One good thing – the only good thing – about the horrible, stinking heat of summer is it gives me an excuse to sit and read instead of bustling around trying to keep things tidy. I just finished this:
This Cake Is for the Party by Sarah Selecky. The back blurb says only, “These ten smart, tautly written stories mark the debut of an exciting new voice in Canadian short fiction.” And it’s true. I’m always amazed by how skilled short story writers can fully render a character in so few pages and Selecky is a perfect example of someone with this ability. I found the stories ranged on a scale between poignant and downright sad, but I wouldn’t say they were depressing. Rather, they were sad in the way life is so often sad: people are lonely or unhappy or tormented or bitter or ill and there is no convenient resolution by the last page.
Selecky’s writing is so sharp and intelligent and evocative, it’s inspiring (as a reader) and intimidating (as a writer). My only complaint is the absence of quotation marks in scenes with dialogue. I know it’s probably a more modern, sleek way of writing, but my slow elephant brain had a hard time with it and I often had to backtrack to figure out what was dialogue and what wasn’t. It’s a minor point, though, and doesn’t detract from the overall quality of the stories.
Before Cake, I read this:
The Bad Book Affair by Ian Sansom. From the back cover: “…the magnificently hapless Israel Armstrong – a duffle-coat wearing, navel-gazing Jewish librarian who solves crimes, mysteries and domestic problems whilst driving a mobile library around the north coast of Ireland – finds himself on the verge of his thirtieth birthday and on the trail of a troubled missing teenager, the daughter of a local politician.”
I really, really liked this book. A lot. It’s smart and funny and completely entertaining – the type of novel I wish I could write. But haven’t. And probably never will. Sigh. Anyway, because I’m not terribly observant by times, I didn’t realize The Bad Book Affair is the fourth in the Mobile Library series when I borrowed it from the library and now I’m eagerly anticipating reading the first three books in the series. I’ll let you know how those go. Until then, don’t hesitate to buy/borrow The Bad Book Affair because it stands perfectly well on its own without having read the previous instalments.
And what are you reading these days?