Sticky notes on six books

Posted on March 22, 2014 by doradueck

Since my blog posts so far this year have been about reading, I decided to list some books I’ve enjoyed the past half year or so, just in case some of you like that kind of thing (as I do). These aren’t reviews, as much as sticky notes, or cheers. If you’re interested, you can always google for more information. So, six today, six to follow.

We’re Flying (2012), short stories by Peter Stamm. I learned of Stamm, a Swiss writer, through one of Eleanor Wachtel’s “Writers and Co.” interviews. This is a large, wonderful collection, translated by Michael Hofmann. One reviewer has called Stamm’s stories “small canvases of precision as he maps the imprecision of human emotion.” I was beguiled by his style. This is the book on today’s list I want to re-read. Continue reading →

On Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda

Posted on March 15, 2014 by doradueck

Well, what does one say about Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda?

I read the book recently, after it won this year’s Canada Reads competition in which five books and their defenders faced off to eliminate and leave standing “one novel that could change Canada.” Reviews of The Orenda have been laudatory; apparently there was a “gasp” when it didn’t make the Giller Prize shortlist. It has received sharp criticism as well, especially from aborginal reviewers like Hayden King. Continue reading →

How books get into my life

Posted on February 1, 2014 by doradueck

At lunch with three friends, the conversation turned to books. Sally proposed that what we read often comes to us serendipitously. Later, the four of us exchanged a string of emails. Sarah sent us an essay by Moyra Davey called “The Problem of Reading” which opens with the author’s confession that “what to read” is a “recurring dilemma” in her life. She pictures a woman moving about the house among shelves of books, many unread, picking up one for a few pages, then another.

“It is not just a question of which book will absorb her,” she writes, “but rather, which book, in a nearly cosmic sense, will choose her….” Continue reading →