THE FLAME

Leonard Cohen. THE FLAME: Poems & Selections from Notebooks. M&S, 2018.

A great way to end the year and the decade. While listening to another gift: Thanks for the Dance. 

He concludes with "thank you" to the troubled young man who taught him the chords. 

He ends with "a mandate from God / to enter the dark". 

I shall remember his "no longer inclined / to speak the truth // speak truth to power? / rather / speak truth / to the powerless."

And his "I Pray for Courage" p. 87.

THE WOUNDED HEALER

Henri J.M. Nouwen. The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society. Doubleday, 1972/2010. 

Interesting examples of counselling the sick and dying. The examples stress the importance of repeating what you hear and also the importance of listening for the feelings what may lie beneath the silences or even beneath the words. Also many examples of making bad assumptions, failing to connect with the underlying humanity of the person needing comfort. 

I like the Carl Rogers quote: p. 79. Artists and poets who express what is unique to them = what is most likely to resonate with others. 

ISLANDS OF DECOLONIAL LOVE

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. ISLANDS of DECOLONIAL LOVE. Arp, 2015.

Found this at a library booksale, possibly Abbotsford. Incredible work. I will read it again. I will seek out the audio on line. 

A GREENING of IMAGINATIONS

Herbert O'Driscoll. A GREENING of IMAGINATIONS: WALKING the SONGLINES of HOLY SCRIPTURE. 2019.

Found this in Munro's Book Store after visiting Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria, BC. I have previously enjoyed this Victoria writer's earlier publication about his growing up in Ireland. I may even have written him a fan letter. I must re-read that; I think it is shelved in my sacred texts bookshelf. 

This one is also very interesting. A re-telling of New Testament stories as if from the eyes, the voices of witnesses. A few imagined letters. Seems to be inspired, in-spirited, by actually living there and walking the roads. 

I would suggest that the title is too heavy for the book which simply asks readers to feel, to imagine how it felt to be there, to have been a witness. And to recognize that the same presence is felt, the same feelings experienced today. 

I do love the cover.

77 FRAGMENTS OF A FAMILIAR RUIN

Thomas King. 77 FRAGMENTS OF A FAMILIAR RUIN: Poems. Harper Collins, 2019.

A Christmas gift. I absolutely love it. 

THE BRUTAL TELLING

Louise Penny. The BRUTAL TELLING. 2009.

One of the earlier Inspector Gamache mysteries. #4, borrowed from Anna, after her 3-box set. The title reference is to Emily Carr, her explanation of her estrangement from her father. The clue that leads Gamache to the Queen Charlottes. Another truly enjoyable read although the ending surprises me.

EAST of EDEN

John Steinbeck. EAST of EDEN. 1952.

Our Hawthorne Book Club second 600-page novel in two months. I first read this fifty years ago. I'm older now. I still love it. Family dysfunction. Culture failure. Children who just grow up on their own. Lee the only real nurturer in the bunch. Maybe Samuel Hamilton too. 

Watched the James Dean film which only tells the short final section, and makes important changes which decrease the story. For example, Cal borrows $$$ from Kate, not from Lee. 

Definitely in interesting study of a psychopathic female, and of the origins of youth trauma. 

HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST

Ibram X. Kendi. HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST. One World, 2019. + the workbook. 

I ordered these from Amazon and wanted to read them before finishing a draft of My TRC Quilt. It is very interesting. He uses memoir as a way in to define and discuss racism, along with growing up Black in America. The main message I took away is that it is not enough to just not be racist. It is necessary to actively oppose and confront racism in self and others. He also reveals the way class,stereotypes, and classism complicate the issue of racism in America.

However, as a useful tool to apply to the issues in Canada, not so much. The other message, equal respect for all, is pretty basic, but it does not help with the situation here where Indigenous peoples have a prior claim. Black Americans and other Americans are all immigrants, and Kendi does not address the question of indigenous Americans. Still, he is young and he is inspiring. 

CORDILLERA

Norbert Ruebsaat. CORDILLERA. Pulp, 1979.

I wish I had known about this book before I took a course with this writer at UCFV more than 20 years ago. I love the importance of geology to the culture, the characters, the poems. 

THE BLIND ASSASSIN

Margaret Atwood. The BLIND ASSASSIN. Seal, 2000.

Hawthorne Book Club selection for November, 2019.I thought I had read this before but it seems not. Maybe I just remember scenes from a truncated television movie. I loved the mystery of this study of Canada, Ontario, from early twentieth-century to the 1990s. The narrator, an older woman, looking back at her life, the losses--her mother in childbirth, her father to PTSD after WWI and his unhappy demise during the depression, her arranged marriage to a titan of industry, her troubled sister, her missing former lover. What is the secret underlying the family dysfunction? 

MILLE FIORI

Dale Chihuly. MILLE FIORI. 

Beautiful photographs of Chihuly's glass art gardens and his boat installations. CD included. A Rotary Book Sale find.

THE CRUELEST MONTH

Louise Penny. THE CRUELEST MONTH. 2007.

Mad dies of fright at a seance. Armand fights betrayal from his beloved friend. The near enemies -- love vs. attachment. Pity vs. compassion. Indifference vs. equanimity. This one I hadn't read. 

DEAD COLD

Louise Penny. DEAD COLD. 2006.

Lifestyle writer is electrocuted while watching outdoor curling. 

STILL LIFE

Louise Penny. STILL LIFE. 2005.

The first inspector Armand Gamache crime story. An elderly woman is killed in the woods outside Three Pines. Her paintings of the fair contain the clue. Re-reading a favourite, as part of a borrowed boxed set. 

TRUST YOUR EYES

Linwood Barclay. Trust Your Eyes. Doubleday. 2012.

Hawthorne Book Club selection for October. Often I find Barclay too scary for my enjoyment. This one was not so bad. Set in New York state. Much violence as a political tool but interest picked up as the characters became more likable. A special needs brother, an artist brother, a father dead in an accident at home, a mystery based upon an Internet image from Whirl360. 

LEXEYWA I PASS THE TORCH TO YOU

Beatrice Elaine Silver. Lexeywa I Pass the Torch to You. 2018. electromagneticprint.com

A local Sto:lo writer's memoir of her years in St. Mary's Residential School, Mission, BC.

BEOWULF

Kevin Crossley-Holland & Charles Keeping. Beowulf.

A great way to get the plot. A Geat, Beowulf, helps the Danes. Beowulf kills Grendel and Grendel's mother and is killed by the dragon years later. 

FIRESIDE STORIES

Fireside Stories: Tales for a Winter's Eve.

A great collection. KAL:yach and Bride. Babushka. 

WARLIGHT

Michael Ondaatje. Warlight.

Nathaniel and Rachel have been abandoned by their parents in London during WWII, left in the care of The Moth and his friends, The Darter. Nat's girlfriend Agnes. It turns out that the parents have separated, and that the mother, Rose, works in intelligence. Nat tries to research her career, to fill in what he does not know of her.

BALLISTICS

Billy Collins. Ballistics.

A writer friend knows this American poet laureate so I took down two volumes from my poetry section and read this one out loud to myself. I like it. I wanted to share 2. "No Things" and "Adage". 

STILL LIFE

Louise Penny. Still Life. 

A friend loaned a box set so I began to re-read Louise Penny in order. Still Life is one of the best. The first. Introduces the main characters, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy B investigating the murder of an old woman in Three Pines. Was it an accident?  Who benefits? Who fails to do as she is told and fails to learn?  

AND WISDOM COMES QUIETLY

And Wisdom Comes Quietly.

THE NATURE OF THE BEAST

Louise Penny. The Nature of the Beast.

A Hawthorne Book Club selection for September. Re-reading this classic Penny is well worth it. Once you know what happens, the details of character and plotting stand out as so impressive.
I still have two reservations about the plot. 1) the importance of paper plans to a weapon once the concept is known and models exist. 2) the description of armed guards inside a Canadian prison, and an unauthorized person escorting a dangerous prisoner out without proper authority. I think not. 
But the sub-plots. The American deserter who has created a new life and young family for himself. The mysterious CSIS agents and arms designers and sellers, some of it based on fact. The complicity of the community in years past, especially Ruth the poet who knew more than she shared. The hints of challenges to come--Jean-Guy's addiction, Armand's career path

. 

WHEN THE MUSIC'S OVER

Peter Robinson. When the Music's Over.

I was quite a ways in before realizing that I have read this one, historic sexual abuse case from the 1960s. One of my favourites, focussing on Banks' love of pop music. 

PROMISE NOT TO TELL

Jayne Ann Krentz. Promise Not To Tell.

Set in Seattle and one of the San Juan islands. The middle of a trilogy featuring children of former cult members. 

FINAL REPORT

Reclaiming Power and Place: Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and Others.

Took me a while to digest this. See My Truth and Reconciliation Quilt. 

WHOSE LAND IS IT ANYWAY

ed. Whose Land Is It Anyway? A Manual for Decolonization.

A collection of essays from a variety of Indigenous writers. Pam Palmatar's book club. 

61 HOURS

Lee Child. 61 Hours.

Another lost weekend. This is set in South Dakota, around an old missile site, in a great snowstorm. 

THE AGE OF HOPE

David Bergen. The Age of Hope.

Loaned by a friend, and then I found my own copy on my CanLit bookshelf. Enjoyed this gentle glimpse into another woman's life. Set in Steinbach and Winnipeg. Hope marries a Mennonite. Is hospitalized with post-partum depression.

THE BOY AT THE KEYHOLE

Stephen Giles. The Boy At the Keyhole. 

Another Hawthorne Book Club success. No one liked this book. The child abandonment and child neglect and child abuse were triggering. The characters, boy and caregiver, were unappealing. But discussion brought out the craft, the image of the limited POV as symbolized by the keyhole, the surprise ending made sense. Everyone chose to re-read and enjoyed it more the second time. 
Set in England. Australian author.

HATS OFF TO THE SUN

George Whipple. Hats off to the Sun. Ekstasis, 1996.

A variety celebrating the mysteries of daily life. 

THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE

Alan Bradley. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Anchor, 2009.

Hawthorne Book Club selection. My first Flavia de Luce mystery. Looking forward to more. 

THE MILLIONTH CIRCLE

Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. THE MILLIONTH CIRCLE: How to Change Ourselves and the World. Conari, 1999. 

As the cover blurb says, "The Essential Guide to Women's Circles." Positive thinking. Individual and group responsibility. 

p. 13 " ... the promise that when a critical number of people change their attitude or behavior, culture at large will change. " 

p. 40 co-dependency "If one fears to be truthful, lest feelings be hurt or punishment follows, there is codependency, Codependency and equality are incompatible."

p. 17 "Every important relationship is a universe of two. ... you are either in a circle or a hierarchy. If there is an unspoken assumption that you will defer or be subordinate and accept the other's judgment or choices in place of your own--you are living in a patriarchy of two."

p. 43 talking stick -- saying the truth with tact and kindness

p. 73 Rituals, altars, celebrations (risk of empty form) "It's not what is done, but the spirit in which it is done that makes all the difference."

p. 74 candles  "Each is a visible symbol of an invisible fire, that is spirit, soul, wisdom, illumination, heart. The fire around which we gather."

p. 88 Namaste - The divinity in me greets the divinity in thee.

CLOSE TO THE BONE

Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. CLOSE TO THE BONE: Life-Threatening Illness and the Search for Meaning. Scribner. 1996.

I love this woman's writing. Jungian psychology, mythology, and how crises can help us transform. 

PAST TENSE

May 6, 2019

Lee Child. PAST TENSE. Delacorte, 2018.

Jack Reacher finds himself in New Hampshire and decides to do a little genealogical research on the town where his father was born. Someone with the same last name owns an old motel in Ryanstown. When Reacher investigates, he finds out that the programs -- Bow Hunting Men -- offered at this stop are not your usual game. 

THE MURDER STONE

Louise Penny. THE MURDER STONE. Sphere, 2008.

Hawthorne Book Club selection for May 2019. Vintage Louise Penny. Armand and Reine-Marie go to a lodge for their anniversary. A statue falls. Still not completely clear on the how nor the why. 

THE PERILS OF GEOGRAPHY

Helen Humphreys. The PERILS of GEOGRAPHY. Brick, 1995.

Wonderful poetry by a writer whose novels about wartime Britain I have enjoyed. Found the lines: 

The world curled into 
itself, like a dry leaf,
like a fist.

from "When You Weren't With Me," p. 54. 

RATHER BE THE DEVIL

Ian Rankin. RATHER BE THE DEVIL. Orion. 2016.

Really annoys me. Read this April 27-28. Some scenes seemed familiar. Only some. Now I see that I read it before. Rebus is retired. Fox was promoted. Shiv is annoyed. Big Ger is still around. 

NO MIDDLE NAME

Lee Child. NO MIDDLE NAME: The Complete Collected Jack Reacher Short Stories. Delacorte, 2017.

The very best way to read Reacher. Because you can stop and pause after forty pages or so, and not sacrifice a whole weekend at once. Love the stories of his youth too, and of his brother Joe. 

I AM A METIS

Peter O'Neil. I AM A METIS: The Story of Gerry St. Germain. Harbour, 2016. 

Biography of a BC entrepreneur, Conservative politician under Brian Mulroney, senator. Very interesting story of the late development of Metis pride.  

RU

Kim Thuy. RU. Vintage Canada, 2012.

Beautiful. Poetic. Experiences of a privileged female driven from home by war to a new life elsewhere, in Quebec. 

SILENT FLOWERS

Dorothy Price, Editor. Nanae Ito, Illustrator. SILENT FLOWERS: A New Collection of Japanese Haiku Poems. Hallmark, 1967.

Ancient haiku, beautifully illustrated with watercolour sketches. 

BUDDHISM FOR BEARS

Claire Nielson. Chris Riddell, Illustration. BUDDHISM FOR BEARS. Ebury, 1998.

Accessible. Beautifully illustrated. 

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

Paula Hawkins. THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN. Doubleday, 2014.

Hawthorne Book Club selection for April. I had to get up in the middle of the night to read more. Very engaging plot. Thriller. Set in 2013 in suburban London, UK. Involves substance use, blackouts, relationships, and a missing woman. 

ALONE IN THE CLASSROOM

Elizabeth Hay. ALONE IN THE CLASSROOM. McClelland and Stewart, 2011.

A Hawthorne Book Club selection for March. Loved this literary fiction which sucks us in with hints of murder and abuse and then presents a story of an almost invisible narrator discovering herself through researching family history and genealogy.Love how she distinguished between the facts we can find out and the things we will never know about the past and our ancestors who were there. Set in Saskatchewan in 1929 and then in Ontario in the end of the twentieth century. 

THE BEAT GOES ON

Ian Rankin. The BEAT GOES ON: THE COMPLETE REBUS SHORT STORIES. Orion, 2014.

I still love Rebus. I always enjoy short story collections. One or two of these were familiar from earlier editions. I especially enjoyed Rankin's essay at the end about the origins of Rebus which also includes a sort of "portrait of the writer as a young man" and the realization for the writer that the city itself is an important character.

BAD BOY

Peter Robinson. Bad Boy. McC&S, 2010.

A mother turns in a handgun to police and the world goes awry. Tracy Banks runs off with the bad boy and then becomes his hostage. Annie gets shot. Banks gets back from USA, jet-lagged. 

This is my 6th Robinson title in 3 years. Even move than Rebus (Rankin) or Gamache (Penny).

THE FACTS OF LIFE AND OTHER DIRTY JOKES

Willie Nelson. THE FACTS OF LIFE AND OTHER DIRTY JOKES. Random, 2002.

Song lyrics and dirty jokes told by Willie during a bus tour. Several nods and acknowledgements to friends and co-workers. Interesting in the way he says nothing except through the lyrics. Comments about pot and faith. A fast read. Not for the easily offended. 
Favourite quote: "If you ain't crazy, there's something wrong with you." p. 183

THE PRISON BOOK CLUB

January 20, 2019

Walmsley, Ann. THE PRISON BOOK CLUB. Viking, 2015.

A Hawthorne Book Club selection, a happy surprise chosen for us by the library. I was a bit hesitant because I have such non-objective opinions about prison programming. Even wrote my own book about it (but fiction; this one is non-fiction). Mine is called A MODEST PROPOSAL and I wrote it as a protest to the devolution of rehabilitation programs in prison, especially the turning over of programming to untrained volunteers. I posted this on Wattpad, using my name and "earthabridge". 

With the above in mind, I enjoyed this book club selection more than I expected to. The only two books I had previously read myself were ALIAS GRACE and the POTATO SKIN PIE AND GUERNSEY LITERARY SOCIETY one (not the exact title). I felt the strengths of this Walmsley book include: the narrator's previous experience as a victim of violence; the commendable amount of energy devoted to the project by its initiator; the hassles of scheduling anything behind bars; the continual change of characters attending and their group dynamics; the running theme of how to choose the books.This last point struck me as being like choosing gifts. Do we choose something WE like, or something we think would BENEFIT the receiver, or something which appeals to the receiver, with which they will feel a connection? With this last choice, we honour them by knowing, acknowledging, and accepting who they are. Start with where they are.