Since I was turned onto the pleasures of reading graphic novels a few years ago, particularly nonfiction, I have in turn recommended various titles to people who up to that point, were not graphic novel readers. Sometimes they end up liking them and become fans of the genre, too; sometimes not. One such success was a coworker of mine. I had recommended a couple of titles (Fun Home and Persepolis) and before I knew it, she had read those and gone onto to discover even more graphic nonfiction and was now giving me recommendations.

One such suggestion was Pyongyang, French-Canadian Guy Delisle’s account of living and working in North Korea. Working for a French cartoon company, he’s there for several months to oversee the work of the other cartoonists and work with the North Korean employees to ensure that the translated works make sense -w hich they often don’t, to Delisle’s continued frustration. When not trying to overcome cultural and language barriers at work, he’s exploring the city and trying to make sense of this bizarre, somewhat menacing, somewhat pathetic, country he finds himself in. The mundane absurdities of life for a foreigner in this communist dynasty are detailed in both funny and pathetic ways, but the longer he’s there, the more Delisle’s attitude shifts from amused disbelief to weary cynicism, and even his cutting humor takes on a tired, sullen tone.

Pyongyang was a fascinating and unusual story, showing us one foreigner’s experience of this mysterious country, even though, just like Delisle, by the time the book concludes you are just as ready to get out of there as he is.   

Applicable Reading Challenges: Support Your Local Library, 100+ Reading Challenge, Canadian Book Challenge 3, Graphic Novels Challenge

Book Rating: 4: Good, solid book that I would recommend to others.

FTC Disclosure: I borrowed this book from the library.

So, I’m probably one of the last people on the planet (or at least, in the book blogging world) to read Suzanne Collins’ smash hit Hunger Games series, much as I resisted the siren call (and biblio-peer pressure) of the Twilight series. YA Science Fiction? No, thanks.

But of course, time (and rave reviews from fellow book bloggers whose opinions I trust) wore me down and I decided a couple of weeks ago to get it over with and read the damn book, fully expecting to dislike it, or worse, be bored to tears.

Well, not so much.

In fact, I practically devoured the book, I literally could not put it down, and read it in the span of a few hours. I don’t think I need to rehash the plot, but suffice it to say that if you took bits of The Giver,  Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Running Man, and yes, even Twilight, and mashed them all together, what you’d have is The Hunger Games. I only wish I’d had the foresight to check out both the first and second books at the same time, since I took The Hunger Games home from work on Saturday and our library is closed on Sunday, so I had to wait A WHOLE DAY before I could continue on with Catching Fire, the second book in the series. 

Applicable Reading Challenges: Support Your Local Library, 100+ Reading Challenge, TwentyTen Challenge

Book Rating: 5: Excellent. This book has impacted me deeply, or has simply been a pure delight to read.

FTC Disclosure: I borrowed this book from the library.

One good thing about waiting this long to read The Hunger Games, is that by the time I came around, I didn’t have to agonizingly wait months and months for the second book. (I had the same experience with Twilight and New Moon.) My library’s Young Adult copies were all checked out, but by some serendipitous error, we’d gotten a Large Print copy of Catching Fire, which was actually on the shelf.  So by lunchtime on Monday, I was happily back in Katniss’ world, wondering how the nasties at the Capitol would get their revenge on her for cheating them out of her death, and whether she would opt for the stalwart Peeta or the resourceful Gale.

Now, I’m not usually one for blonds, typically preferring the tall, dark stranger-type, but I’m also the kind of girl who roots for the underdog (see my preference for Jacob over Edward as an example), so in this case, I am all about Peeta. He’s so good! And self-sacrificing! And hot! And at least I’m not alone in lusting after barely-legal teenagers. In fact, Googling ‘Peeta’ turns up TY’s Team Gale vs. Team Peeta post.  Her visuals do make me lean more towards Gale, though, as Henry Cavill just oozes sex appeal.

As for the book itself, it was good but mainly serves to build momentum for the last book in the trilogy, Mockingjay, which won’t be published until (gasp!) August. 

From reading these books, I’ve made the realization that I quite like dystopic fiction (The Giver and Never Let Me Go being two examples that I’ve read in recent years that I really enjoyed) and will be seeking out more of it in the future. Since I’ve been raving about The Hunger Games to anyone who’ll listen, I’ve had someone recommend The Windup Girl, which I’ve added to my list of books to read this year.

Applicable Reading Challenges: Support Your Local Library, 100+ Reading Challenge, TwentyTen Challenge

Book Rating: 4: Good, solid book that I would recommend to others.

FTC Disclosure: I borrowed this book from the library.

Back in late 2007, I read Grayson, Lynne Cox’s account of her experiences with a stranded baby whale in the Pacific ocean, but it wasn’t until recently that I realized exactly how she came to be in the ocean in the first place, and that her swimming there was part of a greater mission. That realization came with the reading of Swimming to Antarctica, the Alex Award-winning book that was published a couple of years before Grayson.

In Swimming to Antarctica, Cox shares experiences from her life as a long-distance open water swimmer, from the time she was a young girl and the passion for the sport was first ignited in her, through her many dangerous and record-setting swims, including the English Channel, the Cape of Good Hope and the Strait of Magellan. Each attempt comes with its own excitement and dangers, including treacherous currents, the risk of hypothermia, and sharks, just to name a few. Even when unsuccessful, Cox demonstrates that one attribute common among winners: she never gives up. She perseveres through each setback, each disappointment, each negative response, confident in her abilities and determined to realize her goals. One of the most time-consuming efforts, at least in terms of preparation, was her desire to swim the Bering Strait, from the island of Little Diomede in Alaska to the island of Big Diomede in Russia. When she first had the inspiration for this swim, the US and Russia were in the throes of the Cold War, and Lynne saw the swim as a means to bring the two nations together, to help spark the thaw between the two superpowers. Her plans were met with suspicion, denials and disbelief, but through the years, while pursuing other swimming goals, she kept working at making that one dream a reality.

Now, although I enjoy swimming, I am under no delusions nor aspirations to attain any similar goals as Lynne Cox. But as someone who has recently made fitness part of my daily life, who has begun to test and push my own body’s limits, it was thrilling to read about someone like Lynne, to read about what the human mind, body and spirit are capable of.  This was a highly enjoyable, riveting look at one extraordinary woman’s dreams, and how she made them happen.

Applicable Reading Challenges: Support Your Local Library, 100+ Reading Challenge, Book Awards Reading Challenge

Book Rating: 5: Excellent. This book has impacted me deeply, or has simply been a pure delight to read.

FTC Disclosure: I borrowed this book from the library.

I have Marie (aka The Boston Bibliophile) to thank for my latest graphic novel find, Siberia, a memoir of growing up and living under the Soviet regime. She had listed it in her ‘Best of 2009′ post as her favorite graphic novel that year. I’ve only started reading Marie’s blog in the last few months, but I realized early on that if she recommends something, chances are better than not that I will enjoy it. So of course, after reading her review, I had to get my hands on a copy and luckily, I was able to get one through library loan.

Siberia is Nikolai Maslov’s experience as a young man in a remote Siberian village, through his military service as a conscripted Soviet soldier, to his days as an art student, to a period of hospitalization for depression and eventual relocation to Moscow. These scenes from his life are depicted in the organic, unfinished style of pencil sketches, and the shadowy nuances make the work all the more fresh and disturbing. What comes through in this work, from the very first page, is the hopelessness and cynicism that permeated Soviet life, fueled by rampant alcoholism, even as the vodka deadened their spirits. This is a book that shows the ravages of that despair on one man’s life, one that seems sadly representative of a period in history and the people caught up in it.

This was a very powerful book and Maslov’s story is compelling, no less so because of the straightforward simplicity in which it is depicted. But reading this right on the heels of Laika, another Soviet-era graphic novel, has given me my fill of life in the USSR for the time being.

Applicable Reading Challenges: Support Your Local Library, 100+ Reading Challenge, Graphic Novels Challenge, TwentyTen Challenge, What’s in a Name 3

Book Rating: 4: Good, solid book that I would recommend to others.

FTC Disclosure: I borrowed this book from the library.

I’ve read Howard Norman’s fiction before, with mixed results (one I loved but another was disappointing), and have had My Famous Evening (subtitled Nova Scotia Sojourns, Diaries and Preoccupations), a collection of literary travel essays, on my ‘to read’ list since 2006. (As an aside, now that I have begun writing this post, I noticed that for the past three years, I’ve read something by Mr. Norman once at the beginning of each of the last three years.) Although I’m a Newfoundlander, I lived in Nova Scotia from the time I was 11 until my early 20s. It is one of the places I think of when I think of ‘home’  and I have many friends and memories there. My brother, Peter, lives there still.

The book is part of National Geographics’ Directions series, a collection of literary travel narratives. Although Norman is American and lives in the United States, he has traveled extensively through Nova Scotia and much of his fiction is set in the Atlantic Canadian region. In My Famous Evening, he collects decades worth of notes, observances and letters into four essays comprising literature, folklore, birding, and other aspects of Maritime life as well as his own emotional investment in Canada’s Ocean Playground.

Although I enjoyed the entire book, my favorite sections were the one telling the story of Marlais Quire, a young wife and mother in 1920s rural Nova Scotia, who was so in awe of the writings of Joseph Conrad, that she defied her husband and left her children to travel to New York in an attempt to see the esteemed writer speak at an event. We read about Marlais’ state-of-mind and emotions through letters she wrote to her sister, who shared them with Norman 50 years later. The other part I especially enjoyed was when he writes about the various omens and portentous events of the area, known in Nova Scotia as forerunners, which I first read about years ago in Helen Creighton’s fascinating and oh-so-scary (at least to my childhood imagination) book about the Nova Scotia paranormal, Bluenose Ghosts. Rather than frightening, Norman’s is enlightening, exploring how indelibly a landscape can imprint itself on the collective soul of a people.

Unassuming, melancholy and an ode to a beloved land, My Famous Evening is not a typical travelogue, but it is a superb one. It made me appreciate and love Nova Scotia all the more.

Applicable Reading Challenges: Support Your Local Library, 100+ Reading Challenge, Bibliophilic Books Challenge, Canadian Book Challenge 3, Essay Reading Challenge

Book Rating: 4: Good, solid book that I would recommend to others.

FTC Disclosure: I borrowed this book from the library.

I’ve been on a reading spurt lately but ignoring my blog. I just haven’t been in the mood to write about the books, even though I’ve enjoyed most of them very much. And if I haven’t been reading, I’ve been busy with other pursuits and not making the time to blog. Since I began this blog back in January of 2006, I have written about every single book I’ve read (not counting those few I didn’t complete) and am wondering if perhaps I should change that to only write about the ones that I really want to discuss. Sometimes I think my blogging gets in the way of my reading and makes me wonder the point of it all. I’m guess I’m just in one of those blogging funks that we all seem to run into at one point or another.

Anyway, a couple of weekends ago, when the weather prevented me from doing much in the way of anything outside, I spent a good deal of it reading; here are the first two from my forced, yet welcome, confinement:

I first learned that Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel had been adapted into a graphic novel format through Chris at book-a-rama, and was able to request a copy through one of my local libraries. There are two versions available: the original text and an abridged ‘Quick Text’ - a simplified, modern adaptation of the original work. I opted for the former, of course. One thing that perplexed me is that while the cover art is virtually the same for the two, the ‘Quick Text’ version is much more vibrant and eye-catching. I wonder why that is.

As Chris noted, the adaptation is pretty well done, and the illustrations evoke the setting and characters nicely, but like her, I felt there was something missing. Perhaps it was the forboding sense of atmosphere that pervades the original book, the magic that sweeps you up into the story and the romance between Jane and her Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester doesn’t come across as mysterious, as mercurical and charming as we know he is; Bertha’s presence is not as disturbing or threatening, and let’s face it – Jane is too pretty. The graphic novel, while a good introduction for those inexperienced with the Brontës, is over too quickly to be savored, and for that, it loses part of the original’s allure.

Applicable Reading Challenges: Support Your Local Library, 100+ Reading Challenge, Graphic Novels Challenge, Our Mutual Read: Victorian Reading Challenge, All About the Brontës Challenge, Typically British Reading Challenge

Book Rating: 3: Decent, but didn’t grab me in a big way.

FTC Disclosure: I borrowed this book from the library.

January’s reading was a bit on the serious side, so I was in the mood for some lighter fare when I spotted Jane Bites Back on our new books shelf at the library. The name of the book’s author, Michael Thomas Ford, rang a bell in my head, and a little search showed me why. He’s the author of Alec Baldwin Doesn’t Love Me and Other Trials From My Queer Life, a book a friend had recommended to me a few years back when he found out I was a mutual fan of David Sedaris. Although I’d added the book to my wishlist, I’ve still never gotten around to reading it. And while I don’t consider myself an Austenite nor do I have much interest in reading the various modern books written about Austen and her creations, this one caught me in the right mood at the right moment, and so I checked it out.

Jane Austen is now living in a small town in upstate New York, a bookstore owner and frustrated writer. Frustrated because, since she became one of the undead and lost the ability to use her own name, she has been turned down for publication 116 times. All around her are books by her and about her and her characters, yet she doesn’t make any royalty money. But things are about to change for Jane – her life is about to mirror one of her own books, with a little undead action thrown in for good measure. My favorite literary bad boy shows up, wreaking havoc and turning her life upside down while Jane has to deal with the modern demands of literary fame, as well as a mysterious enemy who seems bent on making Jane’s life very difficult.

While both parodying and paying tribute to Jane and her imitators, Jane Bites Back is a fun frolic that completely charmed me. I hope we get to read more of her undead adventures.

Applicable Reading Challenges: Support Your Local Library, 100+ Reading Challenge, Bibliophilic Books Challenge

Book Rating: 4: Good, solid book that I would recommend to others.

FTC Disclosure: I borrowed this book from the library.

One of the participants for my Bibliophilic Books Challenge listed a curious title among their chosen books: Who the Hell is Pansy O’Hara? The Fascinating Stores Behind 50 of the World’s Best-Loved Books, co-written by Jenny Bond and Chris Sheedy. Intrigued by the title (just who was this Pansy O’Hara person anyway?), I placed a request for a copy from a local library, and it wasn’t long before I was reading and finding out for myself.

Each chapter is headed by the title of an author’s book, the period in which it was published, and the author’s name. Each vignette is a mini-biography, offering a brief background into the author’s life and what led him or her to write this particular book. Some of the details were enlightening or shocking, but many would be familiar to fairly well-read people (or English majors – my degree at work right there!) and so there weren’t a whole lot of surprises.

But here is what I’ve learned from reading this book: If you want to succeed as a literary great, your odds increase substantially if you:

- grow up in abject poverty, or, failing that, squander all your money and become penniless anyway;

- do poorly in school and should you decide to go to university, drop out before completing your degree;

- have a series of affairs or ill-fated romances intead of or in addition to being unhappily married;

- are a man, preferably American or English.

So, all in all, a diverting enough read for an afternoon but not one that particularly captured my interest. As for Pansy? Well, I’ll just say that the secret to her identity is in her name.

Applicable Reading Challenges: Support Your Local Library, 100+ Reading Challenge, Bibliophilic Books Challenge

Book Rating: 3: Decent, but didn’t grab me in a big way.

FTC Disclosure: I borrowed this book from the library.

While the canon of literature devoted to the African slave experience is filled with harrowing and emotional testaments, there aren’t many (at least that I know of) that are written by Canadian authors. Someone Knows My Name (published outside the United States as The Book of Negroes and winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize) is by Lawrence Hill, a Canadian whose parents immigrated to Canada in the 1950s, one day after their inter-racial marriage took place.

When we first meet Aminata Diallo, it is 1802 and she is an old woman, living her last days in London, the ‘poster child’ for the abolitionists campaigning to stop the slave trade. She is writing her life’s story, and begins with her childhood in Africa, living with her mother and father in the village of Bayo. Rumors of toubabu, foreigners, who steal people from their villages and take them away, have infiltrated their village and keep the villagers wary. Despite the threat, Aminata’s is a happy childhood; her father is teaching her to write in Arabic and read from the Qur’an and her mother, a midwife, has begun having her daughter accompany her as an apprentice. Aminata’s cheeks bear the symbols of crescent moons, which signify her as a free-born Muslim, but this does not stop men from abducting her one night on the way home from ‘catching’ a baby, killing her parents and several other villagers, too. With others from Bayo, including a pregnant woman and one of their own slaves, Aminata is forced to make the long journey to the western coast of Africa, and from there, to South Carolina.

From the moment she is taken, the descriptions of what she and the others must suffer under captivity are excruciating to read. The scenes aboard the slave ship assault all senses and give the reader a glimpse into the brutality that is as much a part of the slave experience as the taking of their freedom. There were moments when I had to grit my teeth and force myself to read, riveting though the story was.

Aminata, or Meena as she is renamed, is sent to work on an indigo plantation. It is her parents gifts – literacy and midwifery – and her own will that allow her to survive the new horrors that await her. But amidst the degradation, there is friendship, love, and hope, even as all three are tested time and time again. Aminata never succumbs, no matter the cost, and her fight for survival will eventually lead her to the shores of Nova Scotia, where, as a Black Loyalist, the British Crown has deemed her a free Negro. But that freedom comes with a price, and her trials are not over.  To again hope for true freedom, she and other Black Loyalists look to Africa, to start their own settlement free from the threat of slavery. But again, things are not as they seem and Aminata’s will to survive is tested once more.

What Hill has managed to convey so finely in this novel is how cruel people can be to one another, how easily we excuse or deny even the most deplorable actions, and how difficult – yet necessary – it is to stand up and be ethical in a world so pervasively unjust. In a story where humanity is shown at its most depraved, where true goodness is a rarity, it is not just the attention to historical detail that makes this such a compelling and emotional read, but Aminata herself, and the knowledge that she represents countless others throughout history.

Applicable Reading Challenges: Support Your Local Library, 100+ Reading Challenge, Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, Book Awards Reading Challenge, 2010 Chunkster Challenge, Canadian Book Challenge 3

Book Rating: 5: Excellent. This book has impacted me deeply, or has simply been a pure delight to read.

FTC Disclosure: I borrowed this book from the library.

December seems to be a great month for reading book blogs. Great, that is, if you like adding a bunch of books to your wish list. In addition to the ubiquitous ‘best of’ lists, there are always hidden gems to find as people wrap up their reading for the year. One such instance for me was finding Alyce’s review for Laika, a graphic novel by Nick Abadzis (check out her page for some great photos of the real-life Laika). I immediately placed a request for a library copy and eagerly awaited its arrival. When it finally did come in, I forced myself to set it aside as a reward for getting through Beach Music.

Laika is the fictionalized account of the dog who became the first animal to orbit the earth. In the 1950s, during the throes of the Cold War, the Soviet Union set out to prove their superiority over the United States by launching a satellite into orbit, which they did with Sputnik I. Emboldened by that feat, Khrushchev demanded that the scientists surpass that success by launching another satellite to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and really show the world that the U.S.S.R. was the world’s greatest superpower. Of course, they couldn’t just put a second satellite into orbit, and with only four weeks, the scientists were put under enormous pressure to please their leader. They decided to send a dog into space. The Soviet space scientists had been using dogs in their experiments already, and from among them, a little dog named Laika was chosen to make the historic flight.

However, Abadzis begins his graphic novel with a man wandering the frozen wastelands of Siberia, having been released from a Soviet gulag with nothing but the clothes on his back. Miraculously, he survives, and goes on to become one of the leaders of the Soviet space program, and the Chief Designer for Sputnik 2. His story of survival is juxtaposed alongside Laika’s, from an abused stray to the symbol for the Soviet empire. At the same time, Laika gives us a snapshot of life under the Soviet regime during this time period, the ordinary and not-so-ordinary people living in this environment, their dreams and desires, which sometimes conflicted with their loyalty to (or fear of) their country.

A poignant story about humanity and the little dog who left her mark on the world, Laika will pull at your heartstrings and capture your heart.

Applicable Reading Challenges: Support Your Local Library, 100+ Reading Challenge, Graphic Novels Challenge, Historical Fiction Reading Challenge,

Book Rating: 5: Excellent. This book has impacted me deeply, or has simply been a pure delight to read.

FTC Disclosure: I borrowed this book from the library.

I recently signed up to take an online Readers’ Advisory course, and one of the requirements was that we read at least one of four selected books. The designated books were Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (science fiction), The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn (historical romance), Ice Station by Matthew Reilly (military action/adventure), and Bootlegger’s Daughter by Margaret Maron (mystery). Since I’ve never read any of these books – and up to this point, had only heard of the first one – and was not overly partial to any particular genre, I chose the mystery.

Bootlegger’s Daughter was the first in what is currently a 14-book series featuring Deborah Knott. Deborah is an attorney in a small town in North Carolina, who decides to run for a local district judge position after one too many dealings with the ‘good ol’ boy’ system. At the same time, 18-year-old Gayle asks Deborah to investigate the decades-old murder of Gayle’s mother, Janie, since, in addition to her legal prowess, Deborah used to be the family babysitter and knows them and the townspeople well.  Her investigation leads her to uncover some of the town’s most well-kept secrets, which rankles with certain people who feel those stones should be better left unturned. Meanwhile, running for judgeship provides its own share of small-town hassles, requiring some quick maneuvering from Deborah and help from her family.

As the initial book for this series, Maron does a superb job of setting up the character of Deborah as well as her friends and family for future installments. While the mystery is central to the story, Deborah’s relationships and history are equally important. Contemporary (well, 1990s) small-town Southern life is presented in a manner that recognizes both the faults and what makes them so great. For this mainly non-mystery reader, Bootlegger’s Daughter was a highly readable and pleasant surprise.

Applicable Reading Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge, Support Your Local Library, TwentyTen Challenge, Book Awards Reading Challenge

Book Rating: 4: Good, solid book that I would recommend to others.

FTC Disclosure: I borrowed this book from the library.