Judgement Day

 Judgement Day by Penelope Lively

In the quiet English village of Laddenham, Clare Paling is trying to settle into a new lifestyle. Her husband's career made this a favourable move for their family but it's left her rather at loose ends. In the local church, examining a medieval work of art depicting judgement day, Clare, avowed atheist, meets the Vicar, a man wavering in his faith who is both oddly attracted to and annoyed by the new neighbour. 

Besides Clare and the Vicar, two other characters stand out. One is Stanley, a retired veteran and now churchwarden, a sullen man who has lived alone for many years after losing his wife and child in a freak accident. The other is Martin, a neglected teenage boy in a fragile family situation. Circumstances lead to Martin being in Stanley's care for a time, which sees both of them begin to heal, until...

It's a straightforward plot with a rumbling undercurrent of tension that reveals more than the words do and asks some weighty questions about life. How much is choice, or chance? And why struggle with choices at all if life is ultimately uncertain and often cruel? 

An easy read, but by no means a light one.  

Ellen Foster and Table For Two

 Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons

A short novel - 126 pages in my copy - with a lot of heart. Nine year old Ellen is someone you simply must meet. Living in circumstances too hard for any child, she faces them head on with pluck and humour, and breath-taking honesty. Seeing life through Ellen's eyes is an experience you shouldn't miss. It's heart-breaking, and heart-warming, and altogether wonderful. You will love her.   

Table For Two by Amor Towles

Amor Towles is such a good writer - A Gentleman in Moscow was radiant - but the stories in this collection didn't appeal to me. I don't seem to have much luck with short stories, I think because I don't get to know the characters as well as I'd like before we're on to a new group of people, and I always want to know more than a short story has room to tell. I did like a couple of these stories, but the plot of the last one just wasn't my cup of tea and it was the longest by far. I could still appreciate the crafting of it though, to the point where I feel a little guilty about not liking it. The fault is with the reader, not the writer.

Changing Our Mind

 Changing Our Mind by David P. Gushee

As with Why Not Women I'll begin by saying I am not a Biblical scholar, nor have I done extensive personal study of the Bible's stance on same-sex marriage. I've always taken a few verses at face value and drawn my conclusions from those, which was comfortable because most of the people I know had come to the same conclusions, and if a question was raised those verses seemed to clearly answer it. 

Recently I've been challenged to at least consider other viewpoints, not to change my beliefs but simply to listen to those who have drawn other conclusions from what the Bible says. And so I read Changing Our Mind, praying to not be swayed from the truth by fine-sounding arguments. (Col. 2:4). I want to know and believe the truth, whatever it may be. 

It was well written and thorough in its explanations, but when I came to the end of it a lot of things still weren't clear to me. Then I read the section at the back entitled "Response to Critics", where the author talked about things I'd never before considered. I'm still not sure where I stand on every question, but my perspective has been changed. I won't go into a lot of detail because I think it's better for each one to read it and think through it themselves, but when he asked us to look at the situation in light of other, similar issues we once took a firm stance on and have now reconsidered, I found wisdom - truth - in that and it has helped me in thinking about this. There's simply no getting around the fact that we have changed our position on other issues: women going to church with their heads uncovered, women speaking in church, divorced couples being accepted into membership, and divorced people being accepted as pastors. 

If after prayer and study we find ourselves still unable to accept same-sex marriage within the church - and we must each heed our own conscience - we can find Biblical encouragement to love and treat with dignity those who do. The bottom line for Christians is always love, for it is the way of Christ.  

After I've had some time to digest all I've read in this book, I'll read it again to see if I can get a little more clarity on things I'm still unsure about. He presents an honest challenge, not for those looking to back-up what they already believe, but for those of us who are sincerely conflicted about this issue. If that's you, Changing Our Mind might be of help.

Sleeping Murder and 7 Mondays

 Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie

Miss Marple takes on an eighteen year old mystery when a young woman, Glenda, has unnerving flashbacks after moving into the house where she lived as a child. Her father's young wife disappeared years ago and was rumored to have run off with another man, but her husband believed himself guilty of murdering her and Glenda has had a brief flashback of a dead body on the front hall floor. Glenda and her husband, alarmed but intrigued, are happy to have Miss Marple's assistance with a quiet investigation into who knew what and when, and how it all fits together. 

I'm afraid didn't find it particularly interesting, but I do like the Miss Marple stories generally. This was a bit flat, with a lot of repetitive conversations and characters who weren't quite likeable. Not one of the better ones.       

7 Mondays by Students of Mount A. University

This is Vol. 27 of a journal showcasing literary and photographic art by students of Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B. I haven't read any of the previous volumes, in fact I didn't know of their existence, but I was kindly given this one by a friend and found it interesting. I'm not an avid fan of modern poetry - I can seldom unravel the cryptic language to get to the message beneath - but there were some interesting ones here. 

One in particular called Dear Mr. Irving is addressed to the family of mill owners cutting down our New Brunswick forests. In it the narrator, a tree, reminds them that we need trees to cleanse the air and help us breathe, and warns what the consequences might be if too many are lost. It makes a good point, but I know too little about the situation to know if the scenario suggested is a real possibility. I've read about the Irving company re-planting trees and working at forest management, but how effective those efforts are against what is being taken from the forests I don't know. 

Again, I didn't understand some of these poems, but I am glad the students have the opportunity to put their art out there. Poetry often doesn't get a fighting chance, so it's nice to see it still being written and read.

A Quiet Life

 A Quiet Life by Ethan Joella

A Quiet Life is a gentle, but affecting story of three grieving people whose lives, intersecting in quite ordinary ways, are profoundly changed when they let the others in.

Ella waits anxiously to hear from the police any word on her little girl's whereabouts after she was pulled from school and taken away by her father months ago. Now living in a run-down apartment because she couldn't afford to keep their home without her husband's income, she works one job at a bridal salon, and another delivering newspapers in the early morning hours to make ends meet.

Chuck is one of her delivery customers. She sees his light on early every morning and wonders about him and why he isn't sleeping at this hour. Inside, Chuck is drowning in grief over the loss of his beloved wife, can't sleep, and can't work out how to live without her.

Kersten works at Rescue Ranch, taking care of the animals, arranging adoptions and managing the office. She stays busy, but none of it fills the emptiness caused by the loss of her father eight months prior, killed in a gas station shooting, a bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm writing this some weeks after reading it and can't quite remember how she is connected to the others but it does all make sense when you read it. 

This was a hopeful story with characters who felt real and drew an emotional response, mostly. I didn't quite understand Kerstin, but it takes all kinds to make a world, even a fictional one. As the title suggests, it's a story of three people quietly struggling to find a way to carry on when it seems impossible. What goes on in their heads and their hearts as they find their way, together and individually, back to living again is what good stories are made of. 

A very nice read.  

Kubrick's Game

Kubrick's Game by Derek Taylor Kent

It's been a while since I've read a page-turner and I forgot how much fun they are. This was exciting, if slightly baffling in spots.

15 years after Stanley Kubrik's death, several students at different film schools receive a letter from him with a cryptic message they must decipher. Once they do, it leads to a further clue and then another, with increasingly difficult challenges that will test their knowledge, deductive capabilities, and physical and mental courage.  

Deciphering the messages involves many hours of watching Kubrick's movies, searching for hidden symbols or connections to other movies and then racing to whatever location those things reveal before competing teams get there. It's quite a complex game that I could more or less follow, until close to the end where I got completely lost for several pages. After that it sorts itself out as the game wraps up and comes to a not totally unexpected, reasonably satisfying, ending.

It left me with questions, but then page-turners are all about action-packed plots, not tying up details. This plot is pretty wild, taking turns that elicited a number of right-out-loud "Yikes!". The main character is Shaun, an 18 year old film-wiz on the autism spectrum, whose straightforward manner and difficulty relating to people endeared himself to me right from the start. Some of the others, though interesting, are written with less depth and so are less relatable.  But again, this one is about plot.

I learned a good deal more about Stanley Kubrick's movies than I ever knew before, which you'd think would have tempted me to watch or re-watch some of them, but no. He was brilliant and made movies chock full of symbolism and other tricks to send your brain into overdrive, but with this book I think I've had my fill, for now anyway. His most recognizable titles are Spartacus, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut, all of which are used within the game. You don't need to be familiar with them to enjoy the book, but if I was to read it again I'd watch 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange first.