CanadianContent discussion

Greetings readers!

How is everyone? it seems that some provinces are starting to open up, I read that the county library is starting to have curbside pick up although i am not sure if the city library which is closest will follow suit. is this happening in your communities? are you ready to borrow books? or will you stick with e-copies? or continue to read from your shelves?

what have you been reading? what is next?

enjoy the long weekend!! enjoy some nice weather and books!!

Hi to all.

Still no word on the library here though the provincial gov't has them on the 'will open in phase two' list. I check the library website everyday, hoping for good news. I am more than ready to borrow books! (The 'ask an expert' doctors on CBC suggested we let the books sit for 24 hours after bringing them home and wash our hands after reading.)

Not a great reading week here. I abandoned Finding Dora Maar: An Artist, an Address Book, a Life due to the histrionic behaviour of its real-life characters and barely trudged through The Last Life.

Now I'm re-reading Come to the Edge which has already made me laugh twice so maybe I'm on the right track.

A Calgary bookstore called Pages really saved my bacon last week when I realized on Saturday that the next day was Mother's Day and I'd done nothing at all about a gift. I called the store and spoke to a lovely young man who created a nice parcel of books, all wrapped up in brown paper and string, and drove them over to my mom's, and (my mom said) made a big deal out of it being a Mother's Day present from her loving daughter. As she was on her last library book, she was thrilled. But not as thrilled as me. Whew! That was close...

Happy Friday.

Here in New Orleans, it is the last day of the stay home mandate. Tomorrow, we move into phase one reopening. My anxiety level is pretty high about this, since we were a hot spot, so I won't be doing anything differently for a few weeks until I can see whether cases start climbing again. The libraries here are allowed to reopen tomorrow at 25% occupancy, but they have announced that all staff will be reporting to work on Monday and then they will decide on how to reopen safely for staff and clients. I will stick to ebooks for now. :-)

This week I finished A Thousand Splendid Suns. I know this is probably a better book than I give it credit for. It was a poor choice in a stressful time. The female characters are treated horribly in this novel and it dragged my mood down and took me a long time to finish this book.

Then I turned to Where the Crawdads Sing, which I am almost finished. This has been a much easier read, but I have mixed feelings about it. I love the descriptions of the marsh setting and Kya's relationship to nature, but the trial scenes in this book bored me to tears and the dialogue seems poorly written a lot of the time.

Not sure what's next but I'd like to read something for bingo.

Happy May Long weekend! I've taken a few extra days off work so hoping to read more than I have of late. Only reading one book at a time these days, seems I can't stay on track if attempting more. I am half way through The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel. As I had mentioned in another thread, I watched a free Toronto Public Library live interview with the author mid week and enjoyed this way of learning more about her and the book.

Our library is not open yet, hearing rumors that its going to be in a few weeks. I'm going to stick to reading my huge TBR pile that I own. I was spoiled earlier this month as we are in midst of home rennovations and I had a custom built in book shelf made. 5 double shelves floor to ceiling and boom, just like that it was full. Alas, I should be "cut off". Hoping for sunny days for everyone, stay well!

@Storyheart, What a great Mother's Day gift and I love supporting Indie book stores.

@Susan, I feel for you and our neighbours in the US, your facing a rather different situation than our here. Thinking of you as the transitions happen. I recall racing through A Thousand Splendid Suns. The content is difficult, the author brings awareness to many unfortunate realities. Something more uplifting is in order for you I am guessing.

Happy May long weekend! I hope there is sunshine in each of our weekends.

Storyheart, that's a lovely surprise for your mom. What a feel good memory.
I've been ordering books from an Indie bookstore in my area throughout the pandemic, once a month or so. It's been fun browsing their website and finding some treasures.

Susan, stay safe. Our restrictions will start to ease next week. It'll be interesting to see how the stores will be opening. I'll probably be doing a number of walk-bys to see what the new set-ups will look like.

The library in the next town over is offering library pick-ups where we fill in an on-line form requesting books and they will call to arrange a pick-up time. The books will be due in 90 days but that will be extended if libraries are not yet open at that time. My card works for this site, so I may take advantage at some point (although I've got a ton of books at home to read).
The library in town is not offering this service and is still closed to the public.

This week I finished the second of a trilogy, Mira's Way. I still like the story set in the 1500s, although Mira is changing in petulant ways, which is disappointing. Perhaps she's still young and will mature. The story set in 2015 is still shakier. The story takes weird turns and continues in ways that seem unlikely to happen. But, overall, the story is an interesting one of finding an unknown artist and their works 500 years after their lifetime.

My on-going books are:
David Copperfield, which is quite humorous
A Place in the World, the third of Mira's trilogy

On audio, I'm listening to The Eyre Affair during my jogs.

I finished The Dovekeepers this week. Yet another book by Alice Hoffman that I absolutely loved. So far four of the five books of hers I’ve read have been five star reads. I’m now reading The Beloveds, which is a bit of a thriller told from the villains POV. I’m quite enjoying it so far. I’m almost rooting for the main character even though she’s demented and evil!

@Story - i like borrowing ebooks better but think hand washing after library books is ALWAYS a good idea. Sadly, not everyone treats library books with respect. :( What a great gift for your mom and a terrific way to support a local bookstore.

@Susan - i enjoyed both of those books but do agree that we might need some lighter fare during this pandemic. i have had trouble focusing on any books lately.

@Wanda - enjoy your extra long weekend. that bookshelf sounds awesome!

@Petra - i have not heard what kind of plans there are for curbside pick up in our county library. 90 days seems like a long time!

@Allison hikes - I too enjoyed the Dovekeepers. it does have some heavy content but is so well written. I had won the Beloveds in a giveaway and it was an ok read for me.

i have not finished anything this week but hoping to finish up A Fatal Grace on the weekend. After being disappointed with Still Life, i do agree with Petra's comments that her books do get better after the first.

The kids gave me the new Stephen King book, If It Bleeds so i am hoping to get to that also.

I have never liked touching library books even before covid hit us. I never enter the library except for book club meetings. That said, I make extensive use of several libraries without having ever set foot inside, for ebooks and audiobooks so my library routine has not changed with covid. Except my book club meetings are now on Zoom.

I haven’t been sharing my weekly reads lately because these days I read mostly translated fiction, and very little, if any, Canadian books. I will probably get back to Canadian books when the Giller long list comes out.

I’m with you on touching library books @Louise! I very rarely borrow physical books and when I do, I get an eww feeing from touching them. I don’t mind buying used books as long as they sit in my house for a while before I read them!

Happy long weekend all! A few days ago I finished The Orphan Thief, I gave 3 stars. This story seemed a little too predictable but was a pleasant audio. Just started listening to A Good Neighborhood, and really enjoying it so far.

I just finished Latitudes of Melt and unsure how I’ll rate it. The story is still percolating. I’m wavering btwn a 3 and 4. What next...I’ll have to look at my pile...I’m thinking The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore by Kim Fu.

Happy Saturday on a long weekend!

I have not been able to read anything serious. I finished Miracle Creek which I did not enjoy. It was too slow moving and I hated all the characters, especially the main character who was on trial. I also finished listening to Home. I love Julie Andrews, but listening to some of her childhood stories shattered my perfect image of her.
Currently reading Circe for my book club, which has very positive reviews and I loved her previous book. This is a perfect book for the weekend.
Enjoy the long weekend. I will be outside most of today for sure!!

I finished two wonderful books this week, both by underrated Canadian author Guy Vanderhaeghe of Saskatoon. The Englishman's Boy was just great, and now I'm off to watch the CBC miniseries which I somehow missed when it was shown in 2007. And then I moved on to the next book in the trilogy (three completely standalone stories, but all set in the same time and place), The Last Crossing. I think The Last Crossing would make an even better movie or TV series. There is a third which I will eagerly tackle next: A Good Man. Brilliant writing, memorable characters, gripping plots.

@Elinor - i like the idea of three standalone stories in the same time and place. are their characters linkages? i look forward to hearing your thoughts.

@May - i have had Circe on my shelves for quite a while...

@Louise and Allison - i do borrow a few books but generally just put my holds in so that i can get new books first. finding gross boogies and food smudges really turns me off. i love my latest kobo which lets me download direct.

@Susan The three books by Guy Vanderhaeghe are completely standalone and don’t have the same characters. They all explore the same rich period of history, the late 1800s, in the area of Montana, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. The first one, The Englishman's Boy,won the Governor-General’s medal. When you read it, you keep saying to yourself: “Wow, can this guy ever write!”