Category: Book Reviews (Page 33 of 40)

The Man Who Forgot How to Read: A Memoir by Howard Engel is not a literary masterpiece but it is a masterful work. Howard Engel, author of the Benny Cooperman detective novels, woke up one day and discovered that he could not read the newspaper. Not the newspaper, books, street signs, any written text. In the night he suffered a stroke that affected the part of his brain responsible for reading. He could write but could not read.

The Man Who Forgot How to Read is Engel’s story of his struggle to regain reading, from the day of the stroke to the day of the manuscript completion that is this memoir. I say it isn’t a literary masterpiece because compared to something like Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ memoirs, this is plain writing. It’s not literary writing that flows into the memoir. It’s the straightforward story of a man who lost a significant part of his identity over night. An author who cannot read.

I do think it is a masterful work regardless. The incredible journey Engel takes in order to read and write and complete not just this manuscript but a new Benny Cooperman novel is worth recognition. Oliver Sacks, who writes the afterword, thinks it’s remarkable as well.

The Man Who Forgot How to Read by Howard Engel is published by Harper Collins Canada. Check out their website for more details on the book.

I just finished reading The Good Lie by Don Bailey, novelist and coordinator of the Professional Writing Cooperative Education Program at the University of Victoria. Don is a great self-promoter and initially contacted me in October last year before my trip to Malta. We have some mutual friends, including novelist and editor Wayne Tefs.

Because of Don’s position in the literary community, I felt the urge to give this novel a rather academic reading. But I fought that urge and instead enjoyed it as a novel rather than as a literary exercise. What I like about the book most is that the ending is not the ending I expected.

The novel starts plainly enough. Paul is on a kayak trip, the last in a series of lessons. He and another guest become separated from the group during the foggy return trip. There is a boat that topples them into the water, some panic, and other drama, all of which results in the other guest going into a coma and Paul being investigated as part of a lawsuit.

The quote at the beginning of the book, by Ben Stillwell, Paul’s lawyer, sums up the main thread of the novel: “In this profession you see everything. The thieves, the cokeheads, the pimps and prostitutes–of course they lie. Everybody expects them to lie. But sometimes, the good lie, too.”

This is exactly what Paul does. He lies about Jenny, the other guest, panicking and nearly drowning him. He lies about knocking her off him with his paddle, which likely resulted in her coma. He lies to his wife about the sense of fear and threat he feels about the pending lawsuit. It’s a book of lies.

Normally Paul isn’t the type of character I have any sympathy for. He is a coward. I can’t say he is a redeemable coward but my sympathies for him do increase at the book goes on, and as I mentioned at the beginning, the end of this book is not what I expected.

The Good Lie by Don Bailey is quite an enjoyable read–part literary, part soul searching, part crime drama. Thank you Don for introducing me to The Good Lie.

For those interested readers of fiction, I noticed on Don Bailey’s website, TheGoodLie.com that there is a book club section that offers 27 different questions and conversation points. I definitely think The Good Life is book-club worthy and Don’s dedication to providing a worthwhile website for readers is commendable.

The Good Lie by Don Bailey (published by Turnstone Press).

Two sites of interest today:

Flat World Knowledge is a resource site for finding free, open, online college textbooks. There is a little promo video that explains what the site is about.

Juicespot.ca is a place for book readers to go when they are looking for the next good read. You can Dig or Dis a book, create your own page, see what others are reading, review books, answer polls and win stuff.

The Manitoba Literary Awards yesterday got me thinking about Winnipeg books that I’ve enjoyed and have yet to post about. Here’s a short round-up of my Winnipeg favourites that deserve mention.

Influenze 1918: Disease, Death and Struggle in Winnipeg by Esyllt W. Jones (nominated for the Carol Shields Award)
Although an academic account of how the 1918 influenza epidemic affected Winnipeg, Jones still manages to render an engaging look at the personal ways the disease affected the city. This is a thorough social history and study of the impact of influenza on various levels of society. And it freaks me out that a short-term but serious health crisis can devastate a city. These things do not change. SARS was a good example of this.

Holding My Breath by Sidura Ludwig (nominated for the Carol Shields Award) is a skillful exploration of one Jewish family in the North End of Winnipeg during the aftermath of the Second World War. Despite the potential for world events to dominate the narrative, Ludwig deftly weaves historical markers and references to Winnipeg into the story, allowing the reader to focus on the characters, their ambitions, triumphs and tragedies. Holding My Breath is a polished and satisfying novel.

The Winnipeg Jets: A Celebration of Professional Hockey in Winnipeg (nominated for the Carol Shields Award) is a treat for any Jets fan. Published by Studio Publications, this retrospective offers a comprehensive yet entertaining look at the game, from as early as 1890, when the first recognized game was played at the Winnipeg Street Railway Rink, through the days of Bobby Hull, the Swedish imports, Dale Hawerchuk and White Outs to the great farewell. It’s the good, the bad and the ugly: the famous players, the behind-the-scenes politics, the trades and the fans. Go Jets Go!

The North End: Photographs by John Paskievich (nominated for the Carol Shields Award)
The introduction to this book is by Stephen Osborne, a man whose photographic eye I will happily bend to. This is gorgeous photo book clearly evokes a time and place, that of Winnipeg’s North End. The ethnicity of the place, the class structure, the culture, the complex state of joy and anguish in this part of the city are all cleverly portrayed in the photos. A visual masterpiece.

Sandbag Shuffle by Kevin Marc Fournier
The Winnipeg Flood is one of those moments in Winnipeg history that continues to capture the imagination. This is the story of Owen and Andrew who escape from their group home in North Dakota and make their way north during the chaos of evacuations. Cheerful and irresponsible, these boys use the flood to their advantage, along with any caring soul they meet along the way. Although the narrative arch of this novel is problematic, it’s still an interesting perspective of lives during the 1997 flood.

Stay Black & Die by Addena Sumter-Freitag
I’m not sure why every book I happened to reading on Winnipeg tended to focus on the North End, but such is the randomness of life. This North End Winnipeg story is a play about a girl growing up Black during the 1950s. I thought this was a great story. Really engaging and definitely a side of Winnipeg that is often untold. I also don’t read a lot of plays so when I do it’s because they are good.

Prairie Writers: Volume 3 edited by MD Meyer
I like short stories a lot. These self-contained snippets of a character’s life represent the diversity of Prairie life. Some are good. Some are okay. But together they pull me back to the Prairies like a warm summer wind.

The Hermetic Code by the Winnipeg Free Press
No list of Winnipeg books is complete without The Hermetic Code. I think this is the book that most captured Winnipeggers this year. The Manitoba Legislature Building is an iconic building and made all the more interesting because of the secrets this book unlocks. Here’s my original review of The Hermetic Code.

The Musical Strike! by Danny Schur and Rick Chafe
Like the 1918 Influenza epidemic and the North End of Winnipeg, the 1918 Strike is iconic. I haven’t read a musical in a long, long time. Perhaps not since high school when I was auditioning for Annie. But unions and democratic dreams are part of my family history so this book caught my eye. There is a CD that you play while you read. I think this is the first interactive book that’s made sense to me.

MTC 50: Manitoba Theatre Centre 50 Years
Studio Publications is a company that caught my eye last Christmas. They published the Deluca Cookbook. Deluca’s is an Italian institution in Winnipeg. A wonderful, tasty place. The book was beautiful and left me salivating. So when I saw the gorgeous white cover of The Winnipeg Jets book and then the striking black cover of the MTC book, I couldn’t resist having a closer look. This is a beautifully produced snapshot of the history of the theatre scene in Winnipeg over the past 50 years.

Sunny Dreams by Alison Preston
I liked this book a lot. It’s a spring day in 1925 when Sunny Palmer is kidnapped from her baby carriage in broad daylight, in the middle of a busy restaurant. The kidnapping devastates the Palmer family. Violet Palmer, Sunny’s older sister, is the protagonist of this novel and we follow her to adulthood and through the summer of 1936 when two drifters arrive with clues to Sunny’s disappearance.

Quite the list. I’ll stop there for now. McNally Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg is one of the best places to find books by Prairie writers. They have a great local section, I love the store, and if you want to read any of these books, they will be the best place to find them. Online sales too, yah!

Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin is the story of the King’s daughter who Aeneas fights to claim in Vergil’s The Aeneid. I know this sounds heavy, but it’s not. Le Guin does a fantastic job of bringing a tertiary character to life.

Lavinia is about the war that takes place for Lavinia’s hand in marriage (which is really about the amount of land and goats the boy gets). Lavinia is a head-strong girl who grows up during the peaceful reign of her father and has to endure the trials and tribulations of suitors, her crazy mother who wants to marry her off to a cousin (ok in those days), and the war that takes place when a foreigner (Aeneas) arrives on the scene just after an oracle declares that Lavinia must be married to a foreigner. Despite seeing the guy once from a hilltop, Lavinia is super keen to follow orders. I think she’s looking for an escape from the cousin.

Trojan horses, Vergil’s The Aeneid, ancient Italy, prophecies and quick witted maidens: Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin offers a lot to like.

I give it a 4 out of 5. High entertainment value. The beginning was a little difficult to get into. I was having troubles figuring out who was narrating, Lavinian, Vergil? I’m sure the blame rests with me and not with Le Guin.

Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin, published by Harcourt Books.

One of the great things about reviewing books is getting a chance to look at books that I wouldn’t normally choose for myself. For example, picture books. I have a small collection of picture books that I’ve bought because of the incredible artwork but these are not books I actively seek–unless I’m buying for my friends’ kids. (Ok, I secretly look at lots of picture books because I like illustration. I even hang out at “Make Things Night” with friends who are illustrators I just a hanger on.)

Raincoast Books recently sent me a couple of new Spring books from Chronicle Books that fall under the “beautiful artwork” category. They also have lovely stories.

Grandma Calls Me Beautiful by Barbara M. Joosse and illustrated by Barbara Lavallee
Team Barbara is well known to me because they previously published a very popular series called Mama, Do You Love Me and Papa, Do You Love Me. These were simple story books about a parents unconditional love. Barbara Lavallee’s watercolour illustrations are spectacular. In this book the setting appears to be Hawaii. I love the way she depicts Hawaiians and Alaskans in her paintings.

Wave by Suzy Lee
No text in this book. It’s a great graphic story book about a little girl playing in the waves. This is a fun book. Simple, beautiful. Black, white, blue and fun all over. I wanted to play in the waves after looking at this book. If I’m not mistaken this is the same Suzy Lee who published a very cheeky book called The Black Bird.

Little Hoot by Amy Krouse Rosental and Jen Corace
Amy and Jen are the creators of Little Pea, one of my favourite picture books of all time. Little Pea is about a little pea whose parents force him to eat all his candy. It’s horrible: candy for breakfast, sweets at lunch, treats at dinner. Little Pea just wants his veggies. Little Hoot has a similar problem. He’s a little owl and his parents won’t let him go to bed early. Owls stay up late! And that’s that.

Only in Dreams: a Paul Frank Book by Parker Jacobs
Julius the Monkey is brought to life in the Paul Frank Books. I love this monkey. Who doesn’t love monkeys? The colours are bold! In this story Julius is off to dreamland. My favourite page is Julius paddling down a strawberry-milk river, near a frosted-cupcake village. I like this dream a lot.

Chronicle Books isn’t the only publisher with great picture books that take an irreverent approach to kids books. Harcourt Books has a fab book this season too.

Help Me, Mr. Mutt: Expert Answers for Dogs with People Problems by Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel
“Are you always in the doghouse? Don’t yelp, get help! Write to Mr. Mutt, Canine Counselor … Speedy replies guaranteed, complete with diagrams and tips. Help Me, Mr. Mutt is a hilarious collection of letters from dogs seeking advice. Totally brilliant.

Enter the Harcourt Books Contest for a chance to win a copy of Help Me, Mr. Mutt.

Janet and Susan has have an interview about writing the book. Get the inside scoop. Mr. Mutt is super cute. Find out if he or any of the other pups are based on Janet or Susan’s pets.

Hannah Stephenson of GLOSS mag and I were talking about graphic novels the other day and here is her recent review of Skim, which is written by Mariko Tamaki with illustrations by Jillian Tamaki.

A totally gorgeous book, I was envious of her copy and only had a couple of minutes to “skim” the book, pardon the pun.

Quote: Skim is an astonishingly genuine portrayal of a teenage girl dealing with an absurd range of problems in high school.

GLOSS Magazine review of Skim

Yahooo, my friend and business colleague Susannah Gardner (aka Super Susie) is launching her latest book tomorrow night at the Railway Club in Vancouver. The book is Blogging for Dummies, 2nd Edition, which she wrote with Shane Birley.

Tomorrow we are having a party for the book, which I am excited about. If you are interested in blogging and book launches, let me know and I might be able to score you a ticket. If you’ve wanted to start a blog and haven’t because you’re unsure of how to start, where to start–or if you are a blogger and you want some great tools, tips and ideas–then this is the book for you.

I like Susannah so much that I’ve also done a press release for the book.

Susannah is great, she and I have been on Lab with Leo together and today we did an interview with Paul Grant for the CBC Arts Report. Every time I am amazed at her ability to speak coherently about technology. It’s a true skill–being able to avoid jargon and relate to people and not geek out to the point of intimidating people.

Congratulations Susannah on the latest book. Yay!

I’m claiming this as a 2007 read although I did save 20 pages for this morning. What a great book.

In 2003 Gruen was working on another book when the Chicago Tribune ran an article on Edward J. Kelty, an American photographer who followed travelling circuses in the 1920s and 30s. She did a bunch of research on train circuses of the times and came up with Water for Elephants.

The premise of the story is that a young Jacob Jankowski, under extreme duress due to the accidental death of his parents, flees his veterinary exams and jumps on a train. The train ends up being the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Jacob spends 3 months on the circus as the vet, falls in love with his boss’s wife, acquires an elephant and almost gets thrown from the train several times.

The story is as fun as going to the circus.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen is published by Harper Collins Canada.

Ani DiFranco Verses is a book of DiFranco’s poetry and paintings. What I like most about the book is the discussion at the end between Ani DiFranco and Sekou Sundiata, who is a spoken-word poet and teacher of literature at The New School.

l have a hard time reading poetry. Sometimes I understand it too literally and sometimes too figuratively. The conversation with Sekou at the end of the collection of verses really helps ground my reading of the poems. It’s the insight into the work that I wish all poetry volumes held.

One of my favourite poems in this collection is a short poem called Akimbo. It starts “what dreams cause me to abandon my pillow each night?”

Opening lines of poems are important to me. Either I get into it or I don’t.

Ani DiFranco Verses is published by Seven Stories.