Thursday Tea

Thursday Tea is a weekly feature hosted by Anastasia at Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog.

" To play along, all you need is some tea, a book, and the willingness to answer some very simple questions: What tea are you drinking (and do you like it)? What book are you reading (and do you like it)? Tell us a little about your tea and your book, and whether or not the two go together."

The tea:

Yunnan Black Tea. Described on the packet thus: "Smooth, sweet honey flavour with an elegant flowery aroma. Highly prized by tea connoisseurs."

The book:

The Disappeared by Kim Echlin (2009) 235 pages HC

Set in Montreal and Cambodia during the 1970s, this love story plays out during the post Pol Pot era when Cambodia was getting back on its feet after terrible years of war and brutal oppression. The outside world was just discovering the extent of the deaths from the killing fields and democratic process was being promised but was not being delivered in any serious ways. Anne goes to Cambodia to find her boyfriend Serey after his return to his country and a silence of years that she has never been able to accept or understand. They were in love so what happened to him? Did he find any of his missing family? Is he even alive? Her heart tells her that he would never have deserted her if he could have returned to Canada. She will fight against a uncooperative bureaucracy that has much to hide, with nothing but her persistent love for this man. And she will find him but things do not always turn out quite the way we hope. A haunting tale, The Disappeared "is a remarkable consideration of language, truth, justice, and memory that speaks to the conscience of the world, and to love, even when those we love most are gone."

Do they go together?

A dark tea, Yunnan Black seemes appropriate to this story with its heartbreaking questions, deep loss and shadows of the past.

What are you drinking/reading today?

Previous Posts:

Library Loot

Haiku Friday

Review: The Echo Maker by Richard Powers

More Thursday Tea

What We All Long For by Dionne Brand

Review and Giveaway

What We All Long For by Dionne Brand

St. Martin’s Griffin (November 25, 2008)

Fiction, Paperback 336 pgs.



This is a guest review written by Dawn of She is Too Fond of Books.

"They all…felt as if they inhabited two countries - their parents’ and their own - when they sat dutifully at their kitchen tables being regaled with how life used to be “back home,”…They thought that their parents had scales on their eyes. Sometimes they wanted to shout at them, “Well, you’re not there!”…Each left home in the morning as if making a long journey, untangling themselves from the seaweed of other shores wrapped around their parents. Breaking their doorways, they left the sleepwalk of their mothers and fathers and ran across the unobserved borders of the city…to arrive at their own birthplace…They were born in the city from people born elsewhere."

Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For is described as “a raw novel of bittersweet youthfulness.” Set in the spring of 2002, this is an amazing story of four second-generation Torontonians in their mid-twenties. They share a strong desire to break free from the past - from their parents’ view of the past which anchors them, and from their personal family stories which shape them.

The four main characters:

* - Tuyen - an installation artist who lives in a walk-up apartment she has converted to a work studio, returning to her parents’ home only when she is in desperate need of cash. Tuyen was born in Toronto after her family escaped Vietnam in 1980. In the chaos of the evacuation, Tuyen’s brother Quy (a young boy about 4 years old) went missing. Her life has been shaped by her parents’ fruitless long-distance search for him.

* - Carla - lives across the hall from Tuyen, and is the subject of her unrequited love. For reasons that are revealed as the story progresses, Carla feels responsible for her younger brother, who is often in trouble with the law. She has a strained relationship with her father, and an ambivalent attitude toward her step-mother.


* - Oku - a would-be poet and musician. At age 25, Oku mimes attending college, although he has recently dropped out of a Master’s program for English Literature. He is in love with Jackie, who teases him and flaunts her relationship with another man.


* - Jackie - she is probably the least-developed of the main characters, perhaps more of a place-holder for Oku’s love interest. Fifteen years earlier she took a train from Halifax to Toronto, where her parents promptly found low-income housing and started a routine of leaving her with neighbors to hit the clubs and dance and party the night away.

Brand doesn’t visit the Toronto of white-collar business and tourism; she explores the daily grind and the dark alleys of the city. These four and their companions spend nights drinking, smoking and hooking up. Slowly and carefully she reveals more and more of their personal histories as she follows them making their way in the present day. As the novel progresses, the four do indeed discover and confront what they each long for; we are left not with a neat and tidy ending, but with a faint hope for better times.

Interestingly, although the majority of the novel is told in third-person narration, there are several chapters narrated in the first-person by Quy, Tuyen’s missing brother. These chapters are left-justified only, leaving raw ragged edges on the right-hand side, which mirror the turbulent tale he tells.I found What We All Long For to be an engaging and unique work of fiction.

Author Dionne Brand was born and raised in Trinidad, moving to Canada at age 18 to attend Toronto University. She has won several awards for her poetry collection, Land to Light On; her novel In Another Place, Not Here was on the short-list for two awards. She has published one other novel, At the Full and Change of the Moon, and two works of non-fiction. What We All Long For was originally published in hardcover in 2005 and will be released in paperback by St. Martin’s Griffin imprint on November 25, 2008.

Thank you Dawn. She is Too Fond Of Books is Dawn's bookblog where she writes about both fiction and non fiction.

If you would like to do a guest blog, past reviews and article are accepted, please email me at sfuhringer (AT) sympatico (DOT)ca.

I read What We All Long For too and highly recommend it. I don't usually relate well to the very young in fiction, in this case early twenties, but this story had me from the beginning. Very well written, Brand made me feel the loneliness, frustration, joy, satisfaction, or worries of these characters. And she had inner city Toronto and immigrant life, as well as first generation young people down pat. Quite an accomplishment.

I'm offering an ARC copy of What We All Long For by Dionne Brand to one of my readers. I did not receive it as a book to review but through Bookmooch as something I wanted to read. So, it's been read twice but it's a clean copy.

To enter:

1) Tell us the best book of Canadian literary fiction you've read. Either written by a Canadian or set in Canada is acceptable.

2)Blog about this giveaway and put a link back to it and I'll give you a second entry. If you don't have a blog, email 3 friends telling them about this giveaway and copying me at sfuhringer (at) sympatico (dot) ca.

Entry is open worldwide until midnight Sunday January 25, 2009.Be sure to leave an email address if you don't have a blog where I can contact you.Winner will be announced on Monday January 26, 2009.

Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden

Review

Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden

Giller Prize Winner 2008

Fiction, Hardcover, pgs.

Penguin Group Canada, September 2008


This is a guest review, written by Tamara of Books by TJ Baff.

From the Publisher

From internationally acclaimed author Joseph Boyden comes an astonishingly powerful novel of contemporary aboriginal life, full of the dangers and harsh beauty of both forest and city. When beautiful Suzanne Bird disappears, her sister Annie, a loner and hunter, is compelled to search for her, leaving behind their uncle Will, a man haunted by loss. While Annie travels from Toronto to New York, from modelling studios to A-list parties,Will encounters dire troubles at home. Both eventually come to painful discoveries about the inescapable ties of family. Through Black Spruce is an utterly unforgettable consideration of how we discover who we really are. About the Author Joseph Boyden is a Canadian with Irish, Scottish, and Métis roots. Three Day Road has received the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the McNally Robinson Aboriginal Book of the Year Award and has also been shortlisted for the Governor General Award for Fiction and published in 10 languages. He divides his time between Northern Ontario and Louisiana, where he teaches writing at the University of New Orleans.

The novel Through Black Spruce is written by alternating chapters between Annie Bird's story, a somewhat confused loner and niece to, Will Bird, bush pilot, who lies in a coma in a hospital bed. Annie shares her story, while seated at her uncle's bedside, about the search for her sister in the international modelling world, in an effort to interest her uncle enough in the day to day troubles that he will awaken from his coma.

Will's voice comprises the alternate chapters about his recollections of events leading up to the beating that leads him to the coma. Both stories culminate in a shared climax that has it's roots in the same sequence of events.

I loved this book. I found the style of writing easy to read and it flowed. The characters were well developed and through the tale there was shown to be a growth period for both of the main protagonists. The sequence of events leading to the climax made sense and was well planned and executed and the overwhelming theme of family was well described.

I left this book after the closing of the last page feeling as if I had read an authentic tale relating problems experienced by a few aboriginals in their native northlands and how they are fighting the the same fight of drug related gangs and violence that we are further south. Their success in this fight also depends on the few who stand up against this oppression and fight back. A timely tale.

5 out of 5 stars.

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Thank you Tamara. You can see more of Tamara's work at Books by TJ Baff.

This was Joseph Boyden's second novel. Though the story stands alone it does follow the same family as his first, Three Day Road, which I will be reading as part of the Diversity challenge (button in sidebar). Through Black Spruce was a five star read for me too and the Giller Prize for literature was well deserved.

Have you read it, or any other Giller Prize nominees? What other Native North American literature can you recommend?

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection:

The Disappeared by Kim Echlin

Fiction, Hardcover, 224 pgs.

Hamish Hamilton Canada, March 3, 2009

From the Publisher

"This story of passionate love between a Canadian and her Cambodian lover evokes their tumultuous relationship in a world of colliding values. Set against the backdrop of horrific loss, these two self-exiled lovers struggle to recreate themselves in a world that rejects their hopes. Spare, unrelenting, and moving, The Disappeared is an unforgettable consideration of love, language, justice, and memory set against the backdrop of the killing fields of Pol Pot."

I read Elephant Winter by Kim Echlin, her first novel which I reviewed briefly here, and I loved it. So I just have to read her new book, The Disappeared. It's a more serious subject but I look forward to reading it.

Which books are you waiting for?

At a Loss for Words by Diane Schoemperlen

Review and Giveaway

At a Loss for Words: A Post-Romantic Novel by Diane Schoemperlen

Fiction, paperback, 188 pgs.

Harper Collins

She can't eat. She can't sleep. She drinks too much coffee and smokes too many cigarettes. She can't focus. She's a writer who can't write. She checks for messages several times a day and her disappointment is palpable. What's wrong with her? She's in love. Such is the author's strength that she makes us feel everything her character is going through.This woman's first love has walked back into her life after many years while she's giving a reading in a bookstore. Her euphoria knows no bounds. It's a long distance relationship this time and she just can't get enough of his letters, emails, phone messages or the occasional day or two together. The bad news is that, between the exhilarating highs of passion and devastating lows of doubt and fear, she can't concentrate enough to work. This has never happened to her before. She doesn't want to panic but books on writing don't help much with their simplistic though well-meaning suggestions on how to get past the big WB-writer's block. She uses some of their ideas to great satirical effect in the novel, which reads much like journal entries. "Take some swings in a batting cage". "Write in the woods while leaning against a tree". In her mind these become as inane as "Make a paper clip chain six feet long or more." This is the story of words and the power we give to them during the throes of romantic love. We go over every word or phrase the object of our affection says. Was there more there than stated, some unspoken meaning, did he mean it seriously or was it just a casual remark? Is he as commited as he says or just a smooth talker? Our character finds sudden meaning in crossword puzzle definitions or horoscopes, things that emphasize her new feelings or sharpen her worry and pain. It's not long before the reader begins to squirm a little because you've see yourself behaving the same way. She's exposed us all a little, told the unspoken truth about how obsessed or even goofy we can be when we think we're in love. We all have friends who act like this and we know there's little reasoning with them when their under the influence of adoration. We suffer along with her but like our friends we sometimes want to shake her and tell her to get real. The author has done a terrific job, with a slow reveal of the other side of the relationship. I reread large portions just to enjoy the way she uses language. Schoemperlen has several novels to her credit already but the format is different here. Some may not like that it's not a simple narrative but it works for her purposes very well. And some will think the story should have ended sooner but then so should some of our own rides on this rollercoaster of the heart. Four stars out of five.

Thank you to Deanna at Harper Collins Canada for the reviewer's copy.

Lack of space forces me to relinquish my ARC copy in another Thursday Giveaway. It is gently read but slightly marked from having a sticker removed from the cover. Entry is open worldwide until midnight Wednesday October 1, 2008.

1) To enter recommend a five star book of literary fiction. NOT science fiction, fantasy, mystery, romance, action, thriller, Western, horror, supernatural etc. I don't read them. I'm looking for really good books to enjoy. Books in translation interest me too. Anything written during the last hundred years.

2) A second entry goes to anyone who blogs about this giveaway and puts a link back to it. If you don't have a blog, email 3 friends telling them about this giveaway and copying me at sfuhringer(at) sympatico(dot) ca.
Please leave a contact address if you're entering the giveaway and don't have a blog where I can contact you.

Winner will be announced on Thursday, October 2, 2008.

Mister Sandman by Barbara Gowdy

Review and Giveaway

Mister Sandman by Barbara Gowdy

Fiction, Paperback,268 pgs.

Steerforth Press

I was surprised to see this as an Early Reviewer book on LibraryThing recently because I knew it had been published in 1995. I also knew it was one of Nancy Pearl's Booklust 'must reads'. This is a re-issue, now with an introduction by Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love. Barbara Gowdy is a consisently good writer and here again we find strong characterization, this time with dark humour and frank sexuality. The Canary family are unconventional to say the least. Gordon and Doris Canary are emotionally dishonest with themselves as well as others. Their habit of lies and wildly exaggerated histories spills over into the lives of their daughters, Sonja and Marcy. We laugh at some of the ridiculous things they say but with a tinge of sadness because they resort to such self-deceptions to get through life. Gowdy's characters seem almost preposterous, although she is non-judgemental and compassionate towards them and we come to understand them better once we get to know them. The story takes place from the 1950's to the 1970's, during which a third child is born into their midst. A mute but musically gifted and insightful creature, little Joan becomes the unwitting keeper of all the family secrets and ultimately its saving grace. We do care about the characters after all because they protect and care for each other. But I found the sexual bits disturbing. I've heard Mister Sandman compared to both Geek Love and Arrested Development but I have read neither so you will have to judge for yourselves.

Thank you to LibraryThing for the reviewer's copy.

This week's Giveaway is my copy of Mister Sandman by Barbara Gowdy. This not an ARC but the real thing, gently read. It also contains a reader's guide.

Open worldwide until midnight Sunday, September 28, 2008.

1) To enter tell us about any book by a Nobel Prize winning author that you've enjoyed. If you haven't read any yet, which one would you like to read? This link will give you a complete list of Nobel authors: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/List+of+Nobel+laureates+in+Literature

Clicking on any name will give you a list of their books.

2) If you blog about this giveaway and put a link back to it, I'll give you a second entry. If you don't have a blog, email 3 friends telling them about this giveaway and copying me at sfuhringer(at)sympatico(dot)ca.
Please leave a contact address if you're entering the giveaway and don't have a blog where I can contact you.

Winner will be announced on Monday, September 29, 2008.

Giller Prize longlist 2008

The jury selected 15 titles out of 95 books, submitted by 38 publishers from every region of Canada. The longlist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize includes three former winners of the Canadian prize for literary fiction. The list will be winnowed down to a shortlist of five on October 7. The winner will be announced on November 11.

Award-winning author and previous Giller Prize winner Margaret Atwood; Liberal MP, Foreign Affairs critic and author Bob Rae; and renowned international journalist, professor and author Colm Toibin comprised the 2008 jury.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the prize.
From a highly competitive field, the Scotiabank Giller jury has selected the following titles for this year’s longlist:




David Adams Richards for The Lost Highway






David Bergen for The Retreat






Joseph Boyden for Through Black Spruce






Austin Clarke for More






Anthony De Sa for Barnacle Love, short stories






Emma Donaghue for The Sealed Letter






Marina Endicott for Good to a Fault






Steven Galloway for The Cellist of Sarajevo






Rawi Hage for Cockroach






Kenneth J. Harvey for Blackstrap Hawco






Patrick Lane for Red Dog, Red Dog






Pasha Malla for The Withdrawal Method, short stories






Paul Quarrington for The Ravine






Nino Ricci for The Origin of Species






Mary Swan for The Boys in the Trees





Of the longlist, the jury writes:

“These fifteen books vary widely in technique, in setting, and in tone — from the historical to the contemporary, from the comic to the satiric to the tragic, from the local to the international. Nothing unites them but the jury's belief in their accomplishment: each contributes something fresh, original, thoughtful, or vital to the practice of fiction.”
The Scotiabank Giller Prize awards $50,000 annually to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English and $5,000 to each of the finalists. The Scotiabank Giller Prize is named in honour of the late literary journalist Doris Giller and was founded in 1994 by her husband Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch.
October 7, 2008 Shortlist Announcement
November 11, 2008 Gala Evening and Winner Announcement
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I have read The Boys in the Trees***** by Mary Swan. I have started The Cellist of Sarajevo and have Cockroach by Rawi Hage, Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden, and The Lost Highway by David Adam Richards in my TBR pile.

If you have reviewed any of these books let us know by commenting or sending me a link to your review.
So, which have you read? Which do you plan to read? Have any interesting information about any of them or their authors?

WINNER of Quintet

Thursday is going to be Giveaway Day here at Fresh Ink. This week a copy of Quintet by Douglas Arthur Brown is going to:

http://thetometraveller.blogspot.com/

You still have a chance to win The Kings of Innocence by Michael Burns. You have until midnight Wednesday, September 17 to enter at my review below. All giveaways are open worldwide.
Winner will be announced on Thursday, September 18.

Please leave a contact address if you're entering the giveaway and don't have a blog where I can contact you.
******
Some interesting comments about books in my library from the Quintet giveaway:

Cindi: I would enjoy reading the A Country Doctor's Notebook! by Mikail Bulgakov, I like medicine and other cultures. His story sounds profound and yet funny."

Lauren: Another book you've mentioned that I'd like to read...What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn. It sounds really great and highly interesting. I also love books that take place in another country.

Judy: At LibraryThing your books always come up on my homepage tag watch (literary fiction)and they are more often than not very appealing to me. The book in your library that seems like something I'd like to read is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer.

Rebekah: The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks sounds really intriguing. I enjoy reading books about books or people who have something to do with books."

caite: I must say one that you review on LibraryThing, Death of a Murderer by Rupert Thomson sounds very interesting. Any book described as creepy must be grand!

Icedream: A book that I really would like to read is one that you highly recommend, Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian. I loved his books Midwives and The Double Bind so I am looking forward to reading this new book as well as reading some of his older books.

traci:I've currently got several of your 'recommended' books on my TBR list - The Book Thief by Mark Zarkus, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer. The Potato Peel Pie book is at the top of the list.

geebee: I'd like to read What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn.

Elizabeth: The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall looks quite intriguing and something a bit different from what I would normally choose so that makes it even more appealing.

bermudaonion: I've heard so many good things about The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and I would love to read that!

thetometraveller: I have not heard of Coventry by Helen Humphreys but it's going on my wish list after reading your review. I love historical fiction, especially set in England, and Coventry looks great.

And from the author who was nice enough to leave a comment on my old site where the review and giveaway were originally posted:

"Thank you for posting my book "Quintet" on your website. Your readers are welcome to visit my website: douglasarthurbrown.ca and post questions.
Sincerely, "

Douglas Arthur Brown

Thank you to every one of the 14 people who entered, and those who blogged about it, for your great comments. Please enter again or leave comments, book recommendations, questions, or opinions on books and reading-good, bad, or otherwise.

Quintet by Douglas Arthur Brown - Review

Quintet by Douglas Arthur Brown

Fiction, paperback 303 pgs.

Key Porter Press (2008)

Three brothers, identical triplets, have come home to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, to bury their parents who've been killed in an accident. They haven't been together in all the years since they left home as young men. They're on the cusp of forty now. They've reunited from Toronto, Halifax, and Copehagen. A carpenter who sings beautifully in church choirs but has no interest in religion, Cameron has a blind daughter and a wife now living separately. He has a great deal of guilt about his daughter, Mary Anne, wondering if drugs he took when he was young might be responsible for her blindness. Rory is an artist who exhibits his paintings in art galleries in Toronto. He experiences synesthesia, he hears colours, and his work is dominated by red. He's married to a doctor fifteen years his senior whom he adores. Adrian runs a haute cuisine restaurant in Copenhagen with his male partner who is seriously ill. Each of the three brothers has no idea what's going on in the others lives, they haven't kept in touch. They miss each other but are harbouring negative feelings toward each other and their parents, as most siblings do. But they all agree in their resentment of their older brother, "the Big B", who has stayed near his parents and has secrets of his own.

The story of their lives for the past twenty years is told in the form of a journal that each triplet keeps for four months then mails to one of the others. This form works very well, no sudden time shifts or confusion about which of them is telling their story in each chapter. Written in simple, not flowery language, as one brother opens up a little so do the others in what they tell about their loves, losses and triumphs. Their individual expression of themselves nicely dispels the myth of identical character so often presumed about multiple birth children too. Over time, they become more reflective and honest about their lives as children and the feelings that led to their ending up so far apart, at least in distance. They are clearly still deeply attached emotionally. Strong feelings emerge, a few raw emotions are revealed, but there is humour too. It's set in Canada and we get to travel through their eyes in Canada and Europe. And we are privileged to watch them come together in their journal accounts and rebuild a brotherhood of trust and love. I enjoyed their story. Four stars out of five.

This is Douglas Arthur Brown's second novel. His first was A Deadly Harvest.
He has also published a collection of short fiction, The Kimodo Dragon and Other Stories.

Douglas Arthur Brown's homepage
http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/douglasarthurbrown/

Key Porter Press
http://www.keyporter.com/BookDetail.aspx?ISBN=1552639975

Thank you to Mini Book Expo and Key Porter Books for providing me with a review copy.

BOOK GIVEAWAY

I'm giving away my gently read paperback copy of Quintet by Douglas Arthur Brown. This is not an Advance Reading Copy, but a true copy.
Entry is open worldwide until midnight Wednesday,September 10.

Tell me you want Quintet and

1) Comment on any other book mentioned on my blog that you think you might enjoy reading and tell me why for one entry. This includes those in my personal library (shown by LibraryThing).
2) If you blog about this contest and put a link back to it I'll give you two entries.
3) Do both and you'll have three chances to win.

Winner will be announced on Thursday, September 11

Next review: Months and Seasons by Christopher Meeks

Previous review: Schooled by Alisha Lakhani

Ex-Cottagers in Love by J. M. Kearns

Ex-Cottagers In Love by J.M. Kearns

Fiction 380 pgs. Paperback

Key Porter Press (2008)

This is a first novel by an already best-selling author of non-fiction and it is an enjoyable one. Dave Moore, 40, is frustrated by the limits of his job as a paralegal at an L.A. firm and wonders whether his beautiful and insightful new girlfriend will be the end of his dream to write and record music or his best hope for the future. He takes her home to Canada to meet his family who've rented a cottage in the Muskoka region of Ontario. In fact, they spent all their summers in the family cottage that is now sold and everyone regrets the loss, no one more than his 13 year old nephew George and Dave himself who calls the island setting "the place he loved most in the world". Maggie's not an outdoors sort of woman, she doesn't understand their deep attachment to the memories of the old place and things do not go perfectly for the new couple, though Maggie does her best to make friends with everyone.

Back in L.A. he has major decisions to make about his job and his future with Maggie when his father in Canada has a stroke and adds to his worries. Darkly humorous, the story follows both the lighter moments and the sadder ones for Dave, and in a somewhat parallel story, young George and his grandfather back home. The story is more serious than the title first suggested to me and I'm glad of it. I liked these characters and hope that Kearns writes more fiction because he does it well. Four stars out of five. I recommend it.

J. M. Kearns has also written:

Why Mr. Right Can't Find You: The Surprising Answers that Will Change Your Life (January 2008)
Better Love Next Time: How the Relationship that Didn't Last Can Guide You to the One that Will (January 2009)

Key Porter Press
http://www.keyporter.com/BookDetail.aspx?ISBN=1554700000

J.M Kearns Home Page: http://www.jmkearns.com/

Thank you to Key Porter Books and Mini Book Expo for providing me with a review copy.

Next Review: Schooled by Anisha Lakhani

Previous Post: Alexandr Solzhenitzyn RIP

Out Stealing Horses,Elephant Winter,Tirra Lirra By the River

Out Stealing Horses***** by Per Petterson (Norway)

This won the Dublin Impac Award 2007. That's the big one cash-wise:100,00 Pounds. This prize is chosen by librarians around the world.

Other Awards:

Norwegian Critic's Award

Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

Winner Norwegian Booksellers' Prize

American Library Association Notable Book

Time Magazine Best Book of the Year

New York Times Best Books of the Year

New York Times 100 Notable Books for 2007

Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist

Out Stealing Horses is about boyhood friendship, tragedy and loss, fathers and sons and their expectations of one another. And how the main character deals with loneliness both in his youth and late in life. Well worth reading. A good place to start on Scandinavian literature if you haven't tried any yet. Four and a half stars. Highly recommended.

Elephant Winter***** by Kim Echlin (Canada)

A very good story set in the Africa Lion Safari Park, close to where I live in Ontario. Elephants figure prominently but there is love, loss, illness, and trust between both animals and human for those of you who need people in your stories too. An original story, highly recommended.

The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy (Canada) will be my next novel about elephants. An elephant family comprises the characters of this story.

Tirra Lirra by the River**** by Jessica Anderson

This won the Miles Franklin Award (Australia) in 1978.

I Bookmooched it so I could read it and it was worth it. An oldie but goodie about how a woman's life turns out differently than she'd expected. Denied independence, then having it forced upon her by her husband, she reflects on her two lives. One lived in Australia and the other in London until she returns to her childhood home in old age and finds the world a very different place. A very good read, I recommend it.

Currently reading Under The Skin by Michael Faber

I'm 40 pages in and scared to find out what the woman is doing with the hitchhiking men she keeps picking up in Scotland. They disappear, you see, and it's giving me the creeps.

Reading recommendations and comments are always welcomed.

Next Review: Scandinavian Mystery Writers
Previous Review: Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez