A Short History of Indians in Canada - Thomas King (December/05)

This was the last book I read in 2005. I have been sorting of slow with the blog updating, so I am of course behind. I need to have the book in front of me for inspiration and I left some of them at my boyfriends. So, this is a very exciting short story collection. I read it the day I bought it because, it is THOMAS KING. He is my favourite Canadian author, as he wrote Green Grass, Running Water, a book I believe to be a masterpiece in humour and symbolism. He is really hard to find, though, so when I saw this book, I grabbed.

First off, I did put the words "Indian" in the title, that is the name he chose for his book. Do not send me hate mail because it is political incorrect. He is a Native, he teaches Native studies, he call his people what he likes. Now that I have that out of the way, I find it very hard to talk about a short story collection as a whole because the stories in it are all different. The theme is, of course, Natives in Canada. He is looking at their trials and tribulations in his short stories in a sort of humourous way. Some of the things he touches on are how the Native race is dying out, how the Whites look to the Natives, how the Natives people are misunderstood by White people, etc. He does not shove these issues in your face, though, he just puts scenerios out there that in the end leaving you thinking about Native issues.

I just wanted to mention my two favourite short stories from the collection. The first one is the title of the book, "A Short History of Indians in Canada". This is the story that really caught my eye because of the quote: "A flock of Indians has just flown smack into the side of a Bay Street Skyscraper again" found on the sleeve of the book. It talks a lot, to me, about how the natives used to be about nature (hence the birds) and then one day there natural land was turned into a site of development (skyscrapers). I like the way he puts it across, when you read it in the sleeve you are like: huh?, but if you read the story it makes sense and is presented well.

My other favourite short story in the collection is called: "Where the Borgs are". The title had me curious, the story had me laughing. To describe it in a nutshell, a little boy writes an essay about the Indian Act, (which everyone tells him is an unimportant period in history because there is no holiday for it), and compares the Europeans to the Borg from Star Trek. The borg, for those that do not know, assimilate other cultures and make them part of their own. Exactly like the Europeans did with the Natives. His teacher tells him he is wrong, and by the end of the short story he can find traits in the Europeans from all the villains from Star Trek. To name a couple, Europeans like money like the Ferangis, go to war like the Klingons, and even when you get down to it they are connected to the 'good' Federation.

It is an interesting collection of short stories, I was very glad to have read it. His books always leave me thinking. I do not know many Natives, but I know of their issues, and I hope that one day we will not be the Borg or the Klingons, or the Ferangi, but will leave in a world where many different cultures can lead the life they want and still be respected by others.

I give this collection a 4.5 out of 5.

The Other Boelyn Girl - Philippa Gregory (December/05)

I liked The Constant Princess so much that I decided it was time to read another novel by Gregory. The Other Boelyn Girl is technically the first novel in the Tudor series, but the events in The Constant Princess happen first, so I read it first. I find that new readers would likely enjoy it in that order as well. If you have all ready started the series, you would not have that luxury.

The Other Boelyn Girl is my favourite Philippa Gregory novel so far. There is more happening in it than in The Constant Princess. The essence of the novel is "Two sisters competing for the greatest prize: the love of a king." Henry VIII is a womanizer who is getting bored with his current wife and starts pursuing other women in the court. Two of these women are the sisters Mary and Anne Boelyn. The king gains an interest in Mary first, and they have two children together, and then along comes Anne who is more conniving than her younger sister and changes the game to include herself as chief player.

The two sisters are just pawns in their families need to rise to power. There is no love, it is all about duty. There is so much going on in this novel. It is told from the view of Mary Boelyn, so it is only the activities that she witnesses happening. She, in the end, turns out to be the braver of the two sisters when she defies her families plans and makes a new life for herself.

When I read the book I was very engrossed in it, this is one of those books where I found myself staring at the page and having a hard time putting it down to do things like go to sleep. I found myself hating Anne, and there were a couple moments where I hoped for her demise. She was very selfish, and you really feel bad for her younger sister Mary and older brother George. They are living their life to satisfy their sisters needs. It is a terrible way to live. I especially felt bad for George, his dream lifestyle was something that would be the end of him.

A must read for all historical fiction fans.

5/5

My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult (December/05)

I am attempting to catch up on the books that I have read, so be patient.

I got this book for Christmas from my boyfriends parents. I had bought it for a friend for Christmas and found it sounded good, so I was happy when I received it. It is a fitting title for this novel, as the main character is in essence "her sisters keeper". I particularly like the question found on the back of the book: "Can a parent love too much? Or is too much never enough?" I find that is sums up the actions of the book quite well.

You see, Anna, the main character, was conceived to save her older sister who developed leukemia when she was little. Anna was given specific genes so that she would be a perfect match for her sister when she was born, and thus began her life of surgeries and procedures to extend her sisters life. When she is thirteen years old, though, she finally challenges her mother over the constant hospital stays. She has always been defined by her sister, and it seems that she wishes this to end at this period in her life. Her decision is a brave one because it has the potential to tear her family apart and destroy her sisters chances to live, but it also has more to it than it seems and has some surprising endings in store.

This novel is one of the saddest novels I have ever read. I like how it is told from everyones perspective but Kate, the sick sister. She has always been the centre of attention in the family, and now we are seeing what the other members of the family are thinking. The mother, Sarah, takes the novel back to when Kate was just born. The father uses firefighting and astronomy to explain the events in their house. In the end, though, it is what Anna thinks that is important.

I give this book a 4.5 out 5. I have some issues with the ending, and I can't give a perfect grade to something I question.

Eragon - Christopher Paolini (December/05)

I borrowed this book from a friend because I had heard it was good and wanted to see for myself. I was very surprised that the author was just a teenager himself when he wrote it. I like dragons, so a novel with one in it always attracts my interest. At the beginning of the novel, the main character, Eragon, finds a polished blue stone in the forest. I am one of the ones that rarely reads the backs of the novels I am reading, so I did not know until it hatched that it was a dragon. I knew there was in the book, I just did not know where it came from. With this blue rock, Eragon stumbles into a wild adventure like nothing he ever would have expected. He goes from a simple farm boy to being able to use magic, a master swordsman, and of course a dragon barrier.

The king had never been a kind man, but his power is in the hopes of expanding and Eragon and his dragon find themselves caught in the middle. They are a member of a great band of men that were killed off generations before, a band of men that created a legacy to the Empire's people. Eragon brings hope where there was none and gives the people someone to respect, honour, and trust. He meets a cast of characters that add various dimensions to the novel, and characters that you want to learn more about in the later parts of this trilogy. This book will have you up and cheering for the good guys to win and the bad guys to perish. I can guarantee that.

Young adult or teen fiction has gone through advancements since I was reading it as my age group. Eragon is intended for a younger audience, but is just as captivating for the older readers as well. I really enjoyed this novel. I cannot wait to read the next two books and see how Eragon's adventures turn out. I am glad my friend lent this to me.

4.5/5

The Constant Princess - Philippa Gregory (December/05)

My first Philippa Gregory novel! I had seen her books before, but it took a recommendation on a forum I visit to get me reading her. It was worth the read. I read most of it in one day. I just had a few pages left the next morning, which is impressive because it is a long book. I just kept wanting to know what was going to happen next, so I just kept reading.

The Constant Princess starts when the main character, Catalina, is five years old and living in Spain where her mother and father are the king and queen. She had been raised all her love to be a queen, though, because from the time she was young she was betrothed to Prince Arthur, heir to the British crown. She knew it was her destiny to rule, and she lived her entire life with that goal in mind. She finds it hard to adjust when the time comes for her to venture to Britain. She is far away from her family in a strange land, and she is not even sure if she likes her husband. It takes time, but soon she learns to adapt to the life around her and enjoy the time with her husband a little more. Then, tragedy strikes when the husband she has learned to love dies leaving her all alone in a strange court and the farthest away she has ever been from her dream of being Queen.

For the first time in her charmed life, Catalina is alone in the world. She has to make the decisions that she has to make in order to one day be seated on the crown. This means marrying Arthur's younger brother, Henry. He is spoiled and a considerable bit younger, but she knows this is her only way to make her destiny. Henry's relatives are against the idea and her parents are far away and of little use, so her destiny rests entirely in her own hands. Her mother taught her well, though, she sees her goal and will not give up until she has achieved it. Even if she has to lie.

This novel is the last written in the Tudor series, but the events actually take place first. It is a novel about the indominable spirit of a young woman who never backed down from what she had waited for all her life. It is a wonderful and well-written novel. You find yourself laughing with her and crying. You feel like you are on the sidelines cheering on the happy ending that you and her are waiting for. If you have never read Philippa Gregory before, now is the time to start. For historical fiction fans, this is the book that you cannot put down.

I give this book a 4/5.

I also have the rest of the series to read:
The Other Boelyn Girl
The Queen's Fool
The Virgin's Lover

Lucky - Alice Sebold (December/05)

I have been a bit slack in writing my reviews, but I finished Lucky by Alice Sebold the other day. I had wanted it a long time ago but never saw it in stores until I happen to see it in a second hand store the other day. I love my shopping trips, I go in for one book and come out with five. For those of you that do not know, Alice Sebold is also the author of The Lovely Bones, and now that you know that, forget of that books existence! Lucky is a true-life story of the author.

Anyways, the best way to tell you what happened in the book is to do the back of the book thing because this book is one book that I don't want to tell too many people many spoilers. People seem to want to read it, so I will tell what the back of the book said and then tell what I thought of it.

Back of book:
"In a memoir hailed for its searing candor and wit, Alice Sebold reveals how her life was utterly transformed when, as and eighteen-year-old college freshman, she was brutually raped and beaten in a park near campus. What propels this chronicle of her recovery is Sebold's indomitable spirit - as she struggles for understanding.... as her dazed family and friends sometimes bungle their efforts to provide comfort and support; and as, ultimately, she triumphs, managing through grit and coincidence to help secure her attacker's arrest and conviction..."

This was a really good book. Shocking in the fact that it was true, and actually happened. It is amazing how people react to you once you have been raped. She would sit in a courtroom and the lawyers would look for reasons that this was her fault. I could not imagine having something this horrific happen to you and then having people look at you like you did something to deserve it. I was cheering when the man that attacked her was convicted. It was the best thing that could have happened, I was so engrossed in the novel I felt like it was happening to me! Sebold is a brave woman, she puts a face to traumatic experiences and in order to do so, she exposes her story to the world. That's brave, there is no other way to put it. I strongly suggest people read this novel, for an assortment of reasons. Most importantly, if you have gone through this, this novel gives you hope and if you have not gone through it, it may help you better deal if it ever happens to someone that you know. I also would strongly recommend this novel to college students. It goes to show that school may not be as safe as people want it to be.

I give this novel a 4.5/5 for opening my eyes to something that could happen to me. I knew it was there, but I did not know that people were treated like this once it happened. The victims oftentimes get treated worse than those that did it to them.

I also read Lovely Bones. I would give that novel a 4/5.

The Red Tent - Anita Diamant (December/05)

I finished The Red Tent by Anita Diamant today. I have read a lot of books this year, but I would safely say that this is one of the best books I read this year. I am not a very religious person, so this story is not something I am overly familiar with. It is the story of Dinah, daughter of Jacob from the Bible. Not even having to research the story, I can say that this is more information than appears in the story of the Bible. It is a woman's perspective of her life and the life of the people around her.

The story starts back in the time of her mothers. Four sisters that would end up marrying the same man: Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah. They marry Jacob, who is the important chapter in the Book of Genesis. Dinah tells the story from before she was born until the moments after she dies in the last pages of the novel. Leah was the woman that gave birth to her. She was the hard-working woman that gave birth to the majority of Jacob's sons. Rachel was the beauty, and the second wife. She gave birth to two of Jacob's sons, and was a midwife that influenced Dinah's later life. The last two wives were Zilpah and Bilhah. Zilpah had little interest in her husband, she always seemed to live in her own world. Bilhah was the calm and quiet member of the family, until she does something so shocking that Jacob turns his back.

Dinah grew up with her mothers' love, as she considered all these women one of her mothers. She was the only daughter, so she got special attention from these women that would sustain her through the rest of her life, even when they were apart. A great travesty happened in her life, and she turned her back on her family and travelled to Egypt where she had a son, met the man she would spend the rest of her life with, and discovered a whole new family. She was considered a great midwife, Rachel's legacy to her, and well-respected in her own world. Near the end of her life she travels to her homeland where she sees her grown up brothers that were still living, she has twelve, and makes peace with her past.

It is a lovely tale, it does not matter what part of the world it takes place in or the time frame. It is about the struggle of women to have a life in a male-dominated society and have a voice for their beliefs. Dinah overcomes great obstacles to become a great woman of Egypt. I recommend this book to everyone.

I give this book a 5/5

A Redbird Christmas - Fannie Flagg (December/05)

A book club that I belong to on a forum was reading this book, so I thought I would join in. I ended up with two Christmas reads this year. It is about a man living the last days of his life where he learns that it is never too late to start something new in life. He is in the last half of his life, but he finds that if you want something bad enough it can happen. The main character was an orphan, he hardly knew what it was to belong to one, but one day he goes to the doctor and receives terrible news that winds up leading him to the family that he had never had but always wanted. It is a little town, where everyone knows everyone else that he ends up. I find this novel similar to Dickens' famous tale, but telling you why would give too much away. I think that Flagg has done a great job with this book in spinning a tale for Christmas that touches the hearts of many. I plan on reading more of Flagg's work.

4/5

I acutally have in my "to read" pile:

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café
Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

A Little Stranger - Kate Pullinger (December/05)

This book was something that I was excited about. I had read another book by her, so I was curious to see what her other books were like. This book came as a gift and I chose to read it just a few days ago. It was good, but in a different way than the other novel I read by her. The other book had a witch as one of its characters, there was nothing supernatural in this more recent novel. In the novel, we have what may appear to be a regular family, but one day the wife just finds that she can not take things anymore. She had to give up working in order to raise their son. They could not afford the care that would be needed in order for her to go back to working. So, one day, she has had enough. She goes out of the house and that is the last time her little family sees her for about a month. First, she heads to Los Vegas for no apparent reason, it was just one of the flights available at the time that she was there. In Los Vegas she meets a woman that is going through her own pain, and by this interaction she helps this other woman without even trying. She gives her a friend and a problem that is not her own. Then, she heads to Vancouver where she has to encounter her mother so she can fix her life at home. She had been born in a dysfunctional family, her mother was an alcoholic that chose to live on the street. Talk to her mother that one time gives her closer, tells her that she can be a good mother, and then she returns to her family once more.

Also read by Kate Pullinger:
Weird Sister (March/05) - 5/5

In my "to read" pile:
When the Monster Dies

Amy and Isabelle - Elizabeth Strout (December/05)

I said this on another site about this book:

I had heard of this book before, not sure where from, but when I saw it the other day I decided that I had to see what the book was like. It was actually quite good. It tells the story of a mother and daughter living in a small town. They both go through changes during the novel, and find out that even when they think they are the farthest apart from each other, they are not as different as they may think. The only thing that bothers you is how they act in situations, you know that this is likely how things would be played out in a real life setting, but at the same time I kept wanting to tell them to get a clue!!! The book sucks you in.

4/5

Left Behind - Tim LeHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins (November/05)

I am not really all that religious, so this was a strange novel choice for me. It is all about things that I had heard of, but never really was aware of. It seems that the authors are attempting to scare the people that read their novels by showing them what one day may happen on earth. Those that believe in God are taken away while those that don't are left on the earth to face the trials that God sends their way to test them. Those that believe in God may get a second chance, but those that don't might find themselves in a terrible situation. I find myself liking this novel, not because I was getting more religious as I read it, but more because it was well-written and a bit of a thriller. I found the airplane pilot in the novel who found God annoying because he was trying to push it on everyone else. I know that is the point of the novel, though, so I overlooked it. Taking it out of context as more as a novel and less about the religious factors of it, it was good.

4/5

I also have the second novel in the series to read:
Tribulation Force

Whether I will continue from there remains to be seen.

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (November/05)

Such a wonderful book, I have to say it. It is so unbelievable that it is about a female Geisha written by a male author. He does a very good job capturing what it is to a woman. I learned a lot about the culture of these people through this novel. I will admit that I had always been one of those people that thought that a Geisha was a prostitute, but through this novel you learn that they were more like entertainers. They were treated like royalty because men were the important members of society and these women made life better for them. Of course, you could sleep with the man but that usually happened once they owned you. It was not an ideal arrangement, but that is the culture she lived in. The geisha in the novel starts out her life as a poor fishermans daughter and ends up having everything that she has ever dreamed of. Minus a period where the Geisha work was shut down because of the war. She may never have become a geisha either, if not for a kind man that treated her well when she was no one. She did everything for him and the chance to see him again. You really feel for the characters in this book. I can not wait to see the movie and see how well they capture the novel.

4.5/5

Silver Bells - Luanne Rice (November/05)

This was one of my Christmas reads. I was gone away with my boyfriend and sometimes his friends don't do a lot, so in the lulls I like to have something to read. I grabbed this at a store that did not have much else. It was a good, short read. Oddly enough one of the characters, a tree farmer, comes from Nova Scotia where I live. Luanne Rice visited the area and liked it, so she has incorporated it into her novels. The novel was a quaint Christmas read. It is about a man who's wife died and every year at Christmas time he goes to New York to sells his Christmas trees. With his wife dead, he has to take the children out of school for a month in order to make some income. One trip to New York, he son decides to stay and runs off into the night. The next year when the little family returns they set on a search not only for their lost kin but the father finds something he never even knew he had lost. The other characters in the novel are the ones that keep the young boy safe while he roams the evil streets of New York City. I like to keep Luanne Rice on hand for those moments when I want to read, but I don't have much time.

4.5/5

Other books read by Luanne Rice:
Beach Girls (August/05) - 4.5/5
Summer's Child (September/05) - 4.5/5

Other books by her in my "to-read" pile:
Blue Moon
Firefly Beach
Follow the Stars Home
Cloud Nine
Home Fires
The Secret Hour

Sylvanus Now - Donna Morrissey (November/05)

I was so excited when this novel came out, she is one of my favourite authors to come out of Canada. In this novel we follow the life of a fishing community in Newfoundland. It is on the Eve of Industrialization, so to speak, where the characters are having to move more into the new forms of technology and away from the single man in his boat with some string. It starts farther back, though, with a little boy doing just that and follows him up through the ages as he gets better at it, faces the pressures of advancement and still holds onto the life that he has always known because that is the way that he believes men were supposed to fish. I like historical novels, especially ones about the Atlantic Canadian region because that is where I am from and this is my history. It explains the old methods of fishing, which is very interesting to read about because it is not someting I am very familar with. It also talks about other aspects of advancement in things like roads and child-birthing. The other character that is followed in this tale is his wife who is following the pain of being a woman and having been taken out of school to help support her family and then getting married and not being able to have a child that remains alive. These are the pains that she suffers.

5/5

Other books read by Donna Morrissey:
Kit's Law (5/5)
Downhill Chance (5/5)

The Romantic - Barbara Gowdy (November/05)

The best book I have read by her so far! It is about a small family living in a small town. The main character is the child of the family. One day, her mother up and leaves with just a note saying that her daughter knows how to work the washing machine. Which she doesn't. This leaves a daughter behind with her father while her mother is gone, her mother also never comes back. Her father is not fully present in her life, so the only female that the daughter really gets to know is the housekeeper her father hires. She also becomes best friends with the boy that lives across the street, such good friends that at one point in the novel she is pregnant with his child. He is not present, though, so with the help of the housekeeper she aborts the baby. She never forgets about the boy, though, and there are many times throughout the novel where they meet up again. He is her reason for most things, it would seem. She is also a lot like her mother, not being able to stay in one spot for long. The neighbour became an alcoholic, so there are lots of times where this causes problems in their friendship and relationship. The important thing, though, is that while her mother is absent she always has a friend, even if he appears and disappears quite freely until the end of the novel. He is an interesting character, and for that she becomes more interesting. You really feel for both of them by the end of the novel.

5/5

Other books I have read by Barbara Gowdy are:
The White Bone (April/05) - 4/5
Mister Sandman (August/05) - 4.5/5

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver (November/05)

I have to admit I did not think this would be that good, but it was. An easy read I may add, but worth it. I have given a lot of thought to the title. It could mean several things in reference to the novel. I won't get into it because I don't want to totally destroy it for those that read this and have not read it all ready. Anyways, there are a lot of elements to this novel: family, friendship, adoption, and rights for foreigners. It was pretty complicated for such a little book. The author appeared to be trying to cover many problems that not only people think are gone today, but are actually predominate in many cultures. Anyone that has never read Kingsolver before, this is a good intro. It is basically about a young girl that wants to make more of herself than her mother has, so she sets out on a trek where she ends up being left with a baby. She continues to travel on until the tires blow on her car and she cannot afford to pay for them, so she deems this a good place to stop. In the town she meets many people that have their own problems that they have to face, and they all bound together to become a little family unlike what the main character has ever had before. It had just been her and her mother in her town. Now, she has found a place to belong.

4/5

In my "to read" pile I also have:
The Poisonwood Bible
Prodigal Summer

Light on Snow by Anita Shreve (December/05)

One of the authors that I enjoy immensely is Anita Shreve. For my birthday this passed October I received her second newest novel, Light on Snow. I consider her very good because I am not a very big fan of romance-type novels, but for the most part Shreve's novels have the romance but also have the story as well. This book, though, did not have romance in it. I found this odd. In the novel we find a young girl being raised by her reclusive father. Her mother and sister were killed in a car accident. Their life is very ordinary, since the death of half of his family the father has not really wanted to have people around him, so they live away from most people. In one moonlight stroll, though, their lives are changed all over again. They found something they were not to have found and suddenly there is a string of new people dropping around to their house. This is something that the father is not ready for, but the characters push themselves in and the daughter tells her father that this may be the life he chose for himself, but she needs more than that for herself. She needs people around. This novel shows a man's movement through the pain of loss and his daughters wisdom beyond her years.

3.5/5

Other novels I have read by Anita Shreve:
The Pilots Wife (July/05) - 4.5/5
Fortune's Rock (July/05) - 5/5 (My favourite book I have read by her so far)
All he Ever Really Wanted (August/05) - 4/5
Sea Glass (August/05) - 4/5
Resistance (August/05) - 4.5/5
Where or When (October/05) - 4.5/5

In my "to read" pile:
The Weight of Water
Strange Fits of Passion
The Last Time they Met
Eden Close

I am also getting Wedding in December for Christmas.

First Book Look

Just a place to record the books that I have read and enjoyed, starting sometime. I am not sure if I will go back and record ones that I have read a long time ago. I am currently reading Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett. A forum that I belong to talks about him all the time, I am glad I got the him sorted out because I originally thought it was a girl because Terry Brooks is a girl, and I thought that I would check him out. It is interesting so far, I have met a zombie, a vampire, and Igor. There was a troll entering the bar just as I paused in my reading.

Last night I finished Saints of Big Harbour by Lynn Coady. Coady is a Canadian author that was born near where I live. Her novel takes place in Nova Scotia, my province, so it was interesting to hear a fictional tale about some Nova Scotians. It interesting, though, because some of the places actually exist, she has the accents pretty believable because people from Cape Breton originated from Scotland and Ireland so they still hold the traces of the tongue. Many Cape Breton people also speak Gaelic, which is pretty cool. My grandfather, my mother's father, lives in Cape Breton. Anyways, in this novel we start with one main character, a boy named Guy. For any not French people that read this, think of the hockey player Guy LeFleur, that is how you pronounce this ones name as well. As the novel goes along, though, there are many more characters that appear in the fore-front of the novel. Like his alcoholic uncle, his mother, this young girl that goes crazy and comes up with a tale that involves a made up guy and Guy doing something that he never actually did, as well as a whole string of other characters. I for the most part liked the novel, I just find the word "saints" funny because all the people from Black Harbour mentioned in the novel are crazy! The girl gets Guy investigated by the police, her brother goes on an assualt spree, and those are just some of the characters that live in the town.

Out of a rating of 5, I would give this novel a 4/5.