Audrey and Winnifred, 2 favourite characters

One of the funniest scenes I’ve read in years happens at the beginning of Come thou tortoise by Jessica Grant. Our heroine Audrey is a well meaning, mentally challenged young woman flying back to St. John’s, Newfoundland to see her injured father. Audrey is suspicious of a passenger who is reading a Shirley Maclaine book. Then she notices that he has a gun. Audrey disarms the man and locks herself in the bathroom. It is the Air Marshall’s bad luck to run into such a formidable opponent!


This novel reminds me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon. An offbeat narrator with a persistent nature and unique way of looking at the world solves a mystery. The second intriguing voice in this book is Winnifred, the tortoise from the title. Winnifred is Audrey’s pet, and fills the reader in on all the important points that Audrey neglects to mention. We recommend this book to people who like zany families like the ones you find in Miriam Toew’s novels.

One Chrysanthemum

Reading about Japan in the news, I remembered the novel One Chrysanthemum by Joan Itoh Burk.  We read it several years ago in book club, but the characters remain vivid in my mind.  It's Tokyo in 1965, and Misako is married to Hideo.  Misako discovers her husband's infidelity, and must decide what she's going to do.  Her grandfather, a Buddhist priest, represents the past, and a Westernized childhood friend Sachiko represents a changing Japan.  I remember the details that reveal the culture as much as the story itself.

Perhaps it comes from reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog.  Perhaps it comes from going to buy a simple watch, and being confronted with rows and rows of big, glittery brand name products.  Perhaps it comes from looking at Japanese art.  In any case, after years of reading "Western" novels where it's all about characters asserting their individuality, this novel is an interesting counterpoint.

Half-Broke Horses

Last night we met to discuss Half-Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls, and it triggered many stories about our grandmothers.  This easy read is like Little House on the Prairie for grownups.  Walls calls it a true life novel because it is the fictionalized story of her grandmother Lily.  Born in 1901 on a ranch in Texas, the adjective "hardscrabble" pops to mind to describe Lily's life.  For example, at 15, she rides her horse Patches alone 500 miles north to teach in a one room school house.  Lively antiquated words fill Lily's monologue, like when she calls her first husband a "crumb bumb."  She dispenses a lot of no nonsense philosophy such as the "most important thing in life is learning to fall."  This is a lively read about an interesting character.  Half-Broke Horses is a kind of prequel to the bestseller Glass Castle, which tells the story of Jeannette's own difficult childhood with Lily's daughter, who was her mother.