Just a quick post from a quiet house here in Manchester… we’ll be ringing in the New Year in just over 30 minutes. It’s hard to do a reflective post when put on the spot (even if it’s my own fault). I can’t even begin to think what 2009 held…. I guess that’s what the blog is for!

Here’s hoping 2010 is fantastic for everyone. I plan to begin the year with some travelling and then I go home to a newly renovated kitchen, so that bodes well for me. The only thing I’m concerned about is the Vancouver Olympics. Other than that, I’m hopeful that 2010 will be a great year.

Best wishes for everyone else in the New Year!

Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott is one of the contending titles for Canada Reads 2010. The Canada Reads website has my favourite synopsis:

Marina Endicott’s compelling novel Good to a Fault begins with a bang — two cars collide at an intersection. As the story unfolds, the lives of all those involved are unalterably jolted, too.

The driver at fault is 43-year-old Clara Purdy, who works at a Saskatoon insurance company. Affluent but unfulfilled, she has spent years nursing her dying parents and now finds herself alone.

The other car is home to an impoverished family on its way to Fort McMurray, Alberta, in search of a new start. The mother, Lorraine, the only one who’s injured in the accident, ends up in the hospital.

Feeling that she wants to do what’s right — and also that she’s to blame for the situation — Clara chooses to help not only Lorraine but also her sullen husband, their three children and the grumpy grandmother, Mrs. Pell. Clara’s decision brings chaos and complications into her life, along with powerful new emotions, both rewarding and painful.

I flew right through the book, seamlessly jumping between the narrators and following the story eagerly. It is a quintessentially Canadian novel and I think it has a very good chance to win Canada Reads 2010. The characters feel Canadian without their stories relying on taking place in Canada. I think it has something to do with Clara’s generousity, the children’s love, or even Lorraine’s understanding. Either way, the characters were compelling and pulled me in immediately. I was a little disappointed with the end, but at the same time realize why it was ended that way.

However, the story doesn’t have to be Canadian, so I think a wide range of audiences would enjoy it (and could perhaps be an arguement to vote it off Canada Reads). My only complaint, which is very minor, is the character’s names changing through the book. Darlene became Dolly, which was fine as she said it was her nickname already. But Clara became “Clary” in both dialogue, reference, and personal thoughts. I found this odd because it started as just the kids affectionately nicknaming her.

I picked up this book as part of our Canada Reads book club but unfortunately I’ll be missing the discussion on Sunday January 9th. So I also decided to join in the online Canada Reads Challenge! Two birds with one stone.

Read an excerpt from the publisher, Freehand Books.

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday season celebrating (Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza, Festivus, Solstace, etc.) and are excited to bring in the new year.

Things went well here, besides the food coma CW and I ended up in. On Christmas morning we’d already exchanged gifts (iTouch for me and new camera for him) so we went downstairs to greet CW’s dad, girlfriend, and her family. We opened some presents with them, had a quick cup of tea, then headed over to the Care Home to visit Grandma RW.

Then we went to CW’s aunt’s house for present-giving with CW’s mom’s side of the family. One aunt has three small boys so present-giving is always quite the affair. After that, we headed back to CW’s dad’s house for Christmas Lunch at about 4:00pm. By 7:00pm we were back at Aunty LM’s having Christmas Dinner. As I said, food coma… but lots of great company and everything went smoothly.

Now that all the Christmas rush is over, I’m preparing to do my travelling in the new year. I’m planning to travel from January 4th to 22nd while CW is revising for his exam(s). I’ve got a long list of places to go, but on the top of the list is Stratford-Upon-Avon, Stonehenge, Bath, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, and York.

I’ll come back to Manchester a couple times and I have to use London as a travel-base for some of the cities, but it should be all right. The trains are superb here (compared to at home) and as it is the off season, I don’t need to book hostels far in advance.

I’ve got a lot that I need to blog about, so keep your eyes peeled and locked on the blog. I didn’t bring my laptop here (as I’ll be travelling) so CW is kindly sharing his with me.

I’ve arrived safely in Manchester, despite severe delays in London Heathrow and last week’s threat of a British Airways strike. Fortunately the strike was averted due to court order and my flight was still scheduled. I left Sunday night and we were late leaving from YVR (Vancouver, BC). I was worried I wasn’t going to make my connecting flight up to Manchester. I was running through the new Terminal 5 in Heathrow, which is owned and operated by British Airways.  There were about three security checkpoints and insane queues, I didn’t think I was going to make my second flight.

Fortunately (for me) it was delayed about an hour so I was able to make it to my gate on time. Then it began to snow and we sat on the plane for hours waiting for a de-icing rig for our plane. All the planes in Heathrow were in the same situation — there were only seven de-icing rigs for the entire airport. Incoming planes had no gates to unload at and were sitting on the sides of the runways. Outgoing planes were stuck until we could be de-iced, and any flights originally scheduled for after 7:00pm takeoff were completely cancelled. Finally, after three hours on the plane, my flight left around 8:45pm. We finally arrived safe and sound in Manchester where CW had been waiting for me.

Yesterday was spent recuperating, I slept in pretty late and then we went into Manchester city centre to finish our Christmas shopping. The city was pretty busy and it hailed several times while we were there. We took a walk around some of the German Christmas Markets scattered around the city centre.

Last night we took CW’s dad’s dogs for a walk, and they absolutely adore the snow. This is Harvey jumping up for a snowball as CW tosses it. And yes, that is the scarf I knit for CW.

Today we’ve already taken the dogs for a nice long walk around the Racecourse in Salford. Salford is a city within Manchester and where CW and his family live. The Racecourse was formerly a racetrack for horses and now is a playing field for football (soccer), etc. The Racecourse used to be really huge and also includes a lot of forested areas with walking paths along the River Irwell.

I opted to read this book as part of My Friend Amy’s Newsweek Challenge. Basically Newsweek came up with a list of “50 Books for Our Times”, so a bunch of us (close to 100 book bloggers) decided to each read a book and review it. Here’s how Newsweek described it:

What we do need, in a world with precious little time to read (and think), is to know which books—new or old, fiction or nonfiction—open a window on the times we live in, whether they deal directly with the issues of today or simply help us see ourselves in new and surprising ways.

Well I think Kim by Rudyard Kipling lived up to that — Kim didn’t deal directly with the issues, but it was always an underlying point. I’m not totally up-to-date on all my world history and military information, but Rudyard Kipling definitely slipped his own commentary in there.

Kim is about an orphan boy named Kimball O’Hara living in India. He grew up on the streets of Lahore and is known by the villages as Friend of all the World. When a travelling lama comes into Lahore, he knows his life is changing. The lama is searching for a River to wash away his sins, and when Kim tells him of his father’s prophesy, the lama knows they’re meant to be together.

Sometimes I had trouble following the long, poetic prose of Kipling, but I just needed to make sure I read when I had time to immerse myself. The descriptions of India and its people certainly shows Kipling’s love for his home as well as being very informative about India’s culture, history, and religions. Once I got into it, I really enjoyed reading about Kim and his story.

I think Newsweek picked this as one of the “books for our time” because of the second plot line involving “The Great Game”. It is a historical plotline without shoving the facts at you; in fact, rarely is anything mentioned outright. As I mentioned before, I’m not up on all my world history, so I visited Wikipedia and learned about The Great Game — which is what they called the rivalry between the British and Russia in Central Asia.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Kim and would be interested in brushing up on my history and then reading it again. I think that a lot of the subtle commentary was lost on me.