Cider With Rosie / The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly

 Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee

This is a memoir of author Laurie Lee's childhood in the Cotswalds. His lyrical descriptions of the places where he grew up are so rich and vivid you can almost feel the hot sunshine on your face and breathe in the sweet country air. 

I was unfamiliar with the author but have since read some of his poems, which I liked very much, and found a list of his other books. It seems he's best known for this one and three successive memoirs As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, A Moment of War, and A Rose for Winter. There's one called Village Christmas, and Other Notes on the English Year that I'd like to read. Our public library unfortunately doesn't have it so I'll hunt for a used copy online.

If I was to use one word to describe Cider With Rosie, I think it must be "charming". I enjoyed viewing the world through his three year old eyes (at the beginning of the story) and visiting for awhile in a time and place so very different from what they are now. It isn't just a pretty story - life was hard at times and he's honest about that. But what I'll remember about this book more than the story is the poetic language in which it was told. It was simply a lovely thing to read. 

The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly by Margareta Magnusson

Oh dear, this is one of those books we're supposed to like and I didn't. The author is a Swedish lady in her 80's who shares some of the things she's learned about aging and offers advice on how to do it well. 

The title rather overstates things. There isn't anything particularly Swedish about what she writes, or anything very exuberant about the way she lives. I did find it pleasant - if rambling - reading with a few funny stories, but it didn't speak to me the way it has to many others. Probably my loss, but such is the reading life. Moving on. 

The Woman Who Died A Lot and The Puzzler

 The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jasper Fforde

This is #7 in the Thursday next series, books I've found utterly ridiculous and wonderfully entertaining. 

This one sees Thursday appointed to the position of head librarian a few days before her hometown is scheduled for a "smiting" that will take out a large part of the town. Her old nemisis "Aornis Hades" is still messing with Thursday's memories and now her husband's, while their brilliant daughter is building a weapon they hope will fend off the "smiting". With the number of preposterous things simultaneously going on in these books it's hard to give a sensible sounding description. 

I didn't enjoy this one was quite as much as some of the earlier ones in the series. My favourite was The Well of Lost Plots where it's all about Book World and every page is filled with literary references. Still, the world of these books is so ingenious and absurd I'll keep reading them as long as Fforde keeps writing them. Besides, they're expanding my vocabulary as I continue to seek new synonyms for "crazy".

The Puzzler by A.J. Jacobs

Jacobs looks at every kind of puzzle you can imagine: Rubik's cube types, jigsaws, crosswords, wooden puzzles, Japanese puzzle boxes, and more I can't remember right now. I loaned the book to another puzzle lover without first taking the notes I needed. Why I keep doing that is another puzzle.

He dives into the history of various puzzles and interviews the people who have mastered them. Parts of it are quite funny when he describes his experiences taking part - sometimes dragging family members with him - in contests and competitions around the world. 

Entertaining reading for anyone, more so for puzzler lovers.    

Our Homesick Songs

 Our Homesick Songs by Emma Hooper

Mrs. Callaghan? he asked. Would they sing the same songs we play?
Mostly, yes.
So we’re learning homesick songs?
All songs are homesick songs, Finn.
Even the happy ones?
Especially the happy ones.

These words set the tone for a quiet, atmospheric story of a Newfoundland family trying to hold on to their life in an abandoned outport town. 

Mother, Martha, and Father, Aiden, have been traveling on alternating months to jobs out west since overfishing decimated the cod fishery, returning home tired and frustrated at having no time to be together. 

Daughter, Cora, hopes her family will leave their all but deserted town and move to where there are more people and things to do. She spends her time in now empty neighbour's houses putting up posters and advertisements for different travel destinations.  

Her younger brother, Finn, is still hoping the fish will return, bringing the people back and returning things to the way they once were. He takes accordion lessons from a lady across the harbour, playing the folk songs and traditional music of Newfoundland, thinking to lure the fish back with homesick songs. 

The writing is spare and lyrical. It felt like a poem - a haunting ode to a dying way of life. Hooper writes about the rocky coast, the ocean, and the wind and weather in a way that takes me there. I want to read this book in one of those abandoned houses by the water, breathing in the sea air and listening to the waves crash on the rocks below. Settings like this are my happy place.

The setting, the writing, the characters, the story - I loved it all.  

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn/The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge

 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

I didn't like it when I first read it a few years ago, and upon reading it again I still don't. I tried to enjoy it as a boy's adventure story but whenever my mind goes to this book it's always in terms of Jim, not Huck. I do love Twain's writing and his sense of humour but I can't say I found much of this funny. I couldn't get past the way they treated Jim - the most decent character in the book - and I found Tom Sawyer so annoying and ridiculous I just wanted him to go away and stay there. Not my thing at all.  

The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge by Charlie Lovett

This was unexpected. I was familiar with the author from The Bookman's Tale, which was nothing at all like this, and was surprised by how much like Dickens it sounded. I listened to the audio version read by Tim Gerard Reynolds, who did a stellar job of creating a setting and characters authentic to the original story. 

Having seen the error of his stingy ways in A Christmas Carol, Scrooge now goes to the opposite extreme, giving away more money than he can afford and causing his banker no end of headaches. Bob Cratchit, Jacob Marley, and the three spirits all make an appearance and help bring Scrooge back to his senses.

Though I didn't find the plot all that interesting, the writing and narration were such a delight I didn't want to stop listening. I'll try it again next Christmas, maybe right after the first one so it will feel more like one integrated story.  

This is How You Lose the Time War

 This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone 

A friend told me I would either love or hate this book, but that either way, I should absolutely read it. I borrowed her library copy and two days later I'm trying to put into words the effect it had on me. First I'll try to tell you what it's about.

In a future world, or maybe it's a world apart from time altogther, two soldiers on opposite sides of an ongoing war, battle each other in various times and places. Red fights for The Agency, which I think is a race (?) of advanced robot/AI...people (?). Blue fights for Garden, which is a sort of biological force/entity whose people (?) are all connected by the same root. Red and Blue travel up and down the time line - which in this imagined world is a braid of ropes... or strings...or something -  following orders to intervene in any situation their commanders believe will mess with the timeline or otherwise interfere with their side's plans. 

Red and Blue are sworn enemies, leaving each other taunting letters written in and on the weirdest, most brilliantly inventive places you could imagine, or not imagine. In these letters they come to know one another and begin to develop feelings they shouldn't have for an enemy soldier. The Agency and Garden follow their every move and even seem to know what they're thinking most of the time, so Red and Blue are risking their lives just communicating with one another, let alone being in a relationship.

That isn't a terribly clear picture but I'm still trying to figure out what it all means myself. It's strange and wonderful and way out there and one of the most moving stories I've read lately. 

The writing is lovely. There's a wistful - almost ethereal at times - tone to it even as Red and Blue carryout out their rather brutal assignments. One particular thought has stuck with me -  

 "Adventure works in any strand - 

  it calls to those who care more for living

than for their lives."

I don't think I'm in that brave group any longer but reading this book certainly was an adventure. The unique ways the author developed the relationship between Red and Blue and sent them travelling through the timeline made it quite exciting. I got completely invested in these two and their strange lives, without ever knowing for sure what they are. 

I've been thinking about the love/hate prediction. I absolutely didn't hate it but did I love it? It's not the sort of story I'm usually drawn to, but I was so moved by it I know it's one I'll never forget. 

So, yes, I think my friend was right. I loved it.   

The Joy of X

 The Joy of X: A Guided Tour of Math From One to Infinityby Steven Strogatz

This was a lot of fun. I got a bit lost at times but forged ahead and came out of each chapter knowing something I didn't before. 

There are 30 chapters, with titles that hint at the author's playful approach to math:

1. Fish to Infinity - an introduction to numbers 

3. The Enemy of My Enemy - the disturbing concept of subtraction

5. Division and Its Discontents

8. Finding Your Roots - complex numbers

10. Working Your Quads - the quadraic formula

11. Power Tools - the function of functions

16. Take It To The Limit - the power of the infinite (calculus)

20. Loves Me, Loves Me Not - differential equations

23. Chances Are - the improbable thrills of probablility theory

25. The Loneliest Numbers - prime numbers

27. Twist and Shout - playing with mobius strips and music boxes

Some of that sounded pretty intimidating to me, and it was, but even if I didn't grasp all the finer points, just getting the broader concepts into my head was invigorating. 

I don't know if I'll ever use what I learned, but it doesn't matter. I had fun trying to figure it out, it was entertaining reading, and it was good mental exercise. I'll keep it on my shelf and am sure I'll be referring to it again. 

The Sound of Fire

 The Sound of Fire by Renee Belliveau

In 1941, a fire broke out in the men's residence at Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB, Canada. That's about 45 mins from where I live - not sure of the distance in kms, we tend to measure distance in driving time up here - and though I'm familiar with the university and have known a number of people who received their education there, I had never heard this part of its history.

The author, Renee Belliveau, an archivist who discovered this story searching through University records, has written a heart-breaking novel based on a true and tragic story in which four students lost their lives when the raging fire burned the residence to the ground.  

Each chapter tells the story from a different viewpoint - students, a journalist, the University President, and the fire itself. As each one woke to someone pounding on their door, or the smell of smoke, or the alarm bell ringing, they fought their way through thickening smoke to whatever exit they could find. Some reached the fire escape, an iron ladder on the outside of the residence, and some were left with no choice but to jump from 3rd and 4th floor windows. Four students found no way of escape.

It was a little choppy in the beginning. In the middle of intense action it would stall to tell us about someone's background or family. Frustrating, but I forgot about it as I got lost in the gripping stories of what each one experienced in those terrifying moments. Their worry and fear were palpable, as were the grief and trauma later. The author did a good job of getting emotion across without resorting to sentimentality or melodrama.

I liked this one not only for its local history but for the story itself, a well-told one I think anyone could get into.

Still in Love / Olivetti

 Still in Love by Michael Downing

An audio book I enjoyed a great deal but suspect may not be for everyone. Several unsympathetic reviews dismiss it as being too narrow in its subject matter, but I like this particular subject matter and have to disagree. 

The title put me off at first - romances aren't my favourite genre - but it's more about the romance of writing than it is about a human relationship, although that is part of it, too.  

Set in the university classroom of a writing workshop, it strays only far enough from that to round out the story a little. The class is given various writing assignments, with the resulting stories discussed and evaluated by the group. Between classes and one-on-one meetings with students during office hours, the (asst.) professor is struggling to write a book of his own. His personal life comes into it, but never as much more than background to his teaching/writing life. 

If writing doesn't interest you I don't know that you'd find much to like in this. There is little action, but a lot of  thinking and discussing. I liked the characters and particularly enjoyed the professor analyzing the student's stories and offering suggestions for improvement. I hope to buy a hard copy to keep and read again.

 Olivetti by Allie Millington

I've come across a number of books lately where the narrator is an inanimate object rather than a human being. When I saw this story was told by a typewriter it was simply too bookish to pass up. 

The other narrator is a 12 year old boy, whose mother has been sick for some time and is now missing. The typewriter, Olivetti, remembers everything Beverly (the mother) ever typed on it and so may be able to provide clues as to where she has gone. The narrators alternate chapters.

The story - at times funny, at times sad - keeps you anticipating what comes next and is perfectly suited to the recommended reading age of 8 to 14 yrs. It touches on topics of cancer, difficult family situations, theft, anger, and being afraid, so may or may not be suitable for readers younger than that.

A uniquely interesting story. 

More or Less Maddy

 More or Less Maddy by Lisa Genova

Another gripping story by an author who shows us what it's like to live with debilitating neurological disorders. This time it's Maddie, a young girl with bi-polar disease whose dream is to become a stand-up comedian. 

As Lisa Genova's stories always are, it was emminently readable, but I found this one a little harder to get through on an emotional level. Maddie's up times were truly frightening, with the increasing recklessness of her actions seeming to cross lines there could be no coming back from, and the lows were even worse. It was so convincingly written that her self-destructive actions start to make sense and seem reasonable in her circumstances. I wonder if that could make it risky reading for vulnerable people. 

It is a good story and important in shedding light on this awful illness, but I'd be hesitant to give it to anyone I knew to be in the throes of a serious depression. On the other hand, I might be way off and it could be the very thing someone needs to hear. It would take a wiser person than I to say.  

Genova's books have done much to show us the human side of these diseases and hopefully make us all more aware and more compassionate. And besides all that, they are darn good stories.

Careless People

 Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

Sarah Wynn-Williams worked at Facebook from 2011 to 2017, working up to the position of Global Public Policy Director. This is her personal account of the work she did there and the people she worked with. It begins slowly but the latter half of the book gets more intense as she describes her disappointment and frustration with things she saw and heard. 

I went into this already doubting Facebook's - now Meta's - good intentions, and what I read did not encourage me to change my mind. Not that any of it was startling news, it simply confirms what we all suspect, that Facebook, like other large corporations, makes decisions based on profit rather than what's best for the people they claim to serve. No surprise there, still it may be a bit surprising to read about the careless way Meta is said to treat its employees. It's always interesting to get an inside perspective and see how powerful people conduct themselves and function in the world. 

Of course (and this is only from info I've found online) Meta has retaliated, calling the book "false and defamatory". They sued the author for violating a "non-disparagement clause in her severance agreement" and the last I read, she has been legally prohibited from promoting the book. 

It's a case of she says/they say, with lots of people on both sides claiming the other side is wrong. We can't know because we weren't there, but I don't believe she made all of it up. It's true that in the latter half of the book she seems a little less controlled and a lot more angry, but she still comes off sounding more credible than Meta does. 

This is a story about a company that seems dissatisfied with simply being profitable. It appears they want to be more, and more, profitable, and more powerful. It's the power they already have and the reported carelessness with people that gives one pause. But that's just my opinion. Read the book and come back and tell me yours. 

It's controversial, disheartening, and a little alarming, but it's a story that speaks to the times we're living in and so is worth reading.    

My Christmas Reading - Part 2

 

Mr. Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva

This was a re-read that I found rather dull this time around. I've read it three times now and had a different reaction each time: first time wasn't impressed, second time liked it quite well, and this time was bored. I think it's headed to my give-away shelf. 

But is that not a great cover?

A Magical New York Christmas by Anita Hughes

I've read this several times and still enjoy it. It's a romance and some of it is not quite believable, but it's not overly sweet and has an interesting story. Original review here.

One Magic Christmas by Martin Noble

This is one from years ago that I decided to re-read because I couldn't remember much of it. I liked it, but in this case have to say that I liked the movie better, though I haven't seen that for years either. The book is based on a screenplay by Thomas Meehan, so maybe it makes sense to prefer the movie...?

In the story a married couple and their two children are struggling financially as Christmas approaches. The mother is not feeling any Christmas spirit at all and so a guardian angel - Gideon - must help her see the value in what she already has. She will experience what life would be like if she were to lose her family, which brings her back in the end to a place of gratitude and joy.

Christmas with the Queen by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

Another romance, but what interested me was the historical aspect. It takes place in the 1950's and is set in and around Buckingham Palace. A young female reporter is sent to write about palace preparations for Christmas, where she meets a chef who is just getting his start in the palace kitchens. I enjoyed the history, the setting, and the occasional appearances of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip as characters. We get a glimpse of them as people rather than monarchs and though I realize it's fiction, I've read enough about them that much of what is written here rings true. Not sure I'd read it again, but it was interesting. 

And that's it for another Christmas. Right now I'm reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for book club and I'm still working through The Silmarillion. For fun I'm reading The Joy of X by Steven Strogatz. The blurb on the back says "A delightful exploration of the beauty and fun of mathematics...The Joy of X will entertain you, amaze you, and make you smarter."  I don't know about the smarter part, but it surely is entertaining.

My Christmas Reading - Part 1

Happy New Year! We're a week in and already I'm behind. I read a number of books over the holidays that I haven't found time to write about so here's a quick summary.

A Halifax Christmas Carol by Steven Laffoley

I was excited to find a Christmas story set in Halifax, not your typical holiday fiction setting. Many take you to sparkling cities - New York, Paris - or idyllic winter spots - Vermont, Scandanavia - all great backdrops for a festive story/romance, but not terribly realistic for most of us. 

This one is set in 1918 Halifax, N.S., a city devestated by the great explosion of a year earlier. The author makes it very real, writing of soldiers - some without limbs, some broken mentally by the unthinkable horrors they've seen - coming home at long last only to find the homes and families they'd been longing for gone forever. And now the deadly influenza pandemic killing millions around the world is coming for them.

In the midst of all this sorrow, a couple of reporters - one fresh and optimistic, one seasoned and cynical - cover stories of returning soldiers, desperate families, and orphaned children. The cynic is convinced there is no reason to hope that life will ever be good again, until one day a young boy comes in off the street and leaves 25 cents on the front counter "for the kids" he's read about in the paper's tragic stories. What follows is a search to locate him and find out why he would give away what little he had, a search during which everyone involved will be changed, especially our Scrooge-like cynic.   

This was an uplifting story and a nice surprise. There is a romance - it seems a Christmas story must have one - but it's mostly about finding a reason for hope in the midst of despair. This is one I will probably read again next year.

The Birds of the Air by Alice Ellis Thomas

I didn't see much in the plot or the characters in this one. One particular scene was so unlikely and ridiculous that it reminded me a little of Cold Comfort Farm (which I, in fact, loved). It's about a family getting together for Christmas with none of them very happy about it except the mother who tries very hard to make it nice. There's not much joy to be had here with most of the characters surly, usually for good reason. Having said that, I do think it deserved more than the cursory reading I gave it, so I'll read it again and see if I can't find a little more in it.

Christmas in Vermont by Anita Hughes

A sweet...bordering on too sweet...story about a girl spending some time away over Christmas at a cozy Vermont inn. The trip is a gift from a friend with an ulterior motive - she knows an old boyfriend will be there at the same time and is hoping the two will make a connection. They do of course and it ends as you would expect. Some of it is a rather unrealistic but it's a light holiday read if that's what you're looking for.

The Christmas Tree by David Adams Richards

There are two short stories in this little book - The Carmichael's Dog and The Christmas Tree. In the first, two boys find a puppy and decide to keep it as a Christmas gift for their mother, but when a police car with the dog's owner shows up at their house, and their frantic attempts to hide it are unsuccessful, they face losing the dog and the good will of their neighbours. 

In the second story, The Christmas Tree, two boys go on a very long trek to find the perfect tree only to realize when they get there that they didn't think to bring an axe. On the way home the perfect tree appears out of nowhere. Nice stories, both.

Christmas at Thompson Hall and Other Stories by Anthony Trollope

 

Five refreshingly different short stories in Trollope's wonderful writing. What more could you want? Original review here.