Category: Book Reviews (Page 5 of 39)

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn | Book Review

September 27, 2023 / Monique

I become a huge fan of Kate Quinn after her book The Shrines of Gaiety and I have since inhaled The Rose Code and The Alice Network. The Rose Code is a masterful spy novel that alternates between flashbacks to the the 1940s wartime activities of at Bletchley Park and the days leading up to the royal wedding in 1947.

Three headstrong women answer the call to join the war effort at Bletchley Park. They do not know what they are getting into. Osla is a beautiful and wealthy debutante who puts her fluent German to use as a translator. Mab is an east-end London powerhouse who is a towering beauty with a sharp set of eyebrows. And Beth is a mousey, downtrodden local girl with a panache for crosswords. She is a brilliant puzzle cracker and becomes one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts.

But Beth also sniffs out a traitor and finds herself locked up in a sanitarium before the war is over.

Osla, Mab, and Beth are estranged because of a series of small betrayals between the friends. It means that Beth’s accusations are buried and Osla and Mab are not aware of the traitor until they receive a message from Beth that she has managed to smuggle out of the sanitarium. Will they help her?

The Rose Code is a fantastic story about the layers of friendships, betrayals, and loyalty. It’s fast paced, fun, and taps into some of the real history of the Park. I listened to this on audiobook and the narrator did a great job of the various British accents and creating a veil of mystery.

See the Author website for more info.

On the Ball: Short Stories, Anecdotes, and Words of Wisdom on the Mental Side of Sport by Michael Lodewyks

September 17, 2023 / Monique

On the Ball is a masterclass in the mental strategies coaches and athletes can use in sports, but it’s also full of personal anecdotes that resonate with parents of athletes and even working adults. There are tips here that work for work as well as they work for sport.

Michael Lodewyks has spent over 25 years coaching volleyball and tennis and this book is a massive brain dump of everything he’s learned and observed in his time. The book is well organized with key takeaways at the end of each section and a big-picture plan as a final summary of the tips. The strategies are well tested in professional sports beyond volleyball and tennis and again this book really is a resource for anyone wanting to up their game.

Available on Amazon or from the author’s site.

Bomb: The Race to Build-and Steal-the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

September 17, 2023 / Monique

The book Bomb by Steve Sheinkin is an absolutely fascinating read about what was going on at Los Alamos during WWII and the mad race for physicists around the world to figure out atomic weapons. Oppenheimer is certainly a presence in the book, but where the film delves into the behind-the-scenes trial, this book digs into the many different personalities working on atomic energy. I wish I’d read this book before seeing the film.

If you like history and spy stories then this is for you. It’s billed for age 10-14 but don’t let that dissuade you. Sheinkin offers up a rich history lesson, in plain language, that is spine-tingling.

Check out the excerpt on the author’s website. Or just go buy the book (Amz).

Still Life by Sarah Winman | Book Review

September 5, 2023 / Monique

Still Life by Sarah Winman is an expansive novel with a great cast of characters. The basic summary is that an English soldier during WWII saves a man in Florence. That man later leaves his home and possessions to the English soldier, who takes a chance and moves from East End London to Florence.

Beyond the basics, there is so much happening in this novel. The soldier and main character is named Ulysses Temper. During the war his captain, Darnley, teaches him how to appreciate art. In a random meeting, Ulysses and Darnley enjoy an amazing glass of wine with an art historian Evelyn, whose father is HW Skinner and who is friends with EM Forster and Constance Everly. Some of these characters are real people and others are great fictions.

After the war, Ulysses returns to the East End London to live above his friend Col’s pub. He reconnects with a long-time friend Cressy, and learns that his wife Peg had a daughter Alys while he was away at war. When Ulysses learns that he has inherited money and property, Cressy and Alys come with him to Florence where they set up a pensionne for British and American travellers. They meet another cast of characters, and collectively survive and flourish.

This is such a big hearted book about love in all its forms. Plus, there’s all the art and food you could expect from a novel mostly set in Italy.

Published by Penguin Random House Canada

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk | Book Review

August 25, 2023 / Monique

First published in Polish in 2009 and newly translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is a literary murder mystery set in a small Polish village. The novel opens with the death of a man in a remote forest area. Two neighbours go to investigate lights left on in the home and discover the man dead. They move the body, dress the man in a suit, and call it into the police. To do the latter, they have to climb a hill in order to get enough reception to call the Polish police vs. the Czechoslovakia authorities. .

Our protagonist Mrs. Duszejko is one of the neighbours. She teaches English at the village school and is an astrologer. She has nicknames for many members of the community: Oddball (the other neighbour), Big Foot (the dead neighbour), Dizzy (her friend with whom she translates Blake’s poetry), Good News (thrift shop woman), and Black Coat (Oddball’s son, who is also the police inspector).

Mrs. Duszejko is quite the character. She is convinced that the forest animals are seeking revenge on hunters in the area. As more men end up dead, her horoscopes and theories are presented repeatedly to the police who write her off as a crazy old crank. But there might be something to her madness.

Author Olga Tokarczuk is the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and her novel Flights won the Man Booker International Prize. In Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, she pushes the reader to reflect on philosophical questions about human nature, our assumed superiority over animals, and the role we have in tending to the land. There is a quiet, unwinding to this tale.

I discovered this book at Upstart & Crow so I highly recommend you get your copy from them. The novel is published in Canada by Penguin Random House.

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli | Book Review

August 17, 2023 / Monique

Leah on the Offbeat is the delightful story of a close-knit group of teens who are graduating from their small-town high school and making their college decisions.

Simon and Bram are officially boyfriends, and just too damn cute—but will they choose colleges in the same city or is it long-distance love for them? Nick and Abby are the ideal couple—but is something is a bit off in paradise? Leah is our rockstar drummer and queen of drama—but is she pushing away her friends so that the goodbye isn’t as hard? Garrett is crushing hard on Leah—but does he know Leah is bi and maybe more into Abby than him? Nora, Morgan, Anna, Tylor, and Martin make up the rest of the crew.

This novel is all about sweet teen romances and how important it all seems in the moment. There are so many cliched scenes in the book but it’s adorable. If you went to high school, you will relate to everything from the promposal to the dance-off, from the hangouts at the Waffle House to the parties in the basement. Albertalli offers a glimpse into the lives of a group of teens who you’d love to know.

Leah on the Offbeat is published by HarperCollinsCanada

Snowflake by Louise Nealon | Book Review

August 12, 2023 / Monique

Snowflake by Louise Nealon is great craic. It’s the story of eighteen-year-old Debbie who has grown up on her family’s dairy farm about 40 min outside of Dublin. She’s a country girl. Everyone knows her uncle, who is frequently at the pub, and her mam, who’s shacked up with a younger man. Debbie’s uncle Billy lives in a caravan on the family property and, despite how transient that sounds, he’s a source of stability for Debbie. Her mom Maeve believes that she has other people’s dreams, she dances naked in the sea, and spends a lot of time in her bed or writing in her dream journals.

Being a special snowflake is a putdown, but each of these characters is unique and has their own quirks. Debbie feels like a country bumkin every time she’s in the city, but she figures out commuting, her coursework, making friends, and how to drive. There are a ton of Irish expressions and I feel like I met many of these people during my own time in Dublin teaching at the university. But I don’t think you need to have lived (or even visited) Ireland to appreciate this novel about growing up and accepting your crazy family.

Snowflake is published in Canada by HarperCollins

Book Details

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn | Book Review

August 3, 2023 / Monique

Set in 1947, The Alice Network is the story of Charlotte (or Charlie) an American woman desperately seeking her French cousin (Rose) who disappeared during the war. Her one clue is the names Eve Gardiner, Rene, and Le Lethe.

Well Eve turns out to be an old drunk with damaged hands, a poor temper, and the owner of a Luger, which she aims square between Charlotte’s eyes.

Rene is a profiteering monster who ran Le Lethe, a restaurant in Lille frequented by the Germans during the Great War.

Eve worked as a spy for England and had perfect French and German. She infiltrated the restaurant as a stuttering French waitress and managed to pass a number of excellent secrets to the head of the Alice Network, Louise de Bettignies (alias Alice Dubois).

The novel is historical fictional, with Eve, Charlotte and Rene being the imagined characters. But the Alice Network was real, as was Louise de Bettignies, the Queen of Spies, who ran a WWI network of spies in an area of France near Lille. She was formidable.

The novel is great, as is the author’s note pointing out the many stories in the novel that are based on real stories of female spies during the Great War, their trial records, and personal accounts.

Published by HarperCollins Canada
Or visit the author site for the book trailer and cool additional resources

Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid | Book Review

July 27, 2023 / Monique

The audiobook of Carrie Soto Is Back is super. Carrie Soto is an incredible, record-breaking tennis player. She retired after an injury but is spurred into coming out of retirement to defend her title against young upstart Nicki Chan.

There’s excellent drama in the sports world and it comes through in this novel. Plus the author includes all sorts of subtle mentions of characters from her other novels. Plus the main reader is great, and then there are several others who narrate as the sports commentators. It adds an extra layer of audio delight.

Carrie Soto Is Back is a really fun summer listen.

Published by Penguin Random House Canada

All Things Move: Learning to Look in the Sistine Chapel by Jeannie Marshall | Book Review

July 26, 2023 / Monique

If you love poetry, philosophy, art history, and personal memoir then this book is for you. It’s a quiet, gentle reflection on what it means to engage with art, why art has the capacity to enchant and haunt us through centuries, and where Renaissance religious art can find relevance in today’s busy, modern world.

I had the pleasure of listening to a conversation between Jeannie Marshall and The Tyee’s culture editor Dorothy Woodend on May 4, 2023 at Upstart & Crow. Jeannie struck me as a gentle yet powerful writer. Full of curiosity but also caution.

Jeannie lives in Rome and for a long time avoided visiting the Sistine Chapel, and yet Michelangelo’s famed ceiling was something her grandmother in Canada wished to see, it’s a place 5 million people a year visit. Her first visit, after the death of her mother, was as frustrating as she imagined. The ceiling is busy, the place is busy, it’s overwhelming. But something kept drawing her back time and again.

This book is really a masterful unfolding of layers of art history, the impact of religious wars and intolerance, and the power the Catholic church had over her family. All Things Move is a remarkable personal journey but also a wonderfully thoughtful, philosophical look at the role of art in our lives.

I find my thoughts returning to Jeannie’s musings and meditations on what it means to create a work of art that transcends time, and what it means to view and engage in that art.

Her publisher Biblioasis has crafted a fine book. It’s glossy pages show off different images of Michelangelo’s frescoes, along with gritty street photos of Rome taken by fellow Canadian and author Douglas Anthony Cooper.

I’d say this is a book about learning to look, taking time to relish small details in order to—over time—see the full picture.

At the same time I was reading Jeannie Marshall, I kept coming across references to John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, I was listening to David Whyte in conversation with Krista Tippet in a episode of On Being, and thinking about the human experience and how short it really is.

So I was primed for a book on loss, celebration, language, art, philosophy, undertaking intellectual pursuits for the pleasure of it, joy, inner life and cultural constructs for how we should live or what should act as the moral compass. I’m not done with this book. Thank you Jeannie Marshall.

Published by Biblioasis.