EVEN DOGS IN THE WILD

Ian Rankin. EVEN DOGS IN THE WILD. 2015.

Rebus is retired and consults on a case involving Big Ger and historic crime. Drives to Ullapool & stops to visit daughter and granddaughter. 

SEVEN FALLEN FEATHERS

Tanya Talaga. SEVEN FALLEN FEATHERS: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City. Anansi, 2017.

An incredible account of the loss of seven students from Northern Ontario attending high school in Thunder Bay. Precedes the inquiry about the TB police and police board. 

COVENTRY

Helen Humphreys. COVENTRY. HarperCollins, 2008.

A story of Harriet and Maeve who meet at the beginning of WWI and reconnect the night Coventry is bombed. I felt as if I were right there with them. Yeats' "terrible beauty". 

THE SACRED HEADWATERS

Wade Davis. The SACRED HEADWATERS: The Fight to Save the Stikine, Skeena, and Nass. Greystone, 2011.

I cheated a little on this coffee table book, reading only the photographs and captions. I am a great fan of Wade Davis' writing and this is local to British Columbia. 

HEART BERRIES

Terese Marie Mailhot. HEART BERRIES: A Memoir. Doubleday, Canada, 2018.

December 15, 2018. I read this memoir a second time, as the writing is so dense, like poetry, with every word and phrase needing to be attended to. Very brave. And complicated. The dual and triple diagnoses, with mental illness complicated by racism and obsession. Anxiety-producing in that the reader worries/hopes the writer is well now. 

I was watching more closely this time for the subtle cultural references of Little Mountain Woman who goes to the river and the desert. 

STARLIGHT

Richard Wagamese. STARLIGHT. M & S, 2018. 

An unfinished novel by the late Richard Wagamese. This is one of those books that you do not want to end, because you do not want to leave that place, and because you wish to hold off the intrusion of evil for as long as you possibly can. The way the publisher has chosen to finish the story makes it seem very modern, allowing the reader to participate, to choose, using biography and creative non-fiction as source material to add to the existing infrastructure. I also enjoy the poetic musings on nature and on art (Frank Starlight is a photographer.) 

JAPJEE

Khushwant Singh. JAPJEE: Sikh Morning Prayer. Picus, 1999.

Beautiful book of prayers in original and translation, with an intro to Sikh faith and bio of Guru Nanak. 

EARTH ALWAYS ENDURES

Philip, Neil (selections) & Curtis, E.S. (photographs). EARTH ALWAYS ENDURES: Native American Poems. Viking, 1996.

A wonderful gift of iconic photographs accompanying words from rituals and occasions. 

ALL MY PUNY SORROWS

November 23, 2018. 

Miriam Toews. ALL MY PUNY SORROWS. The narrator's sister Elfrieda, a world-renowned concert pianist, has lost her will to live. I love Toews' writing. So convincing, it is hard to acknowledge that it is fiction. Set in Winnipeg and Toronto. 

GLASS HOUSES

November 4, 2018.

Louise Penny. GLASS HOUSES. St. Martin's Press, 2017. An Inspector Gamache mystery, about the hooded cobrador haunting Three Pines, the mystery of who the target is, and the banality of evil. 

MEDICINE WALK

October 31, 2018

Richard Wagamese. MEDICINE WALK. M & S, 2014.

Hawthorne Book Club selection. The first time we have all liked the same book. I love the underlying theme -- that story is medicine.