sophia_sol | Entries tagged with book theme: canada

Back in the days after I'd started keeping a list of all the books I read each year but BEFORE I started posting reviews of them, I kept desultory personal notes (ranging from a single word to quite a few paragraphs) on some of the books. And I always vaguely forget I have, and forget where exactly to find them, and I'd like to just have them on my dw so they're FINDABLE again for me. And also some of you might find these interesting/amusing? (N.B. some of these contain what I would now classify as INCORRECT OPINIONS.)

SO HERE'S THREE YEARS' WORTH OF BOOKS IN ONE POST, OKAY GO.

( expand this cut to see nested cuts listing all the books )

These two books really read like one narrative that happens to be split into two parts. It's the story of one year in the life of a group of seven kids who spend all their time together that year. Five of them are siblings/cousins, one is a hired boy, and one is the neighbour girl.

There's no real overarching plot, just a series of incidents in their lives. The books do a good job of showing characters, and of writing believably about childhood. But the whole thing is suffused with a very strong theme of feeling nostalgia for a good time of life that is gone forever. And I found this theme pretty wearing!

I mean, based on what wikipedia says about the stage in LMM's life when she wrote these books, I understand why she'd write that theme, but it's not one that's calculated to appeal to me. Childhood was not a perfect golden time, and also I'm the sort of person who's much more inclined to live in the present rather than pine for a time gone by, whatever that time may be.

So overall these books just don't really work for me, even though I do care about the characters and their lives. Ah well!

I have been hopelessly obsessed with these books since I read them, and if there was any fandom for them to speak of I WOULD BE IN THAT FANDOM but since there are no epic-length fics for me to be reading, I'm left with just...rereading the books themselves. Even though I don't usually do rereads that soon after a first read. But this time I'm doing it by audiobook so it's at least a different experience!

It's been a while since I've listened to an audiobook, so I'd forgotten how much more intense and immersive an experience audiobooks are? There's no skimming or skipping ahead possible, and you can't read faster as it gets more exciting. You're stuck at speaking pace for every single sentence in the book so there's plenty of time for things to really sink in.

I mean, I knew this already, this is why I generally don't read novels by audiobook as my first exposure to the book, it's too stressful for my delicate sensibilities. I definitely would not have been able to handle The Scorpion Rules by audiobook if I didn't already know everything that would happen. But I was still surprised by how different an experience it was to listen to it as audiobook.

For one thing the horrifying nature of everything that happens was way more directly horrifying, oh my god. Like I did notice this stuff but it didn't strike me as much on first read through when I was all focused on questions of what happens next.

( Read more... )

OH GOSH!!! It's hard to know what to say about this book. It was SO GOOD.

( in which I find a lot of things to say anyway )

Well, this was not what I expected, and also AMAZING. It's a YA future dystopia sort of novel, which seems like it's probably going to fall into the standard pattern of Special Girl meets Special Boy and learns she must REBEL AGAINST THE SYSTEM. And then it....doesn't do that. It does other things.

( Read more... )

Martha Smith Good was one of the first female ministers in the Mennonite church in Ontario, back when women in leadership in the church was a Really Big Deal. (This is tragically not that long ago. Also it's still a Really Big Deal in some parts of the mennonite church.) This is her memoir.

It's a self-published book, and has the various minor flaws that come with that fact. Could have used an editor to tighten some things up, that kind of thing. BUT. It is still really worth reading, because Martha Smith Good is clearly a really impressive person.

She was raised in a pretty conservative church, conservative enough that she did not get any education above grade 8 because that would be too worldly. But she still managed, in her adult life, to go on to college and eventually get her D.Min.

She was a pastor, and found churches who wanted her as their pastor no matter her gender. And when the denomination didn't want to ordain her despite it not being technically against the rules (and wanted to change the rules so it WOULD be against the rules!), she stood her ground for her right to be ordained and won. For a number of years she was the campus minister at Goshen College (a mennonite university in Indiana) and while there became the faculty sponsor for the first gay/lesbian student group because she felt called to work on behalf of the oppressed.

And she talks with openness about her various life struggles (including dealing with anxiety and stress, and getting married at 39 and acquiring 4 step-children at once, and of course all the sexist bullshit the church had to offer) and how she overcame them, and without any castigation towards people who made things harder for her.

And she never really makes a thing of what a big deal she was, the incredible things she was doing. She's just telling her story.

I'm glad she chose to publish this book, even though there (presumably) wasn't any publishing house interested in it. It's an important story and I'm glad to have read it.

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/256982.html

my goodness it's been like five million years since I've posted a book review. I've read books in the meantime! But somehow not posted about them. Let me start working through the backlog. I'll start with some very brief reviews of a few old favourites.

The Blue Castle, by L.M. Montgomery

As always a total delight to read. However, I had a new thought this time about an aspect that has always vaguely frustrated me but have never been able to articulate before. ( spoilers for the end )

First Test, by Tamora Pierce

Yeah okay I've got nothing to say about this one. I LOVE IT the end.

Page, by Tamora Pierce

I've come to realize that structurally this book actually isn't super well put together. It's pretty episodic, covering a lot of time without a lot of important events going on. HOWEVER, the important overarching emotional through-line is ( spoilers I guess )

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/243753.html

What a great book!

I had trouble getting into it at first, because it is a dystopian urban fantasy - a genre that doesn't appeal to me - that opens with ( spoilers I guess! )

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/239323.html

The title is somewhat misleading - only about half the book takes place on the farm, and she's only there for a few months. But that's okay because the title successfully convinced me to read the book, and the book is great. It's the letters home of a young woman traveling through North America for six months in 1882 with her sister.

So it begins by detailing their travels from England to North America, and then the visits to various eastern US cities, and train ride out west, until eventually they reach Manitoba. They spend several spring/summer months on their brother's farm 17 miles out from Winnipeg, and spend most of this time working very hard on the farm. Then they move on further west to hang out in the Rockies and admire scenery and learn about mining. And then they go home.

The thing that struck me most is how cheerful the author is. She's working hard, and doing some pretty uncomfortable things, and yet her outlook is always positive - she's having the time of her life on this trip and nothing will stop this being the case.

I'm very curious about more of the backstory of this woman and her sister and their trip. Why did they decide to make this trip? Why did their family feel okay letting these two young women do all this traveling on their own? And so forth. She's clearly from a high-class background, what with all the letters of introduction they have to important people, and the money to make this trip, and all that. And they've never done anything like having to cook for themselves before going on this trip, which seems to have been something of a steep learning curve in terms of doing things for themselves.

The writing is charming and full of lots of great details and a definite sense of humour. I thoroughly enjoyed it. (My one warning would be that there are a few bits of period-typical racism.)

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/238074.html

okay so I'm still pretty egregiously behind on comments (both making and replying to) but what the heck. BOOK POST TIME.

Trapped, by James Alan Gardner

The problem is that I read this book enough times as a young person that I take all the stuff that's really good about it more or less for granted and the stuff I don't like is suddenly glaring because I never noticed it when I was a teenager.

Such as: I do not appreciate the comment about how ladies of the night who actually look female when you take off their clothes are the better class of ladies of the night. Or ( spoiler ) Or just Phil in general? idk, I just find him way too much of a dude and his pov annoys me.

So idk. Mostly it is a very good book and there is a great deal I like about it!

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/231224.html

Despite having really loved Jean Little's books for as far back as I can remember, I somehow managed to miss reading this one? I think I was put off by the religious title (a reference to the hymn "His Banner Over Me Is Love"). But now I've actually read it! And it's really good and really interesting.

It's a fictionalized, mostly-true story about Jean Little's mother's life. ( Read more... )

And... idk, I feel like I had other thoughts? But then I proceeded to read From Anna afterwards and all thoughts about this book flew from my head, and then I followed that up with beginning a reread of the Queen's Thief series, which didn't help either. I need to get better at writing my book thoughts directly after finishing reading a book!

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/226480.html

SO I just sobbed my way through reading the entirety of From Anna. I...I don't know if I can write anything like a coherent review of this book.

I used to reread this book ALL THE FRICKIN' TIME as a kid but I haven't read it for years and years at this point. And wow I had forgotten how thoroughly I identified with Anna.

This book was exactly the book to speak to me as a child: a book about a girl who was awkward and shy and slow and weird, who everyone saw as standoffish and cold, who felt out of place everywhere. I didn't cry when I read it as a kid, and I didn't think about myself as identifying with Anna. But to read a book about a girl like that and to see her slowly find herself over the course of the book, to see people who genuinely care about her for who she is, to see her growing in confidence in her own abilities and in her worth, to see her find friends and happiness - yeah, I am completely unsurprised my younger self read it so often.

So of course rereading it now as an adult is cause for copious crying. I don't know quite how to quantify my emotions. I still overidentify with Anna, but at the same time I'm apart and looking at her from a distance and feeling hella protective of her (and by extension of my younger self). And I just - idk, FEELINGS. ALL THE FEELINGS. AGH. I'm still all weepy. ANNNAAAAAAAAA. ANNA 5EVER.

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/226145.html

For a while there I was doing pretty well at giving each book thought its own post, buuuut I have a backlog again so here have a bunch.

( Journey to the River Sea, by Eva Ibbotson )

( The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, by Tom Reiss )

( Handbook for Dragon Slayers, by Merrie Haskell )

( Growing Pains, by Emily Carr )

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/219365.html

I've always really loved this book, because JANE IS THE AMAZINGEST, so last night when I was feeling unreasonably anxious for no good reason I decided to reread it. Turns out this was a bad life choice ( Read more... )

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/216833.html

I have read this book SO MANY TIMES. But it will never get old. And I had food poisoning on the weekend and needed to read something nice and comforting. WHICH THIS IS.

The funny thing, though, is that I still keep finding things to comment on. Not, like, groundbreaking things or anything, but.

( Read more... )

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/216642.html

Gosh June was a good month for me, quality-of-book wise. The below four are all really great, as were most of the others I read earlier this month! A big contrast with May, which was nearly all books I was pretty meh about.

( The Emperor's Soul, by Brandon Sanderson )

( The Martian, by Andy Weir )

( Warbreaker, by Brandon Sanderson )

( The Book of Small, by Emily Carr )

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/214838.html

YOU GUYS I WENT TO THE LIBRARY AND GOT OUT BOOKS. This...should not be as unusual as it is. For the past I don't even want to know how long, I've been almost exclusively reading either a) books off my bookshelf, b) books off my sister's bookshelf, c) books my sister got out of the library for herself, or d) books I borrowed from other people. NO MORE. I HAVE THE POWER TO SEEK OUT NEW BOOKS ON MY OWN. Once upon a time I was at the library every single week......... those days are long past but maybe a new era is dawning? Where I go to the library maybe once every couple months? That seems reasonable.

Here are some of the books I got out and proceeded to read!

( Darkbeast, by Morgan Keyes )

( Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, by Mary Roach )

( Klee Wyck, by Emily Carr )

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/207438.html

Book review time! Because I have developed a backlog again, whoops. SOMEDAY I WILL BE GOOD AT DOING THIS DIRECTLY AFTER FINISHING THE BOOK IN QUESTION. (hahaha lies)

( The Blue Castle, by L.M. Montgomery )

( Persuasion, by Jane Austen, annotated by Robert Morrison )

( The Surgeon's Mate, by Patrick O'Brian )

( Kim, by Rudyard Kipling )

( Ash, by Malinda Lo )

( Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us About Sex, Diet, and How We Live, by Marlene Zuk )

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/185866.html

I'm getting sick of still having a backlog of posts of books-I've-read, so I'm just going to throw ALL THE REST UP HERE to get me caught up; I don't have that many left, I think. And then from here on in I can just POST IMMEDIATELY when I read a book. Okay? OKAY. LET'S GO.

( The Story of Canada, by Janet Lunn and Christopher Moore, illustrated by Alan Daniel )

( Cetaganda, by Lois McMaster Bujold )

( Dorothea Dix: Girl Reformer, by Grace Hathaway Melin )

( Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean )

( Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World, by Kathleen Ragan )

( The Fortune of War, by Patrick O'Brian )