Crow Lake by Mary Lawson

Mary Lawson drew comparisons to Ian McEwan (Toronto Star), Rick Bass and Richard Ford (Publishers Weekly) for her novel Crow Lake, which Kirkus Reviews called "almost Proustian in its sense of loss and regret". Her latest, The Other Side of the Bridge, was nominated for the Man Booker Prize in 2006. The library's morning book club will discuss Crow Lake on Friday, February 1 from 10:30 am until about noon if you would like to join us. Even if you're not in the book club, I highly recommend you read Crow Lake.

Crow Lake is the story of two tragedies in the childhood of Kate Morrison, who grew up with her brothers and sister in an isolated farming town in northern Ontario, where the dirt road led only one way (south). Kate tells the story twenty years later, once she realizes she can no longer avoid a confrontation between her past and present lives. This how the New York Times Book Review succinctly described Crow Lake when it named it a Notable Book of 2002:

This ambitious first novel combines two standard motifs -- sudden orphanhood and rescue by an inspiring schoolteacher -- in an exploration of class and sibling rivalry, ennui and persistence, especially in the character of Kate Morrison, who rises against tall odds to an academic career she actually has little heart for.

Discussion questions can be found here.

This has little to do with Crow Lake, but as someone who read all of L.M. Montgomery's novels growing up, I have to mention that Mary Lawson is a distant relative of the Anne of Green Gables author. And Great-Grandmother Morrison was inspired by Mary Lawson's great-grandmother, who really did fix a book rest to her spinning wheel.

Celebrities Have Library Cards Too

Excuse the somewhat lowbrow post, but librarians are allowed to read People on their days off.

Click here for a picture of Jennifer Garner carrying books from the Brentwood library.

Longitude Books

There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away,
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry.
- Emily Dickinson

I've just discovered the wonderful travel book suggestions at the web site of Longitude Books, which allows you to browse books geographically by clicking on a map of the world. More than just guidebooks and travel narratives, the site also has interesting lists of recommended books, such as Italian mysteries, books that will help you choose where to go, and list of books about culinary journeys (what could be better than combining the pleasures of reading, travel and food?).

Other People's Children by Joanna Trollope

Other People's Children: the title refers to the stepchildren in the four families in Joanna Trollope's 1999 novel. The book begins with Matthew and Josie's wedding, numbly and nervously observed by Rufus, Josie's son by her first marriage. Also at their wedding are Matthew's equally discombobulated three children by his first marriage. Soon to enter each others lives are the various ex-spouses, ex-in-laws, new girlfriends, new houses, new schools and teachers and old resentments. There is enough anger to go around in the ever-widening effect of Josie and Matthew's second marriage, but this is not a grim book. It is a thoughtful look at each individual character and his or her place in the wider family context of modern life. The story follows the family Matthew left behind, the family Josie left behind and the blended family they try to create. The outcomes are different. Some people adapt successfully and some do not. Jami Edwards writes on Bookreporter,
'This is the crux of this compelling novel: separateness, and the heartbreak and diligence it takes to mold that into the togetherness of a family. Trollope has the enviable knack of being able to take an ordinary subject and elevate it to the extraordinary with the soul-searching power of her finely tuned writer's eye.'
Joanna Trollope is an author who can be depended upon to deliver a good story with interesting characters who have complicated personal and moral dilemmas.

My Latest Grievance by Elinor Lipman

"I was raised in a brick dormitory at Dewing College, formerly the Mary-Ruth Dewing Academy, a finishing school best known for turning out attractive secretaries..." writes Frederica Hatch, the teenage narrator of Elinor Lipman's wryly funny My Latest Grievance (2006.) Frederica has been raised by liberal college professor parents and is just beginning to rebel against their egalitarian child rearing practises when her father's unscrupulous and melodramatic exwife arrives on campus to stir things up in their well-ordered lives.
Elinor Lipman is one of my favorite contemporary authors; her books are funny in an understated way, character driven, with ironic plot twists and satirical observations of modern life. If you click on the Amazon reviews, you will find reviews that get rather defensive about why funny books can also be very good literature and why women's books can rise above chic-lit, but still be popular, and why Elinor Lipman has devoted fans but really ought to be a best-selling author and is under appreciated. And of course the nod to Jane Austen to whom all good women authors who write comedies of manners or anything close are compared. Leaving aside the defensiveness about humor and the obsession with Austen as the standard for all women's writing, you should read Lipman's books if you like a sardonic look at modern life. Readers don't have to suffer through oh-so-serious tomes to enjoy good literature. To find out more about her, read some of her essays posted on her website.