Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey

I just finished reading, Really Good, Actually, the debut novel from Canadian author and comedian, Monica Heisey.

Maggie is fine. She’s doing really good, actually. Sure, she’s broke, her graduate thesis on something obscure is going nowhere, and her marriage only lasted 608 days, but at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new life as a Surprisingly Young Divorcée. 

Now she has time to take up nine hobbies, eat hamburgers at 4 am, and “get back out there” sex-wise. With the support of her tough-loving academic advisor, Merris; her newly divorced friend, Amy; and her group chat (naturally), Maggie barrels through her first year of single life, intermittently dating, occasionally waking up on the floor and asking herself tough questions along the way.

I was looking for a light, comedic read and this certainly fit the bill. An emotional, yet comedic look at a woman suffering through a breakup with her husband.

The Elk Whistle Warrior Society by Rick Revelle

I really enjoy books by Indigenous authors and Rick Revelle's new novel, The Elk Whistle Warrior Society is no exception.  
 

It was 650 years ago, on the shores of Sewitakan Zaaga´igan (see-wit-akan saw-ga-e-kan: Salt Lake) now known as Big Quill Lake in central Saskatchewan, east of Saskatoon, a group of young Anishinaabe and Cree teenagers made a life-changing decision. The two young women, who went by the names Wâpikwan (wah-pi-kwan: Flower) and Gidagizi Gidagaakoons (ged a gay zay Ged ah ga cones: Spotted Fawn), decided to start a warrior group led by females who would look after and defend the women and children of their bands with the aid of selected male warriors. That night on the shores of the Salt Lake they tattooed their bodies. The boys with two crossed feathers on their left calves, the girls with the same feathers on their right shoulders. The feathers signified the strength of the sexes held together and led by women. They named their group in the Ani-shi-na-abe language Omashkooz Gwiishkoshim Ogichidaa (o mush koos gwish ko shim o gich e dah) and in Cree they were called Wâwâskêsiw Kwêskosîwin Nôtinkêwiýiniw. In the gichi-mookomaan (white man''s) tongue they are known as the Elk Whistle Warrior Society. 

This is contemporary story with historic roots. It takes place in modern times.

Stepped in history, it's a story of revenge and justice set in today's world. It's exciting, brutal and definitely a page turner. 

Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball's Longest Game by Dan Barry

Every year as baseball season approaches, I pick a baseball book to read. This year it was Bottom of the 33rd, about the longest game in baseball history.

On April 18, 1981, a ball game sprang eternal. For eight hours, the night seemed to suspend a town and two teams between their collective pasts and futures, between their collective sorrows and joys—the shivering fans; their wives at home; the umpires; the batboys approaching manhood; the ejected manager, peering through a hole in the backstop; the sportswriters and broadcasters; and the players themselves—two destined for the Hall of Fame (Cal Ripken and Wade Boggs), the few to play only briefly or forgettably in the big leagues, and the many stuck in minor-league purgatory, duty bound and loyal forever to the game. 

With Bottom of the 33rd, Barry delivers a lyrical meditation on small-town lives, minor-league dreams, and the elements of time and community that conspired one fateful night to produce a baseball game seemingly without end. An unforgettable portrait of ambition and endurance, Bottom of the 33rd is the rare sports book that changes the way we perceive America’s pastime—and America’s past.

I remember hearing about this game the morning after it happened, so reading about it was fun. Some big names were in that game, too. Cal Ripken Jr, Wade Boggs, Bruce Hurst, who all went on to be superstars. 

So how do you fill a book about a single ball game. With back stories of the players and others involved in the game. Surprising how interesting most of them were.

This is a must read for every baseball fan out there. 

At The End Of It All: Stories From The Shadows by Suzanne Craig-Whytock

I just finished reading At The End Of It All: Stories From The Shadows by Suzanne Craig-Whytock.

Enter a surreal landscape of the twisted and unusual. Wander through the echoing corridors of old manor houses, explore dead cities and hidden rooms, and dance with menacing marionettes. Lyrical, haunting, and occasionally humorous, At The End Of It All is a collection of twenty-seven stories that explore joy and sorrow, gratitude and grief, and hatred and desire. Open the cover, feast on the stories inside...and if you're lucky, Mr. Death just might show up for dessert.

It takes a skilled writer to craft a short story. Craig-Whytock is a craftsperson at this. Her stories, most being only 2-3 pages long with some a few pages longer, and a couple which fills just a single page. Yet every one of them is a complete story which captures the reader.  

Her stories run the full range of emotions, thoughtful, scary, unnerving, gothic, psychological, and a few which I chuckled at. Mysophobia, Revenge of the Juggernaut, and The High Seas were a few of my personal favourites, while I found Nomads of the Modern Wasteland Part Three to be the perfect story to end the 27 story collection.

For nights of unsettled reading, I highly recommend this..

 

Flint & Feather: The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake by Charlotte Gray

I think I was in grade 4 or 5 when our teacher told us about the famed Canadian poet, Pauline Johnson. Her story intrigued me. A Mohawk poet who, not only travelled across Canada, but also traveled to England a few times performing. When I saw Charlotte Gray's newest history work, Flint and Feather, it reignited my interest in her and, of course, had to read it. 

A graceful biography that was a #1 national bestseller, Flint & Feather confirms Charlotte Gray’s position as a master biographer, a writer with a rare gift for transforming a historical character into a living, breathing woman who immediately captures our imagination.

In Flint & Feather, Charlotte Gray explores the life of this nineteenth-century daughter of a Mohawk chief and English gentlewoman, creating a fascinating portrait of a young woman equally at home on the stage in her “Indian” costume and in the salons of the rich and powerful. Uncovering Pauline Johnson’s complex and dramatic personality, Flint & Feather is studded with triumph and tragedy, mystery and romance—a first-rate biography blending turn-of-the-century Canadian history and the vibrant story of a woman whose unforgettable voice still echoes through the years.

Pauline Johnson was not just a renowned poet, but was also well know for her eclectic performances. As she was of mixed heritage, Mohawk and English, she create an act which would highlight both sides of her roots. In one act she would dress in her authentic aboriginal garb and recite her poems about canoeing and aboriginal stories she heard or grew up on. 

In the second act, she would dress as an English debutant with poems regarding the upper English lifestyle she had experienced. It was the two different styles, all in one performance which kept people filling the seats of theater everywhere.

Gray does and excellent job in telling the story of her life. Her successes and pitfalls. Her constant state of being poor and in debt, even though she was constantly performing. The reader can see the extensive research which went into Gray's work. It's a tale worth reading.  

heart strings by Clarice Goetz

I just finished reading, heart strings, a poetry collection by Canadian poet, Clarice Goetz.

In her debut collection, heart strings, Clarice Goetz delivers emotionally candid poetry and prose that detail the aftermath of a significant heartbreak. With original, evocative illustrations, this melancholy narrative is written through the many stages of loss, and the tethers that bind us to those we've lost. Let the words meet you wherever you are. 

Let its pages be a place of comfort — a hug in book form. Let it heal your heart, and bring you back home to yourself.

The poems in heart strings are clearly about a woman who's long time relationship has ended. Goetz is heartbroken and throughout the book is working through her feelings. You can see her improvement as the book goes on.

I don't usually read poetry, but as I'm currently also reading a biography on Pauline Johnson, it put me in a mood for this book. Mind you, I would only read 4-5 a day as any more, I found, would cause my mind to wander.

Goetz's poetry is beautiful, and emotional. The drawings which accompany many of her poems were also done by the author. If you enjoy poetry, you'll enjoy heart strings.

 

Silverview by John le Carré

I just finished reading Silverview by British author, John le Carré. 

Julian Lawndsley has renounced his high-flying job in the City for a simpler life running a bookshop in a small English seaside town. But only a couple of months into his new career, Julian's evening is disrupted by a visitor. Edward, a Polish émigré living in Silverview, the big house on the edge of town, seems to know a lot about Julian's family and is rather too interested in the inner workings of his modest new enterprise. 

When a letter turns up at the door of a spy chief in London warning him of a dangerous leak, the investigations lead him to this quiet town by the sea . . . 

Silverview is the mesmerising story of an encounter between innocence and experience and between public duty and private morals. In this last complete masterwork from the greatest chronicler of our age, John le Carré asks what you owe to your country when you no longer recognize it.

I found the writing style in Silverview was totally different than any book I have read before. It took almost half the book to get used to. This isn't because the author is English as I have read many books by British writers, but I sure found it different. It is an interesting story which kept me turning pages.

Daughters of the Deer by Danielle Daniel

I just finished reading Daughters of the Deer by Canadian Author, Danielle Daniel.

1657. Marie, a gifted healer of the Deer Clan, does not want to marry the green-eyed soldier from France who has asked for her hand. But her people are threatened by disease and starvation and need help against the Iroquois and their English allies if they are to survive. When her chief begs her to accept the white man’s proposal, she cannot refuse him, and sheds her deerskin tunic for a borrowed blue wedding dress to become Pierre’s bride. 1675. 

Jeanne, Marie’s oldest child, is seventeen, neither white nor Algonquin, caught between worlds. Caught by her own desires, too. Her heart belongs to a girl named Josephine, but soon her father will have to find her a husband or be forced to pay a hefty fine to the French crown. Among her mother’s people, Jeanne would have been considered blessed, her two-spirited nature a sign of special wisdom. To the settlers of New France, and even to her own father, Jeanne is unnatural, sinful—a woman to be shunned, beaten, and much worse. 

 With the poignant, unforgettable story of Marie and Jeanne, Danielle Daniel reaches back through the centuries to touch the very origin of the long history of violence against Indigenous women and the deliberate, equally violent disruption of First Nations cultures.

This is a powerful, heartfelt story which, many times, left me bitter when I set the book down after reading a few chapters. Danielle Daniel does an excellent job telling the story and in the authors notes at the end, explains how emotionally hard it was to write this fictional tale of a people, the Algonkin (as spelled by the author in the book) who she has which ancestral links to. 

I can why this book is a national best seller.