There are so many reasons I wanted to like The Orenda. It was released last September to great acclaim. I enjoyed Joseph Boyden's recounting of where and how he wrote the first 20+ pages; his passion and excitement is quite infectious. My own relationship with nature means I'm receptive to the idea of the orenda …
What a gem! Annabel begins with the birth of an intersex child in Labrador in 1969. The baby's parents decide to raise the child as a boy and Annabel is the story of his life. More significantly for me, Annabel is a tale of relationships: father/son, mother/daughter, husband/wife, land/people, best friends and the relationships between …
Of all the finalists for Canada Reads 2014, I found Half-Blood Blues the easiest to read. Yes, the event that is so central to Half-Blood Blues is awful: "Paris, 1940. A brilliant jazz musician, Hiero, is arrested by the Nazis and never heard from again. He is twenty years old. He is a German citizen. …
Continue reading Book Review: Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
I found this book a challenging read. In fact, it took me so far out of my personal comfort zone that I was tempted to permanently close its pages several times while reading the first few chapters. But since I'd made a commitment to myself to read all the contenders for Canada Reads 2014, I …
Margaret Atwood has imagined a fantastically plausible future. In The Year of the Flood, she describes how things might unfold: environmental mayhem, drastic climate change and genetic engineering gone wrong. Given the main themes, I expected this book to be a little depressing. Instead, I was fascinated by so many aspects of the novel: Chapters …
Continue reading Book Review: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood