Category: Book Reviews (Page 30 of 40)

Not only does Greystone publish beautifully written books, they design them beautifully. This petite package is absolutely lovely. The Amazon thumbnail below does not do it justice.

One word review: Eloquent

Crozier is a fine, fine writer. Her memoir’s style is like a novel, or a Canadian long poem for those of you who know what that is. The vivid narrative, wistful poetry and snippets of daily life take us to Crozier’s childhood and adolescence in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. The poverty of the prairies is mixed with the stoicism of prairie folk, hard-working toilers of the land who love to stand in the wheat, feel the wind in their hair, and can’t imagine a better place. (And, of course, there are the town drunks, the self-righteous, the nosy neighbours, and all variety of friends.)

Small Beneath the Sky was a slow read for me, each sentence so tightly crafted that I needed to savour it like a popsicle on a hot summer day.

Andrew Kaufman is one of my favourite writers, even though he’s only written one book, All My Friends Are Superheroes. But that changes this month with the publication of his second book, a novel called The Waterproof Bible, and I’m meaning that what’s changed in the number of books published, not my fandom.

The Waterproof Bible backcover has one of those descriptions that either impresses you or frightens you.

Quote: A magical story of love and the isolation that defines the modern condition – Andrew Kaufman pulls off the near impossible and creates a wholly original allegorical tale that is both emotionally resonant and outlandishly fun.

Rebecca Reynolds is a young woman with a most unusual and inconvenient problem: no matter how hard she tries, she can’t stop her emotions from escaping her body and entering the world around her. Luckily she’s developed a nifty way to trap and store her powerful emotions in personal objects – but how many shoeboxes can a girl fill before she feels crushed by her past?

Three events force Rebecca to change her ways: the unannounced departure of her husband, Stewart; the sudden death of Lisa, her musician sister; and, while on her way to Lisa’s funeral, a near-crash with what appears to be a giant frogwoman recklessly speeding in a Honda Civic.

Meanwhile, Lisa’s inconsolable husband skips the funeral and flies to Winnipeg where he begins a bizarre journey that strips him of everything before he can begin to see a way through his grief, all with the help of a woman who calls herself God.

What the hell, right?

This is a book about what we think about before we die: who has a score to settle, who needs to say farewell, who needs forgiveness, who needs forgetfulness. In the case of The Waterproof Bible the characters are all tied in some way to the death of Lisa.

Lisa’s husband Lewis needs to deal with his grief through flight. Flight in a twofold way in that he chooses flight vs. fight and flight as in he jumps on an airplane to get far away. Far away from himself, I believe.

Lisa’s sister Rebecca has so much emotion that she doesn’t know what to do with it. She’s a woman with a lot of baggage. As she physically and metaphorically lets go, she’s able to come to terms with herself.

Lisa’s brother-in-law Stewart is estranged from Rebecca and is living somewhere in the middle of the Prairies, where he’s building a boat. Landlocked and oh so misguided, or so it seems.

Margaret and Aby are two Aquatics whose lives intersect with the other three. Aquatics are those who are meant to live underwater, according to the laws of the Aquatic Bible. But Margaret has chosen another path, much to the chagrin of her daughter Aby who, in making her way to her mother’s home on the Prairies, has a run-in (in the literal sense) with Rebecca and Lewis. Oh and Margaret runs the hotel where Stewart works and is building the boat.

I know it’s all bizarre, but truly, this is my favourite book of 2010.

Kaufman writes literary fantasy the way that Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes magical realism. Where indeed is the line? The Waterproof Bible is a crazy, magical story of love, the beginning, middle and end, and life, the beginning, middle and end. I loved it.

Andrew Kaufman’s writing is completely sensible, even with the greenskined Aquatics floating around on the Prairies. Andrew, thank you so very much for giving us a second book that rivals the first. It’s lovely and brilliant.

I hardly even re-read books, but this one is back in the nightstand pile.

The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman
Published by Random House in ebook and hardcover on Feb 23, 2010.

Thank you for the advance copy!

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith is the New No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Novel. And it came from Santa.

In short, Mma Ramotswe walks to work to eschew laziness. Mma Makutsi worries about the new saleslady at her fiance’s furniture store, and the ladies look for a soccer traitor. It’s typical McCall Smith and it’s wonderfully comforting to partake in the ebb and flow of this series.

Author Kate Inglis is one of those people who you meet and never want to leave. I’d move in next door if she didn’t live on the opposite coast. But aside from being lovely, she’s a great author.

Her first book, The Dread Crew is an imaginative tale of filth, friendships and backwoods pirates. It’s the story of a boy, a crew of dirty, warty, natty, rude, pugnacious, revolting, disgusting pirates who show up demanding things from the villagers that they hoard.

The Dread Crew is one of those tales that starts in the woods when a mother is walking with her restless tot, home is still a ways away, and there’s nothing fueling the walk expect whatever story she can pull from the air. Anyone who’s a mom knows how this works, but few of those stories actually find their way to the published page.

As Kate says, “it occurred to me that writing something silly was highly speculative, a debatable spend of martial and mothering time. I shrugged. I kept it to myself because I thrive in the pressureless void of low expectations. I hadd 15,000 words before telling my husband–with my mouth full, behind my hand–that I was writing a novel. A three-year spell of insomnia was my groundswell. Getting published was an accident.”

Listen to my audio preview of the book: (MP3 6 MB should play with Google Reader)

I had a sneak peak at some new books from Random House of Canada Ltd. and these are my favourites:

See the list on Amazon’s Listmania

1. Ossuaries by Dionne Brand (poetry)
“Dionne Brand’s mesmerizing new collection of poems is about human zoos; bones, culture, the fabric of our times.”
Brand is awesome, I’m sure to love this one.

2. Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen (poetry)
“Leonard Cohen’s classic book of contemporary psalms is repackaged. As lovely as the first publication 25 years ago.”
It’s a beautiful package.

3. Tea Time for the Traditionally Built: Book 10 by Alexander Mccall Smith
“The 10th Precious Ramotswe novel is as adorable as the first.”
Precious is precious. I love this series.

4. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
“Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, this bestselling tale of a family haunted by the past – and perhaps more – has received ecstatic reviews around the world: Waters is exceptional!”
I really, really liked Fingersmith and have been meaning to read more Sarah Waters. This is it!

5. Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects Our Health by Rick Smith
“How the toxic soup of our lives is killing us.”
Do I need a book to tell me this? No, but it would be interesting to know how to better navigate the world.

6. Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces by Gayla Trail
“Good food grown in small spaces.”
I have herbs on the balcony and am ready for more.

7. Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd
“A heart-in-mouth conspiracy novel about the fragility of social identity, the corruption at the heart of big busunderbelly of the everyday city.”
A dark, twisted book with quirks that are sure to be my style.

8. The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman
“Kaufman can’t be missed.”
All My Friends Are Superheroes is a brilliant book. I must read this one.

9. Angelology by Danielle Trussoni
“Angels are big this year. A book to watch.”
Monique’s prediction: angels, oil an religion. We’ll be as fascinated by these things in 2010 as we were by vampires in 2009.

10. The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag: A novel by Alan Bradley
“Flavia is back.”
For Sweetness at the bottom of the pie, this young detective is by to thrill me with her fascination of poisons.

11. Dahanu Road: A novel by Anosh Irani
“Anosh is dark humored but one of my favs.”
Gawd, I love him.

12. Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel
“Taxidermy!”
Life of Pi guy gets every stranger with taxidermy in this novel. Yes, please.

13. Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath
“Nobody likes change but a wet baby–and even then.”
From Made to Stick comes Switch. I won’t switch. I’ll stick.

14. I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced by Nujood Ali
“The internationally bestselling true story of the remarkable ten-year-old Yemeni girl who dared to defy her country’s most archaic traditions byfighting for a divorce.”
This story just seems unbelievable!

15. Boom! by Mark Haddon (young adult)
“I’ll have whatever Mark’s having. Love his work.”
Positioned for young adults, I think this will be a killer hit with adults too.

When Langdon Cook’s book came across my desk, I immediately wondered why James and I hadn’t written this book. But now that Langdon beat us to it, I’m happy to simply tell you that Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager is a fascinating look at how foraging for your food can be shocking to your friends but also deeply satisfying.

Langdon Cook was a senior book editor at Amazon.com until 2004 when he fled corporate life and shacked up in a little cabin in the woods. Fat of the Land is about how he lived off the grid and foraged for food.

• Free-diving in icy Puget Sound in hopes of spearing a snaggletooth lingcod.
• Picking mushrooms.
• Fly-fishing for sea-run trout.
• Collect stinging nettles.

The prose is a mix of literary humour and travel writing. The chapters are divided up by the seasons and each features some type of foraging for wild edibles and ends with a recipe. The first chapter I read was on crab catching.

James and I regularly go crab catching. And by crab catching, I do not mean with a trap, I mean with a wet suit and cooler. James is the catcher and I’m the keeper. He swims out and dives down for the crabs. When he has more than he can hold in his hands, we meet in the shallow water. I wade out with the cooler, he puts the crabs in, and I snuggle them in ice and then wait for the next two.

In BC, you can keep 4 crabs per license and they have to be 6.5 inches across the carapace (don’t quote me on that, get the ruler) and male.

Various friends have come with us to participate in the catching. They enjoy the eating and, if they are fast learners and get the hang of spotting the crabs in the sand, then they also enjoy the catching. It’s tricky. I can spot the crabs but I can’t hold my breath or dive down in a controlled way. I float like a cork.

After we have our limit, there are two options. Cook them on the beach. Or take them home and cook them on the stove. Either is acceptable.

Reviewed from Uncorrected Proof

Friends with Benefits
A Social Media Marketing Handbook by Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo is coming out this November. Just in time for my birthday.

Lucky for me, their book publisher, No Starch Press, understands geek entertainment and they sent me an advance PDF. Yahoo!

Friends with Benefits is the best book on social media marketing that I’ve read to date. Why is it so great?

Reason 1
My friends wrote it and 3/4s of the way through there’s a screenshot that includes one of my Facebook updates.

Ok, no really, there are better reasons than that.

Reason 2
Friends with Benefits is one of the few books that offers social media marketing case studies with accompanying stats. Although every company has to set their own baseline for metrics, having a reasonable idea of what to expect is critical. Much of this private info is never shared, which means it is hard for a marketer who’s new to social media to answer the boss’s question, “what do I get for this investment in social media.”

Reason 3
There are great passages and quotes.

“The connections we make with other people online are real.”

“The Internet has become a public venue where the audience responds to news reports, suggests stories to cover, and even reports on stories.”

“Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. A successful campaign is usually the result of a hundred correct decisions and actions.”

Reason 4
Friends with Benefits answers the question, “Why would I want social media when my standard marketing practices are safe and known?”

If you’re a marketer dependent on mass media, then understanding web 2.0 as explained by Barefoot and Szabo will shoot you light years ahead of your competition.

The quick history in the first chapter helps establish the customs and culture that make up the web today; and how PR professionals can work within that framework.

Friends with Benefits is a must-read for social media marketers and those new to the field. There’s stuff for everyone, including the case studies I mentioned above, the reasonable expectations set around metrics, the how-to checklists and the great tips on the tools.

Who is Friends with Benefits for?
Anyone who wants:

• More website visitors
• More incoming links
• More subscribers to your RSS feeds
• More views of your content on video- and photo-sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr
• More references to your company, products, and services on blogs, podcasts, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, …
• More followers on Twitter
• Better search engine optimization
• More genuine interactions with your customers

Good job Darren and Julie! I look forward to seeing the book in stores.

Darren and Julie with Andre Charland from Nitobi at IMC Vancouver 2008

Download Chapter 4 from the No Starch site: “Netiquette: Miss Manners for the Web” (PDF)

The Magicians by Lev Grossman is a novel about a bunch of kids who end up at a magic school–a daring feat (or author death wish) considering the world of Harry Potter hasn’t left our collective consciousness. But Grossman’s intention is to tie into the collective consciousness, in particular to the works of CS Lewis, Ursula LeGuin and JK Rowling. And he pulls it off. Grossman does, afterall, hold degrees in comparative literature from Harvard and Yale, and, based on writing style, is well versed in the traditions of modern fantasy and literary fiction.

Like Harry Potter, we have a couple of trios in the mix. Our main group being intellectually precocious high school senior Quentin Coldwater and his best friends James and Julia (who happen to be a couple). Quentin is our Harry, James and Julia our Ron and Hermione. But this trio doesn’t quite work out.

Quentin and James set off for their Princeton interviews. The interviewer turns up dead. The paramedic on scene is a bit odd and tries to give them envelopes with their names on them, and only Quentin accepts. Bonds are broken. Quentin moves to the next level.

The next level being an examination and then acceptance at Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy.

Quote: The Magicians by Lev Grossman. Page 23
The test also changed as he took it. The reading-comprehension section showed him a paragraph that vanished as he read it, then quizzed him on its contents. Some new kind of computerized paper–hadn’t he read somewhere that somebody was working on that? Digital ink? Amazing resolution, though. He was asked to draw a rabbit that wouldn’t keepstill as he drew it–as soon as it had paws it scratched itself luxuriously and then went hopping off around the page, nibbling at the other questions, so that he had to chase it with the pencil to finish filling in the fur. He wound up pacifying it with some hastily sketched radishes and then drawing a fence around it to keep it in line.The Magicians by Lev Grossman (Viking)

I like reading first novels because for the most part book publishers are wary of publishing first-time authors. They feel that no one will buy a book by someone they’ve never heard of. The upside to this misguided logic is that first novels are a highly filter commodity–only the best get through–which means that first novels can sometimes be the best novels you read in a given year.

Such is the case with The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley.

Our heroine is 11-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist who knows the ins and outs of various poisons and their affect on the human body. The novel’s opening scene is of Flavia locked in a closet. Her contemptuous older sisters have bound and gagged her. A cunning lass, Flavia frees herself and sets out to poison her oldest sister via the beauty queen’s lipstick.

Set in the 1950s, Flavia’s Bucksaw home (a decaying English mansion with a chem lab in the attic) is the site of a murder. Flavia discovers the dead man in the cucumber patch. He happens to be the man her father argued with hours before. There’s a dead crow, a crazy cook, a gardener with post-traumatic stress, an affable detective, a couple of side stories of deception, and a lot of investigative work by 11-year-old Miss Flavia.

Quote:
Chapter 12

Feely and Daffy were sitting on a flowered divan in the drawing room, wrapped in one another’s arms and wailing like air-raid sirens. I had taken a few steps into the room to join in with them before Ophelia spotted me.

‘Where have you been, you little beast?’ she hissed, springing up and coming at me like a wildcat, her eyes swollen and red as cycle reflectors. ‘Everyone’s been searching for you. We thought you’d drowned. Oh! How I prayed you had!’

Welcome home, Flave, I thought.

‘Father’s been arrested,’ Daffy said matter-of-factly. ‘They’ve taken him away.’

‘Where?’ I asked.

‘How should we know?’ Ophelia spat contemptuously. ‘Wherever they take people who have been arrested, I expect. Where have you been?’

‘Bishop’s Lacey or Hinley?’

‘What do you mean? Talk sense, you little fool.’

‘Bishop’s Lacey or Hinley,’ I repeated. ‘There’s only a one-room police station at Bishop’s Lacey, so I don’t expect he’s been taken there. The County Constabulary is at Hinley. So they’ve likely taken him to Hinley.’

‘They’ll charge him with murder,’ Ophelia said, ‘and then he’ll be hanged!’ She burst into tears again and turned away.

For a moment I almost felt sorry for her.

You can just hear the villain muttering, ‘ I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for you meddling kids!’

If you like Scooby-Doo, Miss Marple, The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency and quirky fiction, this is for you.

Full marks Alan Bradley on your first novel!

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie on Amazon

Published by Doubleday Canada

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks is worth the praise. Hanna Heath, an Australian rare book expert and conservationist, is called upon to analyze and conserve the famed Sarajevo Haggadah.

The Sarajevo Haggadah was created in the middle of the 14th century, the golden age of Spain. There are many theories about its creation and the identity of the artist who illuminated it. What is known is that there are two coats of arms, one representing a rose and the other a wing. The book is beautiful and has the mysterious history of a beautiful, unidentified woman. It is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images.

See the illuminations …

The Haggadah survived the Inquisition, the Second World War, the Bosnian War, and countless other close calls.

In Brooks’ novel, the Haggadah must also survive a form of repatriation.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Geraldine Brooks delivers a great unraveling.

People of the Book in Google Book Search
Geraldine Brooks
Penguin Books

People of the Book melds the known stories of the Haggadah with the imagined stories of Geraldine Brooks.