Woohoo, finished the whole card! I know you think it was easy for me because I made up the categories, but I promise you, it wasn’t. Sure, there were a couple of categories where a bunch of books would have suited, but some of the books I consumed in 2015 I wouldn’t have otherwise read.
I probably could’ve gotten pretty far on the Reading Adventure with just the 5-star books. But I already told you about those, so I’ll try to write about some other reads as much as possible.
Remember, 2 stars = it was OK, 3 stars = I liked it, 4 stars = I really liked/loved it, 5 stars = it was amazing.
A book set in your hometown
Adult Onset, by Ann-Marie MacDonald, 4 stars
Mary-Rose MacKinnon has a lot on her plate – writing YA novels, raising two kids with a partner who’s never home, a relationship with her parents that is a work in progress, a brother who flits in and out, and now, a flare-up of a childhood disease she thought was long gone. All of which she contemplates while she strollers her toddler around the Annex.
An epistolary book
The Jaguar’s Children, by John Vaillant, 3 stars
Forget diaries. Forget letters. This is an epistolary novel for the 21st century – a series of text messages. They are sent by young, desperate Hector over the course of four days while he is trapped in a sealed truck, abandoned in the desert by the coyotes he and his fellow migrants had hired to take them across the Mexican border.
A book by an author you’d like to meet
Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot, by Mark Vanhoenacker, 4 stars
Is there anything more fascinating than air travel? (Nausea notwithstanding.) Vanhoenacker has what is undoubtedly one of the coolest jobs on the planet. He’s a 747 pilot, who loves, LOVES, his job flying long-haul routes. He details his life in the sky, how he came to be a pilot, and the complex machines he is one with while up there – with the same sense of awe and reverence you’d expect from a child watching planes crisscross the sky for the first time.
A book that involves music
Saint Monkey, by Jacinda Townsend, 2 stars
A coming-of-age story that starts in small-town Kentucky and winds up at the Apollo. But somehow, the Harlem jazz scene isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
A book with a journey
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, by Erik Larson, 4 stars
Larson is the king of narrative non-fiction. He brings such storytelling flare to historical events, in this case, the luxury ocean liner Lusitania, which was torpedoed by a German U-boat on its way from New York to Liverpool in May 1915. Larson tells the story from opposite perspectives: the crew and passengers of the Lusitania,and the commander of Unterseerboot-20. You know an author has done a good job when you know how the story ends, but you want to come along for the ride.
A book by a writer of colour
Go to School, You’re a Little Black Boy: The Honourable Lincoln M. Alexander: A Memoir, by Lincoln Alexander with Herb Shoveller, 3 stars
The son of a maid and a railway porter, Lincoln Alexander rose to become a successful lawyer, the first Black Member of Parliament, Minister of Finance, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Chancellor of the University of Guelph, lifetime advocate for equal rights and all around good guy. Not too many politicians are well liked on both sides of the political aisle – but Lincoln Alexander was not like other politicians.
A banned or challenged book
The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, 5 stars
Why do people attempt to ban books? Especially the best ones?! Well, Oscar Wilde had an answer for that: “The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” And there’s plenty of shame to go around in this story of racism, incest and child molestation.
A debut book
The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, by Mira Jacob, 4 stars
This is a family saga that spans 1970s India, 1980s New Mexico and 2000s Seattle. Protagonist Amina has her hands full with her own issues, but must unravel the threads her family’s past when her father starts ailing.
A book with a Crime
Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America, by Jill Levoy, 3 stars
Another day in South Central L.A., another young black man senselessly murdered. But will this case be different – will it be solved? Levoy paints a portrait of the community to which these traumas happen, and the detectives who relentlessly pursue justice.
A book with the word “thing” in the title
Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng, 4 stars
Fifteen-year old Lydia is dead. That’s not a spoiler – that’s revealed in the first line. But the how and the why and the what happens to the rest of the family is why you keep reading.
A book in a genre you’ve never read before
Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest, 3 stars
I took the “never” in this category literally, which meant I had a hard time finding a new genre. Well, finding a new genre that I thought I had a remote chance of enjoying. (I’m just not going to read 50 Shades of Grey or a teenage vampire romance. I’m just not.) So sub-genre it was – hello Steampunk! It’s a little bit fantasy, a little bit science fiction, a little bit alternate reality. It’s 1879, the Civil War in the east has been raging for 11 years, Seattle has been rendered almost uninhabitable, but not so much so that young Zeke can’t get into trouble in there, and his heroic mom Brie goes after him, with the help of some air pirates.
A book of CanLit
The Night Stages, by Jane Urquhart, 4 stars
Urquhart writes such gorgeous prose. This time she deploys it to tell the parallel 1950s tales of Tam, fleeing Niall in Ireland and who gets waylaid for days by fog at the Gander airport; Kiran, Niall’s brother who mysteriously disappeared; and Canadian artist Kenneth Lochhead, painter of the famous Gander airport mural Flight and its allegories.
A book on books or reading
The Salinger Contract, by Adam Langer, 4 stars
Polished this one off in one afternoon, thanks to last year’s National Readathon Day. It’s a quick-paced literary tale of mystery and intrigue. And yup, “Salinger” refers to the one and only J.D.
A book with a happy ending
The World’s Strongest Librarian: A Book Lover’s Adventures with Tourette’s, Faith, Family and Barbells, by Josh Hanagarne, 4 stars
It was surprisingly hard to find a book with a happy ending. Just the nature of the books I read, I guess. Even the ones I did read with happy endings seem to have a hint of a bittersweet “but” to them. (Including the one where the 33 trapped miners get out from the mine!) Same goes for this one, but it’s mostly happy, so it counts! Very enjoyable memoir of Hanagarne’s life with Tourette’s and how he deals with that, interspersed with hilarious tales from his work as a public librarian in Salt Lake City.
A book that surprised you
The Moor’s Account, by Laila Lalami, 4 stars
Two surprises here: how much I liked this book – a historical novel centering on a Moroccan slave, one of only four survivors of Pánfilo de Narváez’s disastrous 1527 expedition to claim the Gulf Coast for the Spanish Crown – and the fact that anyone survived any of these events at all. Beautifully written!
A book about science or medicine
Physics of the Future: How Science will Shape Human Destiny and our Daily Lives by the Year 2100, by Michio Kaku, 4 stars
This one was recommended to me by my 13-year-old M*A*S*H– and book-loving buddy. He is wise beyond his years!! I can see how, as a youngster, the things described in the book are exciting to him. After all, kids born this century are gonna live to 100 – at least. But to an old lady like me, some of them are quite terrifying – computer chips everywhere, literally EVERYWHERE; augmented reality; artificial intelligence; the Singularity… the list goes on. I was able to comfort myself with reminders that I won’t be around to see it all. It wasn’t all scary though – the second half of the book, about the future of energy and space travel and medicine, were fascinating. I do hope I live to see the space elevator! Though come to think of it, there’s not enough Gravol in the world for me to get on that thing. Unless the nanobots travelling through my bloodstream can cure my motion sickness…
A book about siblings
Avenue of Mysteries, by John Irving, 4 stars
It’s half about Juan Diego’s journey to the Philippines as an old man, and half about his and his sister Lupe’s childhood, growing up in a dump in Mexico. Of course, coming out of Irving’s brain all the characters are quirky – Juan Diego and Lupe, and all the supporting cast. Also true to Irving form, on a deeper level it’s about how different kinds of love – as unconventional as they may be – can help one overcome a very rough start in life.
A beach read
Single Jewish Male Seeking Soul Mate, by Letty Cottin Pogrebin, 3 stars
Zach is the son of Holocaust survivors, and he promises he will marry a Jewish woman. So how will he reconcile that with his falling in love with Cleo, an African American activist? It’s a little bit formulaic, but I liked it!
An epic book
The Dovekeepers, by Alice Hoffman, 4 stars
Based on the historical events of 70 CE, where 900 Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on the mountain Masada, The Dovekeepers tells the story of four remarkable women. The horrors they’ve had to endure and the risks they take to save the ones they love make them heroines the likes of which we don’t often encounter in literature.
A book that features a child
The Book of Aron, by Jim Shepard, 2 stars
I think this book suffered from over-hype. I kept hearing that it was the be all and end all of children-in-the-Holocaust books. And it’s hard to give a 2 stars to any Holocaust book, because they are all profound and important, but I dunno, the writing or the story or something was just lacking for me. Aron chronicles of life in the Warsaw ghetto which he roamed with a pack of young boys and girls, all trying to figure out how to stay alive. (See, even when I describe it, it sounds like it should be better than it was!) Janusz Korczak, who was the REAL director of an orphanage in the ghetto, was the more interesting part of the story. I seem to be in the minority on this one, so if it sounds like your cup of tea, give it a read.
A real page turner
A God in Ruins, by Kate Atkinson, 4 stars
Remember Ursula, from Atkison’s Life After Life, who kept living, well, life after life? Then you’ll also remember her brother Teddy, who only lives one life in this book, and we experience it from childhood to RAF bombadier to fatherhood to grandfatherhood. It’s an excellent WWII read.
A book set in wintertime
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Marra, 3 stars
Wow, wartime Chechnya in winter is BLEAK. I just wanted to get out of that place, and never mind what happens to 8-year-old orphan Havaa, her rescuer Akhmed, and Sonja, the only doctor left in town, working out of a partially bombed hospital and looking for her lost sister.
A book with alliteration in the title
Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter, by Nina MacLaughlin, 4 stars
This was kind of a dangerous book for me to read – it’s about a woman who hates her desk job, and leaves it to take on something more physical and inspiring and real – carpentry. The book was a good read, and it sounds tempting in theory, but being a carpenter when it’s freezing out or boiling out or you have to carry heavy things probably sucks. So, I guess I’ll stick with the desk job.
A book about your favourite animal
The Elephant Whisperer: My Life in the Wild with the African Herd, by Lawrence Anthony, 5 stars
My ABSOLUTE favourite animal is the one I live with. The cute, furry one, with four legs and who goes ape-shit when the doorbell rings. But since no one has written a book about my dog, I’ll read about my favourite animal that won’t fit in my house: elephants. God, how I want to go to Africa and see them…
So there you have it. I’m probably going to lay off the reading challenges for 2016, and just read willy-nilly for a while. (Unless you guys really want another one, in which case I can probably be convinced…)