How To Read a Book

 How To Read a Book by Monica Wood

Violet is serving a three year sentence for a DUI in which a  60 year old kindergarten teacher was struck and killed. She and several other female inmates attend a book club led by Harriet, a widow who brings books into the prison once a week hoping to find one that will interest them enough to spark conversation. They call her Bookie, the Book Lady, and so far they've hated every book she's chosen. But they come anyway because, in Violet's words "I feel the way I always feel in Book Club. The way I believe we all feel. Safe." Before each meeting she has them repeat together "I am a reader. I am intelligent. I have something worthy to contribute."

When Violet is released, her sister drops her off at an apartment, leaving her with enough money to start over and making it clear that she should expect nothing more from her family, who would like not to see or hear from her again. 

As Violet is out dropping off job applications, she is surprised and relieved to run into Bookie, who convinces her to come to the bookstore with her and help choose the group's next book. Working as handy-man in the store is Frank, the husband of the woman for whose death Violet is responsible. When she steps inside the door Frank recognizes her, and is so distraught he throws down his tools and the piece of glass he was installing and runs from the store. The reason for his intense reaction will not be what you expect.

Violet finds work when Harriet's niece, Sophie, goes off to university leaving her position as research lab assistant vacant. She'll work with a temperamental researcher, Dr. Petrov, conducting cognition trials with African grey parrots. Four birds - Oliver, Charlotte, Bob, and Allan - all with quirky personalities of their own, will become important to Violet, as, unfortunately, will Dr. Petrov, a jerk who cares only for himself.  

Violet, Harriet, and Frank are all flawed people, too, but facing their mistakes and their grief they learn much about forgiving others and themselves, about accepting people as they are and choosing love over judgement. I love Harriet when she says "You're not a terrible person, Violet. You're a good person learning a terrible lesson." And Frank in these lines: "He wanted to laugh out loud. He'd been alone for decades; he understood this now. These two marvelous women, and this exceptional bird, were snapping a lid on that solitude. Or blowing the lid clean off. Right now, this minute. Sometimes, rarely, we understand a moment in the moment. Frank understood this moment."

These are some of the most gracious characters I've ever met. I've become rather cynical in these turbulent times but Harriet and Frank made me hope again that people could really be that generous, that accepting and kind. Observing the world through the 6 o'clock news everyday is disheartening, but when I turned the last page and closed this book I felt like Sam when he said "There's still good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for." Yes, it's only a novel, but somehow I feel better about the world and our chances in it now - a pretty good recommendation for any book.

  

Water Memory

 Water Memory by Tom Strelich

I was drawn to this book because of the description: science fiction - the earth's north and south poles reversed - people living in an underground world. Sounded great.

A few chapters in, it seemed more quirky than scientific, but I like quirky - to a point - so I kept going. By the time I'd committed enough time to it that I felt I couldn't quit, it had turned into one of the silliest sci-fi stories I've ever read. I really, really wanted to just toss it, but then all the time I'd invested would have been wasted so I made myself finish it. 

The last chapters, where the underground people come up to join the above ground people - who have believed the others dead all this time - were odd. ODD. The first one up, Hertel, is mistaken for Jesus because he's been, so to speak, "risen from the dead" and because his initial is  H, as in J.H.C. Uh-huh. His being God becomes a whole thing, an utterly ridiculous thing, that leaves you wondering how all those people could be so clueless and why you're still listening to this audio book.

I didn't like it, but this style of humour (Monty Python-ish?) might appeal to someone with a different sense of the comedic than mine. I'm probably missing whatever gene would let me appreciate it, so don't dismiss it without reading other, more favourable reviews.   

Checkout 19

 Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennet

This was.....unexpected. At first I thought the author couldn't possibly be serious, but now, after reading the rest of it, I'm more inclined to think she's a genius. 

With no dialogue and no paragraphs, just a few spaces to divide sections, what we read is whatever occurs in the mind of the girl who remains nameless throughout. We come to know and understand her, a little anyway, through her thoughts, memories, the books she reads, and the stories she writes. 

She alternates using I and We in reference to herself. In the I sections she talks rationally about her life, sounding far more stable than in the We sections. In those she's obsessive and anxious, overthinking even the simplest of things to a point of panic. 

She repeats words and phrases over and over again, maybe to reassure herself of the validity of her own thoughts, and speaks often about feeling apart, outside of the world looking in. Trauma from an abusive ex-boyfriend, and witnessing a deeply disturbing death, are at least partly responsible for her troubled thinking. She struggles with grounding herself in reality but there is no mention of a diagnosed mental health issue. Books are a lifeline and an escape for her, but also an obsession and a source of stress themselves at times.

Being in her head was so intense I had to put the book down and walk away at one point, but coming back I was pulled in again and could not look away till it was done. It was so real. It's a book you read cringing one minute and admiring the next, wishing you could have written this. I waiver between having no words to describe it and too many. It was upsetting, confusing, messy, brilliant, frustrating, painful, fascinating, sad, frightening, strange, and beautiful.

It was hard on the head. And good, so good.  

The Light Pirate

 The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

A climate change novel about one family's experience with extreme weather and its effects. I listened to an audio version, excellently narrated by Rosemary Benson.

It opens with Frida Lowe making supper for her husband, Kirby, and his sons, Flip and Lucas, while Kirby prepares the house for the hurricane approaching the coastal Florida town of Rudder. He insists they won't get the brunt of the storm, but it's been only a year since Frida lost her mother to a hurricane in San Juan and now, pregnant and frightened, she wants to go further inland just in case. Kirby, a lineman, says he'll be needed here and won't leave. 

Then the storm changes course, putting the town of Rudder in its direct path. Kirby is called to work, the boys wander out to see who has and hasn't evacuated, Frida feels her first labour pains, and the storm hits. The results will be devastating for all of them, but this will be only the beginning. 

 Fast forward to where Frida's baby, called Wanda for the hurricane during which she was born, is 10 years old and living in a now mostly abandoned Florida. Kirby and Lucas try to hold things together but wide-spread destruction of infrastructure from extreme weather has forced the state government to give up and pull funding from what it sees as a lost cause. 

When things worsen and further tragedy overtakes their family, Wanda moves in with one of the last remaining residents, a woman who has prepared for years for life off the grid. It's hard work and they seldom see another person, but they make a good life there for awhile, until scavengers find them and decide they want that good life for themselves.

Forward again a few years, Florida is under water and Wanda lives by herself in a hidden tree shelter, moving around by boat, living on fish and whatever else she can still scavenge from upper floors of flooded buildings. She's alone for a long time, until out in her boat fishing one night she unexpectedly hears another woman's voice, eventually leading her to more survivors and the hope of a better future and a real life again.  

 It was intense, and more than a little unnerving. In the real world our weather is increasing in intensity and doing more damage than ever before. Forest fires, flooding, and severe winds are now annual threats to people who once knew them only as rare occurrences. It's easy to imagine already being on the way to where this novel goes.

A harrowing story lifted by a bit of magical realism that I haven't mentioned yet but is quite lovely, and ultimately ending with beauty and hope for the future. I loved it.

The Correspondent

 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

An elegantly written story told in letters sent to and from Mrs. Sybil Van Antwerp, a well-spoken, sometimes prickly lady in her senior years. She writes letters every day to any number of people: her brother, friends, strangers, officials with whom she doesn't agree, authors with her thoughts on their books, and anyone else with whom she wants to share an opinion. She writes regularly to one unnamed person whose letters she keeps in a desk drawer and never mails.

 Sybil can be stubborn and judgemental, qualities which have hurt people over the years and driven some away. She carries the pain of a long ago action, or rather inaction, that did great harm, something she has never told another soul but which has cast a shadow over all her days and affected every relationship in her life. With age, and through letters sent and received, she little by little comes to see where she has been wrong, and in time is able to begin to make amends and seek forgiveness. 

 Sybil can be frustrating but I came to respect and admire her so much I can now call her one of my favourite fictional characters. I'll want to read the book again to spend more time in her company and enjoy her beautifully written letters.

This is a story about the mistakes we make and the suffering they cause, the giving and receiving of forgiveness and grace, and the finding of peace after years in the storm. And besides all that, there's a very entertaining romantic storyline as two quite different gentlemen come courting. 

 I loved it - the story, the characters, the writing, and the excellent narrating of the audio version by Maggi-Meg Reed. 

This is a treasure of a book.

Standing in the Rainbow

 Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg

Fannie Flagg has been on my radar for a while, but the only one of hers I've read was A Redbird Christmas and, sadly, I found it not very memorable. Still, something made me want to try one more and this was available at my local library so here we are. 

It's almost 500 pages long, about 150 pages longer than my interest lasted. It centers around Dorothy and Doc (Robert) Smith, Doc's mother (referred to Mother Smith) and the Smith children Anna Lee and Bobby. They have a boarder - with no hotel in the town most people take in boarders - named Jimmy, and eventually they take in another, Betty Raye Oatman, a teenager who travels constantly with her gospel-singing family but longs for a more settled life.

Other characters include Anna Lee's friends, Norma and Patsy Marie; Bobby's friend, Monroe; neighbour Beatrice Woods, a blind singer; Tot Whooton, a put-upon hairdresser whose mother is forever wandering off and needing rescuing; and Ham Sparks, a young entrepreneur who eventually marries Betty Raye and becomes Governor. His journey to that position seems unlikely, and when his term ends and he "runs" the completely inexperienced Betty Raye for Governor, it feels almost farcical.

 All these characters stories, over the almost five decades covered in the book, revolve around Dorothy's as she hosts a radio show, called The Neighbour Dorothy Program, from her living room. With Mother Smith on piano, she showcases singers, interviews people of interest, shares local news, and reads letters from her listeners. While she's busy with that, Doc runs a drug store and fills the townsfolk's prescriptions, Bobby indulges a sense of adventure that gets him into endless trouble, and Beatrice dreams of a different life than the one this town can offer her.

My interest in the plot waned when it stopped making sense, and in the characters when they stayed firmly on the page and never became quite real. It's a pleasant story about pleasant people in a pleasant place, but it doesn't offer much beyond that and it doesn't ask much of the reader other than to accept a few improbabilities. I wanted to like it and I feel sorry that I haven’t anything better to say about it.