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Thomas King on finding humor in intolerable situations
Before starting this piece, let me clout myself on the head for not reading Thomas King all these years. There. Thomas King is a Canadian (Cherokee) writer and broadcaster who advocates for First...
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Books for young readers
Apricots at Midnight by Adèle Geras has been praised for bringing the “Edwardian age deliciously to life”, but even if you don’t give a damn for Edward or his age, you should read this book. Geras has...
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Calvin and Hobbes–and Bacon
Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes strip stopped running (almost to the day) seventeen years ago, leaving behind a giant Calvin-and-Hobbes hole in the universe. BUT. Pantsareoverrated.com has done four...
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Reading Global Women of Color: Anita Amirrezvani (Iran)
Anita Amirrezvani‘s The Blood of Flowers is a fascinating novel, packed with details about carpet weaving in 17th century Iran, but fear not! the story wears its research lightly. The novel’s...
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The fifth Flavia de Luce: Speaking from Among the Bones
I’m very fond of novels set in rural England, especially when they’re packed with dead bodies and genteel old ladies and vicars and odd-sounding desserts (the chocolate shape!), and so I follow Alan...
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Global Women of Color: Aya by Marguerite Abouet, Clement Oubrerie (Ivory Coast)
My second read for the Global Women of Color challenge is my first ever book set in the Ivory Coast, and it’s a charmer. Aya, a graphic novel by Marguerite Abouet (illustrated by Clement Oubrerie), was...
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Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss
In Salt Sugar Fat, Michael Moss investigates the tactics employed by the processed food industry (Kraft, Pepsico, Nestle, Unilever and their ilk) to ensure that consumers buy increasing quantities of...
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Recent reads and reviews
If we met during the Christmas holidays past, odds are I thrust a copy of Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon into your hands, and then held a cleaved sword over your head till you began to...
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Malarky by Anakana Schofield
Malarky (Biblioasis, 2012) deals with death and sex and most of all, with grief, and it’ll probably stand as my funniest book of the year. In the opening scene, the mentally disturbed protagonist (“Our...
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Moebius Trip: Digressions from India’s Highways by Giti Thadani
The more I read about Giti Thadani, a scholar based in Berlin and New Delhi, the more intrigued I became. Thadani dropped out of high school (Convent of Jesus and Mary in New Delhi, y’all) when she was...
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Random bookish things: Project Bookmark, Charles Darwin, Captain Marryat.
Have you heard of Project Bookmark? It’s a Canadian charity that places “text from stories and poems—on plaques, called Bookmarks—in the exact, physical locations where literary scenes take place. The...
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Vegan Secret Supper by Merida Anderson
You can keep your membership to the Bilderberg Group; I’ve finally found a club I’d like to join. The Vegan Secret Supper (VSS) is a dining club run by Canadian chef Mérida Anderson, who engineers...
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Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala
Wave details Sonali Deraniyagala’s experience of losing her family in a single instant, and her tug of war between remembering and forgetting in order to make sense of her world. In 2004, Deraniyagala...
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Au revoir, Canada!
After almost a decade in Canada, it’s time for us to move, and we’re now headed to California. I’m taking a blogging break, and will resume once I get my head around the fact that I no longer own any...
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The Problem with Being Slightly Heroic by Uma Krishnaswami
I loved, loved, loved Uma Krishnaswami’s 2011 MG novel The Grand Plan to Fix Everything, and so I was delighted to receive the sequel, The Problem with Being Slightly Heroic (Atheneum Books, 2013)....
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Oleander Girl by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
While I’ve long savored Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni‘s short story collections, her novels haven’t really been my thing–they’re always packed with truckloads of emotion and drama, and feel overdone at...
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The A to Z bookish survey
Via my favourite food blogger (and all-round star) Nupur of One Hot Stove, here’s a bookish survey that originated over at The Perpetual Page Turner. Be sure to check out their answers, and please...
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Toads and Diamonds by Heather Tomlinson
The library had Toads and Diamonds temptingly displayed on the YA shelf, reminding me I’d been planning to read it for three years now. I remember looking at the blogosphere reviews in 2010 and...
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Asterix and the Picts
The Guardian has a very brief (but exclusive!) preview of the new Asterix adventure Asterix and the Picts. From the official Asterix website: “On 24th October 2013, Asterix and the Picts will be on...
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Library booksale haul
The local library had a book sale on Sunday, and I spent a happy half hour browsing through seven tables of books. So much more satisfying than receiving a delivery by drone. I picked up these 6...
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