Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill

Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill / Dmitri Verhulst; translated from the Dutch by David Colmer.

London: Portobello, 2010, c2009.

145 p.

This brief book was a great find: it features Madame Verona, a renowned beauty whose husband dies young and in her grief she decides to stay in her house on the hill as long as it takes her to make a cello from the deciduous tree outside her home, even if cellos are usually made of spruce. This particular tree is special.

The village below, made up mostly of bachelors, is eager for her to choose one of them in her widowhood, but she stymies them all by remaining true to her husband's memory. The book begins as Madame Verona, aged 82, comes down the hill on a cold, snowy night. She sits in the town square and reminisces over the events of her life, in company with her dog. She and her late husband were both dog people: she decides that the virtue she will claim at heaven's gates is that she has always loved dogs.

It's told in a gentle narrative style, which reminds me slightly of José Saramago's style (fewer lengthy sentences and a bit more punctuation, though!) But the asides and the philosophical perspective of Madame Verona, as well as the ponderings about the deeper things in life (including the afterlife), recalls Saramago's themes. I enjoyed it despite its inherent sense of sadness. Various characters from the village are sketched out for us in addition to Madame Verona and her husband, and they all have something notable about them that makes them memorable.

I don't want to give away the storyline, as the discoveries as you go are part of the charm. But it's full of emotion, both regarding relationships and regarding tradition. There is affection for others, for a way of life. and Madame Verona herself is the pivot of the story. Really a lovely book; darkly moving, with lots of melancholy charm.

Other views:

Steph at Bella's Bookshelves reviewed this a while ago and says "Madame Verona is contemporary literature at its best, the kind that doesn’t smack of (self-conscious) contemporary literature, in fact, but rather stands alone and will likely pass the test of time into the realm of the classics. Or fables, as Madame Verona does herself."

Darren at Bart's Bookshelf said "Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill is a lightly told tale that conveys the sense of a love lost in a wonderful way, it may appear that nothing much happens in the book, and indeed it was only a little while after I had finished the book, that I realised just how well it had done its job."

Fleur Fisher says "Madame Verona Comes Down The Hill has at its heart a story that is simple, sad and lovely."

To Join the Lost

To Join the Lost / Seth Steinzor
Simsbury, CT: Antrim House, c2010.
216 p.

I was offered this book through TLC Book Tours, and was instantly intrigued: Dante's Inferno told from a modern perspective? Narrative verse? Yes, please. Even though I am not intimately familiar with Dante's original, I know enough of it to have this book appeal to me.

And I did enjoy it, overall. Steinzor is a lawyer, and his experience in law illuminates his trip through Dante's circles of hell -- with Dante himself as his guide. (To get a clearer idea of how his law career informed his writing, you can check out a recent interview with Serena of Savvy Verse and Wit). I read this over a week or two, taking my time, and found that certain images and phrases resonated with me. I was most taken with a section near the beginning, one that many other reviewers on the blog tour have mentioned as a high point:

Eternity, therefore, is like an ocean with currents
that swarm and braid and branch and carry
many riders. Like you, each is bound for where he's
going and thinks there's nowhere else.

Or see it this way: when you were a child,
and maybe many times since then,
it delighted you to stand beside an
an unruffled pond and pick out pebbles, the
flatter the better. One by one you'd fling them
skillfully, sidearm, snapping your wrist and
proudly counting the hops. That flat little pebble's the
world of your daily awareness. The pond is
everything else. You fly, you skim, you leap,
you skim that chilly otherness,

you leap a little shorter, skim again.
Every contact slows you and
propels undeviating flight to the next,
a little closer than the last.....

....each skip's
forever's moment rippled by your touch.
(p. 43)

The middle of the book sagged for me, unfortunately: there was a lot of reference to American politicians of varying levels, most of whom I was completely unfamiliar with and thus was unable to grasp any nuance in the references. I also found that the first third or so of the book was broader, with a more philosophical bent in which widely applicable images and ideas like the one quoted above appear. It was a great idea, and the end leaves us waiting to find out what happens next...after the promotional film and gift shop in Satan's headquarters! Steinzor is brave to take on Dante, and I think it works for the most part. Most people I know would never pick up Dante's work, but they may take a peek at this, feeling less intimidated, and be inspired to try the original as well. I know that I'm now putting the original back on my TBR list.

I enjoyed the flashes of humour in the book, mainly wry asides, and the moments of pathos, as when the narrator discovers his grandfather in hell. While I didn't always agree with Steinzor's judgement of who belonged in hell, I was mostly in agreement, with a few exceptions ;) I appreciated his appraisal of many tyrants -- aside from the obvious Hitler, he includes many who were similarly evil even if not a synonym for it in the way that Hitler is. I particularly noted his mention of Stalin and the Holodomor, which is always in my mind, as a person of Ukrainian descent.

I liked the rhythms of it, how the narrative really did carry us through the verse effortlessly. I also enjoyed the fact that the narrator's guide through hell is Dante himself, leading to lots of self-referential asides. Some of the images were pretty grotesque while others were simply dreary and sad. It was a suitably nightmarish setting, and seemed overhung with a dark, shadowy fog. I can't really imagine hell as a chipper, sunny place, so this worked perfectly for my imagination!

If you're already a fan of the original, you may find this an interesting take on it from a modern, though very American, perspective. It's curious to find a modern Jewish-Buddhist visiting a Christian hell, but then, hell is what we make it, isn't it?

Seth Steinzor’s website: To Join the Lost

TLC Book Tours site for To Join the Lost: November Tour

Thank you to the author and TLC Book Tours for sending me this review copy.

Town that Drowned

The Town that Drowned / Riel Nason
Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane, c2011.
270 p.

Set in New Brunswick in the 60's, this is a tale of a town which was displaced when a large hydroelectric project flooded the original townsite. This has happened in many places, and in fact this book is inspired by a true story.

However, the tale is fictional, and features Ruby Carson, a teenager who contends with a little brother who probably has autism or Asperger's -- it's never clearly stated but his behaviours suggest it. Along with his original personality, Ruby is also a pariah at school because of her experience at a community skating party: she fell through the ice and while being rescued was babbling about a vision she had of the entire town under water.

She wonders if perhaps she could have been psychic once the news breaks about the new dam. Projects like that don't happen overnight, though, and Ruby has nearly two years to tell us all about how the prospect of the town being moved higher up onto a new, evenly graded plot affects everyone. There is drama, discord, some very threatening behaviour by a couple of the town idiots, people leaving for good, and some who seem pleased to be getting a new house by any means. Ruby develops friendships, and a sweet romance with a boy from Ontario whose father is in town buying up family antiques as everyone tries to get rid of most of their 'stuff' in preparation for the big move.

Ruby's brother Percy has his routines, and her family revolves around most of them. He is portrayed as simply the person that he is within the family, though; it doesn't seem as if he is a terrible burden, just the reality of the Carson home. This is definitely Ruby's story, and while Percy has a big role he doesn't take over the entire narrative.

I found the description of her family and the long-time neighbours and friends quite satisfying. Nason is able to give individuality to each of the characters, so that they seem like real people who are still living "offstage" when you're not reading about them. The interactions are realistic -- tense, prickly and anxious about the news, everyone has a certain edge even with those in their own families, but this doesn't mean they become enemies. It's a community facing a major challenge, and there are only a few opportunists among them.

Because of the era in which it is set, there is also a kind of innocence to Ruby's narration. Every move of the provincial government and its agents is not being watched on tv or tracked on the internet. It just unfolds at its own pace. The story brings up questions of communication -- how much is owed to civilians? Which of your friends is telling the truth about how much they knew beforehand? Are people acting in good faith? And of course, from our current vantage point there are also environmental results to a project like this, though they weren't much of an issue in this book.

In any case, it was a situation that lent itself to a fictional treatment, and I thought that Nason did a great job describing all the varied reactions and illuminating the changes that this project brought to the town. While this wasn't published as a YA novel, it has the strong sense of one to me -- Ruby is coming of age in an unsettling time, and ends up with a boyfriend and an eventual smooth ending to the tale despite the upsetting events of the narrative. I think it would strongly appeal to YA readers as well.

To get a flavour of the story, you can read an excerpt here thanks to the publisher.

Have you read any other books about drowned towns? If so, please share suggestions in the comments! I've also read Treading Water by Anne de Grace, about a town in BC, and enjoyed that one.

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For this year's Canadian Book Challenge I've chosen as my theme "Small-Press-Palooza" Thus, for each book I'm including a link to the small press who has published it. Take a look -- there are wonderful small presses all over Canada!

Read more about
Goose Lane Editions

Domesticity

Things I was busy with today (besides reading) -- after napping most of day due to a cold, got sudden surge of energy:


1. crabapple sauce, nice and pink

2. vegan chocolate chip cookies from Vegan with a Vengeance

3. not in picture: mock chicken soup, perfect for sick days, which started it all off! (recipe from La Dolce Vegan)

The Truth of Houses

The Truth of Houses / Ann Scowcroft
London, ON: Brick Books, c2011.
117 p.

This collection of poetry just won the Concordia University First Book Prize, just as I was finishing it. I can see why...although I picked it up months ago and started looking through it, it didn't catch me at first glance. But a few weeks ago I noticed it on the pile and opened it again. And this time I couldn't put it down. The poems are full of imagery, emotion and memory, and really snagged me.

I read her poem "Thirty Nine" just a few days before I turned forty, and it was very timely. These lines jumped out at me:

It never occurred to me I would have to gestate my life again,
that the angst of adolescence could return, that I could
step up to the mirror on a cold September morning,
see clearly all that had come before,
yet nothing, nothing of what lies ahead....

There are lovely poems in this collection, poems with horror embedded in the spaces between lines, nostalgic poems, gorgeous words and rhythms shared between pieces. I found some of my random favourite words as poem titles (ie: Quotidian -- I love that word!) This is Scowcroft's first collection, but she has been a long-time writer and editor, and it shows. The collection as a whole has a wonderful integrity, with the connections between the poems evident, and adding to their power.

Here are a few lines from one of my favourites, near the end, which has a musical phrasing, seeming to begin as a fugue of despair and then end in an uplifting major chord -- it is a beautiful read.

How to Begin

How to begin again and again?
All that must happen for eyes to flutter open,
spine to heave erect, legs to swing over,
feet to recoil then resettle against a cold floor.

How many hundreds of thousands of dishes washed.....
The telephone answered again and again, how many times
I'm fine? How many times the pencil grasped......

........all is new again --
as long as the heart can crack and scar,
bear the world into the world
just one more day.


Read it if you can -- there is much to explore in this collection, and I've found myself rereading and mulling over a few particular poems.

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For this year's Canadian Book Challenge I've chosen as my theme "Small-Press-Palooza" Thus, for each book I'm including a link to the small press who has published it. Take a look -- there are wonderful small presses all over Canada!

Read more about

Brick Books

Half-Sick of Shadows

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows / Alan Bradley

Toronto: Doubleday Canada, c2011.

288 p.

This is the latest entry in the Flavia De Luce series (which I love) and it's set at Christmas, my favourite time of year. Plus it features glamorous film stars... even if they are a bit over the hill now. This story also shares a bit more background and adds depth to all the regular characters around the De Luce home. It was a delight, one which I read through in one sitting.

It's Christmas time and the De Luce finances aren't so great. So there is about to be a film crew moving in, to make a movie over the holidays. Buckshaw Manor is large enough for the film people to stay without interfering with family life too much, which turns out to be a good thing......once they've agreed to perform a small fundraising show in the lobby of Buckshaw, which nearly the entire village shows up for, a snowstorm also shows up. They are all snowed in, making space for a wonderful "closed room" style of mystery to take place.

Flavia also reveals her detecting and observational skills at a new level in this story -- along with mixing up some fireworks to celebrate Christmas, she provides a keen eye with which to watch the intermingling of locals, film crew members, and the 'stars' of the show. She also keeps a close eye on her two sisters, as usual. While they don't pull any dirty tricks on her in this particular book, it is probably because they are too busy trying to wangle a part as an extra in the movie (particularly Ophelia, the eldest).

Her father's valet/assistant/gardener/all-around dependable sidekick, Dogger, also gets a bit more play in this storyline. We discover new sides to him, as a few more shadings of his past are filled in for us. Possibilities for a Holmes/Watson relationship between he and Flavia seem richer than ever.

There have been a few comments I've noticed around the blog world about the general weakness of the plot, but I didn't much mind. It was enough of a mystery for me, because the characterizations of the movie crew and the locals and all of Flavia's circle were fascinating enough. The humour in Flavia's morbid fascination with death and poisons is as sharp as in each of the previous tales, and the scenes in which she exits from her secret staircase to the roof are wonderful. It's snowing, windy, freezing cold -- and yet out she goes to secure her fireworks. And then out she goes again near the end, unaware that she is being shadowed by a killer...

I really enjoyed this light read, and thought it was an excellent choice for holiday reading. Another perfect gift for someone this year, if you're still thinking about which book to buy for that mystery lover you know. Seasonal, amusing, charmingly period, with a touch of the macabre and deadly, this is a must for any Flavia fan.

I must also note that I really enjoy the consistency of cover design in this series. Each has an overall colour, with the same font and the same style of one big image that catches the eye on the front. Very, very aesthetically pleasing, especially as you line up the volumes on the shelf. And once again, a title which adds layers of resonance to the story, thanks to the poetic reference.

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt / Caroline Preston
New York: Harper Collins, c2011.
236 p.: fully illustrated!

I discovered this delightful book by chance this week, and have simply raced through it! It is a gorgeously created "scrapbook" of one Frances Pratt, of Cornish, New Hampshire. Frankie (she hates 'Frances') begins her scrapbook after high school graduation in 1920, and adds to it for the next 8 years, as she goes off to Vassar College, moves to New York and then to Paris, living a bohemian/starving artist lifestyle. As one of the blurbs says, it's like "reading your flapper great-aunt's diary". Such fun -- I can barely keep myself from talking in Twenties influenced rhythms of speech now!

This is extraordinary in its format. It's a fully illustrated book, using vintage images and realia that Frankie has "pasted" into her scrapbook, and yet there is a strong narrative created through both images and Frankie's typed addendums to each page. The look of the slips of paper carefully typed on an old Corona typewriter and stuck in is so realistically scrapbook-like, but still carries the story on. I just wish we could find Frankie's full run of scrapbooks, as it feels like she's put together the best bits for us, and what isn't said is as important as what is. At the beginning she says she will type a page a day so we just know there's more somewhere ;)

Frankie has a few ill-judged love affairs, gets her hair bobbed, lives in Greenwich Village on Edna St Vincent Millay's advice, moves on to Paris and Shakespeare & Co., meets a wonderful friend and two Russian expatriate Princes on the way to Paris, experiences passion and heartbreak, and finally returns home to care for her mother when she catches TB. Of course she shares all this in an inimitable spunky and honest style. There is sass, humour, loneliness, hope and True Love in this book, and all of it great fun to read and then go back and pore over. Each page is a delight to examine and find more bits to enjoy.

Perhaps it's because I'm a librarian with tendencies toward gathering up vintage items -- but I LOVED this book. It kicked me right up out of my reading slump and provided some cheerful entertainment of just the sort I adore. On looking further into the author's work I discovered she has worked as an archivist, and that collector's instinct shows here. Lovely, lovely idea, and beautifully executed. To get a look yourself, and to find out about the research she had to do on Ebay, check out her engaging website. And you can get a preview of the layout there as well -- do take a look! Really, this one is a winner, and would be an excellent gift this year for anyone even vaguely interested in scrapbooking, collage, 20's fashions, history, or who simply wants to read a great story of a woman's life.

As Frankie might say:

November 16, 2011

*****Recommended!

What are YOU reading?

Simon at Stuck in a Book has originated this entertaining meme that I just came across at Danielle's blog, A Work in Progress. Though I'm joining in a few days late, it's too fun to ignore. It's all about what we're reading....will you join in, too? Snap a picture of the books that fit these categories for you, and share!

Since it is an unseasonably warm and sunny and gorgeous November Sunday here, I decided to snap each of my books in the garden. What a delight to be able to do so in November :)

1.) The book I'm currently reading:
Flying with Amelia / Anne DeGrace

I've just begun this one: a novel in short stories spanning a century of Canadian life. I've read all her other books and really enjoy her style. This one promises to be just as interesting, and not only do I love her stories, I love the format they come in: the uniform size of all her books fits perfectly in my hand.



2.) The last book I finished:
I Am Half-Sick of Shadows / Alan Bradley

Do I have to explain why I read this so quickly? It's Flavia! And it's fantastic. Full review is forthcoming...but really, Christmas at Buckshaw with mystery, mayhem and murder...how can it get better than that?


3.) The next book I want to read:
The Unending Mystery: a journey through labyrinths and mazes / David Willis McCullough

I've owned this book for a while but have a renewed passion for reading it since I've just become a trained labyrinth facilitator, and want to know even more. It's a lovely book with lots to tempt me so I'm just going to finally read it.

4.) The last book I bought:
One to One / Christina Baldwin

A classic of journal writing, I've been looking for this book for years. This is a revised edition, and it was casually sitting on a shelf in the bookshop of the retreat centre where I was just studying labyrinths. Meant to be!

5.) The last book I was given:
To Join the Lost / Seth Steinzor (review copy)

Honestly, nobody ever gives me books anymore. It's too risky -- I probably already have it, or have read it. But I still do request books occasionally via publicists & publishers and this was one that I just received. As you can see from the forest of bookmarks at the top, I've been working away on this for a while now and am finding it very intriguing...


6.) The last book I borrowed:

Taking my cue from Danielle, I added this category -- as a librarian, how could I not mention the last book I brought home?

The Town that Drowned / Riel Nason

A new novel by a new author, this is a story of a girl who sees her town underwater in a vision, only to later discover that the government is building a dam which will flood their entire New Brunswick valley. Is she psychic? Or as the girls as school seem to think, merely psycho? Time will tell.......

Oyeyemi's Mr. Fox

Mr. Fox / Helen Oyeyemi

Toronto: Penguin, c2011.

256 p.

Mr. Fox is a twisted tale, featuring a writer and his muse fencing with stories. St. John Fox is a writer who has a startling propensity to kill off the women in his stories. Mary Foxe is his muse, though as Rob Mclennan has suggested in his review, perhaps "muse" is the wrong term... Mary seems more of a partner, a check on his imagination. She decides to challenge St. John on his writing habits, and they begin to share a series of stories showing facets of love and violence.

It's really difficult to summarize this novel, so I'm going to do something I don't often do: share some of the publisher's summary, as they seem to have captured the essence of this book --

Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding, and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, the celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently... Meanwhile, Daphne becomes convinced that her husband is having an affair, and finds her way into Mary and Mr. Fox's game. And so Mr. Fox is offered a choice:

Will it be a life with the girl of his dreams, or a life with an all-too-real woman who delights him more than he cares to admit?

Mary Foxe is a cunning creation, both conjured by St. John's imagination and real in her own right. St. John's a writer, Mary is a writer, and his wife Daphne is also a writer. The three converge in an ending that dazzled me with its originality. All three are examined deeply, and while I personally felt that St. John is a real arse, he's dealt with in a non-judgemental way -- the point of the story is not to condemn him, but to explore what makes him turn to decapitation and murder as a means of solving the problem of an ending in his stories. And, to question why he turns to his writing and his imaginary inspiration rather than to his very real wife.

The stories jump from narrator to narrator, and setting and time frame, and it often takes a page or two to sort it out and situate yourself in the new tale. While it could have felt disjointed, to me it felt more kaleidoscopic: the stories were shards of the same premise, all tumbling around together in one container, creating different images and patterns with each turn. While it was hard work at times, it was also startling and shocking and beautiful and horrible to read. Oyeyemi's voice is very much her own; this reminded me of her other books yet she's created a wholly new story here. Influenced by the tale of Bluebeard, she puts her own spin on the concept and creates something that shines with her particular brand of brilliance.

I don't have to understand every word of Oyeyemi's work to be swept up in the charm and talent she exhibits in her storytelling. I may have to go back and reread some of this one to really follow the progression of things. However, it's another strong addition to Oyeyemi's already enviable oeuvre.


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About the Author:
Helen Oyeyemi was born in Nigeria in 1984 and raised in London. She is the author of three novels: The Icarus Girl, which was completed before her nineteenth birthday; The Opposite House, which was nominated for the 2008 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; and White is for Witching, which was nominated for a 2009 Shirley Jackson award and won the 2010 Somerset Maugham Award. She is also the author of two plays, Juniper’s Whitening and Victimese.



BLOG TOUR SCHEDULE

Tales of a Ranting Ginger - Oct 24
Snowdrop Dreams of Books - Oct 25
Just a Lil’ Lost - Oct 26
In the Next Room - Oct 27
Evie Bookish - Oct 28
Florence in Print - Oct 31
A Bookworm’s World - Nov 1
Krystal’s Stellar Book Blog - Nov 2
Hands and Home - Nov 4

Thank you Bronwyn from Penguin Canada for organizing this fantastic blog tour! :)

Smartest Woman I Know

The Smartest Woman I Know / Ilene Beckerman
Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, c2011.
99 p.

This charming book -- from the author probably best known for Love, Loss and What I Wore -- came to me via TLC Book Tours. I'm so glad I was offered a chance to read this, because I likely wouldn't have known about it otherwise. I don't usually search out small illustrated books like this one -- I don't intentionally ignore them but they aren't really on my radar. But this was a delight to read!

In this volume, Ilene Beckerman (known as Gingy) tells us the story of her life with her grandparents, whom she lived with from the age of 12 on, in their store/home on Madison Avenue, New York City. It's a form of memoir, detailing her life experience in relation to her grandparents. She focuses on her grandmother, the amazing 4'10" Ettie, who was never short of words. Throughout the book, Ettie's commentary on the life she's led, the men around her, the expectations of society, the role of her granddaughters, and her conversations with God pepper the text, either embedded in the tale or highlighted in little coloured bubbles on the page. Ettie, unlike most Jewish grandmothers, didn't cook and spend all her time in the kitchen -- in fact, she spent most of her time at the counter of her store, chatting with regular customers and running a tight ship.

Ettie Goldberg was full of advice, and Beckerman shares a lot of it. For example:

• You better eat something while you're waiting for a free lunch.
• Feed your stomach and the rest will take care of itself.
• A husband is like buying new shoes. You might see something you fall in love with right away, but if it's not a good fit, it will never make you happy.
• Sometimes life is all about the song you sing.

One of the delights of this book is its format. The storytelling is accompanied by colour and illustration. There are pen sketches, and photos cut-and-pasted with additional drawing in a collage type image. Near the beginning there's a map of New York with her grandparents' stationery store drawn on to it. As I was reading I couldn't help thinking of it as a great example of art journaling, polished up a bit to share with others.

I found the storytelling straightforward, touching, funny, endearing and so enjoyable. Beckerman has a gift for choosing just the right story to tell, just the right details to shape the tale. She sketches out the characters in her life and captures their individuality beautifully.

I know I'll be sharing this one. It reminded me of my own grandmother (who I miss terribly) and the things she used to say, things that I find myself saying often. Like when something disappointing happened to us as children -- she's always shrug and say "Well, it's better than a kick in the head with a frozen boot." Or the one time that my sister was complaining about yet another boyfriend's deficiencies, and my normally staid grandmother came out with "They all look the same in the dark." While my family was very different from Beckerman's, there is still that attachment to our grandmothers that is such a common thread.

The publisher, Algonquin, is very generously offering a giveaway of this book to three lucky readers! (U.S./Canada only) If you want a chance to win a copy of this lovely little book, just leave a comment sharing something your grandmother used to say. Let's celebrate the wisdom of our grandmothers :)

Remember to leave an email or a way to contact you in your comment in case you win -- if you have a blog and I can find your contact info there, that is fine. I'll be drawing names randomly on the last day of the blog tour (Nov.8) and will let you know after that if you were one of the lucky ones!

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Special thanks to Lisa from TLC for sending me this book.

Check out the other stops on this blog tour to read their thoughts on the book, and for additional chances to win a copy!


Monday, October 17th: Arriving at Your Own Door
Thursday, October 20th: Books Distilled
Saturday, October 22nd: A Life Sustained
Monday, October 24th: Sarah Reads Too Much
Tuesday, October 25th:Quinceberry
Wednesday, October 26th: Patricia’s Wisdom
Thursday, October 27th: Suko’s Notebook
Tuesday, November 1st: Overstuffed
Wednesday, November 2nd:The Indextrious Reader
Thursday, November 3rd: Evolution You
Friday, November 4th: Colloquium
Monday, November 7th: Life in Review
Tuesday, November 8th: Lesa’s Book Critiques