Mercy Among the Children (David Adams Richards)

First published in 2000, Mercy Among the Children is a winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award and the Trillium Book Award. It's the heart-wrenching story of Lyle Henderson, an impoverished New Brunswick boy burdened by the shadow and legacy of his mistreated pacifist father.

The story is told through a frame narrative. In the prologue,  it's November 1997 and Lyle introduces himself a former New Brunswick cop who quit the force years before. The main text of the book is Lyle's self-told story of growing up. The setting seemed so close to home, that I could almost see and feel the kind of town Lyle grew up in. 

About halfway through, part of me wanted to stop reading because the treatment of Lyle, his father Sydney and family was so painful to read about. I kept reading and I'm glad I did. It's one of the best pieces of Canadian lit. I've read in a long time.

One small detail that really got me, was a lawsuit filed by some townspeople against a local businessman (and later the province) over the use of a toxic pesticide years before. Some of it had been buried in the ground. People got sick. Cancer rates soared. A young girl died. They received no compensation. That's real. 

I look forward to reading more of David Adams Richards' work. 

Doctor Zhivago (Boris Pasternak)

Doctor Zhivago is beautiful. It's philosophical, tragic honey, like Gone with the Wind or The Petrified Forest. Set to the backdrop of the First World War, the Russia Revolution and the following Civil War, this book tells the story of a young doctor from Moscow, and the people most closely connected to him.

Every character is tragic, but I loved Lara the most. She is forever a victim of circumstance, constantly abandoned by the men in her life. I nearly cried over her. She disappears from the book, as if in the end, she is unimportant--just another nameless face in history.

Doctor Zhivago is well known enough, I feel, for me not to explain the full plot, but I would like to share one of my favourite passages:

Wars, revolutions, tsars, Robespierres--these are its organic stimulants, 

its fermenting yeast. Revolutions are produced by men of action, 

one-sided fanatics, geniuses of self limitation. In a few hours or days

they overturn the old order. The upheavals last for weeks, for years

at the most, and then for decades, for centuries, people bow down

to the spirit of limitation  that led to the upheavals as to something sacred

(p. 538-539). 

As a side note, the 1965 film adaptation is wonderful and follows the book very closely,

Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell in and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin

Published in 2013, Fragile Empire by Ben Judah is a journalistic portrayal of post-soviet Russia. Judah focuses on President Putin, and frames the book around the perception that he has fallen out of favour and his days in power are numbered.

Looking at this book now, in November of 2014, I can't help but wonder if Judah would write this book differently now. Putin may have gone through a rough political patch, but his popularity in Russia is still very high. As other writers have noted, Putin will continue to enjoy popularity because there is no one with equivalent popularity or power to replace him.

I started Fragile Empire in September and have been reading it chapter by chapter since then. My Contemporary Russian Politics Professor assigned the book as mandatory reading. I found it refreshing and light, compared to the other more academic articles I also read in the course.

While I enjoyed the book, it's already out of date. So much has happened in the past year (Russia, Ukraine, Crimea etc.) which isn't mentioned. If you're going to pick up this book, it's best to do so in collaboration with some more up to date works,

Women in the BookBinding Trade: Browsing the Library

Some of the most interesting books ever printed are sitting on the shelves of university libraries collecting dust. Every time I ride the elevator up to the seventh, or eighth or ninth floor of my university art's library to collect books for a paper (yes I still use actual books for research sometimes), I usually end up grabbing something else off the shelves. 

Last Thursday, I found Women in the Bookbinding Trade, published in 1913. 

I was taken with the photographs . . . 

. . . And the yellowed, aged papers. 

Unfortunately, someone spilled something on one of the flyleaves 

I don't expect that I'll read this book cover to cover, but I've enjoyed looking at it. 

Samuel Marchbanks Almanack & Christmas Shopping

I didn't buy this book for myself. I already have a nice paperback New Canadian Library copy which I read last Christmas. I bought this copy of Samuel Marchbanks Almanack by Robertson Davies (the author of Fifth Business) as a Christmas gift for a friend. With Christmas still a month and a half away, of course I can't say who the book is for, but I wanted to share a couple pictures here because it's a beautiful book. 

The papers are aged and the book has that old musty smell. The boards are still strong, smooth and nearly perfect, apart from a small ding at the top. Sure, the dust jacket is long gone, but dust jackets are troublesome anyway; they always fall off and tear. 

For more on this book, see my post from last December

Scotchman's Return and other Essays (Hugh MacLennan)

Ever since I read Two Solitudes for an independent English assignment in my last year of high school, I've loved Hugh MacLennan. While exploring Old Goat books, a bookshop that was new to me, I came across Scotchman's Return and other Essays. Normally, I would consider $15 too much to pay for a used book that I had never read, but I bought it anyway. Maybe I bought it because I'd scoured the shop and found nothing else which stuck out to me--it is so disappointing to go out intending to buy a book and come home empty handed--or maybe I just liked the golden-green cover and the feel of the pages. The 1960 publication date and that old book smell was also appealing.

I loved reading this book. It's light, personal and satisfying. MacLennan touches on everything from Canadian cuisine, the classical tradition is education, tennis, roses and the difficulty that Canadian authors who set their writing in Canada faced during the early and middle half of the 20th century.

This is a book that anyone can appreciate, but only a reader familiar with Canada can understand completely. Unfortunately, this book is out of print, so if you look for it you'll have to buy used.

I'm also quite pleased with the bookmark Old Goat Books gave me. I can never have enough bookmarks.

The Underground Storyteller (Alex Day)

I ordered The Underground Storyteller from the UK a few weeks ago and it--my first inter-continental book order--arrived on Wednesday. The author, Alex Day, is a British YouTuber. I would, however, like to put aside that part of his identity, as well as any controversy regarding his personal life, and focus solely on The Underground Storyteller as a piece of literature. 

Published this year, Day's book recounts the highlights of his travels on the London subway, or "The Tube" as he refers to it. After discovering the oldest rail line in the UK had been dismantled, Day set out to visit every station and ride every line of the London Underground. 

Writing in a colloquial, conversational style, Day combines history, personal stories, folklore, and humour, creating a narrative which rambles along like a couple of old friends in a coffee shop. 

I liked this book, not because it offered me any amazing insights, but because it was fun to read. The book is part memoir, part travel guide and part history book; the successful co-existence of these genres is rare. I did, however, find myself raising a critical eyebrow at the opening line: "People interested in the Tube largely fall into three categories: student photographers, old people and me." Apart from being a cliche lead, I feel it is an over-generalization and I'm not sure what he means by "me." Does Day mean writers? riders? Does he mean to set himself apart, personally, as a unique category? Luckily, I never judge an entire book by its first line, or even its first page. 

Despite a weak start, the writing quality improves within the first few chapters. Day, by the end of the book, reveals himself as a skilled writer. Transitions between chapters and stories are seamless.  Every story he tells--personal or otherwise-- is attached to the main frame perfectly. Nothing is awkward or seemingly out of place. The Underground Storyteller is an excellent first book. I look forward to seeing more work from him in the future.