Come, Thou Tortoise is a heart-warming book with really lovable characters. There was subtle humour with a quiet yet engaging plot. Audrey is brilliant, quaint, silly, admirable, and really just honest-to-goodness good. The book jacket blurb doesn’t do the novel justice and some things I quite disagree with (such as the term”IQ-challenged”). I picked up the book after all the great reviews I read.

A delightfully offbeat story that features an opinionated tortoise and an IQ-challenged narrator who find themselves in the middle of a life-changing mystery.

Audrey (a.k.a. Oddly) Flowers is living quietly in Oregon with Winnifred, her tortoise, when she finds out her dear father has been knocked into a coma back in Newfoundland. Despite her fear of flying, she goes to him, but not before she reluctantly dumps Winnifred with her unreliable friends. Poor Winnifred.

When Audrey disarms an Air Marshal en route to St. John’s we begin to realize there’s something, well, odd about her. And we soon know that Audrey’s quest to discover who her father really was – and reunite with Winnifred – will be an adventure like no other.

Somehow Come, Thou Tortoise is light, quirky, and funny while still being honest, gritty, and real. I don’t think adventure or mystery is quite the right word to describe this book. It is a character-driven story about family, truth, and love. Audrey’s life is turned upside down by the ‘comma’ her father is in and by her Uncle Thoby’s breakdown.

Featuring several flashbacks and retellings, we gain insight into Audrey’s childhood and the truth about her father and Uncle Thoby. She may be strange and have had an unconventional upbringing, but you can see that she was surrounded by love and good people who cared about her.

My favourite part is the tree in her bedroom that Uncle Thoby painted. He added little velcro bits so they could do the changing of the seasons with the various leaves, blossoms, and snowflakes. I also really like the way that Jessica Grant plays with words and makes you feel like part of the family too. I think The Globe and Mail’s review really nailed it on the head:

It might all sound a little madcap, and madcap narratives can be irritatingly self-conscious, shrieking, “Look how wacky I am!” from every page. Not here. Despite all the curiouser-and-curiouser behaviour, it all seems very familiar, and very “real.” Perhaps this is because the reader feels involved, spoken to like a member of the family, or of the community. From the “Northwest Shove” to the Gilbert & Sullivan in-jokes, the reader is included in the tribe.

Jessica Grant’s debut novel is calm and sprawling and very much Oddly. This intelligent, sweet, kind character truly wins you over within the first few pages. It really is a ‘delightfully offbeat story’, and the tortoise is an endearing narrator too!

• Review in Quill & Quire
• Review in The Globe and Mail
• Canada Also Reads contender (defended by Neil Smith)
• Winner of the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award 2010
• Nominee for the Evergreen Award 2010
• Finalist for the Canadian Library Association – Young Adult Canadian Book Award 2010
• Books in 140 Seconds (review/video)
• Review by Pickle Me This
• Review by Chris @ Book-a-Rama
• Review by the Keeping It Real Bookclub

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

Last week Craig and I went to Value Village to look for some books for him. Value Village has secondhand books priced on a sliding scale which depends on the original cover price. All hardcovers at $3.99, and then fiction paperbacks that were originally $8+ are sold for $4.99, anything that was $6-8 is now $3.99 and so on and so on. Children’s books and non-fiction are flat prices. Sometimes you can get a good deal.

My only beef with the system is downstairs (where the books are at my local Value Village) the signage says, “Buy 3, Get The 4th Free” but upstairs at the till (for the employees) it says, “Buy 4, Get the 5th Free”. They didn’t believe me and although I am stubborn enough to make a staff member go check, there were other people in line so I didn’t push it. We had four books (I had three, Craig had one) and the people behind us at the till had one. They suggested we get their book for free and they would give us $5 for it. Problem solved.

Now, the books. Craig got a copy of Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind, the first book in the Sword of Truth series. This is his favourite series and we each have a copy of the entire series (his is in England, mine is here). We also have several extra copies that Craig likes to lend to friends but the first book in the series is MIA.

I picked up three books: The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards; Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant; and Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe by Stuart McLean.

Why did I pick up these books? I heard good things about The Memory Keeper’s Daughter when it first came out. Come, Thou Tortoise is the first novel by Canadian author Jessica Grant, and was getting gushing reviews. Also, she just won Amazon.ca’s First Novel Award. I am a big Stuart McLean fan and Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe is one of the (few) Vinyl Cafe books I don’t yet own.

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

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme that is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. Essentially, people share what books that they got in their mailboxes over the past week. I think it’s much more exciting to talk about all the books I purchased, gifted, or received. Unfortunately I can’t find an exact description of Mailbox Monday, but I think it’s okay for me to show you all the books I got last week!

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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

When I heard that Life of Pi author Yann Martel had a new book coming out in April 2010, I was very excited. I read The Life of Pi when I was about 12 years old and remember discussing the questions it brought up with my mom. Yann Martel has had other projects since writing The Life of Pi (and winning numerous awards for it).

[Beatrice & Virgil] begins with a successful writer, Henry, attempting to publish his latest book, made up of a novel and an essay. Henry plans for it to be a “flip book” that the reader can start at either end, reading the novel or the essay first, because both pieces are equally concerned with representations of the Holocaust. His aim is to give the most horrifying of tragedies “a new choice of stories,” in order that it be remembered anew and in more than one way.

But no one is sympathetic to his provocative idea. To [his editors], Henry’s book is an unpublishable disaster. Faced with severe and categorical rejection, Henry gives up hope. He abandons writing, moves with his wife to a foreign city, joins a community theatre, becomes a waiter in a chocolatería. But then he receives a package containing a scene from a play, photocopies from a short story by Flaubert – about a man who hunts animals down relentlessly – and a short note: “I need your help.”

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Having Faith in the Polar Girls’ Prison is a moving story about a 15-year-old girl who is locked in a prison with her premature baby (named Faith). Narrated by Trista in a stream-of-consciousness style, she tells her past through memories while living in her current situation. Her narrative style and speech shows the reader her weaknesses and mental instability. At times Trista is barely coherent, or downright crude, and other times she is so lyrical in her speech that it’s quite beautiful.

Against the stark and haunting landscape of Canada’s Far North, fifteen-year-old Trista chronicles the events of her life from her room in the Polar Girls’ Prison. Caught in the decline of sexual abuse, drunkenness, and failed motherhood, Trista tries to make sense of her past, especially the events that led her to jail. With heartfelt compassion and rare insight, the stunning new voice of debut novelist Cathleen With lends light to the hardships and suffering of the teenage girls and clash of cultures in this remote region that has never before been represented in literature.

From the publisher, Penguin Group Canada

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I have been remiss in posting this review because I’m already absorbed in the next book in the series. However, I really enjoyed The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley and believe it should get the attention it deserves. I first heard about the book when it came into the office; Alan Bradley is a Canadian author and The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is his first work of fiction. In July 2007 Bradley received the debut fiction award from the British Crime Writers’ Association based on only 15 pages of Flavia’s adventures.

Flavia de Luce is an extremely intelligent and interesting eleven-year-old girl. She is the youngest of three sisters being raised by a single father. She is extremely interested in chemistry, particularly poisons. You instantly fall in love with Flavia and the de Luce family. I didn’t want to put the book down each night, yet felt satisfied with each chapter as it progressed.

The summer of 1950 hasn’t offered up anything out of the ordinary for eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce: bicycle explorations around the village, keeping tabs on her neighbours, relentless battles with her older sisters, Ophelia and Daphne, and brewing up poisonous concoctions while plotting revenge in their home’s abandoned Victorian chemistry lab, which Flavia has claimed for her own.

But then a series of mysterious events gets Flavia’s attention: A dead bird is found on the doormat, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. A mysterious late-night visitor argues with her aloof father, Colonel de Luce, behind closed doors. And in the early morning Flavia finds a red-headed stranger lying in the cucumber patch and watches him take his dying breath. For Flavia, the summer begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw: “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”

Did the stranger die of poisoning? There was a piece missing from Mrs. Mullet’s custard pie, and none of the de Luces would have dared to eat the awful thing. Or could he have been killed by the family’s loyal handyman, Dogger… or by the Colonel himself! At that moment, Flavia commits herself to solving the crime — even if it means keeping information from the village police, in order to protect her family. But then her father confesses to the crime, for the same reason, and it’s up to Flavia to free him of suspicion. Only she has the ingenuity to follow the clues that reveal the victim’s identity, and a conspiracy that reaches back into the de Luces’ murky past.

[From the publisher, Random House of Canada]

I really enjoyed reading Flavia’s mystery; it was a delight from beginning to end. I followed the clues with her and although the next ‘step’ in solving the mystery was occasionally predictable, I was enthralled enough with the characters and setting to not care. I love reading books that take place in England after spending so much time there, and a semi-historical period (from 1950) is also very appealing. Flavia is very quick-witted and Bradley’s writing can be quite humourous. I finished the book feeling very satisfied and contented, yet still wanted more Flavia!

I quickly picked up the second Flavia de Luce mystery, The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag. Expect a review very soon! I also intend to read A Red Herring without Mustard, which is the third Flavia book that Alan Bradley is currently writing. Some interesting links:

• The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag
• Quill & Quire Author Profile of Alan Bradley
• Flavia de Luce website (for “The Buckshaw Chronicles” series)
• Flavia Fan Club (Book Ning)
• Author Spotlight for Alan Bradley at Random House of Canada