Sunday, March 31, 2013

Sunday Brunch Club: Strength in What Remains

Our September/October 2012 selection was Strength in What Remainsby Tracy Kidder.


Synopsis:
Deo arrives in America from Burundi in search of a new life. Having survived a civil war and genocide, plagued by horrific dreams, he lands at JFK airport with two hundred dollars, no English, and no contacts. He ekes out a precarious existence delivering groceries, living in Central Park, and learning English by reading dictionaries in bookstores. Then Deo begins to meet the strangers who will change his life, pointing him eventually in the direction of Columbia University, medical school, and a life devoted to healing. Kidder breaks new ground in telling this unforgettable story as he travels with Deo back over a turbulent life in search of meaning and forgiveness.

An extraordinary writer, Tracy Kidder once again shows us what it means to be fully human by telling a story about the heroism inherent in ordinary people, a story about a life based on hope.


Club Rating Details:
My rating: ****/5
HR's rating: ****/5
CC's rating: ***/5
Average Rating: 3.67/5

GoodReads Rating Details:


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Saturday, March 30, 2013

Saturday Snapshot: Happy Birthday!

Saturday Snapshot is a weekly meme hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books. The guidelines are to post a photo that you or a friend or family member have taken and then link it back to Alyce's original post for the week. Photos can be old or new and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see.

We are celebrating the 100th birthday of our city library this year. A great announcement was made two weeks ago that all new and renewals would be free for the whole year! Such a great marketing move to bring people into the fold. Happy 100th Birthday!




Sunday, March 24, 2013

Sunday Brunch Club: A Little Stranger

Our August/September selection was A Little Stranger by Kate Pullinger.


Synopsis:
Fran has been happily married to Nick for twelve years, until a “little stranger” arrives in the form of a baby, and their lives are irrevocably changed. Louis has good health and a sweet nature, but Fran feels stifled with her old life merely a memory. So, one day, she simply walks away.




Club Rating Details:
My rating: **/5
HR's rating: ***/5
CC's rating: ***/5
Average Rating: 2.67/5

GoodReads Rating Details:


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Saturday, March 23, 2013

Saturday Snapshot: Spring Flurries

Saturday Snapshot is a weekly meme hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books. The guidelines are to post a photo that you or a friend or family member have taken and then link it back to Alyce's original post for the week. Photos can be old or new and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see.


This past Thursday we had a lovely gift to celebrate the beginning of spring - 30 cms of snow via all day flurries! It was quite pretty to watch the flurries, and was grateful I didn't have to go out at all. Lots of traffic accidents around the province that day.

I took this around 7:30am:



And this one around 1pm (see how large the snow flakes are?):



Accumulation on the balcony:

Friday, March 22, 2013

Adaptation: Game of Thrones




Dragons! Dragons!

I really enjoyed season one of Game of Thrones; I looked forward to watching a new episode every Sunday night. The second season, well, came and went and I don't believe I watched more than maybe 30 minutes...tops. I blame the lack of Sean Bean for my disinterest.

This trailer has my interest returning, as it looks like Jon Snow is going to get more involved. Maybe?? I'd probably know if I read the books but that is just not going to happen. Guess I'll just have to tune and find out on March 31!

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Sunday Brunch Club: Geek Love

Our selection for June/July 2012 was Geek Love by Katherine Dunn.


Synopsis:
This is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out–with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes–to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There’s Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . . . albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family’s most precious–and dangerous–asset.

As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same.

Club Rating Details:
My rating: ****/5
HR's rating: *****/5
CC's rating: ****/5
Average Rating: 4.33/5

GoodReads Rating Details:


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Saturday, March 16, 2013

Saturday Snapshot: Sweet Rolls

Saturday Snapshot is a weekly meme hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books. The guidelines are to post a photo that you or a friend or family member have taken and then link it back to Alyce's original post for the week. Photos can be old or new and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see.

Back to baking again here, and trying out a new recipe and spelt flour. I had not baked with yeast for at least 12 years; it's always made me a bit afraid. Well, that and nothing beats my mom's homebread bread so why bother?!

But I wanted to continue trying out different tastes (hence the spelt) and recipes so I decided to try raspberry sweet rolls. Here is the final batch prepping for the oven. I ran out of parchment paper so foil had to substitute to line the pan, but this actually worked out better in the end.



The rolls turned out pretty good for a first time try, though the bake time provided with the recipe was too long as the raspberry juice at the bottom of the pan got a bit scorched. I revised the timing and all worked out well.

I am going to try this recipe again with blueberries and apples later on. Think they would work well with the nuttiness of the spelt flour.

Out of the oven and ready to go into my belly!

 

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Sunday Brunch Club: The Dovekeepers

Our May/June 2012 selection was The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman. This book inspired a very lively and rich discussion, which is still referenced now and again in other book discussions.

Synopsis:
Blends mythology, magic, archaeology and women. Traces four women, their path to the Masada massacre. In 70 CE, nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on a mountain in the Judean desert, Masada. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived.

Four bold, resourceful, and sensuous women come to Masada by a different path. Yael’s mother died in childbirth, and her father never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker’s wife, watched the horrifically brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her twin grandsons, rendered mute by their own witness. Aziza is a warrior’s daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and expert marksman, who finds passion with another soldier. Shirah is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power. The four lives intersect in the desperate days of the siege, as the Romans draw near. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets — about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.

Club Rating Details:
My rating: ****/5
HR's rating: **/5
CC's rating: ****/5
Average Rating: 3.33/5

GoodReads Rating Details:


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Saturday, March 9, 2013

Saturday Snapshot: Inspiration Wall

Saturday Snapshot is a weekly meme hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books. The guidelines are to post a photo that you or a friend or family member have taken and then link it back to Alyce's original post for the week. Photos can be old or new and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see.

New phone finally! Which means, of course, a random photo to test out the camera. This is the 'inspiration' wall opposite my desk in the den. I purchased these a couple years ago on Etsy from NayArts.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Book Mark: Charles Taylor Prize Awarded

The Charles Taylor Prize for excellence in Canadian literary non-fiction was awarded today to ....

Andrew Preston for Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy

From George Washington to George W. Bush, from the Puritans to the present, from the colonial wars to the Cold War, religion has been one of America’s most powerful sources of ideas about the wider world. When, just days after 9/11, George W. Bush described America as “a prayerful nation, a nation that prays to an almighty God for protection and for peace,” or when Barack Obama spoke of balancing the “just war and the imperatives of a just peace” in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, they were echoing four hundred years of religious rhetoric. Preston traces this echo back to its source.

Read an excerpt from the book.

Congratulations to the winner and all the nominees!

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Sunday Brunch Club: Coppermine

It was about this time last year that this particular club was resurrected in a parking lot after an awesome brunch. Hence, its christening as the "Sunday Brunch Club." We started out with the three original core members from years ago and have expanded to include two additional book loving members. It has been wonderful having this club up and running again, and hanging out with great people every couple of months to talk books!

Our first selection back in March/April 2012: Coppermine by Keith Ross Leckie.


Synopsis
The story begins when two missionaries disappear in the remote Arctic region known as the Coppermine. North West Mounted Police officer Jack Creed and Angituk, a young Copper Inuit interpreter, are sent on a year-long odyssey to investigate the fate of the lost priests. On the shores of the Arctic Ocean near the mouth of the Coppermine River, they discover their dismembered remains. Two Inuit hunters are tracked and apprehended, and the four begin an arduous journey to Edmonton, to bring the accused to justice.

Instructing the jury to "think like an Eskimo," the defence counsel sets out to prove the Inuit acted in self-defence. They hear how the hunters believed the priests were possessed by demons about to kill them, and how, acting on this belief, they killed the men and ate their livers. The jury finds them not guilty. The hunters become celebrities, a parade is held for them, they visit a movie theatre and an amusement park, and become guests of honour at socialite dinners. They are given new suits, fine cigars, and champagne. But Rome is outraged that the murderers of its martyred priests will go free. As secrets of Jack Creed's past in the trenches of Europe are revealed, Jack tries to save his two friends, and himself.

Club Rating Details:
My Rating: **/5
HR's Rating: **/5
CC's Rating: ****/5
Average Rating: 2.67/5

GoodReads Rating Details:


Join us / follow along on GoodReads - Sunday Brunch Club!

Book Mark: Amazon.ca First Novel Finalists

The finalists for the 2012 Amazon.ca First Novel award were announced this week. This award  "recognizes the outstanding achievement of a Canadian first-time novelist. Since 1976, the First Novel Award has launched the careers of some of Canada's most beloved novelists, including Michael Ondaatje, Joan Barfoot, Joy Kogawa, W.P. Kinsella, Nino Ricci, Rohinton Mistry, Anne Michaels, André Alexis, Michael Redhill, Mary Lawson, Colin McAdam, Joseph Boyden, Joan Thomas, and David Bezmozgis."

Not a bad list of authors!

Winner to be announced April 24, 2013.


Y by Marjorie Celona
This is the story of Shannon, a newborn baby dumped at the doors of the YMCA, swaddled in a dirty grey sweatshirt with nothing but a Swiss Army knife. She is found moments later by a man who catches a mere glimpse of her troubled mother as she disappears from view. All three lives are forever changed by the single decision.

Bounced between foster homes, Shannon endures neglect and abuse but then finds stability and love in the home of Miranda, a kind single mother who refuses to let anything ever go to waste. But as Shannon grows, so do the questions inside her. Where is she from? Who is her true family? Why would they abandon her on the day she was born?

The answers lie in the heartbreaking tale of Yula, Shannon's mother, a girl herself and one with a desperate fate. Yula spends her days caring for her bitter widowed father and her spirited toddler Eugene until the day she meets Harrison, a man who will protect her but also a man with a dark past and stories yet to be revealed. Soon they are expecting a daughter but as Yula goes into labour, she and Harrison are caught in a tragic series of events that will destroy their family and test their limits of compassion and sacrifice.


People Park by Pasha Malla
It's the Silver Jubilee of People Park, an urban experiment conceived by a radical mayor and zealously policed by the testosterone-powered New Fraternal League of Men. To celebrate, the insular island city has engaged the illustrationist Raven, who promises to deliver the most astonishing spectacle its residents have ever seen. As the entire island comes together for the event, we meet an unforgettable cross-section of its inhabitants, from activists to nihilists, art stars to athletes, families to inveterate loners. Soon, however, what has promised to be a triumph of civic harmony begins to reveal its shadow side. And when Raven's illustration exceeds even the most extreme of expectations, the island is plunged into a series of unnatural disasters that force people to confront what they are really made of.


Malarky by Anakana Schofield
Our Woman will not be sunk by what life’s about to serve her. She's caught her son doing unmentionable things out by the barn. She's been accosted by Red the Twit, who claims to have done things with Our Woman’s husband that could frankly have gone without mentioning. And now her son’s gone and joined the army, and Our Woman has found a young fella to do unmentionable things with herself, just so she might understand it all. This is the story of an Irish mother forced to look grief in the eye, and of a wife come face-to-face with the mad agony of longing.



Ru by Kim Thúy
Ru. In Vietnamese it means lullaby; in French it is a small stream, but also signifies a flow--of tears, blood, money. In vignettes of exquisite clarity, sharp observation and sly wit, we are carried along on an unforgettable journey from a palatial residence in Saigon to a crowded and muddy Malaysian refugee camp, and onward to a new life in Quebec. There, the young girl feels the embrace of a new community, and revels in the chance to be part of the American Dream. As an adult, the waters become rough again: now a mother of two sons, she must learn to shape her love around the younger boy's autism.


The Rest Is Silence by Scott Fotheringham
In the backwoods of Nova Scotia, a man has decided to slowly simplify his life and withdraw his presence from the world. He builds a cabin, plants a garden. He befriends the few people he can reach within biking distance. He strikes up a relationship with a beautiful Huron-Wendat woman afflicted with wanderlust and who may be as damaged an individual as himself. In fits and starts, he begins to recount a story to his new friends, a tale of youthful passions, of idealism and rebellion, of love and of science. There is a reason for the man?s self-enforced exile, one that has implications far beyond the confines of the forest. As news reports trickle in of a brewing environmental catastrophe on a global scale, the unsettling nature of his confession becomes clear. And the world will never be the same again.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Saturday Snapshot: Research Project Remembrance

Saturday Snapshot is a weekly meme hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books. The guidelines are to post a photo that you or a friend or family member have taken and then link it back to Alyce's original post for the week. Photos can be old or new and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see.

Cleaning up my phone in anticipation of finally getting a new one (I must, I really must) and came across a couple photos taken last year.

Way, way back when I worked as a scholar-in-residence for a local foundation. During my tenure I completed a personal research project on the subject of hope and music lyrics. I stopped by the foundation on a whim one day and I was thoroughly surprised to see an abstract of my project displayed in the study room, along with abstracts for all the other original research completed at the foundation to date.



Icky photo for everyone but it did and does warm the heart to know original research I produced has not been buried or forgotten. That's all you could ever want as an aspiring academic, especially when you are the topic of your own research!

Friday, March 1, 2013

Adaptation: No Place On Earth



This looks like a powerful documentary, providing a new twist to the Holocaust narratives. Can you imagine living in a cave for a year and half?

"And I look up, and I see a star." Ahhh, incredible.