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Aug. 4th, 2017 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tvordljHave developed a chesty cough. Crap. Was up most of the night though I have to say, the desperate act of using Vicks rub on my chest does help. Horrible Buckley's cough mixture does too. Tip: It works, it tastes disgusting, kind of like liquid eucalyptus, keep it in the refrigerator and you can get it down. At room temperature, your stomach may rebel. My dad called it Fuckleys. He was right.
Time for the monthly book catch up beneath the cut
Twenty-One Cardinals - Jocelyn Saucier
Very large family in rural Quebec. the children are practically feral, out of control growing up. 30 years later they have all come together to see their father get an award, all except one who died in an accident back in the day but nobody talks about it and some of the siblings or the parents don't seem to know that one of theirs is gone. It's a book about secrets and family and guilt. Very well written, translated from French.
Prairie Ostrich - Tamai Kobayashi
This is a story about a young girl, Egg, living in Alberta on a farm with her family in 1974. They raise ostriches and are the only Japanese-Canadian family in the area. the oldest son had recently died but nobody will talk about him or what happened. Egg does not fit in at school and is bullied. Her older sister is trying to hold the family together yet looking to her own future. Her mother is drowning her grief in a bottle and her father isolates himself in the barn. Everyone is grieving, nobody is help Egg with her grief. Little by little, what happened to the brother comes out, while Egg tries to figure things out. It's an excellent book, one of my favourites this year.
Alone in the Classroom - Elizabeth Hay
I found this book a bit of a muddle. It starts off with a young teacher in a small Prairie school. Another teacher, a middle aged man, is a bit strange and becomes focussed on a boy who clearly has dyslexia and his sister. Everything falls apart. We jump ahead some years and the neice of the female teacher is now telling the story of her aunt, whom she greatly admires, possibly to the point of trying to emulate her. The young lad is reintroduced, the older teacher is there but dies, it's all a bit disconnected. One review on Goodreads that I read called it the “Sisterhood of the Travelling Boyfriend” which made me snicker.Hay normall writes good stories but maybe it was just me that didn't get on with this one.
Electric Shadows of Shanhai - Clare Kane
I liked this one better. Historical fiction taking place in Shanghai in the 30s, a British diplomat and his new wife arrive in the city. He becomes obsessed by a beautiful Chinese silent movie star, the wife struggles to adjust to the culture and is left to her own devices while her husband seems to be working all hours. She finds a ballet school run by a russian ex-pat, with students that are also Russian ex-pats who have been making their living by taxi dancing and prostitution. The actress is ambitious and wants to go to Hollywood and is married to an abusive husband. Everyone ends up over their heads and it's kind of like a train crash of a story but I did like it a lot.
The Only Cafe - Linden McIntyre
Cyril's father Pierre has been missing for years but is finally been declared as deceased. Cyril discovers his father wanted a wake, actually, a roast, held in a cafe in a part of Toronto that nobody realized his father, Pierre, frequented. There's one name on the guestlist that's unfamiliar, Ari, and through him, Cyril discovers his father had a lot more secrets than anyone really knew. The story goes back to Pierre's life and recounts his experiences in the Lebanese civil war in the 70s and early 80s. It was a very intriguing and interesting book, another very good one by McIntyre. This was a Netgalley early review copy.
All Is Beauty Now - Sarah Faber
A family has lost their eldest daughter who walked into the sea from a beach in Rio a year ago. They are now preparing to move to Canada so that the father can get free health care. He has had a long struggle with bipolar though in the early 60s when this takes place, it wasn't called that. The story is told from alternating points of view,the mother, father and the two younger daughters, all of whom have to deal with the death of Luisa in their own way and we have flashback chapters from Luisa herself. Little by little, the plot becomes more complex as secrets and truths are uncovered. Quite a good book and I enjoyed the setting of Rio de Janiero in the early 60s. It's a debut novel and the author clearly has talent. This was a Netgalley early review copy.
A Stranger in the House - Shari Lapena
Second novel, a Goodreads giveaway I won. A housewife has disappeared, walked out of the house in a panic and later crashes her car in a dodgey area of the city where she lives. She can't remember anything about why she left the house or what happened. There's a dead body in an old abandoned building and there is evidence to link her to it. Did she kill this man? did someone set her up? What is her connection? Her husband starts to suspect her in spite of himself. There are secrets, lies, nosy neighbours, but the story is actually predictable and I wasn't all that happy with it.
The Summer of My Amazing Luck - Miriam Toews
Toews' debut novel about a young single mother living in a co-op (or public) housing development. She makes friends with a free spirited woman who has four kids, the youngest being twins as a result of a one night stand with a street performer, the one that got away. All of them end up going on a road trip hoping to find the father of the twins during a rainy Winnipeg summer. Loads of quirky characters in the book, but it's not a depressing story about surviving on welfare, it's about life, friendship and making your own luck.
Persuasion - Jane Austen
I plan to read/reread all of the Austen novels starting with this one, which is my favourite. A young woman was persuaded not to marry a sailor because he was not from a good family and was not rich. She regretted it for years after and then encounters him again. It's a lovely, romantic story and there's a very good BBC production starring Ciaran Hinds as Captain Wentworth.
Time for the monthly book catch up beneath the cut
Twenty-One Cardinals - Jocelyn Saucier
Very large family in rural Quebec. the children are practically feral, out of control growing up. 30 years later they have all come together to see their father get an award, all except one who died in an accident back in the day but nobody talks about it and some of the siblings or the parents don't seem to know that one of theirs is gone. It's a book about secrets and family and guilt. Very well written, translated from French.
Prairie Ostrich - Tamai Kobayashi
This is a story about a young girl, Egg, living in Alberta on a farm with her family in 1974. They raise ostriches and are the only Japanese-Canadian family in the area. the oldest son had recently died but nobody will talk about him or what happened. Egg does not fit in at school and is bullied. Her older sister is trying to hold the family together yet looking to her own future. Her mother is drowning her grief in a bottle and her father isolates himself in the barn. Everyone is grieving, nobody is help Egg with her grief. Little by little, what happened to the brother comes out, while Egg tries to figure things out. It's an excellent book, one of my favourites this year.
Alone in the Classroom - Elizabeth Hay
I found this book a bit of a muddle. It starts off with a young teacher in a small Prairie school. Another teacher, a middle aged man, is a bit strange and becomes focussed on a boy who clearly has dyslexia and his sister. Everything falls apart. We jump ahead some years and the neice of the female teacher is now telling the story of her aunt, whom she greatly admires, possibly to the point of trying to emulate her. The young lad is reintroduced, the older teacher is there but dies, it's all a bit disconnected. One review on Goodreads that I read called it the “Sisterhood of the Travelling Boyfriend” which made me snicker.Hay normall writes good stories but maybe it was just me that didn't get on with this one.
Electric Shadows of Shanhai - Clare Kane
I liked this one better. Historical fiction taking place in Shanghai in the 30s, a British diplomat and his new wife arrive in the city. He becomes obsessed by a beautiful Chinese silent movie star, the wife struggles to adjust to the culture and is left to her own devices while her husband seems to be working all hours. She finds a ballet school run by a russian ex-pat, with students that are also Russian ex-pats who have been making their living by taxi dancing and prostitution. The actress is ambitious and wants to go to Hollywood and is married to an abusive husband. Everyone ends up over their heads and it's kind of like a train crash of a story but I did like it a lot.
The Only Cafe - Linden McIntyre
Cyril's father Pierre has been missing for years but is finally been declared as deceased. Cyril discovers his father wanted a wake, actually, a roast, held in a cafe in a part of Toronto that nobody realized his father, Pierre, frequented. There's one name on the guestlist that's unfamiliar, Ari, and through him, Cyril discovers his father had a lot more secrets than anyone really knew. The story goes back to Pierre's life and recounts his experiences in the Lebanese civil war in the 70s and early 80s. It was a very intriguing and interesting book, another very good one by McIntyre. This was a Netgalley early review copy.
All Is Beauty Now - Sarah Faber
A family has lost their eldest daughter who walked into the sea from a beach in Rio a year ago. They are now preparing to move to Canada so that the father can get free health care. He has had a long struggle with bipolar though in the early 60s when this takes place, it wasn't called that. The story is told from alternating points of view,the mother, father and the two younger daughters, all of whom have to deal with the death of Luisa in their own way and we have flashback chapters from Luisa herself. Little by little, the plot becomes more complex as secrets and truths are uncovered. Quite a good book and I enjoyed the setting of Rio de Janiero in the early 60s. It's a debut novel and the author clearly has talent. This was a Netgalley early review copy.
A Stranger in the House - Shari Lapena
Second novel, a Goodreads giveaway I won. A housewife has disappeared, walked out of the house in a panic and later crashes her car in a dodgey area of the city where she lives. She can't remember anything about why she left the house or what happened. There's a dead body in an old abandoned building and there is evidence to link her to it. Did she kill this man? did someone set her up? What is her connection? Her husband starts to suspect her in spite of himself. There are secrets, lies, nosy neighbours, but the story is actually predictable and I wasn't all that happy with it.
The Summer of My Amazing Luck - Miriam Toews
Toews' debut novel about a young single mother living in a co-op (or public) housing development. She makes friends with a free spirited woman who has four kids, the youngest being twins as a result of a one night stand with a street performer, the one that got away. All of them end up going on a road trip hoping to find the father of the twins during a rainy Winnipeg summer. Loads of quirky characters in the book, but it's not a depressing story about surviving on welfare, it's about life, friendship and making your own luck.
Persuasion - Jane Austen
I plan to read/reread all of the Austen novels starting with this one, which is my favourite. A young woman was persuaded not to marry a sailor because he was not from a good family and was not rich. She regretted it for years after and then encounters him again. It's a lovely, romantic story and there's a very good BBC production starring Ciaran Hinds as Captain Wentworth.
