The Penguin Lessons / Tom Michell

4 out of 5 stars

In 1975, twenty-three-year-old Englishman Tom Michell follows his wanderlust to Argentina, where he becomes assistant master at a prestigious boarding school. But Michell’s adventures really begin when, on a weekend in Uruguay, he rescues a penguin covered in oil from an ocean spill, cleans the bird up, and attempts to return him to the sea. The penguin refuses to leave his rescuer’s side. “That was the moment at which he became my penguin, and whatever the future held, we’d face it together,” says Michell in this charming memoir.

Michell names the penguin Juan Salvador (“John Saved”), but Juan Salvador, as it turns out, is the one who saves Michell.

After Michell smuggles the bird back to Argentina and into his campus apartment, word spreads about the young Englishman’s unusual roommate. Juan Salvador is suddenly the center of attention—as mascot of the rugby team, confidant to the dorm housekeeper, co-host of Michell’s parties, and an unprecedented swimming coach to a shy boy. Even through the collapse of the Perónist government and amid the country’s economic and political strife, Juan Salvador brings joy to everyone around him—especially Michell, who considers the affectionate animal a compadre and kindred spirit.

 What a charming memoir, featuring the adventures of a young Englishman in Argentina and the penguin he rescued/kidnapped off a Uruguayan beach in an ill-advised fit of conscience. I was particularly amused by the way that he managed to improvise his way through customs back to Argentina with the bird in tow. In our day of increased security, monkey shines like this are definitely a thing of the past. Michell was reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull when he discovered his penguin—Juan Salvador Gaviota in Spanish. In an instant, the penguin acquires his name: Juan Salvador Penguino.

Far more adventurous that I ever was or will be, Mr. Michell takes a first job at a boy’s school in Argentina during a restless time in that lovely country’s history. The monetary inflation in 1975 Argentina could double the prices of things in weeks, days, sometimes even hours. My first visit to beautiful Argentina was in 2002 and the banks were often closed for exactly the same reason! While we were in Buenos Aires, those who needed local currency went down to the leather-merchant just a few doors down from our hotel. He would look at your money, look in the air as if communing with the gods of commerce, and then offer you a sum of Argentine pesos. I have no idea if we got a reasonable exchange rate, but that should be the least of one’s worries when travelling. If you are well enough off to do the travelling, you can take a small haircut on monetary conversions, I think.

I have also been out to the Magellenic penguin colony at Punta Tombo that Michell describes so vividly. Nearly three decades later, there were (ineffective) barriers in place to keep tourists and penguins separate. Despite them, there were people manhandling some of the birds and treating them more like amusements than like wild animals. I was travelling with a small group, but entire cruise ships were disgorging vast crowds of people into the natural area. I was far happier on the following day when our local guide took us to a smaller, more remote rookery where we were the only people present.

Being a lover of penguins (all species), I could see myself falling completely in love with Juan Salvador just as many of the people from the boys’ school do. J.S. becomes a dear friend and confidant to many of the staff and boys as well as Mr. Michell.

Now I want to listen to tango!

The Gunslinger / Stephen King

3 out of 5 stars

In The Gunslinger (originally published in 1982), King introduces his most enigmatic hero, Roland Deschain of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting, solitary figure at first, on a mysterious quest through a desolate world that eerily mirrors our own. Pursuing the man in black, an evil being who can bring the dead back to life, Roland is a good man who seems to leave nothing but death in his wake.

That was an odd read—not bad, just odd. Like King just threw in any old idea he came up with and didn’t bother editing later. I could appreciate that he chose the Western form to jolt readers away from comparisons with Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant or Brooks’ Shannara series. But make no mistake, this is a quest-tale, not searching for the Holy Grail, but seeking the Black Tower.

The symbolism is all over the place—lots of Biblical references, Tarot, a few to King Arthur, probably some that went right by me without being recognized. I’m unsure whether it takes place in a future post-apocalyptic Earth or in an alternate time line? There is plenty left unexplained which has a tendency to draw me along to the next book.

So, will I continue with the series? I think the correct answer is Yar.

The Devil You Know / Elisabeth de Mariaffi

4 out of 5 stars

The year is 1993. Rookie crime beat reporter Evie Jones is haunted by the unsolved murder of her best friend Lianne Gagnon who was killed in 1982, back when both girls were eleven. The suspected killer, a repeat offender named Robert Cameron, was never arrested, leaving Lianne’s case cold.

Now twenty-one and living alone for the first time, Evie is obsessively drawn to finding out what really happened to Lianne. She leans on another childhood friend, David Patton, for help—but every clue they uncover seems to lead to an unimaginable conclusion. As she gets closer and closer to the truth, Evie becomes convinced that the killer is still at large—and that he’s coming back for her.

It was page 244 when I reached that spot—the place where I couldn’t read but I couldn’t not read. Where I would read a page or two, then close the book and try to calm myself for a few seconds before reading another page or two. That, to me, is the sign of a good mystery.

I really liked the main character, Evie. She was plucky, brave, and trusted her own instincts—not always easy when you’re 21—and although she questions herself occasionally and has the odd panic attack, she generally kept her head under pressure. It’s the non-pressure times when she has difficulties, when her imagination runs wild and gets the better of her.

What really sticks in my head about the book is the constant presence of threat in women’s lives—Charles Manson & Art Sawchuk in Evie’s mother’s life. Paul Bernardo in Evie’s work life (part of her job is to sit outside his house as the police look for evidence of murder) and an unknown stalker in her personal life; the murder of her best friend when they were little girls. That constant knowledge that as a woman you have to be careful and keep your wits about you. As Evie tells a fellow reporter in the bar one evening:

Here’s a handy rule of thumb for you. When you get attacked, it’ll be someone you know. So that’s comforting, right? I was explaining this to him since in a future lifetime he might have to be a girl, and if I didn’t tell him this stuff, how would he protect himself? Intimate partners = forty-five percent of assaults. Once you add in your pals, that guy who handed you a beer at the party, and creepy great-uncle Joseph, there’s almost no room left for strangers.

I remember the Paul Bernardo/Karla Homolka murder trials that Evie is covering for her newspaper. I’m sure many other younger Canadian women will remember the Pickton farm in the same way (especially since there was an episode of Criminal Minds that seemed to be based on the Pickton case). I also think of the many missing and murdered aboriginal women that white male politicians don’t seem to care about. It’s easy to say that missing women are not a problem when you’re not aboriginal and not a woman and are never going to be.

In The Gift of Fear, the author attributes a quote to Margaret Atwood: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” I don’t know if Ms. Atwood actually said this, but I think the second half of the statement holds a measure of truth. I think of how hard I have to work to avoid the creepy building super who calls me sweetheart instead of my name. And I ignore it because I may actually need that son-of-a-bitch’s help someday, when the heat goes wonky or the upstairs neighbour’s plumbing leaks yet again. And women all over the world are living this way. Evie’s father, her friend David, and the police all want her to be okay and feel safe, even when it’s obvious that she isn’t okay and definitely does not feel safe—pretty typical of the men in any woman’s life.

But I really do think that society is getting better at this stuff—police take stalking much more seriously than they used to, murdered & missing women are getting much more media coverage, and everyone is paying more attention to equality. Still, as Evie’s mother points out, women read a lot of true crime, probably as a survival manual.

The Orenda / Joseph Boyden

5 out of 5 stars

In the remote winter landscape a brutal massacre and the kidnapping of a young Iroquois girl violently re-ignites a deep rift between two tribes. The girl’s captor, Bird, is one of the Huron Nation’s great warriors and statesmen. Years have passed since the murder of his family, and yet they are never far from his mind. In the girl, Snow Falls, he recognizes the ghost of his lost daughter, but as he fights for her heart and allegiance, small battles erupt into bigger wars as both tribes face a new, more dangerous threat from afar.

Traveling with the Huron is Christophe, a charismatic missionary who has found his calling among the tribe and devotes himself to learning and understanding their customs and language. An emissary from distant lands, he brings much more than his faith to this new world, with its natural beauty and riches.

As these three souls dance with each other through intricately woven acts of duplicity, their social, political and spiritual worlds collide - and a new nation rises from a world in flux.

It’s hard to even begin writing about The Orenda, which is a powerful history of the Canadian nation. We Caucasian Canadians often forget that our history didn’t begin with the fur traders, the explorers, and the missionaries, that there were long established civilizations in the New World which had their own languages, values, and inter-group relations. Joseph Boyden reminds us of our Eurocentric bias and he is very much the man for the job. He is of Scots, Irish, and Anishinaabe (which you may know as Ojibwa or Algonquin) heritage, educated in a Jesuit school, spending plenty of his childhood in the Georgian Bay area, and still spending time hunting, trapping, and practicing many of the skills which he describes in The Orenda.

Boyden does a masterful job of sharing the praise and the blame equally among the three groups represented in The Orenda, the Jesuits, the Wendat (Huron) and the Haudenosaune (Iroquois). Even Jesuit Père Christophe eventually realizes that the “sauvages” have real, vibrant civilizations, plus great kindness, and he recognizes their basic humanity (which, remember, the Spanish conquistadores did not in South America—they treated the native populations as sub-human). And in the end, Bird, the Wendat leader, recognizes the strength and bravery of the Jesuit priest (who grows into it, to be sure). Boyden can accomplish this because he has a foot in both camps, ancestors on both sides of the divide.

I know that many people have difficulty with the torture depicted in the novel. I look at it as a historical fact—all three of these groups were practicing it, the Wendat and Haudenosaune against each other and the Catholic Church via the Inquisition. And there is still plenty of inhumanity in the world, whether is it through war, annexation of territory, the “rendering” of political prisoners, or beheading videos on the internet.

It would be too easy to set up the Jesuits as the bad guys in a novel like this—and Boyden gives us a much more nuanced view of the situation. The priests do have what they consider to be a higher calling (to convert Indians to Christianity), but they also become aware that they are being used by France to gain territory and hold influence over native populations. None of this would have been possible if the native populations hadn’t wanted the trade goods that were being offered—if they had refused to trade and had only provided resistance, the history of North America could be significantly different. But like all humans, they wanted the new, shiny objects and never imagined that acquiring would involve losing their souls, much like the Third World today is wanting First World technology without realizing that with it comes First World culture. I saw this so clearly when in Bhutan in 2010—the young people were so excited to get connected to the internet, to welcome visitors, to join technological society, but we as outsiders could see that much of what makes their country unique and valuable was very much endangered by exactly those things. And yet, who could deny them their chance to join the 21st century?

I wonder if Boyden will ever re-visit some of the surviving characters in a future novel? I would be very interested in hearing their further adventures if he ever does so. In the meantime, I will certainly be willing to check out his other writing.

The Ginger Man / J. P. Donleavy

2 out of 5 stars

First published in Paris in 1955 and originally banned in America, J. P. Donleavy's first novel is now recognized the world over as a masterpiece and a modern classic of the highest order. Set in Ireland just after World War II, The Ginger Man is J. P. Donleavy's wildly funny, picaresque classic novel of the misadventures of Sebastian Dangerfield, a young American ne'er-do-well studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Dangerfield's appetite for women, liquor, and general roguishness is insatiable--and he satisfies it with endless charm.

Before starting this novel, it would be helpful to review two definitions:

1. Satire: the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

2. Picaresque: of or relating to an episodic style of fiction dealing with the adventures of a rough and dishonest but appealing hero.

I started reading The Ginger Man without reviewing those principles and nearly quit in disgust. Even after getting those concepts clear in my head, I was able to merely tolerate the main character. Sebastian Dangerfield is truly a bastard, totally consumed with drinking, smoking, eating, and seducing women, all while doing absolutely no work (or study) and paying as few bills as possible. In other words, I had great difficulty with seeing him as an appealing main character.

You’ve probably run into one of these characters at some point in your life—if he would just put as much effort into a job as he puts into avoiding getting a job, he would have the money that he so desperately desires. Those of us who live responsible lives watch these cads with fascination and revulsion—most of us wouldn’t be able to withstand the mental strain that they navigate on a daily basis, leading me to believe that they are either narcissists or sociopaths, who simply don’t feel the responsibilities of civilized life in the way that most of us do. [Wikipedia informs me that this book is reputedly semi-autobiographical for Donleavy, making me wonder what kind of person he is].

I’ve also read a later book of Donleavy’s, The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B, which is somewhat different in tone. Balthazar is a somewhat more sympathetic character, portrayed as a confused victim in life, manipulated by those around him (somewhat like O’Keefe in The Ginger Man). But Balthazar’s friend Beefy is another version of Dangerfield. I’m also curious about the title, The Ginger Man. It is never explained and Dangerfield doesn’t refer to himself as the ginger man until page 255 and not again until the very last page. If the cover is any indication, it refers to Dangerfield’s hair colour, as he is illustrated as a red head. So that remains a bit of a question in my mind.

Part of my issue, I am sure, is that I am female and tend to identify with the women in the novel. I was frustrated with their behaviour as well. Why in the world would his wife leave Sebastian a forwarding address the first time she left him? And those single women whom Sebastian seduces—what in the world do they see in him? I want to shake each and every one of them!

One of my female friends recommended Donleavy’s writing to me and I chose this book because it was on the Modern Library’s list of 100 top novels. Obviously other people find it amusing and worthwhile to read. I cannot count myself among them, however, despite the skillfulness of the writing. I think this is the last Donleavy work that I will read. There are too many books that I’m sure I will enjoy to spend my valuable reading time on this author.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks / Rebecca Skloot

3 out of 5 stars

Henrietta Lacks, as HeLa, is known to present-day scientists for her cells from cervical cancer. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells were taken without her knowledge and still live decades after her death. Cells descended from her may weigh more than 50M metric tons.

HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks was buried in an unmarked grave.

The journey starts in the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s, her small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia — wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo. Today are stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells, East Baltimore children and grandchildren live in obscurity, see no profits, and feel violated. The dark history of experimentation on African Americans helped lead to the birth of bioethics, and legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

A book like this makes me realize how important education in general and particularly science education is. Today’s science is yesterday’s magic—for those who don’t understand science, it can seem like very frightening black magic. The story of Henrietta Lacks explores the intersection between science, research, education, capitalism, civil rights, and consent.

The major question implicit in this book is whether we have any claim to our own cells after they have been removed from our bodies. Is it ethical to take “discarded” cells—those left over after medical procedures—and do research from them and potentially make money from either the cells or the research. This issue gets us down somewhere in our irrational subconscious—after all, we all “know” enough about voodoo and black magic to know that curses require hair, nail clippings, blood, or other bodily secretions in order to be effective.

In many ways, the story of the HeLa cell line traces the history of medical research in the US (and to some extent, other countries), evolving from the exploitation of vulnerable people towards the concept of informed consent. It also traces the history of an African American family, liberated from slavery, but not from poverty and deprivation.

The current distrust of science has some real roots in situations like these, where people were used without their knowledge for experimental purposes. But the lack of scientific literacy in the general population helps with the proliferation of conspiracy theories and the prevalence of medical quackery. Witness all the “miracle cures” that people buy into. One older lady that I used to work with was always pouring money into some miracle weight loss scheme or another—it didn’t seem to occur to her that if the method actually worked, it would be front page news on Time magazine, not some obscure ad in the back of a newspaper.

We have to seriously question ourselves and our politicians about the quality of our educational systems. Are they being funded? Do we have enough teachers? Can poor children hope to get education equal to that of rich children?

As my grandfather used to say, no education is wasted.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

4 out of 5 stars

If you are an enthusiastic reader of crime/noir/mystery novels, at some point you should get back to its roots—by reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur set many of the patterns which can still be observed in the modern genre novel.

Sherlock Holmes is an eccentric expert—but he defines the crime expert, what with his monographs on cigar ash, his studies of foot prints, and his encyclopedic knowledge of the history of crime. Many of the heroes of today’s literature are forensic anthropologists, FBI agents, and police detectives, people with formidable and specialized expertise in their fields. Holmes was multifaceted, in that he was also an expert boxer and an amateur violin player. It reminds me of Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta, who is also a wonderful cook and who cooks to clear her mind of the case at hand—just as Holmes works on his chemistry experiments or plays his violin in order to come at a problem obliquely.

Especially prescient was Conan Doyle’s depiction of what we would now call profiling, getting into the mind of another person and using that insight to catch the criminal. It is especially pronounced when Holmes is dealing with his nemesis, Professor Moriarty—he bases his judgments of Moriarty’s next moves upon what he himself would do. They are equally matched.

Many of our favourite 21st century protagonists also have their Dr. Watson, a sidekick who can assist as necessary and provide an ear to listen to the latest theory, thereby filling in the reader on what is happening in the main character’s mind. Think Benton Wesley or Pete Marino for Kay Scarpetta (Cornwell) or Amelia Sachs with Lincoln Rhyme (Deaver). The Scandinavian noir writers seem to prefer the isolated expert—like Holmes, who has only 1 or 2 friends and absolutely refuses a romantic relationship, the Scandinavian main characters are frequently divorced, unable to maintain healthy relationships with their girlfriends and/or children, and generally somewhat socially isolated. For example, Henning Mankell’s Wallander, Arnaldur Indridason’s Erlandur, or Yrsa Sigudardottir’s Thora Gudmundsdottir.

Of interest to me was the story which I think we would all think of as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time—the dog which didn’t bark, indicating that it knew the man who entered the barn. Conan Doyle called this story Silver Blaze, after the stolen horse of the tale. Also interesting to me was the Adventure of the Speckled Band, in which Holmes foils a plot involving a trained venomous snake. This snake was trained to respond to a whistle—not a physical possibility for snakes, which cannot hear air-borne sound waves. Realistically, the criminal might have recalled his pet by thumping on the wall, causing vibrations which the creature might have picked up through its lower jaw (but then if it was busy biting the inhabitant of the bed in the next room, it would likely miss even this cue.)

An interesting and entertaining series of stories, albeit a trifle repetitious when read one after the other in this volume. They would have been much more effective when read one at a time, as they would have been at the time of publication. Many of the prejudices of the 1890s are firmly on display, making this an interesting historical document as well. I wonder what our literature will reveal about us to future generations?

You / Caroline Kepnes

4 out of 5 stars

When a beautiful, aspiring writer strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe Goldberg works, he does what anyone would do: he Googles the name on her credit card.

There is only one Guinevere Beck in New York City. She has a public Facebook account and Tweets incessantly, telling Joe everything he needs to know: she is simply Beck to her friends, she went to Brown University, she lives on Bank Street, and she’ll be at a bar in Brooklyn tonight—the perfect place for a “chance” meeting.

As Joe invisibly and obsessively takes control of Beck’s life, he orchestrates a series of events to ensure Beck finds herself in his waiting arms. Moving from stalker to boyfriend, Joe transforms himself into Beck’s perfect man, all while quietly removing the obstacles that stand in their way—even if it means murder.

I believe that this is the first book that I’ve encountered written in the second person. It felt awkward at first, but I was soon so immersed in the story that it ceased to matter.

It is also unusual to be able to identify with a male stalker, but I found myself reluctantly doing that as well. The author managed to get inside his skin in a very believable way. I was also amused when he remembered his previous “girlfriend” (whom he had murdered) and her name was Caroline (the same as the author). I appreciated that darkly humourous detail.

I’ve read a bit of non-fiction about stalking, and this novel conformed very well to known behaviour of such people. To some extent I thought that Joe may be a bit more social than most stalkers, but he was also described by other characters as “intense” and his obvious disdain for those that he considered less intelligent was right on the button, as was his ability to lie without compunction and to make up stories on the fly.

In this instance, Joe chose a woman who gives his a run for his money—she is a conscience-free narcissist herself and leads him a merry chase.

Not recommended for those who have ever been pursued by the obsessed.

The Shining / Stephen King

4 out of 5 stars

Jack Torrance’s new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he’ll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote . . . and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.

First, let it be said, that I am a big CHICKEN. I don’t know why I thought I could read this book comfortably (after all, I just recently read Andrew Pyper’s The Damned and spent several days hiding in bed with the covers over my head). But so many people loooooove Mr. King’s work, and I had been lured into a false sense of security because I had no problems with another of his novels, The Stand. And the Guardian put it on their list of books that everyone should read…..and well, I should have known better. I should probably also be clear that I have NEVER seen the movie. I don’t do scary movies any more than I do scary books. Because I am a CHICKEN.

So, this was another one of those books that I could read only during bright daylight. Once the shadows started to lengthen, it was on to other novels for me. But, the days are getting longer right now, so I’ve been able to finish up quicker than I anticipated.

Now, let me say that I can fully see why people rave over Stephen King’s writing. I thought that Jack Torrance was a particularly well realized character. Gee, a struggling writer with an alcohol problem—where do you think King got inspiration for that? The rage and terror both that Jack struggles through (as a result of his own childhood experiences of domestic violence) were so believable—chillingly believable! As was the worry and terror of Danny, who never asked for this talent, this shining, and is too young to understand what to do with it. Wendy is not as well developed--the story obviously revolves around the father-son relationship, probably an issue for Mr. King, as he was 2 when his father abandoned his family. I think the most terrifying part of the book is the ability of Jack to rationalize what he is doing, to take a seemingly sensible decision and to twist it to fit his own damaged morality. It would be sensible to leave the hotel—but Jack will never get another job. It would be sensible to get Wendy and Danny out on the snowmobile—but they have no family support system to rely on. They are adults who know that ghosts aren’t real—until the ghosts are entirely too real and are running the show. And Jack, the little boy who wanted his abusive father’s approval, now wants the abusive phantoms’ approval just as badly. [Much superior to the cardboard cut-out people, very good or very bad, that populate The Stand.]

Just for the record, I love Dick Halloran. Talk about a knight- in-”shining”-armour, he is that rare and wonderful thing, a decent man. Even the less-than-likeable people are believable—I’ve met examples of some of them. King is masterly at creating people you can envision meeting.

I’ve been giving some thought to why this bump-in-the-dark stuff gives me such heebie-jeebies, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I am deeply conflicted. My rational self would like to think that “of course I don’t believe in the supernatural,” but my emotional self is a fence-sitter on this one. Not willing to rule out ghosts, not entirely willing to rule them in, either. (Do ghosts seen in dreams count? I’ve met several of those. But they’ve all been comforting.)

I’m looking forward to blunting the adrenalin a little bit, now that the book is behind me. To settle back into regular life and quit jumping at every little sound.

The Buried Giant / Kazuo Ishiguro

The Romans have long since departed, and Britain is steadily declining into ruin. But at least the wars that once ravaged the country have ceased.

The Buried Giant begins as a couple, Axl and Beatrice, set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen for years. They expect to face many hazards—some strange and other-worldly—but they cannot yet foresee how their journey will reveal to them dark and forgotten corners of their love for one another.

Sometimes savage, often intensely moving, Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel in a decade is about lost memories, love, revenge and war.

This is only my second Ishiguro novel, the first being Never Let Me Go. I was intrigued at the repetition of one theme, that of needing to prove your love for someone. In NLMG, the cloned couple, Cathy and Tommy, believe that if they can just prove that they are really in love that they will be spared from the early death of having to supply organs to “real” people. In The Buried Giant, the elderly couple, Beatrice and Axl, believe that they must prove their love in order to pass over together to a (magical) island.

I was also intrigued with the theme of forgetfulness in The Buried Giant—the suggestion that we can only have peace if we forget all the events that we might hold against others. Is it easier to love someone if you cannot remember your past conflicts? And is that relationship worth losing your memory of all the positive events in your life too? The same questions apply to nations as well—would it be worth forgetting your history in order to achieve peace with your neighbours?

I work in the museum field which celebrates history, so I cannot advocate forgetfulness. In my opinion, it’s just as well that the magic available in The Buried Giant is unavailable in our world. We are made up of both the positive and negative events that have happened to us—even the painful ones contribute to who we become and help us to develop character. I wouldn't be myself without ALL of my memories.

The Book Thief / Markus Zusak

4 out of 5 stars

HERE IS A SMALL FACT - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE

1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier.

Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.

SOME IMPORTANT INFORMATION - THIS NOVEL IS NARRATED BY DEATH

It's a small story, about: a girl, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter, and quite a lot of thievery.

ANOTHER THING YOU SHOULD KNOW - DEATH WILL VISIT THE BOOK THIEF THREE TIMES.

I have found that reading from book lists is an excellent way to read outside my comfort zone. I think I have previously said that I usually avoid novels set during World War II. This year, I have read four novels (in four months) set in that time period. Three of them have been on recommended reading lists and I have been pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed them.

Told from the perspective of Death, who follows the story of a young girl in Germany during the war, this book is an important reminder of the hardships suffered, especially by the poor and by those who were not enthusiastic participants under the Nazis. So many of the books set during the war are told from the Allied viewpoint and we forget that there was suffering on the other side as well.

The Book Thief also appealed to my love of books and reading, which play such an important part of the novel. I read the book while at home with a cold—my only complaint was that I cried at the end, resulting in worse congestion than ever.

The Tusk that did the Damage / Tania James

4 out of 5 stars

From the critically acclaimed author of Atlas of Unknowns and Aerogrammes, a tour de force set in South India that plumbs the moral complexities of the ivory trade through the eyes of a poacher, a documentary filmmaker, and, in a feat of audacious imagination, an infamous elephant known as the Gravedigger.

Orphaned by poachers as a calf and sold into a life of labor and exhibition, the Gravedigger breaks free of his chains and begins terrorizing the countryside, earning his name from the humans he kills and then tenderly buries. Manu, the studious younger son of a rice farmer, loses his cousin to the Gravedigger’s violence and is drawn, with his wayward brother Jayan, into the sordid, alluring world of poaching. Emma is a young American working on a documentary with her college best friend, who witnesses the porous boundary between conservation and corruption and finds herself in her own moral gray area: a risky affair with the veterinarian who is the film’s subject. As the novel hurtles toward its tragic climax, these three storylines fuse into a wrenching meditation on love and betrayal, duty and loyalty, and the vexed relationship between man and nature.

There are always multiple ways to look at any situation—this novel gives us three: the elephant’s point of view, the poacher’s, and the Western film maker’s. There is truth in all three. I was a volunteer natural history teacher for 17 years—you can take the woman out of the classroom, but you can’t take the teacher out of her. I immediately began recommending this book to the folks I know who are still manning the ramparts and educating the public.

The only viewpoint that is missing from this book is that of the consumer of ivory, for which the elephants are being poached. Without them, there would be no trade in elephant parts. And you may be shocked to learn that the illegal animal trade is right up there with the international drug trade and the illegal arms trade in the matter of market value. Truly, if we could stem the desire for elephant ivory and rhino horn, we might be able to save these charismatic mega-fauna. [And if we can’t save the super stars, like elephants, what hope do the smaller, more obscure species have?]

The poachers are often folk who live a tenuous existence, barely providing the basic necessities for themselves and their children. If you’ve studied psychology, you may remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs—people need to have their basic needs met, and feel safe that they will continue to be met, before they can care about higher level ideals like wildlife conservation and biodiversity.

And if you were ever in any doubt that cultural sensitivity is necessary as a foreigner in a country on the other side of the world, this book will bring that lesson home. The film makers may think their film is about elephants, but it is also very much about the people whose lives intertwine, for good or ill, with those immense mammals.

Recommended for those who love elephants, who champion wildlife conservation, and for those who love India.

The World Before Us / Aislinn Hunter

4 out of 5 stars

When she was just fifteen, smart, sensitive Jane Standen lived through a nightmare: she lost the sweet five-year-old girl she was minding during a walk in the woods. The little girl was never found, leaving her family, and Jane, devastated. Now the grown-up Jane is an archivist at a small London museum that is about to close for lack of funding. As her one last project, she is searching the archives for scraps of information related to another missing person--a woman who disappeared some 125 years ago from a Victorian asylum. As the novel moves back and forth between the museum in contemporary London, the Victorian asylum, and a dilapidated country house that seems to connect both missing people, it unforgettably explores the repercussions of small acts, the power of affection, and the irrepressible vitality of everyday objects and events. 

Can you work in archives and museums and not be haunted by the past? Maybe it depends on what your own past conceals. Sometimes, when I am doing family history research, I feel like I have a cloud of ghostly companionship—perhaps even guiding me, getting me to notice certain things, pushing little thoughts into my head. Very much like the situation that Jane discovers herself in The World Before Us.

Haunted by the disappearance of a child she was minding when she was a young teen, Jane retreats into the archival world, dealing with papers and objects rather than people. In fact her ties to the world of people are rather tenuous—an absent father, a distant brother, an ex-boyfriend, her teenage crush on the father of the missing girl. Jane has gone missing too, but unlike little Lily, no one notices her absence. In fact, when Lily goes missing, no one even thinks to comfort Jane or let her know what was going on. She is as invisible as the ghostly presences which surround her.

This is the story of Jane finding herself through investigating another missing young woman, the mysterious N. who has disappeared from a Victorian asylum in the same area where Lily disappeared. By sorting out the stories of the people involved in that event, Jane finds the wherewithal to make a connection in the real world and to break out of her self-imposed exile.

Touching, well-written, rather dreamy in tone, The World Before Us shows us that there are patterns in life, which repeat, although never exactly. 

The Just City / Jo Walton

3 out of 5 stars

"Here in the Just City you will become your best selves. You will learn and grow and strive to be excellent."
Created as an experiment by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, the Just City is a planned community, populated by over ten thousand children and a few hundred adult teachers from all eras of history, along with some handy robots from the far human future—all set down together on a Mediterranean island in the distant past.

The student Simmea, born an Egyptian farmer's daughter sometime between 500 and 1000 A.D, is a brilliant child, eager for knowledge,  ready to strive to be her best self. The teacher Maia was once Ethel, a young Victorian lady of much learning and few prospects, who prayed to Pallas Athene in an unguarded moment during a trip to Rome—and, in an instant, found herself in the Just City with grey-eyed Athene standing unmistakably before her.

Meanwhile, Apollo—stunned by the realization that there are things mortals understand better than he does—has arranged to live a human life, and has come to the City as one of the children. He knows his true identity, and conceals it from his peers. For this lifetime, he is prone to all the troubles of being human.

Then, a few years in, Sokrates arrives—the same Sokrates recorded by Plato himself—to ask all the troublesome questions you would expect. What happens next is a tale only the brilliant Jo Walton could tell.

My second book this year in which the Greek gods play main roles as characters (the first being Kraken Bake by Karen Dudley).

Unfortunately, for me, I preferred the playful Kraken Bake to The Just City. Now I’ll confess at this point that I probably have read some Plato during my university education, but I don’t remember it at all. It made no impression on me. So I am not the target audience for this novel.

I do like the idea that the god Apollo decides to become human in order to learn things that mortals grok better than he does. And I can appreciate the messages of choice and consent which Walton emphasizes during the course of the book. I was amused when Socrates gets dragged into the whole situation and how much of a shit disturber he turns out to be. One person’s Utopia is another’s Dystopia. Who needs to consent to do what, and who gets to make the rules? Is biology destiny, as the women once again get stuck with the child care? What counts as intelligence—can machines become intelligent? How will we recognize when they do?

With apologies to Jo Walton (whose books Among Others and My Real Children were amazing), I just found this book overly serious and the messages really, really obvious. Serious issues were discussed very seriously. And, being based on Platonic dialog, there were copious discussions of things. I prefer a little more action and light-heartedness.