What I am Reading

by Brian Gilbertson

Court Lady and Country Wife
by Lita-Rose Betcherman

The first half of the seventeenth century in England was turbulent. Because King Charles refused to call parliament into session, a first and then a second civil war arose and eventually he was executed. The country was divided by class, by religion, and by political values. Into this tumultuous time two sisters were born. One destined to become very powerful at court: the mistress of the King's favourite courtier, first among the women serving the powerful queen and as time went on, a leader among the plotting aristocracy. The
other sister was stuck in a country backwater with eleven children. Need we say more?

The book is an interesting exposition on life at the time; the Divine right of Kings coming apart, the rise of religious sects, the difference in roles and expectations for men and for women. Betcherman has a good eye for detail and nice command of descriptive language. A relatively light but interesting read.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
by John Berendi

I don't know how to tell you about this book except to say that it is one of the most entertaining books I have read in years. It is a true-crime story, a genre that often reads like a newspaper report. This one reads like a very good novel. Berendi gives us a treasure trove of people and place. The people are the most wonderfully amusing and eccentric
(and in some cases, most respectable) characters; the place
is Savannah, Georgia, amusing and eccentric in its own right. I laughed out loud.

Sylvanus Now
by Donna Morrissey

A Newfoundland outport in the 1950's - you either loved it or
hated it. Sylvanus loved it. He loved his dory, his fishing, his
outport. He wanted only to stay. Adelaide hated it. She hated the sea, the life, being the eldest of too many children. She wanted only to escape.

This was a time of immense change in Newfoundland. Confederation came in '49, then fishing moved from cottage industry to factory ships, and during the last half of the decade the government made a concerted effort to close the outports and to move people into towns. Sylvanus and Adelaide live in the heart of those sweeping changes and have their own private ghosts and anxieties to add to the confusion. I enjoyed the story and the insight into the times. For those interested in structure, Morrissey creates a wonderful tension between the dialect in the dialogue and her lyrical descriptive passages.

The Naming of the Dead
by Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin's fans make pilgrimages to Edinburgh to check out
the locations cited in his books. If you are one of those, you don't need a review. You know that this is the 17th in the Inspector Rebus crime novels and it is not to be missed.

For those not familiar, we are dealing with a crime-genre novel of special quality. Rankin has a way of humanizing Rebus and his work so that he is more than the usual cardboard cut-out figure; this is a man of anger, resentment and regret. The setting is the week of the G8 meetings at Gleneagles, Scotland in 2005. It was also the week of the
terrorist bombings in London. These events are a backdrop for
local murders. If you don't particularly like crime stories but
enjoy good fiction, especially a complicated, multilayered plot, you may find Rankin a pleasant surprise.

Divisadero
by Michael Ondaatje

Michael Ondaatje is a poet, and his writing conveys an intensity that only poets seem to master. Here he takes us deep into his characters' thoughts, fears, hopes and dreams - into their souls. Divisadero is powerful and complex. So powerful and at times photographic in its clarity, that I could handle only small doses and sometimes had to stop reading.
So complex in the thoughts and actions of its characters that
sentences are crammed with meaning and I had to read them twice, even three times to be sure I got it all. And on top of that, the structure is non-traditional - you won't find a neat introduction, conflict creation, development, climax, and resolution. No red ribbon to tie everything up neatly
at the end.

The story concerns Anna, Claire and Coop, of whom Ondaatje says 'The three of them ... made up a three-panelled Japanese screen, each one selfsufficient, but revealing different qualities or tones when placed besides the others.' There is also a side journey into the life and times of an early 20th century French writer and an excursion into the professional gambling scene in the U.S. south-west. In my opinion, a beautiful book which requires a degree of faith
in the writer, but well worth it. I will be very surprised if it is not
a serious contender in the awards this fall.

Lion Eyes
by Claire Berlinski

In Lion Eyes, Claire is a writer, working on her second novel
while living in Paris. She is an email junkie and is in constant
touch with a diverse and wacky group of friends. And then comes an e-mail from a stranger who lives in Iran. She is intrigued, and before long, falling in love. But is the road to true love ever smooth, especially if the heroine is the author of a book for which the CIA has put her on their hate list? (For reasons to do with a prior book featuring the CIA, Berlinski writes as if this were autobiographical and uses her own name and background for the protagonist.)

This book is as hip and slick for 2007 as Sex in the City was
for 1998. Part romance, part mystery, all comedy. And a
lovely balance; she captures the seductive anonymity of technology while acknowledging the importance of physical contact in human relationships. Light, bright, quick and easy, and lots of fun.

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