Books for Baby Showers

I was invited to a baby shower this past weekend for a neighbour who is expecting her first baby. I often dread such events as frankly they are often overly long and one is forced to play silly games (like blind taste-testing baby food) so you can win a door prize. I can't believe how competitive people get over these door prizes- I've been to showers where grown women have almost come to blows over a candle! Thankfully the shower yesterday was just lovely: the mom-to-be was completely surprised and just glowed. The food was great, the weather was beautiful, and there was a great mix of people and conversation. And best of all the games were kept to a minimum!

The one thing I never have to worry when it comes to baby showers is picking a gift. I am a firm believer it is never too early to instill a passion for books in a child. Having lots of books in the home is a great way to start, so my typical baby shower present is usually a good selection of books for baby's first year. The selection of books I give varies by season, but based on feedback from previous baby showers, the following books have proven to be extremely popular with both parents and children:
Alligator Pie and Willoughby Wallaby Woo - These board books feature the classic poems from the fabulous Canadian poet Dennis Lee, with beautiful new, soft illustrations and a trim size perfect for little hands.

Fuzzy Bee and Snowy Bear- I always include one or two of these cloth books from Priddy Books in my gift bag. They are soft to touch with crinkly sounding filling that babies love. And with seven titles in the series, you can mix & match depending on the season and baby's gender. Also great are the Messages from the Heart cloth books by Sandra Magsamen like Good Night Little One. They are an accordian style cloth book, which fold out and can be used as a crib bumper or wall hanging. They are interactive, so baby can lift flaps to reveal messages underneath.

Bright Baby Board Books- I love this series of board books. Simple and perfect for babies, they feature neon-bright colours, a photographic image and one word per page. They are the perfect introduction to the various topics covered in the series: animals, colors, first words, and trucks.

Charlie Chick is one of my favourite pop-up books. It features a little chick who likes to eat so much that he has BIG feet, and a BIG beak (etc.), which are big indeed- so much so that they pop off of the pages. Against a bright blue background the yellow chick and his bright orange feet & beak are really striking. And it has a fun surprise last spread which will make kids laugh.

In the past I've included books in the Baby Grip series of board books from Priddy Books in my gift bags. The Baby Grip series were photographic board books with a die-cut circle that enabled the baby to hold onto the book themselves. Recently, Priddy launched the books in a new format called Natural Baby. These board books are printed on recycled paper using soy-based ink and still feature real photos, simple text and bright colours. Babies love them and you can feel good about buying them!

Just some ideas for you to consider when shopping for your next baby shower gift!

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas on the Silver Screen . . .

The haunting YA novel, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne has been a favourite read among librarians and Deweys alike since it was published in 2006. The movie is coming out this fall. You can see the trailer here and it looks pretty good. Can the film version of Markus Zusak's equally amazing The Book Thief be far behind?

And for John Boyne fans - he'll have an adult historical novel out next spring. It's called Mutiny on the Bounty and tells the famous story through the eyes of a fourteen year old boy who is serving as Captain Bligh's personal valet on the ill-fated voyage.

Love Mysteries? Some Suggestions for You!

If I had to pick one genre of books to call my favourite, mystery would win hands down. I'm just back from vacation, where I got to indulge and read voraciously (as frankly there is not much else to do when camping in the rain). Listed below in no particular order are a few new recommendations. Some of these are coming out this Fall, and others are older titles that caught my eye during a recent reorganization of my bookshelves.

The Good Thief's Guide to Paris by Chris Ewan- This is the second book in this series of comedic mysteries (the first being The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam) that follow the adventures of author Charlie Howard. Charlie pens novels about a burglar named Faulks, but he also does a little thieving on the side to supplement his income. Royalty cheques only go so far, after all! I guess Charlie could be compared to the character played by Cary Grant in 'To Catch a Thief' - that is, if Charlie was good-looking, rich and suave (which he isn't). He is however a sucker for both a damsel in distress and a challenge, both of land Charlie into dangerous situations in these two books. The character voice is irreverent and fresh, the dialogue is witty and funny, and the descriptions of the cities of Amsterdam and Paris make me wish I had more vacation time booked (and a larger travel budget)!

The Veil of Lies by Jeri Westerson. This is an excellent debut for those who love historical mysteries. Set in London in 1383, this book differs from the typical mystery set in this time period in that (gasp) the hero/heroine is not a monk or a nun! This is touted as a 'medieval noir', and features a disgraced former knight as the sleuth. Crispin Guest has had to rough it on the streets of London after losing both his rank and property when he was convicted for treason for plotting against Richard II. However he still has his wits and a few friends in high places and is managing to make a meager living as an investigator. He is looking into a potential case of marital infidelity when he finds his client murdered- inside a sealed room that was locked from the inside. How did the killer get out of the locked room, and what was the motivation for the killing? Featuring a great complex mystery, a missing religious relic, international plots, hidden identities, fabulous historical detail and a compelling, conflicted main character, I think this has the potential to be a long lived series!

High Season by Jon Loomis - This debut novel came out almost a year ago (September 2007) in hardcover. I didn't get an advance reader's copy at the time, so I ordered a sample after the book received a starred Booklist review. It unfortunately got buried on my bookcase and when I did finally pick it up, I devoured it in one sitting. High Season is set in Provincetown, Massachucetts- a funky seaside resort town that is a hotspot for gay and lesbian vacationers. Frank Coffin is the sheriff in Provincetown, having recently moved back to his hometown after a stint with the Baltimore homicide squad that ended with a multiple murder case that left him on disability, suffering from panic attacks. He hasn't had to deal with a murder since returning home, but that all changes when a vacationing TV evangelist, who is known for his homophobic sermons, is found murdered on a local beach dressed in drag. The case falls to the state police, but with their dismal track record at closing cases, Frank's new boss tells him to launch his own investigation on the quiet. Frank's boss wants the case resolved quickly as to not upset the local tourist trade. However, as the investigation proceeds, the case turns out not to be as simple as Frank is led to believe. He uncovers evidence of government corruption, shady property developers, smuggling, drugs and more. At the same time, his girlfriend is pressuring him to have a child, his car keeps breaking down, and he has to deal with the local 'characters', one of whom, in a hilarious scene, assaults a shady politician with a fish after he tries to evict him from his house. If you missed this in hardcover like I did, be sure to pick up the paperback edition, which just released in July. It is both funny and dark, the characters are very well developed, and you really feel as though you know the town when you finish the book. I hope there is another Frank Coffin book on the way soon!

Happy reading!

A Spicy Treat. . .

The best food I've ever tasted - hands down - was on a trip I took nearly 15 years ago to Malaysia and Singapore. With its mixture of Malay, Indian, and Chinese culinary heritages, and a bit of neighbouring Thai influence thrown in, every dish seemed to explode with flavours. Subtle and spicy. I can never entirely repeat the experience because in the intervening years I've developed an annoying shrimp allergy (sigh), but I've enjoyed trying to recreate a little bit of it this weekend with this new cookbook, The Spice Merchant's Daughter. The author Christina Arokiasamy, grew up in Malacca, Malaysia (as did my own mum), trained in hotel kitchens and now lives in Hawaii where she runs a cooking school. The recipes in this book are truly tantalizing to read but are not itimidating to try, written purposely to include ingredients that can easily be found in North American grocery or Asian stores. What I really like about this cookbook are the first few chapters that outline all the main ingredients you'll need, along with very useful tips on how long they can be stored and what to look for when buying them. There is a section on how to make your own rubs, pastes, chili powders and peanut sauce. I now have a month's supply of ginger garlic paste in my freezer.

And then come the recipes! I made the Golden Curry Puffs and in memory of the ones I had during High Tea at the famous Raffles Hotel in Singapore, I substituted ground beef for the diced chicken. Very easy to make using puff pastry and very tasty. Other mouthwatering offerings include Coconut Spareribs, Green Beans with Roasted Chile Paste, Salmon with Ginger Butter, and Cardamon Butter Rice. Lots of vegetarian dishes and yes for you lucky ones, plenty of recipes using prawns . The desserts look yummy as well. Jasmine cake made with grated orange zest. Or crepes that combine maple syrup and coconut milk for the topping.

A nice bonus - your kitchen will smell amazing when you cook with these recipes.

Make time for The 13 Clocks. . .

New York Review of Books has a children's classics line that is simply delightful. These are books that have truly stood the test of time, beautifully bound and illustrated and are just as much fun for adults to read. Just published is James Thurber's wonderful The 13 Clocks, illustrated by Marc Simont. At the Ontario Library Conference back in January, I had a poster of this cover in our booth and it generated more squeals of delight from librarians and their inner child than almost any other "new" book we had. So if you've been looking to reread this classic, or introduce it to a wee one, it's now available!

Or, if you've never read it, wait until you are having a really, really bad day. One of those that are full of problems that particularly plague adults. Then climb into your most comfortable jammies with a mug of hot chocolate and this book, and I guarentee you'll feel better in no time. This is a very funny fairytale about an Evil Duke, his beautiful niece the Princess Saralinda, the Prince Zorn of Zorna who tries to win her hand by performing impossible tasks, and his terrific sidekick, the Golux, "the only Golux in the world". In the background lurks the menacing Todal which looks like a "blob of glup" and likes to "gleep". And that's all I'm going to say about that.

As you've probably guessed this tale is full of intricate and clever wordplay and really works best when read aloud. But it also contains some witty riddles and lots of sharp observations on human nature. Neil Gaiman, in his introduction calls The 13 Clocks, "probably the best book in the world". You have to check it out.


I'm also very fond of Australian Norman Lindsay's extremely funny The Magic Pudding. And in September, NYRB will be publishing John Masefield's The Midnight Folk, the prequel to The Box of Delights. This is British fantasy at its best - full of magic, talking animals and fast-paced adventures in the English countryside. Perfect for kids who love the Narnia series or Harry Potter or for adults like me, who grew up with Enid Blyton (though Masefield is far more sophisticated a writer). Yes, you can be a kid again.

C-TON Rocks

What I am excited about reading this fall is a new kid's writer + illustrator from Toronto called C-TON. His stuff is very cool and you could read it for hours...he reminds me of Richard Scarry drinking way too much coffee. My son and his buddies thought his stuff was very cool. His website gives a good indication of the depth of his work which covers adult as well as kid's stuff. I am looking forward to seeing the book in its entirety.

CTON’d Super A-maze-ing Year of Crazy Comics 978-2-89579-209-3 Paperback $20.00 OWLKids

A tiny paring from the Potato Peel Society. . .

Bloomsbury, the British publisher of this delightful epistolary novel The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society, has produced a short YouTube video with readings from a few of the letters to give you the flavour of the writing. You can view it here. Three Deweys have already read and loved this book - honestly, it's a real treat that you owe to your reading self especially if you are at all nostalgic for the days when people wrote real letters.

Celebrating Pets With Differences

My parents recently adopted a little dog named Sammy from a rescue shelter in Toronto called Adopt A Dog Save A Life. Sammy is a four month old, five pound Chihauhau/Jack Russell terrier mix who was born with an eye condition called Microphthalmia, which results in low-vision.
He is absolutely adorable, and the whole family was in love with him within minutes of being introduced. He is incredibly affectionate and loves to sit on people's laps. I thought he would have trouble adjusting to walks with his vision problems, but he has proven that he can easily keep pace with my sister's husky. He particularly loves walking around the backyard (on a leash for now until he knows his way around) and has made friends with Mack, the Golden Lab who lives next door. He also likes to sit by the back patio door to listen to the birds (and chew on a snack it appears from the photo above). I'll have to make a point to buy my mom some small dog treats- that one Sammy is chewing on looks as big as his head!

A book on our fall list from Kane Miller Book Publishers, The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness is a perfect book to celebrate pets with differences. Written by Australian author Colin Thompson (author of the equally fabulous book The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley), it is a quirky, funny, and very touching story of friendship and family for readers 5-8 (advanced picture book). George lives with his grandmother but they don't have a lot in common so he is very lonely. Every friday afternoon on the way home from school, he stops in at the dog shelter. He is always drawn to the last cage in the last aisle, which is where the shelter keeps the dogs that no one wants for 'a final week before their journey to heaven.' This time, the cage contains a scruffy three-legged dog named Jeremy who George feels is a kindred spirit. George convinces his grandmother to adopt Jeremy. Soon Jeremy learns all about cuddles and dinnertime, and George learns about 'not being on your own'. They all want to add 'walkies' to their vocabulary, so George and his grandmother devise various artificial legs for Jeremy. I won't spoil the rest of the book, but I will say that the book leaves you with tears in your eyes (the happy kind) and a nice warm fuzzy feeling.

Stephenie Meyer Fans Rejoice! The Wait is Almost Over for Breaking Dawn!!!

The most anticipated book of the summer is set to come out at 12:01 a.m. Saturday August 2nd- Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer.
I would love to be able to give you a review, but the closest I've come to seeing the book is a photo of the shipping carton! I unfortunately have to wait like the everyone else until Saturday to find out the conclusion to Bella and Edward's story (which I say being an avid member of Team Edward, not Team Jacob).

I've know that stores and libraries are planning parties to launch the book- everything from masquerades to sleepover parties. I read this morning in the Publishers Weekly newsletter that some bookstores in the U.S. are pairing events with blood drives, which I think is a fabulous idea.
You are going to see this book everywhere over the next few days. Global News at Six ran a feature on the release of the book this past Wednesday (the piece was called 'Twilighters' if you want to check it out on the Global TV website, under Top Stories). There will be interviews with Stephenie Meyers in the next few days in the Globe & Mail, the National Post, the Toronto Star, a feature on the book release on CBC News, coverage of the release & a book review in the Vancouver Sun, all of the Canwest papers, and there is an article on the Twilight phenomenon in the latest edition of Maclean's magazine. Wow! And this is just SOME of the Canadian press coverage plans. I could list the U.S. plans, but this blog would go on far too long.

If you want to hear a spoiler direct from the mouth of Stephenie Meyer, you can check out the interview she gave for Entertainment Weekly.

I'm heading out to a nearby provincial park to go camping for the long weekend. I always find the hardest thing about a long weekend is deciding which books to bring. Do you bring the favourite authors that you KNOW you'll enjoy, or do you take the new galley that everyone in the office has been buzzing about? It's a great chance of getting ahead on your reading, but what if the book is bad? What if you (gasp) are stuck in the forest with no reading material?! The release of Breaking Dawn has, at least for me, made this dilemma much easier. I'm taking the first three books to re-read so I'm primed and ready to read the sample which (hopefully) will be waiting for me in my office upon my return...

Have a great long weekend everyone! Happy Reading!

Graphic Novels - where to start?

There are so many graphic novels available and like any other literary form, some are excellent but many are fairly silly or just plain boring. Am I the only person who has actually fallen asleep while reading a graphic novel? I'm obviously reading the wrong ones. But the Guardian has come to my rescue with a list of Top 10 Graphic Novels, picked by Danny Fingeroth, an author and editor at Marvel Comics and chosen for pure reading enjoyment. Out of the list, I've only read Maus and Persepolis, which were both great, and so I look forward to working my way through the rest of the list.

And I'm probably going to be shunned from any office watercooler talk if I don't read Alan Moore's Watchmen soon. The trailers for the spring 09 movie are already showing in theatres - it's going to be huge!

A New Mystery Author to Watch!

I try to read as many new authors as I can each season before I go out and sell to customers, but even as a fast reader, I can’t get to them all! So, I must admit to having to fish the galley of Singularity by Kathryn Casey out of the pile to read after the starred reviews starting coming in (PW and Booklist). I’m so glad that I did- the reviews were right, it is a fantastic book.

While Singularity is Casey’s first fiction novel, she already has five true crime titles to her credit. Singularity introduces Texas Ranger profiler Sarah Armstrong. She is called in to help the Galveston Police Department come up with a profile of a killer who has murdered a local businessman and his mistress, and then arranged the bodies in a creepy tableau. It quickly becomes apparent to her that this murder is the work of a very disturbed serial killer but the local police refuse to accept her profile, and instead arrest the businessman’s estranged wife. Sarah continues her investigation to the point of putting her career on the line and in doing so attracts the personal attention of the killer, who starts to focus in on Sarah- and her family.

The mystery is well crafted, the villain extremely creepy and the dynamics between the various levels of law enforcement is fascinating and rings true. But what struck me particularly was the very memorable character of Sarah. She actually reminds me of Linda Barnes’ Carlotta Carlyle in that she is tough-as-nails in her professional life but is dealing with a lot on the home front. Sarah’s husband (also a Texas Ranger) was killed in a car accident a year ago. She has moved back home to her mother’s ranch and is trying to juggle the demands of her career with the needs of her young daughter Maggie, who is having a hard time coping with the loss of her father. Sarah also has a rather unusual hobby- she is a former art major and lets off steam by sculpting facial reconstructions on unidentified human remains.

Singularity is a great read from start to finish, so get your hands on a copy of this book this summer. You won’t be disappointed! And, it looks like we won't have to wait long for more Sarah Armstrong books- according to Kathryn Casey's website, there are more Sarah Armstrong books coming in 2009 and 2010.

2008 Man Booker Longlist announced. . .

I love the Man Booker Prize - mostly because the debates in the British press are always so juicy to read. Even though I'm still mad that David Mitchell didn't win for Cloud Atlas. This year, I was really hoping for Steven Galloway's Cellist of Sarajevo to make the cut, but alas. Still, as always, it's an intriguing list though I'm embarrassed to say that I've not yet read any of them. I do have the manuscript of Philip Hensher's Northern Clemency though (it'll be available in Canada next spring, but will probably be moved up if he wins) and that's shot up to the top of my reading pile. You can read more about the prize, the judges etc. at the Man Booker website.

Here's the full longlist:

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold
The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
From A to X by John Berger

The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser

A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant
The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

The judges promise this is a list full of large scale narratives and lots of humour (hooray!). I'd give early odds on Sebastian Barry - he should have won when his last novel A Long, Long Way was shortlisted. Beautiful writer. Let the literary debates begin.

Revisiting Brideshead. . .

Several summers ago, I spent a glorious three weeks living in an Oxford college and studying English literature in their International Summer Programme. It was an incredible experience, not least because we got reading cards to the Bodleian Library. Reading and studying there was truly one of the most inspiring and tingling experiences of my life. And while one is more likely to bump into a Japanese tourist rather than a fetching undergraduate in flannels on a bicycle, there is still enough history, architecture, culture and magic to ensure an unforgettable experience. Just don't let anyone tell you that punting is easy!

One of my fellow students was a lawyer from Atlanta, Georgia who had taken early retirement and was living his dream. He had been pushed into law by his parents even though his first love was British literature, and as a result had hated every minute of his professional life even though he had done quite well for himself financially. Now in his late fifites, he had gone back to school and was doing his Master's degree in English Lit. When I heard his story, I practically frog-marched him up the tower of the University Church of St. Mary's which offers one of the best views of Radcliffe Camera and the beautiful spires of all the colleges. When we climbed to the top and went out on the viewing platform, he took a deep appreciative breath and then started quoting from Brideshead Revisited. I still remember the passage he chose, one evoking all the beauty of Oxford, "her autumnal mists, her grey springtime, and the rare glory of her summer days - such as that day - when the chestnut was in flower and the bells rang out high and clear over her gables and cupolas, exhaled the soft airs of centuries of youth."

He reminded me of how lucky I was - not only to be there drinking in the scene with him, but also to have been inexplicably able to find a way to live in the world of books while paying the rent.

I thought of him when I went to see the new film adaptation of Waugh's famous novel, which I approached with some hesitation as I'm a huge fan of the original 1981 mini-series which I own on DVD and can still watch for hours on end. But Brideshead fans can be very happy with this film revisitation which does a very good job of distilling all the main plots and themes. In this compressed form, the desperate hunger of Charles to belong to this family, is completely intensified and powers the pacing of the whole movie, and while his relationship with Julia starts far earlier than in the book, I think it's a minor quibble. It's certainly a cinematic feast for the eyes, beautifully filmed, again making familiar use of Castle Howard (which I highly recommend visiting if you are ever near York), with gorgeous costumes and sets, a haunting score, and a good ensemble cast. My mother and I actually disagreed over who made the better Charles Ryder with her unexpectedly championing Matthew Goode, while I still think Jeremy Irons' performance is the definitive one. We both concurred however, that Emma Thompson as Lady Marchmain was magnificent - majestic in her steely, dominant convictions, with an icy stare that is absolutely withering. Ben Whishaw as Sebastian doesn't have quite the upper class hauteur that Anthony Andrews brought to the role, but he looks far more like the age the character is supposed to be, and his fragility and vulnerability are thus made more poignant. Aloysius by the way, is a smaller, sadder teddy in this version and plays his part stoically.

So soak up the spires, strawberries and champagne (with a wollop of Catholic guilt) and take yourself off to the cinema - this is my idea of the perfect summer movie. You can see the trailer here. And treat yourself to the book as well. I'm thrilled that Everyman Library has the movie tie-in edition, and they've issued it at a low price. Just $21.00 gets you a handsome hardcover with an introduction by Frank Kermode.

P.C. Cast News

PC CAST AND HER DAUGHTER KRISTIN ARE COMING TO TORONTO!!!

I just heard from our publicity team that the authors of the bestselling House of Night series are going to be in Toronto to meet their Canadian fans and sign books on August 18th at the Indigo store in the Manulife Centre (55 Bloor St. West) at 7 PM.

The first three books in the series (Marked, Betrayed, & Chosen) are already in stores and the fourth, Untamed, is coming in September. For those unfamiliar with the series, the books chronicle the story of teenaged Zoey Redbird, who is Marked as fledgling vampyre and joins the House of Night, a private boarding school where fledglings train to become adult vampyres. What sets this series above the plethora of vampire fiction novels aimed at teens these days is the writing (which is quite often funny and always rings true to a teenager's perspective) and that the authors have created a totally new vampire mythology. In this world, vampyres have always existed. One becomes a vampyre by being 'Marked' by a Tracker, a process that involves some cermonial words, no bloodshed, and a sapphire blue crescent moon that appears on the 'marked' person's forehead. Once selected, the changes begin (paleness, sensitivity to sunlight etc). Not everyone survives the change process, and some fledglings develop greater powers than others. Mixing such issues as fitting in, friendship, romance, and self-discovery with larger, action-packed plotlines, it was no surprise to me that both Marked and Chosen were selected as 2008 Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers by YALSA. Just a word of warning- I'd recommend these books for readers ages 15+ as they contain swearing and sexual situations.

If you are in the Toronto area on August 18th, please do come downtown and meet these great authors!

Another use for your bookshelves....

I started laughing when I saw this and we all need a smile to head into the weekend with.

Roz - this one is for you!

Chinese lit and myth. . .

I'm still undecided as to whether I'll be glued to the television watching the Olympics. I'm usually an Olympic junkie but I can't shake the feeling of impending doom I have about this year's Games. Regardless, all the media hype has gotten me interested in reading some Chinese fiction. The Guardian has some good suggestions here for books set in Beijing, including Ma Jian's Beijing Coma, which has received stellar reviews all over the world, Ha Jin's The Crazed and A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li.

The book I'm reading now is Su Tong's Binu and the Great Wall. Tong is the author of Raise the Red Lantern and in this book, he recounts a story about a wife's search for her husband after he is forced to help build the Great Wall of China. It seems like perfect epic summer reading to me, although the novel isn't that long. It is part of the very interesting, international Myth Series that includes Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad, Jeanette Winterson's Weight and Ali Smith's recent Girl Meets Boy, among others. Top writers from around the world re-imagine any myth of their choosing and the results are entertaining and thought-provoking. I've read about half of the books in the series which also includes Victor Pelevin's The Helmet of Horror, David Grossman's Lion's Honey and Alexander McCall Smith's Dream Angus, and enjoyed them all. I think they also make great books for teens, resplendent as they are in illustrating what great (and lasting) storytelling is all about. Look for Michel Faber to join this series this fall with his very funny take on the myth of Prometheus in The Fire Gospel. Bibliophiles will love it - there are lots of in-jokes about the industry, in this "be careful what you wish for" cautionary tale.

Duct, Duct, Duct. . . Purse!

At the end of a recent library show, a fellow vendor who sold library supplies was getting rid of his wares and gave me a very large, very red, roll of duct tape. I really haven't known what to do with it until I came across this delightful book. Yes, you can make an awesome looking bag out of duct tape. Simply Sublime Bags by Jodi Kahn contains 30 low or no sew projects - everything from tote bags to make-up cases. Several use duct tape, mostly as an inner lining, but there is also an evening bag project where coloured duct tape is first fringed and layered on in horizontal stripes to form the outside. It looks really good, honestly. Most of the projects use common objects - placemats, shower curtains, metallic postal envelopes - as inspiration for these unique purses. One of my favourite projects uses materials found in any hardware store - a cheery, waterproof tote made out of a rain slicker with yellow bungee cords for the handles. There's also a really cool picnic basket made out of astroturf. The instructions are very clear and easy to read. Great for weekend projects.

Summertime and the reading is easy. . .

Ah, it's the half-way point in the summer but hopefully everyone still has some vacation time or a few long weekends to look forward to. Here are some reading suggestions to take along.

A summer spent renting a house in the French countryside sounds idyllic, but not if you're in a novel by Adam Thorpe. He's one of a posse of favourite British writers I regularly enthuse about, and I love his writing because it always disturbs. It makes you uncomfortable. It challenges the smug morals and cozy idealism of normal people. It short, it's nothing less than brilliant. In The Standing Pool, two academics and their three young daughters spend a few months living in a farmhouse in the Languedoc region of France. But their peace of mind (and the reader's) is gradually gnawed away by their sinister surroundings. There are hunters who encroach on the property. Their handyman Jean-Luc is acting strangely, spying on the family. The nearby village is still engrossed in deaths of the past - the more recent fall of a worker from the farmhouse roof, and the older deaths by execution of French Resistance fighters from the last world war. And at the centre of it all, lies the swimming pool in the backyard. Jean-Luc struggles to get the chemical formulations correct so that the family can swim but the water often remains murky. The code for the drowning alarm has gone missing. And then there are wild boars who lap at the water at night but the solution of creating an electric fence to keep them out seems dangerous when there are young children running about. . . If you've been fighting the heat, this is a great novel to send a few shivers down your back. Also give some of his backlist a try; I highly recommend The Rules of Perspective.

You'll need a bit of humour after Thorpe, and David Lodge can always be relied upon to help. His latest novel Deaf Sentence, is a moving, but very funny look at being deaf and approaching death (deaf and death being interchangeable throughout in a series of amusing and ongoing puns). Professor Desmond Bates has taken early retirement but his life is about to get very stressful. He worries about his elderly father who increasingly can't look after himself but refuses to go into a nursing home. A beautiful but unstable graduate student keeps pestering him to give advice on her thesis - a linguistic examination of suicide notes - and then there are his ongoing frustrations (along with his wife's) over the problems caused by his deafness. His daily battles with the negative aspects of his hearing aids are quite poignant and insightful to those of us who take hearing for granted. But Lodge also mines this disability for full comic potential; a scene at a party describing Desmond's attempts to make conversation with his guests without letting them or his wife know that his hearing-aid batteries have run out is simply hilarious. Bates at heart is a lovable bloke and we cheer him on as he gets himself extricated out of some difficult situations. After all, we may laugh, but we all know we're going to have to deal with failing faculties ourselves at some stage in the future.

If you've been following Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler series since the first book, The Various Haunts of Men, you'll probably want to read her latest, The Vows of Silence. While I don't think this is the best book in the series (the body count seems to be a bit out of control), I have to give Hill props for constantly playing with and subverting the reader's normal expectations of what a crime novel should be. If you normally don't have a hanky nearby when you pick up a mystery, you'll have to remedy that for this story. Make it a large one. Oh, and the plot? A number of inhabitants of the small town of Lafferton have been murdered. The only thing connecting the victims is that they all seem to have been recently married. I can assure you the bridesmaids are not the killers.

And finally, though these next two books won't be out until the last week of July and first week of August respectively, get your name on the library holds list now! Trust me on this.

I've been getting tons of great feedback from librarians who have read the advance galleys I thrust into their hands of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. This epistolary novel takes place just after WWII as Juliet Ashton, our intrepid and delightful heroine, is looking for a subject for her next book. Out of the blue she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a former pig farmer on the island of Guernsey - which was occupied by the Germans during the war. He informs her that he has a copy of selected essays by Charles Lamb with her name on the flyleaf. Believing her to be a fellow Lamb lover, he asks - since there are no bookshops on Guernsey - if she'd try to track down more of his work for him. He also mentions how a roast pig led to the forming of a unique book club during the war. Juliet's curiosity is piqued and thus begins a fun and fascinating correspondence between Juliet, Dawsey, other lovable members of the bookclub and Sydney, Juliet's long-suffering and cynical publisher. This is a pure, enjoyable, romantic romp of a read and will make you long to visit Guernsey. Think 84 Charing Cross Road meets Cold Comfort Farm and no other book this summer screams book club choice like this one.

The Gargoyle, the debut novel by Winnipeg author Andrew Davidson, has received a lot of pre-pub hype, mostly about the huge advances he has received and the number of countries which have snapped up rights. This usually sends me screaming for the hills, but I can't ignore the number of my colleagues who have been raving about this novel, so I took the galley home with me last weekend. And couldn't put it down. A severely burned man lies recuperating in a hospital room, thinking of nothing but wanting to die. Out of the blue, Marianne Engel, a beautiful woman who sculpts gargoyles for a living appears in his room and starts telling him stories about their ongoing love affair that has lasted for seven centuries. The story contains meticulous historical details, so is she suffering from schiztophrenia or could this somehow be the real deal? What makes this novel work is Davidson's talented and suspenseful pacing throughout the narrative, which is permeated with Dante references but also mythic storytelling of doomed love affairs from Japan to Iceland. It pubs the first week of August, so there's plenty of summer left to surrender to this very absorbing and enjoyable read.

Lahring and I have both posted more of our summer picks - you can click on the links on the right hand side of this blog.

Oh, Boris!

Poor Boris – he’s trying very hard to fit in at his new school, but all of the other students are afraid of him because he’s so scary, hairy and grizzly (he’s a bear, after all). Even his teacher, Mrs. Cluck, is getting a little frustrated with Boris because he keeps breaking things. Boris’ classmates avoid him, and he feels lonely, until one day on the way home from school the students are surrounded by a group of bullies called the rat pack. Suddenly, being scary, hairy and grizzly isn’t so bad. Boris saves the day and the other little woodland creatures learn to accept and appreciate Boris for who he is. The illustrations are wonderful, particularly Boris’ funny facial expressions.

Oh, Boris! by Carrie Weston, illustrated by Tim Warnes.
For ages 3-7.

All things Coe. . .

The Guardian has a new interview with Jonathan Coe, which just gives me an excuse to once again plug one of my favourite writers and urge anyone who hasn't picked him up to give him a try (he's working on a new novel - hooray - and promises it will be comic). A good place to start is with The Rotters's Club and then follow-up with its sequel, The Closed Circle. This will give you the full scope of his brilliant talents for satire and his unique mix of comedy and tragedy. His last novel The Rain Before It Falls was very different to his usual style, but extraordinarily beautiful in its rendering of the complicated relationships between a group of female characters over several decades. I still haven't found the time yet to read Like a Fiery Elephant, his biography of the experimental writer B.S. Johnson, which won the Samuel Johnson award for non-fiction. But its success surely has led to the recent re-issue of one of Johnson's most interesting works, The Unfortunates, in which the chapters of the book are presented loose in a box, so they can be read in any order. It comes with an introduction by.... Jonathan Coe, of course.