thebacklistborrower's Reviews (570)

Fight Night tells the story of Swiv, a young girl living with her very pregnant mother and very elderly grandmother. A therapist suggested that Swiv write a letter to her absent father, and through that, we get Fight Night. Swiv tells the reader all about the quirks of her family: her livewire mother, and her quirky and freewheeling grandmother. 

I’m writing this almost a year after reading it, so I’m going to be a little vague. I’ve read three Toews novels in around a year now, and this one was my least favourite, but in no way did I not like it. I thought the start was a little slow, and I had mixed feelings about the mother, but their trip to California was hilarious, and the ending was beautiful. And really, thinking about the mother after having read The Honeyman Festival, I see her in a new light too. She’s loving, fierce, and independent, just like Minn. She just also has a lot on her plate, but we are seeing it from Swiv’s view instead of her mother’s. 

At the time I wasn’t a fan (and I felt very much alone in that assessment). But in retrospect, my feelings have mellowed, and I think it was overall a sweet novel about a family of women getting by in life with the cards they’ve been dealt. They each take a different strategy, and Swiv is just starting to figure her’s out. Whether her mother or grandmother have more of an impact is up for time to tell.

As this is Miriam Toews, its worth a read if you like her other books. Its full of spirit and keeps moving at a great pace for a quick read.

A brand new book, this book club pick is now festooned with awards of all kinds: Canada Reads longlist, Giller longlist, Amazon Canada First Novel shortlist, Governor General finalist, Indigenous Voices Awards Winner, and Indigo Best Book award. Needless to say, its a very popular book this year! 

It is a very well-written book, with beautiful prose, but for reasons that I think might just have been “wrong (mental) place, wrong time”, I wasn’t blown away. I had hoped the discussion at book club would ameliorate my feelings, but for all that I agreed with everything said in support of the book, and the lessons we learned, and how the book shows how hard it is to succeed when everything is stacked against a person, my feelings didn’t change. 

The book is a coming-of-age novel for Eddie Toma, a Syilx boy growing up in the 1950s on an Indigenous reserve outside Vernon. From being a small boy to teenager, we see life through Eddie’s eyes. As a child, his family moves through the US as pickers, but as he becomes school-aged, they settle back down so he can be sent to the white school, which his mum is determined will help him succeed in life. However, one thing after another besets the family, always keeping Eddie, his mum, and others in the lurch.

One thing I wish I had seen more of in the book was Eddie’s relationship with his grandmother. The cover suggests that he finds solace with his grandmother, but I didn’t pick up on that reading the book. Aside from that, his mother is loving, and appears to be a tireless advocate for herself and her family. She’s got vision, and a plan, and even from Eddie’s perspective that’s clear.

One thing I struggled with was connecting with the characters. They seemed so distant from Eddie, which may have been by design, but I struggled to connect with Eddie too, so while I recognized the emotion of the book, but wasn’t personally impacted by it, unlike with Five Little Indians. But that being said, I was unique in my book club in those feelings. So if it appealed to you before, don’t let me stop you!

I don’t mean to gloat, but I think this was one of the highest rated books read by my book club in the two years I’ve been a member! There was so much we all liked about this book: how Saucier and Mullins give so much meaning to few words, the characters, the flow of the plot, and the narrative style. Particularly as a translated novel, this book is masterful.

[Excuse my rambling, the books I love the most are the hardest to review]

Alternately told through the perspective of a narrator and the characters, And The Birds Rained Down opens with a journalist who is investigating the great fires of northern ontario in the 1910s. She ends up at a remote camp where a few senior men live off-the-land, on their own terms, with little support except a pot farmer living in an abandoned hotel who brings them in supplies they can’t get otherwise. Except one day, the farmer brings his elderly aunt, who had been institutionalized as a youth and only recently escaped. Through this motley crew, the book explores aging, death, self-determination, societal expectations on women and the eldery, love, and trauma. 

This book is not sad, but rather sparsely beautiful. Without giving too much away, it is hard to say everything I loved. Particularly with a senior cast of characters, this book has so much that you won’t read elsewhere. For a book that’s just over 150 pages, it has incredible depth. We all knew somebody else who would like it, and that’s certainly been my experience. I’m very glad to have had a chance to revisit it and remember why I loved it the first time around. 

~February 11, 2015~
Amazing, beautiful book. It's focus on the lives of old men and a woman who just want to escape the rigid expectations of society and to live their lives, and die, with dignity. This book was hauntingly written and was very impactful.

This will be one of my favourite books this year. The sequel to The Rebel Angels, it could be a standalone novel, as rather than following the same cast, it goes back in time and tells the story of Francis Cornish, whose extensive and eccentric collection which is being dealt with in the first book. True to the title, we don’t start with the birth of Francis, but rather the upbringing of his parents, and the circumstances that lead to his birth, so we can really discern what made Francis the man he ended up becoming.

Telling this whole tale, and interjecting occasionally with their thoughts, is the Lesser Zadkiel, the angel of biography, and Francis’s personal daimon Maimas, who influenced the course of his life from before birth. This whole book is a masterpiece. Zadkiel and Maimas are trying to tease apart what’s ‘bred in the bone’-- what is nature versus nurture, and every event and every character is written with such deliberation that, like a puzzle, it seems like each page adds to the character of Francis. 

That’s to be expected from Davies, however. What I loved about this book wasn’t the wit and cleverness (as with Rebel Angels) but how entertaining it was, from start to finish. The 16 hours is full of art history, spies, politics, wars, intrigue, and a diverse and entertaining cast of characters, and I never found myself waiting for the next good part, or wanting to skip ahead. I held on to every. single. word.  And found myself regretting the end, as I wasn’t ready to be done yet. 

I’m very excited to read the last of the Cornish Trilogy “The Lyre of Orpheus”, which returns to Spook and the characters established in The Rebel Angels. I wouldn’t hesitate to consider this book essential reading if you love Canadian fiction!

You’d *think* I'd have wanted to rush this review to get it posted during spooky season, but much to my surprise, there’s more of Dickens than of Devils about it, being a series of stories about Christmas hauntings, so I’ll consider this perfect timing.

Davies was the Master of Massey College in Toronto from 1963 to 1981, during which time he gave a ghost story at each year’s “Gaudy night” (Christmas party). This book is the collection of each ghost story as told. Being told on a high-spirited night, these are not scary ghosts, but humorous tales that poke a lot of fun at academia, Massey College personalities, and Canadian celebrities (both of the time and in history). In each story, Davies himself is the main character, and he maintains that they were all really true stories.

Towards the latter half of the book, he is rather self-aware about this pledge for only true stories, being rather concerned about the probability of coming across another ghost before the annual Gaudy Night -- and the reputation of the college for having so many ghosts. But this is all tongue-in-cheek. Each year, sometimes at the 12th hour, he stumbles across one ghost, (or a few, or many), and helps them on their way. Sometimes these ghosts are graduate students, who hadn’t quite defended their thesis before it was their time, and other times of Queen Victoria. In one case, it was a Frankenstines-monster-cat, and another, an antique table possessed by the ghost of former prime minister Mackenzie King.

If you don’t know your Canadians, this probably isn’t the book for you. But not having ever gone to a university, let alone U of T, I’m happy to say I still found the stories hilarious (in one scene, ghosts of Canadian authors are clamoring to be reborn. When asked why, Davies speculates “perhaps they hope that this time they might be born American authors”). These aren’t your regular ghost tales, but worth a read if you like your rather obscure canadian lit.

 

This book is a cryptic crossword in the best way possible. I felt like I needed to be smarter to read it, as the feeling that I was missing some innuendo or an inside joke pervaded me at times, but it was part of the fun (for me at least). Davies is known for his wit, and he does not disappoint, as the references I did catch onto were hilarious and a treat to find. It makes me excited to re-read his books as every time I’ll pick up on more and more (I hope).

The Rebel Angels takes place in the college of Spook (Trinity College, I’m told), and follows the lives of those caught in the orbit of Maria Magdalena Theotoky, a graduate student. Alternating in perspective between Maria herself, and “Prof the Rev” Darcourt, a professor priest at the college, we get glimpses of a memorable cast of characters who all, one way or another, seem captivated by Maria. And along with that, three characters, including Darcourt, are assigned as executors to the extensive and eccentric collection of Francis Cornish, who dies at the start of the book. This is woven into the story as each executor wants first hands on priceless manuscripts that Cornish may have, and from here we get academic rivalries and interpersonal conflicts. 

From that description, it may be hard to see what was so great about this novel. I know I’m certainly not doing it justice, but that is because so much of the enjoyment is in the banter of the characters, their interactions with each other, and their internal dialogue with themselves. I listened to the audiobook, and was literally laughing out loud at his jokes. As a playwright, Davies writes so theatrically it translated perfectly to audio. And it also has one of the best marriage proposals I’ve read, which was a treat as I did not expect it to end on such a note. 

Reading this book was humbling (what’s he talking about?!) but also so fun. The characters run a whole gambit of creepy to uprising, and I think if I had an academic background it would be even better. Any CanLit fan should definitely read this book!

 

 I was first given this book in 2018, when I was being convinced to run for City Council. I was genuinely considering it, but it seemed like such a huge risk (not to mention a lot of work). With the next municipal elections coming up in October for BC, I figured it was time to finally read it. 

Surviving City Hall is about a woman who was a city councillor in Nelson, BC for 16 years. The book was written to be broadly applicable to any local government, and I think it does that very well. Donna talks about her experiences working with different councillors and mayors, and all the trials faced by local governments, from animal control to development and everything in between. I found I appreciated stories as I could draw the connection to my own community, but I believe anybody else interested in learning more about how municipalities work would learn a lot.

(Before going farther: I’m not running for council. It's too much to explain in the character limit but DM me if you want details. That being said, I’m happy to throw my labour behind another campaign! DM me :) )

Back to the book: The book, apart from giving an overview of how things work, and the interpersonal and political skills to work on a council, had pretty interesting details about the politics of a lockout the city enacted against its union, and, most shockingly to me, the details of a Human Rights case against the City from the first (and at the time, only) female works crewmember, who after 15 years, revealed all the sexism and harassment she had dealt with. As one of three women in my civic works building, this broke my heart. I don’t have to deal with p0rn on the walls as she did, but for how far we have come, there is still so far to go for true inclusion of women in trades and technology workspaces. 

I’d absolutely recommend this book to anybody familiar with Nelson as they’d appreciate the local history, but I’d also say it is essential reading for any women looking at local government. Its an educational, and inspirational read. 

Being a hobby philosopher, I absolutely loved The Good Place, and eagerly reserved this book at the library when I heard it existed. But, when I got the hardcopy, I flipped through the first few pages, took a look at the table of contents, and decided I wanted the audio instead. And I’m sure glad I waited!

How to Be Perfect is the culmination of all the research into moral philosophy that Shur did when writing the good place. And, over four season which reference dozens of philosophers and philosophical theories, its a lot. And in this book, they are so well summarized for the average person.

An issue I’ve had with books which summarize moral philosophy ideas is that they often are just lists of philosophers without any real connection between them. What I really loved about this book is that it is constructive. Each chapter, and each section within each chapter all build upon each other. So, the first chapter, on the easiest moral problem of whether it is morally right to punch your friend in the face for no reason, sets the foundation with the easy-to-understand Aristotlean Virtue Ethics, which is still referenced in the later chapters with much less clear-cut moral questions. 

He does talk about how most of moral philosophy is white, and old, and racist, and other problematic elements of the theories and people behind them, and I appreciated that. Ultimately, he says he wants the reader to have an arsenal of moral theories to help them solve complex moral problems. Through the book, he’ll take a little bit of this theory, and a little bit of that theory, and skip over another -- to show how we might use many theories to check and balance each other into a best solution, and I loved that. 

And, of course, it was funny! He brings his wit and comedy into these discussions, and the audiobook brought in the cast of the Good Place. This was a super enjoyable listen and I think anybody would find it entertaining and informative. 

 

 Cw: sexual assault

This book is a sleeping lion of a story. I expected something slow and quiet, but the farther I listened, the more I realized that’s exactly what the heroines of the story are banking on: that others will think they are “just women talking”, when they are planning action that will shake their lives and their community.

Inspired by true events of Mennonite women and girls being drugged and raped by men in their communities, the heroines of this story are given two days to figure out their next steps while all the men of the village are in the city arrange bail for those who perpetuated the abuse. They discuss three options: do nothing, stay and fight, and leave. In deciding, they explore their relationship with their religion and god, each other, their children and husbands, and their community, and ask themselves what justice means to them in such a patriarchal society. Accompanying the women is August Epp, a man who had returned to the community after his family was excommunicated. Being literate (and, in his words, barely seen as a man), he records the discussion for posterity at the request of the women. 

I felt that for a book that is purely talk, it is fast-paced and intense. There is tension in every page as the women struggle with such a big decision in a short time. Some wrestle with a desire for justice versus their religious pacifism. Others struggle to reconcile their image of their god with the harm put upon them. They all engage in philosophy, theology, and more to determine which of the three options they should choose, and what they are willing to give up for their own freedom and sense of justice. 

I won’t reveal the ending, but I can tell you the book keeps you hanging on to the very end. The tension rises as the men get closer and closer to home, and the women wrestle with the most difficult decision of their lives that will change them and their children’s lives forever. This is my favourite Toews novel I’ve read and am so excited to see it in film later this year!
 

 This was an unexpected delight of a book! I picked it up as part of the “30 Books to Celebrate 30 Years of @cbcbooks Writers and Company”, with it representing the 2011 entry (for a full list, you can find the challenge on @thestorygraph). 

The book tells the story of the very affluent jewish banking family the Ephrussis, who lived in Paris and Vienna in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but through the lens of a collection of 264 tiny Japanese sculptures called Netsuke. The writer, a famous ceramicist, was the fifth generation to inherit the collection, and in this book, he traces how a great uncle came to collect them in Paris, gifted them to his grandparents in Vienna when they married, and how they survived World War II to return once again to his family (a delightful, emotional surprise I will not give away).

One thing that leapt out to me immediately is that this book is *so* tactile, probably because it was written by a ceramicist. I’ve just never noticed so many descriptions of how things feel in other books. For one example, describing the matchbox-sized netsuke (which occurs several times through the book), there are just gorgeous, engrossing details of the heft, the feel of individual components, and how they roll in your palm. It was so detailed I feel like I have handled them myself. And these were not the only tactile descriptions. It was lovely to listen to. 

I think what I also loved was the overarching theme of our relationship with things. It interwove itself beautifully with similar themes in The Book of Form and Emptiness, both contrasting it and complementing it.