How to Be Happy

The illustrations in How to Be Happy are amazing — the bold colours, the gorgeous linework — every page* is a delight to behold. I feel that the movement and emotion of Davis’ artwork is the best part of this book.

But don’t be fooled by the title or the gorgeous cover art — this book is NOT a guide book to happiness!

I found the stories quirky, weird and thought-provoking although I feel that I may have missed the point in many of the pieces. I definitely felt a lot of emotion as I was reading through this book — sadness, loneliness and hopelessness were the major feelings I experienced even as I marveled at the beautiful images. Perhaps that was the author’s intent — to evoke an understanding of human longing, to find happiness, to belong.

All in all, I liked this book a lot. I feel that it is a book that I can revisit many times and experience a deeper understanding with each re-reading.

Check out Eleanor Davis’ website for more information about her work. Beautiful artwork!

⭐⭐⭐⭐
I would recommend this book to anyone who loves beautiful art and/or graphic novels.

*well, almost every page — some, while exquisitely produced, were a little disconcerting — the fox tale comes to mind.

We ♥ VWF 2016

Two of our members — Michelle and Cathy — attended two events at the 2016 Vancouver Writers’ Festival. This post article is reposted from Cathy’s blog: Words, Art, Life. Check back soon to read about our meeting on October 24 when Carmen Aguirre came to talk with us about her book, Something Fierce.

The last weeks of October is always a favourite time of mine. The air is cooler and it is rainy with the occasional glorious sunshiny day. The trees are resplendent in their red, gol…

Source: . We ♥ VWF 2016

Let’s Get Reading — Our New Book Picks!

This year’s book choosing evening was different from any of our previous reading plan meetings. For one, this year the meeting was moved to May, instead of our usual April night. But the biggest reason it was different was because our dear friend Trish was not there. At least, she was not there in the physical sense, but she was certainly with us in spirit. Our meeting was wonderful, there was chatting, sharing, remembering, we got our work done (9 books chosen – 1 pending) — but, we missed Trish. We all felt her absence with a deep ache in our hearts.

Book choosing is an important time for us Novel Thinkers. We devote an entire meeting to picking our reading selections for the whole year. We look forward to this event, we all love reading and we can’t wait to get together and determine our choices.

We usually have a great list of 10 books to read and discuss every year. Once in a while our book list is humdrum, but that is rare — our book choices usually get us excited and exploring ideas about the book and related topics and beyond. Oh, I’m not saying that every book is a winner, we’ve certainly had a few bombs, but we’ve never had a year’s worth of fails.

This year, I think we have outdone ourselves. Not that I think we will love every title on our new list, or that every one of these books will generate a storm of conversation. But I do believe that we may have stepped right out of our reading comfort zone with some of our picks!

I’m excited for this years’ readings — it will be very interesting to see what we feel, think, love/hate about our choices. Take a look below for a synopsis of our Book List for 2016/2017. Tell us what you think. Have you read any of these titles??

Novel Thinkers’ 2016/2017 Book List

June* — A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki  
Shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize

In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who’s lived more than a century. A diary is Nao’s only solace — and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine.

Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox —possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao’s drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future.

— From Ruth Ozeki’s website 

*Please Note: I have been a little lax in writing this post — we have already read and discussed June’s selection. I wasn’t at the meeting, so I cannot comment on the group’s feelings about “A Tale For the Time Being” — but I can say that I loved it.

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July –  A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George 

In A Great Deliverance, Elizabeth George probes the delicate motivations of the heart against a backdrop of buried scandals, unresolved antagonisms and dizzying ambiguities. It was her debut novel, the winner of the Agatha and Anthony Awards for best first novel as well as France’s Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere. It was nominated for both a Macavity and an Edgar. It has been optioned for television by the BBC.

— From Elizabeth George’s website

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August –  TBD – We are planning to choose a title from Trish’s Book of Books (her list of every book she has read)

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September – Martin John by Anakana Schofield

Martin John, the Scotiabank Giller Prize-shortlisted novel by Anakana Schofield, is an extremely creepy tale of a serial sexual predator and what he can get away with. It’s also a heartbreaking portrait of a man on the margins of society, being crushed by the weight of his mental illness.

— From CBC Books

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October** –  Something Fierce — Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter by Carmen Aguirre
Winner of CBC’s Canada Reads 2012

Six-year-old Carmen Aguirre fled to Canada with her family following General Augusto Pinochet’s violent 1973 coup in Chile. Five years later, when her mother and stepfather returned to South America as members of the Chilean resistance, Carmen and her younger sister went with them, quickly assuming double lives of their own. At just eighteen years old, Carmen became a militant herself, plunging further into a world of paranoia, terror, and euphoria.

Something Fierce takes the reader inside war-ridden Peru, dictator-ruled Bolivia, post-Malvinas Argentina and Pinochet’s Chile in the eventful decade between 1979 and 1989, at the same time showing the beauty of these nations and the resilience of their people. Dramatic, suspenseful and darkly comic, it is a rare first-hand account of revolutionary life and a passionate argument against forgetting.

— From Carmen Aquirre’s website

**Author Visit: This book discussion will be even more memorable because Carmen Aguirre has graciously agreed to join us for the evening. We are excitedly looking forward to her visit!

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November – All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
Winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize
No. 67  on the Robert McCrum 100 Best Novels of all Time (2003) 

All the King’s Men is one of American literature’s definitive political novels, as well as a profound study of human fallibility in politics. Set in the 1930s, it describes the dramatic rise to power, as state governor, of Willie Stark, a one-time radical attorney.

— From The Guardian review 

This novel was made into a movie in 1949 starring Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, & Joanne Dru  and a remake in 2006 starring Sean Penn, Jude Law, & Kate Winslet

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December – Book Club potluck. No Book

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January – Seveneves  by Neal Stephenson
Winner of the 2016 Hugo Award

A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remains . . .  Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

— From Harper Collins

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February – A Man called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.

— From Simon and Schuster 

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March – I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh

In a split second, Jenna Gray’s world is shattered. Her only hope of moving on is to walk away from everything she knows to start afresh. Desperate to escape her past, Jenna moves to a remote cottage on the Welsh coast, but she is haunted by her fears, her grief and her memories of the cruel November night that changed her life for ever.

DI Ray Stevens is tasked with seeking justice for a mother who is living every parent’s worst nightmare. Determined to get to the bottom of the case, it begins to consume him as he puts both his professional and personal life on the line.

— From Clare Mackintosh’s website 

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Next Book Club: July 25,  2016
Book: A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George
Place: Judi
Snack: Shauna

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What Should We Read Next?

This coming Monday is our book choosing meeting! We normally hold this meeting in April, but we postponed it for a month so that we could gather together to reminisce, grieve, laugh and cry — and support each other in our loss.

Our book choosing meeting has always been an exciting and anticipated event. This year, it will be tinged with sadness but it will still be good — I’m looking forward to the evening.

I have to confess, though, that I haven’t given my choices much thought yet, and I’m feeling just a little panicky! There are so many books out there to choose from — and while, the Novel Thinkers would never pass judgement on anyone’s book pick, I want the titles I put forward to be “unputdownable” stories that generate a rousing discussion. So I will set aside a bit of time in the next few days to think up some great reads. And don’t worry, we’ll post our new year’s book list after our meeting on May 31! Come back then and take a look!

In the meantime, if you are stuck for your next great read and want some ideas right now, check out the CBC’s summer 2016 Reading List. The list is a compilation of 16 titles for your reading pleasure — you can even download a pdf version. (In the event, you aren’t tempted by any of those books, there are quite a few other lists on the CBC’s book page!)

Next Book Club: May 30,  2016
Book: No book. It’s our book choosing meeting!! (Postponed from April)
Place: Judi
Snack: Shauna

Book Talk — February, 2016 (Better Late Than Never!)

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel was our book choice for February. This was one of our picks this year that everyone enjoyed a lot.

There are several women in our group who usually refrain from reading post-apocalyptic novels, but who agreed that St. John Mandel’s book was one that they were happy to have read.

Station Eleven, begins with the sudden death of an aging actor, Arthur Leander. His death is soon overshadowed by a raging flu pandemic that decimates the world’s population. The surviving characters are all linked in some manner to Arthur or to the graphic novel “Station Eleven”. The story focuses on a band of Shakespearean troubadours who travel the countryside, entertaining the folks they encounter who are remaking their lives as best they can in abandoned towns in the Great Lakes region.

We all agreed that the author’s writing was beautiful with interesting characters and delivered a message of hope that humanity will prevail in the face of calamitous destruction. Most of us liked Arthur’s story and how the main characters had some sort of link to him. A sort of “seven degrees of separation” thing. Some people, were confused or irritated by the presecence of the graphic novel “Station Eleven” that threaded through the book while some of us found it linked the two youngest characters in a unique way.

Wendy, who was unable to attend our meeting (vacationing in Mexico!!), sent us her view on the book. Read her opinion below.

I LOVED this book. Couldn’t wait to get home to read it.

There’s something about dystopian books, like Blindness, The Road, and Station Eleven, that I find really compelling. I have thought quite a bit about why that is.

Although I don’t talk about it often any more, I believe there’s a pretty good chance our modern structure will implode within, say, 50 years. It used to terrify me to think that my children or grandchildren might live terrible lives as a result. But exactly how terrible, or what that terrible might look like, is never quite clear.  Books like the ones I’ve listed above give me an idea, and the known is always less scary than the unknown.  So, I found Station Eleven not at all distressing and oddly reassuring: to just see “This is what chaos looks like”. The second part of that is that, in all the books I’ve mentioned, there’s a strong theme of hope. In all three, a small group of people travel together to try to find safety in the form of others. There is human connection and love and loyalty in spite of civilization having fallen apart. And I find that very moving. I loved the image at the end of the town they could see from the air traffic tower, with the grid of electric lights. The symbolization of lights as hope for a better future was perfect. Also hopeful: the way people were organizing schools, and even governance structures in some towns.

To be more specific about this book: I loved the visual images the author provides. I could really see the long, long lines of cars on the freeway, some with skeletons inside. I could see the child’s room covered in dust, with the tea set on the table. I could see the pickup trucks pulled by horses. I loved also the spare writing style, proof that more flowery language does not mean that it’s more descriptive. I thought the characters were believable.

A few minor quibbles: At first I was a little put off by the back story of Arthur. I wanted the whole book to be set in the present, with the traveling symphony/troubadours. But I came to appreciate the device of how people in the story were linked through Arthur. And I did like hearing about the hours, days and weeks right after the epidemic.

However, I didn’t find that the Station Eleven comic book story added much to the book. I pretty much skimmed those parts.

Wendy, we missed you at the meeting, but your review added a lot to our discussion. Thank you for sending your thoughts!

Personally, I agree with the group that Emily St. John Mandel’s prose was engaging to read, and I agree that linking the people through Arthur was an interesting literary device that worked very well. I liked the graphic novel/comic “Station Eleven” presence in the novel. I found it added an interesting angle to the story. I thought it connected the two youngest characters in an unexpected way. I found it was interesting how differently the two children were affected by it.

I enjoyed reading this novel, but it didn’t have the impact on me that other books in this genre had. While the author’s writing was excellent, I had no feeling of fear, dread or despair when I read Station Eleven. I consider it to be a light (and “fluffier”) rendition of the post-apocalyptic world. While the ultimate message of this novel was one of hope, I did not experience an overwhelming feeling that the world after the “Georgia flu” was as harrowing as say, life after the end of the world in The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I also thought that the message of hope, humanity and survival was not as strong in this novel as in others I have read. Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam Trilogy,  for example, for me had much stronger messages.

However, I thought Station Eleven was a good read, and I might have thought it great had I not read other post-apocalyptic novels first.

A word about our snack. Michelle brought a delicious tray of “glow bars” that she made. They were so delicious, everyone gobbled them — there was not one crumb left! She made them from a recipe on the blog: “Oh, She Glows”. I am awaiting permission to repost the recipe on our Featured Recipe page. Check back soon!

Next Book Club: March 28, 2016
Book: Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
Place: Shauna
Snack: Wendy

Magic?

Our expectations for The Confabulist were high. We had read Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo as our book choice in April 2009. This book was one we all loved and was especially memorable because Steven attended our discussion. We all were looking forward to reading his newest book, a fictionalized story about Harry Houdini and his magic…

Magic, who doesn’t love magic? Whether we believe in it, or just like to try to determine the sleight of hand, or figure out how the tricks are performed, we are fascinated by magicians, their art and the possibilities of the surreal. But where was the magic in the pages of The Confabulist?

The opening of the book, introducing Martin Strauss, the primary narrator, was intriguing. Martin begins the tale by relating the medical prognosis he has just received from his doctor — he has a progressive disease which will slowly destroy his brain’s ability to store and process memories. In compensation for this, his brain will create new memories in their place which Martin will believe are true recollections of his past.

This revelation causes Martin to think of the one mistake he made as a young man, the mistake that he has spent a lifetime trying to atone for. He decides he must reveal the entire story to one certain character: “…She deserves to know the whole story. It’s been a mistake to keep it from her for all these years… I deprived her of a father. This she has long been aware of… The whole world knows me as the man who killed Harry Houdini, the most famous person on the planet… What no one knows, save for myself and one other person who likely died long ago, is that I didn’t just kill Harry Houdini. I killed him twice.”

With this curious introduction, Galloway embarked upon the story of Harry Houdini’s rise to stardom, and Martin Strauss’ tale of a lifetime of confabulation, illusion, imagination and memories — real or fabricated.

We all liked the premise of this book, but the delivery was disappointing. We felt that the writing was choppy (especially when remembering reading The Cellist of Sarajevo) and the characters were wooden. The Confabulist was an ambitious undertaking, with multiple narrative streams that unfortunately only added confusion to the larger story. This may have been Galloway’s intent, a deliberate “misdirection” that fails to hold our interest, as in his words: “it loses its power once we no longer wish to understand how it was done”.

Next Book Club: February 29, 2016
Book: Station 11 by Emily St. John Mandell
Place: Judi
Snack: Michelle