Shadow of Night

      Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness is past two of the All Souls Trilogy (part one being The Discovery of Witches. While this book is clearly in the middle of a larger storyline, it clearly takes on different issues than the previous book.
      This series is based around the search for a book, and the three missing pages from it. A very important, enchanted, book which contains currently unknown information about the genesis of the supernatural beings: witches, demons, and vampires.
      Shadow of Night continues to follow the story of Diana Bishop, a witch just discovering her powers, and her partner/husband/ significant other, the vampire Mathew Clairmont. Unlike the previous book, this one is set in Elizabethan England. Yes, this does make sense in the book. While the last book took place in what can be thought of as Diana Bishop's home turf, this one is clearly in Mathew Clairmont's.
     As a vampire, Mathew already lived through this era. In fact, some of his friends are major and minor characters. They are able to spend some time with his "father" who died during The Second World War. Diana is able to work on Alchemy (which she studies and teaches in modern times) with a famous female alchemist (who I hadn't heard of, but seems to have been quite important). Being in the different time period give Diana a chance to find someone to teacher her how to use her developing powers.
     The discovery of Diana's powers. Diana has always known that she is a witch. Her family have always been witches. However, Diana stopped using her witchcraft (in which she was not proficient in the first place), as a child or teenager, shortly after her parents died. She and Mathew are now under scrutiny, and in physical danger because of their relationship. Thus, they must travel back in time (using her newly discovered genetic time-walking power) to a time when they are not being hunted. Unfortunately, some unpleasant parts of Mathew's past are now in the present, and by the end they are forced to return to the tremulous present day.

The Kitchen Daughter

The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry struck a bit of a cord with me. I follow many blogs about parents of children with disabilities. I know people on the autism spectrum. It was refreshing to read a book in which the main character had these tendencies, yet disability awareness wasn't the main point of the book.

I enjoyed the way that each chapter began with a recipe which was used as foreshadowing for the chapter. I found it interesting to immerse myself into the character's thoughts and feelings while she cooked. Reading how she was so passionate about her cooking and recipes was refreshing. For me, the aspect of the book around her seeing the spirits of the people who are connected to the recipes, and solving a family mystery took a backseat to the struggles for independence and finding her place in her newly divided family. .

This book was wonderfully realistic showing of the main character's desire to be self sufficient and independent after the death of her parents. Her sister believes that she is incapable of living independently and this is a bone of contention between the two sisters. While I spent the entire book rooting for the main character, but by the end I was not so sure.

A Discovery of Witches

               

I have had my eye on A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness for a while. I saw it in Chapters just before my Church Campmeeting in July, but didn't get it because it didn't seem like a particularly good book for a church camp. Later, in August, I saw it while perusing the books at Value Village, and snagged it. It then set on my shelf of books I have yet to read until midway through September. I picked it up, and got about a third of the way through fairly quickly. Then it sat on my bedside table for a few weeks. It isn't that I lost interest and started to read something else, I just wasn't really reading much. 

This book came to work with me on nights, but never left my bag. I was either busy, or my eyes just couldn't focus on a book at 0230. This book also had the unfortunate disadvantage of coming to me just as I discovered the joys of Netflix. 

Then I started to read again. Over the course of October I read this book, and it's sequel, Shadow of Night. 

I found A Discovery of Witches to be a well written, and quite a well thought out book. It brings a large number of well known (and most likely a fair number of not so well known, who I didn't recognize) people into the story line which certainly adds a level of interest. I am not typically one for vampires, but having the immortal element is a nice way to show history to the reader

At first glance, this is a book about witches, vampires, and demons, but one doesn't have to look very hard in order to become enthralled in the politics in the natural world, the supernatural world, and the interactions between the two.

I also enjoyed the science/ scholarly aspect being brought into the story. The two main characters both work at a university studying and teaching, one alchemy, and the other genetics. This brings about a deeper aspect to the storyline than I expected from this book when I first picked it up.

This is book one of the All Souls Trilogy, two of which are out and I have read. I don't know when the third will be out, but I am looking forward to reading it. It is nice to have series, and a book to look forward to, instead of finding them all once they are all out. I think that the anticipation will make the third book even better.

My Mother's Secret

                                 

    

My Mother's secret by J.R. Witterik is a Holocaust story from a different perspective. It follows a young woman and her mother as they live their lives during The Second World War. They build, and lose relationships. They they meet people, and this book shows how even the smallest actions may have great repercussions, for good or bad, in the future.  

The story shows the bravery of this mother and daughter as they attempt to hide and support whomever came to them. They go to great lengths to protect those who they hardly know simply because it is the right thing to do. 

When I think about what i would do in their place, I would like to think that I would do the same thing. I would like to think that anyone would do this, but if everyone did, it wouldn't be so amazing and awe inspiring.

Mercy Train

Mercy Train is an interesting book which follows the stories of three generations of women, each at a pivotal point in their life. One is a young girl leaving everything that she knows, one and elderly woman facing death, and one a young woman facing life after becoming a mother. .

Timeline wise, the eldest of the main characters is a young girl, growing up in poverty on the streets of New York in the early 1900s. This is the character is the one which the title most literally refers.

Her daughter's story takes place when she,the daughter, is an elderly woman coming to the end of her battle with cancer.

The story of the third generation follows a new mother who is given a box of trinkets that had belonged  to her mother. As she goes through them, she tries to piece together the stories of her Mother and Grandmother.

I found this book to be an interesting and easy read. I have found myself enjoying historical fiction more than science fiction now, which surprises me. Looking back I see that I enjoyed reading historical fiction for school, but I always thought of it as school reading, not leisure reading. I don't necessarily think that my interests have changed, just that I take a less direct route the the science fictions section of the bookstore.

A Map of Time

A Map of time by Feliz J. Palma is one of the only books which I have read which was not originally written in English. It was interesting, well written, and well thought out. I'm not sure what category this book would fit into. Somewhere between historical fiction, mystery, and fantasy. The book had a few story lines which were connected in ways which I was not expecting.

For much of the book I was expecting the narrator to become a character, who later wrote the events down, sort of like Bilbo in The Hobbit. The book is narrated by an all knowing, omnipresent point of view. This is not a perspective that I am used to. I'm not going to say that I don't like this perspective, but I prefer books written by a character's point of view.

The book includes many actual historical people, and I'm not sure which, if any of the events actually happened. I don't have enough knowledge of Victorian history to pick out fact from fiction. I know a bit about Jack the Ripper, H.G. Wells (and his book The Time Machine), and Dracula (although not much about the author). This is probably what the author was counting on. Inserting enough fact that readers will recognize names to make the whole storyline more believable. 

The Casual Vacancy

  
     I found the Casual Vacancy difficult to really get into. I bought it mostly because it was written by J.K. Rowling. I started it as soon as I bought it, then it sat on my side table for months. There are a lot of characters, and the book hops between perspectives.Somewhere between pages 50 and 100 I got interested. I got attached to some of the characters, disgusted with others, and even managed to be both disgusted and attached to some. I found it well written and interesting (although some of that interest may come from my current fascination with the British).
      The book is made up of many interwoven story lines which all take place within a small town in Britain. It deals with all of the typical/stereotypical small town dramas from death to elections to poverty to teenage rebellion. The book touched on so many topics that the discussion could be endless.
      One story line peaked my interest first, and was may favorite throughout. There is a social worker who is working while another is on a stress leave. This social worker is able to view a specific family through fresh eyes, and cares enough to try to make a difference. She starts to make a difference, and starts to gain a bit of this family's trust when the stress leave ends, and the other social worker comes back. This really struck a cord with me. I have seen many of my nursing coworkers become harsh and jaded. I have had patients complain, and even avoid using the call bell because they don't want the wrong person to come. They are hard to work with, and remind me of this on leave social worker.
     I ended up really enjoying this book. It got to the point when I couldn't put it down. The last 200 pages went by very quickly. While the book didn't end the way that I wanted it to, the tragic ending was fitting. Life doesn't always have the hoped for happy ending. This book shows how, if enough people drop the ball, there can be dire consequences. No one person is to blame, and everyone must live with the consequences. 

The Cat's Table

The Cat's table, by Michael Ondaatje, was an entertaining read. Not that it was funny, but that the way that it was written pulled me into the story, as if someone was right there, almost reading it aloud. It is written as an autobiography, but it is actually fiction. For more than half of the book I thought that it was in fact the author writing about his own experiences. The story is a man, looking back on his childhood. He is remembering his experience traveling via large ship from his home is Sri Lanka to London, where his mother lives.

There are quite a few children's books which have some of the same basic themes, but this book is much more adult because of the fact that the narrator is an adult, and is able to decipher more. This book appealed to me in much the same way that movies like Dunstan Checks in, and books like Eloise, and From the mixed up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler did when I was younger. A kid is confined to a hotel (or mobile hotel in the form of a ship) for an extended period of time and gets into all sorts of mischief.

The main character is Mynah, an 11 years old boy from Sri Lanka.  He is traveling on his own, although he does have an older female cousin along who doesn't want much to do with him. Mynah is placed at the Cat's table (the one farthest from the Captain's table) in the dining room along with two other unaccompanied boys, and an odd assortment of adults. They get into just the shenanigans that one would expect of unsupervised, unaccompanied minors. They have a great time in the first class area before other people are up, and they see a surprising number of things while they hide in life rafts at night, including the discovery of a prisoner, and even a murder. These boys are also brought into many less that moral/legal situations by some of the adult around them (for example, sneaking into 1st class suites to aid in robbery).

It is in these more serious situations that the true plot comes out.I was certainly not expecting the twist in the last few chapters. Minor characters all of a sudden become major players in the plot, and the book went in a completely different direction than it had been before. All in all, it was a good read. It had me interested from the beginning through to the end, albeit for different reasons.

Tuesdays with Morrie

      I knew that I had watched the movie based on Tuesdays with Morrie in class sometime in university, but I wasn't sure that I had actually read the book. I saw it on the shelf and decided that it was one of those books that needed to be read. I realized, shortly after starting, that I had actually read the book before, but it was worth reading again.  It is one of those books that everyone needs to read.

     Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom chronicles the story of the author as he reconnects with his old professor, and the two of them work together on what they call Morrie's last thesis. Mitch visits Morrie every Tuesday (for 12 or 13 weeks) as Morrie deteriorates from his ALS. They talk about basically all of the big things in life (family, forgiveness, society, life, death...). Morrie, once a physically vibrant man, continues to shine through his words. Mitch give Morrie purpose, and Morrie gives Mitch perspective.

 The whole book is packed. Nothing is written that doesn't mean something important.

“Be compassionate," Morrie whispered. And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place".

“Accept who you are; and revel in it".

 “The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live".

The Diary of a Player

The Diary of a Player is Brad Paisley's autobiography. How he got where he is, and who helped him. I love country music, and Brad Paisley is a favorite of mine. I went to see him sing in Vancouver and it was awesome. I follow him on twitter, so I knew that it would be funny. I also enjoy learning about my favorite people, so this was an easy read.
 Brad Paisley seems to have remained humble in his stardom. A lot of the book is thanking people, and the stories behind why they are important. He has stories about just about everyone in country music, and a section of captioned pictures with many of them. He talks about Playing rock music in high school because that is what his peers wanted to hear, and he just wanted to be cool. He talks about how his music is influenced by all sorts of music, bluegrass, jazz, blues, rock, classic rock...
I don't think that it is the type of book that anyone who isn't a Brad Paisley fan would pick up to read. It talks about inspiration for his songs which is only interesting if you know the songs. I enjoyed hearing the stories behind the songs, and behind the artist. 

The Hobbit

To say that it took me a long time to read The Hobbit would be putting it lightly. I originally started to read The Hobbit about ten years ago when I was in grade 8. We had silent reading time in English class. I finished The Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit seemed like a good place to go from there. I was on chapter 13 when I discovered Star Wars books. Those distracted me from The Hobbit for the rest of High school, and then I never really got back into the mood. I have read The Lord of the Rings once a year for the past ten years, but I have never cracked open The Hobbit. When I went to see The first of movies this past December I decided that I needed to read the book, and finally finish it.

The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, is the story of Bilbo Baggins, a Hobbit who is taken (somewhat unwillingly) on an adventure with Gandalf the wizard, and a company of Dwarves. They meet with all sorts of beings, some of whom help, and some of whom hinder the journey. The book is filled with the extensive description that Tolkien is famous for, which is wonderful in some places, but in others there is too much and the story seems to drag.

I can't help but compare it to The Lord of the Rings Which I love. They are set in the same world, with some of the same characters, but they are very different. In essence, The Lord of the Rings is a good versus evil story. The good guys must save the world from the evil guys. While it has many unexpected twists and turns, the reader knows the true purpose. The Hobbit, follows Bilbo who is helping the Dwarves reclaim their fortress and fortune. At first it seems like they are up against a dragon, but the story changes in the last few chapters throw the whole story into more of a gray area. The whole thing seemed to be driven by the greed of the Dwarves, and the people with whom they come in contact.

You probably can't tell from this, but I really did enjoy the book.  I can see how it is more of a children's book than Tolkien's other books. I'm glad to have read it, and will probably read it again before another ten years goes by.

The Perks of being a Wallflower.

The Perks of being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky was a fairly random pick. I had seen some previews for the movie, and decided to check out the book. It turns out that it has been a popular book for a fair number of years. There is even a whole section at the end with topics for book club discussions and such. The book covers many topics including: teenaged drinking, drug use, smoking, sexuality, and mental health, as well as a teenager's view on abuse, drinking, both suicide and attempted suicide, and death within his family. A person could talk or write for a very long time about this book and get into some deep discussions. I won't write that much because it really needs the back and forth of discussion.

The book is written in the form of letters. A troubled teenaged boy (Charlie) is writing to an unknown person (seemingly the reader). It runs over the course of one school year (and a summer). Charlie has an extremely difficult transition from middle-school into high-school. His only good friend committed suicide shortly at the end of the school year before. Charlie is also struggling with the death of his Aunt (about 9 years earlier) with whom he had an interesting/ distressing relationship.

Charlie is quite introverted, and socially awkward, and naive, yet he speaks what he thinks (sort of like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory). In efforts to "participate in life" he becomes friends with a set of siblings, both of whom are a couple of years older than him. He gets accepted into their group of friends. With this group of friends, he goes through many stereotypical (or maybe just typical) teenage behaviors including exploring sexuality, drinking, and drugs.

This book really made me think about my high-school experience. While I was in it, I didn't think that my experience was out of the ordinary (for an introverted geek). When I entered collage I realized just how different my experience was.The thing about this book is that it captures the feelings of teenagers so well that you don't have to have experienced the situations to relate to them.

The Magician King

The Magician King by Lev Grossman is the sequel to the Magicians. It takes off where the last book finished. I didn't get quite as "into" this book as I did the Magicians, but I would read it again. Two characters (Quentin and Julia) head on on an adventure, and are then thrown in a very different direction. They have to then find their way back to the magical world. In the end it all makes sense, and they circle back to the original adventure.

The first book is Quentin's experience searching for magic. The timeline is fairly linear. The second book shows his friend Julia's very different search. The reader follows Julia's original journey to learn magic, and a current journey to return to the magical word with Quentin. I had a bit of trouble following the timeline, but this may have been made easier if I had read the book more quickly instead of over the course of a couple of months.

 I hear that the author is working on the third and final book in the series. This was announced over a year ago, and it will probably take a long while to be completed, but I am looking forward to it.

The Magicians

Every summer I go to my Church Campmeeting. This year I went to the bookstore in search of books which are OK to be seen reading amongst a large group of conservative Christians.  I came out with books, none of which fit the criteria. I took my old copy of Lord of the Rings to Campmeeting for the eightth year in a row, and set the new books others aside. It was September before I made it around to reading The Magicians by Lev Grossman.


I found The Magicians to be a interesting read. The main Character is collage aged, which seems to be a rarity, at least in the fantasy genre. It was refreshing to read about a character who was past the teenage angst stage, but also was not an adult, fully situated in their own life. It follows a young man who grew up reading a series of books which is clearly at least partly based on the Chronicles of Narnia. Instead of growing out of the series, he still reads it, and is slightly obsessed with them throughout his teenaged years. His experience could even be compared to reading a book. He goes from regular life, and is transported into a magical world (or three) where he makes friends, learns many skills, and goes on adventures. I connected with that, as I have also remained a fan of some of my favorite childhood series.

This book took many unexpected turns, and ended in a very different way than I thought that it would. It starts out with genius Quentin who is given, and takes, a chance to go to a magical university. While his school is different, much of his dorm and class life are relatable. The book deals with the post-grad "what now" period. The book them shifts gears and the characters use their education to take themselves to the world of Fillory which they had read about as children.

 While the characters don't share my same set of values and beliefs, and make many choices surrounding drugs and alcohol that I would not make, I find that these add to the story and to the characters personal growth. Quentin ponders his lifestyle decisions. and I think that the book accurately shows how a person's way of thinking changes as they get older and have more experience. 

This book was a great mix of Science fiction, and fantasy (mostly fantasy) two of my favorite genres. I was excited to find out that there is a sequel (which I have now read), but I didn't really have any idea where else the author could take the story. It was a complete story in itself.

Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking.

Quiet was one of the Campmeeting safe books that I got. I didn't think that it would be as easy to read as it was. I was sucked in, and nearly read it straight through. The writer uses descriptive stories from her experience interviewing and talking to people for the book. It is partly a self help book, and partly a informational text, but many parts of it I found could be read like short stories.

Introverts gain energy by being alone, while extroverts gain energy by being with people. This does not mean that introverts don't like people, just that we need alone time to recover (even after things like going to a movie with a couple of friends). Extroverts may have to go out with friends after a while of alone time (like studying). About half of the population is introverted, and though introverts certainly aren't better than extroverts, much of western culture praises outgoing, outspoken behavior. It is sometimes nice to be reminded that we, as introverts are not alone.

Many eastern cultures have great respect for introverted personalities. Wisdom is seen in those who think before they speak.

In a way, this book has changed my way of looking at myself. It sort of gave me permission to be introverted instead of striving, and not succeeding to put on the extroverted mask that so many of us have. It also brought up some points about introverts that I have been able to take make into ideas and advice in my life.

Introverts don't like to talk unless they have something to say. They hate small talk. Introverts don't do so well when put on the spot. It isn't that we don't know our stuff. The stress of talking in front of people (without having practiced a script) can be too distracting to perform well. In school introverts are often seen as less smart at their extroverted peers. Not only is there the whole speaking up in front of people thing, but introverts really don't like "taking a stab at it" in front of people, or sharing partly formed ideas. When asked (for a study) to come up with problem solving ideas extroverts come up with a large number if ideas in a short amount of time, where as introverts come up with fewer. When compared, there were approximately the same number of QUALITY ideas.

 I really wish that this book had been around earlier. Throughout nursing school we had to do self critiques.  I always had trouble coming up with examples to show my leadership in clinical practice. I didn't see myself as a leader. This book showed me how introverts often have alternate ways to lead. Introverts are more likely to lead by taking many people's perspectives into consideration. In nursing I have taken this to mean leadership through collaboration. I think that my critiques in school would have been much more useful with my new perspective on power and leadership.

Reading

 As a child I struggled with reading. I remember reading in partners in grade one. We each had to read a simple book to the other person. I picked the same book as my partner, and had them read first, so that I would know the story. In grade two I started to be home-schooled. I remember sitting down with my mom to read chapters of Little house in the big woods,and the other books in the series. I enjoyed the story, but I dreaded the reading. I did enjoy the Berenstain Bear books (the little ones with four words on each page), not so much for content, but because I could read them by myself.

I remember when I realized that there were books out there that I could really enjoy reading and become absorbed into. In the mid-late 90s my brother got Star Wars on VHS, and in 1999 Episode came out. I loved this particular fandom/genre. I decorated my room to look like space, the games that I played were based on Star Wars, and I coveted the great toy lightsaber. This same brother grew out of a series of books, and gave me the Jedi Apprentice series.

These books were easy to read. They were short-ish, had simple language,  lots of action, and they had characters who I already knew and loved. I've read them over and over. They are still sitting on my bookshelf, warn edges, stains, and tape along the spines. These were my steppingstones into the world of reading.

Around the year 2000 the big bookstore Chapters opened in my home town, and as far as I remember, it was on one of our first trips there that my other brother discovered the Harry Potter books. Neither one of us were big readers, but we powered through the (then two) books quickly, and the third when it was released. I was so interested that I didn't even think twice about tackling the around 700 pages of book four, and the final book took me less than two days to read.

In grade eight, my English teacher (a long term sub) gave us "free reading" time. I didn't have a new book at the time, so I picked up my oldest brother's copy of The Lord of the Rings. For the next couple of months, those books barely left my side. I found it easy to be transported into Middle Earth, and when I finished it I had a "what now" moment.

I went to Chapter in order to find another book for "free reading" time, and I found it. Right up front, on the new releases table, I saw it. Star Wars: Star by Star. A Star Wars book for grown-ups had been my dream. As I read it, it seemed a little out of context, but that didn't matter. It was Star Wars. After I finished, I wanted to know if there was more. I was shocked to see that there was a whole series. An entire bookcase in Chapters dedicated to Star Wars, and my book had been the latest release. My feelings of foolishness were overshadowed by the thought that I had YEARS of Star Wars books to read. It took me through high-school to read this series. I had a small group of equally geeky classmates who used my collection as a library. They are still adding onto the series, but my interests changed. University, and life got in the way, and I was spending less and less time reading. I read text books, and online, but not many tangible, solid, books.

This past summer I decided to get back to reading for enjoyment. I perused the book store, and have picked up a fair number of books. This blog is to reflect on what I am reading.