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
I can faintly recall, as a child, watching the national news, noticing a lot of talk about fishing out east. The lack of fish, the death of an industry and a lifestyle. It was my own country but very far away and very removed from my own city childhood on the opposite coast. In 1992,… Continue reading Book Review: Our Homesick Songs
What I Read: Refuge - Merilyn Simonds (ECW Press, 2018) Our Homesick Songs - Emma Hooper (Hamish Hamilton, 2018) Currently Reading: A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth An Orchestra of Minorities - Chigozie Obioma Celebration of Discipline - Richard Foster The Excuses: I'm just over 1000 pages into A Suitable Boy. I'm definitely enjoying it but it's big. It's absorbed a… Continue reading What I Read – October 2018
I received this book from ECW Press. All opinions are my own. Refuge is a novel about, well, refuge. How do we seek refuge? How do we give it? Who do we offer refuge to? At the centre of the novel is Cass. In the present tense of the story, Cass is 96-years-old, living alone on… Continue reading Book Review: Refuge by Merilyn Simonds
Today is Peter's birthday! He recently found himself without a book to read and so asked me to make five suggestions for him. His criteria was simply that they be books we already own. In honour of Peter's birthday, and because it's something different, I thought I'd share the list (plus the longlist because I'm… Continue reading Book Recommendations for the Sometimes Reader
Coming in a little late but here's my September Reading Round-Up: Dubliners - James Joyce (Penguin Books, 1979) I've read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and made two separate attempts at Ulysses. Dubliners was so much easier. It was a very smart, very moving, often unexpected collection of short stories. Herzog - Saul Bellow (Penguin Books,… Continue reading What I Read – September 2018
Karissa Reads Books 