Summer Beach Books

Chatelaine has a list of their top 50 Beach Books up this month. Lord knows I love a good list and I’ve actually read 30 of the books chosen. Much better odds than the 1001 Books list, that’s for sure. Oh, and they’ve done the list as a PDF too, which means you can print it off and carry it to the book store when stocking up for the summer. Smart!

But the list got me thinking: are there books that you specifically save for summer reading? Do you tend on the fluffy side or tackle a classic or two? I generally save any new Chris Bohjalian novels for the week I spend up north by myself, and read a lot of mysteries in the summer. I also try to plow through some big classics because reading Little Women as a girl up north from an old library copy found when Havelock actually had a library (am I even remembering this correctly? Probably not) was one of the moments that actually changed my life. I guess I try to recreate that ‘feeling’ each summer with a new classic or two. In fact, I spent so much of my summer up at the cottage that all of my favourite reading experiences actually happened there—and they still continue to do so.

So what’s on your summer reading piles this year?

#38 – Remembering The Bones


I was lucky enough to read an advance copy of Frances Itani’s latest novel, Remembering the Bones, this weekend. On a day (today) where I barely managed to get out of bed, it kept me good company. The story of an elderly woman named Georgina (Georgie) who drives her car off the road and into a ravine down the road from her house, Remembering the Bones is an addictive little novel.

The title refers to the main character’s obsession with her grandfather’s Gray’s Anatomy, 1901, and how she studied the various body parts over the years. Lying on the cold, spring ground, Georgie remembers not only the bones of her body, but those of her life as well, as she waits either for death or to be rescued.

When she drove her car off the road, Georgie was on her way to the airport, headed off to London for a lovely holiday. Born on the same day as Queen Elizabeth II, Georgie, along with 98 other lucky members of the Commonwealth, is invited to a special birthday lunch at Buckingham Palace. And the novel makes the most of this connection, and spilled in between Georgie’s own memories are those of Elizabeth’s, from her life-long interest in the Queen, and as the days pass while she’s lying on the bottom of the ravine, we learn more about both of their lives.

It would be impossible not to think of Margaret Laurence when reading this novel, not to think of Carol Shields, but even if Remembering the Bones fits in with a long line of similar Canadian novels that came before it, it’s still refreshing, interesting and told in Itani’s pure, generous voice. She has the capacity to create these honest Canadian characters, ancestors we all have packed away in our own genealogical closets, without them feeling stereotypical or confined by their small Ontario towns.

I enjoyed all of the characters in this book, the ones touched by the two great wars, the ones touched by the other tragedies that seem to define a life, deaths, births, books, all of the important things that mark the way from one end of a person to the other. And, as always, I’m looking for inspiration for my own stories and am thankful for Itani for introducing me to Queen of Home: Her Reign from Infancy to Age, From Attic to Cellar by Emma Churchman Hewitt, which I am now obsessed with tracking a copy down.

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: I read the last 10 pages of the novel sitting at my desk at home when I should have been writing. You can catch how cluttered it is with the week’s worth of flyers, magazines and other catch-alls underneath the book. You can also see the text of my next Classic Start underneath.

On Chesil Beach Redux

Well, Michiko Kakutani apparently vehemently disliked On Chesil Beach, calling it “a smarmy portrait of two incomprehensible and unlikable people” (link via Baby Got Books). I certainly don’t think the book was an abysmal failure nor do I think McEwan has created “a small, sullen, unsatisfying story” with the little book—the opposite in fact. But perhaps that’s why Kakutani reviews for the NY Times and me for my own pleasure here at TRH.

Thursday Is Link Day

Well, I’m dead sick with a bad cold that travelled from my brother to my husband then to me. I’ve read a couple books (#36, Town House by Tish Cohen [lovely, delightful and funny] and #37, Flyte by Angie Sage for What Would Harry Read) and am in the middle of a really fun kids book called Skulduggery Pleasant by an Irish author, Derek Landy. It’s another titled for WWHR, and once I’m done that I’m hoping to get back to some of my reading challenges, fingers crossed.

Annnywwaaay, some interesting things around the web:

1. A Harry Potter theme park: is it really necessary?

2. BOOKED! It’s pretty exciting that Book Expo Canada, our annual trade show and conference, has opened up to the public in the form of this 3 day festival. I’m not sure if I’ll be attending too many events because I’ll be working the show but if you love books there are some great authors coming to town. Speaking of which, Toronto Life has a great contest to win tickets to see Gore Vidal.

3. Gabriel Garcia Marquez celebrated. I’ve started Love in the Time of Cholera and am enjoying it immensely. It’s so nice to hear of thousands turning out to see an author and, well, unheard of really.

4. Barnes and Noble recommends Paulette Jiles’s Stormy Weather. Like Oprah’s Book Club and Heather’s Picks: does anyone read books that are recommended by the big book stores? I’m curious to know.

5. I heart BoldType, it’s just so classy. Check out their newsletter, gor-geous. And they’ve suggested The Raw Shark Texts as a Beach Read, which is so fitting in an oddly ironic, conceptual fish kind of way.

That’s enough for now, I think. Stupid cold. It’s making my brain fuzzy.

TRH Event – The 5-Minute Face

So, at lunch I went down to the Sephora at the Eaton’s Centre to get a 5-Minute face done as part of a promotion for Carmindy’s The 5-Minute Face: The Quick & Easy Makeup Guide For Every Woman. And boy, it was fun. Almost as much fun as learning to do the ‘smoky’ eye when I went to MAC for the ultimate girlie make-up party.

While the look that I wanted, according to the makeup artist (the retro 60s face from the book) would take more than 5 minutes (shockingly!), she did do a lovely job of smoothing out my skin and giving me a mini-smoky eye. Even though I already know how to do that, I did manage to pick up some tips that will help with the Brigitte Bardot-inspired look I am going to try out this week.

Carmindy, of course, is gorgeous, and was helpful with her tips; she was also telling everyone that women have got to stop putting themselves down (I’m paraphrasing), and enjoy their beauty (and again, paraphrasing).

Although I did have a moment of panic that she would take one look at me and say, “Yup we need to get you on the show right away…” On the whole, for a lunch-hour break, it was totally fun.

"Sunshine Makes Me High"

A young girl exiting the Yonge/Bloor subway stop had that on her t-shirt, and it kind of made my day. She might have been a serious wacko but I preferred to envision her as a young, delightful woman who truly sees the value in a beautiful day.

Other things I am thankful for today:

1. Bike lanes: It may be like the Daytona 500 within the thin white stripe, but it sure beats battling giant SUVs and maniacs on cell phones outside the lines.

2. Swearing: Does this need any explanation?

3. Tish Cohen’s Town House: Such a delightful book to be reading yesterday in the early evening.

4. The end of the television season: The pressure, oh the pressure, of keeping up with all the shows. It was just too much. Now I’m glad that it’ll be a good few months before the serious dramas start and we can mindlessly wile away the hours watching the spectacle of So You Think You Can Dance. Awe-some.

5. My RRHB: For doing all of the chores so I could write all day yesterday. And, do you know what, I did! I managed to send 31 pages to my mentor and have approximately 80 pages of the second draft of my extra long story.

6. Dance class: I don’t care that it’s a beginner class. I don’t care that sometimes I get the steps wrong and am the chubbiest girl in the room. The teacher is wonderful and the class is just so much fun.

7. Organic chocolate: Again, does this really need an explanation?

8. The word “sigh”: It says so much in an email.

9. Facebook: I am obsessed; some people I love getting in touch with, others, meh, but it sure makes your inbox look busy considering they send you an email for just about everything. It might get tired, but for this week, I’m still chilling with my pokes, my peeps, and my photo albums.

10. Lesley C.’s University of Guelph Sweatshirt: I’ve had it for over 10 years now and really should return it but it’s the most comfortable piece of clothing I (sort of) own. I wore it all day yesterday and I think it was part of the reason I got so much done. That and the RRHB was ill so he hogged the TV all day so I couldn’t procrastinate by watching Step Up AGAIN even after I totally made him watch it with me on Saturday night. So deliciously bad—you can’t even know.

Booktherapy

Discovering a new book blog isn’t always postworthy, but I’ve been quietly reading tn’s booktherapy for the past couple days and am slowly coming around to its philosophy: books as mental health barometers. With bits of intimate details interspersed with ideas around reading experiences, the blog examines, psychologically, the impact of books on various aspects of mental health. In context, here, to the author’s life. This got me thinking: how do we view books in terms of our own psychology? Do we all have books / authors that act as a divining rods in terms of insight into our own psyches? If so, what are they?

I know I read On the Road because I dream of the day I can take off on a year-long, world wide tour of places I’ve never been. I know I feel absurdly attached to so many stories that seem to have an effect upon my own brittle grasp on reality. Anyway, do you all have a book, novel or otherwise, that sort of reflects your own psychological and/or philosophical point of view?

Slice And Dice The "Dick"?

Hyperlinked via Bookninja, I jumped over to this NY Times article about Orion books publishing a series of pared down classics like Moby-Dick and David Copperfield. As I make a great deal of my writing living from paring down classics for kids, I’m always torn when I read about stuff like this.

On the one hand, I wouldn’t ever consider discouraging anyone from reading any book, abridged or otherwise, and if the classic Moby-Dick is just too much novel for you, then hey, at least you’re getting the gist of the story, right? But on the other hand, why on earth would you need to do this for an adult audience? What holy purpose does it serve? Books, in and of themselves, are microcosmic looks at a time and a place, and while we might consider some of the classics over-written, they have managed to earmark their place in our collective creative soul for a reason, and why change them?

My own Classic Starts are primarily for kids. But does that even matter? I think so, and I really believe, especially after my own classroom visit, that reading of all kinds inspires children. And Frankenstein, Robinson Crusoe, Little Women, they’re all great stories, ones that I worked extremely hard to retain the original essence of when abridging them for younger readers. Are the writers/editors of these adult abridged editions going to do the same thing? And do you really think there are classics out there that need to be trimmed for this day and age? Probably, but that’s not really for me to say, I don’t think…

To me, it sort of reeks of the Restoration, when they gave Shakespeare happy endings because that was the spirit of drama at the time. Necessary then, but I’m pleased to punch that Hamlet was restored with Ophelia entirely in her grave by the time I ended up at university.

#35 – On Chesil Beach

For now, I’m going to post pictures of the books I read in context. I spent the weekend up north, so this photo is fitting then, with the galley (thanks Trisha!) of Ian McEwan’s latest, On Chesil Beach perched on the railing of our sun deck. The last book of McEwan’s I read was Amsterdam and considering I barely remember anything about it, I’m happy to say that my reading experience of this sweet, sad little book was extremely different.

The story of newlyweds Edward and Florence, On Chesil Beach explores how one very small mistake, a misspoken word, a poor reaction, can alter the course of your life forever. I don’t want to say much more than that considering the novel is only 166 pages long and to give too much away would perhaps ruin it entirely. Suffice to say that it takes all that was so great about Saturday, the attention to detail, the exploration of family life, and the intimate details of everyday events, and shrink wraps it to a moment versus an entire day.

Set in 1962, On Chesil Beach, as much as it is about the change the characters themselves experience, it’s also about the evolution (and later sexual revolution) of England in the 1960s. The setting feels so perfect too, even though the novel travels back and forth through Edward and Florence’s lives, the one night that they spend on Chesil Beach truly impacts their past, present and future, and I find that fascinating. I love novels that challenge the idea of traditional storytelling and, in a way, even though McEwan’s style is very classic, and this novel quite straightforward, it’s how the author gets into the details that makes this book so great.

I can’t tell you how perfect this was to read sitting in the quiet at the cottage, watching a loon or two float by, hearing the birds, feeling the pebbles underfoot, imagining the cold beef the characters had for their dinner…just lovely.