This book is really about life and death in a Parsi family who’s patriarch is dying of Parkinson’s disease and needs to be cared for. There are so many other dynamics to the story, of course, and plot twists. It is at heart a sad book, but there is also love and revenge and cruelness and joy. Mistry is an excellent writer and has captured the story of this family with exquisite grace.

I had my doubts about Mcinerney writing a wine book, but surprisingly he was very knowledgeable and the part that I didn’t like about it was the aspect I thought would be the most interesting – his writing style. It sucks, frankly. He switches gears about 10 times in a 3 page piece, throws anecdotes and paragraphs of information at you willy-nilly and then ends it without much of a conclusion. Also, the essays are articles from his magazine column, so there is a lot of overlap and similar phrasing which you many not notice month to month, but is sure obvious reading one chapter after another. Oh well, it’s a quick read and it is entertaining and informative, so I will say it’s OK. I will also say there are better books out there. Try “Red, White & Drunk All Over”.

I was really excited to start reading this book because the cover intrigued me and I’ve been obsessed with both travel and India lately, so a survey of India’s culture and religion from a travel point of view was right up my alley. Better in theory than in practice, however.

Right from the start, the author sets herself up as a cranky, spoiled narrator and the shtick gets boring fast. At one point near the book she describes herself as “a self-occupied, selfish, pathetic, pessimistic bitch” and at least she’s honest, but I’d rather read travel literature from people who actually appreciated the country they were visiting.

She does have moments of positivism, but her writing style breaks the cardinal rule of “telling, not showing” and so you never really get a feel for the country, just a feel for how much she hates it.

I was a little leary of this book because I am really not a fan of animal stories. The humans invariably get it wrong and I often find it embarrassing to read stories told from a creature’s point of view because there is just something off-putting and false about it. It seems worse than science fiction in some ways, because it is a tresspassing on something we simply cannot know.

So I was hesitant to read this book, to say the least, but I heard Barbara Gowdy read at the Vancouver Writers Festival and not only did I love her stories and speaking, but she read an excerpt of “The White Bone” also, and I was intrigued.

I will not say that I loved the book. It took me a bit to get into and the vague ending seemed kind of abrubt and pointless to me, but the story is creative and imaginative in a careful way. She invents language and names, and even religion for the elephants, but it does seem believable and I could feel myself really getting into the story. Definitely worth a read.

I’ve been reading a lot of ‘Alternative Workday’ and ‘Getting Into Freelancing’ type books and this one, although tackling the broadest spectrum, was my favorite. She’s a funny, entertaining writer, at times a bit repetitive but mostly informative and knowledgeable. Checklists at the end of each chapter allow you to skim sections that might not appeal to you, as well as to keep you on track.

It’s written as a guide to women, however, and aside from a few “how to deal with harassment” and “make sure you dress professionally” paragraphs, I didn’t find the information that gender-specific. I did take serious offense to the repeated uses of “Estrogen” as an adjective, something I really could have done without.

Not quite as magical as “History of Love” this is nontheless a great book with an interesting concept behind it – loss of memory, loss of self, etc. The quality of Nicole Krauss’s writing is astounding for a first writer, but there is still something a little bit clumsy with the way she works through the narrative and altho I thoroughly enjoyed this one, I don’t think it will stay in my memory for very long. Can’t wait to read what she writes next tho.

A hilarious look at CanLit Poetry, Canadian Colleges, poets and egos. It doesn’t seem very far-reaching, but I hope lots of people read it anyways. It was a great book.

This book is seriously horribly written. The jostling between the past and present narratives, introducing and abandoning of minor characters and subplots and an over-developed mid-section followed by a slam-dunk surprise ending meant that I was frustrated with it a lot of the time. And yet, I couldn’t put it down. I read the whole book in one day. It’s a really interesting story and eventho there is a question at the beginning of the book – why were they sent on this voyage? – that you know will be answered by the end of it, it actually doesn’t have a lot of bearing on the story until the end. Up until the end you are caught up in sailing and hurricanes and it’s not until that part of the story is finished up that it switches gears (sloppily) to answering the questions. The concept is excellent and the sailing language and descriptions are really good as well, I just wish it was written better and then I wouldn’t be mildly ashamed to have enjoyed it so much.

At first I found this book hard to get into, and had just picked up the plot when the first section ended mid-sentence. I was actually mad about it, but decided to press on and ended up loving it. It’s an interesting book in terms of structure and format, loosely connecting ideas through generations and different geological locations without really explaining the link between them. That is up to the reader to decide if there is an important link or just random connections. There is a lot going on in this book and so it’s not really an easy read. Just when you think you have a handle on what’s going on, it all changes. But in fact, that’s what I liked best about it.

I think I have a crush on Gertrude Stein as a person and maybe even an idea, without really liking her writing that much. I loved “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas” (which is included in here in its entirety) and the pieces about Picasso, but after reading a couple of different selections the repetition and fake simplicity (with miles of subtext and nuance) made me tired and I had to read something else in between. All said tho, it’s still one of my favorite literary times and places and an obviously important work. What I would love to do is take a class and maybe learn some more about it. That might help. Not happening anytime soon tho and no more reading Gertrude Stein for a while either.