Indian Horse

Indian Horse

By Richard Wagamese

Lately I have been fascinated by Canadian First Nations writers, and the writing of Richard Wagamese shimmers.  Indian Horse is the story of Saul Indian Horse, an Ojibway from northern Ontario.  His life is marred by the horrors of the residential schools, which systematically separated children from families and tore the heart out of generations of First Nations people.

After Saul’s siblings are forced into one such school, his family retreats into the bush.  Gods Lake is a place where the spirit world and physical world meet, and there Saul discovers that he is capable of visions and communion with his ancestors.  His revelations begin an emotional journey to discover his own identity.

Eventually forced to retreat from the bush as winter approaches, Saul finds himself, tragically, in the very place his family was trying to avoid – the residential school.  There Saul witnesses abuse of every kind, as well as the suicides of a number of children.  He goes into survival mode, caring only for himself. 

Yet hope arrives unexpectedly, as the new priest, Father Leboutillier, introduces the students to hockey which quickly becomes the focus of the novel.  Using his ability to “see beyond”, Saul becomes an incredible player.  In scenes of striking beauty, he abandons himself to the game and lifts himself, if only momentarily, into the spiritual realm.

Soon he is taken in by a family on a reserve and joins the local hockey team.  As his hockey prowess grows, Saul begins to identify less as a victim, or a child torn from his family, and more as an athlete.  But identity is constructed of self-perception as well as the perceptions of others.  In the hockey world he experiences the reality of being an Indian in a white world, subject to the bigotry and hatred of the ruling class.  He becomes progressively angry, drinking to quash the pain of racism and the legacy of the residential school that still haunts him.

From the grace and freedom brought on by the game of hockey to the sadness and despair of the residential school, Richard Wagamese’s Indian Horse vividly presents the emotional highs and lows of growing up Native in 1960s Canada.

City of the Lost by Kelley Armstrong

City of the Lost
by Kelley Armstrong

Murders, cannibals, and the gorgeous Canadian wilderness, Kelley Armstrong really knows the way to my heart.  I always get a little giddy when Armstrong releases a new book because I know that more often than not, I would like if not love whatever she writes. I really liked City of the Lost. It’s a great mystery with enough twists that had me guessing until the last page and the right amount of suspense that kept me reading well into the early hours of the morning.  

City of the Lost is the first of a new series and follows the story of Casey Duncan, a talented and relentless police detective with a dark secret. 

She once killed a man and got away with it.  

Casey knows that one day her mistake will come back to haunt her, so the only things she allows herself to care about are her job and her best friend Diana. Then there is Kurt. And what starts as a non-string attached relationship suddenly has the potential to become much more. Then on the same night, Diana is attacked by her abusive ex-husband and the past finally catches with Casey in the form of a bullet with her name on it.  

Both women need to run away and fast. Diana knows just the place: Rockton. A mythical town built way up north where people that don't want to be found can hide and be safe. At first, Casey doesn't believe the town really exists, but it turns out that it does and the town council will take them in.  

There is one catch, though.  

Recently, the town has been terrorized by a series of brutal murders. Could it be that victims' past finally caught up to them or is it something more nefarious going on? Could it be one of their own preying on the town habitants or some of the strange wild things that lurk in the forest and mountains that surround them? Gruff and surly, Dalton, the town sheriff is naturally suspicious of newcomers and more so of Casey. However, as much as he resents her help, he needs it or Rockton would be truly lost. 

I recommend this book for people that enjoy suspenseful mysteries and stories set in remote locations in nature.  Fans of Mo Hayder and Robert Galbraith will not be disappointed.   

Murder in the Mystery Suite

Murder in the mystery suite

By Ellery Adams

I picked up this book on the recommendation of a friend. She told me that I would love the setting of this mystery novel. Well she was more than right! Set in the countryside near a quaint town is the hotel of every library employees dreams. The resort hotel of Storyton Hall is filled with a variety of libraries. A getaway for lovers of the written word; Storyton Hall offers quiet reading nooks and exquisite tea services to its guests. The opening chapter describes the manager of the hotel, Jane Steward, climbing the rolling ladder of my dreams to run her hands over old copies of leather and linen bound books. With the whimsical descriptions by author Ellery Adams I could almost smell the ink and bindings.

Jane Steward needs to boost business in order to make some much needed repairs on her beloved hotel. She is inspired by a first edition Agatha Christie to host a "Murder and Mayhem" week of activities at the hotel. This murder mystery inspired week brings in many guests and the hotel gets their much needed bookings. All is going well until one of the guests, a unique character by the name of Felix Hampden, shows up dead in the Mystery Suite after winning a copy of a prized rare book.

The story unfolds with Jane doing her best to maintain composure in front of the other guests. Will the mystery be solved before more people pop up dead in her hotel? Let's hope so because I could love to book a stay at this dreamy sounding hotel. Pick up a copy of Murder in the Mystery Suite today in our Mystery Paperback section at your nearest branch or check it out in streaming audio through Hoopla.

Thing Explainer

by Randall Munroe

Sometimes we find things in the world that are hard to understand, especially things that are very hard to build or that are made of lots of little parts.  This book by Randall Munroe called Thing Explainer helps make these hard things easier to get.  What makes this book (and this group of words that you are reading now) special is that it only uses the 1000 most used words.  Sometimes this make for a strange reading time: when the thing he is explaining is computers, human bodies, or things that people use to fly in the sky, the writer has to find new ways to explain exactly what he is trying to say. It can be very hard to do.

Why does Munroe do this? It forces him to come up with the most simple way to explain things in the easiest words he can find that almost everybody would know.  To show what I mean, I have to break his simple-writing law for a minute*: There is a part about human organs.  He must talk about the liver and kidneys so he calls them "blood cleaners".  The heart's job is made easier to understand by calling it the blood pusher. Everybody knows what a stomach is, but how can it be explained?  Using the normal words you would say "digestion" and "bacteria".  Here he has to call the stomach parts "food hallway" and what helps break down your food "the living things inside you".

This book is made up mostly of his simple explainers and the drawings that go with them.  Randall Munroe's main job is drawing funny pictures about the world on computers. 

Is it any good?  The truth is that it does get a bit tiring: sometimes the simple words are too simple. I had trouble sometimes trying to figure out what he means about some ideas.  Still, the idea is interesting enough. You don't have to read it from front to back. Just look at what interest you and you'll have a good time. One note: it looks like a kids’ book, but it's not.  It's really meant for anybody people interested in the how world works.

*Words I used that are not in the top 1000: Randall, Munroe, organs, liver, kidneys, digestion & bacteria.

Undermajordomo Minor

by Patrick deWitt

Patrick deWitt’s Undermajordomo Minor is a strange book. But wait, don’t put it away- it’s the good kind of strange, the type that makes you marvel at deWitt’s imagination while attempting to make sense of the world into which he’s dropped you. The titular undermajordomo (the assistant to the assistant) is Lucy Minor, a lonely young man who leaves his disinterested family to take a job in the mysteriously derelict Castle Von Aux. Lucy is a pathological liar, a coward and not well liked in his small town- we meet him when he’s sickly and half-dead, yet his parents don’t care.

deWitt’s language is reminiscent of surreal fairy tales and his characters surprise you at almost every turn- none of the characters behave exactly as you’d expect. They are based on clear stereotypes: young hero, elderly assistant, aloof baron, gruff cook, etc., but deWitt throws enough curveballs for even the most blasé reader. Though the novel’s basic plot is an adventurous coming of age story, it creeps toward that genre’s conventions only to twist away at the last second; the book is full of both a certain sweet wistfulness and a despairing darkness.  Paragraphs are short, and often break off into side stories of minor characters. It wasn’t clear or obvious where the story would eventually end up. Both dialogue and description are fast-paced and witty, giving the novel a snappy quality that never undersells its intelligence. The elderly majordomo, Mr. Olderglough, is brilliantly portrayed and his weirdly warm conversations with Lucy give the novel much of its charm. 

The novel offers no easy ending, no clear resolution, and maintains a tension throughout even its funniest moments. I’ll definitely be checking out deWitt’s prior novels, especially the critically acclaimed The Sister Brothers (I’ve already put it on hold), and I suspect I have a new writer to add to my list of favourites. If you like fairy tale humour or just general eccentricity, this is an excellent choice for you.

A Man Called Ove

A Man Called Ove by Fredril Backman

I've been reading way too many sad and woeful books lately, and I wanted to read something funny and light for a change. So I picked up A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, mainly because the back cover promised a “funny, moving, heartwarming tale of love and community that will leave you with a spring in your step”. It was all that and much, much more.

Ove is a grumpy man of 59, which to me isn't old, but he certainly read like a much older man. He is someone who believes that there is a right and a wrong way to do things, and he can’t understand why anyone would not take the time to do things right. He never misses a chance to point this out to people.  

Forced into early retirement, Ove feels lost with having his days suddenly and unexpectedly empty from his work routine. Ove is a man of routines: he wakes up at the same time every day, has the same breakfast, and goes through the same inspection tour around the neighbourhood. 

Then one day everything changes.

During his routine inspection, Ove meets a cat with half a tail and only one ear. They instantly dislike each other.  That same day, a family moves in next door and they manage to back up a trailer against Ove’s house. The cat and the family soon become constant features in Ove’s life much against his protests. Everywhere he turns, there they are. They pop up in his lawn, his kitchen, and even his beloved blue Saab.

By all accounts, Ove shouldn't be a likeable character. He is an inflexible, bitter and angry man who is skeptical about everything and everyone, but he is also hilarious, unexpectedly sweet, and extremely noble. Behind his cranky exterior there is a story of love, sadness and loss. Backman slowly peels away the layers of what makes Ove who he is in such a way that it is impossible not to be utterly charmed by this most uncharming character.

I closed A Man Called Ove with the profound sadness of a reader who knows there might never be another book quite as marvellous as this one.  I recommend this book to people who enjoyed The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. 

1001 Recipes You've Always Wanted to Cook

1001 Recipes You've Always Wanted to Cook

Collins & Brown; Edited by Heather Brown 

When I have the time, I love to cook and although I already have hundreds of cookbooks on my shelf at home (no, seriously!) I continue to be attracted to new cookbooks and new recipes to try.  Most recently, I had the delicious pleasure of borrowing 1001 Recipes You've Always Wanted to Cook, edited by Heather Brown. This book actually contained 1001 recipes I’ve always wanted to cook!

A feature I like when I am using a new recipe is having a photo of the finished product. I like to know what the dish is supposed to look like, mainly so I can tell as I go along, whether things are going well or not! This book has great colour photos of many of the dishes, which add to their mouth-watering goodness. Another attractive feature of the recipes is their multi-unit measurements. Each recipe offers you measurements in imperial (pounds, ounces, cups, pints), and metric (grams, millilitres).

This cookbook is a UK publication, but has been “Americanized” in that although the recipes in it are some good old home cooking favourites I grew up with in the UK, there’s not a lot of the UK language in the ingredients, and when it is used, a definition is offered. For example, “minced beef” is clarified as “ground beef” and “courgettes” as “zucchini.”

I jumped right into this easy to use book and had such success with the recipes (broccoli and goat cheese soup, green beans and almonds, chicken enchiladas….) that I bought the book!

This book is enhanced by its versatility and thriftiness. You won’t need to spend a fortune to try these creations. The ingredients are not too out of the ordinary and chances are you have most of them in your pantry, ready to be turned into a great new dish to impress your family and friends!

For other popular reading suggestions check out Richmond Public Library's Web site at www.yourlibrary.ca/goodbooks/.