Suggested book for August 2012

Cat's Eye
by Margaret Atwood

When a gallery in Toronto wants to do a retrospective of her work, Elaine Risley returns to the city of her youth and finds herself reliving important moments from her childhood and adolescence. She revisits her trio of childhood friends and their casual cruelties. She rediscovers her teenage years and the forces that help shape her into an artist. And she reexamines her first marriage and its implications on her present. Will what she learns free her from the ghosts of her past? Or will a part of her still remain prisoner?

I avoided reading Margaret Atwood for years because of all of the hype around her as "the best Canadian writer of our times." What if I didn't like her? Or worse, what if I really liked her and suddenly became compelled to spend my scant money on her complete works or start parroting lines from her books to my peers? Well, I'm afraid the worst happened. This book spoke to me. It moved me.  The politics of childhood stay with us all of our lives. Cat's Eye is a wonderful read because it's so vivid, and it reminds me that reminiscing on the simplicity of our childhoods can be misleading--everyday wasn't just running around on the playground and seeing your favourite teacher at school. Children can be cruel, even the kind ones. But you can't have the sour without the sweet in life, and I'd definitely categorize time spent reading this book as "sweet" time. You'll be happy to know, however, that I've kept my favourite lines to myself.

View my suggested books by Margaret Atwood

Blood Red Ochre by Kevin Major

This is a guest post
by Carol Tulpar

Blood Red Ochre is a gripping story that moves forward with a sense of urgency and mystery. When Nancy appears in David’s small town high school class, he feels attracted to her. They have been asked to write an essay about the vanished Beothuk, a group of aboriginal people who once occupied the island of Newfoundland, including the fictitious town of Marten, near St. John’s, where their school is located.

Sandwriter by Monica Hughes

What is there left to want when you're raised with every luxury? For Antia, princess and heir to the throne of two continents, it's freedom; although, she doesn't know it, yet. Sent to the remote desert continent of Roshan obstensibly to be wooed by the prince, Antia has secretly agreed to spy for her tutor, Eskoril, whom she loves. Expecting a backwards land full of flea-bitten camel riders, Antia is surprised to find a land of freedom and pride, where every gift of nature is appreciated by the people. Torn between her love for Eskoril and her growing esteem for the desert land, will she betray the secret of Roshad and its generous people?

Zinovy's Journey by Ginny Jaques

Imagine a world where religion has been eliminated and the disparate cultures of the world have been assimilated into a single, secular state. Now insert a Russian soldier-hitman who's fled to the International Space Station after refusing to assassinate the mother of his yet-unborn child. Then destroy Earth. You now have the setting for Zinovy's Journey, by Ginny Jaques. It's the spiritual and physical journey of a man who has learned to trust only himself, and to love no one. But will Zinovy be able to find a place for himself in this new world?

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

This is a guest post
by Jessica Kirby

Snowman—lover to Oryx, friend to Crake, monster-god to a manufactured tribe—sleeps covered in a mangled bedsheet at the top of a tree. In his waking hours he reveals his unremarkable self by fantasizing about long-lost women, devising ways to trick fish from the natives, and pissing on the crickets. His narration of Margaret Atwood's 2003 tale, Oryx and Crake, is a twisted version of his otherwise mundane reality in a futuristic world of people with citrus-flavoured pheromones living in aristocratic, bubbled communities.

Word Nerd by Susin Nielsen

This is a guest post
by Cheryl Hannah

Twelve-year-old Ambrose is a misfit. He has a life-threatening peanut allergy, a knack for Scrabble, and an overprotective mum. She “was this close to being a normal mom,” but then his dad died. While Ambrose understands why she worries he might lift up the toilet seat, “fall in, and drown,” and understands why she makes him watch the Stranger Danger video “twenty thousand times,” and understands why she pulled him from public school to enrol him in correspondence school, he’s desperate to find a friend.

Ambrose and his mom live in Kitsilano, in the basement apartment of a nice old Greek couple, the Economopouloses. It’s right on the bus route to UBC, where Ambrose’s mum works as a sessional lecturer. Then, one day, the Economopouloses’ son Cosmo shows up on the doorstep, fresh out of jail …