The motto of this books seems to be ‘Be careful what you wish for because you might get it.’

Lin is a doctor and an officer in the Chinese Army. His aging parents arrange a marriage for him, to a local girl in his home village. Shuyu is plain and simple. He doesn’t love her, but they conceive a child and she cares for his parents devotedly, while he works in the city. Lin falls in love with a nurse, Manna and after 17 years of an unfulfilling marriage to Shuyu, he asks her for a divorce. At the last minute she refuses.

And so it goes. Each summer, Lin returns to his village to divorce the loyal and loving Shuyu and each year she refuses at the last minute. Lin and Manna continue their futile friendship, while Shuyu and her daughter live their lives without Lin.

I was lukewarm about this novel as I read it because the plot seemed so meandering, but the meandering is true to the story. As you read, you get a sense of Lin’s frustration, Manna’s determination and Shuyu’s gentle devotion. The book provides a fascinating portrait of everyday life in communist China and the ending is heartbreaking.

All at once Cora stands. The butterflies explode from her long arms, her shoulders, cascade from her hair. Cora atop a large stone with the brilliance of a thousand butterflies lifting in waves around her body. A field of living energy.

Cora, with butterlies slipping around her, begins to move. He watches her uninhibited dance, Cora dancing for him like a river. Flury, watching her pure unrestrained movement, believes that until now, he has been asleep. The doctor’s son steps toward Fran’s girl, arms extended. Here, thinks Flury, is where I begin. (page 157)

The plot of this novel is uncomplicated: A pregnant teenager goes to live in a prairie town, works in the general store and gives birth to a daughter. Fran refuses to give up her child, instead choosing to raise her in the judgmental town. She finds support from the owner of the general store and his ailing mother.

Like all small towns, Little Cypress has secrets and as these unfold, the characters in this book come to life. There’s plenty of nostalgia in this story for anyone who has grown up on the Canadian Prairies, but there’s also magic, drama, and wonderful writing.

The book moves along swiftly and smoothly, carrying the reader from one story to another. Each chapter portrays the perspective of a different character, intricately linking them so that by the end of the book, their lives create a delicate web.

The Self cannot be pierced by weapons or burned by fire; water cannot wet it, nor can the wind dry it. The Self cannot be pierced or burned, made wet or dry. It is everlasting and infinite, standing on the motionless foundation of eternity. (Page 11)

In 2006, I’ve read 100 books. I wanted my 100th book of the year to be symbolic, so I chose the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture that’s very meaningful to me. In truth, I’ve probably read this book several times over the course of the year. In particular, I studied Chapter 6 in-depth, learning and memorising the verses in the ancient Sanskrit language.

This translation of the Gita, by Eknath Easwaran, remains my favourite although I’ve read numerous others. The Bhagavad Gita is a small part of a larger work called the Mahabharata. It describes an epic battle between two warring clans, the Kurus and the Pandavas.

Arjuna, a warrior, hesitates in battle because he sees friends and family fighting on both sides; he doesn’t wish to kill those he loves and respects. Luckily for Arjune, his charioteer, Krishna, is actually an incarnation of Divine Consiousness. In this moment of indecision, Krishna instructs Arjuna, revealing the paths to unity with God:knowledge, devotion, action, and meditation and persuading him that he must follow his Dharma and fight the battle.

The story is a metaphor for the struggle that exists within each one of us to find our own path and find meaning in life. Eknath Easwaran calls it ‘the war within.’ The battle is between two parts of human nature and we choose between them every day. According to the Gita, our destiny is in our own hands and we shape it by our choices, by how we choose to live.

This volume is my favourite translation of the Gita, but there are many. Another that I often recommend is Jack Hawley’s ‘The Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners.’ This short, profound little book has changed my life in so many ways. I reread it every year and recommend it to everyone I know.

I found this sequel to Persepolis to be even more engaging than the first book. I was told that the first book is a prerequisite to the second and I agree; the first book sets the stage for the second.

I found the second book even more interesting than the first because, as a young adult, Marji has a more sophisiticated understanding of what’s going on around her. In this book, she leaves her childhood home in Iran and goes to school in Vienna, Austria, where she encounters and entirely different culture. She frequently experiences racism and this shapes her experience.

When she returnes to her country, she sees the restrictions and hardships through new eyes. I particularly enjoyed her observations about the culture of Iran. The history of the country’s conflicts were less interesting to me, but I learned a lot about Iran in reading this book.

I found that the book was very ‘real’ in the way it portrayed the author’s experiences. I can’t imagine this book being written without the art; it absolutely shines as a graphical novel and the author is masterful in her use of art to tell her story.

I’m deeply impressed by both books and can’t recommend them enough!

This is my first foray into the genre of ‘graphic novels.’ I picked this one on the glowing recommendation of Nuke, and because I’d heard that even non-comic-book people enjoy this author/artist’s work.

In fact, I did enjoy the book a lot. Reading a graphic novel was an adjustment for me. At times, I found it choppy and hard to focus on what was going on. But the story – a memoirs of Marjane Satrapi’s childhood in war-torn Iran – was so compelling that it held my attention.

The art is excellent – it illustrates the story without being overwhelming. As I became absorbed in the story, I soon forgot I was reading a graphical novel and the images and words merged to create a mood as well as a story.

This was a quick read, but by no means a frivilous one. The book is honest, hard-hitting and, at times, heartbreaking. I genuinely enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to starting the sequel.

“We associate truth with knowledge, with seeing things fully and clearly, but it is more correct to say that access to truth always depends on a very precise admixture of knowledge and ignorance. This is nicely captured by the traditional figure of justice, a blind-folded woman holding a scale. With her balance she can assess certain things, with her eyes closed she cannot see certain other things. True justice depends as much on her blindness as on her ability to discern.” (Page 82)

This book has received very mixed reviews, with many critics noting that the author used bloated language and was scornful of his follow jurors. More than one critic suggested that he should have taken the time to interview his fellow jurors after the trial.

I disagree. This book is about one person’s experience of being on a jury. The author portrays his own perception of this experience and in doing so, reveals all of his doubts, prejudices and intellectual warts. Far from finding him pompous, I thought that the told his story simply and without fanfare. I liked his writing and found the book easy and enjoyable to read. Through the book, I found myself speculating about what it would be like to be on a jury, how I might act, what preconceptions and predjudices I might bring into such an experience.

Let me be clear: the author is snobbish and dismissive as only a Princeton professor can be. But he is upfront about his flaws. For example, he admits that he tried to sway the group (indeed, every member of that jury took a turn at trying to sway the others) and states clearly that he came into the deliberations having already made up his mind.

Interestingly, the author reveals how it ended – the jury’s verdict – before he tells the story. I think it might have been more interesting had I not known the outcome. The trial itself is interesting, but not compelling enough to carry the book. What carries the book is the descriptions of the scene inside the jury room. The author’s own struggles and how his perceptions of his fellow jurors change over time are intriguing.

In the end, I don’t necessarily like the author. But I found his experience and the lens through which he views the world very compelling.

This book is yet another one of my forays into the infamous ‘Chick Lit’ genre. I read ‘The Nanny Diaries’ by these same authors a few weeks ago. Since I found that book reasonably amusing, I thought I’d give this one a go.

I was three chapters into it before I finally grasped the fact that the main character’s actual ‘name’ in this novel is ‘Girl.’ (before this realization, I was horribly confused when her supposedly feminist boss kept screaming “GIRRRRRRRRLLLL!”). Although the authors are obviously trying to be clever and unique, this just fell flat.

The weird names continued in subsequent chapters with the introduction of Girl’s new boss, ‘Guy’ and Girl’s new boyfriend, ‘Buster.’ Confusingly, other characters had normal names, like ‘Doris’ or ‘Stacey’ so it was a bit disorienting. Half-way through, I felt so uncomfortable with this poor character’s lack of a name that I simply gave her one: Sarah. I mentally referred to ‘Girl’ as ‘Sarah’ throughout the rest of the book.

Sarah (aka: “Girl”) is a 24-year-old recent graduate trying to build a career in New York City. After a stint with a feminist non-profit, she lands her first job in the private sector, working for a dot com start-up.

The plot revolves around Sarah’s struggle to retain her own values in the face of the ‘company vision’ and inevitable office. Rising quickly to the rank of ‘Vice President,’ Sarah finds herself in myriad uncomfortable situations, including promoting a marketing strategy at a bikini-clad gay pool party in L.A. and entertaining a sexually aggressive female client at an exclusive New York City club.

Like ‘Nanny Diaries,’ parts of this book were hilariously funny and spot-on. I found myself nodding and laughing out loud. Other parts of the book dragged on, though, and I found it less clever and a bit more tedious than the authors’ previous effort. In the last chapters of the book, the plot moves from quirky to ridiculous.

This isn’t great literature, but it’s a light, fast read, amusing, but not memorable.

“All that interested me was Jolly Jackson and I watched him and watched him, so beautiful, out of the back window of the car, getting smaller and smaller. And he waved and waved and waved to me as he danced and danced. d He danced and danced not moving his feet , but with all his body and his lovely smiling face. He was dancing and dancing and dancing and dancing in the very middle of the big main road. That was the best day of my Easter holidays.” (page 20)

I found this paperback sitting in a ‘Free! Take one!’ box on the sidewalk last summer and thought it looked interesting.

Each chapter of the book presents a different ‘story’ with different characters, some of them reappearing and often connected to one another. The book mostly takes place in Jamaica, and explores the relationship of the English elite to the place and the people.

The most memorable stories were those told from the perspective of a young boy, Ned (the quote above is in his voice). I found that his description on the Jamaican people was the most sympathetic and magical. The other characters are typical English snobs, involved in affairs, dramas and conflicts with each other (and the Jamaicans). I found many of their stories inane and forgettable.

I didn’t love this book, but I also didn’t dislike it. It’s interesting and more-or-less readable. I did enjoy the quirkiness and eccentricities of the characters.

“She took a bite of cereal and forgot to taste it. She lost the taste somwhere between the time she put the food in her mouth and the regretful second she swallowed it.” (page 21)

This was one of the rare books that I could not bring myself to finish. I followed my usual practice to of reading half-way through, then the last chapter. This is a short book, so it’s notable that I found it so ‘long.’

The book revolves around character development and setting a scene more than building any intricate plot. Lauren, a body artist, is widowed when her husband Rey commits suicide. After his funeral, she retreats to the summer home they once shared and encounters a haunting young man – seemingly mentally retarded – who seems to embody Rey and Lauren’s relationship. The young drifter recalls conversations Lauren and Rey once had and his presence evokes feelings of wonder and pain.

I disliked this book. It had a surreal, nightmarish mood and I found the use of language slippery and monotonous. Although I don’t doubt that Don DeLillo is an extremely talented author (and I am not disputing the quality of the writing), this book just wasn’t my ‘cup of tea.’

“All that goes into a brain – the goodness, the wit, the sum total of enchantment in a personality, the very will, indeed the ego itself – was being killed inexorably, remorselessly, by an evil growth! Everything that makes a human being what he is, the inordinately subtle and exquisite combination of memory, desire, impulse, reflective capacity, power of association, even consciousness – to say nothing of sight and hearing, muscular movement and voice and something so taken for granted as the ability to chew – is encased delicately in the skull, working there within the membranes by processes so marvelously interlocked as to be beyond belief. All this – volition, imagination, the ability to have even the simplest emotion, anticipation, understanding – is held poised and balanced in the normal brain, with silent, exquisite efficiency. And all this was what was being destroyed. It was, we felt, as if reason itself were being ravaged away by unreason, as if the pattern of Johnny’s illness were symbolic of so much of the conflict and torture of the external world. A primitive, to-the-death struggle of reason against violence, reason against disruption, reason against brute unthinking force – this is what went on in Johnny’s head. What he was fighting against was the ruthless assault of chaos. What he was fighting for was, as it were, the life of the human mind.” (page 101-102)

Amusingly, I could only find this book in the ‘large print’ edition so throughout, I had a sneaky feeling that the author was yelling at me.

I really wanted to be wonderfully moved by this book, I truly did. In the past year, I’ve faced the death of two people, including a beautiful and inspiring 9-year-old girl. I sought out this book as a kind of closure.

Although parts of the book are well-written and thought-provoking, I struggled to move through the pages. Of course every parent of a lost child wants to memorialize the person their child was and could have been. I felt this book went a bit too far out on that limb

Part I was a cringe-inducing example of this. The author, Johnny’s father, sings his son’s praises in great and excrutiating detail. At this point in the book, the reader has absolutely no sense of Johnny or sympathy for his plight. First recommendation: Skip Part I and move right onto Part II.

The most fascinating thing part of this book for me was reading about World War II era cancer treatments. It’s absolutely incredible how much progress has been made in the treatment of cancer since then. It’s also amazing how much remains exactly the same: the same push and pull between doctors and parents, the necessity of parents to research their own child’s disease and find solutions outside of traditional treatments (and all of this without the Internet!!!), the wonderful doctors and the not-so-wonderful doctors, the interminable hospital stays and the wonderful nurses.

This book will be fascinating to anyone who has ever watched a child go through cancer treatment and I imagine would be very affirming and moving to someone who has ever lost a child to the disease.