Deck the halls...

Despite the absolutely gorgeous sunshine and nearly 20 degree weather today, it is still only six weeks until Christmas! One of my favourite things about the pre-Christmas season is the appearance of church bazaars and craft shows. I love to make things for my family and friends but I am not a super crafty kind of girl -- most of the things I know how to make I've already given in years past. So, bazaars and craft shows are the next best thing; handmade crafts by people from my local area. I have the satisfaction of knowing I am supporting local business and finding some great, unique gifts. Today I had the chance to go the to Rotary Club's "Rotary Arts and Crafts Christmas Show", an annual tradition. It's a large show with crafts, jewellery, cosmetics, food products and even some books and music. I bought a variety of items, but this is my score for this year:

(the crazy pencil in the background is there for size comparisons!)

Utterly new and unlike anything I've bought there before, these are pins created from the pages of vintage dictionaries, hand colorized, and lacquered. The artist, Vivian Hutcheson, is from a small town just down the road called Shakespeare, where she runs a wonderful shop called Green Cottage Gallery. She specializes in masks, as seen on her Etsy page, but has a variety of other things like these pins (and others using poker cards & sayings) as well. How could a good, book loving librarian pass up one of these pins? Well, I couldn't, and although I wanted to buy about six of them, I kept myself under control and only bought one for myself and one for a gift. I couldn't resist the hoop skirt pin for the lovely image and for the addition of the word "hoose-gow" at the bottom ;)

So many great discoveries to make at shows like this, and they make me admire crafty people even more. I will be participating in a craft show myself again this year; but it is more of a small, inhouse one with only a handful of participants - I am making pictures with quotes and dried flower bits, they are one thing I can make and enjoy creating - but will mainly be featuring my health products (it's a show for anyone who has a side business besides the one we all have in common, to raise money for the United Way). A much craftier participant is my coworker who has an Etsy page as well, Needle Pulling Thread. Looking forward to some fun and some fundraising!

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Karin Fossum's Broken

Broken / Karin Fossum; translated by Charlotte Barslund.
London: Vintage, 2009, c2008.
264 p.

I've read all of Karin Fossum's mysteries: she is a Norwegian writer who has a marvellous series of thoughtful yet bleak crime novels, in the recent Scandinavian mystery tradition. Featuring Inspector Sejer, they are about the human implications of crime on victims, police, wider society and the perpetrators themselves. They have a strong sense of place, and unforgettable imagery. They are very good, and since I don't generally enjoy dark, police based mysteries, I have been surprised at how much I admire her work. So I knew I wanted to read this book as soon as I heard it was being published -- but this is not one of the Inspector Sejer novels. In fact it is a standalone, and an unusual one. It is also one of the best books I have read this year.

Though this isn't quite a crime novel it is very suspenseful, and has a natural tension which builds up throughout. There are two narratives underway; as the book begins we are in the company of a middle aged writer, home alone and on her way to bed. Once it's dark she realizes there is a man entering her house, coming into her bedroom. After her fear dies down she realizes he is one of her characters, who has jumped the queue outside her home, so eager is he to have his story told. She gives him a name, Alvar Eide, and this begins the second narrative, the story of Alvar's quiet and very orderly life.

Alvar is a man who likes things in his life to be fully under his control. He works in an art gallery, almost entirely alone; he has his habitual lunch, the same every day; he goes home to his quiet apartment where he reads and sometimes indulges in a glass of sherry. He considers getting a cat but then decides it would be too needy for his taste. His life is running along smoothly until a point of conflict enters his story: a young girl, a heroin addict, turns up in the gallery one winter day and he kindly gives her a cup of coffee. His actions have far flung repercussions as she keeps returning, then appears at his apartment door, throwing his controlled existence off its centre.

Interspersed with the tale of Alvar's struggles are chapters in which the writer discusses the trajectory of the story with Alvar himself. He is a character who finds it hard to demand anything but is desperate to know what the writer is going to do to him. These chapters are full of musings on the creative process, of discussions about free will and destiny which apply both to Alvar's actual story and the ability of the writer to control the direction of the story. They are brilliantly thought provoking interludes and make this book into something really special. Although it could have seemed gimmicky with a lesser writer, Fossum has such control over both elements of the book that both are equally fascinating. Alvar is illuminated as a character within and outside of his actual story, he becomes an extremely sympathetic character as we see him struggle with the idea of somebody else directing his life -- and the thought that his character is his destiny.

It's a seriously brilliant book, I really loved it and will be recommending it to all the writers I know, and to readers who are interested in metafictional devices. I was also struck by what a perfect fit this book is for NaNoWriMo: it begins and concludes in the month of November, and it is partially about the writing process itself. Despite Fossum's straightforward, generally unadorned prose, there are moments of pathos and of poetry, moments that made me stop and consider my own reactions to the ideas in the book. It's beautifully written, original, and has the deepest empathy for all its characters, including the author's doppelganger - our narrator. Again, amazing book, one of my top five this year for sure.

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Green Books Campaign: In Bed with the Word

*logo by Susan Newman

This review is part of the Green Books campaign. Today 100 bloggers are reviewing 100 great books printed in an environmentally friendly way. Our goal is to encourage publishers to get greener and readers to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books. This campaign is organized by Eco-Libris, a a green company working to green up the book industry by promoting the adoption of green practices, balancing out books by planting trees, and supporting green books. A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on Eco-Libris website.


In Bed with the Word : reading, spirituality, and cultural politics / Daniel Coleman

University of Alberta Press, c2009.

142 p.

First things first: since I received this book as part of the Eco-Libris Green Books Challenge, I would like to mention why this book qualified. The University of Alberta Press states that it is committed to protecting our natural environment, and thus this book is printed on Enviro Paper, which contains 100% post-consumer recycled fibres, and is acid and chlorine free.

And not Green, but really nice, is the fact that in addition to the Green printing information on the back of the title page, the copy editor and the indexer are credited by name! I appreciated seeing that.

Besides the good start it gave me to read the Green cred and the nice acknowledgement of the other publishing professionals involved in creating this book, the actual size and feel and cover of the book were enticing. I chose this specific book from the selection at the Green Books campaign because I have been doing a lot of research into the meanings and purposes of reading in the last few months; as a librarian I have a strong interest in figuring out both how and why we read. This book is a fabulous addition to my collection in this area, and it is one I will continue referring back to.

Coleman's view of spirituality and reading is that spiritual longing is primarily a reaching outward for the Other; reading enables us to place ourselves into the mind of that Other we are searching for, that ever present absence that is not-us. He divides the book into five chapters, each of which discusses the same kind of idea from different perspectives. The first and third chapters were most intriguing to me: Reading & Longing, and Posture. What posture will we take when reading? What state of mind, to receive the full benefits of a reading experience? What, in our approach to reading, makes it a spiritual exercise? This book is full of fascinating, illuminating answers to these questions, and it raises others that I want to explore further. The author gave a series of classes based on this book, he tells us in the introduction, and by halfway through I was wishing I could have been there during that time -- there is so much to this book that lends itself to discussion and deep thought! Here are a couple of quotes from the book, where Coleman is talking about what makes reading 'spiritual' in the way he means it:

Reading is spiritual because it simultaneously emphasizes and spans this divide between the self and other, between the reader and the author, between the reader and the world, between the reader and God. We develop right posture when as readers we recognize the structure of absence or distance across which we long to pass, when we recognize our limitation and isolation, and when we discern the suppressed or hidden possibility of connection and belonging to the Other who seemed so far removed.

Reading can give us practice in important spiritual disciplines; it can help us develop our capacity for attention, it can increase our ability to listen, and it can help us develop mental organization and alertness. Reading can draw us out of ourselves and can give us practice in listening to the less obvious that's always going on around us. It can give us daily experience in reaching across the structure of absence so that we learn to read the present signs of the Other even in the Other's absence and, by that means, put ourselves in contact with communities that would not be available in our own time and place.

It is hard to pull ideas out of this book to share with you, as it is all one long interconnected thesis -- you are really best off to pick up a copy if this is a topic you are interested in. Coleman writes in a flowing style that, while academic, is also engaging and includes moments of quite lovely storytelling in its own right. His discussion of the topic, while dependent on concepts of spirituality coming from St. Augustine and on the purpose of words as signposts, from Derrida, is easily comprehended by a reader who is fascinated by the deeper meanings of the actual practice of reading itself, not just spirituality as evidenced by content of a text. I've really enjoyed this one and have flagged at least 20 passages to reread and ruminate on.

But the third part of this book's subtitle is "cultural politics". There is a place for this among the discussion of reading and spirituality; they all tie in together. I think it is best expressed by this excerpt on the front flap of the book:

Reading is not solely an exercise to feed one's inner life. Rather, eating the book -- not just nibbling at it, or having a little taste here or there, but eating it wholesale -- produces a changed person, an empowered person, a different kind of person, and changed people means social and political change, too, not just personal change.

So, in conclusion (otherwise I'll just keep excerpting the book until I've copied it all out!), this is a wonderful exposition of the links between reading and a spiritual way of approaching the world. It was a great read, a text to be savoured and not rushed through; if that kind of work appeals, please do find a copy of this excellent Canadian book and then share your impressions of it as well.

Highly recommended.

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Your Personal Renaissance by Diane Dreher

Your Personal Renaissance: 12 Steps to finding your life's true calling / Diane Dreher
Cambridge: Da Capo Press, c2008.
x, 276 p.

During this week of entertaining light reading, I also tried something a little different. I've had this book for a while now (I received it via Dreher's publicist) and have been feeling a bit guilty that I haven't said anything about it yet. I actually quite enjoyed it!

I don't read a lot of self-help but this one seemed unusual, and intriguing. It bases its ideas on elements of a Renaissance life. And I mean, really Renaissance -- Dreher, who has a PhD in Renaissance literature, takes elements from the lives of Da Vinci, Michelangelo and their crowd to illustrate how to improve our modern and more banal existences. As a fan of both Renaissance literature and history, I found that the comparisons to Renaissance life were useful for me. Dreher uses the 12 step template, giving us four steps with which to discern our true calling, and then eight more to put our calling into practice. Each chapter has exercises and quizzes to increase our knowledge of ourselves, and include many examples taken from Renaissance lives.

In brief, these are the Renaissance habits Dreher feels we could all benefit from in our search for our true calling, our desire to create a meaningful life and legacy:

Discernment:

• Discovery: Realizing your joys and talents
• Detachment: Clearing the path within
• Discernment: Embracing your values, living with heart
• Direction: Turn your ideals into action

Making it work:

• Faith: Trusting your life and world
• Daily Examen: Staying on course
• Renaissance community: Gaining support from mentors and friends
• Contemplation: Finding your inner oasis of peace
• Creativity: Making your life a work of art
• Reading and Reflection: Exploring new worlds within and without
• Physical Exercise: Building strength and wisdom
• Discipline and Dedication: Bringing your dreams to life

The organization of the book enhances its usability -- each chapter builds on the previous one to encourage the reader to continue the initial forward movement creating by discerning one's joys and talents. There are also tons of endnotes for each of the chapters, enabling much further research into the articles and websites she references. The index is also well done and very helpful, which isn't always the case with books in this area.

One of the parts I really enjoyed was the chapter on Reading and Reflection. Whew, I thought, at least I am getting one part of this right already! I like what she says about the power of reading to create momentum in life, to open our eyes to opportunity, to assist in our growth both personally and as a society. She says:

Reading can liberate your spirit and support your own personal Renaissance today. It can introduce you to other lives, like the people you're meeting in this book, and help you develop new skills and pathways for moving forward in your calling. Reading can also lead to reflection, revealing new insights about yourself and the patterns of your life.

I was also intrigued by the way Dreher includes physical exercise as part of this program. So often in books about digging out your real desires and longings for a life purpose, the focus is on a person's mental and emotional, and sometimes spiritual, aspects. But the physical is a part of the whole person, and to my chagrin I know that when I am not moving and feeling connected to my physical body, every area suffers. I appreciated her focus on all parts of a person's life, and on our interconnection with everyone around us, our responsibility to look outward as well as to our interior landscape. It was a balanced read, free of the easy solutions and clichés of some books in this field. The only difficulty I had was that quite a few of the questions in the early chapters focused on recalling the hopes and dreams you had in childhood, seemingly a common approach in books such as this. My problem is that I really don't remember much about childhood at all, no matter how much I think about it, so I never find these exercises very helpful. But that's just me; or does anyone else have only vague recollections of this era of their lives?

This book caught my attention more than I had anticipated, and I am going to reread it and try a few of the exercises. I think it would be useful for anyone interested in exploring what it is they really want to do, or those at the beginning of their work lives who might need a little inspiration about which direction to take. I enjoyed her approach and her obvious knowledge of the subjects of this book, both the Renaissance and positive psychology.

You can read an excerpt at her website if you'd like to get a taste of her writing style.

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Botswana on Screen: Filming Alexander McCall Smith

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Prepared for the screen by Anthony Minghella and Richard Curtis

As I am all about Alexander McCall Smith this week, I also decided to watch episodes of the first season of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, as represented onscreen. (it's now available on DVD) I've found that it is quite different from the books in many ways: new characters added who didn't appear in the stories, a slightly different tone to the storytelling, settings changed around a bit, and of course characters look and act in a way that strangely enough does not mirror what I had imagined! I'm not too fond of a couple of character 'types' that have been added in, and it does have a few flaws. Still, I have been enjoying it. This week especially, a week in which every day has been cold and grey, I have enjoyed watching a beautiful setting full of sunshine and cheer.

Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi are well cast, and Rra Matekoni is perfect. The episodes have been written using various cases from the books, not necessarily in the same order or with the same concurrent actions -- for example, by halfway through Season 1, Mma Ramotswe and Rra Matekoni are not engaged as yet, not even likely to be at this point. And there is no mention of any adopted children; I suppose for dramatic action in a film there need to be fewer complications than in a novel which has much more time to introduce you to the characters. I have seen some reviews which call this production twee or shallow, but I don't agree with that assessment. I think anyone who has enjoyed the books will probably enjoy these as well, even with the differences I've mentioned. There are enough similarities to make it all seem familiar, and seeing the landscape of Botswana and some of its people is very engaging. It's beautiful to watch and listen to, and I still have half of the first season to watch!

Here are a couple of clips to intrigue you, the first a short trailer which I hope will intrigue you:




And here is Alexander McCall Smith himself talking about filming his books:

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Lost Art of Gratitude

The Lost Art of Gratitude / Alexander McCall Smith

Toronto: Knopf, c2009.
362 p.

I did say I've been having a bit of a McCall Smith fest this week; he has so many books out at the same time that it is next to impossible NOT to have a new one to dig in to! This one is the latest in the Isabel Dalhousie series, set in Edinburgh. I love this series because I like Isabel quite a lot. She is a philosopher and edits a philosophy journal, so there is a lot of scope for moral asides and ethical ponderings, an aspect of McCall Smith's writing which I appreciate very much. In these later books she has a baby, which is not my favourite bit of this series by a long stretch, but at least it seems to make Isabel happy! And I like to read him writing about Edinburgh - the love of the city comes through strongly and makes me want to hop on the next plane and visit, to see all the landmarks and to soak in the atmosphere that he describes so evocatively.

This installment of the series brings Isabel a few more conundrums to deal with; her arch nemesis Professor Christopher Dove accuses her of publishing an article which is full of plagiarism. Isabel is more than equal to this charge however, and neatly performs an end run on his scheming. She experiences the enmity of her niece Cat when she and her partner announce their plans to marry (this could be a result of the fact that Isabel's partner and father of her child is her niece's previous boyfriend) -- but Cat comes up with her own fiancé in response, a tightrope walker named Bruno, which you just know won't end well. Isabel also re-encounters Minty Auchterlonie, a wicked woman to whom Isabel gives a second chance, hoping that she is not as awful as she seems. And Brother Fox, a wild fox who has been spotted in Isabel's garden since book 1, comes to require Isabel's help. It is all in very much the same style as the previous books in the series, but does not feel repetitious in any dull way. It reveals shades of all the characters which add to their fullness, and feels like a visit to old friends.

Like always, reading the latest by McCall Smith adds quotes to my collection, and encourages a slow read, or a reread of favourite passages. There is something quaint about his writing, a habit of writing passages that can stand alone. I find this quality in a lot of the Victorian fiction I read; there is always more to copy out in older books somehow -- but it is a quality I greatly enjoy.

Next up is a new Mma Ramotswe story, to be published in early 2010 -- hurrah! But before then I'll be talking about a different take on Mma Ramotswe...that of HBO. I've been watching the series on DVD this week and will chat about those a little later.

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Corduroy Mansions

Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while will know of my love for Alexander McCall Smith. I've talked about his work before; I have read it all and have few critical faculties when it comes to his books - I love them all. This week I have been having a bit of a McCall Smith fest; I received Corduroy Mansions recently, the first volume of his newest serial novel, set in the Pimlico area in London. The second set in this series, entitled The Dog who Came in from the Cold, is now running serially in The Telegraph - you can follow along reading or listening to the podcasts as read by Andrew Sachs. It follows a varied cast of people loosely connected with the apartment block known as Corduroy Mansions, dealing with their ins and outs, moral dilemmas and love affairs.

I have read all the 44 Scotland Street novels, newspaper serials set in Edinburgh, and especially love some of the characters in those books, like Bertie the eternal 6 yr old, or the cameos made by Ian Rankin. But in this series, the setting is London, and that does make a difference. When I read La's Orchestra Saves the World, a stand-alone novel with another English setting, I noted the fact that England doesn't seem to be as powerful in his writings as does Scotland or Botswana. That remains the same in this serial novel, and although the setting is not as much of a character as in his other work, the foibles of the human characters are still amusing and engaging. In this series, some of the themes connected to the characters' occupations are art, wine, and dogs -- the same things that appear in the Edinburgh stories, but here they appear quite differently. It is fascinating to see how these preoccupations take on different lives in this setting. Anyhow, it was an enjoyable read, with, reliably, some ponderings about the wider meaning of life itself. Here is Alexander McCall Smith himself, talking about the citizens of the Corduroy Mansions world in a Telegraph interview. At the Telegraph you can suggest what you think should happen to the characters next, or you may even want to follow the wonderful canine Freddie de la Hay on Twitter. Yes, the dog tweets.

If you enjoy McCall Smith, or want a handy slice of daily reading that is an entertaining 'soap opera' of sorts, try picking up Corduroy Mansions, or catching up online and reading along to The Dog Who Came in from the Cold. Great fun.

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Jackson's Haunted Hill House

The Haunting of Hill House / Shirley Jackson

New York; Toronto: Penguin, 2006, c1959.

182 p.

So, for my last choice for the RIP Challenge this year I finished the classic Haunting of Hill House, just in time. I am glad I finished it before the sun went down; it is the expectation, the waiting for something horrific to occur that I found to be the scariest part of this reading experience.

For anyone who doesn't know the premise of this novel, it is as follows:

Dr. John Montague desperately wants to find a real haunted house to study, and comes across Hill House. He writes to many people who have had some supernatural experience in their lives hoping that some of them will take him up on his offer to spend time in Hill House as his assistants. Only two do: Eleanor, a 32 yr old single woman who has spent her life caring for her mother, now deceased; and Theodora, a free spirited woman who is taking a break from her partner after nasty words were exchanged. Along with these two, a member of the family who owns Hill House, Luke Sanderson, joins in and they all spend a week together waiting for something to happen. The house itself is "not sane" -- built so that all angles and surfaces are not quite even, the architecture itself unsettles the group. The house seems to know who the weakest link is, and aims right for her. The housekeeper is creepy but refuses to stay in Hill House after dark, and as things begin to heat up, the nights get quite terrifying.

Jackson is very adept at writing in a polished and calm manner which belies what is really going on. Each character thinks they are handling the pressure well; only through various exchanges do we see their private fears revealed. Psychological terror is key -- each of them is waiting for something to happen, and even when something does occur, not all of them experience it. Is it real? It is a mental projection? The uncertainty adds to the fear, and there are some bloodcurdling scenes, as when Eleanor grips Theodora's hand in the night trying to stay calm in the face of noises at the door - except when she screams and the light goes on she sees that Theodora is just waking up, in her own bed.

This classic is written in the tradition of literary ghost stories, and as such does not have overt scenes of horror or gore. That's what I like about it -- the horror is all psychological, and though I read it and didn't think it had affected me, when I was thinking about it later, at night, in the dark, it began to really creep me out. I could admire the excellent writing while I was reading it, but the atmosphere of the book is truly frightening. Hill House is quite a creation, and it is most definitely the main character, determined to get its way. Well worth reading after all this time, this was the perfect novel with which to celebrate Halloween and the end of this year's RIP Challenge.

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Bookish Bits this week

I just have a few interesting bookish tidbits to share this weekend. I was planning on writing up another review, but have been busy with work, plus jumping around to catch up with all you Read-a-thoners! Also, my brain is fatigued due to a 4 hour train ride Friday that stretched into 10 hours thanks to delays. Argh. The worst part was, I ran out of books to read! Nooooo!!! >:0

Anyhow - at least I have a few interesting links to share:


Books & Authors - this Gale database was highlighted at the workshop I went to, and it seems really handy to discover connections between books. If your library subscribes to it you'll get more functionality but it's fun to explore as it is.



Ok, this one is really neat, especially for someone my age who was a HUGE Duran Duran fan back in their heyday (remember, I was only in junior high at the time)! On their website, Simon LeBon has a feature called Simon's Reader, in which he talks about books and the experience of reading and of writing reviews. It's quite fantastic! And there's an archive of entries all the way back to 2002, though there are only a few books a year. You have to take a look at this. Actually, the whole website has a lot of fun content on it. (to get to Simon's Reader, click on "writing" on the menu for that option)


Here's an Australian site called My Favourite Book - it is a set of booklists, celebrity recommendations and personal book-related stories sent in by readers. There's even a section specifically for Young Readers.


If you want to listen to some authors reading from their own works, Vanity Fair has a feature called "Writers Reading". They are mostly popular books, like the recent book by Paul Schaeffer, or Tracey Morgan's "I am the new Black", although there are a few memoirs of more serious tone like that by a woman whose parents were arrested as enemies of the Soviet Hungarian state. Fascinating to hear ten minutes or so of each author. And while you're over at Vanity Fair, try out the Proust Questionnaire, a survey Proust himself filled out twice during his life -- there's a new book filled with celebrity answers to this survey, and your answers are compared to theirs; it's kind of fun to try!


And for some random bookish love, try these British sites:
Reading for Life

The Reader Organisation

And for any other librarians out there, check out Opening the Book - I love their approach!

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Mitchell's Under this Unbroken Sky

Under this Unbroken Sky / Shandi Mitchell

Toronto: Penguin, c2009.

354 p.

This is the second Canadian Book Challenge choice I finished last weekend. It's about Ukrainian immigrants in Canada, set in the 1930's - both elements which appeal to me. Also, this is possibly The Book that spurred Victoria Glendinning's recent sniffy complaint about the boring tendency of Canadian fiction to focus on the past and forebears such as "Granny who spent her youth in Ukraine".

I loved the fact that this story was completely about a Ukrainian family in Alberta and their trials in the promised freedom of a new country. Teodor Mykolayenko, his wife Maria and their five children come to Canada, alongside Theo's sister Anna, her two children, and her nasty husband Stefan, a former army officer who is not adjusting well to becoming a nobody, a Bohunk on a hardscrabble homestead. Taking Theo, a character who had already suffered greatly in WWI and under Stalin, then drawing a portrait of the not much improved life of the family in the so-called land of plenty was illuminating. Their problems arise from climate (this is the Dirty Thirties), from miscommunication, from racism among Canadians of English backgrounds, and from the horrors they bring within themselves. The role of Ukrainians in agricultural settlement of the Canadian West was huge; even today the present day Ukrainian population of Canada is the third largest in the world, after Ukraine and Russia. This novel delineates the true difficulties that these homesteaders faced, and the relentless hard physical work it was to clear land and produce enough to feed and keep one's family. It also reveals the isolation that could result when a family left their homeland knowing they would never return, forced to rely on one another even when those relationships were not always friendly. Theo ends up caring for his own family and for Anna's, Stefan only reappearing when all the hard work is done and he wants to claim the spoils.

Unfortunately, I found this novel to be a bit narratively unsettling. I don't like the historical present tense very much in any case, but here especially I felt it didn't sit quite right with the story. Also, it is clear that the author is a filmmaker: she describes the action of the story in a series of images -- beautifully evoked, but the timeline was a little hard to follow as imagistic set pieces trumped straightforward narrative progression. It's not that I expect "this happened, then this, then this"; but a little causality and character development would have helped me to really believe the shocking conclusion. I was confused by the dates given in the preface and through the story, not being quite able to place all the events in sequence.

Also, it was really bleak. I know that the lives of settlers were very hard; poverty, drought, isolation, hunger all abounded, but surely there were a few good times as well. Every single awful thing that happened to Ukrainian settlers didn't have to be experienced by this hard luck family! The grimness of the book doesn't really lighten up; all the children are fairly miserable, obsessing over the few things they do possess -- a heart shaped stone, a chicken, a ball of dough representing Christ. Even when they are playing they are somehow subdued and afraid. The adults are necessarily stoic in the face of all this misery, Theo and Maria especially, while Anna goes a bit mad and her husband Stefan is a caricature of a drunken, self important bully. His final disappearance is questionably set up - would he really behave in such a manner? And I felt the same at the climax of the story - I was taken aback by the action; Theo's character throughout didn't seem to suggest that he would finally act as he did.

However, this is a B&N book club choice in the States, and seems to have been received very well. Many people with a lot more literary cred than I have love this book. It may feel very new and unexpected to people with no knowledge of Ukrainian settlement of Western Canada, in particular, and if it does enlighten people as to the presence of Ukrainians whose hard work settlement depended upon then I am very glad.

It was a thought provoking read about characters that overall I was quite interested in. Mitchell included a few interesting non-narrative additions such as a couple of recipes, and a description of period photos (not the photos themselves). There were some nicely drawn elements even if as a whole I found it just okay. But I really would have appreciated a few more sunbeams breaking through the lowering clouds of this unbroken sky.



Here is Shandi Mitchell talking about her book:

A few other opinions:

Rhapsodyinbooks wholeheartedly recommends it

nfmgirl from Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World gives it 9.5 out of 10 stars

Aritha van Herk weighs its pros and cons at the Globe and Mail

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