Category: Book Challenge 2016
-
Quoted: The Three Musketeers
D’Artagnan, the original playa: Do not depend upon me, madame, for the next meeting; since my convalescence I have so many affairs of this kind on my hands, that I am forced to regulate them a little. When your turn comes, I shall have the honour to inform you of it. I kiss your hands.…
-
Patrin by Theresa Kishkan
Never before has a book—much less a literary novella—had such an impact on my sense of place. Patrin’s European travels as a young woman, her homecoming to Victoria, and then her journey to find traces of her family and heritage in Czechoslovakia simultaneously conjured within me an intense wanderlust, a fierce sense of belonging, and an acute…
-
Landline by Rainbow Rowell
First I loved Eleanor & Park. And then I loved Attachments. And now I love Landline. I think it’s safe to say that I’m a fan of Rainbow Rowell. Big fan. Landline is funny, charming, sad, magical, mystical, hopeful, tense, and a little time-bendy. It’s about relationships—between husband and wife, mothers and daughters, best friends, boy and girl, girl…
-
The Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse
As Rory Gilmore once said (in episode 5.5): I’m very into PG Wodehouse right now. And to think, before this year’s reading challenge, I had no idea who PG Wodehouse was, nor any idea where Jeeves the Butler originated. But now I’m quite fond of Bertie Wooster, his Aunt Dahlia, and the inimitable Jeeves. I believe I’ll have…
-
The Girl who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson
In my opinion Mr. Jonasson has a knack for three things: 1) Writing characters who make the best out of the absolute worst. Take, for example, Nombeko, the heroine of this jaunty little tale. She was born in a South African slum, orphaned at ten, run over by a car, practically imprisoned for more than a…
-
The Love that Split the World by Emily Henry
I bought this book solely for the cover and I’m glad I did—Emily Henry really is a gifted writer. An imaginative time-bending teen romance, The Love the Split the World is jam packed with quick wit and sarcasm—which, of course, I love—and it kept me captivated enough to keep reading in the park well into twilight, until my straining…
-
13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad
In just 214 pages and 13 stand-alone stories, debut author Mona Awad has won my undying respect. And because I can’t do this marvellous little book enough justice with a short and snappy “review”, I’m going to share one from the Globe and Mail instead: “It wouldn’t be far off to say that reading Mona Awad’s 13…
-
Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt
I, like most everyone else, was a big fan of deWitt’s runaway hit (heh, that rhymed) The Sisters Brothers, so my expectations for the follow-up were of average height—which, for a shorty like me, is pretty high. Now, it’s not that this meandering little tale didn’t meet my average/high expectations, but it didn’t exceed them, either. So while I…
Being Tori 