I forgot to keep track in May, so now I don't know which were May's and which June's, and I'm quite sure some have been left out... Still, here's my half-baked tracking efforts. I'm still well ahead of my goal of fifty this year, though!

1. The Girls, Lori Larson. Conjoint twins, joined at the head. Told primarily through the eyes of one of the twins, with occasional (and revealing) input from the other. Interesting book.

2. Sweet Hush, Deborah Smith. A love story. I read a romance novel and liked it. Imagine. (Generally the genre leaves me cold.)

3. Another Woman's Husband, Sarah Duncan. Oddly named, since that woman plays almost no role in this book. The emotions of the tempted-to-stray wife are well portrayed... though I confess I did far less agonizing when I was in that situation; of course, my marriage was much worse, and my then-husband had been having his own affair for going on a couple of years. Still, the protagonist's feelings rang true. I was enraged by her decision to 'fess up to her husband -- what an awful thing to do to the man! And the ending? The ending made me crazy!!! As if that's going to make anything better. Good lord.

4. Gazelle, Rikki Ducornet. A pivotal year spent in Egypt, in the life of an unhappy American thirteen-year-old. Child of a loving and mild but slightly mad American father and flamboyant Icelandic mother. Feels far more European than American in its sensibilities, this book.

5. The Rebel Sell: why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter. Fascinating look at the origins, development, and social implications of the countercultural movement. I learned that my definition of 'countercultural' is far too constrained and civilized. The real thing is much further-reaching (and, to my mind, ridiculously naive and very destructive).

6. The Hungry Years: Confessions of a Food Addict, William Leith. Mr. Leith isn't just addicted to food: he'll overindulge on anything going --painkillers, booze, drugs, you name it. The book is an honest look at the problem of food addiction in general, his personal experience of addictive behaviour, and his own resolution. Well done.

7. The Quilter's Kitchen, by Jennifer Chiaverini. Though the plot of this small book is nearly non-existent, the recipes are fabulous. We're tried the peanut chicken satays, the cucumber-tomato salad, the Southwestern couscous salad, and slow-roasted pork, all yummy. Tonight? Roast chicken in a cilantro-orange marinade.

8. Step Ball Change, Jeanne Ray. Two sons married off, one son still at home, and a daughter who's just gotten engaged to the richest young man in town, her own dance school, massive house renovations, and a happy marriage. Caroline's plate is full... and about to get fuller, when her sister calls needing a place to live following her husband's defection with his secretary 'junior executive'. The only truly annoying thing in an otherwise pleasingly lively and frivolous book is the ridiculous thread wherein the middle-class parents agonize about how to pay their half of a rich man's wedding. Hello? The bride is 34, an independent adult. Why are you paying anything (more than a token contribution)? And if we are being all traditional, isn't the bride's family supposed to plan the wedding? Then do it within YOUR means, not the gazillionaire fiance's family's. Very silly (and of course, happily resolved).

9. A Metropolitan Murder, Lee Jackson. Murder on a subway train in Victorian England.

10. Saint Valentine, Nick Tomlinson. Tale of a Valentine card, convincingly told from the perspective of a love-struck 13-year-old boy. Both funny and touching. The blind spots of a young adolescent are well-portrayed. Good read.

11. We Always Treat Women Too Well, Raymond Queneau. Very Hobbesian book: "...poor, nasty, brutal, and short." That latter point is the only good thing to be said about it. Perhaps the most shocking thing about this book of mindless, random violence and deathly human interaction is that it's supposed to be funny. Ghastly.

Total for May/June: 11

Total so far this year: 38

1. Remind Me Again Why I Need a Man, Claudia Carroll. Fun and frivolous read, with the hint of a more serious message. Only a hint, mind you. Successful woman in her late thirties decides it's time to get serious about finding a husband. She wants the wedding band, she wants the Vera Wang. She is inspired, dissuaded and aided in this task by her three closest friends, who (SUCH a convenience to the plot!!) are respectively, a happily married woman, a twice-divorced, happily single woman, and a gleefully promiscuous gay man.

2. The Woman in the Row Behind, Francoise Dorner. A truly inexplicable book. Why did she marry him? Why does she claim to love him, when it's clear she doesn't like him much? (Nor does he deserve it.) How does she fall into two extra-marital sexual liaisons without any apparent effort or interest? And, given she seems to care so little, why bother? Why does she claim to feel pain at the marriage's disintegration? And if she cares so much, why doesn't she speak up to prevent it? Bizarre book. The emotional disconnect of any character in this book from their own motivations and from anyone else makes it extremely difficult to care what happens to any of this unlikeable lot. Waste of time. Good thing it was short.

3. Rebecca, Daphne DuMaurier. I'd never read this before. Yes, really. And now I'm in on the joke! You know, all those spoofs of gothic horrors, the ones that show the sinister housekeeper, the brooding and haunted man, the (impossibly, insufferably annoying) innocent ingenue. Didn't you just want to smack that girl upside the head? Honest to pete. But now I've read it, thank heavens, and it's done.

4. The Stolen Child, Keith Donohue. Engrossing dual story, intertwined lives of the stolen child and his changeling. The ending sort of dodged its own climax, but a great read.

5. Around the World with Auntie Mame, Patrick Dennis. Silly and entertaining story of the adventures of 19-year-old Patrick's travels with his wildly rich and eccentric Auntie Mame.

6. Sex, A Mystery, Fiona Quirina. A lively and quick-moving mystery novel in which sex surrogate Lydia, who prefers to call herself a courtesan, graduate of Barnard with a Harvard MBA, finds her Tuesday client in her bed with an ice pick through his back. She is, of course, the prime suspect, and works hard and efficiently to prove her innocence. Fun.

7. The World I Made for Her, Thomas Moran. The narrator is a critically ill 30-something man living in an intensive care ward as he drifts in and out of comas, battling his mysterious and potentially fatal illness. Nuala is his nurse. A beautifully written heart-breaker of a book.

8. Artistic Licence, Katie Fforde.

9. Away From Her, Alice Munro. The older I get, the more I learn to enjoy short stories, and Alice Munro is a master of the genre. Excellent.

10. Simple Slipcovers, Tracey Munn, from which I learned that slipcovers aren't. Dammit.

11. Another Life, Ann Roth. Light and easy, with an odd, but oddly logical premise involving the two "widows" of a deathbed-discovered bigamist.

12. Mistressclass, Michele Roberts. Two sisters reconcile, (almost, kinda-sorta) a long-past betrayal, while a thread about Charlotte Bronte either elucidates or confuses. I'm not sure yet...

Books. Books, books, and more books. How I love my local library...

February and March's list:

1. Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins. Seriously weird book. Funny, in a darkish and weird sort of way. Not sure if I'd recommend it... but wouldn't discourage someone from attempting it, either.

2. Understanding Menopause, Janine O'Leary Cobb. Useful, informative. No magic bullets, sadly. :-)

3. Asking for Love, Roxana Robinson. A collection of short, sad stories. Lovely little things, beautifully crafted... but a story isn't required to be sad/wistful to be meaningful. I wonder about the mental state of Ms. Robinson.

4. Naked Once More, Elizabeth Peters. Mystery story about a murdered author, entertainingly untangled by another author, as written by a third (real-life)one. Lots of fun.

5. Toss the Bride, Jennifer Manske Fenske. Very silly. Very shallow. Good entertainment for a 15-year-old... or a lazy 40-something looking to pass the time with no mental effort.

6. Keeping the World Away, Margaret Forster. I gave up at the end of the first section, 86 pages in. By then I should have had more than the vaguest of clues what was going on, right? That probably says more about my (lack of) mental prowess than the author's skill, I'm sure, but I couldn't finish this one.

7. Bitter Chocolate, Lesley Lokko. Starts in Haiti, bounces around the States and Britain. The book follows three women, but though a tenuous connection is forced by the author, the third woman (a spoiled rich thing) has no real bearing on the other two, nor on their stories. I have no idea why she's in the book. Not an awful book, but not one I'd go out of my way to read, either.

8. The Old Country. Yawn. It reads like a British sitcom of the more predictable variety, meaning that I get exasperated with the character's inability to step outside their foibles, even when they are a) aware of them and b) aware of the problems they cause... but that's expecting way too much for a genre that's nothing more than character-slapstick. It meandered along endlessly, going nowhere in particular. Without an appreciation of the humour [character does something supremely inept, insert laugh track here] there was nothing there. Yawn.

9. Quite Honestly. I have this title written on a scrap of paper, but (quite honestly) I've returned it to the library already and have forgotten what it was about... Oh, wait. Just googled it, read the first line, and remembered. A girl decides to help rehabilitate a fellow just out of jail, falls in love with him and becomes a petty criminal in order to "understand" him, even as he successfully goes straight. None of the characters are all all convincing, and so there is no sympathy possible for this ridiculous woman and her ludicrous actions. It's supposed to be humour, but it misses.

10. Just Jane. "A novel of Jane Austen's Life". It was okay. Worth reading if you like Austen, but otherwise not.

With an amusing tagline ("Only a ball should bounce"), one might hope for something a little playful and less dismally ugly. One might hope, but one would be disappointed. Bitter experience has taught us that D-cup-wearers can't be choosers.



Appearance is one thing, style another. With such a clever tagline, one could reasonably hope for more from the product blurb:

An ideal bra for women
engaging in high impact activities
such as horseback riding, running,
soccer, volleyball, aerobics,
police officers...

On the other hand, one is greatly amused in speculating precisely what "high impact activities such as... police officer" could be.

Oh, yes. That Reading Challenge.



I absolutely intended to post about my January books in January. I should be having a toasty February here in frosty* Ottawa, what with all those good intentions I make then completely forget.

(*Not so frosty today: three degrees and rain, rain, rain. "Is this it, mum?" my 15-year-old wanted to know. "Is spring here now?" I managed to choke out a "No, sweetie" before drowning in laughter at her dopiness sweet innocence. )

Missed intentions notwithstanding, I have been reading! I have been visiting the library! I just haven't been writing about it. Because I'm disorganized that way.

So. My January books:

The Omnivore's Dilemma -- Terrific book. It will make you reconsider how you perceive your food, and may even change what/how you eat. The first two sections are by far the more engrossing/compelling. I understand why the third section was necessary, but it dragged. Apart from the discussion of meat-eating, which was interesting, I could easily have skipped the entire thing. (In this section I primarily learned that Michael Pollan sure does like himself...) This does not detract from the value of the book, which I liked so well that I went out and bought my own copy. But it started as a library book, so that counts.

The Uncommon Reader -- The unexpected fallout of royal bookworm-ery. Funny and clever -- and short!

The Aging Brain -- Interesting subject matter, unremittingly boring book. Badly in need of a stern and unyielding editor. The man has no idea how to streamline his ideas, clearly believing that the more technical terms one crams into every paragraph, the more erudite one appears. My brain aged a solid decade just getting through the first two pretentious chapters.

Garden Spells -- Quirky and entertaining light read.

The Russian Album -- My Canadiana quota.

There were more, but I've forgotten. Oh, the shame. Still, five for the month puts me well on track toward my goal of fifty for the year.

Family myths. We all have them. You know, "Oh, sis is so [insert trait here]", "Brother is the [trait] one." For years my mother -- my entire family -- always passed the gravy boat by me, based on my preschool loathing of the stuff, despite the fact that at every holiday gathering in my adult life I'd been grabbing the damned thing back and liberally dousing my mashed potatoes with its delectability.

We have myths in our family. I'm sure there are some I buy into without even realizing it's a myth, but there are others I watch with some bemusement. I don't necessarily say anything; many myths serve a useful and empowering purpose... but myths they remain.

I've even used myths. Shortly after she'd learned to read, my middle step-daughter was finding this whole 'literacy' schtick hard-going. Reading was difficult for her, and, being the contrary little cuss she was at that age, she was resisting mightily. Add to that a mother who sees time spent 'with your nose in a book' as time wasted, and the girl was well on her way to being functionally illiterate.

Enter devious me, weilding the parental tool of the Family Myth. Every time we saw her even glance at a book, Matthew and I would start perpetrating the myth: "There she is, reading again! That girl always has her nose in a book!" (Only in our family, that was a good thing.) "Lizzie's such a reader, just like her dad!" "It sure is nice to have such a book-loving family!"

And it worked. In very short order (two months?), Lizzie (and all of her siblings) bought into the myth. Lizzie was A Reader. And, perceiving herself to be a reader, so she became one, and the myth became a reality. She is still the child most likely to have a book on the go, the one most likely to bring a book in her backpack against those empty moments.

(Aren't I brilliant?)

So. Let this stand as proof that I have nothing against the family myth, providing it's a positive thing. What bemuses me is how people buy into things that are patently false. It's very weird.

We have a bunch right now, surrounding the dog.

-She likes men better than women. (She does? Who believes this? Everyone in the family but me and the dog, evidently...)
- She has a particular fondness for the youngest step-son. (She likes him, sure. Just like she likes everyone. Male and female. She's a friendly little critter.)
- She has a most particular fondness, a tremendous bond of adoration, for Matthew.

It's odd, this family tendency to slice up and allocate the dog's affections. While the first one totally confounds me -- I have no idea where it came from, or on what it could possibly be based -- the other two have some basis in reality. She pays more attention to my youngest step-son because he pays more attention to her. However, she pays him no more unsolicited attention than she does anyone else.

And that last one?

Well, she greets Matthew like a crazy thing when he walks through the door: leaping up, licking his face, yodelling. She does not do that to me. She does not do that to the children. This much is true. She does not do that to the rest of us because we don't let her. I trained her within the first month that she was not to jump up on me, and so, when I come through the door, she does not jump up on me. The children did the same. Matthew, however, loves the jumping, and so permits (even encourages) it. And now the fact that she goes banzai when he walks through the door (and a more muted form of banzai when the rest of us do) is read as the dog loving him more intensely.

Am I annoyed by this? No. Nor will I ever, ever do anything to dispell the myth. Indeed, I encourage it.

He often travels for work. When he is gone, she'll walk up to his side of the bed, put her chin on it and sigh. She takes his slipper into her crate, and sleep with her nose in it. I make sure to tell him these things. I do not tell him what I know from the children: She does these things for me, too, on the far rarer occasions when I am away for a day or two.

Some months ago, you see, Matthew was mulling over his current condition, and concluding that Something was missing. He wanted more social contact, he knew he needed to get more exercise, to get out of the house more. He's a depressive sort, and he felt the need for a source of pleasure in his life. (I know. Living with me was not enough to put him in a state of perpetual bliss. It's an astonishment to me, too.)

He considered a few options -- join a book club, take a course, volunteer -- but what he decided in the end was to get a dog. A dog would get him out of the house, would give him casual social interactions with other dog-owners at the park, and would give him a source of affection and pleasure.

The dog has done all that. Daily walks, chat with other dog-owners, and a living, loving creature to take pleasure in, something to bring a measure of joy to his (mildly) depressive soul. It brings me great satisfaction to see his genuine need met in such a simple, wholesome, loving way. If part of his joy is predicated on the myth that she loves him above all others?

He can have that.

I wandered lonely as a cloud...

The boy stood on the burning deck...

In Xanadu did Kublai Khan...

Come into the garden, Maud...

Come, madam, come, all rest my powers defy...

Lazy, laughing, languid Jenny...

A panther is much like a leopard...

Tiger, tiger, burning bright...

Do not go gentle into that good night...

Once upon a midnight dreary...


I grew up with poetry. My grandfather, born and educated in Britain at a time when poetry recitation was a mainstay, sought to fill the gap in his grandchildren's Canadian education with a fine round of poetry. It was never dreary, it was fun. I loved memorizing the rolling phrases, I loved hearing him recite a poem with enthusiasm and zest, or, when the poem demanded, with great spooky mystery, and I loved doing the same.

And yet, when I hear the strains of a poetry-reading beginning on the CBC, I almost always turn the radio off -- generally with an exclamation of exasperation -- within the first fifteen seconds. I just can't stand it.

When my grandfather and I shared poetry, it vibrated with energy. When I hear poetry declaimed on the radio, it is moaned in a deadpan, the words falling like some relentless drip, drip, drip. Not dripping of water, clean and fresh. More like, oh... the plop, plop, plop of (so I imagine) sludge from a sewage pipe.

Who wants to listen to that? The poetry of my childhood was not "kiddy poetry". It was rich and layered and nuanced, full of marvellous sounds and meaning -- and yet it was presented as exciting, interesting, full of LIFE.

There is no life in their droning. Only tedious, pretentious efforts at sounding portentious.

Or something. I have no idea why they feel they must read the stuff like that. Why turn something so rich and vibrant into a tedious, dreary droning? It doesn't have to be that way. I've heard the odd Poetry Slam on the CBC, where poetry is turned into a rhythmic, pulsating form of performance art. Very cool.

Let's have more of that, shall we? More life and less droooooning.