Category: reading

Overheard This Week

                         

I popped into the bakery to pick up a baguette the other day and two women ahead of me in line were chatting. I couldn’t help overhearing them. Well, technically, I probably could have shut them out, but eavesdropping is not against the law and one could even argue that it’s in the job description of writers everywhere. 

I gather one of the women was an artist of some kind (I’m guessing fabric art) and her creations were beautiful enough to elicit raves from her companion. “I could never make wall hangings like yours,” said one women to the other. “I can’t make anything,” she added. “I’m not at all creative.”

That’s not the first time I’ve heard someone claim they lack creativity. It’s probably not the first time you’ve heard it either. But the thing is, we are all creative. Every single one of us.

Just ask author Lois Peterson who launched her latest book a few weeks ago. Titled Creatively Human: Why We Imagine, Make and Innovate, the book is targeted at young readers, though I think it deserves a spot on everyone’s bookshelf, regardless of age. It’s an engaging and informative read showcasing the fact that we’re hardwired to make and create, and that the drive to do it is as old as humanity itself.

Our ancestors were weaving 12,000 years ago and using pigment to make paintings 17,000 years ago. Creativity is everywhere, Lois says, from graffiti to logos to flash mobs to splashy stage productions. In her book, young readers are encouraged to look at the world with an imaginative eye as they explore the origins and impact of ideas and inventions, arts and technology.  I loved the A-to-Z list of creative activities sprinkled throughout the text. It was also great fun to read some real-life examples of creativity too, like Ben Wilson who is known as the Pavement Picasso in London, England where he converts discarded gum into sidewalk masterpieces. . .  and a young girl name Mayhem who reproduces Oscar Award winners’ gowns out of common things like construction paper, gift wrap, tissue paper and foil.  

Lois came up with the book idea after going into schools and libraries to speak to children about writing and the creative process. During those sessions, someone would almost always say ‘I’m not creative.’ So, Lois decided to try a little exercise. She asked all of them to stand up. Then she began listing creative activities, asking them to sit down if they’d ever done them. She started with the obvious ones: who likes to draw, to dance, to sing? Who likes to build things or cook or garden? To paint? To collect and display treasures? To tell jokes and make people laugh? Inevitably, as she went down the list, one or two people would always be left standing. To those last holdouts, Lois would ask: did you choose your own clothes and dress yourself this morning? Because that is another creative act. And if anyone was still standing after that, she would ask them ‘have you ever told a lie?’ By then, the kids were all sitting down and most were probably laughing too.

But Lois had made her point that creativity is everywhere and everyone is creative.

Creatively Human: Why We Imagine, Make and Innovate by Lois Peterson is published by Orca Book Publishers and is available through your local independent bookstore.

My March Reads

This Thursday is the first day of spring. The ancients called it Ostara and believed it was a time to celebrate new beginnings, balance, and renewal. We usually think of it as the Spring Equinox, a time when the sun and earth are in balance, and the days and nights are equal.

Whatever you call it, and whether or not you mark it at all, spring is almost always welcome, at least here in the Western Hemisphere. Signs of growth are everywhere! In my garden, the heather and crocuses are in bloom, the daffodils are just about to pop, and the blossoms on the cherry and plum trees are too.

I love this time of year, though I’ll admit that as the garden comes alive, it’s sometimes challenging to balance cerebral pursuits with outdoor activities. For now, though, there’s still plenty of time for both. And that makes me happy because I have a lot of reading and writing to do. Here’s what I’m reading this month.

The Stone Witch of Florence by Anna Rasche

The Spirited Kitchen by Carmen Spagnola

Elegant Simplicity: The Art of Living Well by Satish Kumar

Books Read to Date in 2025: 21

My February Reads

 It’s Freedom to Read Week, a time that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom. Now, more than ever, we need to hold onto the right to read whatever we please. We need to make sure all voices are represented and all readers can find themselves reflected in the books they select.  Pick up a book this month. Any book you like. It’s your right to choose. Here’s what I’m reading this month:

The Leap Year Gene by Shelley Wood

After Life by Gayle Foreman

The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern by Lynda Cohen Loigman

Books Read to Date in 2025: 16

The Shadow Ban Against Libraries and Books

                                    

I know the news is dark, and I have no desire to add to that darkness, so I’ve waffled for a few weeks about writing this blog post. In the end, I couldn’t not write it. I will, I promise, write something a bit lighter in the future. But not today.

Book censorship and book banning is a very real threat right now, not just in the US but also here in Canada. It’s growing at an alarming rate, it’s impacting schools and libraries in particular, and it’s directly affecting writers and readers I know. Free speech is an integral cornerstone of democracy. Free speech and democracy are increasingly under attack and I believe we ignore that fact at our peril. That’s why I decided to write this post.

A library in Valleyview, Alberta is poised to close and reopen elsewhere with a diminished budget and far fewer books, primarily because a small group of LGBTQ+ youth meet there.  The issue is complex and nuanced, and deserves more space than I can give it here. So, if you have the time and inclination (and can manage more disturbing news) I urge you to read this CBC interactive report that will explain things further: https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/a-shadow-war-on-libraries

The Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) has been following and reporting on this story, and they issued a call out for letters of support for library staff and the kids who gather there. https://www.antihate.ca/sending_love_canadians_standing_up_for_the_valleyview_library

If issues like this concern you, CAHN is an organization worth noting. They are a nonprofit dedicated to exposing and countering hate promoting movements, groups, and individuals in Canada and elsewhere. Their board includes well-recognized experts on hate crimes, lawyers with decades of experience, people who stood up to the neo-Nazi Heritage Front in the 1990s, and leaders in communities that are being targeted by hate.  https://www.antihate.ca/

Books have been challenged, censored and banned for many years. That will probably never go away. But right now, the hate that’s accompanying censorship is frighteningly high. That hate needs to stop. And that should be something we can all agree to ban.

Book Love

 People are often surprised when they learn that I don’t belong to a book club. I adore everything about books – reading them, writing them, and (in spite of my well-used eReader) the very physicality of them, as witnessed by the overflowing bookshelves in my house.

So why not a book club? Many people swear by them. Several of my friends, in fact, belong to book clubs and love them (I’m waving at you, Leah and Alice).

For me, though, book clubs conflict with how books are meant to be experienced. They take me back to high school with its enforced reading and dissection of characters, plot and theme. I’m also not a fan of being assigned mandatory reads. I have enough trouble getting through my own ‘to be read’ pile! And I certainly don’t want to struggle through a book I don’t like so I can share criticisms with others. The most I want to say about a book I don’t care for is ‘it’s not for me.’ Because that book might be just right for someone else.

That’s not to say I don’t talk about books with others. I talk about them all the time. I have friends who love to read and we often recommend titles to each other or discuss what we’re reading. If we read the same book, it’s fun to compare notes afterwards. I’ll admit, book discussions with writer friends sometimes do veer into specifics about what we liked or didn’t like about a given novel. But we generally approach the subject from deep craft point of view and always with the understanding and underlying respect for the many inherent challenges (as well as courage!) that it takes to write any novel and see it through to publication.

At the end of the day, writers write so people will be moved and entertained by their stories. That’s all that truly matters. That and reading the book. So, regardless of whether you’re in a book club or not, read a book. If you liked it, tell a friend. And then read another book. And another . . .

My January Reads

                                                    

The garden might be in hibernation mode, but the neighborhood birds are active. They love that we didn’t get to the deadheading last fall. After dining on the seed heads, they play tag with each other before resting on the branches we didn’t prune. One of my favorites is a tiny green Anna’s hummingbird that loves to drink nectar from the Sarcococca Confusa (Sweet Box) outside our kitchen window before perching on the weeping Maple. It’s almost enough to keep me from my reading. Almost, but not quite.

I didn’t read quite as many books as normal in 2024. I noted down 52 titles, one for each week, though I know I read slightly more than that. I lost track when we were travelling. I hope to surpass that number this year. Here’s what I’m reading this month.

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

One Way Back by Christine Blasey Ford

Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto by Kolei Saito

Books read to date in 2025: 4

My Reading Wish List, Take Two

                                   

As much as I love to lose myself in a good novel, I also enjoy a great non-fiction read. Dipping into a memoir or a book about cooking or gardening takes me out of the realm of plotting, setting, and character development, and puts me into someone else’s life or gets me thinking about flowers or food!  Here are a few books I’d be happy to find under my tree this holiday season.

The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing. As Laing restores an 18th century garden at her home in the English countryside, she also explores issues of gratitude, stewardship and the contradictions of gardens themselves.  Another garden book on my short list is One Garden Against the World: In Search of Hope in a Changing Climate by Kate Bradbury who writes about how her climate-change anxiety pushed her to look for positive ways to do more for wildlife and biodiversity.

The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoe Schlanger. While acknowledging that the subject of plant intelligence divides scientists, Schlanger travels the globe interviewing biologists and researching how plants have adapted and developed the intelligence needed to survive and thrive. Can plants interact and help each other? Recognize caretakers? Feel pain? Do they retain memories? Schlanger addresses these questions and more in a book that became a New York Times bestseller and also hit Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024 list.

The Traitor’s Daughter: Captured by Nazis, Pursued by the KGB, My Mother’s Odyssey to Freedom from Her Secret Past by Roxana Spicer. The story of a daughter’s decades-long quest to understand her mother, who was born in Lenin’s Soviet Union, served as a combat solider in the Red Army, and endured three years of Nazi captivity—but never revealed her darkest secrets. Spicer, a Canadian journalist and documentarian, became obsessed with discovering the truth and traveled back to many of the places that played a role in her mother’s story. Exhaustively researched and powerfully told, Spicer’s book became an instant Canadian bestseller.

One Way Back, a Memoir by Christine Blasey Ford. Psychology Professor Blasey Ford stepped forward during the confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh to testify about being abused by Kavanaugh when she was a teenager. This memoir goes behind the headlines to focus on the impact on Dr. Ford and her family who became a lightning rod for extremists after her testimony. Ford believed that politicians would care about truth rather than being controlled by their quest for power, and she was entirely unprepared for the mistreatment she received from the Senate Judiciary Committee and the FBI.

Golden Years – How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age by James Chappel. Historian Chappel details out how old age first emerged as a distinct stage of life and how it evolved over the last century, shaped by politicians’ choices, activists’ demands, medical advancements, and the depiction of aging people in novels, films, television programs and even greeting cards. The move from seeing seniors as fragile and needy to individuals with the power and political clout to age well raises issues that we continue to grapple with today. Insightful and easy-to-read, Chappel’s book urges readers to consider how current policies and cultural attitudes might evolve to better support an aging population.

Zaytinya: Delicious Mediterranean Dishes from Greece, Turkey and Lebanon by Jose Andres. I’m a lover of Mediterranean food and a big fan of Spanish-American chef Jose Andres, so this book is on my definite short list. Based on recipes from his restaurant of the same name, Andres presents creative adaptations of the classic dishes of Greece, Turkey, and Lebanon. Drool-worthy reading at its finest.

My Reading Wish List

                                           

Usually at this time of year I recommend book picks for the readers on your holiday gift giving list. This year, instead of trying to guess the tastes of your lucky recipients, I thought I’d tell you what I’d love to find wrapped and under my tree. Below are some fiction picks I’d be thrilled to receive.

A Way to Be Happy by Caroline Adderson.  A Globe 100 Best Book of 2024 and longlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize, Adderson’s short story collection features disparate but vividly drawn characters who, in the face of inevitable challenges, must come to some sort of acceptance as they consider what it means to be happy. Short story collections are easy to dip into when time or attention spans are short, but the short story, as a literary form, is complex and surprisingly hard to write, and this latest offering from BC author Adderson is billed as touching, funny and thought-provoking.

The Leap Year Gene of Kit McKinley by Shelley Wood, another BC author. This novel, which is getting lots of buzz, traces the life of Kit McKinley who is born on leap year during WW1 and grows one year older every four years. Unnaturally slow to age, Kit and her family must keep moving to protect her secret from insatiable newshounds, Nazi scientists, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies. Billed as a race through the past century’s burgeoning understanding of genetics, eugenics, and what constitutes ‘normal,’ the novel also explores the tensions, love and sense of duty that can bind families together or split them apart.

The Women by Kristin Hannah. While this novel deals with war, a subject I go out of my way to avoid, I loved Hannah’s novel The Nightingale (set during World War 11) so much, that I’m willing to try another war novel of hers. This time, Hannah takes us back to the mid-sixties, shortly after JFK was shot in Texas, when men are being sent to Vietnam. The story focuses on nurse Frances “Frankie” McGrath, who longs for a place on her father’s “Hero’s Wall” and volunteers for service in Vietnam.  Hannah says she was inspired to write the novel because of the number of female veterans who told her that their service and sacrifice had been ignored because ‘there were no women in ‘Nam.’  Her research proved the latter was absolutely not true.

Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson. I love a good mystery (it takes me back to those days reading Nancy Drew) and the latest Kate Atkinson (book six in the Jackson Brodie series) has all the elements: a diverse group of people come together for a lavish murder mystery weekend at Rook Hall, one of England’s finest stately homes. Throw in a snowstorm, a corpse and an art theft to solve, and you have the makings of another great Atkinson tale.

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult is a dual timeline novel. In one timeline, set in 1581, Picoult tells the story of Emilia Bassano who is the true author of Willliam’s Shakespeare’s plays, while the modern day second timeline features playwright Melina Green, who is an ancestor of Emilia and is having trouble getting her plays produced . . . until she submits one under a different name. Meticulously researched with detailed endnotes to support her theme, Picoult apparently provides compelling evidence and thought-provoking ideas on Shakespeare’s true authorship, while also exploring how two women who lived five centuries apart are forced to write under male pseudonyms in order to be taken seriously and make their voices heard. It may not be a light read but it sounds like a worthwhile one.

The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern by Lynda Cohen Loigman.  About to turn eighty, newly retired (and not by choice!) pharmacist Augusta Stern is adrift. When she relocates to an active senior community in Florida, she unexpectedly bumps into Irving Rivkin, the delivery boy from her father’s pharmacy, and the man who broke her heart sixty years earlier.  Also a dual timeline novel, this story switches between 1920s Brooklyn – the Prohibition era, the gangs, the importance of pharmacists and the role of a traditional pharmacy, and the challenges young Augusta faces in choosing her career – and 1987 Florida where Augusta faces a challenge of a different kind: avoiding Irving Rivkin at all costs. This ode to second chances has been touted by multiple readers as being sweet, funny and uplifting . . . and I think we can all use a bit of uplift these days.

I’ll be back next week with some non-fiction picks I’d love to receive this holiday season. Stop by and tell me what’s on your reading wish list.

My September Reads

Though the kids are back to school, the leaves are ever so slowly starting to fade and there’s a crispness to the morning air, I am still in summer mode. I’m loving our garden dahlias, sunny afternoons spent writing on the patio, and sneaking away for the occasional picnic dinner on the beach. These warm days won’t last; I know that. Maybe that’s what makes them feel so special.  And is always the case for me, a good book makes any day better. Here’s what I’m reading this month.

Love, Japan by Sawako Okochi and Aaron Israel

The Butterfly Box by Santa Montefiore

Rice, Noodle, Fish by Matt Goulding

Books read to date in 2024: 39

My August Reads

We’re past the midpoint of summer. While the days remain warm, nighttime temperatures are dropping, a reminder that we’re heading inexorably towards fall. In the garden, the raspberries are finished, the fig tree and cucumber vines are producing like mad and the tomatoes are ripening. As I write this, a batch of tomato confit bakes in the oven. If I’m not tending the harvest or noodling around with my latest manuscript, I’m in holiday mode entertaining family and friends. It’s a busy time and I don’t expect the pace to slow anytime soon. So, while these blog updates may be sporadic over the next month or even two, you can be sure I’m occupied and having a good time. And you can be guaranteed there’s a good book waiting for me at the end of a busy day. Here’s what I’m reading this month.

Becoming Duchess Goldblatt, A Memoir by Anonymous

A Real Somebody by Deryn Collier

Japan by Johnathan De Hart

Books read to date in 2024: 36