) It’s actually called Little Bluff Conservation Area, and you can google it to see what I mean.

Blackwater Bluff is the first book for writer Shelagh Mathers, a former PEC lawyer. She is currently working on book 3, featuring her main character, Augie de Graaf, an enjoyably aggressive PEC Crown Attorney. In this first book, Augie has to solve the murder of her friend and mentor before the police arrest the wrong person and abandon the investigation. Meanwhile, she has to stick-handle her a-hole boss, who is working hard to sideline her. (I know how it feels, Augie.) Two thumbs up for this one! I look forward to reading the next two books in the series.

Shit, Actually; by Lindy West

A quick aside. It occurs to me that I have no idea when to use a colon versus a semi-colon. I seem to remember some grade-school rule-of-thumb about “upgrading” the punctuation if you are using a comma to separate details, when the individual details you are separating also include commas. But truthfully, I have no idea. So I’m just making it up.

Aside over. Lindy West has wasted 46 hours of her life revisiting popular movies from the 90s so that she can generously gift us with 23 glorious essay take-downs, and for that I am grateful. This book made me laugh and laugh and laugh. She starts off with The Fugitive, deemed to be the perfect movie (incorrect: The Princess Bride* is the perfect movie. however I give her some leeway because it’s an 80s movie and she is focused on the 90s). Lindy ranks the remaining 22 movies on a 1-10 Fugitive-DVD scale, validating my own movie-rating strategy of using other movies as yard metersticks**.

I didn’t always agree with her – she gives Face/Off a ridiculous 6 Fugitive-DVDs when it clearly deserves zero, and that’s being generous, because the scale doesn’t appear to allow for negatives. But I forgive her because she rates Shawshank Redemption at 11/10. Hilariously bad reviews include Love Actually, The Notebook, Titanic, The Santa Clause, and American Pie. Don’t get me wrong, there are good reviews as well (Top Gun, Speed, Terminator II, Jurassic Park, The Rock), but all of them have extremely funny bad bits that don’t escape Lindy’s laser eye.

WARNING: If you love love LOVE Love, Actually, then be prepared either to hate this particular essay or to rethink your relationship this movie. Me? I chose the latter. In the end, Lindy gives it 0 out of 10, which seems about right. I would have once said this movie doesn’t age well, but in hindsight that would suggest that it did, once upon a time, have some 90s-specific redeeming qualities. I’m no longer sure that’s the case.

*Musings on The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride is a wonderful, and wonderfully funny, movie. Dare I say it’s one of my favourites of all time! That’s right, I said it. And I’ll tell you what, I’m awfully sick of people judging me for it. I once was chatting with a couple of coworkers in my office at work, and one person asked us what our favourite movie was. When I said The Princess Bride, she literally laughed in my face. For giving my OPINION, which she ASKED FOR. You know what? If there was a wrong answer, maybe you should have told me up front instead of being a dick about it, or perhaps made it a multiple choice question (“What’s your favourite movie? a) Heat, b) Casino, c) the Usual Suspects, or d) If you didn’t choose a, b, or c, you obviously have bad taste in movies and can no longer be permitted to engage in this conversation”).

What makes The Princess Bride so great? Peter Falk describes it best to Kevin from the Wonder Years, playing his grandson: It has “fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…” He did forget hilarity, but he’s Peter Falk and he’s forgiven.

Here’s a short list of other great reasons to love this movie:

1. Peter Falk (“when I was your age, television was called books”).
2. Kevin from The Wonder Years playing Peter Falk’s grandson with perfection (“that doesn’t sound too bad, I’ll try to stay awake”)
3. ALL THE REST OF THE CAST. There is no bad casting in this movie. None at all.
4. The hilarious battle of wits between Vizzini and The Man in Black / Dread Pirate Roberts / Westley the Farm Boy. “I clearly cannot choose the wine in front of me!”
5. Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father. Prepare to die. (Count Rugen: “Stop saying that!”)
6. …OK OMG I’m laughing just thinking about this …
7. Andre the Giant rhyming. It’s the best. I mean it! (“Anybody want a peanut”).
8. INCONCEIVABLE! (“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”).
9. Mawage is wot bwings us togevver today.
10. The choreography of sword fight between Inigo and Westley is just the absolute best! (“I am not left handed either”).
11. Kevin from The Wonder Years continually interrupting Peter Falk’s reading (“Is this a KISSING book????”)
12. Inigo being given a new purpose in life after finally achieving avenging his father (honestly, most stories just leave the avenging hero with nothing else to do).
13. The way the movie rewinds the water chase scene when Peter Falk is trying to figure out where he left off in the story.
14. The introduction of Robin Wright, before she meets Sean Penn.
15. The sweet, sweet ending, when Wonder Years Kevin asks Peter Falk to come again the next day to read the book again, and Peter Falk answers “as you wish”.

HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THIS MOVIE??? That’s MY judgement. But I’ll at least try not to be a huge jerk about it.

**My Movie-rating movie scales:

The Old Yeller Scale – how much a movie makes you cry. Nothing over a 7 for me, thanks very much.

The Prometheus Scale – how much a scifi movie sucks to death. A bit counterintuitive because the best scifi movies score a 1 on this scale.

April was a slow reading month so I combined it with May to appear more impressive. Also because I’m a procrastinator.

Ottawa Rewind 2: More Curios and Mysteries, by Andrew King

Andrew King is an avid amateur historian, whose obsession with Ontario history compels him to research library archives, review satellite photos, and hike through forests in search of foundational remnants of past architecture and settlements. And by foundational, I mean he searches for evidence of literally the foundations of old buildings in the forests and parks of the greater Ottawa area. He does this in order to piece together a narrative positing what might have become of some past historical sites. He compiles his obsessions into fascinating, short-story-sized accounts of his findings and theories. If you are from, or at all familiar with, the Eastern Ontario region, particularly the Ottawa valley, you will likely find this book interesting, and in some cases amazing!

Coincidentally, as I was reading this book (this is his second book – I haven’t read book 1), I noticed some artwork on the cover that looked oddly familiar. In Prince Edward County, where I now live (fondly referred to as “The County”), there is a year-round self-guided Art Gallery tour called the “Arts Trail”, and each year a guidebook in printed, featuring a local artist from one of the member galleries as its cover artwork. Take a look at the guide for 2022-2023 and the cover of Andrew’s book and see if you notice anything interesting.

Right??!! It turns out that Andrew King is also a very popular artist whose work is represented by Mad Doc Gallery in Picton, here in The County. He is so popular, in fact, that he work sells out within a couple of weeks of a show being launched. It turns out he himself is as interesting and curious as the histories that he writes about!

Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder, by Julia Zarankin

I have a tattoo of a red-winged blackbird on my left shoulder. I got it in my 40s, and it is in recognition of the fact that the red-winged blackbird has been my favourite bird for most of my life. (Two quick answers to the question “why”: 1) when I first learned about red-winged blackbirds as a child, I couldn’t believe such a stunningly coloured bird existed in nature and then I SAW one in real life and 2) I love the way they hide their beauty until they fly, and they they are breathtaking.)

This book first caught my eye because I also consider myself to be an Unintentional Birder. This is 100% me:

Imagine, then, my reaction when I read this inside the front cover flap: “When Julia Zarakin saw her first red-winged blackbird, she didn’t expect that it would change her life.” WOAH! This book was obviously written exclusively for me! I knew I would love it, so much so that I bought a copy to keep. Because I knew. I KNEW.

And I tried really, really hard to love this book. And when that started to fail, I tried really, really hard to like it. But it just didn’t live up to my desperately desired expectations. I can’t say exactly where it failed. It might be the clumsy segues between her life, being born in Russia and growing up in Canada, and the emergence of her interest in birding. Or maybe it’s the way she bandies about names of birds often without bothering to give you one iota of an idea of what they look like or why you should also be interested in them (many times I stopped reading to google a particular bird just to get a sense of what she was talking about). Or when she accidentally breaks the leg of a bird she is trying to extract from a mist net (what the hell???). It could also have been her list-writing, where she just rhymes off a list of birds in a way that annoys the crap out of me. Consider: “… the names I had longed to pronounce aloud delighted me with their sound: Cape May, Blackburnian, Wilson’s, northern parula, scarlet tanager, indigo bunting, Baltimore oriole, and yellow, bay-breasted and black-and-white warbler.” Gaaaak. Nothing takes me out of story like coming across a lengthy, comma-delimited list.

In summarizing this book to the people who also really, really want to love it, I would just say that it should have been much better than it was.

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I had forgotten most of the important plot points of The Great Gatsby, and instead of watching the DiCaprio movie I decided to just re-read the book after coincidentally encountering a number of Gatsby references over a short time. Isn’t weird coincidences just how life works?

At any rate, I have to admit that at first I was a bit off-put by FSF’s play-by-play of the lavish and drunken world that his characters inhabit. He is unfortunately also a fan of the aforementioned and hated list-writing, but SO much worse, when he takes a page and half to name all of the people who attended a party at Jay Gatsby’s (none of whom ever appear in the novel again). GAAAAAK!!! But ultimately, the book kind of grew on me. Most surprising was how timeless it felt. The parties and escapades and fancy cars could be dropped into almost any modern-day event or movie with barely a notice. Think of the parties in Weekend At Bernie’s, Office Christmas Party, and every James Bond movie ever made. All told, it was worth re-reading, and now I might even go watch the movie.

Why Birds Sing, by Nina Berkhout

Every spring, The County holds an event called The County Reads, at which four community residents each choose a book by a Canadian author and defend it as the “must read” book of the year. I attended this year because it seemed like a fun way to spend an evening (remember, I live in the middle of the country). Why Birds Sing was one of the selected books (spoiler: it didn’t win). An opera singer who tanks her career by pushing too hard on her boundaries is relegated to teaching a group of Roger-Whittaker-loving whistlers to, well, whistle. In the meantime her husband’s estranged brother moves in with his temperamental African Grey parrot while he undergoes cancer treatment. The writing is a little jumpy but I eventually settled into it and ended up enjoying it. If character-driven stories are your wheelhouse, then you’ll probably like it as well, although be aware that the parrot might be the most well-developed character in the book.

An eclectic month, in which I surprise myself by reading four books, all very different!

Such a Quiet Place, by Megan Miranda

Megan Miranda has a style. Her stories often (or even always?) take place in an isolated, sort-of-close-knit community where one of their own dies/disappears/reappears and another of their own is suspected/arrested/runs off. In Such A Quiet Place, it’s all of the above. A year after one of the neighbour couples dies in a tragic murder (or accident?) and another neighbour is arrested and imprisoned for the crime, the convicted woman is released from prison on appeal and returns to hang out with all her old frenemies. Megan has a crafty way of making you continually rethink “who dunnit”, Wheel-Of-Fortune style, until the end of the book, where you find out maybe the wheel stopped on the right wedge or maybe it didn’t. I like her books but I’m starting to find that I need some space between the “I am a major mental case” story-telling style of her narrators.

Killers of a Certain Age, by Deanna Raybourn

Four women go on a vacation cruise to celebrate their upcoming retirement. Pretty normal! I’m thinking of doing that myself! Except these four are trained assassins for a secret British organization known only as “The Museum”. And unfortunately, someone at the organization has decided they are a liability and need to be eliminated, which kind of ruins the party. And ruins the retirement, frankly, because they now have to eliminate the elimination-order-giver in order to save themselves. So it’s back to work! A recurring and, frankly, satisfying theme is that because they are lucky enough to be women, it’s pretty easy to be underestimated and to go unnoticed (or to be noticed for the wrong reasons). This all leads to a fun and murderous romp that is totally worth the read.

Briefly, A Delicious Life, by Nell Stevens

If you like stories that take factual history events and fill in the blanks to create a narrative, then this might be a book for you. Think “Zelda” by Nancy Milford which fictionalizes an account of what Zelda Fitzgerald’s life may have been like, based on research of letters, interviews, writings, and so forth. I personally am not a fan of this type of book. I think I just dislike made up versions of people who actually existed. Or something. Whatever. However, I didn’t hate this book, which similarly fills the gaps in an essentially true story. In this case, the story is about George Sand, her two children, and her lover Frederic Chopin during a winter stay in a drafty monastery in Mallorca. What makes the book readable (to me) is that it is narrated by the ghost of a 14 year old girl who died 400 years ago and has been incorporeally hanging around the monastery ever since. The brilliance of this seemingly random narrative choice is that the ghost can inhabit the bodies of the characters and not only feel/hear/taste/smell what they experience, but also “see” into their past and their future. It’s extremely clever.

I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t mention a couple of points made by one of the ladies in my neighbourhood book club: none of the characters in this story, except for the ghost, are compelling, likeable, or sympathetic in any way. Sand is selfish and unaware of the strain the drafty monastery (in winter!) is putting on Chopin’s health, Chopin does nothing but whine about his missing piano and cough up blood, and the children dislike everyone including each other. And all of the villagers and servants of Sand and Chopin hate them. Fun! As far as a recommendation goes, if wonderful writing is enough for you, then borrow this one. But if characters you are bound to dislike is a turn-off, then just give this a pass.

Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel

Emily is back and I love her so much! She has such a talent for telling stories that intertwine unexpectedly and ultimately come full circle to tie the ending back up to the beginning. Sea of Tranquility is her latest and it has added an extra surprise – she has picked back up with characters from The Glass Hotel and references the pandemic that takes place in Station Eleven. Similar in execution to Cloud Atlas, events take place forward and then backward through time: in pre-war 1900s, somewhere around the present day, the early 2200s, and the early 2400s, all linked together by a strange anomaly. This is definitely worth reading, but I would recommend reading The Glass Hotel and Station Eleven first.

And once again, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that my very good friend just finished reading One Night In Montreal and strongly suggests skipping that one. I happened to notice that it is not in my Emily collection, so I suspect I felt the same. I guess not all books can be 10/10!

It’s been a long time coming! Finally, a new blog post! Finally, I have read books! For reasons I can’t fully explain (“doomscrolling” is one candidate), I did not do a lot of (any) reading during the 2+ years of the COVID pandemic. However, I was recently invited to join my neighbourhood book club and I seem to have rediscovered reading skills! This lovely club is one where everybody reads anything they want, and we meet once a month to share the books we’ve read. It’s a wonderful way to get new book recommendation – with no pressure! – and to learn about what other people like and don’t like in their own reading choices. Plus, if you hate one of the books you read, there’s no offense taken. You really only have yourself to blame. Perfect!

Here’s how I have fared so far this year. I did notice that my gateway back to reading does consist of an awful lot of murder mysteries. Honestly, if you ever write a book, just put a picture of a bloody knife on the cover and I’ll read it!

Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story, by Christopher Moore

Christopher Moore is a very funny writer. His is witty writing, versus LOL gags. My favourite of his, so far, is Practical Demonkeeping which I wrote about extraordinarily briefly here. Bloodsucking Fiends, as you can probably deduce from the title, is about vampires but in a lighthearted and funny way as opposed to creepy and terrifying (Salem’s Lot), journalism-y (Interview with a Vampire), or weirdly misguided infatuation (Twilight). At least one murder takes place if you call being turned into a vampire being murdered.

The Sandman: Preludes & Noctures – Book I

Credits: Writer: Neil Gaiman. Artists: Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III, Dave McKean. Pencillers: Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg. Inkers: Mike Dringenberg, Dave McKean. Letterer: Todd Klein. Colorist: Robbie Busch.

I made it part of my 2023 reading challenge to read a Graphic Novel. Now, I confess to not really knowing what a “Graphic Novel” is, apart from maybe being a comic book with more pages. However, I recently watched the Sandman series, and this book, which covers the first 6 episodes, was languishing in the Graphic Novel section of the local library. So I’m calling this a checkmark on my reading challenge list. (Technically, it’s possible that The Sandman is a series of “comics” bound together and released as a “graphic novel”. Whatever that means). Regardless, I enjoyed it, and in keeping with the theme, many, many murders take place. The artwork is really worth seeing (trigger alert: sometimes gory). Also watch the series (trigger alert: sometimes gory). It’s uncanny how they were able to translate this comic/novel/book to screen!

The Witch Elm, by Tana French

Tana French is a wonderfully talented writer. This is the third book of hers I’ve read and I have added the rest of them to my TBR (“to be read”) list. The Witch Elm is a story about a young man named Toby who gets attacked during a seemingly random robbery and moves into his uncle’s old country house to recuperate.  The murder is connected to a skull that is discovered in the hollow of an ancient Witch Elm tree on his uncle’s property.

The Appeal, by John Grisham

The murder in this book is committed by a greedy chemical corporation against an innocent community who had the nerve to expect clean, safe drinking water, and sued said corporation when the water turned out to be extremely carcinogenic. As given away by the title, the corporation appeals after losing the lawsuit and proceeds to use their massive wealth to buy elections and politicians in an effort to win the appeal. It’s a sad and distressing look at the world we live in today, and how corporations have managed to demonize the idea of large punitive damage settlements to protect their own massive wealth. If you like podcasts, try listening to the “You’re Wrong About” episode “The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill” for a real-life version of this despicable behaviour.

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, by Sarah Vowell

Sarah Vowell writes about American history. She’s a charming and extremely funny writer, but her books would probably be enjoyed more by people with a much deeper understanding of US history, and, in this case, the American Revolution, versus a level of knowledge that they (I) learned from watching Hamilton. Although, the book does shed some interesting light on Lafayette’s role both in the play and in the war! Also – war, so fittingly there are many, many murders.

Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng

This book is indescribably good. Wow. Just … wow. I haven’t watched the series yet, but I expect I will. For now, I just want to continue to enjoy reflecting on the book. I’m not even going to try to summarize it, because I would absolutely spoil something in the process.

The Six-Figure Student Playbook, by Jackson Thornley

A book by the son of a good friend, his first venture into writing. Jackson is a successful entrepreneur and wants to share his secrets with you! This very small book is surprisingly densely packed with a myriad of tidbits that should be of use to any entrepreneur! My favourite insight is the importance of sophisticated sales skills, which I see being used by all of my self-employed friends. Spoiler alert: Nobody is murdered in this book!

The Word is Murder, by Anthony Horowitz

Murder is right there in the title! Anthony Horowitz is a prolific writer who might give Stephen King a run for his money. The Word is Murder is the first in a series that features himself, Anthony, as a writer shadowing a misanthropic ex-detective named Hawthorne in order to write books about his private investigations. It’s an interesting blend of things that are true (anything about the author himself) and things that are fiction (anything involving Hawthorne and the active investigation). I’ll call this an “easy read”. Just the gateway drug I was looking for!

Next up: March books!

Just to recap, Station Eleven is one of my favourite books of all time. Maybe even top 5. So imagine my excitement at discovering that a TV miniseries was in the works!!! YAAAYYY!!

Ahem. This did not go as anticipated.

Many spoilers follow, for both the book and the TV miniseries.

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Many, many spoilers.

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You’ve been duly warned that there will be spoilers.

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I’ll just summarize this hot mess with the comparative table below. Opinions may vary.

To purge myself of the memory of the TV miniseries disaster, I reread the book for the third time. I’m not wrong, the book is wonderful and hopeful and nuanced and intricate.

Miniseries? What miniseries.?

I had some trouble getting back into reading after a distracting two years of assorted COVID lockdowns, until I returned to a tried and true passion: the Harry Potter series. Despite JKR over-sharing some problematic opinions about transgender people, I can’t dispute her talents at writing a captivating series.

I love this series, and I find myself so absorbed by the story that by the end of 7 books, I’m basically also a friend of Harry, Hermione, and Ron, and now that I’m done I really miss them! To cling a little longer to the fantasy, I thought I’d just go ahead and rank the books against each other. To be clear, a ranking of 7th out of 7 books is still the same as a ranking of 93 out of 100 when stacked against a myriad of non-Harry Potter books.

Number 7 in the top 7 countdown: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I’m not entirely sure why this is my least favourite of the HP series. It has all the makings of a great story – the Quidditch World Cup, a contest where we all are supposed to cheer for the underdog, actual dragons, first crushes, and the shocking and violent return of Lord Voldermort to his Real Life body. It’s not that I didn’t love it, it’s just that I loved it the least. Maybe it’s a bit too choppy? Or possibly it’s just too long for the stories that it is telling. Just win the tournament, escape the Dark Lord’s return, and be done with it already!

Number 6: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

I liked this booked, partly because I figured out after reading it that Snape was in love with Lily Evans, and that’s why he switched his allegiance to Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix. And of course, there was the shocking twist where Snape also kills Dumbledore, so WTF??? But as far as a ranking in the HP greatest hits list, it’s just a little heavy on exposition through the convenient use of the Pensieve for visiting equally convenient, previously stored memories.

It seems like minimal progress is made in the identification, recovery, and destruction of the final remaining horcruxes, leaving a lot of heavy lifting for book 7. I mean, even after Dumbledore risks his and Harry’s lives to retrieve the locket, it turns out it’s already been retrieved (but not, unfortunately, destroyed, so technically it’s lost again). We don’t witness the destruction of even one Horcrux in this book (Dumbledore destroys the ring “off page”, so to speak). This means our intrepid gang of wizards heads into the finale with the tasks of locating three remaining Horcruxes (the re-lost locket and two as-yet unknown), figuring out how to destroy them, and killing the fourth (Nagini).

Number 5: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

Bonus points for being the book that started it all! Super fun, humourous, engaging. Harry, Ron, and Hermione become friends for life. Buuuut …. three 11 year old brand new wizards can figure out the more stringent magical protections around the philosopher’s stone. Yeeeaaahhhhhh ok.

Number 4: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

This book is tough to call. Half of it is full of my absolute favourite moments: The DA comes into being, the Weasley Twins find their passion outside of school and leave a floundering Professor Umbridge in their wake, Harry bonds with Sirius.

On the other hand, Harry is so grouchy for most of the book, and even reasonable explanations don’t appease him. Yes, he’s a hormonal teenager, but he’s had to put up with way worse than “how dare you not tell me what’s going on!” And, he flakes on Occlumency training even after Dumbledore tells him nothing is more important. AND, he forgets he has a perfectly useful 2-way mirror for contacting Sirius and instead runs headlong into a Voldermort trap at the Department of Mysteries. Harry, Harry, Harry.

Number 3: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Third is possibly a higher ranking than this book deserves, except for the fact that the good guys win and we find out what happens to all the key characters in a helpful epilogue (EXCEPT LUNA, JK!!! WHY DID YOU LEAVE OUT LUNA????) It’s also full of excitement, close calls, death, not-death, and some very sad choices around who lives and who doesn’t, as seems right in a war.

The problem I have is all the heavy lifting. As already mentioned, Harry, Hermione, and Ron start out with having to find and destroy 4 Horcruxes, which is already hefty. But this eventually turns into finding the 4 Horcruxes, finding the 3 Deathly Hallows, solving the mystery of the 3 objects that Dumbledore bequeathed, and dealing with a surprise 5th Horcrux (who isn’t actually very hard to find).

Number 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

This book, very early on, lays a lot of the groundwork for things that will come later: the sword of Gryffindor, the diary, Gilderoy Lockhart at St. Mungos, house elves, the whomping willow, the Ford Anglia, the vanishing cabinet, Fawkes, Polyjuice Potion … It also settles nicely into the friendship between Harry, Ron and Hermione and solidifies Harry’s relationship with Dumbledore. Finally, it’s already starting to hint at the degree to which Voldemort is dangerous, which of course will just continue to escalate book by book.

And the number 1 book in the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Yes, yes, I know this is an easy pick and it’s EVERYBODY’S favourite. For about 5 minutes, Harry has a family and is as happy as he will be throughout most of the series. Sirius gets his redemption (sort of), Buckbeak is saved, and there is proper and judicious use of time travel. Plus Hermione is awesome (as always) and we meet Lupin, one of my favourite secondary characters.

Next up: maybe I’ll rewatch all 8 movies! In the meantime, which is your favourite Harry Potter book?