Contest Alert – Jeannette Walls

Jeannette Walls hit the bestseller lists with her first book, the heartbreaking yet hopeful memoir The Glass Castle. She then repeated her success with her second book, Half Broke Horses. This book, labeled a “A true life novel”, is based on her grandmother’s life.

This coming June, Walls has a new book being released, a novel, called The Silver Star. From the book’s description:

From one of the bestselling memoirists of all time, a stunning and heartbreaking novel about an intrepid girl who challenges the injustice of the adult world—a triumph of imagination and storytelling.

It is 1970. “Bean” Holladay is twelve and her sister Liz is fifteen when their artistic mother Charlotte, a woman “who flees every place she’s ever lived at the first sign of trouble,” takes off to “find herself.” She leaves her girls enough money for food to last a month or two. But when Bean gets home from school one day and sees a police car outside the house, she and Liz board a bus from California to Virginia, where their widowed Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying antebellum mansion that’s been in the family for generations.An impetuous optimist, Bean discovers who her father was and learns many stories about why their mother left Virginia in the first place.

Money is tight, so Liz and Bean start babysitting and doing office work for Jerry Maddox, foreman of the mill in town, a big man who bullies workers, tenants, and his wife. Bean adores her whip-smart older sister, inventor of word games, reader of Edgar Allan Poe, non-conformist. But when school starts in the fall, it’s Bean who easily adjusts and makes friends, and Liz who becomes increasingly withdrawn. And then something happens to Liz in the car with Maddox.

The author of The Glass Castle, hyper-alert to abuse of adult power, has written a gorgeous, riveting, heartbreaking novel about triumph over adversity and about people who find a way to love the world despite its flaws and injustices.

Simon & Schuster Canada has kindly provided me with an advanced reading copy of the novel and I am keen to jump into the read. I know many people have been deeply affected by Walls’ previous books, so I am happy to let you know that beginning today, and running until April 8th, you can enter to win one of ten Jeannette Walls prize packs from the publisher.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER THE CONTEST!

I wish you great good luck and let me know if you are one of the lucky winners!! I will have a review of the novel for you very soon.

My Favourite Reads of 2012

2012 was another wonderful year for reading so I thought I would share with you the list of books I really loved. I don’t claim this list to be comprehensive or exhaustive…it is just reflective of my reading over the past 12 months. Some of the titles were newly published in 2012 and others are not quite as recent. But, each of these titles resonated with me strongly. Whether through beautiful prose, memorable characters or compelling stories, each of these books found a place in my heart.

Fiction:

#10. 2666 by Roberto Bolaño. This is a dark, challenging and unsettling novel. Like David Foster Wallace, #3 on this list, Bolaño really challenged the idea of the traditional form of the novel with this book.

#9. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Johnson. This novel was an unexpected gem. Fun and funny, this book made me hope for more Scandinavian translations coming to English markets. It’s a fantastic contrast to all the “noire” books Scandinavian writers have become more well-known for in recent years.

#8. The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler. Anne Tyler just gets human beings and hits readers in the heart.

#7. Wish You Were Here by Graham Swift. I reviewed this book for work nearly a year ago now and loved it so much. I feel like it really flew under the radar so like to tell people about it. Sure, it’s a difficult subject, but Swift’s prose is perfect.

#6. Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel. Okay, it’s a bit of a cheat because it’s two books — but I loved them both a whole lot and couldn’t choose one over the other. They really are as good as you keep hearing and I am suffering withdrawal waiting for the final book in Mantel’s planned trilogy.

#5. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. This is Harbach’s debut novel. It pretty much made me want to quit writing because I could never do anything this amazing on my first go. You do not have to have a love of baseball, or even a passing interest in the sport to appreciate the story and its beauty.

#4. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. I really don’t read Young Adult fiction very often at all. It’s all too supernatural, sparkly and fang-y for my tastes. BUT…this novel blew my mind. I read it to see if it would be appropriate for my 15-year-old niece (it is!!) and it ended up capturing my heart. Green treats his teenaged readers as smart, capable people. This novel is – in my mind – an elevated form of YA and gave me hope for the genre.

#3. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. BOOM! This novel is next to impossible to explain or summarize. It’s incredible and a big challenge for readers. I think it’s safe to say DFW was a genius and very interested in challenging narrative form and structure. Do not be afraid of the footnotes. And don’t even think about skipping them.

#2. Ru by Kim Thúy. What a quiet, beautiful story.

#1. In the Orchard the Swallows by Peter Hobbs. Hobbs’ novel has been sitting with me for months now. Another quiet, beautiful story, Hobbs accomplishes so much in a brief amount of space and with elegant yet simple prose. Another novel that flew under the radar, I would love for you to read this special book!

Nonfiction:

#5. Why Be Normal When You Could Be Happy? by Jeannette Winterson. Winterson’s early life was bleak but at no point is she trying to elicit our sympathies.

#4. Gold Diggers: Striking it Rich in The Klondike by Charlotte Gray. I loved the stucture of this book. Gray uses six different people to weave a bold picture of life in the Klondike.

#3. Every Love Story is A Ghost Story by D. T. Max. I read this right after finishing Infinite Jest and it really added to that novel. I knew a lot about DFW prior to reading this biography but Max adds humanity and compassion to the man and his very troubled life without straying into sensationalism.

#2. Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Brad Gooch. while this wasn’t the best written book, the access Gooch had to O’Connor’s archives and personal letters made this a fascinating read.

#1. Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature by Linda Lear. I love Potter and Lear did a fantastic job giving readers a big, full picture of Potter’s life – beyond her wonderful children’s books.

Honourable Mentions

* A History of the Present Illness by Louise Aronson – a short story debut collection from Aronson – an associate professor of medicine at University of California at San Francisco. I loved how the line between fact and fiction blurred for me while reading these stories.

* State of Wonder by Ann Patchett – now, I love Patchett and spend a lot of time wishing I was her. Haha — what’s not to love? She’s a tremendous author and, as of last year, owns and runs a successful independent bookstore in Nashville. This novel features some very thought-provoking subjects.

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I am quite liking that all of my 2012 favourites have to do with connecting. Whether it was because of a fiction writer creating strong characters trying to find their way in the world or nonfiction works that served to help me feel a kinship with their subjects, all of my choices were very personal reads for me this year and huge for the heart in their stories. (Though i am puzzling over how Mantel’s books fit this, exactly. Haha!!)

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I would love to hear your recommendations! What were the best books you read in 2012??

Ru by Kim Thúy

Ru: A Novel by Kim Thúy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

We lost power for over 24 hours, thank to Super Storm Sandy, so I decided to re-read this beautiful book.

Kim Thúy’s novel, Ru was shortlisted for this year’s Giller Award. Released in its original French in 2010, it won the French-language Governor-General’s Award that same year, and has secured foreign rights in 15 countries. (Though according to a rep at Random House Canada, I have been told a U.S. publication date has not been established.) The English translation has been crafted beautifully by Sheila Fischman. While I was reading, I sensed the tenderness and integrity Fischman brought to this project. (But I would now like to read Ru in French!)

Ru is a fictional memoir told in beautiful vignettes that weave us through An Tinh’s escape from Vietnam to her time in a Malaysian refugee camp to her new life in Canada. The novel begins with a note on the meaning of ru. In French, it denotes a small stream or a flow – of water, blood, tears or almost anything else. In Vietnamese, ru means a lullaby.

The opening that follows, gives us a good idea of what’s in store:

I came into the world during the Tet Offensive, in the early days of the Year of the Monkey, when the long chains of firecrackers draped in front of houses exploded polyphonically along with the sound of the machine guns.

I first saw the light of day in Saigon, where firecrackers, fragmented into a thousand shreds, coloured the ground red like the petals of cherry blossoms or like the blood of the two million soldiers deployed and scattered through the villages and cities of a Vietnam that had been ripped in two.

I was born in the shadow of skies adorned with fireworks, decorated with garlands of light, shot through with rockets and missiles. The purpose of my birth was to replace lives that had been lost. My life’s duty was to prolong that of my mother.

I love the form this book takes and feel that the way Thúy tells us this story fully captures how we remember events from the past. Our recollections help form the big picture but it’s the snippets of memory, of moments along the way, that fit together like a puzzle and create the full portrait of a life. Even in its entirety life can be messy but whole, disjointed and connected at the same time. But from the chaos and uncertainty, physical and moral strength and endurance can emerge and sustain us.

Prior to the Giller Awards gala event, Thúy did a quick Q & A session with CBC Books.

I would suggest you take a few minutes to watch this video of Thúy, as she talks about writing Ru and the immigrant experience. Thúy has become my new favourite person. She’s bright, funny and quirky. Around these parts, we call that adorakable!

Read her book; won’t you? It’s one of my most favourite reads of 2012.

View all my reviews

A History of the Present Illness, by Louise Aronson

A History of the Present Illness by Louise Aronson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

this author makes me so jealous/envious — harvard MD. AND MFA. AND she lives in san francisco!? AND is generally awesome and wins writing prizes!? *sigh*

Louise Aronson has an MFA from Warren Wilson College and an MD from Harvard. She has received the Sonora Review prize, the New Millennium short fiction award, and three Pushcart nominations. Her fiction has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review and the Literary Review, among other publications. She is an associate professor of medicine at UCSF, where she cares for older patients and directs the Northern California Geriatrics Education Center and UCSF Medical Humanities. She lives in San Francisco.

i am feeling professionally inadequate!

this book really resonated with me — though i found it hard at moments to separate the fiction from the fact – wondering often what was real and what was made-up? the style of the telling very much lends itself to just hearing a doctor speak about cases/people she has known.

this collection of short stories is really wonderful. Aronson writes in a way that complex emotions and ideas are addressed via memorable characters and tight prose.

this book is scheduled for release on the 22 january 2013. it is definitely worth your time, so add it to your TBR (to-be-read) pile now, or pre-order it from your favourite bookseller.

(a more complete review will follow, but i wanted to get this book posted and shared with you.)

View all my reviews

In One Person by John Irving

In One Person by John Irving
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

john, john, john!!
you suck me in.
every time!

there’s this matrix on wikipedia. i am sure you have seen it. the matrix makes me sigh and amuses me. it’s a conundrum.

near the end of the book, I felt like you were ticking boxes. giving readers a list of socially important things to mull. i don’t take issue with the issues…they are important and need to be written about so that tolerance and acceptance become the norms…i take issue with the fact this device (is that what it was?) interrupted the flow of the story and yanked me out of my irving induced haze of literary delight. it was like being smacked in the face with a big fish. possibly a frozen big fish.

that cost you one-star. no. i will not give it back.

i still love you.

call me.