We're in talks to get Glen and Karl Rove to come to Waterloo (kidding)

Glen Beck-crazy Fox Network carnival barker has a novel coming out.

Glenn Beck is writing a novel. It's about a group called "the Founders Keepers" starting a civil war. In a classic Beckian touch, he's given it a title designed to enrage smart people who find him repellent: The Overton Window.

It comes with a tin foil dust jacket.

Nice one, Mr. President

After passing health care, he did a little shopping.

I wonder if he special ordered an etiquette related title for Biden.


David

Sam Lipstyte-The Ask

The Globe and Mail gives a thumbs up to one of my favourites for the spring.

Sam Lipsyte is a kind of twitchier Phillip Roth, shot through with George Saunders-like absurdities. After his sublime third book Home Land, the worry was that Lipsyte could get too comfortable with the erudite messup as his stock character, but similarities aside, that's not the case here. There's more depth and superior minor characters throughout.

Milo Burke has misused his early artistic gifts and now labours at a mediocre university stuck in a fundraising job.

After getting fired for putting an insufferable student in her place, Milo's precarious marriage, his young son, and lack of funds force his hand. He grabs a rope offered from his office to secure a very large "ask" from a former college roommate. The catch is that Purdy has money to burn, and without giving too much away, Milo needs to navigate several minefields to make this work.

The great minor character comes in the form of Purdy's long lost son Don, a legless, bitter veteran back from Iraq.

The plot takes a bit of a back seat to Lipsyte's glorious screeds on class, ambition and the gathering darkness visited on one not ready for the responsibility of adulthood.

The sonic assault that Lipstye is capable of make for the very minor structural flaws.

I have to believe that the great Bill Hicks is looking down approvingly on our guy.

He's just that damn good.

David

well, actually..

The Globe has a smart, fun look at David Shields' new book which seems to be picking up steam as the next in line of "the novel is too slow to keep pace with the culture" books that come about with increasing regularity.

"Reality Hunger is the title, but this time the prognosis, not to mention the remedy, is different. Shields isn’t pronouncing the demise of the conventional novel but a fate far worse than death – he’s saying the poor thing is irrelevant, simply inapplicable to the way we live now."

How do we live now exactly?

Bombarded by stimuli, always connected and yet largely able choose the "reality" we'd most like to engage with on a superficial level, it becomes an easier thing to disengage from the communal processes that I think led to at least a shot at empathy in our lives.

I find the boring old "linear plot and defined characters" kind of refreshing; more so now than ever.
It washes away all the "reality" that elbows its way into my day.

David

DK we love you!

We LOVE the video DK books has made. It gave us goosebumps. But you have to watch the whole thing.

Only in the Movies *Guest Post* by William Bell!

Turning Pages Literary Festival is pleased that William Bell is sharing his book, Only in the Movies, as part of the day long celebration of books for children and teens on May 15th. William Bell will be presenting at 5pm at The Musem (10 King St. W. Kitchener).

William Bell was born and raised in Toronto. In high school, he wrote poetry and had a story published in the school yearbook.
Bell has a Masters degree in Literature, and another in Education: Curriculum and Administration. He has taught English in Canadian high schools, in universities in China, and at UBC. It was in China that he met Ting-Xing Ye, with whom he wrote Throwaway Daughter.
The inspiration to become a writer came when Bell heard a speech by John Metcalfe, author of one of his favourite short stories. Some of Bell's books are used in high school curricula.
Bell says he likes to write for young people because they are "the best audience: they are loyal to the writers they like and they are enthusiastic readers".

What’s so funny about William Bell’s new novel, Only in the Movies?

“Yer gonna love it, kid. A lotta laughs.” --Humphrey Bogart

“A brilliantly humorous story of love!” --Cyrano de Bergerac

“I didn’t get it.” --Romeo Montague

“Witty.” --John Donne

“I thought it was stupid.” --Katherina Minola

“Masterful and intelligent.” --James Joyce

“An un-put-downable page turner, nuanced and layered.” --some critic

When Jake Blanchard gets a job as a student set designer at the York School of Arts, it's an exciting first step towards realizing his dream of making movies. But soon enough he finds himself starring in a drama of his own creation. Nothing in Jake's life is the same after Vanni, a whip-smart, wisecracking Indian-Irish-Canadian joins his class, and after Jake meets the unforgettable Alba, who is as stunning as she is unattainable. Jake is tongue-tied around Alba and enlists Vanni's help. All of a sudden — like the Shakespeare play Jake's school is putting on — Jake finds himself entwined in a love triangle of sorts, complete with secrets and suppressed passions, contrived plots, miscues and misunderstandings. By the end, as in any good comedy, tensions are resolved and Jake's world has been re-made, though in a way he could not have anticipated.

Don't bring me dooooooowwwwnnnnn... *Guest Post* by Natale Ghent!

Turning Pages Literary Festival is pleased that Natale Ghent is presenting her book, Gravity Brings Me Down, as part of the day long celebration of books for children and teens on May 15th. Natale will be presenting at 4:30pm at The Musem (10 King St. W. Kitchener).


Gravity Brings Me Down is a smart and thoughtful story about self-discovery, acceptance, and finding friendship—all in the places you’d least expect.

Sioux Smith is sharp, funny, and wry, and is pretty certain that she sees the world of high school differently from everyone else—a belief that is cemented when makes an uneasy discovery about one of her school’s “popular” teachers. And while she feels alone at her high school and in her unique slant on small-town life, Sioux finds a kindred spirit in the most unlikely of people: with an elderly stranger, a woman with Alzheimer’s who has more insight despite her progressing dementia than anyone else in her life. What Sioux and “Miss Marple” discover about each other over tea, illicitly secreted wine, and Coronation Street, makes for a YA novel with heart and grit in equal measure.

Natale Ghent is an award-winning author of six books. Her acclaimed novel No Small Thing won the Hackmatack Children’s Choice Award, was named a Silver Birch Honour Book and was nominated for the CLA Book of the Year for Children Award. It was also chosen as a Junior Library Guild Selection in the US and a Border’s Original Voices selection. Visit the author online.

...yeah yeah yeah...it's not the big things that

deflate your balloon...it's the accumulated effect of little things - like Bukowski's shoelace, the one that snaps with no time left...

...but I've been watching Twin Peaks again and I got some good advice from Agent Cooper: give yourself a little gift every day: you don't have to plan it, you may not even know what it will be or where it will come from, but give yourself something nice every day - an unexpected cup of coffee, or maybe some pink calla lilies - you get the idea...

...but I find the best thing to do when gravity brings me down is to dance, dance, dance...so come on, everybody, shake your money maker!

Walking around the store with a camera

We're starting to get back into ordering our remainder books. Tons of stuff for kids. When it's not raining we'll stick some tables outside and fill them with beautiful sale books. This one is indoors, but gives you a glimpse.


And here's Dave shelving some books. Contrary to what you may think, we don't just sit around blogging all day.

Oh, and our Easter book display. We're pretty proud of this one.


--Mandy

Do you have your tickets for Christopher Moore yet?

If not, our front window will remind you! Also, some Diary of a Wimpy Kid snuck in there too!

We'll have more copies of Bite Me by Thursday. Sadly every copy we received today is spoken for.

***

And in our far right window we have an Alice in Wonderland display. Mushroom care of Queen of Hearts Costumes in Waterloo.

Better than Taco's...

I loved Cutting for Stone. Abraham Verghese is here talking about his book and his writing process.

mmm... tacos

Happy Caterpillar Day!

March 20th is VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR DAY!

One of our favorite children's authors, Eric Carle, AND one of our all time favorite kids' books of all time: THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR.

This is a great book to teach kids

1) the days of the week

2) how to count

3) how good fruit really is for you

4) the process of metamorphosis

how opportune

I'm a bit late on this but the Orange Prize contains a novel that the book club is going to discuss next week.

The smart money is likely on Hilary Mantel, but there's some good work on a rangy list.

David

Take that Pulitzer Prize winner

It's one thing to dislike Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian (though it's one my favourites)
but it's something else entirely if the dissenting opinion comes from Nicholas Sparks.

"Cormac McCarthy? "Horrible," he says, looking at Blood Meridian. "This is probably the most pulpy, overwrought, melodramatic cowboy vs. Indians story ever written."

Even hearing a passage about a sunset in which "the mountains in their blue islands stood footless in the void like floating temples" doesn't sway him.

Sparks' favorite tale of youth? "I think A Walk to Remember," he says, citing his own novel. "That's my version of a coming-of-age." He pauses and adds: "You have to sayTo Kill a Mockingbird is an all-time classic."

Any he thinks are overrated?

"I don't like to say bad things about others."

Except McCarthy? "He deserves it," Spark says with a laugh.

Asked what he likes in his own genre, Sparks replies: "There are no authors in my genre. No one is doing what I do."

At least he's got a healthy ego.

David

Read Me... I'm Irish!

IN celebration of all things St. Patricks plan a trip to the Emerald Isle with travel guides or armchair travel down Ireland's history.

An Irish History of Civilization by Don Akenson

Akenson weaves ironic and playful historical miniatures of Irish misery, folly, and glory. Like the archetypal stories in the Talmuds, the artful fictions in An Irish History of Civilization are universal, big truths that require a big canvas. Akenson follows his chosen peoples on their odyssey around the globe in a story like no other, the lines between history and fiction irretrievably lost in the mists of Irish time.

Pauline Frommer's Ireland: Spend Less See More

With Pauline Frommer's Ireland you'll:
- Tap into a wealth of affordable accommodations, from coastal cottages with breathtakng sea views, to central city apartments close to all the action in Dublin.
- Make Ireland's stunning scenery your backdrop for inexpensive golf, horseback riding, sailing, fishing, cycling, and hiking.
- Learn the art of comic improvisation in Cork City, or the volcanic, organic detailing of raku ceramics in West Cork
- Discover Belfast and Northern Ireland, where former prisoners are now tour guides and troubled spots are must-see neighborhoods.
- Get inside the "other" Ireland and meet locals at art classes, attend backroom folk music jams at the neighborhood pub, visit local markets, and more.

Fromer's Ireland 2010

Some say the heart of Dublin beats in the neighborhood of Temple Bar. See chapter 6 of this great guide for more details. The guide features a foldout map, plus detailed maps throughout,
exact prices, directions, opening hours,and other practical information. As well there are candid reviews of hotels and restaurants,plus sights, shopping, nightlife and walking tours, and trip-planning ideas

Lonely Planet Ireland
In this updated ninth edition, a new color section focuses on Ireland's rich cultural history in music, literature, art, and myth. Readers can also get to know the Irish in the Local Voices chapter.

David Okum Has Us Pegged

One of our favourite artists, David Okum, has rendered us in 2D. Can you figure out who's who?

Reviewing the New Gaspereau Press Catalogue

I don't know; can I review a catalogue of new books by a publisher? I just feel inspired to do it, as it landed on the desk.

Immediately I see that Gaspereau has extended their book design craftsmanship to their catalogue as well as their books, using fine quality paper and inks. This stapled folio SMELLS like a book.

Inside are gorgeous woodcut designs and patterns, things I automatically recognize as being very "Gaspereau". They've reprinted excerpts and complete poems from their upcoming Spring line. Such as a book of poetry by Johanna Skibsrud, which we'll be ordering for sure, the excerpt included was so affecting. Here's a little teaser:

I do not think that I could love a human being; I would not

know it if I squeezed too hard. I would be a great bear. I would

go rumbling through.

I would try to eat you. I would stand alone,

in the quiet centre of you, and roar. No, I

could not love you. I could not

love a human being.

I would get so

stuck on things. The small

flaws in you, like

the way that you will die;

it would stick in my throat, I could not love you.

And I love the description offered by the press for Joanna's book: "Being a book of poetry to be published in April 2010; to be printed offset on a laid paper making approximately 80 pages trimmed to 5.75 X 8.5 inches; to be Smyth sewn and bound into a paper cover and enfolded in a letterpress-printed jacket."

I'm going to want to eat it. Gaspereau books, printed out of Nova Scotia, reiterate to me what can be lost if we were ever to make a total shift to e-books. Gaspereau books are little works of art:

At the core of our philosophy is a commitment to making books that reinstate the importance of the book as a physical object, reuniting publishing and the book arts. Many of our covers are letterpress-printed, feature original artwork by artists like Wesley Bates and George Walker, and are printed on fine paper, in some cases even handmade. Most of our books are smyth-sewn & bound into card covers and are then enfolded in letterpress-printed jackets. Our house paper is Rolland’s Zephyr Antique Laid, a creamy, sensual book paper. Overall, the result is strong, flexible, attractive books that are comfortable, attractive and durable. And in addition to our trade titles, each year or so Gaspereau Press releases a letterpress project or two (from full-length books to broadsides) and three or four chapbooks in our Devil’s Whim series. (From their website)

Mandy

And the Winner is... CBC Canada Reads

Nikolski by Nicholas Dickner

Intricately plotted and shimmering with originality, Nikolski charts the curious and unexpected courses of personal migration, and shows how they just might eventually lead us to home. In the spring of 1989, three young people, born thousands of miles apart, each cut themselves adrift from their birthplaces and set out to discover what — or who — might anchor them in their lives. They each leave almost everything behind, carrying with them only a few artefacts of their lives so far — possessions that have proven so formative that they can’t imagine surviving without them — but also the accumulated memories of their own lives and family histories. Noah, who was taught to read using road maps during a life of nomadic travels with his mother — their home being a 1966 Bonneville station wagon with a silver trailer — decides to leave the prairies for university in Montreal. But putting down roots there turns out to be a more transitory experience than he expected. Joyce, stifled by life in a remote village on Quebec’s Lower North Shore, and her overbearing relatives, hitches a ride into Montreal, spurred on by a news story about a modern-day cyber-pirate and the spirit of her own buccaneer ancestors. While her daily existence remains surprisingly routine —working at a fish shop in Jean-Talon market, dumpster-diving at night for necessities — it’s her Internet piracy career that takes off. And then there’s the unnamed narrator, who we first meet clearing out his deceased mother’s house on Montreal’s South Shore, and who decides to move into the city to start a new life. There he finds his true home among books, content to spend his days working in a used bookstore and journeying though the many worlds books open up for him. It is in the magical accumulation of those details around the edges of their lives that we begin to know these individuals as part of a greater whole, and ultimately realize that anchors aren’t at all permanent, really; rather, they’re made to be hoisted up and held in reserve until their strength is needed again.

Also featured in the debate was The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy

In the Chinatown of 1940s Vancouver, three children of Chinese immigrant parents nurture dreams of making their own mark on the world around them. Jung-Sum is an adopted son who fights in the boxing ring - and wrestles with uncertainty about his own sexual identity. Jook-Liang dreams of escaping the confines of tradition to become the next Shirley Temple, and Sekky, the youngest child, surprises the rest of the family with his own quiet wisdom. Wayson Choy's Chinatown is a community of unforgettable individuals who are “neither this nor that,” neither entirely Canadian nor Chinese. But with each other's help, they survive hardship and heartbreak with grit and humour.

I Love My New Journal! Or, Get Out of Here Moleskine!

I'm always looking for a really great journal, so was psyched when a publishing representative recently introduced me to the Ecosystems line. I have been a tried and true Moleskine journal owner for years, but now things have changed.

My hardcover "author" journal is beautiful; just came in yesterday. It's chunkier than a Moleskine, but the pages are brighter, tear-away, and there's a neat feature I didn't know about. Every Ecosystem journal has a code inside where you can log-on to their website, enter the code, and see a breakdown of the recycled materials used for that particular book. It tells you where everything was made, from the boards and ink to the ribbon bookmark and elastic band holdy thing.

In truth, when I first saw an Ecosystem journal; he was a little green number; I thought "Oh, a Moleskine knock-off, how charming" and now I think that Ecosystem has taken a basic, necessary design and perfected it.

Ecosystems come in different colours--lagoon, watermelon, clementine, kiwi, onyx--different sizes--large and small, possibly also extra large (I'll have a look-see)--and page formats--do you need lines or a blank slate?

And we now have a selection of different styles and colours in the store, so come down and have a browse. Or check out their website; I'll order whatever book you connect with. You won't look back.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With a mandate to protect the environment, ecosystem journals, planners, and notebooks were developed with only 100% post-consumer recycled paper. In fact, by using this paper in 2009, ecosystem will have saved* 3,046 full-grown trees, 1,299,751 gallons of water and 283,974 pounds of greenhouse gases. Every component that makes up an ecosystem book has been researched to ensure the most environmentally friendly materials or production methods are being used. And because the product is completely made in the US, its ecological footprint is minimized (shipping between shorter distances) and paper suppliers confirm all paper used is 100% post-consumer recycled fiber.

Mandy

More CBC Canada Reads

Whoops - I meant to add this to the last post...

So we are almost done for the count with Canada Reads - today and tomorrow will decide which book our country should all read and bond over. Here are profiles of the two titles that have been kicked off of the list:

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

Set largely in a Cape Breton coal mining community called New Waterford, ranging through four generations, Ann-Marie MacDonald’s dark, insightful and hilarious first novel focuses on the Piper sisters and their troubled relationship with their father, James. At the start of the 20th century, James Piper sets fire to his dead mother’s piano and heads out across Cape Breton Island to find a new place to live, eventually eloping with 13-year-old Materia Mahmoud, the daughter of wealthy, traditional Lebanese parents. And so, from early on, Ann-Marie MacDonald establishes some major themes: racial tension, isolation, passion and forbidden love, which will gradually lead to incest, death in childbirth, and even murder. At the centre of this epic story is the nature of family love, beginning with the Piper sister who depend on one another for survival.

Generation X by Douglas Coupland

An acclaimed salute to the generation born in the late 1950s and 1960s — a generation known vaguely up to then as "twentysomething." Andy, Claire, and Dag, each in their twenties, have quit "pointless jobs done grudgingly to little applause" in their respective hometowns and cut themselves adrift on the California desert. In search of the drastic changes that will lend meaning to their lives, they've mired themselves in the detritus of American cultural memory. Refugees from history, the three develop an ascetic regime of story-telling, boozing, and working McJobs — "low-pay, low-prestige, low-benefit, no-future jobs in the service industry." They create modern fables of love and death among the cosmetic surgery parlors and cocktail bars of Palm Springs, disturbingly funny tales of nuclear waste, historical overdosing, and mall culture. A dark snapshot of the trio's highly fortressed inner world quickly emerges — landscapes peopled with dead TV shows, "Elvis moments," and semi-disposable Swedish furniture. And from these landscapes, deeper portraits emerge, those of fanatically independent individuals, pathologically ambivalent about the future and brimming with unsatisfied longings for permanence, for love, and for their own home. Andy, Dag, and Claire are underemployed, overeducated, intensely private, and unpredictable. Like the group they mirror, they have nowhere to assuage their fears, and no culture to replace their anomie.

Women & CBC

More Books For Women

Things I've Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi

We loved this book, read more HERE

I Am Nujood by Nujood Ali

“I’m a simple village girl who has always obeyed the orders of my father and brothers. Since forever, I have learned to say yes to everything. Today I have decided to say no.” Forced by her father to marry a man three times her age, young Nujood Ali was sent away from her parents and beloved sisters and made to live with her husband and his family in an isolated village in rural Yemen. There she suffered daily from physical and emotional abuse by her mother-in-law and nightly at the rough hands of her spouse. Flouting his oath to wait to have sexual relations with Nujood until she was no longer a child, he took her virginity on their wedding night. She was only ten years old.Unable to endure the pain and distress any longer, Nujood fled—not for home, but to the courthouse of the capital, paying for a taxi ride with a few precious coins of bread money. When a renowned Yemeni lawyer heard about the young victim, she took on Nujood’s case and fought the archaic system in a country where almost half the girls are married while still under the legal age. Since their unprecedented victory in April 2008, Nujood’s courageous defiance of both Yemeni customs and her own family has attracted a storm of international attention. Her story even incited change in Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries, where underage marriage laws are being increasingly enforced and other child brides have been granted divorces.

The Caged Virgin by Ayann Hirsi Ali

Muslims who explore sources of morality other than Islam are threatened with death, and Muslim women who escape the virgins' cage are branded whores. So asserts Ayaan Hirsi Ali's profound meditation on Islam and the role of women, the rights of the individual, the roots of fanaticism, and Western policies toward Islamic countries and immigrant communities. Hard-hitting, outspoken, and controversial, The Caged Virgin is a call to arms for the emancipation of women from a brutal religious and cultural oppression and from an outdated cult of virginity. It is a defiant call for clear thinking and for an Islamic Enlightenment. But it is also the courageous story of how Hirsi Ali herself fought back against everyone who tried to force her to submit to a traditional Muslim woman's life and how she became a voice of reform.

A Woman Among Warlords by Malalai Joya

Malalai Joya has been called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan." At a constitutional assembly in Kabul in 2003, she stood up and denounced her country's powerful NATO-backed warlords. She was twenty-five years old. Two years later, she became the youngest person elected to Afghanistan's new Parliament. In 2007, she was suspended from Parliament for her persistent criticism of the warlords and drug barons and their cronies. She has survived four assassination attempts to date, is accompanied at all times by armed guards, and sleeps only in safe houses.
Often compared to democratic leaders such as Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi, this extraordinary young woman was raised in the refugee camps of Iran and Pakistan. Inspired in part by her father's activism, Malalai became a teacher in secret girls' schools, holding classes in a series of basements. She hid her books under her burqa so the Taliban couldn't find them. She also helped establish a free medical clinic and orphanage in her impoverished home province of Farah. The endless wars of Afghanistan have created a generation of children without parents. Like so many others who have lost people they care about, Malalai lost one of her orphans when the girl's family members sold her into marriage.
While many have talked about the serious plight of women in Afghanistan, Malalai Joya takes us inside the country and shows us the desperate dayto-day situations these remarkable people face at every turn. She recounts some of the many acts of rebellion that are helping to change the country -- the women who bravely take to the streets in peaceful protest against their oppression; the men who step forward and claim "I am her mahram," so the fundamentalists won't punish a woman for walking alone; and the families that give their basements as classrooms for female students.
A controversial political figure in one of the most dangerous places on earth, Malalai Joya is a hero for our times, a young woman who refused to be silent, a young woman committed to making a difference in the world, no matter the cost.

Undateable?

Undateable: 311 Things Guys Do That Guarantee They Won't Be Dating or Having Sex

From the Publisher:

SHIRT: SPORTS JERSEY.
JEANS: EMBELLISHED.
HAIR: OVERLY GELLED.
STATUS: UNDATEABLE.

Did your date show up wearing socks with sandals? Are tighty-whities a deal-breaker for you? Do fanny packs make you want to run for the door? Now, for the very first time, we’re revealing the secret list of things that so many perfectly eligible guys manage to wear, say, or do to make themselves completely undateable.

With an essential rating system that ranges from minor red-flag offenses all the way to the irreversible kiss of death, this hilarious handbook exposes the many common mistakes that can turn an otherwise acceptable man from a “maybe” into a “no way.” From pleated shorts and soul patches to ordering girly drinks and owning more than one cat, the evidence is painfully funny to behold.

No more double denim, corporate swag, or exclaiming “Booya!” No more jogging in place at stoplights, and definitely no more “going dutch” on the first date. This book is for every woman who’s ever wondered where to draw the line, and every guy who’s ever asked, “What did I do wrong?” Here’s what you did.

You've gotta love the cover!

Mandy

International Women's Day

is today! This marks the 99th anniversary of a day celebrating women, feminisim and equal rights. Words Worth has put together a great display of books in our window. Here are some of the titles that we think you should read (we will be reviewing different books all week):



The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner

"Anger is a signal and one worth listening to," writes Dr. Harriet Lerner, in her renowned classic that has transformed the lives of millions of readers.While anger deserves our attention and respect, women still learn to silence our anger, to deny it entirely, or to vent it in a way that leaves us feeling helpless and powerless. In this engaging and eminently wise book, Dr. Lerner teaches women to identify the true sources of our anger and to use anger as a powerful vehicle for creating lasting change

Women of Courage by Katherine Martin

Forty women - including Marianne Williamson, Isabel Allende, Dana Reeve, Anita Roddick, Mary Pipher, Judith Orloff, Judy Chicago, and Brooke Medicine Eagle - describe life-altering moments in which they had to rely on their own inner resources to conquer challenges and find strength and wisdom. "The women in this book," says actress Sharon Stone about Women of Courage, "push against the grain, defy complacency, and reach for their dreams. That alone is remarkable, but more remarkable still is that they do it for the good of others. In that, they inspire us all to speak and live from our hearts."

The Power of Women by Susan Nolen-Hoeksema

Women are extraordinarily hard on themselves. They scrutinize their flaws, asking "Am I a good lover? A good mother? Successful in my career?" They get preoccupied with ways they do not measure up, twisting themselves into knots to fix problems no one else can see. The latest book from award-winning and bestselling psychologist Susan Nolen- Hoeksema shows women how to break this cycle—by discovering and utilizing their unique psychological strengths.
Infidel by Ayann Hirsi AliIn this profoundly affecting memoir, Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells her astonishing life story, from her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her intellectual awakening and activism in the Netherlands, and her current life under armed guard in the West.One of today's most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan Hirsi Ali burst into international headlines following an Islamist's murder of her colleague, Theo van Gogh, with whom she made the movie Submission.

________________________________________________________________

Today is the start of the Canada Reads program on CBC radio.
You can hear the show at 11:30am and 7:30pm on CBC radio one.
Simi Sara is defending Good to A Fault by Marina Endicott
Absorbed in her own failings, Clara Purdy crashes her life into a sharp left turn, taking the young family in the other car along with her. When bruises on the mother, Lorraine, prove to be late-stage cancer, Clara—against all habit and comfort—moves the three children and their terrible grandmother into her own house. We know what is good, but we don't do it. In Good to a Fault, Clara decides to give it a try, and then has to cope with the consequences: exhaustion, fury, hilarity, and unexpected love. But she must question her own motives. Is she acting out of true goodness, or out of guilt? Most shamefully, has she taken over simply because she wants the baby for her own? What do we owe in this life, and what do we deserve? This compassionate, funny, and fiercely intelligent novel looks at life and death through grocery-store reading glasses: being good, being at fault, and finding some balance on the precipice.

*Things I've Been Silent About* by Azar Nafisi

Professor Nafisi’s follow up to her remarkable
memoir, Reading Lolita In Tehran reveals the back
story of her parents lives and the history of twentieth
century Iran. Radical changes in the lives of Iranian
women from the time of her grandmother’s era in the
early 1900s to her daughter’s adolescence in the 1980s
goes full circle from strict religious observance and
segregation to educational and occupational
freedoms and back again. Yet as any reader of her
previous work knows, Nafisi weaves personal
narratives, social history and the study of literature
into an extremely intelligent and insightful fabric that
will inform you in ways so personal you will be
mesmerized.

Via North 49.

Chuck's February Reading

Despite the distractions from Vancouver, I got through several books in February.

Here's what I learned:

Making Toast - that grieving is about caring for the living

IOU - that what we don't know about financial instruments can drive us into bankruptcy

An Altar in the World - that you can meditate without a consistent prayer life

Where the Gods of Love Hang Out - that love is messy

The Bread of Angels - that the darkest hour is just before dawn

Making Toast (HarperCollins $25.99) is a memoir by the author and playwright Roger Rosenblatt about coping with their daughter's death. Roger and his wife Ginny move in with their son-in-law and three young grandchildren following the sudden death of their daughter, a surgeon in her thirties. Roger is responsible for rising early and making toast for the family, a six-year-old girl and two boys, four- and one-years old. Their father, Harris, is also a surgeon. All of them are broken-hearted and struggling to carry on: making meals, driving to lessons and play dates, doing laundry, packing lunches, getting through the day. Roger is not an emotional or sentimental guy. He approaches his daily tasks with humility and takes pleasure in sharing time and stories with his grandkids. He continues to teach one day a week at a college some five hours away. I was touched when he mentioned driving through a stop sign as a clue to his grief-muddled mind. (I'd done the same thing recently.)

I.O.U. (why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay, M&S, $32.99) is by the novelist John Lanchester. He was dismayed to the point of anger by the economic meltdown starting in fall 2008 and sets out to uncover how it happened. His lack of an economist's background is to the reader's benefit. If he can't make sense of the financial derivatives that added trillions to the instant shuffling of worldwide investments, then, just maybe, those derivatives were way too risky. This is why governments and their central banks were also sucked in. Bubbles are ever with us.

Barbara Brown Taylor was an Episcopalian priest who stepped down from the ministry (as described in Leaving Church). An Altar in the World (HarperOne $16.99) continues her spiritual journey, beginning with her pulling down the barriers between organized religion and spirituality. Each chapter is an answer to the question she was asked by an Alabaman priest whose church she was asked to preach to: "Come tell us what is saving your life now?" The practice of being present in the natural world and with other humans is part of her answer, but also learning to say no, to feel pain, to set aside a Sabbath each week, and finally the practice of giving blessings, all figure in this map of faith.

Amy Bloom is the only fiction I tackled last month. I'm a fan of Away, the story of a Jewish immigrant to New York in the 1890s whose odyssey takes her across America and up to Alaska in an attempt to return to Russia and the daughter she left behind. Where the God of Love Hangs Out (Random House $29.95) is set in modern day and consists of two groups of short stories each focused on a different couple. Clare is married to Charles but is drawn to their longtime friend William, even though she and his wife Isabel are also friends. Their affair will end in two divorces but middle-aged love involves aging bodies: William suffers from gout, and Clare breaks her ankle. The second group of stories focuses on the parents of a girl who barely survives a bout of flesh-eating disease, her social worker and doctors. Bloom has a breath-taking ability to convey feelings between her characters with a stark minimum of description.

I discovered Stephanie Saldana's The Bread of Angels (Doubleday $29.95) via this book trailer. This woman in her late twenties spends the year 2004 in Damascus on a Fulbright fellowship. She has come to study Arabic and the role of Jesus in Islam. It's a rough year, not just her culture shock and the anti-Americanism due to the Iraq War, but also her own broken heart and spiritual confusion. She spends a month in a monastery undergoing the grueling spiritual exercises of Ignatius. She emerges with a conviction to become a nun but this certainty evaporates when she returns home to her Texan family for Christmas. Back in Damascus she is sick but resumes her studies, working with a sheikha (female cleric) to discover the enchanting Arabic poetry of the Quran, and returns to the monastery, where she falls in love. This is from a passage where she contrasts the Muslim and Christian version of the Virgin Mary story:

Every time I discover two different versions of a story, in the end I ask myself, What is the story that I want to contain? For the early monks believed that there is no such a thing as story - we each meet the text, and who we are and the text together in a unique event. We change for it and it changes for us, the act of reading becoming an essential way of transforming ourselves. We can only bring to the text what is inside of ourselves - even if the story is a story of death, if we contain life, we will find life.

Conclusion: life, not to mention love and grief, is messy. Bless this mess.

[a shorter version of this review appeared in the Waterloo Region Record on Sat., March 6, 2010] You can follow Chuck on Facebook and Twitter.