An important teen novel

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
This novel appears on many of the year-end lists of favourite and impotant books. I decided that I better read it, and am I ever glad I did. The title is in homage to 1984, and it is a worthy successor. Like Orwell's classic, this is not the perfectly written novel--sections are clunky and didactic--but it is a novel of ideas, not a writerly lyrical novel. Marcus is a tech-savy seventeen year old who is in the wrong place at the wrong time: he's not in school when a bridge in San Francisco is blown up and so he and three friends are picked up as suspected terrorists. He is finally released, and rather than follow the instructions of Homeland Security gone wild, he starts a movement to expose and counteract their methods of control. There is a ton of technical information, explained in terms I could (mostly) understand, about encrytion and computer security. Warning to school lan specialists and librarians everywhere--in the afterword, there are directions to download software to bust through any firewalls--but this is done in order to protect free speech and free access to the internet. Doctorow states that security systems are only good if people test them by hacking. Don't worry about that--put this book on your library shelves immediately. The younger generation needs a wake-up call to the lack of privacy they are already accepting, and a warning about how this could all go terribly wrong. There is also lot of information in this novel about the hippies. the beats and the freedom riders of the 60s in San Francisco, and Marcus, the main character, feels he is following in their footsteps, as well as defending the U.S. constitution. Over all, an important books that is easily read by teens, and yet contains many of the same concerns as 1984. This might even make them pick up a copy--or start reading Ginsberg, Kerouac, etc. who are quoted here.

Favourite Books of 2008

Love Walked In Maria de los Santos
Cornelia is the over-educated manager of a coffee bar in Philadelphia whose singular voice narrates alternate chapters of this funny and touching novel; the other chapters are in third person, and focus on Clare, an eleven-year-old girl, who is trying to hold her life together as her single mother spirals into mental illness. Of course they eventually meet and this delightful novel takes some interesting turns. The characters are multi-dimensional and just the kind you’d expect to run into in a trendy café. Although the title makes it sound like a gushy romantic novel, this is so much more than that.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Shaffer
This was a ‘Heather’s Pick’ at Chapters/Indigo this fall and her description of it made me want to read it. When a friend said she had a copy I jumped at the chance to borrow it and I wasn’t disappointed. This novel in letters (a format I usually don’t love) works perfectly here. The letters start after the war when a man on Guernsey buys a second hand book that once belonged to Juliet, a writer in London, and he starts a correspondence with her. Soon she is exchanging letters with a number of people on the island about their experiences of German occupation. In places laugh-out-loud funny, and at times haunting, the author manages to combine a war story and love story and demonstrates the how reading can change our lives and our perceptions of who we are.

The Uncommon Reader Alan Bennett
In case you didn’t hear me recommending this book to everyone last Christmas, here I go again. Another book about the power of reading. In this one, the Queen goes around the corner of the palace to see what the corgis are barking about, only to find a bookmobile parked there. As she apologizes to the driver, she feels it would only be appropriate to take out a book…and thus the Queen begins the process of becoming a reader, much to the dismay of her family, her staff and politicians. Instead of talking about the weather, she takes to asking eminent politicians and commoners alike what they are reading…a difficult question for many. A delightful, short read that anyone would enjoy.

The Madonnas of Leningrad Debra Dean
A beautiful intertwining of two stories—Marina’s descent into Alzheimer’s as she struggles with the details of her present life and family, and her memories of her days in the Hermitage Museum during the siege of Leningrad. Although that all sounds depressing, the two stories are so lovingly, touchingly told that I didn’t want the novel to end. And when it did, I knew I had to make a trip to the Hermitage Museum at some time. For a first novel, this is spectacular. My favourite of the year.

Mr Pip Lloyd Jones
On an island in the Pacific, political trouble causes the evacuation of the white people, including the teacher in the small village. The only white man left, called Mr. Pip, sweeps out the schoolroom, and starts teaching with only one copy of Great Expectations. As the children love the story as Mr. Pip reads it aloud to them, others in the village start to tell their own stories. Again the power of reading to transform lives is a theme…coincidence I think not!!!

City of Falling Angels John Berendt
This non-fiction title has been out for a while, but I only read it this year with my school book club—and I thoroughly enjoyed his quirky tales of Venice. (Apparently there actually was a sign outside a damaged church saying to beware of falling angels!!) He starts at the fire that destroyed La Fenice, the opera house and he documents the labyrinthine process of rebuilding it, while living there for a year and learning the stories of the unique inhabitants of the Queen of the Adriatic. He explores the arts, politics and everyday life in the same personal style as his other non-fiction hit Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. After reading this I want to go back to Venice. My Canadian desire for order and good government (sort of joke these days!) would make it difficult for me to live in Venice, but it sure is beautiful and exciting to visit.

Musing about Books

My New Year's resolution for 2009 is to try and review (briefly) all the books I read. As a retired English Teacher and Librarian and the member of a book club, I read a lot!!

During the years that I was a Librarian in a secondary school, I used to put out a list of books to the staff at Christmas time as suggestions for presents and for personal reading, and in June for staff summer reading. Now that I'm retired, I have found that people miss the lists and thought this would be a good way to share the titles that I have loved (or not!)

I have never had a blog before, so I am also interested in the challenge of learning something new. If I can figure out how, I will attach the list of my favourite books of 2008, which some friends asked me for. If you don't find it here, check back later when I figure out how to do it properly!