Favourite adult books of 2013

Ah, the tradition continues. This year, I read 64 adult books, 23 children's books (all the dregs from my last year of judging) and three teen books. Alas, only three were nonfiction, and only three were graphica... Am I getting set in my ways? Wait, don't answer that. Picking up on Pasha Malla's recent article, 40 of my 64 were female authors, while 23 were male, and 26 were Canadian. As he says, to a certain extent these distinctions are meaningless, but I do like to see how balanced, or unbalanced I am (don't comment on that, either!)... and I like to see how much I "stretch."

Here's the best of the best, in sound bites (more complete reviews of many of these have appeared on this blog throughout the year):

1. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth E. Wein: A teenage British spy captured by the Gestapo tells her story as she writes her confession; a tale of unshakable spirits and amazing female friendship that will break your heart.
2. The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin: the mother of Jesus reflects back on her life in her twilight years in semi-captivity. A troubled, nuanced portrait with surprising revelations about charisma, misogyny and "spin."
3. Above All Things by Tanis Rideout: OK, this one may not be a book for the ages as are some others on this list. It is a solid read, however, and I read it at just the right time for the story to truly move me. Read this even if you care nothing for sports (like me).
4. A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan Dee: Speaking of spin, I have found myself quoting from this book quite a few times recently during the age of Ford. This is a book that excels at making the universal personal: a public figure who slips, and his wife, who in the wake of her husband's scandal becomes a crisis management expert herself, are ultimately redeemed, in the imperfect manner of the modern world.
5. The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer: These friends, with their faults and their loves and their passionate re-inventions, made me feel good about the world, and the people I share it with.
6. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson: Ursula and her lives are infinitely fascinating, in a kind of literary "Choose your own adventure" way. A novel about choices, opportunities, and fate.
7. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman: A strange little novel about the lengths you might go for the ones you love.
8.  Night Film by Marisha Pessl: Speaking of strange, this is quite the departure in some ways from (and in others, quite similar to) Special Topics in Calamity Physics. A brick of a book about mystery, superstition, celebrity, and, ultimately, the lengths we go to protect the ones we love.
9. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: No small praise here: this is the best book I have read since White Teeth about race in the modern Western world.
10. The Orenda by Joseph Boyden: a detailed, heartbreaking and dazzlingly human portrait of a pivotal moment in our young country's history.

Read recently, speed-typing version: typhoid, HeLa, ice storms, suicidal poetesses, Nigerian immigrants, and Montreal bagelshop sisters

More time for reading recently, given that I have taken a running break, am sitting on the balcony more, and took a bit of a staycation!

• Bone and Bread by Saleema Nawaz: a wonderfully rich first novel from a fellow Ottawan/Montrealer about the fantastically complicated bond between two sisters growing up in Montreal in the 80s and 90s.
• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: definitely one of my favourite books of the year so far, although the fake blog posts by the main character (entitled "Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black" the blog made me apologise to my husband at least twice and that's all I am going to say about that) may be the most memorable pieces of this stunning novel by the talented Adichie. Longer, more thoughtful review here by the lovely Kerry.
• Hold Fast by Blue Balliett: a treasure of a book for kids and all ages about a family that finds themselves unexpectedly homeless in modern-day Chicago. Paired with Ocean (below), another modern-day fairy tale, with grittier subject matter but no less charm.
• And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini: yes, Hosseini does it again. Heartstrings are tugged, etc.
• Fish Change Direction in Cold Weather by Pierre Szalowski: made me nostalgic for the Ice Storm, which is no small feat given the horrors of it at the time. Great book, terrible translation.
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot: all the praise for this book is well-deserved. It is richly compelling and heart-breaking. When Zakariyya thanks Christoph Lengauer for the image of his mother's cell line, I swear I wept profusely over the pages of this book.
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (aka he who hugged my best friend recently): A little gem of a book, a fantasy for the non-fantasy reader, a fairy tale for grown-ups.
• The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce: funny, moving. A sweet tale of a stagnant marriage's fresh blooming.
• American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath by Carl Rollyson: limited new material and a tautological thesis statement in my opinion, but how could I not read it?
• Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight: a great summer read, by which I DO NOT mean it's fluff, just that it is plot-driven and engrossing! Would make a great Law and Order episode, and I say that as a L&O fan.
• Fever by Mary Beth Keane: a fascinating novel based on the story of Typhoid Mary.

Read recently: famous people doing bad things, people off (various) rails, housewives, Edith Wharton homages, and reincarnation

I've been on a good run recently for books, except for poor Helen Humphrey's Nocture, which just came in for me when reading it would be scratching a raw wound (another time, another place....)

So, here are some goodies I digested of late:

• A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan Dee: an unintentionally funny choice of literature during the Rob Ford debacle. Corporate lawyer husband Ben betrays wife Helen with a front-page scandal involving an intern in his office and a car accident. Forced to make her own way with her husband in jail, Helen finds that she has a talent for a certain type of PR work: crisis management. An interesting look into the privileged class in America, one troubled but redeemable marriage, and the modern rite of the public apology. As Helen tells a client, “People are quick to judge, they are quick to condemn, but that’s mostly because their ultimate desire is to forgive.” 
• The Age of Hope by David Bergen: Canada Reads, and all that. I loved this book because I loved Hope, with her tender ambitions and her introspective emotions. People are always bothered about books with a female voice (in this case, almost exclusively a female perspective) by a male author. Read this because it's amazing, you'll wish you knew Hope, then realise that you probably do, and not because of the author or the CBC news.
• The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout: Her Olive Kitteridge blew me away at Christmas 2008, when I read it sitting on a chair in my mother's office at church in between services (feeling like I was 12 again). The Burgess Boys, although very different in theme, also delves deeply into human emotions and motivations, family secrets, and small-town life. Strout distinguishes herself here in deftly moving between very distinct, and unknowable to each other, viewpoints.
• The Innocents by Francesca Segal: OK, I read to the end because I was compelled to, and this was an interesting book, but ultimately I am going to have to say that the premise was really the best part (and that may reduce this to a footnote in literary terms)... And you know I read my way through the Women's Prize list every year. The Guardian described this book as having "transport[ed] Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence to NW11." A modern Jewish family plans a wedding, and things go awry.
• Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple: Something about the runaway mother made me think of Veronica Mars, here, and the wry humour and us vs. them mentality didn't help! An oddly charming novel about a traumatised architect, her gifted daughter and successful husband, annoying neighbours who aren't always what they seem, some renegade shrubbery and an Antarctic voyage.
• The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer: Oh, those characters, you know the ones, who you feel are friends and you can't bear to close the book and leave their tight circle. This was one of those books, full of those characters. On my bad days, I am jealous like Jules. On my good days, I am on fire like Figman. What inspired me about this novel was the way the characters invent and re-invent themselves, staying the same and yet changing. A lesson for us all, and we're lucky if we have people like these with us on the journey.
• Life After Life by Kate Atkinson: I'm clearly veering off into crazy now, but I wanted to gobble this novel up. My favourite country and time period, a main character with my grandmother's name, a great fox metaphor and a Hitler assassination attempt? Heck, yes. Someone at the Guardian made a great link from this book to Rushdie's Midnight's Children, in that "to understand just one life, you have to swallow the world." Or, as blogger and reviewer Kerry Clare wrote, "Think Sliding Doors and The Post-Birthday World, though not with parallel lives exactly but an array of them instead, strung together like a garland of paper chain dolls." So, yes, this is a novel about reincarnation, and Ursula, our main character, has a particularly difficult time getting through both the Spanish influenza and World War II (but then, who didn't?). You have to love the characters, the relationships, the familiar walk-ons in variations of themselves, and the "and then what did [he/she] do?" aspect of the plot threads, to not get frustrated as Ursula dies again and again (in what begins to resemble an Edward Gorey-esque efficiency), and I did.

Read recently: now with a stowaway to New France, a WW2 female spy, a mother of a god, an American Civil War vet, a Montreal taxi driver, two ballerinas, Hahvahd grads, and some regular normals

Hi, my name is Alexandra and I have a library book hoarding problem. I totally just returned at least five of these unread. Argh!

I like doing these posts because I get to talk about books that people might not have heard of that I enjoyed but that don't fit together thematically, and also because at times like these, when it seems like I spent an inordinate amount of time staring out the living room window, organising tax information, or watching terrible TV, the list serves to remind me that I am still an OK reader. Whew.

• The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan: made me homesick for ballet (not uncommon). Not as great as I was expecting it to be, given the hype. An interesting exploration of Degas's Little Dancer Aged Fourteen using contemporary ideas about  physiognomy. For me, the most compelling aspect of the novel was the relationship between the three sisters and their common love of dance, as each strives to lift themselves and each other from the poverty of 1880s Left Bank Paris through a variety of honest and dishonest means.
• Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese: a book that should be read by all Canadians. Heart-breaking in subject matter and haunting in tone. Wonderfully, simply written.
• The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan: one of my guilty pleasures, a novel exploring the lives of four female Harvard grads as they approach middle age. Did they make the right choices? Are they growing apart from one another? Have they sold out their dreams? The novel is structured around the 5-year updates provided by alumni for the "red book" of the title (srsly, I would kill myself if I had to write these). Funny, dramatic (if implausible!), and entertaining: like reading your high school yearbook if people's thoughts made it in there.
• Speaking From Among the Bones by Alan Bradley: I am a huge fan of Flavia, and this latest volume in the series doesn't disappoint. Again, as with The Painted Girls, but even more so in this case, the relationship between the three de Luce sisters is what absolutely makes this series for me. It's odd, nuanced, and full of real emotion. Speaking ends on a horribly tantalizing cliff-hanger. The next volume could mark a tremendous change in the series, but in a certain sense I think this was needed.
• Above All Things by Tanis Rideout: I have no patience for stories of athletes (hegemonic masculinity, competition is king, etc., etc.) But..... but. This little gem of a novel by a Canadian (!), written from alternate perspectives, traces Mallory's last Everest climb in 1924. One of my favourite time periods? Check? English boarding school ghosts? Check? Female perspective? Check. OK, then, I guess I will give it a shot. I mean, you could write a whole novel just based on this photograph, for heaven's sake. So this is about Ruth and George, and their love, and the choices they both make that lead George up the mountain for the third time, never to return. This is a book both about the consequences for George of his fascination with the climb, and the far-reaching consequences for those he loves and leaves behind.
• The Tinsmith by Tim Bowling: strange little novel about two American Civil War veterans (a Union doctor and an escaped slave) and "the kind of violence that we do" to one another. Many amputations and lots of salmon feature prominently.
• Carnival by Rawi Hage: I enjoyed this more than I thought I would, given the outlines of the plot (such as it it). Which is not to say it wasn't weird: it was.
• Mrs Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn: another guilty pleasure, this one interesting for its ruminations on strange life choices, be it monarch or royal staff member. This is an odd but lovely book about Queen Elizabeth II escaping Buckingham Palace in a hoodie, in search of cheese, due to a sort of delayed mid-life crisis. The Queen's take on major historical figures, and modern society, including race relations in England, are treasures.
• Whirl Away by Russell Wangersky: great, if wistfully sad, collection of short stories.
• The Tale-Teller by Susan Glickman: historical novel about a young French Jewish girl who dressed as a boy to travel to New France. A latter-day Scheherazade, she weaves a wild tale to the authorities in an attempt to remain in the new world (suck it, Aaron Hart). This book makes you work for the truth, which is in some ways simply as Esther puts it: "I did not run away from my faith. I ran away from the limitations that faith subjected me to."
• The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things by Lorna Crozier: patron recommendation!
• Web of Angels by Lilian Nattel: fascinating exploration into dissociative identity disorder.
• The Art Forger by B. A. Shapiro: meh. I loved the art history and descriptions of the forgery process (a giant oven! Seriously!). I could have slapped the main character in the face for her romantic vacillations and delusions, though.
• Inside by Alex Ohlin: I stayed up until 2am finishing this, because I was so concerned for the main characters' well-being that I could not, in good conscience, close the covers on them. As the Post put it, a cheery little book with "multiple suicides, failed relationships, crumbling families, abortion, a homeless teen and, for good measure, the Rwandan genocide." Oh, and skiing on Mount Royal.
• Code Name Verity by Elizabeth E. Wein: delicious, delicious, delicious. I don't know what else to say. A teenage British spy captured by the Gestapo is forced to write out her confession: another latter-day Scheherazade. With more tense twists in the road than a drive through the French Alps, this one is truly worth the hype it received, and ignore the teen label. It's for any woman who has a best friend she would die for. As my friend Lina put it:
  "Code Name Verity is that rarity among rarities in Young Adult Fiction these days: it is a book about a friendship between women without any bullshit. They are not fighting over a guy. One does not become popular and leave the other behind. Neither is the other’s sidekick- Verity and Maddie are equally skilled in their different professions, they have equally strong personalities. There is no pettiness, no jealousy, no weird obsessions with each other. No need to spend every freaking moment together talking about asinine things (sorry. I obviously have a beef about how women friendships are portrayed in popular media)."
• The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin: the mother of God suffers from post-traumatic stress, and is potentially held captive, in this oddly moving novelisation of the post-resurrection early church. Mary reflects back on her son's life, presenting a nuanced (sometimes painfully realistic) portrait of Jesus: sometimes selfish and always blindingly charismatic. The disciples don't get off any easier, either. Excellent review here.
  

Favourite children's and teen books of 2012

“Once there was a girl / an all-alone girl / in her own little bed / in her own little room / in her own little castle / who didn’t have a dragon for a friend.” 

This is going to be the saddest list ever. Nonetheless, here are the books for kids and teens that floated like jetsam past my desk this year....

Disclaimer: other more recent chapter books are embargoed because they are being considered for the CLA Book of the Year for Children and, as such, I cannot comment about them at this time.

1. Lovabye Dragon by Barbara Joosse: a lonely dragon with an overbite? What's not to love? See above.
2. Plant a Kiss by Amy Krouse Rosenthal (she of Duck! Rabbit! fame)
3. Sam et Julia dans la maison des souris by Karina Schaapman: This gem of a book is too beautiful to miss, even if you can't read the text. If you, like me, spent a childhood enraptured by dollhouses (my two favourites were the real-life one in Windsor Castle and the one in Beatrix Potter's The tale of two bad mice), this book is for you.
   
4. Oh No, Little Dragon! by Jim Averbeck: do I have a dragon thing? Perhaps! Little Dragon loses his fire-breathing ability when playing in the bathtub. Will he get it back? The suspense is killing me!
5. The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce: I did make a vague effort to stay current with international book awards news, and as a result read this winner of the Guardian children's fiction prize. An intriguing mix of Polaroids of unknown origin and a story about a mysterious immigrant family who are being pursued by a demon.
6. Howl by Karen Hood-Caddy: This book, and the next one on the list, are my under-appreciated underdogs from the 2012 CLA BOYCA reads. Howl actually appeared on our shortlist last year: this is a nuanced portrait of a young girl learning to cope with grief after the death of her mother, and a whole family's story of coming together to make something meaningful out of loss. Here's a review from Q&Q.                  
7. Saving Armpit by Natalie Hyde: In a world in which quality middle grade books are often few and far between, this is an overlooked solid Canadian title about a letter-writing campaign undertaken by a group of small-town children in order to save their local post office (and thus the postmaster, coach of their local baseball team).   
8. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green: again, the hype penetrated my consciousness, and I had to pick this one up. Friends and colleagues disagree over this one: someone pointed out that teens don't talk like they do in this book (fair enough!) and someone else, like me, found this book both hilarious and tragic. For those who grew up with Lurlene McDaniel (oh yes, I went there!), this is how a book about a kid with a terminal illness was meant to be written. Green knocks it out of the park.
9. Grave Mercy: His Fair Assassin, Book 1 by Robin LaFevers: Meet your new Katniss.
10. Monoceros by Suzette Mayr: Technically published as an adult novel, but I am including it here because I feel it has a real audience with teens, especially as a year filled with truly tragic stories of teen suicides due to bullying draws to a close. This book has a passage, narrated by the victim's mother, of such utter beauty that I think it might well be one of my favourite scenes ever. As a truly Canadian story of a teen suicide, told from different perspectives, this is another under-appreciated title. Read a review here. 

Previous favourite children's book lists: 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008.
Previous favourite teen book lists: 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008.

Favourite adult books of 2012

Happy New Year!

I read 93 adult books in 2012, up from 52 in 2011. My changing professional role was reflected in the fact that I only read 28 children's and teens books (compared to 77 in 2011).

In 2013, I hope to keep increasing those adult numbers, and since this is my last year as a judge for the CLA Book of the Year for Children, make the children's books I read great ones that I choose myself for a change! It has been a great joy to be on the BOYCA committee, but I will not miss the speed-reading of 60-odd children's novels by Canadian authors with varying degrees of talent.

Without further ado, here it is, my pretties: the top 10 of 2012!

1. Gold by Chris Cleave: Chris’s writing has a way of grabbing you firmly by the heart and pulling, hard. The protagonists in this story are three Olympic bike racers, getting a bit long in the tooth in their early 30s and facing their last Olympics (London 2012). Despite not being at all interested in competitive sport, I could not put this down. There is much about the competitive spirit of world-class athletes in here, but there is also a love triangle, a child struggling with cancer, and a sensitive exploration of the choices we make in life, and the paths we choose and can also change. There are some absolute gems of phrasing and emotion in here. Read it. Some readers have compared the relationship in this novel between two strong women as reminiscent of Atwood’s The Robber Bride (my favourite of hers), and that is somewhat apt. For other heart-wrenching tales, however (for you masochists who like to cry while reading), I would recommend Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones or The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart.
2. Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie: You may or may not know that I heart Rushdie, but we have  a fraught relationship. On the one hand, Imaginary Homelands changed my life, Midnight's Children acted as a closing bookend of sorts to my thesis about E. M. Forster, and I will watch any interview / attend any reading Rushdie gives, because I find him a fascinating and erudite speaker whose perspective I often find completely refreshing. On the other hand, I didn't finish The Satanic Verses, and have a low threshold for some of Rushdie's bombast. So, I embarked on Joseph Anton unsure how we were going to get along. Turns out I couldn't put it down, even if sometimes it drove me crazy (which probably encapsulates how I feel about Rushdie overall, frankly). I didn't mind the 2nd person narrative, found his unravelling of the Gordian Knot of his time under the fatwa deeply moving, vehemently agreed with many of his conclusions and observations about Western society's complex relationship with Islam, and found his stories about the supportive friendships that sustained him during his time in hiding (including a lovely one about a trip to Canada, involving being hugged by Bob Rae and serenaded by Adrienne Clarkson) compelling (I kept following the Husband around saying, "Listen to this!"). As a thank you of sorts to those who stood by him, and a statement about East/West relations during a tumultuous time in modern history, this is a tremendous book. As an indictment of those who abandoned, or outright criticised him, this book is less effective: Rushdie doesn't mince words, and in many cases rightly so, but sometimes a more unflattering spite seeps out of the pages, which is a pity. This is still an absolute must-read, however. Frankly, it's hard to begrudge him a little spite sometimes.
3. 
   Astray by Emma Donoghue: These stories are all about people on the move: between identities, places, or lives. I read this on the train, which was unintentionally perfectly appropriate. All of the stories are based on real-life people, and Donoghue follows each tale with a description of the actual events, whether it be a newpaper clipping about a female con artist or a series of letters between a husband and wife separated by an ocean (that story made me cry). The Guardian used the word frustrating when talking about the brevity of these tales; that is something that often bothers me in short stories, but here I felt that each story was so perfectly crafted that I didn't mind. Plus, frankly, I am happy to see that the pre-Room Donoghue is still around.
4. South Riding by Winifred Holtby: see review here. Readers who enjoyed Emma Brown (completed from Charlotte Brontë’s draft by Clare Boylan), Muriel Spark or our own massively-underappreciated Gwethalyn Graham will enjoy this novel.
5. Shine shine shine by Lydia Netzer: see review here. 

6. Sleeping funny by Miranda Hill: Well, I already loved Miranda for Project Bookmark, and now I just love her extra. These short stories all have an element of the magical, or just plain odd, about them, from a suspicious neighbour who may just have dropped out of a fairy tale, to a group of children who are afflicted with visions of their own conception (some surprises there!). These stories made me laugh out loud, and also cry. Warning: the one that won the Journey Prize was actually my least-favourite in the collection.... 
7. This is how you lose her by Junot Diaz: no, your eyes do not deceive you. I, an avowedly lukewarm reader of short stories, have chosen three collections in my top 10 this year. In October, I admitted that I was, indeed, oddly sympathetic with the rat narrator of this collection, especially for someone who spent four years with her very own serial philanderer. These stories, about the Yunior you may be familiar with from Drown, will break your heart as they draw you into the flawed but somehow tender heart of a troubled young man.
8. The grief of others by Leah Hager Cohen: Ricky Ryrie blames her husband John for a lot, but she blames herself for more, in this story of family secrets and new beginnings. The Ryries, parents to two living children and one recently-deceased baby boy, are struggling to move forward through their grief when John’s older daughter from a previous relationship shows up on their doorstep unexpectedly. Cohen’s writing gave me goose bumps; speaking about the Ryries’ dead child, she writes, “He wore, during his short life, a white cotton shirt with a single covered side snap, a white flannel receiving blanket, and a white cotton cap. … He was given two diaper changes, the second proving unnecessary.” It’s easy to see how this gem of a book made it on the Orange Prize longlist. . It has been a long time since I have rooted so strongly for a young girl, as I did for the Elizabeth “Biscuit” Ryrie, who we first meet when she has stolen a library book about funeral rites and falls into the Hudson River after a ritual for her dead baby brother goes wrong. Everyone in this book is barely coping with their grief (over the baby but also over their own personal tragedies and changing relationships with one another), but the story is somehow still gentle, hopeful and beautiful. If the past is a foreign country, so too is the grief of others, even those closest to us. This one is for readers who enjoy Joyce Carol Oates, Julia Glass, Kim Edwards’s The Memory Keeper’s Daughter or Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.
9. Everybody has everything by Katrina Onstad: Onstad captures perfectly the human spirit that lurks below a veneer of suits, heels, polished front doors, and shiny car windows in downtown Toronto. Ana and James are one such couple: half suit, half wrinkled artsy type, muddling towards early middle age childless and drifting apart (maybe). Into this mix falls small Finn, the young child of their good friends, left in their care after a car accident that claims Finn’s father and leaves his mother in a coma. Thrust into temporary parenthood (they wonder if Robert Crumb is appropriate bedtime reading as it’s the only illustrated book they have), Ana and James re-think their roles in their marriage, and the choices they have made without always realizing something was chosen. This is a character novel, and, to be frank without giving too much away, it’s about James wanting Finn desperately and Ana discovering that she doesn’t. Sure to divide readers, Ana’s struggles will hopefully spark meaningful book club discussions about what modern women can, or should, want for themselves.
10. Gillespie and I by Jane Harris: Also on the Orange Prize longlist, this jewel of a book perfectly captures the voice of its Scottish, Victorian-era (unreliable) narrator, 35-year-old nosy spinster Harriet Baxter. Harriet, living on her own and with a small income that allows her to be a patron of the arts (as she would put it), endeavors to set the story straight for us about her relationship with the members of the Gillespie family, to whom a great tragedy has befallen (although it takes Harriet awhile to spit out the details). By the time she is out with it, however, her story begins to look more like something by Wilkie Collins than the gentle memoirs of a thoughtful family friend. Interspersing the story of her friendship with dashing young artist Ned Gillespie with her present life as an elderly woman in a mysterious stand-off with a possibly deranged maid, Harriet keeps readers under her thumb, revealing only what she wants us to see – but with an occasional slip. This is chilling, masterful, psychological drama at its best. For fans of Iain Pears’s The Portrait or Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture.

Previous lists:

• Favourite adult books of 2011
• Favourite adult books of 2010

Best reads of summer 2012

One of my favourite summer reading spots

• Gold by Chris Cleave - What more can I say? You can open this book scoffing at the importance of sport, and Chris will nevertheless grab your heart in a vice grip and proceed to toy with it like a cat with a bird for 336 pages. Here, just watch a video already. And go see him - he will be at Westmount Public Library on October 27th as part of their Fall Author Series.
  
• Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel - Of course Mantel knocks it out of the park with this second volume in her planned trilogy about Thomas Cromwell. This is an intense look at the inner workings of Henry VIII's court. It spends little time on the overwrought soap operas we are all familiar with, and more time ruminating on the timeless crimes of corrupting power, political backstabbing. In Mantel's handling, Cromwell might well be the most shrewd (note I did not say likeable or even sympathetic) character in Tudor England. Your heart will break for many minor characters, and it will break all over again for the ultimately flawed, and deeply troubled Anne Boleyn.
  
• Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer - Affectations that could be incredibly annoying in a lesser author's novel (linear equations used to explain appropriate emotional responses to an autistic husband, stereotypical walk-on parts for suburban neighbours, random baldness) fit perfectly in this gem of a first novel. Props to Book Riot, which is where I think I first read a review. No props to the NYT, which described it as "chick lit with a metaphysical spin." Ew. This is a love story with a science (or you could say magic realist) spin, in which Sunny (bald: see above) snaps under the pressure of a white picket fence life with an autistic husband, Maxon, and toddler, only hours before Maxon (an engineer who makes robots) leaves on a space mission. When Maxon's spaceship is hit by a meteorite (jeopardising not only the mission but the lives of those on board) and Sunny decides to stop wearing her wig, life for the unique couple seems about to veer sharply off-course. Reflecting on their shared history (Maxon more or less grew up at Sunny's house, taking refuge from an abusive home) and their possible future (as Sunny's single mom, a force of nature herself, lies dying in hospital guarding one last secret of her own), both Sunny and Maxon realise a few things about themselves, and each other. This is a very unique story, very uniquely told.
  
• The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh - This was one of Sharron's "Best Bets" last year, and I have been meaning to get to it for awhile. Ejected from her group home when she turns 18, Victoria Jones isn't exactly prone to opening up or trusting others after a checkered past in foster families. Instead, she uses the Victorian language of flowers as a way to communicate with others, spending long hours growing flowers and herbs with meanings known (mostly these days) only to her. Victoria's past, and the person who taught her about the language of flowers, is gradually revealed in flashbacks while the adult Victoria lives on the streets and starts a job at a florist. Her past and present collide when she gives a bouquet with a particular meaning, and receives one back with a significant, and relevant, response. Check out the dictionary of flowers from the novel here. Yarrow, by the way, is a cure for the broken heart.
  

Read recently

• The Far Side of the Sky by Daniel Kalla - Follows a Jewish family who manages to escape WW2 Vienna to Shanghai. Fascinating subject matter; sadly, stilted writing, unless Kalla (himself a physician) is describing surgery.
• Mudwoman by Joyce Carol Oates - Chilling, weird, engrossing tale of a female academic's gradual unraveling into mental illness, prompted by flashbacks to her troubled childhood.
• Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel - Absolutely brilliant. Mantel has a rare gift for langauge, as in this line from the end of the book (see how it promises more fun for volume 3?) "The word 'however' is like an imp coiled beneath your chair."
• The Library Book by Alan Bennett et al. - Delicious short essays and humourous stories about libraries. Includes contributions by Seth Godin, Caitlin Moran, Kate Mosse, Lionel Shriver, Stephen Fry, and Zadie Smith (Everybody Has Everything by Katrina Onstad - Thought-provoking examination of middle age, marriage, and accidental foster parenthood. I'm pleased she has been longlisted for the Giller - well-deserved.
• The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore - Chilling short ghost story from a masterful writer.
• The Flight Of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey - Supposed to be inspired by Jane Eyre, this watered-down version of the story is engrossing but ultimately forgettable.
• Stray Love by Kyo Maclear - Watch the trailer here. Saigon pops up again (see: above), as does Guyana (see: the Husband) in this novel about a mixed-race boy, Marcel, trying to uncover his story.
• Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin - Every year, I try a few mysteries just to check. I think I mysteried out in the early 90s (when I read every Nancy Drew, and then every Agatha Christie, and then every Ellis Peters) and now I have just lost my appetite. Sorry, mysteries! I recognise that this is a good story but I just wasn't into it.
• The Town That Drowned by Riel Nason - sorry, but did this really win the regional Commonwealth Book Prize for Canada and Europe? It seems like a decent teen novel to me, but nothing more. This is a solidly interesting story about a factual event in NB history: the submersion of a small town underwater, as seen through the eyes of a young girl and her autistic brother. This book is ITCHING to be paired with Pascal Blanchet’s White Rapids.
• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - I laughed and cried at the same time on p. 280. Which is to say, it was good. Very good. Surprisingly original and fresh for the subject matter (young girl with terminal cancer falls in love).
• In the Kingdom of Men by Kim Barnes - Interesting setting; haunting narrator. An historical novel set in the 60s following a young (read: pregnant in high school) couple who try to get rich on Mideast oil by moving to Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia. Barnes deftly weaves together the implications of the status of women in both small-town, fire-and-brimstone Oaklahoma and the Bedouin tribes of Saudi Arabia.
• The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright - A woman speculates on her history of adultery while preparing to pick up her boyfriend's daughter during a snowstorm. Introspective, thoughtful, compelling.
• The Red House by Mark Haddon - An extended family gets to know each other all over again while on holiday in the English countryside. One sprained ankle, a few stolen kisses, and several knock-up fights later, everyone emerges more or less unscathed, and perhaps in some cases even closer. Haddon focuses on his unique blend of dry humour and serious insight.
• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls - I could not put this down. As usual, this is my "I'm behind the curve!" pick of the litter. I did hear tons of great press about this when it came out, but I somehow never picked it up until now. Having watched Chichester's Choice only the night before, it was almost impossible not to draw parallels between these two stories of victims of childhood abuse, parents utterly unprepared to be parents, individuals of great intelligence and promise whose lives somehow veered off the course we would consider to be normal, or appropriate. Walls tells the story of her childhood and youth spent in numerous small towns across America (as her father dodges taxes, unions and various other government agencies he has antagonised) before her parents finally settle in Appalachia, where Walls and her siblings are still taunted for being the poorest of the poor, the family with a garbage dump in their yard. While all four siblings make lives for themselves, in New York City and California, their parents continue to live on the streets.
• The Painted Bridge by Wendy Wallace - A story about Victorian-era "hysteria" and the advent of photography. Could be easily paired with Helen Humphrey's Afterimage for fruitful discussion!
  

Stay tuned for my top picks of Summer 2012!

Read recently: One-minute reviews

• The Land Of Decoration by Grace McCleen: A very odd and touching novel about a young girl raised by a single father in a religious sect. When Judith begins to believe that God is speaking to her, and that events occurring in her miniature dioramas (the Land of Decoration) are mirrored in real life, things go a bit haywire for her and her father, especially when Judith is bullied at school and her father, whose factory is on strike, is being persecuted as a scab.
• Gold by Chris Cleave: Oh my God, Chris, why do you do this to me every time? Although there was less weeping over this novel than over his previous two, I still managed to read this one in 24 hours. No joke. Caroline and I raced. The protagonists in this story are almost exactly my age (interesting? Weird? Sometimes I hate reading about people my age. They often annoy me ... in real life, too). They are also Olympic bike racers. Despite not being at all interested in competitive sport, I could not put this down. There are some absolute gems of phrasing and emotion in here. Read it.
• Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers: Book 1 in a series (His Fair Assassin), this is a really fun teen title with a great heroine. Set in 14th century France, it sparked me to learn more about Anne of Brittany (ah, thank you Wikipedia). I can only take a few of these hardcore genre books a year, but this one was outstanding writing so it went down easy.
• New Republic by Lionel Shriver: Is it just me, or is her tone starting to sound fake? Maybe grandiose is a better word. Anyway, not my favourite. Getting into Rushdie's pretentious territory.
• South Riding by Winifred Holtby: a true 20th-century gem, this one was recommended by the inestimable David of Nicholas Hoare's Greene Ave. location. I am a total sucker for an interesting back story, so when I read more about Holtby, I was captivated. This was her sixth and final novel, published by Vera Brittain after Holtby's death at 37 from Bright's disease. South Riding is about the titular fictional district in Yorkshire, and the political and social machinations of local aldermen and community leaders. Interesting for me to read in one sense for the sense of local politics of yesteryear, and the dealings behind the scene (interesting subplot about a local slum). There is a "Preferatory letter" in the book addressed to Holtby's mother, Alice, the first woman alderman of the (real) East Riding. Alice tried to block publication of the book because (so saith the Guardian) "she feared that her daughter's depiction of local government, allied to the vein of satire and "puckish mischief" familiar from her earlier books, might expose her own job to criticism and ridicule." It's heartbreaking that Alice wasn't able to see her daughter's book as the loving tribute that it was. For those of you looking for plot here, the central thread of the novel follows the arrival of the new headmistress of a local school, and her altercations with a local landowner, Robert Carne (the new Elizabeth and Darcy? Bleh!)
• A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness: Book 1 in a series (All Souls Trilogy): This was all fun and games until I remembered that I don't like my vampire stories to be patriarchal. Meh. In fact, "vampire stories" and "patriarchy" may be Venn diagrams that more or less sit on top of one another.

Read recently: One-minute reviews

• Paul au parc by Michel Rabagliati - Like all the Paul books, filled with nostalgia and a love of the simple things in life (in this case, camp friends, sleeping outdoors, family bickering, and first love). This one, about Paul's experience in Boy Scouts in Montreal during the FLQ crisis, has some unexpected trauma three-quarters of the way through. Dear Drawn and Quarterly, Hurry up with translations!
  
• Our Lady of Alice Bhatti by Mohammed Hanif - Speaking of trauma.... I almost had to put this down (the trauma is right at the end, but the characters were beginning to drive me a bit around the bend mid-way through). Nonetheless, this is an interesting exploration of contemorary Pakistani culture, albeit through the lens of the Christian minority.
  
• The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen - Family mourns the death of a baby; secrets hiding all over the place. Older half-sister shows up and shakes the boat. For readers who enjoy Joyce Carol Oates, Kim Edwards (ha! See below), or Julia Glass.
  
• Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch - I am just going to plain stop referring to this book by its North American title, Midnight Riot, which is not descriptive at all and panders to allegedly simple-minded Americans. So there. Imagine an adult Harry Potter: young Peter, of a mixed background and raised on the mean streets of London by a lovingly normal family, joins the Filth and is assigned to a secret department charged with magic law enforcement.
  
• The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst - Yes, I am late to the game reading this. I somehow thought I wouldn't like it, but I LOVED it. It made me yearn to sit my uncle down and ask him about his school days. It also totally made me collect all of these pics into an album. Anyway, this multi-generational saga loosely follows the middle-class Sawles and upper-class Valence families throughout the 20th century, starting with a love triangle between George Sawles, his sister Daphne, and the fictional WW1 poet Cecil Valence. Very Brideshead, but also has similarities to The Children's Book by Byatt.
  
• The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes - Unreliable memory, 101: The school days edition. Tony Webster looks back on his schoolfriends, including the enigmatic Adrian Finn, who became involved with Tony's girlfriend and then killed himself. Does Tony have the full story? Is he capable of seeing beyond his own perspective? Sort of atmospheric like The Portrait by Iain Pears, only with less tension - in a good way.
  
• The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards - Alex is late to the game, part 2. Woman's husband, a doctor, delivers his own twins in a snowstorm in mid-century America. When one of the babies is discovered to have Downs Syndrome, the husband tells his wife the child has died and sends it away. The repurcutions of this secret are felt throughout the family's life, and the lives of those complicit in the act. Dramatic, character-driven.
  
• A World Elsewhere by Wayne Johnston - Oddly likeable story of university friends separated by geography (America / Newfoundland) and social status (filthy rich / destitute and estranged from family) who re-connect over their two children, neither father being the biological parent of the one in their care. This sounds like a backwards way to describe this book, for those who have read it, but it's oddly what sticked with me. That, and the theme of control: control over others, and control over an environment.
  
• Touch by Alexi Zentner - Weird. That is all. If you like your magic realism set in freezing cold Northern Ontario, go for it!
  
• Currently reading: The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood - so far, also a latter-day Brideshead Revisited. Delish.