CanadianContent discussion

Good Morning fellow readers!

It is hard to believe that November is almost over! We have shared an exciting week with the Giller Announcement. Many of us have read Bellevue Square and it is time for open discussion on the thread (if you have not read it and don't want spoilers, please avoid until you are ready)!

Did you get all the Giller Books read? What have you been reading? What is next?

We have approximately 5 weeks to finish off our BINGO 2017 cards and to reach our reading goals.

I am looking forward to all the great posts when I get home Friday after work!

I can't believe it's nearly December. I'm not usually in the Christmas spirit early, but this year I'm soooo ready to break out the candy canes and ugly sweaters!

I started my Christmas "reading" in audio format last week and since many of the holiday reads are short, I've been tearing through them. I need to slow it down! I finished Landline and now I'm nearly done with St. Nick.

I finished Rush Home Road last night so now I'm ready to begin my holiday reading in its entirety. I'm starting with a giveaway, Long, Tall Cowboy Christmas. Not my usual style, but I'll give it a whirl.

Happy weekend everyone!

Good morning!

Anyone mailed out a Secret Santa gift yet!?! :)

In paper this week I continue through the thick and heavy Crackpot for my final BINGO square (A Book Written in the Year of your Birth). Clearly Adele Wiseman is way off anyone's radar now, but she's extremely creative and the writing is very, very impressive! I'm really liking it, despite some heavy content. My only real objection is that the words are very dense and tightly packed onto the page, as it's an older publication! We're so used to spacey formatting now, I think, that we take it for granted!

In audio I read Call the Midwife because I needed a lighter read. This did the trick! Fun little interconnected short stories, really. Worth noting is the AMAZING narration on this. The woman's voice is beautiful, soothing and creative. She'd be excellent at a bedtime story! It really is probably the best narration I've ever heard. Worth a listen!

I have been totally enjoying reading Bondrée this week and should finish it tonight. It's the original French version of this year's longlisted Giller Boundary: The Last Summer.

I also finished the short story collection Ruins & Relics. It's a wonderful story collection and I liked it better than Zorn's novel that I read a couple weeks ago.

In audio I am suffering through Everybody's Son which is pure crap IMO. Badly written, fake characters and an implausible story. I can't believe the rave reviews this book is getting. I just don't understand. I doubt I will ever read this author again.

As for the Giller. I have read 3 of the short listers and still hope to get to the other two but as I look at the long list, many of those books seem more interesting. I don't usually go for the long listers but this year's list looks good (better than the short list IMO). I have already read Tumbleweed, and am almost done with Boundary. I've got We'll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night on my ereader ready to go next and have The Dark and Other Love Stories and Brother on hold at the library.

I have my package all ready to go. Haven't sent it out yet.

Currently reading/listening to on audio book: T is for Transformation by Shaun T and Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

I am also reading Bellevue Square. I grew up in Toronto and worked near the Market, so am looking forward to the memories.

For my BDA bookclub's November selection currently reading/listening to: The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

Also reading Granta 141: Canada - I have the Kindle Version and trying to catch up with my past issues of New Yorker Magazine

I won 3 giveaways - YEAH!!! - 2 Kindle books (Breathless by
by Beverly Jenkins and Borne by Jeff VanderMeer) and a print book (Anything for a mystery, a Nosy Neighbor Mystery book 1) by Cynthia Hickey.

Happy Friday & Happy Thanksgiving to any American friends here!
Last week I only managed to finish Triptych on paper. Karin Slaughter's books are not for everyone. They are violent but so engrossing!
I am now reading Bellevue Square. I am really liking it so far. I spent 3 years of my University life in the 80's living 5 minutes away from Kensington market. By reading this book, it brings back a lot of nostalgia. It's a fascinating place and really deserves a visit if you haven't done it!
Have a great weekend!

Happy Friday, my drive to work this morning was a breeze-did everyone stay home to do some black Friday shopping?

I am about halfway through The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz which is my last Bingo 17 book for the banned book square.

I am listening to Candide as I realized I had fallen behind in my goal to read 12 books from the 1000 books to read before you die.

I only managed to read one of the Giller nominees, but hope to get through the winner Bellevue Square in the near future.

Happy Friday! I'm off to a slow start today after Thanksgiving festivities yesterday. I also ran a 5-mile race yesterday - I am new to running and training for the race was a lot of work. I'm exhausted today!

This week I finished What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky and Boundary: The Last Summer. Boundary was very interesting - it seemed so different for the kind of book it is (literary thriller/crime novel). It was almost impressionistic at times, maybe? I enjoyed it.

I'm still reading We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. This is definitely a "read an essay when I'm mentally prepared" kind of book. Coates blows my mind regularly, so I have to be ready for that when I sit down to read him. I very much appreciate his writing and his way of making me think about things in a different light.

I'm also reading The Last of the Crazy People, which is my FINAL bingo read for 2017 (published the year I was born). I read this ages ago but don't remember much, so it's like I'm reading it for the first time. I want to be able to shout BINGO before the end of November and then spend December reading whatever I want before the Tournament of Books, Canada Reads, and Bingo 2018 start!

I read this past week Nights at Rizzo-which is the memoirs of a young gay writer who worked at a very classy bookstore in Manhattan in the mid-seventies. He later became a very prominent writer. The bookstore stories are interesting and the best part is reading about New York at the time, but the author-Felice Picano is a terrible name-dropper and it really becomes too much after a while. He ends the book on a very mournful note because it is the start of the eighties and he writes how almost all of his friends, including his partner, succumbed to Aids.

There is an article in today's Toronto Star about how Michael Redhill had exactly forty dollars in his bank account the night before he won the Giller Award. Then the next day he went to deposit his massive cheque and the tellers were astonished. Interesting stuff.

@Alan, I loved that story about Michael Redhill in the Star! Made me very happy for him. I have a copy of Bellevue Square that I got through a Goodreads Giveaway, and I hope to turn to it this coming week.

This week, I think the only books I finished were a pair of graphic novels. Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection, Volume 1 was really beautiful, although it was challenging to engage with so many short 'taster' comics. Blue Is the Warmest Color I felt too old and curmudgeonly for, but maybe if I were 20 I'd feel differently.

I'm now on the last third of Elmet, a debut novel that was shortlisted for the Booker this year. Enjoying it tremendously, though with an increasing sense of dread. The author does tension very well.

@Alan @Emmkay, I had to look up that article. Great story! Here's the link if anyone else would like to read it:
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment...

Susan wrote: "Boundary was very interesting - it seemed so different for the kind of book it is (literary thriller/crime novel). It was almost impressionistic at times, maybe? I enjoyed it.."

Susan you might enjoy this review in The National Post. The reviewer calls Michaud's work: "a singular brand of lit-myst hybrid fiction: tense, emotional books built just as much on even-tempered suspense as deep character study within."

It certainly does seem to have it's own style. I'm now curious to read some of her other work. If you want to read the review:

http://nationalpost.com/entertainment...

This week I finished Manhattan Beach. I was super keen to read it and found it had great parts and not so great parts. Overall, I gave it a 3. It was well-written though....

Next I began Artemis. I really loved The Martian and read it prior to the movie release (Matt Damon). The book was really funny satire and the movie actually wasn't terrible but took a serious approach. So far, Artemis is not making me laugh as much but I will plug on. Sometimes authors try to re-create their first big hit and usually the second one just doesn't live up. We'll see....

Happy Friday!

This week I finished The Reason You Walk by Wab Kinew for another Bingo square. I absolutely loved this book. Great father - son and family relationships book. Also very informative as to indigenous culture. Seems I am enjoying the memoir / biography genre this year.

I also finished The Disappearance of the Universe by Gary R. Renard. This book is based on A Course in Miracles and is being read by my meditation class. I have started ACIM countless times, but never got into it yet. This book inspires me to start again.

Working more on my Bingo - started Nostalgia by M.G. Vassanji e-book for the sci-fi/dystopia square, and Unless by Carol Shields in audio to update the square to a Canadian book.

Thanks for that link on Boundary, Louise. It hit on a lot of the things that I liked about the book.

Reading Lost Classics edited by Michael Ondaatje among others, was pleased to find entries by both Michael Redhill and Eden Robinson. Not that I feel any happier about his win. ...
Read The Mothers by Brit Bennett which is a wonderful book from all angles.
Now into The Lava in My Bones by Barry Webster which is an amazement.

Still taking in Self-Remembering by Robert Earl Burton which is different again.

happy weekend

What a great news story for Michael Redhill!!

It has been another quiet reading week for me --again I have booked too many things in the evening. I finished The Party which was an easy, enjoyable palate cleansing read. I had met the author (Robyn Harding) last Friday and she described her book as commercial (vs. literature). It was a tale of a sweet 16 slumber party gone wrong and a family trying to hide their problems.

I am in the midst of listening to This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett. It is really a series of essays about her life that she had previously published and has pulled together into one book. I am enjoying listening to her beginnings as a writer and not yet sure why she chose that title. I have also started Our Little Secret by Roz Nay who was touring with Robyn Harding last week. It too is a bit more commercial fiction but a mystery and I liked learning that she wrote it sitting at the table with her kids surrounded in lego!

I still have two to finish for BINGO - a reread of Medicine Walk for my favourite book square and the year of my birth book - The Manticore which I have been procrastinating about.

Happy U.S. Thanksgiving everyone. Hopefully, you're enjoying turkey. watching football, reading and spending time with family and friends!! One of my favourite extra long weekends of the year. My family celebrates both the UJane Christmas.S. and Canada Thanksgiving. We've got so much to be thankful for!!

Didn't post last week and haven't been reading tons.

I finished What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim: A Midlife Misadventure on Spain's Camino de Santiago. Most in our book club really enjoyed it. I found it ok and improving in the second half. Something about the narrator's whining and attitude kept stopping me from engaging but Jane Christmas is definitely a good writer. She's smart, sassy, self-deprecating with a pretty good sense of humour.

Am now reading I Am a Truck. my fourth short-listed Scotiabank Giller read. Am only in the early stages but this book grabbed my interest from the start. Hope to finish it soon and jump into the Buddy Read.

Have quite a few books to read in the week ahead. Likely to change so will wait and see.

Happy reading everyone and again Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy U.S. Thanksgiving again to everyone. It's one of our family's favourite extra long weekends of the year. We love turkey and watching football (NCAA, NFL & The Grey Cup) with a book on the go; but most of all spending time with friends and family. We have so much to be thankful for in North America.

Didn't post last week but finished What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim: A Midlife Misadventure on Spain's Camino de Santiago. Ratings were fairly split in our Book Club. 60% really liked it and the other 40%, including myself, weren't as enamoured. Jane Christmas certainly can write. She's smart, sassy, opinioned, self-deprecating and uses a lot of humour in her memoir about her pilgrimage/walking undertaking. I found her whining and judgments rather off-putting in the beginning but it definitely picked up and piqued my interest more in the second half.

Yay!! I started I Am a Truck. My hold
finally came in and it's my fourth Scotiabank Giller short listed book to read. Michelle Winters's writing is very easy to read and I hope to finish the book this weekend. Haven't read enough to form much of an opinion about where the story's going or about the central characters but am able to say from everything I've read so far that I'm looking forward to it. Hope to finish soon and join in the Buddy Reads.

Have so many choices in the week ahead, it would be silly of be to predict as I'm being torn in many directions and what I think right now....may not happen.

Have a great reading and family weekend everyone!!

I'm with MJ. Too many choices, too many conflicting priorities. In my case I'm distracted by figuring out if I can finish my 2017 Bingo. So this weekend's challenge is finding an audio book that doesn't make me itch. :)

@Natasha this is just a suggestion, but you might try Pema Chodron. Her Abbey is in Nova Scotia and I may have mentioned her to you before. It took me a while to accustomed to her voice. Some recordings it's a bit, well, itchy but fact is I love her voice now I love to fall asleep to her. it might take me 200x more days and nights to listen than read but in the end I feel like I really absorbed her teachings.
as a post script to my update Michael Redhill is actually one of the editor's, along with Michael Ondaatje and Esta and Linda Spalding, of the book I've been reading for the last week or so. Only now I really registered this, as I've only known MR for a couple of weeks and I started Lost Classics just before I read BS.
Re bingo
I have 3 or 4 more to go, classics, birth decade, and yada just got Rae Spoon For Lgbt+so I will be able to pull this off.
My has assured me reviews are not mandatory. How did people post the templates?

speaking of Michael Redhill, does anyone know about his connection to Michael Ondaatje and Linda Spalding?

@Susan...You mean in addition to the info posted in my previous message, that they are the editors of Lost Classics? They are the editors of the literary journal The Brick.

I must have missed that!! Thanks @Magdelanye!

It's a dreary rainy day today so what better way to spend the day than in my new reading chair by the fireplace. I just read the most wonderful little book 84, Charing Cross Road and I loved this particular line:

"It's against my principles to buy a book I haven't read, it's like buying a dress you haven't tried on."

And I had to chuckle over this particular quip on fiction: "I never can get interested in things that didn't happen to people who never lived."

Anyway, if you haven't already read it, it's the perfect book for book lovers.

Agree! What a charming little book that is. :) Happy Saturday

I'm just back from vacation and didn't read more than two paragraphs the whole time! We visited friends and family and spent time in Vancouver, Victoria, the island and spent 5 days in Oahu. I did get to a bookstore in Sidney on the island called The Haunted bookstore which I had been to 13 years ago. Glad to see it still there. I bought three books that I think will suit me perfectly :)

Welcome back Diane!! Sounds like you had a wonderful time.

@Diane Welcome back! Your vacation sounds wonderful!

I didn't finish anything this week, but I started two.

I started The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World which I bought back in the summer when I found myself without a book during an airport delay. I started it, then lost it to my husband, who immediately honed onto it and I didn't see it for 2 whole months, LOL. Hubs loved it, by the way, and now I'm finally back to it.

I also started The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters on my Kobo. I have been meaning to read this for years, and am just now getting to it. I loved Fingersmith by this author and I expect I shall add Tipping the Velvet to my TBR too. Especially if I enjoy this story.

Susan, I would be interested in what you thought of What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky. I heard the title story read on Levar Burton Reads podcast and I loved the story. Do you think the others live up to it? I find that I am getting more and more into short story collections.

Shannon, I have a copy of Artemis that I received as a giveaway from goodreads. This is another book that my husband absconded with. I suspect it is in his office somewhere. I want to be able to read it before my adult son returns home for Christmas, because if I don't I can guarantee I will never see it again!

Cynthia, I liked What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky. That title story was a bit sci-fi if I remember correctly. Most of the other stories dealt with families and immigration. Nigeria plays a big part in the collection.

@Cynthia, I absolutely loved both Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters. I have The Paying Guests on my shelf laughing at my every time I walk into my bedroom, but I never seem to get at it sadly. She's a very talented author, isn't she?!

I read The Paying Guests last year for my prison bookclub. The prison ladies didn't like it much but my co-facilitator and I both loved it. I need to read more Sarah Waters.

Louise wrote: "I read The Paying Guests last year for my prison bookclub. The prison ladies didn't like it much but my co-facilitator and I both loved it. I need to read more [author:Sarah Waters|..."

I have so wanted to read some Sarah Waters, I think I will have to make that one of my 2018 resolutions.

Heather(Gibby) wrote: "Louise wrote: "I read The Paying Guests last year for my prison bookclub. The prison ladies didn't like it much but my co-facilitator and I both loved it. I need to read more [autho..."

Sounds like a good buddy read.

Hi everyone, I'm late to the party. You are all reading books that are better than what I have been reading.

I tried reading The Mermaid's Daughter, but it was so badly written that I just gave up.

I'm 2/3 of the way through Dunbar. I'm skim reading most of this book. The author is clever and knows it. It's a bit much.

THANKFULLY I have Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body ready for pick up at the library today.

@MJ, how did you enjoy Grey Cup? What a crazy game!!!

I'm a giant Sarah Waters fan too. Apparently her book The Little Stranger is being made into a film. Has anyone seen the other adaptations of her novels?

I'm reading and loving The Good People. Kent does an amazing job of imagining what it would be like to be a deeply superstitious villager in 1820s Ireland. And I just finished and mostly loved The Lonely Hearts Hotel though I could only read a little bit at a time because it overwhelmed me.

Storyheart wrote: "I'm a giant Sarah Waters fan too. Apparently her book The Little Stranger is being made into a film. Has anyone seen the other adaptations of her novels?
"

I am always disappointed in film adaptations. I watched the first few episodes of Alias Grace and gave up on that as well.

I have planned to read The Lonely Hearts Hotel for 2018 BINGO, but every time someone describes it the way you have, @Storyheart (which is often), I get nervous!

@Allison Re the lonely hearts hotel....don't be held back from plunging in....I adored this book and had to slow myself down to make it last a little longer.

Magdelanye wrote: "@Allison Re the lonely hearts hotel....don't be held back from plunging in....I adored this book and had to slow myself down to make it last a little longer."

Oh, that's good to hear @Magdelanye. I just keep hearing it described as so difficult. I'm glad you enjoyed it so much.

Allison wrote: " I just keep hearing it described as so difficult. I'm glad you enjoyed it so much. "

I gave it 5 stars. But it was an emotionally overwhelming read for me.

Louise wrote: "I am always disappointed in film adaptations. I watched the first few episodes of Alias Grace and gave up on that as well."

I often enjoy them but even when I don't, I often watch anyway. I'm married to a filmmaker and we enjoy analyzing what's gone wrong as well as what's done well.

Megan wrote: "@MJ, how did you enjoy Grey Cup? What a crazy game!!!"

You're right Megan, it was a crazy game!! Can't say I'm disappointed with the East winning.....but Calgary is such a strong team, I felt badly for them losing it for the 2nd year in a row. Calgary was so dominant both years....but unfortunately if only 1 final game decides things....anything can happen......and it did.

It was thrill for spectators but heartbreaking for the losers.

Am sorry to hear your reading has only been so..so. Why not switch in up and pick a fun or heart-warming books for your next read.

The Lonely Hearts Hotel has been on my TBR list since @May and I met her in Niagara on the Lake! Her books are emotionally difficult books to read for sure!

Actually, Heather O is at the top of my short TM list....along with Cordelia Strube and Eden Robinson and a few others that I'd love To Meet. Lucky lucky those who get get the chance!

Allison wrote: "I have planned to read The Lonely Hearts Hotel for 2018 BINGO, but every time someone describes it the way you have, @Storyheart (which is often), I get nervous!"

I listened to it as an audio book, and really enjoyed it.

Allison wrote: "I have planned to read The Lonely Hearts Hotel for 2018 BINGO, but every time someone describes it the way you have, @Storyheart (which is often), I get nervous!"

Hi Allison, which square would this one fit in?

Rainey wrote: "Hi Allison, which square would this one fit in? "

Other Allison here, lol. I used it for the "Published in 2017" square.