I finished the final book of the Hunger Games trilogy in three days, about the same length of time it took me to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I thought it was strong, powerful and a great end to the trilogy. I do have some more specific comments though, so SPOILERS BEHIND THE CUT!

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I’ve been a fan of Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Cafe books since I was a kid. I was given Home From the Vinyl Cafe for Christmas when I was maybe 11 or 12. When I found out Stuart McLean also had a Vinyl Cafe show on CBC, I immediately subscribed to the podcast via iTunes. I’ve been listening to that for a few years and then in November last year I had a chance to see the Vinyl Cafe Christmas Concert when Stuart McLean was on tour. It was shortly after the release of Extreme Vinyl Cafe and the concert featured a couple stories from the book. I also got a chance to meet Stuart and have him sign my copy of Extreme Vinyl Cafe.

I’ve just finished reading the book, Extreme Vinyl Cafe, and while it’s classic Dave and Morley, I have to say I’m a bit disappointed. I think it’s the fact that I’m over-saturated by the podcast and reading so many of the books, but I’d already heard all the stories in Extreme Vinyl Cafe. I know two of them we heard at the concert, and I know at least another two (for certain) I heard on the podcast. They were great stories, and I enjoyed them, but it was disappointing because I was expecting new Vinyl Cafe stories. However, if you have never read The Vinyl Cafe or heard Stuart McLean’s stories, I strongly urge you to check out this quintessential Canadian storyteller. He is not only magnificent at weaving a tale but also has a lovely voice.

The thing that is so great about Vinyl Cafe stories is the humour mixed in with little life lessons. You’d never think of defrosting a turkey with a hair dryer, or sneaking into the school to free the janitor from “redundancy”, but there they are. Dave and his family, wife Morley, daughter Stephanie, and son Sam are all hilarious and yet vulnerable humans in their own way. While some of the stories may be a little wacky, they are all very real and honest, with genuine emotion.

Back to the book review: A neat touch to Extreme Vinyl Cafe is each story is preceded by a unique piece of fan mail that Stuart McLean has received. Each fan mail letter relates somehow to the following story. Sometimes a silly little letter simply preceding the story, other times the story serves as an insightful to the writer’s query. However, he has a new book coming out this fall — The Vinyl Cafe Notebooks — which is actually a non-fiction title about the making of the radio show. Even though it’s not Dave and Morley, I’m very interested to read this next serving of Vinyl Cafe stories.

Kathleen Winter’s first novel, with House of Anansi Press, is the story of a young Labrador family secretly raising their hermaphrodite child as a boy. Winters’ prose is lyrical and lonely, yet relatable. Wayne’s story is magnetic, powerful, and has an unexplainable energy.

In 1968, into the beautiful, spare environment of remote coastal Labrador, a mysterious child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor girl, but both at once. Only three people are privy to the secret — the baby’s parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and a trusted neighbour, Thomasina. Together the adults make a difficult decision: to raise the child as a boy named Wayne. But as Wayne grows to adulthood within the hyper-masculine hunting culture of his father, his shadow-self — a girl he thinks of as Annabel — is never entirely extinguished, and indeed is secretly nurtured by the women in his life.

Haunting, sweeping in scope, and stylistically reminiscent of Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex, Annabel is a compelling debut novel about one person’s struggle to discover the truth in a culture that shuns contradiction.

From the Publisher, House of Anansi Press

The novel raises a lot of questions about who people are, and why you choose the paths you choose. Each central person (Wayne, Thomasina, Jacinta, and Treadway) considers life’s purpose in a different light. Each character examines how they are connected to the world, Labrador, and the animals and society around them. One of the best quotes is from Thomasina: “Everyone is a snake shedding its skin… We are different people through all our lives.”

Central to the story is everyone’s influence on Wayne. He knows something about him is different, and the three people that know his secret keep it from him at all costs. We follow Wayne on his journey through childhood, puberty, and young adulthood. In each his parents try to nurture and encourage the person they think he should be; his father tries to get him to become the boy he was, his mother tries to hide and stifle his feminine side lest his father find out, and Thomasina blatantly calls him ‘Annabel’ after her own deceased daughter.

Overall I found the book lyrical and well-written. I felt it dragged a little near the end and was difficult to come to an end. I think that perhaps Kathleen Winter didn’t know how to finish the book, because it’s hard to say where Wayne may end up. It’s difficult to tell Wayne/Annabel’s entire life story and satisfy all the readers. It’s one of those rare books where the open-endedness bothers you, but feels like the right decision at the same time.

In an interview in House of Anansi Press, Kathleen Winter was asked, “What do you hope readers will take away from their experience with Wayne and his shadow-self, Annabel?” Winter’s reply really hit home with me about understanding why someone acts the way they do:

I’d like readers to see Wayne/Annabel the way they see themselves, and look at the “other” gender within themselves. I feel point of view is everything, in life and in literature, and I hope the book treats the points of view held by its divergent characters with equal respect. In many ways, this book is, for me, about suspending judgment. When you understand why someone acts the way they do, even if the actions cause sadness or difficulty, then I think you can redirect your energy to something more fruitful than judgment. I also hope the reader will have the kind of reading experience I think books are really about: a connection with the characters and a suspension of the loneliness of being human. I hope this story, like all good stories, might give the reader a kind of relief and a joy.

Now, I have taken to ending my reviews with additional links for interested readers. Well here is something really interesting: Bill Douglas, graphic designer, talking about his design for the cover of Annabel. I think Douglas did an incredible job of capturing the lonely, cold feeling in the book about Labrador. And I lovelovelove the hidden meaning behind the imagery chosen: “The caribou, you see, is the only member of the deer family in which both male and females grow antlers.”

• Kathleen Winter’s blog
• Kathleen Winter on Twitter
• House of Anansi Press on Twitter
• Kathleen Winter is a guest poster on The National Post‘s blog, The Afterword. Read her essay on “Loneliness and the Book” (part 1 / part 2)
• Salty Ink’s profile of Annabel, as defeded by Laura Repas of House of Anansi Press

The Book of Awesome is actually not that awesome. Some blog-to-book stories have been very successful and some blogs sell a lot of funny merchandise, but The Book of Awesome doesn’t stand up.

Based on www.1000awesomethings.com, Neil Pasricha started the blog to celebrate the little things in life. While this is theoretically a great idea — everyone needs to think positive and take joy in the little things — it just doesn’t work as a book. To start, even though the blog touts over 10 million hits, Neil hasn’t even reached #1 of his “awesome” list; the blog counts down from 1000 and (as the time of this review) is on #452.

And the book… I picked it up during a gathering of bookish folks for Books on the Radio. Yes, we may have ridiculed the book more than necessary, but it still isn’t all that “awesome”. I started flipping through it and reading the chapter titles out, and AnnMarie would declare “awesome” or “stupid” or “gross” and we’d move onto the next one. I have to say it was great for a laugh and a conversation starter, but I wouldn’t have ever paid $28.50 for this book.

• “When someone offers to toss your dirty clothes in with their load of laundry” — No, that’s just gross, unless you’re dating. I wouldn’t even touch a roommates laundry, much less let someone touch mine!
• “Sneaking under someone else’s umbrella” — If someone did that to me, I’d elbow them in the face. Is a black eye awesome?
• “Blowing out all the candles on your first try” — Maybe if you’re 3 years old.
• “Old folks who sit on their porch and wave at you when you walk by” — No, that’s creepy. There is this guy that sits at my bus stop all day and when the sun gets too high, he transfers to the other side of the street and sits on the wall of someone else’s garden.
• “Wearing sandals when you shouldn’t be wearing sandals” — Who the hell gets to say what you should wear? If you wanna freeze your toes off, go for it.
• “The pushoff” — This is actually is talking about learning to ride your bike alone for the first time. I thought we were taking joy in simple pleasures in life, not reliving childhood memories.
• “Really, really old Tupperware” — This one describes the ‘burping seal’, but did you know that after a certain period of time plastics start leeching harsh chemicals into your food.
• “Scraping all the lint off an overflowing lint trap” — No, that’s just good housekeeping, and safe so it doesn’t catch on fire.

I don’t often give a book this bad a review. If you see it in the bookstore, have a flip through and see if you find it “awesome”, “heart-warming” or leave you “looking for new joys”. [quotes from reviews].

Now, I mentioned book-to-blog stories and blog merch. Here is some of the stuff out there:

• Sh*it My Dad Says (Twitter first, book is actually funny)
• I Can Haz Cheezburger (blog first, first book 2008, second book 2009, third book 2009. The books are more humour books written in LOLspeak)
• Cake Wrecks (blog first, book and calendar)
• Stuff on my Cat (blog first, merch rocks, first book in 2006, second book in 2008). Second blog: Stuff on my Mutt
• The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks (blog first, book out July 2010 from Chronicle Books… the same people as Stuff on my Cat.)

Soon we’re going to look at some books and think, “What came first? The Book or the Blog?”

Christopher Moore is a hilarious fiction writer. The first novel of his I read, A Dirty Job, had me laughing out loud. Then I picked up Fool, a satirical comedy loosely based on Shakespeare’s King Lear, which I also enjoyed. With the recent release of Bite Me, I was really interested to read the first book in Christopher Moore’s vampire love story, Bloodsucking Fiends .

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I’ve been meaning to read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon for a few years because I’ve heard extraordinary things about it. It came out in 2003, was a #1 international bestseller, and received numerous book awards. The book is covered in review quotes of praise: dazzling, brilliant, original, addictive, inspiring, captivating, moving… etc.

Christopher is 15 and lives in Swindon with his father. He has Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism. He is obsessed with maths, science and Sherlock Holmes but finds it hard to understand other people. When he discovers a dead dog on a neighbour’s lawn he decides to solve the mystery and write a detective thriller about it. As in all good detective stories, however, the more he unearths, the deeper the mystery gets – for both Christopher and the rest of his family.

From the publisher, Random House UK
[Note: Cover image shown is the Canadian/US paperback]

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I enjoyed the second book in Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy in a different way than I enjoyed The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (book review / movie review). In the first book, it’s very much about the mystery at hand, and through solving it, you come to care about Lisbeth Salander. Even though she’s odd, anti-social and a bit weird, she has morals and integrity. The second book, The Girl Who Played With Fire , takes places after the first book, but delves more deeply into Lisbeth’s past.

A few weeks before Dag Svensson, a freelance journalist, plans to publish a story that exposes important people involved in Sweden’s sex trafficking business based on research conducted by his girlfriend, Mia Johansson, a criminologist and gender studies scholar, the couple are shot to death in their Stockholm apartment. Salander, who has a history of violent tendencies, becomes the prime suspect after the police find her fingerprints on the murder weapon. While Blomkvist strives to clear Salander of the crime, some far-fetched twists help ensure her survival.

[From Publisher's Weekly]

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I wanted to read this book after I listened to the Canada Reads debates in 2009. It wasn’t the winning book (that was The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill), but the positive things said about The Outlander by Gil Adamson stuck with me. (Note: Gil is short for Gillian, and therefore pronounced like ‘Jill’)

In 1903 a mysterious young woman flees alone across the West, one heart-pounding step ahead of the law. At nineteen, Mary Boulton has just become a widow—and her husband’s killer. As bloodhounds track her frantic race toward the mountains, she is tormented by mad visions and by the knowledge that her two ruthless brothers-in-law are in pursuit, determined to avenge their younger brother’s death. Responding to little more than the primitive fight for life, the widow retreats ever deeper into the wilderness—and into the wilds of her own mind—encountering an unforgettable cast of eccentrics along the way.

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Lisa Moore’s second novel, February, got some good reviews when it first came out including The Globe and Mail, Quill & Quire, and shortlisted for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.

In February 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank off the coast of Newfoundland during a Valentine’s Day storm. All eighty-four men aboard died. February is the story of Helen O’Mara, one of those left behind when her husband, Cal, drowns. It begins in the present-day, but spirals back again and again to the “February” that persists in Helen’s mind and heart.

From the publisher, House of Anansi Press

The story centers around a Newfoundland disaster in 1982: the collapse of the oil rig, Ocean Ranger. Being born in 1988 and from the opposite end of Canada (learning BC history in school as well as general Canadian history), I wasn’t familiar with this horrific accident.

Lisa Moore, who is from St. John’s, Newfoundland was quoted in a 2009 article in the Toronto Star saying that, “Even though it was 27 years ago, it is still close to the surface for people. … In Newfoundland, it is a sacred topic. And it’s still very raw.”

Helen is an astonishing character who has lived through the most horrible thing imaginable to me: the loss of your life partner. The book is very striking without being a sob-fest. You really feel Helen’s pain, see her emotional distance after the disaster, and heal with her through her life. The story is a very personal journey for Helen and her family, and it isn’t a particularly plot-driven or linear story. February is all about the characters and their struggle through the disaster of the Ocean Ranger and their life following it.

Extras for February by Lisa Moore:

• Watch a 1982 newscast reporting on the Ocean Ranger
• Review in The Globe and Mail
• Review by National Post‘s blog “The Afterword”
• Review in Quill & Quire
• Selected by Globe and Mail for Top 100 Books of the Year (2009)
• Selected for Quill & Quire’s 2009 Books of the Year
• Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Canada and the Caribbean) — Best Book 2010
• Selected as Editors’ Choice (2009) by the New York Times

Underground by June Hutton covers the adulthood of Albert Fraser, a young man from BC. As Al grows and changes, the book follows his story, thoughts, and confusion in life. Sometimes I felt like the book lacked direction, but it is a difficult task to write a book following a character’s entire life.

The writing was poetic at times and often led to insights for Al that I never would have anticipated. It was an enjoyable book and I would be interested to read more of June Hutton’s work, but I’m not crazyexcited about Underground. I think the reason I’m not crazyexcited about the novel is because Al Fraser’s life is almost unbelieveable.

Sixteen-year-old Albert Fraser believes that enlisting in the First World War will make him a man. But a shell blast that buries him alive in a trench shatters his identity, instead.

Al emerges from the war with a driving need to act. Back home in Vancouver — with rising shrapnel in his flesh and nightmare images in his head — he works to keep busy. When the Great Depression hits, he rides the rails and scrabbles for jobs. After an accidental act of violence, he hides below the streets of Chinatown, and then heads north. With no place to call home he seems destined to wander aimlessly. But when the Spanish Civil War erupts, he seeks out Picasso’s Guernica and sees in the painting a reflection of what had been done to him, and what his life has become. Now, under a new name, he travels to Spain, a soldier once more, to reclaim all he has lost — or to die trying.

Both love story and social commentary, Underground examines the timeless human conditions of passion, conflict and hope. In its depiction of labour, from swinging picks on a Canadian mountainside to wielding scythes in a Spanish rye field, it is also a celebration of work and of the camaraderie of workers.

from JuneHutton.com | About Underground

June Hutton is one of the members of Vancouver’s SPiN Writing Group. The group was formed by June Hutton, Mary Novik and Jen Sookfong Lee to support each other while they were all writing their books. I am interested in reading The End of East by Jen Sookfong Lee as I have already read and reviewed Conceit by Mary Novik.

• Read what inspired June Hutton to write Underground
• Read an excerpt (or download a PDF excerpt) from the publisher, Cormorant Books
• Read about Underground on the Cormorant Books blog
• Watch the Underground book trailer on Cormorant Book’s YouTube channel