the first book i loved by hilary mantel

beyond black was the first book i read by hilary mantel and ms. mantel has not let me down since. i've staff picked it at the bookstore - had to get the buyers to bring in the picador edition from the u.s. because apparently we don't care about it enough in canada. or something. i don't really get how that kind of thing happens in publishing. no offense harpercollins canada but i handsell this book constantly. anywho here is my staff pick for this great read:

where do people go when they have passed from this world?

alison hart knows. unlike some of her peers in the world of psychics and mediums, alison is truly and deeply connected to the dead. alison has been in contact for a long time, since she was a young teen, and throughout the years of nightmares and stress has become drained and exhausted. enter colette, "sharp, rude , effective..." and just a wee bit mean. alison picks colette to be her manager (or "sidekick" say the other psychics) to help her manage her busy schedule and colette, fresh from leaving her husband and job, accepts heartily because really - what else does she have?

their total incompatibility works works very well for a spell until colette begins to control more and more of alison's life, and alison's nightmares and flashbacks persist and increase in severity. as cheerful and pleasant as alison is on the outside, her internal life is literally filled with ghosts - men who have done terrible things.

what is her connection to them? and why doesn't she have nice benign dead people around her? she will only find out by choosing her own path to the past and being true to herself.

this deeply funny and dark novel by hilary mantel is an astonishingly vivid account of what a medium's world could look like.

let the games begin...

just finished this young adult novel by suzanne collins and after all the twilight insanity, i was very impressed with it. it's actually well-written and compelling. of course, i'm not sure i would let my kid read it. it's extremely violent, bleak and cynical.

but here's why it works: the main character, katniss, a sixteen year old girl forced into adulthood by the death of her father and the subsequent nervous breakdown of her mother is left to care for family (mother and young sister) in a country (once north america) called panem, divided into districts and oppressed by the ruling government situated in a city simply called the capitol. katniss is brave, resourceful, and nobody's fool. the crazy big brother/media-rules-all/forced entertainment twist that we all will recognize with a queasy stomach is a reality tv show televised every year by the capitol called "the hunger games". and yes, it sounds as bad as it is. 12 girls and 12 boys, one from each district are chosen to participate in this event - which can only have one winner. and the others don't just get "voted" off. they have to kill each other to win and survive. oh the glory.

to suzanne collins' credit, the violence is set within  in a moral code where yes, you need to kill to survive, but katniss at least is trying to stick to her values. after all, her sister was was the one chosen for the games and katniss volunteered to take her place. so, no not all bloody gore. a lot of searching for self, growing into emotional awareness stuff going on here and some nice subtle teen romance and yes, it made me want to read book 2 (catching fire) immediately.

small crimes / big hearts

this book sat on my shelf for a little while. and, no, that's not a bad thing. how i purchase books is a little different from a lot of people. i don't just buy a book and then read it. that would kind of ruin it for me. some books i want for months and months and i visit them every day make sure they look good sitting there where they are supposed to be on the shelf. i kind of have to get to know a book before i buy it. because you know, just because i work in a bookstore doesn't mean i have some sort of infinite amount of moolah to spend on whatever looks kind of appealing (although i have been known to judge a book by it's cover). anyway, once i bought my little stack of books that month when it was time for this book to come home with me - i let it sit again on my bedside table for a little while before finally picking it up to read really, an old friend by that time...

i loved it's charming illustration on the cover. heard an except on wiretap. fell in love with the main character, baby, and her way too young father, jules. of course, it doesn't hurt at all that it is set in montreal and reading about montreal makes me miss it more than i ever thought i could.

heather o'neill's book, little criminals, (winner of the 2007 canada reads) is a novel that i frankly think is impossible to resist. you'd have to have a heart of steel. no really. i really don't think anyone could read this book and shrug, "mehhh...". i meet all kinds of readers - but really, even the ones that are all "i can't read sad things..." yeah, yeah, i know... tears you apart. (isn't that part of the deal?) but all asides aside, there is hope amidst a hard world here.

the places that jules and baby live in and come from are a product of a cycle of hardship due to all sorts of sad abuses: drugs, poverty, social services ... misguided youth. and baby is a brave soul trying to hang on to the last bit of her youth. i really loved this book. and baby. yes, i cried.

poetry lives

how much i love this new novel, the anthologist, by nicholson baker is equal only to my secret desire to write a good rhyming poem. it's true. i've always wanted to be able to do it. but oh my god. i remember that first year creative writing poetry class. awful stuff. i didn't get it. i couldn't hear it. couldn't hear the beats. didn't get the iambic pentameter. just was horribly mind-numbing for me. i used to freeze and panic when we got an assignment to write any sort of formal poem.

but then, i never had nicholson baker to explain it to me. his ability to clarify the beauty of a rhyme through his dogeared character paul chowder is enough to make you go out and buy that mary oliver book of poetry that always looked so nice in the poetry section or (horrors!) get one of those new oxford anthologies of english verse.

and you know, i never do this, but when i finished this book i went right back and reread my favourite parts. and there are so many.

so sorry, little book

i've just realised that i've lent out one of my favourite books: william goldman's the princess bride. my brother, danny, gave me this book when i was about fourteen years old. it was the best kind of gift. he loved it and knew that i would love it too. i must've read that book 10 times as many years lent it out just as frequently. it always came back to me. dogeared, shelfworn, the cover just about hanging by a thin layer of paper. i had it in a cheap, loose plastic cover that i had happened to find a package of on supersale at the bookstore years ago. i guess they were on sale because, well, who covers their mass market paperbacks? except me. they came in handy. but now see as i get on in years, my memory is not quite what it was twenty years ago. i forget where i put things all the time. people always tell you to write these things down, and i always think, yeah, i'll do that and then never do. in the back of my mind i kind of think that's cheating. i should remember these things, and yes, the person i lend the book too should remember it is mine. who would keep such a clearly cherished volume for themselves, on purpose? i can't believe i would have lent it out to someone who would be so careless. i'm a good judge of character. my friends respect books. they must. soon, i will have to give up on it. but right now, since i've just realised it is missing i have to think that it may still be possible to remember who has it and that it could still make it back to me.