thebacklistborrower's Reviews (570)

This was the second celebrity memoir I read in 2021 where I did not know the celebrity haha (the first being Crying in H Mart). I hadn’t heard of Lindy West, and still haven’t seen any of her comedy, but the book was enjoyable enough.

Each essay explores Lindy’s life in a different way: What means to be fat, a woman in comedy, to take down rape jokes, confront a boss, etc., with her own sense of humour and wit. They all felt like short essays that were easily digestible, and I read the book quite quickly.

But for all that I didn’t enjoy the book all too much. I didn’t like her humour, and I’d read Women and Other Monsters, another book of essays by Jess Zimmerman, that touches on a lot of similar topics that I liked a lot better. I think the tone played the biggest part in that, as I just didn’t connect with how Lindy told her stories. 

However, the book raised great discussions at book club, where we each have had our own stories confronting bosses, and sexism, and we all admired Lindy and women like her to put themselves out there in such vulnerable ways to make the world a better place. We talked at length about this, and I think we all were inspired by Lindy’s stories.

The first of the five shortlisted Canada Reads 2022 books that I’ve read. I took a leap and picked this one out of the longlist to start with, and turns out I picked well! This was a book I had seen a lot about since it was published in 2020. 

Cw: residential schools

Five Little Indians tells the stories of five Indigenous people dealing with the impacts of residential schools. There are five key characters, but others appear for chapters here and there. The book starts in a residential school near Mission, BC, but from there, the reader follows the characters through the United States and Canada, each intertwining with each others stories and paths throughout their lives.

It should be no surprise that this is a dark book, with sad elements. The book is not explicit about many of the abuses suffered by the characters, but all are affected. The book deals with the death of characters who cannot cope with what they experienced, and others who cope poorly. But there is also, of course, survival and resilience. The connections they make between each other allow them to support and mentor each other through the pain and trauma.

Canada Reads 2022 is about finding a Book to Connect Us. This book is so deeply about connection. The connections lost with family from being stolen away, and the connections lost to culture. But also connections made: not all the characters knew much about each other from the school, but the common history of the school connected them. And connections made to activists and mentors that helped build them up above the lot expected by the school and society at large.

This book will connect readers by showing so many different stories in a single book. The stories of residential schools, escapes, rising above trauma, and succumbing to it, the American Indian Movement, incarceration, and retribution will connect us by showing us all that there is no one way forward, and we need to make connections to get to a better future for all.

I find a really good Canadian-written comedy can be hard to find. With very few exceptions, much of our popular literature is full of struggle and pain. One of those exceptions is Terry Fallis, who won comedy awards for his first book, Best Laid Plans. 

Moving away from the comedy of Canadian politics, Up and Down is about David Stewart, a communications pro who leaves politics to work at a multinational PR firm and is set to work on a project to increase people’s interest in the space program. Through that, it is decided that two citizens would go to space on the next launch, and he is responsible for making sure it all goes well. When an unorthodox candidate from northern BC is selected as the Canadian contestant, the pressure is on both David and the candidate to pass the hurdles required of NASA and the PR firm, who see the selection as a PR catastrophe, particularly in the more conservative US, and somebody unfit for space. 

Much like Best Laid Plans, I had a riot with this book. Fallis is funny and sharp-witted, drawing pointed conclusions about the difference between Canada and the US, the  public relations industry, the impacts of trying to be a good person in a career typically lambasted as one for the soulless, and also gender politics. There are many strong women in the book held up in comparison against strong-willed men, highlighting the difference between those two personality traits, of course. While the description of one “granola” woman falls close enough to roasting that it may cross the line for some people, the same character is cast in an incredibly positive light throughout the book, and was one of the most impressive fictional women I’ve read about in a long time.

This book made me laugh, but also tugged at my heartstrings to such a degree that I wouldn’t be surprised if this book could bring tears out of any other reader. I loved this book, and will happily revisit it the next time I need a laugh.

 

long, not a fan of the 4th wall,

A bunch of old high-class English folk gossip and socially parry with each other, as each of them mysteriously get phone calls from a man (old, young, clear, scratchy, proper or low-class depending on who you ask) who says “Remember, one day you must die”, then hanging up.

This novel was decidedly odd, and unlike a lot I have ever read. Part of that I wonder is the age of the book, or that I never ready mystery, so I just wasn’t used to the pace? I thought it started exceptionally slow as all the characters were introduced, and I sure had problems keeping them straight, but it did pick up. Mostly. The constant discussion of who was losing their faculties, what wills were being changed (and to what effect), who had had affairs with whom in the past, who was dead, and who attended (or didn’t) the funeral… it wasn’t thrilling.

One thing I LOVED about this book was the edition, a Time Magazine “Time Reading Program Special Edition”. Look at the cover. Look at the font. You just don’t get style like that any more. This book has *the* old book smell, and a note on the inside cover provides the source not only for the paper, but the cover (“The Plastic Coating Corporation, Holyoak, MA” lol). This book is of its time and I love how unapologetic it is about that.

Muriel Spark is a critically acclaimed author, the NYT said she writes "comic metaphysical entertainment", but this book was only just “fine” from me. I picked it up as part of the list of “30 Books to Celebrate 30 Years of Writers and Company, a list celebrating the 30 best interviews, authors, and books covered on Writers and Company, a CBC radio show, and it was the second I picked up. I’ve got a goal of reading all 30 in 5 years, so I’m already a little behind, but if you’re interested in catching up on what I’ve read to date, or hear about these notable authors and books in the future, be sure to give me a follow and check out my Guide for all others I’ve read.

I could not get enough of Best Laid Plans when I read it at the tail end of 2020. Combining engineering, Canadian politics, and comedy, it was a total hit (wait, wait hear me out!). Terry Fallis won a number of awards for the book, including a comedy award and Canada Reads, when it was published in the late 2000s, and this sequel does not disappoint.

*very minor spoilers*

Instead of focussing on the humour of a verbose engineering professor signing up to run in an election simply to avoid teaching “English for Engineers 101”, and winning against all odds, it tells the story of Angus, the engineering professor, intentionally throwing his name into the hat, only to be running against the man who literally wrote a book on low-road, mud-slinging campaigns. When, shortly after the election, a bridge collapses, the politicians turn to the only engineer they know to discern what the cause was, and how to stop it from happening.

*spoiler over*

If you had told me I’d be reading a book that managed to make Asset Management funny, I wouldn’t have believed you. This book perfectly captures the essence of  Canadian Politics in a vice of satire, but also speaks very honestly (if dramatically) about the issue of underfunding of Canadian infrastructure and the problems it can cause. Discussions of what to fix, how much money we have to fix, how do we optimize that spending, and how much help we can get from the government to help is a daily discussion in my workplace in a municipality. The issues of downloading maintenance to smaller, less well-funded and -resourced jurisdictions came into sharp relief with the flooding of BC this fall. And Angus and Daniel made me laugh, groan, and appreciate it all.

I love these books, but you certainly don’t need to know engineering or politics to appreciate and laugh over them. I can’t wait to read “Operation Angus”, the third in the trilogy, published this year. I think we could use a good dose of the principled Angus now more than ever.  

This book is an Instagram darling and after reading it, it is so easy to see why. For so many of us who look to sci-fi and fantasy for close-up examinations of the foibles and faults of our own world, this book goes one step further and doesn’t pretend to be anything else.

Dex is a tea monk, struggling with their sense of meaning and purpose in life. Despite becoming one of the planet’s most loved tea monks, they are starting to once again feel a sense of {    }. That nameless feeling of restlessness partnered with apathy --you want to be doing something, but you don’t want to be doing what you usually do. When he literally steps off the beaten path, he meets a robot, Mosscap, who was chosen to check in on humanity after the robots went their own way.

A gorgeous little novella, A Psalm for the Wild-Built packs so much into it. While the contrast between Mosscap and its purpose between Dex’s struggle to find one isn’t deeply explored, a sequel has already been announced, and this book sets it up wonderfully. Woven between the often no-subtle philosophical, social, and technological questions are tender descriptions of nature, the beauty of community, and connection.

Looking forward to A Prayer for the Crown-Shy next year to see how Dex’s and Mosscap’s stories grow and develop.

I have been in love with the Within The Wires podcast from the start of the first season in 2016. NOTE: this book is stand-alone from the podcast, so you do not need to have listened to read this book. As a reader who loves worldbuilding where I have to use hints and unexplained references to “build-it-myself”, I can’t get enough of the show. So as soon as a book set in the same world was announced, I preordered it, prompting my local bookstore to kindly point out that it would not be available for another 10 months (Thanks @otterbooks!). 

This book is set in an alternate 20th century and takes the form of a published journal by a famous, yet controversial, psychologist who lived through “the reckoning”, a combination of the two world wars plus the Spanish flu. Her journal starts with her as a young girl and refugee from the conflicts, through her training in psychology, and eventually the tactical use of her psychological treatments to facilitate the end of countries, families, and other “tribal affiliations” to preclude a future Reckoning. 

I was eagerly looking forward to more depth to this world from the book. While it didn’t disappoint, it perfectly balanced expositional world building with an unreliable narrator and complete gaps in detail (nobody is great at keeping a journal full-time) to keep teasing the reader with what they don’t know, like in the podcast. But what you do get is an intense and intriguing story of a woman living through “the apocalypse”, as she states on her first page, annotated and commented on by the publisher “for clarity”. But what is real? What are the motivations of the publisher, who is very clearly a black-market publisher of banned books. What did they edit for their own ends? What isn’t stated, or known?

Anybody who likes dystopian fiction, unreliable narrators, political thrillers, and the best of worldbuilding should definitely pick up this book, and give the podcast a listen. It will not disappoint.

This was the first pick of the season for my new-to-me book club. I don’t often see graphic novels selected as book club picks, and I eagerly picked up a copy (what book buying ban?). Book clubs are best for helping us pick up books we wouldn’t have read otherwise, and while I do read graphic novels, I don’t know I would have read this one otherwise. And I’m so glad I did.

Shadow Life is about Kumiko, an elderly woman who escapes from the long-term care home that she was placed in by her children, to live her life on her own terms. However, not long after moving into her little apartment, she starts to see shadows following her, and ends up fighting death itself, with the help of a small community that she has built around her.

I loved this book. There is a certain amount of ambiguity as to what Kumiko is actually experiencing. Is the demon stealing her meds a manifestation of dementia or truly death’s shadow trying to take her down? Or is it both? If it is real to her, does it really matter?

Through it all she perseveres, going to the pool for exercise, emailing her children to confirm that she is still alive, cooking, and living her life. The suspense of the shadows following Kumiko through her day, and making attempts on her life, made me want to speed read it, but the tension is ramped up to a climax that I won’t forget soon. While the book features death, it is ultimately about life, and what we live for.

What I also personally appreciated is the book was set on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, where I previously lived. It is beautifully represented; I was able to identify many of the background landmarks, and made me homesick for that time of my life. That being said, the book’s illustrations are perfect. In black and white and shades of grey, they add mystery and mood, boosting the story to the next level. I will absolutely be revisiting this book in the years to come.

This book became a favourite after my first time reading it, so when I heard that Ozeki’s next book, The Book of Form and Emptiness, was going to be a companion novel, I had to reread it. I had forgotten how unique of a read it is. I honestly can’t tell you if this book is literary fiction, scifi, fantasy realism, or a thriller. It depends on how you read and interpret its story. It might be all of those or just some of them.

Cw: suicide

The book is about Ruth, a writer on a remote BC island, who finds a Hello Kitty lunchbox on the shoreline. Inside are letters written in French, a wristwatch, and a diary in Japanese written by Nao, a Japanese teenager who wants to write the life story of her 104-year-old feminist buddhist nun grandmother, then commmit suicide. As Ruth reads the journal she starts to question and examine her own life and identity, occasionally becoming disconnected with time and reality.

As a reader, I become as connected and concerned for Nao as Ruth does. Entry by entry, we learn about the hardship she and her family have experienced, but we also see glimpses of a joyful, funny, teenager. Nao is committed to telling her grandmother’s story, but can’t see her value continuing the world after that. Between school bullying, but tender scenes at her grandmother’s temple, my emotions ran the gamut reading Nao’s entries. Ruth, on the other hand, I felt connected to but differently. She is struggling with her identity and her sense of connection to the world. I felt like she was easy to slip into as a reader, acting almost as my avatar in the story. She forgets that what she’s reading is in the past-- but, really, don’t we all feel like that when a story captures us? Through her, the relationship between the writer and reader is brought to light.

I love this book, and eagerly await The Book of Form and Emptiness (easter egg: form and emptiness are discussed in the Time Being :) Give it a read if you’re looking for something you can’t quite explain to the people who ask “what are you reading?”