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. 

Hedgehog's prickly delight

Once again, I'm pushing the boundaries of "happy" choices with this suggestion, but my book club all enjoyed The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.  There is loss in this story to be sure, but the theme is that art, friendship, and French pastries make it all worthwhile.  You will need both a dictionary and kleenex to finish this translation of a French bestseller.

Hedgehog tells two stories.  Paloma is an intelligent, wealthy, and depressed twelve year considering suicide.  Renee is the reclusive landlady in Paloma's Parisian apartment.  Renee pretends to be stupid, but secretly spends her days consuming art, literature, philosophy and music.  The story alternates between the two interesting characters as they ponder the meaning of their lives and become friends. 

Calgary Public Libary has an excellent audio version of the story with two fine actresses reading the alternating parts.  Using the Overdrive service, you can download the story onto your iPod.  My house was never cleaner than when I tidied while listening- I didn't want to stop!

Happiness is an e-reader!

I bought an e-reader for vacations (no more suitcase full of books for me!) and found it useful for travelling to work as well. The reader can be held in one hand if the train is crowded, and it's much lighter and smaller to cart around. My library offers e-books for download, so in keeping with this blog's theme, I searched for "happiness". Up popped The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin. I've seen this book in other people's laps and they were smiling, so I've put a hold on a copy for myself.

My library, Calgary Public Library, loans free electronic print books for downloading onto your e-reader. To get them, you need a suitable e-reader (more about that in a moment), a USB cable, a CPL library card, and a little time to download some software. The collection of e-books is called Overdrive, and you find it on our website at http://calgary.lib.overdrive.com/. You download software called Adobe Editions to manage the e-books, which is required by the publishers to protect copyright. Then you search for something to read. I often use the advanced search feature to limit to items that are checked in. Otherwise, you can place holds for a book just like in the regular library catalogue. The e-book is downloaded to your computer using a checkout system, and then transferred to your e-reader. (You can also download audio files to to listen to stories on your iPod or MP3 player.)

The first step is to pick which e-reader to buy ; there are pros and cons to each. The Amazon Kindle, though it offers the ease of wireless downloads, is proprietary and won't work with Overdrive. A list of supported devices can be found at http://www.overdrive.com/resources/drc/ Check with your own library to see what e-books they offer, and which devices are supported. And then have fun squeezing reading into more places in your life!

Wintery Swedish character study

Not happy, but interesting!

Been too busy in the kids' section- it was time to head back for some adult books.

We just read The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson at bookclub. Although not a "happy" book, it was enjoyed by 90% of the club. It's the story of two women Katri and Anna in wintery Sweden. Single minded Katri wants money from Anna to buy a boat for her brother. Anna is a well known illustrator of childrens' books, and not the easy mark she first appears to be. A quick read about how two interesting characters affect each other. Written in 1982 by the childrens' author of the Moomintrolls, this is a recent translation.

In the car, we're listening to Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris. It is short stories about animals who act like humans, which is a clever premise that makes the human foibles more apparent and droll. I recommend the bookcd because it's read by fine character voices.

Our Maverick

My city Calgary is planning to read Mavericks : The Incorrigible History of Alberta by Aritha Van Herk this fall during One Book One Calgary.

Every family has one. Our maverick is my great-grandmother Leta May Bailly. Born in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia in 1889, she was friends with local boy Robert Silver. He moved to Calgary. Her father, a strict Lutheran, told Leta she couldn't travel west on the train alone and unmarried to follow him. Leta did, and they married in Calgary on November 6, 1912. There they lived in a house at the corner of Memorial Drive and Edmonton Trail. They filled the house with their son Bert, a Boston Terrier named Buddy, and two Indian motorcycles.

When Leta came to Calgary she cut her Gibson Girl locks in favour of a short bob. She wore mens' trousers while she rode her Indian motorcycle into the mountains for picnics. Leta liked the trousers so much she had a dressmaker make pairs in all kinds of fabrics, including a pink satin pair for bridge parties.

By the time my Mom was born, her "Nana" had given up the Indian motorcycle. She ate her Pot of Gold chocolates and chainsmoked, while her budgie Joey sat on the rim of her glasses. She died in 1963 so I never met her. When I got married, though, my Uncle Al made us a poster size blowup of our favourite family photo- Nana sitting on her Indian motorcyle at the garage.

Who's your family maverick?