The Education of Augie Merasty: A Residential School Memoir - Joseph Auguste Merasty with David Carpenter (University of Regina Press, 2015) With the advent of the Truth and Reconciliation Project in Canada, there has been an increase in stories being told about residential schools. Some of these are oral, some have been written down. There… Continue reading Book Review: The Education of Augie Merasty by Joseph Auguste Merasty with David Carpenter
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking - Susan Cain (Crown Publishers, 2012) I'm a definite introvert and I'm willing to bet that if you're the sort of person who spends a lot of time not only reading books but following blogs on the internet that talk about reading books,… Continue reading Book Review: Quiet by Susan Cain
When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi (Gale Cengage Learning, 2016) How to classify this book? It's a contemplation of life and death. It's a love letter to a wife and daughter. It's a poem of praise to the beauty of the world and a rage against the fragility of the human body. Paul Kalanithi… Continue reading Book Review: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Educated - Tara Westover (Harper Collins, 2019) It feels strange to write a book review of such a personal memoir. Tara Westover's memoir of growing up with survivalist parents and a paranoid father who kept them out of school and away from doctors is compelling and very readable. It also feels incomplete. Westover grew up… Continue reading Book Review: Educated by Tara Westover
My brother, who knows the author, gave me a copy of Your Heart is the Size of Your Fist, for my birthday. My big brother and I have similar taste a lot of the time, especially in books and music, and he's one of the smartest people I know so I'm always happy to receive a… Continue reading Book Review: Your Heart is the Size of Your Fist by Martina Scholtens
Generally speaking, I don't enjoy books centred around bookstores. I find they tend to romanticize an experience I've known very well in the real, practical world. So I didn't begin 84, Charing Cross Road with high hopes, despite the fact that it was recommended to me by a bookseller. In the end, it surprised me. This… Continue reading Book Review: 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
One of the signs of a compelling book for me is when I want to tell other people all about it. Or when I lay awake after reading it, thinking over various parts. All We Leave Behind did both. Carol Off is a well-respected CBC journalist with a long career. (For those non-Canadians, that's the… Continue reading Book Review: All We Leave Behind by Carol Off
This collection of short essays (plus an interview and a short story) follows Higashida's previous book translated into English, The Reason I Jump. I haven't read Higashida before and while The Reason I Jump may provide some helpful context and personal history, I don't think it's necessary to have read it first. It also… Continue reading Book Review: Fall Down 7 Times, Get Up 8 by Naoki Higashida
I've previously read Chesterton's The Man Who was Thursday (review here), Orthodoxy, and some of his Father Brown mysteries and generally enjoyed Chesterton's writing. So I thought it might be interesting to read his autobiography, first published in 1936. Autobiography is, perhaps, a misleading title. What this book really is is a series of essays,… Continue reading Book Review: Autobiography by G.K. Chesterton
After a somewhat awkward incident of an acquaintance thinking I'd borrowed his copy of The Tennis Partner almost ten years ago and never returned it, I decided to take it as a sign and actually read the book. (I got it from the library, however.) Having read Cutting for Stone last year, I already knew… Continue reading Book Review: The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese
Karissa Reads Books 