What Do I Take With Me?

Now that airlines are cracking down on what you can take in carry-on (or even if you can take carry-on) I'm a little unsure of how many books to pack for my upcoming trip to BC and California in a few weeks. So I've decided to bring two advance reading copies with me - this way if the book is taken away by security, I can still look forward to the books release to continue reading it. Thanks to our wonderful Random House sales rep, Tim, I am ready for my flight with two books that I am trying hard not to crack open before I leave.

The first is Doing Dangerously Well by Carole Enahoro. It is a dark comedy about disaster capitalism, cutthroat office politics, vicious sibling rivalry, hapless do-gooderism and the corporatization of water. Some time in the near future, Kainji Dam, the engineering marvel that is the pride of Nigeria, collapses, killing thousands of villagers. The Minister of Natural Resources can hardly believe his luck - now he can make a bid for the presidency. On the other side of the world, the grimly ambitious executive of a water company also sniffs an opportunity - to make her bosses happy by privatizing a major African river. Her sister, Barbara, who has never encountered a cause she wouldn't carry a placard for, joins forces with Femi Jegede, a charismatic Nigerian activist whose family was swept away in the disaster. Doing Dangerously Well hits the shelves sometime in May 2010.

The second book is Motorcycles and Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor. Otter Lake is a sleepy little community, an Anishnaawbe Reserve buried somewhere deep in central Ontario. There are a few problems: Maggie Second, the chief of the community, is trying to settle a dispute over a plot of land that is to be added to the reserve and its uses. And her son, Virgil, is desperately trying to survive the boredom of his time at school - that is, when he bothers to show up for his classes. But most of all, neither Maggie nor Virgil can come to terms with the fact that Lillian Benojee, Maggie's mother, is on her deathbed. But then a mysterious and handsome white stranger named John - who for reasons unknown has many last names - arrives, riding a vintage 1954 Indian Chief motorcycle. Who he is, nobody knows, except for Lillian. When she summons him during her final farewells, she also charges him with a mission to help the people she loves the most, whom she is leaving behind. Maggie finds herself increasingly enamoured with the handsome young White man. Virgil, however, is less than enchanted, and finds the stranger far too mysterious and scary to allow him to hook up with his mother. With the help of his uncle, Wayne (who has sequestered himself on an isolated island for four years while developing an aboriginal martial art), they will try and drive the stranger from the reserve. You can read this in March 2010.

I'll let you know what I thought of the books AND if I was allowed to keep them when I return

- Bronwyn