KIRBC Notes, March 22, 2010

Winter’s icy chill had not yet abated, and yet eight brave book warriors still made the trek to my home, where they’d be warmed by close quarters and heated conversation. Here’s the down-low from our latest (themeless) meeting in Toronto.

Sarah recommends . . .

This American Drive, Mike Holmes

• a hybrid b/w novel and graphic novel.
• Drawings of food! Which can be a little bit distracting but “it’s not like War and Peace, right?”
• Kind of a diary of a road trip from Halifax to Texas – make or break relationship moment
• couple eating  their way across America
• light reading
• The ultimate endorsement: “It made my heart happy.”

Natalie recommends . . .

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, Alison Bechel

• a literary graphic novel
• memoir/ coming of age and coming out (for herself and her dad)
• family runs a funeral home
• JK wants to be adopted by Natalie’s family so she can be a part of their brainy family discussions
• named one of the top books of the year by just about everyone
• a really really rich experience
• Ed. Note: I’ve already received my hold notice at the library for this one. Go TPL!

Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill

• short story collection
• Lots of dark sexuality *collars in the room are unbuttoned*
• Unflinching eye, an honest writer
• “Secretary” turned into a Maggie Gyllenhaall movie.
• Dark, ironic humour

Reeder recommends . . .

Unsweetened, Jodie Sweeten (aka Stephanie on Full House!)

• Reeder drove all over Las Vegas trying to find the book
• made Reeder keep a People Magazine (with the headline “From Meth Addict to Mom”) for two years
• A 2 day read
• How Full House is a fast track to ruin (something we all secretly suspected)
• Missing info: how to do meth (much speculation ensues)
• Reeder also found the chapel where Jodie got married in Vegas
• Jodie was burned by Dancing with the Stars 4x
• a great photo section shared with the group (including mullet pictures!)

Bronwyn recommends . . .

Under This Unbroken Sky, Shandi Mitchell

• story of Ukranian immigrants trying to build a life together in Canada
• Extremely depressing and brutal, but still strangely uplifting
• comparison 1930s prairie literature used as an endorsement (!!! — Specifically cited: Wild Geese and As For Me and My House)
• book has cinematic feel because Shandi is a filmmaker
• caused some B. tears!

Tennile recommends . . .

Payback, Margaret Atwood

• A rare non-fiction foray for Tennile
• focuses on debts between people, concepts of owing and balance
• Margaret Atwood probably had a glass of wine while writing, since it “just flows from one ludicrous idea to the next” (in a good way)
• the idea for a t-shirt that says “What Would Margaret Atwood Do?” emerges. People on twitter confirm they’d buy it.
• Discussion of Atwood not being an economist lead to the spontaneous reco: The Undercover Economist

JK recommends . . .

Bitten, Kelley Armstrong

• smart, sassy, sexy werewolf story (more in my review)
• has solid review cred and a dedicated fan following
• refreshing to have a series you can look forward to once again

Mike recommends . . .

Under the Dome, Stephen King

• Mike reads this 1100-page beast standing up on the subway (it must be good!)
• Same basic plot as The Simpson’s Movie
• Mike admits to King’s “marked drop off in quality after he got hit by the car”
• takes place in a small town (which is under a dome) and then takes the shit out of the small town
• lots of meth (much like Unsweetened, similar story I’m sure)
• Tennile once moved into a place where she discovered stash of Stephen King books, making “every week a new nightmare.”
• NO JACKET COPY WHATSOEVER (which is basically the equivalent of writing, “Just buy it, I’m Stephen-fucking-King.”)

Ron recommends . . .

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

• The kind of book that hits you upside the head
• about a nerdy Dominican boy growing up in New Jersey
• It’s cool to read about other nerds – but here bringing it out of the white middle class experience
• Diaz nearly went crazy writing the book
• Writing like a force of nature
• Gripped within the first 5 pages
• Spontaneous Reco: Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann
• Makes men cry
• Makes you a bigger nerd just by reading it

Loretta recommends . . .

Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts

• about man who is in prison in Australia and he escapes and he flees to Bombay where joins an Afghan mafia lord
• recommended to Loretta by an Indian friend, who praised its authenticity
• the first time Loretta has EVER cried in a book. I’m ordering IT IMMEDIATELY
• Based on a true story

Didn’t make it to this meeting? Never fear! The KIRBC will be back a month (hopefully with more chairs). New members are always welcome!

Tomorrow I’ll also be announcing a project for April that will be bringing the KIRBC and its members from near and far, to a computer near you!

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KIRBC Notes – March 16, 2009

For this almost-ides-of-March meeting, the KIRBC masterminds decided a bonus theme was in order based on the hilarious Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids series (next event April 7th), so we asked people not only to bring a book to advocate, but also to dig through basements, desk drawers and top secret hideaways to find a guaranteed source of public embarrassment – their juvenilia. We didn’t know if the logistics would limit participation, but once again KIRBCers blew me away. Top marks to Reeder, who had her parents fax her eighth grade poems to her workplace. Now that’s commitment.  Because some of this was golden, I’m going to start with a few choice passages we had a chance to madly transcribe.  Okay, off we go…

I (JK) bring a grade 2 picture book about what I’d be when I grew up, a grade 2 school journal that demonstrates my early attempts at metafiction, as well as my authentic locked grade 3/4 diary (with key taped to the top of the box it’s in…apparently I wasn’t going to be a spy when I grew up) in which I declare: “I’m glad I have you because it gives me someone to spread my feelings to.” And an example of those feelings:

Dear Diary,
Today was a pretty good day. I gave the ring back to Todd and Todd gave the ring to Katie. Katie loves Todd. I just think of him as an alein [sic] that can hardly do anything and has no brains. And just as another weird boy in my class.

Dear Diary,
Slept over at Stephie’s last night. Got silly putty in my hair. Now I have a bald spot.

That silly putty was a debacle…

Loretta reads from a school project from grade 4 or 5 called “When I am a little older.” She says with luck and good grades she will graduate elementary school and high school and then hopefully be a teacher, and buy a house in the country where she will have great family, friends 2 horses, 9-10 cats, 3-4 dogs and maybe 5 mice. Why five mice? “I always had mice growing up. I only had 3, but I wanted 5 so it would be a better group dynamic.”

Marci is shocked at Loretta’s life planning: “I was still eating paste and you were planning a career?”

Marci reads from her grade eight journal anout her aunt’s “celebrate life” party and her dog Dykster, about Camp Burbilak being “Booooooooooring” and her fights with her friends (“She’s not a retard, but she’s acting like one.”) But this had to be my favourite part:

“My scariest night mare is when I was awake at night but I was seeing spiders everywhere. I couldn’t get to sleep. And the other dream that scared me is that I died and no one cared.”

I love so much that the spider dream is the scarier one there.

Go-Go reads from her award-winning picture book “Spring” displaying some classic ball and stick trees and “M” birds. She may confuse regular birds and snowbirds as she writes “In spring all the birds come back from Florida.”

Reeder reads from a very personal work, “The Me You See,” which is apparently riddled with lies and self-delusion. She recounts a friendship-destroying fight when a friend said “Nick Carter is not hot!” and she was all “Bitch yeah he is!” But the highlight of this reading had to be this heartfelt bit of free verse:

As I ran my fingers
across the furry creature
it ribbed its body against my leg
when I smell the air
I smell tuna fish
All of the sudden I hear
something…
I hear it purr.

It was a high point to wrap up on folks. Grown ups read is a highly recommended activity for your next social gathering.

Now on to the more traditional fare:

JK – Beyond the Horizon, by Colin Angus

• A rare non-fiction recommendation from JK
• One crazy man who circumnavigates the planet based on muscle power alone in 2 years
• A nice easy read about an absolutely mind-blowing achievement

Loretta- Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer

• Book is looking stylish in a faux-vintage Penguin cover
• Multiple points of view and crazy language
• Narrative of a trip and an inside story of letters {Sorry for the crappy summary L., complicated books get shortchanged by shorthand}
• Loretta reads a great passage containing the most specficic (and perhaps necessarily so) wedding vows that have ever been made
• Features a character “that was so much like Stunt [referring to the book by Claudia Dey], that I made a little noise.”
• “If you don’t read this book, I’m hunting somebody down!” (That’s the kind of passion I like to see at these meetings – that which inspires violence)

Speaking of violence, Marci goes ANTI-recommendation on this one, which is somewhat against the KIRBC’s attempts at positive endorsements, but I was curious about her vehemence. The source of her venom? A Respectable Trade, by Phillipa Gregory, which ended up ripped up and in the recycling bin.

• Attempt to expose the slave trade in Victorian England.
• Trying to take people out of boxes but just ends up putting them in new ones
• “She ruins everything by creating caricatures.”
• Overdoing the passion wipes out subtlety

Cheese - Atmosperic Disturbances, by Rivka Galchen

• Thinks the cover would have really used a photoshop filter.
• Sarah has blinding joy light moments (the joy light goes on when you get to use things you used in school in another context)
• A sad, touching story following a man’s descent into madness when he can’t accept changes in his wife.
• Sarah reads the longest sentence in history not written by Judith Butler – it’s a subordinate clause party!
• “Some strange techno babble makes the reading kind of choppy, but just skip over it and you’ll be fine.”

Go-Go - Runanway, by Alice Munro

• G-G reminisces over her first taste of Wild Swans (the book, not the bird)
• Loves the focus on the relationships between females, including the lasting one between female readers and Alice (always a first name basis with Alice Munro)
• Speaks to the unspoken pressures and expectations in relationships and depicts the relationships you’re NOT supposed to have
• She’s always cruel to her characters
• Marci & Cheese: “She’s a cautionary tale.” M: “Makes you worry about settinling into the things chosen for you.” C: She makes you worry about EVERYTHING.”

Anne L. – Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger

• Only took a few hours to read, but still made her go “Huh.” (in a good, pensive way).
• Nicotene junkies, borrow this book quick – comes with authentic cigarette smell. (Cheese: “Sold.” )
• First half focusing on Franny, second on Zooey.
• Anne L. has a crush on Zooey.
• Franny goes a little crazy at university and has to go home, 2nd half of the book is spent figuring out what happened.
• Somebody (possibly NSP) connects the last two books with Sex and the City (show, not book). well, done. well, done.

NSP – Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, by Neil Gaiman (who is going to be at Luminato this year, FYI)

• First in the Sandman series
• Some of the characters look like eighties popstars
• Integrates mythology, folktales etc.
• About a crazy man who is trying to imprison death (who is a lady)
• The dream world falls into chaos when the Sandman is kidnapped.
• Beautiful, intricate title pages that also set up the paradigms for the issue
• NSP gets some allusion joy light action from the focus on Dante’s  Divine Comedy.
• NSP enchants us with her reading again (Also for the public record: She promised to get on her recording of The Last Unicorn. We will hold her to this).
• Annnd at the end of NSP’s extensive, intelligent and passionate verbal dissertation/praise song, Anne Lewis adds “So…you’d recommend it.”

Reeder - Swing Low: A Life, by Miriam Toews

• Reeder’s once again championing Toews, whom she’ll clearly be going to see at the TPL events this summer
• A memoir written for her bipolar father how he would have written it (SPOILER ALERT!) before he killed himself
• Puts herself in her dad’s shoes, who ran himself down way too much
• The best book Reeder has read in a long time.

And to finish off, some deleted scenes/bonus material:

Marci (about Reeder’s “The Me that You See”): “You were trying to PR yourself but your weren’t crazy!” [shaking her journal vigorously for emphasis]

JK, after Natalie describes a character in Sandman immortalizing himself by putting parts of himself in various physical objects: “HORCRUXES!” [Crickets] “Oooookay. No Harry Potter fans in the house.”

NSP, commenting on Sarah Slean in the recent Canada Reads: “I like her music, but if you’re not singing, shut your mouth.”

Marci tells a serious story about impending death, which leads to the real problem: what to wear to a celebrity couples costume party. (As you can see, we haven’t come that far since grade three.)

Stay tuned for the next themed KIRBC: Grownups Read Bad Love Letters They’ve Sent or Received (as Kids).

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KIRBC Toronto Chapter Meeting, Jan. 19/09!

On Monday night, 6 tough ladies trudged through the blistering cold to warm themselves by the fire of their literary loves. One new member (Tennile) joined the fold, and 9 new books had advocates even Canada Reads producers would envy.

I couldn’t help starting the meeting with this quotation I recently stumbled upon, that was all too perfect for the history of the KIRBC:

“None of us had any experience with literary societies, so we made our own rules: we took turns speaking about the books we’d read. At the start, we tried to be calm and objective, but that soon fell away, and the purpose of the speakers was to goad the listeners into wanting to read the books themselves. Once two members had read the same book, they could argue, which was our great delight. We read books, talked books, argued over books, and became dearer and dearer to one another.”
– The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society

Yes, it’s a trifle sentimental, but what can I say, I’m a big sap sometimes. But on with the recommendations:

JK – Tales From Outer Suburbia, by Shaun Tan

• Yes, I’ve already gone on about how much I love this book.  So you can read the review. Or, if you’re too lazy here’s the gist:
• A children’s book/ graphic novel (I lean toward graphic novel) that transforms suburbia from a sterile, homogenized wasteland to a departure point for adventure
• Several short stories – my favourite of which is “Distant Rain” (read aloud for the group – elementary teacher stylz)
• The illustrations are richly detailed and have the just right amount of edginess to give complement the maturity of the stories

Reeder – An oversized cheque for Lindsey Reeder for bringing not one, but two books (in addition to authoring one essential pop-culture primer for the often clueless hostess)

The Flying Troutmans, by Miriam Toews

• a depressed mom being hospitalized leads to two children essentially raising themselves until their aunt takes them on a road trip to find their dad
• “Takes you back to being 9 years old and being with your parents of a roadtrip”
• Endearing characters who you miss after they’re gone

Broken, by Daniel Clay

• A book so good that Reeder made her visiting brother sit quietly and amuse himself while she finished it
• 21st century version of To Kill A Mockingbird
• Author also declared cute by consensus (bonus points)

Marci - Ladykiller, by Charlotte Gill

• An unsentimental short story collection
• GG finalist
• ruthless, unforgiving graphic writing that unflinchingly exposes the darker sides of people so that you can never really like any of the characters

And let’s take a break for a moment to full appreciate the coincidence of these two books following each other through an appreciation of their cover designs (above).

Sarah

King Leary, by Paul Quarrington 

• Canada Reads pick of last year
• Made Sarah laugh out loud repeatedly while sitting in a birth control clinic
• “If  Grandpa Simpson wrote a book, this is what it would be”
• A story about a former hockey star who is now and old man and telling his story, which degenerates as he gets crazier (like his namesake)
• A real slam-bang ending that is both touching and hilarious

Big Foot: I Not Dead, by Graham Roumieu

• The second big foot book (Sarah recommended the first, Me Write Book, in our first Toronto meeting
• Story and crude watercolours both by Roumieu
• Made Sarah’s friend almost bust her stiches laughing post giving birth (this sort of disgusting endorsement is probably appropriate for the book)
• Sarah reads from this obscene and hilarious (and obscenely hilarious) book

Natalie – The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle

• The story of the last unicorn on the planet, searching for more of her kind with her magician friend
• Enchantingly written, with subtle humour – nothing is wasted
• We all have a couple minutes reminiscing about the 1980s film adaptation starring Mia Farrow, yet NSP insists, shockingly, that the book is better than the movie. But what’s better than the book AND the movie? NSP reading the book to us aloud, after which we were all ready to be tucked in to bed. I am, in all seriousness, continuing my movement to get Natalie to record an audio book of her reading. It could be yours with 3 easy payments of $24.99! (Or maybe $10 each? Put me in touch with your agent, Natalie)

Tennile – The Only Snow in Havana, by Elizabeth Hay

• Tennile may not have finished it, but she assures us she’s read the last chapter, as in true Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally style, she reads it first.
• A novella or a collection of intertwined short stories that explore the dark side of life and how you can never really know someone.

Of course one can’t fully capture the spirit of a KIRBC meeting with just these notes, not when quotes like “Yes I was upset…can’t you see this black nail polish?”, “I was a little pervert when I was younger”, “Those shriners are CRAZY!”, and “I’d better stick to the high test – God sperm are pretty powerful” flying around faster than the Troutmans.

For the next KIRBC meeting, dust off your juvenalia, as we’re hosting a small scale “Grown-ups Read Things They Wrote as Kids” since we sadly missed the last event. And bring books too. Unless your Grade 3 journal is in fact your recommendation…

And for those (this is for you Kev) who couldn’t get to a KIRBC meeting, leave your comments here! Tell us about one book your would defend to the death and why.

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