After my lacklustre showing for October, I kicked my reading up a notch for November READ: A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth (Little, Brown & Company, 1993) (Read my full review here.) Fat, ligament, muscle, blood, hair, affection, pity, despair, anxiety, illness: all were no more. She had dispersed. She was the garden at Prem… Continue reading What I Read – November 2018
Peter and the girls and I had a pretty awesome weekend in the big city recently. Our excuse for a small splurge and some time away on a dreary November weekend was my birthday, but I kind of think we should always plan a weekend of fun away from home at this time of year… Continue reading A Weekend in Vancouver
This Side of Brightness - Colum McCann (Phoenix Books, 1998) This book has two stories and they work backward and forward to intersect. There is the story of Nathan Walker, a young black man, a sandhog digging the tunnel under the river in New York City early in the twentieth century. And there is the… Continue reading Book Review: This Side of Brightness by Colum McCann
Exit West - Mohsin Hamid (Riverhead Books, 2017) This book was what I expected and not at all what I expected at the same time. It is the story of two refugees, Nadia and Saeed, who fall in love and then flee from an unnamed city under siege. It is the story of migration and… Continue reading Book Review: Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
My copy of this book had 1,474 pages. It is divided into 19 sections. The actions of the story takes place over approximately a year, beginning and ending with a wedding. It takes place in three or four cities (and more regions) and has multiple family trees at the beginning to help the reader keep… Continue reading Book Review: A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
He stopped me as I made my way through the crowded church foyer, baby on my hip. "Thank you for sharing that," he told me. An older man, with grandchildren just a little younger than me, we'd spoken a few times but never beyond basic pleasantries. It was the morning of Rose's dedication, April 2018.… Continue reading Answered Prayers and the Beginning of a Story
This book will be released by Little, Brown and Company in January 2019. I received an Advanced Reading Copy. All opinions are my own. When Chinonso stops on a bridge one day to prevent a woman from jumping, his life is changed forever. On impulse, he throws two chickens over the edge to show her… Continue reading Book Review: An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma
I've meant to share some of my favourite ethical brands for a while and with the Christmas shopping season about to begin, it seems like the right time. For about a year-and-a-half now I've been on a quest to source our clothes as ethically as possible. Buying clothes for the girls I felt convicted of… Continue reading Ethical Shopping
This book was so frustrating. The writing is beautiful; evocative descriptions of place full of smell and texture, the people seem visible and nuanced in their appearance on the page, and there is so much history simmering beneath the page. But the actions of the characters are so frustrating I found myself racing through the… Continue reading Book Review: The Forgetting Tree by Tatjana Soli
Pearl is currently in a bit of a car phase so when I spotted this Little Golden Book at a library book sale, I picked it up. The book is originally from 1951 but this copy was republished in 1976. It remains delightfully dated but the pictures are by Richard Scarry. No word on who… Continue reading Reading with Pearl & Rose: Cars and Trucks
Karissa Reads Books 