THE REINVENTION OF LOVE

 Helen Humphreys. The REINVENTION of LOVE. HarperCollins, 2011. 

A young writer and reviewer, Sainte-Beuve, has an affair with Victor Hugo's wife Adele. In 19th century Paris plus the aftermath, on Guernsey and in Halifax, NS. 

This is the fifth Helen Humphreys novel I have read: Coventry, The Lost Garden, The Evening Chorus, Rabbit Foot Bill, and The Reinvention of Love. 

RABBIT FOOT BILL

Helen Humphreys. RABBIT FOOT BILL. Harper Collins, 2020.

Found this at MCC thrift store. I've read 3 others by HH, a Canadian writer, and her poetry book, The Perils of Geography. Set in Saskatchewan in 1947 and 1959, when the narrator, Leonard Flint, goes to work at the Weyburn Mental Hospital, for his first job as a psychiatrist.

A GEOGRAPHY OF BLOOD

Candace Savage. A GEOGRAPHY OF BLOOD: UNEARTHING MEMORY from a PRAIRIE LANDSCAPE. Greystone, 2012.

She is shocked by her own lack of knowledge. She uses the term "incomer" rather than settler or newcomer. She goes out from Eastend seeking stories. Wallace Stegner. Chimney Coulee. Trex centre. Fort Walsh. Cyprus Hills and surroundings. I made notes. I found several useful bits to apply to my WIP, Flying Backwards.

DANIEL MARTIN

 John Fowles. DANIEL MARTIN. Collins, 1977.

Re-read this old novel for about the 3rd or 4th time and wrote about it on my Substack newsletter, One Lonely Writer. The final scene ends here, at this Rembrandt self-portrait in Kenwood House, London. At 670 pages, I am counting this as equivalent to 3 novels read.

ELEVATOR PITCH

 Linwood Barclay. ELEVATOR PITCH. Penguin, Random House, Doubleday, 2019.

Found a good copy in a thrift store. I do not often choose this writer because I find his stories just too scary. This one, not too bad. 3 or 4 gory scenes, and a plot designed to make me never step into an elevator again, but...The plot kept me reading fast. Mother-daughter protagonists kept me cheering. The father/son conflicts were sadly believable. And the karma coming to a cruel politician, well, yes, bring it on.  

The ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE

 Diane Ackerman. The ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE: A War Story. Norton, 2007. 

Our book club selection for July. Not a title I would have chosen, but well worth a read. About Nazi occupation of Poland, as told from the perspective of Antonina, the wife of Jan Zabinski, keeper of the Warsaw Zoo. Excerpts from Antonina's diary made me wish I were reading it rather than snippets. But it is also true that reader needs the context supplied by the journalist writer's research into the people who come into the family's life, including those who caused such destruction of the animal and human lives. Jan is working with the Polish Resistance, the Underground, while Antonina looks after the children and the guests hiding in plain sight or not, amongst the regular staff working in the zoo. Details of the revolt and massacre in the Warsaw Ghetto. Glimpses into the horrendous uncertainty of those trying to survive under a murderous regime. I was happy to learn more of the Polish details and customs, of the good people like Antonina, a Catholic, helping out Jewish neighbours simply because it was the right thing to do. I could not help thinking of the people living under similar conditions today, in Gaza, in the USA, pursued by government forces, incarcerated without rights, shipped elsewhere to die.

LUNA

 Sharon Butala. LUNA. Harper, 1988.

Enjoyed reading this story of the lives of women in rural Saskatchewan at the end of the 20th century. Although the emphasis on community feels a bit romanticized, and the emphasis on the inability to make a living in agriculture is a bit dismal, the variety of reactions from the variety of women, of all ages, is enlightening. As is the unimaginative, often dismissive attitude of the men towards their wives and daughters and the assumption that only the man makes the decisions.

I did feel that the cramped format of the book was rushed and did not do the novel justice. It seemed to lack room to breathe or space to pause and take stock. The plot about an unplanned teen pregnancy made me even more glad to have matured after the invention of the pill although I do agree with one of the narrator's points, that even when we know, many important truths are not transmitted from one generation to the next in time, before it is too late. Another kind of cultural failure.

The descriptions of the natural setting are achingly beautiful. 

Found this copy in the bargain bins outside the Bookman.