A Girl Named George

The Witch of Portobello

Paulo Coelho

Harper Perennial

So, one of the things that I really like about Paulo Coelho's writing is that he's unashamedly spiritual (please note that in his case, spiritual does not equate to crackpot.) Frequently, I find that his characters uncannily express how I'm feeling about myself and the world at the precise time that I am reading his texts.

The Witch of Portobello is basically a novel about self-definition. The story is told from a number of points of view and Coelho uses an interesting narrative device to relate the main character's story. We never actually hear from Athena directly -- the novel is set up as a series of transcribed interviews where people talk about how she has impacted/changed their lives by observing how she lived her own.

In terms of themes, this is a typical Coelho offering as it examines the ideas of courage, love, joy, passion, self-acceptance and sacrifice. Athena is definitely a Warrior of the Light and like the heroes from The Pilgrimage and The Alchemist, there is a lot that we can learn from being witness to her journey. Three spiritual guides out of five.

And the Survey Says .... (with apologies to Richard Dawson)

An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil

Jim Munroe

No Media Kings

Okay, blog readers, I gotta know ... would it bug you if I wrote about you on this blog? I know that I've already made some specific references to friends and family in these posts, but I haven't really spilled anything juicy. My mind has been occupied lately with thoughts about the collision of public and private space, where the boundaries are, and what rules can be applied to private thoughts in a public forum. More significantly, what are the moral implications of me writing about all of you without your permission? Hmmmm ....

Funnily enough, the heroine of this week's novel is facing the same dilemma. Kate registers a website (roommatefromhell.com) and dishes on the comings and goings of her ritual chanting, pentagram drawing housemate. A recovering yuppie, Kate is so fascinated by Lilith's otherworldliness that she asks her to perform her ritual as a performance piece at a gallery opening. The show goes so well that the two girls decide to take the act on the road and while on tour, they eventually evolve into the opening act for a rock band called the Everenders.

Part bildungsroman, part blog, An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil is chock-a-block full of ideas that make a reader pause and think. Where is the line between private and public? What "qualifies" as Outsider Art? Can you ever really trust a narrator? What does it mean when life imitates art? I like books that make me ask a lot of questions. I'm going to give this one 2.5 stars out of 5.

My Boyfriend’s Back

Black Order
James Rollins
Harper

So, for those of you who are following along, I’ve got good news. My boyfriend’s back. That’s right, Grayson Pierce and I hooked up in Copenhagen this past weekend and I have to say, he was as, uh, enigmatic and energetic as ever.

This time, Gray managed to suck me into some kind of post-Nazi Übermensch drama. We originally went to Denmark to attend an auction (I had my eye on a Bible that once belonged to Charles Darwin) and all of a sudden, the bookshop that we were exploring went up in flames. Not that I’m complaining, my boy has skills, but I’m kinda getting tired of being shot at when I’m in his company. Maybe I should rethink this relationship.

Anyway, after a narrow escape, he whisked me away on a private jet to South Africa where we came face-to-face with a creepy Himmler type who had used his millions to fund his own gene modification/evolution project. Of course, Grayson blamed it all on me and my interest in that darn Bible. Apparently someone had hidden a clue in the book and our Himmler friend needed it to solve the riddle of his evolution device. Sounds complicated, right? Good thing Grayson has brains as well as looks …

Much like our first encounter, time spent with the boy was, well, curiously satisfying. I wonder where he’ll take me on our next date. Forget where … I’m even wondering when the next one will be. I have to say, dating an international man of mystery certainly has its disadvantages. The sex is quite good though. I’d say he gets a four out of five. There’s always room for improvement.

Crap Alert - Boys, Please Skip this Post

The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever

Julia Quinn

Harper Collins

There has been a LOT of stuff going on in my personal life lately and I've been in a pissy mood as a result. After the ritualized torture of a session with my personal trainer this weekend, I wandered (okay, limped) over to the bookstore to see what I could find to improve my mood. Bad idea. Nothing spoke to me. I've blogged elsewhere about how books tend to choose me, but on Saturday morning, nothing or nobody was calling my name.

Since it is sacrilege to go away from my Happy Place empty-handed, I decided to try an old stand-by and I made my way over to the romance section. That's right, loyal readers, I picked up a Regency romance. The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever follows the classic Regency formula:

• Girl meets boy and falls in love
• Boy is an entirely inappropriate choice
• Girl and boy end up hitting the sheets and girl's virtue is compromised
• Boy's honour forces them to marry
• Girl and boy have a falling out
• Boy and girl have an epiphany that they are destined to be together
• Girl and boy kiss and make up and live happily ever after in a manor house with a whack of children, some optional hunting dogs, and a lot of money

Why reading this crap cheers me up I have no idea. I think we'd probably have to pay a therapist a lot of money to figure it out. At any rate, Miss Miranda and her diaries held true to form. Maybe it's the comfort of the no-surprise ending. Maybe it's the old fashioned idea of a gentleman being bound by his honour. Maybe it's just the sex scenes (remember ... no boyfriend here.) Maybe it's the fact that when I dropped the novel in the tub when I was startled by the phone, I just didn't care. Whatever the reason, Miss Miranda didn't disappoint and helped me shed my gloomies. One pathetic star out of five.

No Spoiler Here

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

J.K. Rowling

Raincoast Books

Like pretty much everyone else on the planet, I got the latest Harry Potter the day it was released. Unlike most of Harry's devoted following, I didn't tuck into it right away. I know ... what the hell was I thinking when I agreed to go up north to visit my parents? It's not like I didn't know that the book was going to be released -- kinda hard to miss the hype.

Anyway, I did get the opportunity to get it started the following Sunday. I gathered some interesting stats over the course of the day -- seven people (three adults and four kids) in the Porter lounge had the book open on their laps. At dinner, three patrons other than myself were alternately munching and turning pages. (Curiously, we were all eating pasta that you could stab with one hand.) On the walk home, I spotted four pedestrians who were living quite dangerously by walking and reading.

It made me wonder -- what is it about these books that make them have such broad appeal? Is it because people are finally waking up to the fact that fantasy is a "legitimate" genre? Nah, I don't think that's it -- the legion of Jordan and Tolkien fans would be apoplectic-- good fantasy has been around for decades. Is it because, like Star Wars, the Potter books treat the archetypal theme of good vs. evil in a new and interesting way? Yeah, that might be it. But really, part of the appeal for me is that the complexity and maturity of Rowling's writing seemed to keep pace with the growth of her characters. Every year that Harry, Ron and Hermione got older, I found that the novels became a little more complex, a little darker and a whole lot more conflicted. Kind of like most of the teenagers I know.

Five soaring Thestrals out of five.

Dave -- This One's 4 U

Breakfast of Champions

Kurt Vonnegut

Delta

A couple of months ago, a friend asked me if I had ever read Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. I was ashamed to admit that I hadn't and agreed to post my review of the book on this blog.

Vonnegut, if you haven't read him, is brilliant. He's also, as I am finding here, difficult to describe. Reading a Vonnegut novel is kind of like being a stranger in a strange land. The reader is never too sure of the rules of the narrative and as such, can't rush to judgement or conclusions. Often, as in Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut uses the elements/conventions of science fiction to dislocate his readers and force them to construct/consider an entirely new world view.

In this novel (which apparently he wrote to celebrate his 5oth birthday) we are introduced to Dwayne Hoover -- a mentally ill, self-made man from the Mid West who owns car dealerships, restaurant franchises, and the local Holiday Inn. Dwayne's chemical imbalance causes him to have a psychotic break (he suspects everyone else in the world is a robot) and he goes on a rampage beating his lover, his son, and a host of other innocent bystanders.

The interesting twist in this novel is how Vonnegut blurs the line between creator and created. Vonnegut is at once the author, the narrator and a "real-time" character in the novel who manipulates the narrative to his own advantage. He "drops in" on his creation and hangs out in the lounge at the Holiday Inn, watching his characters in action, and thinking up new things for them to see/do. The overt parallels between Vonnegut and his deranged hero are also disturbing -- suicides, depression, middle age, the Mid West. Layered into that complexity is the presence of Kilgore Trout, the aging, somewhat distracted science fiction writer (some say Vonnegut's alter-ego) who, in some respects, facilitates Hoover's collapse. What does it all mean? I have no idea ... but it sure was fun to read. Three Heinlein's out of five

A Bouquet of Alarming Aphorisms

Horseradish - Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid
Lemony Snicket
Harper Collins

Daniel Handler strikes again! Horseradish - Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid is a collection of oddly funny, yet slightly depressing aphorisms from the author of the Series of Unfortunate Events. Reading it started me to wonder ... why is it that the bookstore, which is most definitely my "happy place", the source of such angst, sadness and depression in my imaginative life?

I mean, really, just look at the books I have reviewed in the past few months. Why don't people want to write, read and/or publish happy stories? Or is it just me and I am drawn to books with heavy themes like death, war, pestilence and strife? I have liked, if not loved, quite a number of the novels that I have read since starting this blog and I would like to know what, exactly, this says about me. Maybe I should be worried ... Sigh.

Okay, so back to Handler for a moment. His little book of wit and wisdom is divided into thirteen (noticing a trend?) chapters. In each, he offers up a few "kernels of dread" that can inspire or deflate -- depending on the mood of the reader. I will leave you with my favourite and the one that I think, perhaps, is the most true.

It is one of life's bitterest

truths that bedtime so often

arrives just when things are

really getting interesting.

Wanking in the Attic

Apples
Richard Milward
Faber and Faber

Meet Adam and Eve -- two blue-collar kids growing up in the Middlesbrough estates. Adam is a slightly OCD Beatlemaniac who regularly gets beaten up by his dad, has few friends, and is trying desperately to break out of geekdom. Eve is a beautiful, but bored young woman, who spends her weekends going to clubs, getting high, and finding cute boys for snogging and sex. They are both fifteen.

According to other reviewers, Milward's portrayal of Adam and Eve is an accurate depiction of teenage life in the working class areas of northern England. Date rape, teenage pregnancy, underage drinking, domestic violence -- this book had it all. Despite the heaviness of the material, however, I often found myself laughing at the antics of the main characters. The episode where Adam gets caught masturbating to his father's 80's copy of a Razzle magazine still has me giggling.

So, why the title? Well, aside from the obvious, I think the book is supposed to be about temptation, how to deal with it, and what happens when you fail. I think it's also about gaining knowledge, learning the good from the bad, and figuring out how to recover when you choose poorly. While the circumstances and location may be slightly different (it was acid and hot knives in my day ... not poppers and tac) I think everyone can identify with Adam and Eve and that's what makes this book so appealing. Three tempting serpents out of five.

Missives from an Old Friend

Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction

Sue Townsend

Penguin

When I was a teenager, my parents let me spend summers up at the cottage. I have so many good memories of those years -- kissing my first boy, cruising with my cousin Chris in his white Chevy Cavalier, rollerskating to Electric Avenue at the arena, and spending late nights down by the water watching the stars and listening to the chattering of the raccoons.

The cottage was even fun on stormy days. If the bay was really rough, Mom would let us put our legs through the arm holes of a life jacket and bob up and down in the waves. She'd only call us in if we were turning blue from cold or if the lightning was getting too close. One such afternoon, she gave us the hook and offered to make hot chocolate so we could warm up. We settled ourselves in front of the television expecting to watch an old Elvis movie and instead, we saw an episode of the BBC's The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole Aged, 13 and 3/4. I cried I laughed so hard and I was completely smitten with Adrian and Pandora for the rest of the summer.

Sadly, I don't think the Weapons of Mass Destruction stood up well against my memories of the programme or Townsend's first book. Adrian is still a git, Pandora is still a bitch, and Adrian's life, in general, is still a mess. The only thing that I did appreciate about the novel was Townsend's not-so-subtle political commentary. In this installment of the diaries, Adrian's son, Glenn, is shipped to Iraq and Townsend very poignantly deals with the loss of Glenn's best friend. That storyline aside, there wasn't much else to keep my interest. So much so, in fact, that I think my relationship with Adrian is over. This book gets two scuds out of five. Oh wait ... that was the last invasion, er, I mean war ...

Crazy Is as Crazy Does

Poppy Shakespeare

Clare Allan

Anchor Canada

Quite honestly, this was one of those novels that make you say WTF?! Set in a north London day hospital, Poppy Shakespeare tells the story of "N" -- a woman who grew up in the system and whose main ambition is to never be discharged. One day, a new girl arrives (Poppy Shakespeare) and asks for N's help to prove to the hospital administration that she is not mad. N agrees and comes up with a crazy plan to win Poppy's freedom.

Darkly and disturbingly funny, Allan's novel blurs the lines between sanity and lunacy. If you can read through the working-class London dialect, Allan's message sounds suspiciously like Plato and the Cave, although she might just be taking the piss out of us -- it's hard to tell. The novel also comes across as a subtle indictment of the British mental health system. One of the characters states "Reality's one thing. The truth quite another." I'm not sure if we readers are to apply that to Poppy's state of mind, the state of institutionalized healthcare in Britain, or take it as a Platonism that should be applied to every day life. Two dribblers out of five.

Memoirs of a Gaysha

Possible Side Effects

Augusten Burroughs

Picador

Honestly, how many memoirs can one fortysomething write? In Possible Side Effects, a book of short, but bitingly funny essays, Burroughs gives us yet another hilarious glimpse into some of the more, uh, interesting periods in his life. When I looked at this novel in the bookstore, I was a little worried that he wouldn't have anything new to say -- how could he top the stories he told in both Running with Scissors and Dry? As it turns out, my worries were not entirely unfounded.

Possible Side Effects seems to be very much about Augusten the writer of today, versus Augusten the abused child, or Augusten the raging alcoholic. Stories about his dogs or the holidays that he takes with his partner might be interesting someday, but right now, they don't have a lot of resonance with me. Maybe I'm not the target audience for some of these anecdotes -- I don't know. Burroughs does seem to understand that people, regardless of our melting pot mentality, still sort themselves into buckets and it could just be that I can't totally identify with the bucket that is GWM.

Having said all that, this book is still worth picking up. The essay entitled "Moving Violations" had me laughing so hard that people were staring. Never in a million years would I have thought that the phrase "the positive power of porn" would enter my head. No kidding -- reading this chapter has completely altered the course of my life. I'd tell you more, but that would spoil the surprise. Two quirks out of five.

Delusional? Who, Me? ...

The God Delusion

Richard Dawkins

Houghton Mifflin

This probably wasn't the kind of book that I should have been bringing home as bedtime reading over the Easter holiday. Admittedly, the timing wasn't so good, but it was recommended to me by a colleague and I just couldn't help myself. How could I resist a book that promised to raise my consciousness to the fact that atheists can be happy, balanced, moral and intelligent? (And yes, I did stoop so low as to remove the cover so I could smuggle it into the house. Sorry, Mom -- I'm not proud of it.)

Dawkins, an Oxford professor of ethology, asserts that a persistent (insistent?) "false belief in the face of strong contradictory evidence" is delusional. He then goes on to quote Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, who said, " When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion." And that, my friends, was just the introduction!

I would be a liar if I told you that I didn't enjoy the text and identify with parts of what Dawkins has to say. Yes, religion sometimes legitimizes some pretty dumb things. And yes, out of context, even the most sane and normal of religious practices can seem kind of weird. Unfortunately, much of what Dawkins asserts is undermined by that fact that he often comes across as a pseudo-religious zealot who glosses a text to hide/support a weak argument. I was expecting the book to be a little more persuasive, and frankly, a little more articulate. Two point five deities out of five.

Oh, and just because I know at least some of you reading this post will ask me what I believe, I will tell you here and now. I'm with Einstein. I can't conceive of anything as perfect as a strawberry or as beautiful and functional as, say, a golden eyelash, without understanding god.

P is for Paris

The End of the Alphabet

CS Richardson

Doubleday Canada

Aphorisms be damned! I know they say that you can't judge a book by its cover, but that's what I did with the subject of this week's post and it seemed to work out fine. I was originally attracted to The End of the Alphabet by the picture of the camel that graced the front cover. The cousin that lives with me at the moment has been nuts for dromedaries since she was a little girl. She's got pictures, stuffed animals, figurines, Christmas ornaments -- you name it, and if it has a camel on it, I'm sure she has one.

When I picked up the book and read the publisher's blurb on the dust jacket, I didn't quite know what to expect. I suppose I thought it would be like an alphabetized Book of Hours crossed with Tuesdays with Morrie. It turns out that my assumption wasn't that far off the mark.

Somewhere in his early fifties, art lover and advertising man, Ambrose Zephyr learns that he has a month to live. He decides that in his remaining days he wants to travel his way through the alphabet and use the time he has left to absorb the beauty of art, life and the self. He and his wife only make it as far as Istanbul when Ambrose returns home to die. Gentle, witty and charming, The End of the Alphabet is a magical love letter well worth picking up. Three camels out of five.

Leonardo's Girl

I, Mona Lisa
Jeanne Kalogridis
St. Martin's Griffin

So, believe it or not, I'm one of those odd ducks that doesn't actually mind spending time at the airport. When my brother and I were quite young, my dad used to take us to Malton on Sunday afternoons to watch the planes from the roof of Terminal One. If we were really lucky, the afternoon would conclude with a dinner at the Ponderosa. Yeah, I know -- I am so small town it hurts.

Anyway, aside from the noise pollution and the smell of automobile and jet exhaust, there isn't much about the airport that I don't like. I still enjoy watching the planes take off and land, I love making up stories about the people I see, and I get a huge kick out of the randomness of the whole experience. I can tell you which airports across North America have the best bars, the best ice cream, the best lounges, the most inconveniently located car rental agencies, and, of course, the best bookstores. What else is there to do when you take a 3 hour delay?

As you've probably guessed from the lead-in, I've been travelling quite a bit lately and the subject of this week's post I, Mona Lisa by Jeanne Kalogridis was purchased last week on my way home from YOW. Set in Florence during the early 16th century, the author skillfully weaves fact and fiction to create a compelling and immensely readable narrative about the fall of the de Medici, the rise of the Savonarola, and the vie quotidienne of one Lisa di Antonio Gherardini. Surprisingly, the most interesting character in the novel is not the subject of that much talked about painting. It is the portrayal of Leonardo da Vinci that really captures the reader's imagination and leaves him/her wanting more. Three flights of fancy out of five.