Winners of the best book of the year - Academy Award of the Muse & Views Bookclub

2018
Shirley's choice A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

2017
Beth's choice Do not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

2016
Carla's choice of A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

2015
Jane’s choice of All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

2014
Beth's choice of The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

2013
Betty's choice of Still Alice by Lisa Genova

2012
Betty's choice of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

2011
Shirley's choice  for Secret Daughter by Shilpi Soraya Gowda

2010
Shirley's choice for The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

2009
Colette's choice for The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrows

2008
Michèle's choice for A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

2007
Linda's choice for City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre

2005 
Jolene's choice for No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

THE Jolene Bale AWARD - Book that inspires encouragement, gratitude, joy, positive influence, acceptance, uplifting, faith, and/or compassion

2018
Shirley's choice - A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Meeting of May 30, ,2016

The book this month was No Relation by Terry Fallis, Linda's choice.  We met at Michèle's new home and she served a fig and walnut dip with vegetables, pear, chèvre and procuitto tarts and a pâté. In honour of Marie Antoinette in the novel, we had a fancy chocolate cake.  Betty, Carla, Colette, Jane, Jolene, Linda and Michèle were present.

The author Terry Fallis is a Canadian from Toronto who was educated as a mechanical engineer but never practiced.  He developed a career as a political strategist working with politicians both at the federal and provincial levels.  He maintained a blog mainly as a political pundit and at one point decided to try his hand writing a novel.  His first novel, The Best Laid Plans, he self-published and it was later picked up and published by McLelland & Stewart. It won the 2008 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour and won the Canada Reads competition in 2011. He has written to date, 5 novels and is presently working on a 6th novel.

Everyone enjoyed this book, the second novel we have read by Terry Fallis.  It is a funny, insightful novel that tells the story of a man who shares his name with the American author Ernest Hemingway, with a slight difference in spelling Earnest Hemmingway.  He forms a self-help group with other persons who have names of famous persons and together they help each other out with their frustrations that come from sharing a name with a well-known person.  A camaraderie and close friendship develops between the members of the group and their experiences make for funny and often poignant situations.  There is also a second story in this novel about Earnest's family business called Hemmingwear that adds to the complexity of the novel.  All agreed that the book was very enjoyable, easy to read and interesting giving us chuckles and out right belly laughs.

Jolene was intrigued by the cover design that has a bear and a person dressed in a bear costume facing each other.  After some discussion we came to the conclusion that it must represent Ernest Hemingway, the American author who was a bit of a bear in stature and look and who apparently had a real bear as a friend and the principle character of this novel Earnest Hemmingway.

Thank you Linda for a great read!

Meeting of April 25th 2016

Beth, Betty, Carla, Colette, Jane, Janet, Jolene, Linda, Michèle, Shirley were all present, all members of our Book Club were with us. Jane hosted and we had some wonderful cheese, a nice variety of crackers, wonderful compotes and jellies.

Our book this month was The Memory Chalet By Tony Judt, Michèle's choice.  Tony Judt was born London in 1948 of secular Jewish parents who were British Citizens.  He did a B.A. at  Cambridge, then a year at l’École Normale  Supérieure in Paris and then obtained a Ph.D. in History from Cambridge in 1972 specializing in French History.  He taught at several colleges and universities in England and the U.S. before settling in New York in 1987.  He is known for his academic books, essays and he was also a frequent New York Review of Books.

In early 2008 he was diagnosed with ALS and he died in late 2010,  two years after being diagnosed. The Memory Chalet was published after his death.  The book is a memoir,  some saw it as a diary, of his most vivid memories of childhood and life as a student and a young professor. Since ALS robbed him of the ability to write or even type, he would during the night write whole stories in his head and "park" them in one of the rooms of a Chalet he had been to with his parents as a child. In the morning he would retrieve them and dictate them to an assistant.  The idea came to him from Jonathan Spence's book The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci in which Spence describes a method used by European scholars for centuries. Matteo taught the Chinese the Western memory technique which was to associate ideas with images and locate those images in fixed spatial relation to one another.  Hence the Memory Chalet with different rooms that could be filled with memories. 

Most liked the book and found Judt's excellent writing allowed us to visualize the experiences he was describing such as his neighbourhood Putney; Paris as a student in the late 1960's when students were protesting everything and anything; his experience in a kibbutz and his reflections on the positive and negative impact on his life.   He was very honest about and insightful about his life and experiences. We were impressed by the detail of the information he was able to provide, all from memory.  We felt that the preface was just long enough to allow us to understand ALS and how it affected him and then he barely mentionned it through out the chapters describing different aspects of his life.  He finishes with a reference to trains, his favourite mode of transportation.

"We cannot choose where we start out in life, but we may finish where we will. I know where I shall be going nowhere in particular on that little train, forever and ever."

Several of us reflected on the idea that it was his way of seeing eternity. Trains were his favourite place to be.

Meeting of March 21, 2016

Our book this month was The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion, Jolene's choice. We met at Carla's home. She served a lovely array of hot and cold hors d'oeuvres, topped off the evening with Pavlova and fruit, in honour of Australia, Simsion's home. Shirley, Beth, Carla, Janet, Colette, and Jolene attended.

Simsion has had quite a varied career, ranging from information systems consultant to wine distributor. He holds a PhD in data modeling. He has won several literary awards and is currently finishing a new novel, The Best of Adam Sharp. He and his wife Anne are planning to walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, to research a joint book. 

The Rosie Effect picks up where The Rosie Project left off, telling the story of Don Tillman, his wife Rosie, and their friends and family. This time, Rosie is pregnant, and Don gets into all kinds of mishaps as he misreads social cues in his attempt to learn how to be a good father. Problems in his relationship with Rosie abound because he fails to communicate with her, all in a misguided effort to keep from stressing her during her pregnancy. 

Club opinions about the book were evenly divided. On the negative side, some were disappointed with it, especially after enjoying the first book so much. Comments were that this story was frustrating, even stressful, more contrived, less convincing, especially the communication breakdown between spouses. On the positive side, others felt that it was perhaps a mistake to over-analyze the story, that it was more appropriate to enjoy the comic elements and to appreciate Don as a charming, guileless romantic hero with a good heart. All of us were able to connect the characters and events to our own lives to a certain degree, though critics thought the Asperger's elements were overdone, especially in the first half of the novel.

In summary, our club comments seem to reflect quite well some of the professional reviews of the book, where opinions are also varied.

Meeting of February 22, 2016

We met at Janet's for a discussion of A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, Carla's choice. In honour of the Swedish setting of the book, Janet served smoked salmon, Rye-King crackers, and Swedish apple pie, along with a lovely selection of cheeses and hummus. In attendance were Shirley, Janet, Jane, Colette, Jolene, Beth, and Carla, along with Michèle for part of the evening via Skype. Oh, and canine Angel attended to see if she could snag some salmon. Blackie, the Cat Annoyance, put in only a brief appearance.

Carla gave us background on the writer, who has been at various times a truck driver, journalist, blogger, and Sweden's most successful author (according to a vote taken in 2013). Backman's sense of humour is evident in interviews. About his move to writing, Carla quoted him as saying, "I write things. Before I did that I had a real job, but then I happened to come across some information saying that there were people out there willing to pay people to write things about other people, and I thought, 'Surely this must be better than working.'...Not to mention the fact that I can sit down for a living now, which has been great for my major interest in cheese eating." See JPL's Book-in-a-Blog

In addition to A Man Called Ove, Backman has written My Grandmother Sent Me to Tell You She's Sorry and a non-fiction book called Things My Son Needs to Know about the World. In May 2016, Britt Marie Was Here is scheduled for publication, and a movie based on Ove is apparently to be released in December. 

Everyone in the group loved the book, though title character Ove would not care about our opinions since we are not Saab drivers. The novel's appeal lies in its relatability-- we all know people like Ove, who appear unsympathetic at first but can later turn out to be neighbourly "superheroes" when the layers are peeled back. Even when we fail to find redeeming qualities in our curmudgeonly acquaintances, the book reminds us that human beings are complicated, and grumpiness may have its roots in personal tragedy. 

Some in our club found the beginning of the novel a bit tedious and the epilogue unrealistic (wouldn't wife Sonja have found a use for personal wealth in her life time, perhaps helping needy school children?), but we all agreed that Backman has an uncanny knack for dealing with heavy topics, then at just the right moment, adding comic relief to make us laugh out loud. 

The character Ove was first created in a blog, as the author thought about interactions with his own father. Backman says Ove is consistent from beginning to end, a man of rigid principle, and it is the readers' opinions of him that tend to change. Backman explains that comedy arises from Ove's disproportionate reaction to everyday situations. (You might consult the Laurie Grassi interview found here: Fredrik Backman on his best.)

Despite the book's light-hearted tone, our group was prompted to discuss such heavy topics as physician-assisted suicide (an issue current in Canadian politics) and Alzheimer's disease. In the novel, Ove's one-time friend Rune is being forced from his home by White Coats, and Ove will have none of it. 

Thanks, Carla, for a wonderful read. A warm relief as we work our way through this February weather.

Meeting of January 25, 2016

Betty hosted our first book club evening of 2016 at Colette’s house. Janet, Shirley, Carla, Beth, Jolene, Colette, and Betty were in attendance, with Michèle joining us via Skype. Betty served wonderful cheeses and salty/sweet snacks, along with some yummy cinnamon buns and cookies for dessert. We also announced the winner of our favourite club read of 2015—Jane’s choice of All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

The book under discussion this month was 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Janet chose the book because it is considered a classic in Central and South America, written by an author who won the 1982 Nobel Prize for literature. This was Señor Marquez’s most famous novel. As a pioneer of magic realism, he wrote stories that incorporated natural and supernatural elements seamlessly, using a technique he learned as a child from his grandmother. Janet explained that 100 Years of Solitude tells the entire history of Colombia through the eyes of a dysfunctional family living in the dead-end town of Macondo. The novel’s themes of solitude, war, and violence are common to Latin American culture. The circular, rather than linear, view of time is also obvious, where history recurs over several generations, names are repeated (Aureliano some 21 times), and cultures rise and fall.

Few in the group enjoyed the book. Most found reading it hard work, with the characters unsympathetic and hard to relate to from our North American viewpoint. Some pointed out that they were able to read and analyze the novel at an earlier period in their life with much less difficulty. We did feel that the group discussion was worthwhile, however. All agreed that it is important for us to read literature that stretches us and makes us look at the world from a different cultural viewpoint from time to time; that being said, no one feels the need to re-read this novel any time soon.

To read about Magic Realism in Yann Martel's new book, click here. The High Mountains of Portugal

Meeting of November 23, 2015

Our host this month is Beth.  Present were Beth, Carla, Colette, Janet, Jolene, Linda, Michèle and Shirley. The book this month, was Shirley’s choice The Lotus Eaters by Tatjani Soli.

Beth, provided cheese, spicy sausage, a wonderful pho soup and  key lime tartlets.

Born in Salzburg, Austria, Tatjani Soli moved to California to study at Stanford and stayed first making her name as a short story writer. The Lotus Eaters was her first novel.

The story The Lotus Eaters  covers love and obsessions, adultery, war photography, the Vietnam war, American distrust of their government,  shock, descriptions of Vietnam, in every shade of green. It questions if war journalism changes public opinion. Does it mean we become numb to all the violence? Some of the characters in the story are based on real persons. Linh was based on a real Vietnamese spy. Darrow and Helen are based on a journalist and a woman photographer..

Most of us liked the book, all mentioned that they learned a lot about Vietnam, the war, photo journalism. 

We learned a bit about Vietnamese culture and traditions. One of the traditions that stood out was the beautiful courting traditions in Vietnamese villages such as singing to each other from one side of the river to the other.

Ms. Soli was able to bring out the brutality of war, how even those fighting and those present to relay the stories of the war did not think of the suffering of the civilian population and humanitarianism was rarely present in her descriptions.  An example is Helen’s reaction to the child that tries to follow her as she is running through the streets at the beginning of the novel. They did not think of the civilians in a humanitarian way.

Ms. Soli also had very detailed descriptions of living in Vietnam, the culture, the landscape, the moutains, villages, the light where the sun fell.  

Helen, Darrow and Linh were well developed as characters,  Helen who had come to Vietnam in the beginning to find out what had really happened to her brother, becomes obsessed by photojournalism.  She sees herself as someone who can let those at home know what is really happening through her photographs. She is terrorized by all she sees but learns to mask her terror. When she takes a soldier’s picture and he dies minutes later, she just keeps moving.   In an interview Ms. Soli says “the rage that filled her felt good, weighted her like a good meal or a strong drink, felt better than fear. The rage filled her so that nothing else could get in.” Helen was probably suffering from PTSD when she went back to the States. 

Some of us wondered about the title The Lotus-Eaters. It comes from The Odyssey – Book 9.  What happens to those who eat the lotus fruit are as much the journalists and the soldiers.

The ODYSSEY – Book 9

Reluctantly, Odysseus tells the Phaeacians the sorry tale of his wanderings. From Troy, the winds sweep him and his men to Ismarus, city of the Cicones. The men plunder the land and, carried away by greed, stay until the reinforced ranks of the Cicones turn on them and attack. Odysseus and his crew finally escape, having lost six men per ship. A storm sent by Zeus sweeps them along for nine days before bringing them to the land of the Lotus-eaters, where the natives give some of Odysseus’s men the intoxicating fruit of the lotus. As soon as they eat this fruit, they lose all thoughts of home and long for nothing more than to stay there eating more fruit. Only by dragging his men back to the ship and locking them up can Odysseus get them off the island.

Meeting of October 26, 2015

Our host this month was Colette. Present were Carla, Colette, Jane, Janet, Linda and Michèle. Our book this month was Jane's choice All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

The story takes place in France and Colette served some delectable french cheese and mini-omelets inspired by a passage in the book "Eggs crack. Butter pops in the hot pan................all of Marie-Laure's attention is absorbed by the smells blooming around her: egg, spinach, melting cheese."  Colette also served a peach cheese cake again inspired by what Madame Manec served Marie-Laure "....Marie-Laure can hear a can opening juice slopping into a bowl. Seconds later, she's eating wedges of wet sunlight." 

Anthony Doerr is an American author who has written many short stories and published two collections of short stories, a memoir of his time in Rome and two novels.  All the Light We Cannot See is his second novel.  It took him 10 years to write it.  He first started with the idea of telling a story about radio transmission and the wonder of being able to hear someone speak who could be very far away. In a visit to France he visited the walled town of St. Malo and decided to use it as the setting of his story.  He also became interested in all the treasures and art in Paris that were hidden away before the German invasion and incorporated these three subjects into the story. It won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

The story has two main characters, Marie-Laure who is a young blind french girl whose father is the locksmith at the Paris Museum of Natural History and who finds herself with her father escaping to the town of St. Malo.  The other character is a young German boy Werner who with his sister are orphans. Werner because of his talent for fixing radios finds himself in a military school for talented boys run by the Nazis. He also finds himself in St. Malo with Nazi officers.

Everyone enjoyed the book. All thought the characters were well developed and that there was no stereotypes, for example, not all Germans are villains. We learn to understand and like both Marie-Laure and Werner. Marie-Laure's relationship with her father is touching.

One of our members summarized the writing and what is encompassed in the story very well. "The writer brought together many currents underlying the war in an original way: industrialization and technology; human talent and creativity; art and historical treasures; love, compassion, bravery and sacrifice, etc. " Thank you Beth.  Also though we all enjoy a happy ending, everyone agreed that the tragic ending of this story was realistic and appropriate.  All in all, a very well written story.

We also discussed the meaning of the title All the Light We Cannot See.  There are references to light and the lack of light in many places in this book.  First of all, Marie-Laure's blindness and in one of the broadcasts about light that Werner and Jutta listen to, there is a revealing description. "What do we call visible light? We call it color. But the electromagnetic spectrum runs to zero in one direction and infinity in the other, so really, children, mathematically, all of light is invisible." 

Thank you all for an excellent discussion.