KIRBC Notes for January 26, 2010

Despite the (unseasonably mellow) mid-winter cold, a group of intrepid book lovers conquered the 10/16-18 minute walk to the wilds of High Park to share their wide reading experience, and fittingly for the new year, make many new reading resolutions.

Marci –  Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett

• best if punctuation in the title is noted and read accordingly (!!)
• hardcore fantasy cover
• part of the Discworld series first of the guard series
• parody of the fantasy novel
• exploring a story from the perspective of guards rather than just making the peons and/or part of the body count
• thieves guild, dragons for the slayage and fantasy stand-bys (+ a magical library! JK (in after school special mode: “Like all libraries…”)
• “I think I’m just going to keep reading Terry Pratchett until I die.”
• Recommended by “the girl who’s in charge of Terry Pratchett”
• “To catch a dragon you have to tie a virgin to a rock.” Tennile: “That’s not a virgin.”

Michelle – The Amazing Absorbing Boy, Rabindranath Maharaj

• familiar Toronto locale, but makes you see it through different eyes
• 17 year-old Trinidadian boy who comes to live with his estranged father in Canada
• understands the world through comic books, so the book has a real comic book feel
• an immigrant experience story, but one you won’t roll your eyes at
• breakout book

Ashleigh – She Came to Stay, Simone de Beauvoir

• life-changing book for Ms. Gardner
• had a teacher who was one of Simone de Beauvoir students, when she lived across the street from Beauvoir & Sartre’s grave
• teaching philosophy through literature (teaching existential ideas through situations)
• thinly veiled autobiography
• autobiography 101: dedicate your book to your husband’s mistress
• works well as a companion to Being and Nothingness

JK – Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including, Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry, by Leanne Shapton

• book posing as an auction catalogue for a valentine’s auction
• delicious little voyeuristic look into a relationship based on artifacts
• Lingerie! Marginalia! Mixed tapes!
• Not a true relationship but it seems so real
• Like looking through someone’s old stuff with the convenient back story included
• Closely track their relationship by the progression of possessions
• Absolutely absorbing to dive into the details of someone’s life even if you know they’re not a real person
• Read my review here

Reeder – Lullabies for Little Criminals, by Heather O’Neill

• top 3 of Reeder’s reads from last year
• young girl with a heroin addled father on the streets of Montreal
• finding the beauty in little things, even in terrible circumstances
• Canada Reads Champ 2007
• Reeder as mentor to misguided fictional characters: “I just wanted to be her friend and talk to her about life.”

B. Kienapple – The Mistress of Nothing, Kate Pullinger

• dark horse GG winner from last year
• Kate Pullinger called people out on twitter who didn’t know who she was! (including two members at this meeting
• A rather attractive older lady (Pullinger)
• Plot: 1860s Egypt – older lady (presumably rather attractive) who is the toast of English society goes to Egypt (land of death) with her lady’s maid to help her TB
• a passionate love affair starts up – spicy!
• doesn’t fall prey to orientalist fantasies, seems pretty well-rehearsed
• a good escapist read for January
• cover with the Binchy Blue of Heart and Soul

Cheese – The Carnivore, Mark Sinnett

• lots of book fondling because of the lovely cover
• 5 reallys before “enjoyed it.” (solid)
• more solid Toronto-based content – set during Hurricane Hazel in 1954
• doesn’t love to hate the characters, just fully hates them: “they’re awful people and they deserve each other.”
• about a relationship in which surviving each other is about en par with surviving a Hurricane
• Read Cheese’s review here

Tennile – Kiss of the Fur Queen, Tomson Highway

• Library bargain sale! $0.25, baby!
• Cover has prairies and dogsleds (JK says, “Yikes.”)
• Sold on it within 10 pages, didn’t put it down over 2 days
• about 1^st round of kids in the residential schools and how it affects their lives (sad, sad times.)

And that’s all folks! Tune in next month for a very special KIRBC project, in which I extend my domination of other people’s reading lists even more!  The great reveal to come soon!