Girl in pigtails times four (now six!)

This particular pig-tailed girl with the windblown hair is so firmly associated in my mind with The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald that I was very surprised to find her also on the cover of A Sweet Obscurity by Patrick Gale and then again on the cover for the Italian translation of Floating in My Mother’s Palm by Ursula Hegi. The fourth cover, for A Far Country by Daniel Mason, features a different little girl, but the image is nevertheless very similar.

Edited to add:

Here are two more: My Soul to Keep by Melanie Wells and T’es pas ma mère (which literally means You’re Not My Mother) by Prune Berge (originally posted in this “similar covers” post).

Wondrous Words Wednesday (April 29)

Kathy at Bermudaonion’s Weblog hosts this weekly meme in which she asks us to share new words we’ve come across in our reading. All my words are from Places I Never Meant to Be: Original Stories by Censored Writers edited by Judy Blume.

My first word is from the story “The Beast Is in the Labyrinth” by Walter Dean Myers:

Jitney– “They squeeze into the jitney and I decide to walk” (p. 112).

A jitney is a “bus or other vehicle carrying passengers for a low far, originally five cents.”*

My second word is from the story “Baseball Camp” by David Klass:

Chaw – “The large chaw of chewing tobacco in his mouth caused him to spit regularly, and he timed those occasions to nearly punctuate his story” (p. 128).

A chaw can refer to “chewing tobacco, or a wad of this.” (This one was pretty obvious from the context!)

My last two words are from the story “Love and Centipedes” by Paul Zindel (which I can’t say I enjoyed):

Monstrance – “Emotion burst from her chest, a hallucinatory rush that she was a living monstrance or an elaborate dollhouse” (p. 145).

A monstrance is “a receptacle, usually of gold or silver, with an open or transparent compartment in which the consecrated Host is exposed for veneration.”

Sauerbraten – “‘Remember, you had sauerbraten and I had the Black Forest blood sausages?’” (p. 148).

Sauerbraten is “a roast of beef marinated in vinegar with peppercorns, onions, and other seasonings before cooking.”

What new words have you discovered lately? Share your Wondrous Words on Kathy’s blog.

*All definitions are from the Canadian Oxford Dictionary (2004).

Teaser Tuesdays (April 28)

Should Be Reading hosts the Teaser Tuesdays weekly event.

My modified rules are as follows:

Grab your current read. Pick two or three “teaser” sentences more or less at random from the book, anywhere on the page. You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your teaser from… that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given! (Please avoid spoilers!) (Read the official Teaser Tuesday rules.)

My teaser:

“That was the question she had desperately not wanted to be asked. Not only in order to shield Sal from the terrifying admission that, actually, she had no idea, but also because she had been nursing a slim hope that her daughter might have some clue to the answer” (p. 105).

This is from Crossed Wires by Rosy Thornton.

Mailbox Monday (April 27)

I got two books in the mail this week: Crossed Wires by Rosy Thornton, which was sent to me by the author, and Katherine’s Wish by Linda Lappin, which came from the publisher, Wordcraft of Oregon. I will eventually be giving away a copy of the latter as well as Lappin’s first book, The Etruscan, to two lucky readers, so check back for details soon!

What did you find in your mailbox this past week? For other Mailbox Monday posts, head over to Marcia’s blog, The Printed Page.

Pathologies: A Life in Essays by Susan Olding (a review)

I first discovered—and fell in love with—personal essays when I read Remembering the Bone House by Nancy Mairs years ago in university. I was awed by her courageous truth telling about her life, partly because I grew up in a household where such truth telling wasn’t exactly encouraged: we could talk about ideas in the abstract much more easily than feelings in the here and now. As a result, Mairs became something of an inspiration to me. Although I’ve since devoured all of her books (except her latest), until recently I hadn’t found any other women essayists who write so honestly and unapologetically about their lives*—that is, until I read Pathologies: A Life in Essays by Susan Olding.

“Pathology,” the first essay in this book, chronicles Olding’s difficult relationship with her pathologist father, an alcoholic given to mercurial moods. This essay is so raw and clear-eyed, and yet completely unself-pitying that it literally took my breath away.

Another of my favourites is “On Separation,” a tribute to Olding’s sister-in-law, Jennifer. Olding alternates between meditating on separation using the metaphor of separating eggs to make almond cake and recording Jennifer’s losing battle with breast cancer. Although this may sound like an odd juxtaposition, this essay is one of the most moving pieces in the book.

Olding also writes a series of essays about her infertility, her decision to adopt her Chinese daughter Maia and her struggles as the parent of an adopted child. Of these, my favourite is “Mama’s Voices,” a wrenching piece about parental absence, writing about one’s child and Lana Turner. It’s hard to explain the structure of this essay, which alternates between sections called “Play,” “Fast Forward,” “Stop,” “Rewind” and “Record”—and I’m finding it equally hard to put into words the admiration I feel for Olding for writing (and publishing) this piece. In it, she contemplates reading a piece about her daughter at a writer’s conference:

That piece is too long, too personal, too difficult to excerpt, too domestic, too dependent on all its parts for a true effect, I tell myself. What I mean is, that piece is too revealing, too raw. Or maybe it’s just too real. (p. 201)

When she does workshop the piece, her classmates and instructors urge her to shelve her project and not write further about her daughter. All I can say is, thank you, Susan, for not listening to them.

One of my (minor) criticisms of this book is that I felt Olding overused the device of interweaving two or more elements in her essays. (Sometimes these elements are different narrative threads; at other times, she uses definitions or fictional passages.) It works brilliantly in many essays including the three I’ve already mentioned, but feels choppy and distancing in “How to Be a Volunteer,” for example (although maybe I liked this essay least of all because parts of it are written in the second person). I also don’t like the inclusion of fictional passages in a non-fiction book. Although Olding says in her notes at the end of the book that she trusts these passages will be identifiable from their context, I wasn’t sure they were fictional until I read her note.

I am in awe of writers like Mairs and Olding who transform the dross of everyday life into the gold of art—an alchemy I still aspire to. I highly recommend this book and hope Olding is working on her next one!

To read other reviews of this book, visit these blogs:
Rob McClennan’s Blog • The Owl’s Nest Blog

You can also read a review of this book at Quill & Quire.

Interviews with the author: Rob McClennan’s Blog • Writing. Life. (part I) • Writing. Life. (part 2)

Thank you to Freehand Books for sending me this book to review.


This is the first book I review for the Essay Reading Challenge.



*I’m sure there are others out there—I just haven’t come across them yet.

Friday Finds (April 24)

What great books have you added to your wish list this week? Share your Friday Finds at Should Be Reading.


Marie at Daisy’s Book Journal concludes her review of Going Gray by Anne Kreamer with these words: “Highly recommended for those who dye and those who don’t; for those who’ve embraced their gray hair and those who fear it; for those who are not afraid to show their authentic self and those who are still undercover.” Since I started going gray at 24 (and my mother at 16!), I’m definitely interested in reading this book.

Like Kristen, who guest reviewed Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman on The Book Lady’s Blog, I’m probably outside the target demographic for this book as I’m also childless, but I’m still intrigued. Head over to Rebecca’s blog to read Kristen’s review and see what you think.

Last but not least, Ti at Book Chatter reviewed The Prudent Mariner by Leslie Walker Williams and compares the main character, Riddley, to Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. She concludes her review by saying: “I often ask myself what makes a book a classic and I would have to say it’s a mix of strong characters, a well-told story and one that can survive the trends. To me, this book falls into this category . . .” Sounds good to me!

Poems for National Poetry Month

Although I love (some) poetry, I don’t read it very often. However, since April is National Poetry Month (which in Canada is sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets), I thought I would share one of my favourite poems with you, as well as mention a few other poems I’ve been introduced to by other bloggers this month. I was first introduced to Glen Sorestad’s poem “We Need These Silences” by a friend who is now also a blogger (Gigi at Solitary Spinster). Coincidentally, she sent me this poem on a “poem card” (a postcard with the poem printed on the front), which had been printed by the League of Canadian Poets to celebrate National Poetry Month in 2001.

Here is the poem:

We Need These Silences

the spaces that lie
between moments of sharing,
those times when it is
enough to feel the presence
of the other, the knowing
that this silence, too,
is a gift;

the silence of the mountains
or the dark forest,
or the plains at night,
reaching out to touch
some part of us
that craves time alone;

the moments before sleep,
or after waking, when the world
rises or falls into order,
finds shape and meaning
of its own.

We need these silences
as we need the words
we must first learn to say
and then forget
as we come to know
silence.

© Glen Sorestad. Reprinted with permission of the author.
From Leaving Holds Me Here: Selected Poems. Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, 2001.

Several other bloggers have reprinted poems on their blogs this month, introducing (or reintroducing) me to some great poems. Here are a few of my favourites (click on the poem title to read the poem):

• “Waiting for My Life” from Carnival Evening by Linda Pastan (at bookgirl’s nightstand)
• “When I Am Among the Trees” from Thirst by Mary Oliver (at Bookstack)
• “Uh” from Killarnoe by Sonnet L’Abbé (at The Indextrious Reader)
• “Numbers” by Mary Cornish, which appeared in Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry (at Ticket to Anywhere)
• “One Art” from The Complete Poems: 1927 to 1979 by Elizabeth Bishop (at Tea Leaves)

Do you read poetry? What are some of your favourite poems?

Remember Those Pointed-in Red Shoes?

It turns out there’s another matching cover! This time it’s Confessions of a First Daughter by Cassidy Calloway. This book hasn’t been published yet (it’s due out in September), so here’s hoping they’ll change the cover!

My other posts that mention similar covers to these two are Lookalikes of Lookalikes and Lookalikes of Lookalikes 2.

With thanks to Lauren at Lauren’s Crammed Bookshelf, who mentioned this book in her Waiting on Wednesday post yesterday.

Love and coffee times 5... no, times 6!

With the exception of Cooking for Harry by Kay-Marie James and Dale Loves Sophie to Death by Robb Forman Dew, which have almost identical covers, these books don’t look that similar, but they all use the same concept on their covers: a coffee cup with a heart drawn in the foam. My favourite is Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe by Jennie Shortridge–I like the inclusion of the table and the blurry background beneath the title and author’s name. My least favourite is definitely The Essential Charlotte by Libby Schmais–the dotted heart looks fake and is not nearly as charming as the other creamy swirly hearts. However, Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty by Jody Gehrman is clearly the winner as far as being the most obvious tie-in to the title. Has anyone else spotted similar covers?

Edited to add:
Thank you to Alea at Pop Culture Junkie for pointing out the similar cover to The Espressologist by Kristina Springer. Although there’s no heart in the cup, it’s there on the saucer! As Alea points out in her comment, this is not the final cover for this book (which will be published in September, according to Amazon).

Wondrous Words Wednesday (April 22)

Kathy at Bermudaonion’s Weblog hosts this weekly meme in which she asks us to share new words we’ve come across in our reading. The first three words I found are from Coventry by Helen Humphreys:

Provost – “She recognized the provost, an important dignitary in the city” (p. 58).

A provost can be “a member of the military police; a high-ranking ecclesiastical dignitary; or the head of some colleges, especially at Oxford or Cambridge.”* I suspect the second definition is the correct one here.

Guzzle – “There is a word I remember from my childhood–guzzle–a low, perhaps damp spot on an estuary or inland from a beach, as far inland sometimes as to be a field, where the sea can enter if it chooses” (p. 73).

It’s a good thing this word is defined in the book because I couldn’t find this definition anywhere else. However, the American Meteorological Society defines guzzle as Shetland Islands term meaning “an angry blast of wind, dry and parching” in their Glossary of Meteorology.

Finial – “The finial on the stair rail comes off in her hand when she grabs it to steady herself” (p. 123).

A finial is “an ornament finishing off the apex of a roof, pediment, gable, etc. or an ornamental knob on the top of a piece of furniture, stair post, etc.” The latter is obviously the correct definition here.

My last word is from The Next Big Thing by Johanna Edwards:

Lavalier – “‘The wire, which should be concealed beneath your shirt, connects the transmitter to your lavalier mic, or lapel microphone if you prefer’” (p. 132).

A lavaliere (alternate spellings: lavalier or lavalliere) is “a small microphone worn hanging around the neck.” It can also refer to “a pendant necklace or a loosely tied cravat.”

What new words have you discovered lately? Share your Wondrous Words on Kathy’s blog.

*Unless otherwise noted, all definitions are from the Canadian Oxford Dictionary (2004).

Teaser Tuesdays (April 21)

Should Be Reading hosts the Teaser Tuesdays weekly event.

My modified rules are as follows:

Grab your current read. Pick two or three “teaser” sentences more or less at random from the book, anywhere on the page. You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your teaser from… that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given! (Please avoid spoilers!) (Read the official Teaser Tuesday rules.)

I’m still reading the same book as last week, so here’s another teaser from it. This one made me chuckle out loud.

My teaser:

“Cats, I’m amused to discover, weren’t tamed until many millennia later (if, those of us who live with them might add, at all), and by their very existence they give the lie to any notion of reciprocal usefulness. Unless you’ve developed a yen for fresh mole, a cat’s hunting prowess will serve you poorly; and far from warding off real and present danger, he will likely freeze and stare only at things you can neither see nor conjure and, judging from his appalled gaze, wouldn’t want to if you could” (p. 120).

This is from A Troubled Guest: Life and Death Stories by Nancy Mairs.

Mailbox Monday (April 20)

I haven’t been getting much in the mail these days, although this past week brought two books: The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler, which I won from Valorie at Morbid Romantic (courtesy of Hachette) and Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe by Jennie Shortridge, which came directly from the author, thanks to Dawn at She Is Too Fond of Books.

This past Sunday was also my monthly blogger meet-up with Cindy, Donna and Tina; although I had to leave early because a friend was visiting from out of town, I scored several books from Donna:

The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber
Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Thanks to Donna, I now own the third and fourth Maisie Dobbs books; I must get my hands on the first two!

What did you find in your mailbox this past week? For other Mailbox Monday posts, head over to Marcia’s blog, The Printed Page.

Friday Finds (April 17)

What great books have you added to your wish list this week? Share your Friday Finds at Should Be Reading.


I’m pressed for time this week, so my writeups about the books I’ve found are much briefer than usual!

Danielle at A Work in Progress reviewed The Reunion by Simone van der Vlugt.

Steph at Reviewer X reviewed This Is What I Want to Tell You by Heather Duffy Stone. (I love this book’s cover!)

Katherine at A Girl Walks into a Bookstore... reviewed The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton.

Jessica Marie at Books Love Jessica Marie reviewed Kissing Kate by Lauren Myracle (another great cover!).

S. Krishna at S. Krishna’s Books reviewed First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria by Eve Brown-Waite.

Finally, Missy at Missy’s Book Nook mentioned Blue Hole Back Home by Joy Jordan-Lake in her Cover Attraction post this week.

There are just way too many books out there that I want to read!

More awards!

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been honoured with two more awards:

Honey at Coffeespoons gave me the Splash! award...











The Rules:

1) Put the logo on your blog/post.
2) Nominate up to 9 blogs that allure, amuse, bewitch, impress or inspire you.
3) Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
4) Let them know that they have been splashed by commenting on their blog.
5) Remember to link to the person from whom your received your Splash award.

The Awardees:

I’m impressed by bloggers who speak their minds on their blogs, not just in their book reviews, but also in opinion pieces, whether they are expressing their thoughts on a personal matter, offering their opinion on a controversial subject or just bringing a topic to the attention of the book blogging community and asking what everyone else thinks. So I’ve decided to pass on this award to some of those bloggers and to link to a post in particular that impressed or interested me. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read these posts!

1) Florinda at The 3 R’s: Reading, ’Riting and Randomness (Substitute Teaching—be sure to follow the link to her post at ...and the pursuit of happiness)
2) Alyce at At Home with Books (To Meme or Not to Meme?)
3) Bethany at B&b ex libris (Cool and Not Cool!? Talk to Me!)
4) Becky at Becky’s Book Reviews (Why Keep Blogging?)
5) Kathy at Bermudaonion’s Weblog (We Remember)
6) Spacemaurader at Bits of Things (You Never Blog Anymore)
7) Natalie at Book, Line and Sinker (Are Readers Born or Bred?)
8) Trish at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’? (In Which I Rant about Fair Use)
9) Amy at My Friend Amy (Why I Blog)

... and Aerin at In Search of Giants gave me the Let’s Be Friends award...











Blogs that received the Let’s Be Friends Award are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers.

The Awardees:

I thought I’d pass it on this award to several (relatively) new-to-me bloggers whose blogs I am enjoying discovering:

1) Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea
2) Jessica Marie at Books Love Jessica Marie
3) Honey at Coffeespoons
4) Jenners at Find Your Next Book Here
5) Aerin at In Search of Giants (right back at ya!)
5) Missy at Missy’s Book Nook
6) Jena at Muse Books Reviews
7) Teabird at Tea Leaves
8) NotNessie at Today’s Adventure

Thanks again, Honey and Aerin, for these awards!

Blog Reader Appreciation Day 2009

After finally catching up on replying to the comments left on my blog in the last couple of weeks, I read on Becky’s blog, Becky’s Book Reviews, that today is Blog Reader Appreciation Day! This day was started a year ago by Robin at the OTHER mother and is an opportunity for bloggers to thank and celebrate their readers.

Like Becky, I had just been thinking that it’s really not that hard (or that time-consuming) to reply to comments and I want to do it in a more timely manner (say, closer to within two days rather than two weeks). I would hate for any of you to think that I don’t appreciate (or worse, don’t read) your comments. I do, I do! And I also appreciate all of you who read my blog but don’t comment (although I encourage you to do so!).

Thank you so much for reading my blog!

A couple more similar covers...

Many of you may be familiar with the cover to Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst, as this mass-market edition was given away on many blogs last year (I won a copy from Bethany). However, it turns out the image used on the cover also appears on The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker (which was published in 2003!). I like the way they inserted (or removed) the suitcase on one of the covers!

Another similar image is found on the covers of Good Harbor by Anita Diamant and the Italian translation of The Saving Graces by Patricia Gaffney. (Amiche per la vita literally means “friends for life.”) I wonder if translations are more likely to use copycat covers? This isn’t the first time I’ve come across a translation that uses the same cover as another book.