February 17, 2017: #BookClub4eva!

Reading is a solitary pleasure. With the possible exception of reading aloud to a child, it really is an activeness best enjoyed alone. Sometimes my daughter and I play "reading lodge" where we each bring our books to the burrow and gyre up together, but there's no chat, each of us lost in our ain fictional world.

Love of books, on the other hand, is something that's meant to be shared. Finding a kindred reading spirit, with whom yous can discuss favourites and disappointments, commutation recommendations and anticipate a favourite author's newest piece of work, is a wonderful matter. To that end, I belong to ii unlike book clubs, one that runs hot and common cold, and the other now mostly defunct. I miss the conversation and camaraderie of those book clubs, non to mention the bailiwick of having a deadline to keep my reading on track. More than on that in a separate mail.

So I've closed the gap in other ways. At work, for example, I regularly hash out books with two different colleagues who both find aplenty fourth dimension to read during their train commutes. (I fantasize about the Get train being essentially a library on rails.) Ane colleague, nosotros'll phone call her Liz (considering that'due south her proper noun), is a bubbly and delightful millennial. In the offset of our book friendship, I had her pegged for a Gone Girl / Girl on the Railroad train / Daughter with the Dragon Tattoo type. Whatever thriller with girl in the title.  But she surprises me regularly with the depth and breadth of her selections and I e'er enjoy our chats standing by her desk. She recommended Hausfrau to me and we had a cursory only great word well-nigh the influence of Anna Karenina and the unhappy fate of being trapped in a loveless marriage.

The second colleague, KW, is a sophisticated and well-read Baby Boomer. She has an office with a door that closes then we get into it a piddling deeper. KW'south tastes run to historical fiction, as she enjoys the artistic license and speculation that authors employ to connect the dots between known facts and events. We both loved The Paris Wife and spent some time together daydreaming most life in Gertrude Stein's Paris salon, rubbing shoulders with Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso and Ezra Pound. "Heady times", KW said, shaking her caput. "Heady times."

Mayhap my favourite role about these two mini workplace volume clubs is the contrast. KW sends me books via interoffice mail with a handwritten note on her personalized notepaper: "Don't be put off past the cover art. It's a corking read. Beryl Markham – what a gal!" Liz leaves books on my desk with no annotation but messages me subsequently: "Read that volume and don't talk to me until you're washed. #BookClub4eva"

It just goes to prove, book clubs come in all shapes and sizes. Reading may be a solitary pleasance but books are for anybody.

February three, 2017: Dipping a Toe Back In

Hello. I'm dorsum. I know it'south been a while. Three years, 2 months, one week and three days, to be exact. So what have I been up to during that time? Not blogging. And truth be told, barely fifty-fifty reading. I've read a few books here and in that location, including some great ones, simply it'southward been in short bursts rather than part of my regular routine.

So why am I back now? In the spirit of new year's resolutions, being a meliorate me, drinking 8 glasses of h2o, 10,000 steps a day, etc, etc, I'thou trying to get my reading groove dorsum. My game plan is a combination of solid book recommendations from people and sources I trust, blogging to go along me honest, and merely getting on with it. To that end, I finished two books in Jan and am well into my third. It's not the #100bookchallenge by any stretch. It's not fifty-fifty 50 pages a day. But it's a start and information technology feels skillful to exist back.

Starting with solid recommendations from a trusted source, I came across a listing of the best 20 books of the by twenty years on Goodreads, as chosen by the Independent Bath Literature Festival. Billed every bit the definitive books of the past two decades, it's a pretty great listing. I've read 10 and loved them all (including The Goldfinch). I effigy I can't go as well far off course if I chip abroad at the other half of the list. First up, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. Loving it and so far. Stay tuned.

Page-blocked past The Goldfinch

Amy, The Swiss Lovie and I met upwardly for dinner a couple of weeks dorsum. Bar Centrale. I arrived first and headed within subsequently existence denied a patio spot past a bunch of early diners wearing driving mules (I counted 6 pairs of Tod'southward out at that place, no joke). Sick of suffering cottage envy on Instragram, I reached for my volume. It'd been toted effectually for weeks. Virtually untouched. Canis familiaris-eared on page 12. I was in a slump.

Once the girls arrived and nosotros were happily tucked into some burrata and rose, nosotros spotted not ane, but two BBCE members walking upward Yonge. The window seat is steamy, simply it'due south great people watching. White people specifically. Not a lot of diversity at Yonge and Price, as it happens. A statistician would find a correlation betwixt this and the proliferation of mules, I bet.

We started talking books. Specifically summer reading. Information technology turns out we were all in a slump.

I take a theory equally to why. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I think it may take been the concluding volume we'd all read. 800 pages of Pulitzer Prize winning genius.

Selected for BBCE erstwhile in the winter, I had simply only started it when nosotros met that month. Commonly not an issue, since unremarkably, anyone ahem, "backside on their reading", can easily participate in the salami, cheese and catching up. Not this fourth dimension. The ladies were buzzing. They had not had such a heated discussion since On Chesil Embankment. When I tried to steer them off topic, I got exiled to the kitchen.

Intrigued, I stepped upward my game and barely did annihilation else for over a week.   I talked about it to anyone who would listen. I passed it along and then nagged friends on their progress, hungry to hear their thoughts. Quite a few said it's the best book they've ever read. Others hated it. My mom said she establish it depressing and almost gave up. I think a lonely boy lost in Las Vegas armed only with a Russian best friend and a dead-beat dad was too difficult for her to hear nigh. Only the interesting thing was that everyone had something dissimilar to say.

I read some reviews in hindsight. The World'southward was most surprising to me: "ambitious, over-the-peak tale of a boy, a painting and our beloved of the inanimate".   They mean the painting, of course.   I never saw it that mode. For me, it was nigh beingness left alone. Holding out for significant. Trying to fit in. Being flawed and vulnerable to exploitation. Loving someone who doesn't love y'all back.   The Pippa scenes nearly broke my heart.

Anyhow. There's a lot there. And while I'm notwithstanding thinking about it, it's hard to imagine going back in.

November 24, 2013: Stand Upwardly For Our Public Library

This is a great reminder that in that location are important issues in our city that crave our attention. We're so much more than Rob Ford.

Take 1 virgin secretarial assistant, snowbound with her ruthless boss and Stephen Harper.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the distinct pleasance of attending 1 of the KAMA Benefit Reading Serial with our Amy, her elegant mother, Mary and delightful sister, Katie.  The subject of the evening:What is Stephen Harper Reading?   The speakers: Elizabeth May and Jann Martel.

"Don't arrive hungry" said the invite from Amy.  "Lovely event, but the food is not that great".   I heeded that communication and thought how lovely to have friends who are both sensible and cognisant of your hunger-triggered mood swings.

What is Stephen Harper Reading ?  I pondered the topic as I made my way downtown.  I was vaguely aware that Jann Martel had been sending the PM books, only very vaguely.  I don't spend equally much time thinking about Stephen Harper every bit I should.  Bated from a healthy distrust for anyone formerly aligned with Stockwell 24-hour interval, no regard for science, and foreign optics that remind me of a husky, I know relatively little.

The evening began with me negotiating around a group of Rubenesque abdomen dancers in the ladies room.   'It'southward going to look choreographed', they assured me,' only it's non'.  I subsequently called b.s. on that one… those ladies had their moves down pat.  Elizabeth May was nifty. Just, Jann Martel's give-and-take of how he came to sending Stephen Harper a volume every two weeks with an accompanying letter delighted me.

He read us a few of them.   All his letters are published in the book: 101 Letters to a Prime number Minister , which I promptly went out and bought.  Having adult a new literary shell, I was all-in for his curated reading list.

Some of the suggestions were classics: Le Petit Prince, Waiting for Godot, Creature Farm.  Others were more than obscure – aboriginal Greek poetry, graphic novels and religious textile.  There was a Harlequin for good measure out, and a dose of Voltaire, maybe but to make it a niggling strenuous…

Jann was clear it wasn't all elitist volume-loving condescension.    Information technology was important because when someone has ability over others, what they choose to read will exist found in what they call up and what they might do;  "One time someone has power over me, every bit Stephen Harper does, it's in my interest to know the nature and quality of his imagination, because his dreams may become my nightmares."

Stephen Harper might say he's too decorated to read.  I've heard this excuse from others.  And so, I give them this passage from Jann's website:

To read a book, one must be still. To lookout a concert, a play, a movie, to wait at a painting, one must be still. Religion, too, makes apply of stillness, notably with prayer and meditation. Simply gazing upon a still lake, upon a quiet wintertime scene—doesn't that lull us into contemplation? Life, it seems, favours moments of stillness to appear on the edges of our perception and whisper to us, "Here I am. What do you retrieve?" Then we get busy and the stillness vanishes, nonetheless we hardly notice considering we fall then hands for the delusion of busyness, whereby what keeps us decorated must exist important, and the busier nosotros are with it, the more important it must be. And then we work, work, work, rush, blitz, rush. On occasion we say to ourselves, panting, "Gosh, life is racing by." But that's non it at all, it'south the contrary: life is still. Information technology is nosotros who are racing by.

Jann pointed out that books uniquely teach us empathy every bit we temporarily live in the feel of others.   I happen to love that.   And equally I tuck into Harlequin'southward The Virgin Secretarial assistant's Impossible Dominate, I also dearest that I get to imagine that ship didn't sail long agone.

Image

He's similar olives….

You either honey him or you recall he's vile.  Here he is with my Emma.  Fool.

cfgfemmaforrest

Dreaming of Summer Reading: Your Voice in My Head

Those of you who follow me on Twitter know how much I despise winter. I've been bitch-tweeting then heavily lately that I'll refrain from complaining about it here. I don't ski or toboggan and haven't had much interest in skating since I hung my Leaside Lazarettes track suit in the tardily 90'southward. I'm more of a summer bunny. Howdy Golf! Dear you Tennis! My freckles are adorable! And today, after a frosty trip to Volume City, I notice myself dreaming of summer reading.

Every Baronial, I become to catch up on reading when I head to the shores of Lake Huron with half-dozen of my favourite people in the globe. It'due south good quality embankment time and I'thou quite competitive (with one of them in item) on the speed reading front end. My book choices are like shooting fish in a barrel, as I usually have a stack of unread fabric at my disposal; remnants of good intentions and BBCE selections.

One from this selection that I read this by summer was Emma Forrest's memoir, "Your Phonation in My Head ",hailed by the New York Times equally 'part of a literary tradition that began long earlier Susanna Kaysen's girlhood was interrupted or Elizabeth Wurtzel got her outset Prozac prescription.'In other words, another story about a hot, crazy daughter with bad gustatory modality in men.

Loved is the word. Loved the writing. Loved Emma. Loved her brutally honest and brave cocky reflection. Loved the relationship she describes with the therapist that saved her life over and again. Loved getting a little dirt on Colin Farrell (google it), who I just flat-out dear (because I too have bad gustation, sister).

Someone recently commented to me that every relationship runs its course somewhen. I think that'south right. Sometimes that course is a lifetime, just more oftentimes, it's non. Some relationships don't mean much. Others hateful everything. And when those ones stop, it's hard to permit them go. And that's what Your Phonation in My Head is really about. Loved.

January 29, 2013: This Book Has Been Flagged

Remember the episode of Seinfeld when George took an expensive art book into the bathroom at a bookstore (he finds the pastoral imagery of the French Impressionists very conducive to…) and and so is forced to purchase it considering he defiled it? He tries to return it when different people are working and discovers information technology's been flagged as a bathroom book. He then tries to donate it to go a tax receipt and learns that it's been flagged in all the city's databases. And so good. I mean really, who wants to touch a book that someone else has brought into the bathroom with them?

But what if you keep all your books in the bathroom? In a lot of ways, it's the perfect library-bathroom-1identify for a bookshelf. According to George, "If it weren't for the toilet, there would be no books!" then why non go on a supply close at hand? Writer Michael Cunningham's bathroom library was featured on Remodelista last week. Isn't information technology gorgeous? I love how packed the shelves are, interspersed with the odd artfully placed objet. Simply the display isn't too contrived; it's mostly about the books. And the stack of magazines on the side of the bathtub? I love information technology. I'm imagining information technology to be just the correct alloy of New Yorker and Vanity Off-white. I can encounter how someone might log a lot of hours in this room (no pun intended).

Beneath, a clip of George's best moments from The Bookstore (season ix, episode 17). Still the funniest bear witness on television.

January 27, 2013: How To Raise A Reader

I grew upwards in a family of readers. Beyond parents and siblings, this extends to grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters-in-police, nieces, nephews… anybody. Reading has been a lifelong pleasure for my unabridged family tree. Tastes range from fiction to biography to medical journals to every page of every local weekend paper; as long as in that location is reading material at hand, information technology will be consumed by some fellow member of my family. 1 of my earliest memories is of a summer evening at my grandparents' cottage, saying goodnight to a roomful of adults who were each reading their own volume, not conversing with one another. (This may or may not have actually happened. My older sister has no memory of same. And it's not to say we're introverts; we only really enjoy some placidity reading time.)

So how do we foster a love of reading in our children? The literature suggests some pretty standard strategies: read to them often, take books readily accessible in the home, model the behaviour, etc. A recent international literacy written report looked at reading ability in grade four students in 45 countries and by all accounts, Canada scored very well. The study pointed to several central factors that can help or hinder children'southward early on analogousness for reading. Parental involvement is important merely it seems there's a subtlety to it. Information technology'due south not about teaching the children to read, merely rather teaching them the joy of reading. Research suggests that instruction a child to read early on, as Northward Americans seem inclined to do these days, may result in early power but the kid is more likely to be disinterested in reading by the age of 8. Socioeconomics plays a function besides, although the adept news in Canada is that this plays less of a role than anywhere else in the study. Kids will be happy to hear that time spent on homework isn't all that important either. Canadian students doing less than 15 minutes a day scored college on the exam than kids in other countries doing much more.

I'g very happy to report that my family'southward dear of reading has (then far) been passed downwards to my own children. They're keen to be read to and at present that my eldest tin read on her own, she devours chapter books at a breakneck pace. I of our current favourite activities is "reading club", where we curl upwardly on the couch together and each read our own book. It truly warms my heart. We've even started a 2-person book club. I'grand going to read her favourites and then we'll talk about them. In honour of National Family Literacy Twenty-four hour period (today!), I've added the first volume to my 2013 completed list: Ivy + Bean by Annie Barrows. So far our word has been limited to: "Didn't you think information technology was funny when Bean called her sister a boogerhead?" although I'1000 inappreciably disappointed. That's 100% more word of the book than my last book club evening.

Happy Family Literacy Day anybody. I hope you've been able to find a moment to gloat.

January 25, 2013: Judging A Book By Its Cover

A few months agone, I wrote about Random Business firm of Canada'south planned Books Are Cute collection featuring xxx titles from the publisher's backlist reissued with a single-colour Books 165text-only cover treatment and billed equally a "celebration of the physical book as objet d'art". The collection is now bachelor for auction (simply at Capacity Indigo stores… not exactly a celebration of Canada's independent literary spirit) and I retrieve we can all agree that the collection'southward event is quite pleasing, both as individual objects and as a Pantone-inspired ready. And while I haven't found a complete listing of titles and authors, it looks like a pretty slap-up collection of serious fiction.

yellow spinesBut what was stressing me out, if you recall, was how they were going to decide what color they would assign to each title. As you tin can see from the pic, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures is a mustardy yellow, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. (Shouldn't information technology be dark red?)

A little digging revealed that the colours were assigned in an near indiscriminate way by Random Firm of Canada's Creative Managing director. He apparently chose 30 colours arbitrarily and then made a 2nd laissez passer to ensure that the colours fit the tone and content of each volume. The Curious Incident of the Domestic dog in the Night-fourth dimension went from brilliant xanthous to deep plummy blue. At least that colour choice makes sense.purple spines Just The Satanic Verses in a grassy green? Not so much. Eleanor Rigby past Douglas Coupland, which I haven't read only empathize to be a story about loneliness, is a shocking hot pink. Doesn't really work for me. Black Swan Green is neither blackness nor green… I could continue. Information technology's really all about not judging a book past its cover.