The Ape House, by Sara Gruen

I didn't expect to enjoy this novel -- perhaps because the cover wasn't particularly appealing, but I was pleasantly surprised. In the end, I actually cared about John and Amanda, as well as Isabel, and of course, the apes. There were a number of touching moments, and the pacing was good. Yes, the bad characters were very bad, and the good had overcome a host of obstacles. There was even a stripper with a heart of gold (sorta), and a cast of other character types, but it was enjoyable and engaging. It was a lovely read for a long road trip...

Publishers blurb:

Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena are no ordinary apes. These bonobos, like others of their species, are capable of reason and carrying on deep relationships - but unlike most bonobos, they also know American Sign Language.

Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn''t understand people, but animals she gets - especially the bonobos. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she''s ever felt among humans… until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what''s really going on inside.

When an explosion rocks the lab, severely injuring Isabel and "liberating" the apes, John''s human interest piece turns into the story of a lifetime, one he''ll risk his career and his marriage to follow. Then a reality TV show featuring the missing apes debuts under mysterious circumstances, and it immediately becomes the biggest - and unlikeliest - phenomenon in the history of modern media. Millions of fans are glued to their screens watching the apes order greasy take-out, have generous amounts of sex, and sign for Isabel to come get them. Now, to save her family of apes from this parody of human life, Isabel must connect with her own kind, including John, a green-haired vegan, and a retired porn star with her own agenda.

Little Bee by Chris Cleaves

This books was recommended to me by a colleague. She described it as one of the best books she ever read, and I tend to agree that it is highly moving, disturbing and like the novel Blindness, illustrates the strength of the human spirit -- at its worse and best... I wish I had never read the rape scene. I'm not sure if I can ever erase the horror this passage created.

I was wonderfully written. I particularly like the way Cleaves alternatives the narrator between chapters and the way he has the story unfold. Intriguing, horrifying, beautiful and moving are just a few words that come to mind when thinking about this book. My colleague did not lead my astray by recommending this book.

Summary: Sarah Summers is enjoying a holiday on a Nigerian beach when a young girl named Little Bee crashes irrevocably into her life. All it takes is a brief and horrifying moment of crisis -- a terrifying scene that no reader will forget. Afterwards, Sarah and Little Bee might expect never to see each other again. But Little Bee finds Sarah's husband's wallet in the sand, and smuggles herself on board a cargo vessel with his address in mind. She spends two years in detention in England before making her way to Sarah's house, with what will prove to be devastating timing. Chapter by chapter, alternating between Little Bee's voice and Sarah's, Chris Cleavewholly and caringly portrays two very different women trying to cope with events they'd never imagined. Little Bee is experiencing all the fullness and emptiness of the rich world for the first time, and her observations are hopeful, charming and piercing: "Most days I wish I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl," she says: "Everyone would be pleased to see me coming." Sarah is more cynical and disheartened, a successful magazine editor trying to find meaning in the face of turmoil at home and work. As the story develops, however, we learn about what matters most to her, including her fierce, protective love for her funny little son ("From the Spring of 2007 until the end of that long summer when Little Bee came to live with us," Sarah says, "my son removed his Batman costume only at bathtimes."). Sarah is trying to find herself as much as Little Bee is -- and, unexpectedly, each character discovers a ray of hope in the other. What follows when Little Bee comes back into Sarah's life is a powerful story of reconciliation and healing, but it is mixed in with a generous helping of satire about the daily difficulties of modern life. This is a novel about important issues, from refugee policy to the devastating effects of violence, but more than that, it does something only great fiction can:Little Beeteaches us what it is like to live through experiences most of us think of only as far off disasters in the news. As ever, the author says it best: "It's an uplifting, thrilling, universal human story, and I just worked to keep it simple. One brave African girl; one brave Western woman. What if one just turned up on the other's doorstep one misty morning and asked, Can you help? And what if that help wasn't just a one-way street?"

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

French author, Muriel Barbery, writes an engaging and inspiring novel that is both rich and succulent, full of nuances and humour. The use of language is divine -- I had to look up such words as incunabulum and kolkhoz. I loved the language, as well as the characters. It was lovely... I'm almost sad that it is finished.

From Booklist: In a bourgeois apartment building in Paris, we encounter Renée, an intelligent, philosophical, and cultured concierge who masks herself as the stereotypical uneducated “super” to avoid suspicion from the building’s pretentious inhabitants. Also living in the building is Paloma, the adolescent daughter of a parliamentarian, who has decided to commit suicide on her thirteenth birthday because she cannot bear to live among the rich. Although they are passing strangers, it is through Renée’s observations and Paloma’s journal entries that The Elegance of the Hedgehog reveals the absurd lives of the wealthy. That is until a Japanese businessman moves into the building and brings the two characters together. A critical success in France, the novel may strike a different chord with some readers in the U.S. The plot thins at moments and is supplanted with philosophical discourse on culture, the ruling class, and the injustices done to the poor, leaving the reader enlightened on Kant but disappointed with the story at hand.

The Lost Painting

What a slog this books was to read. I enjoy the works of Caravaggio and thought this would be something similar to Girl with a Pearl Earring. I was very wrong. First of all, it's non-fiction but it presents itself as fiction. I was so disappointed, and so glad to finish this completely dire text.

Publisher's blurb:

An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a decaying palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty, lit by a single bulb, an archive unknown to scholars. Here, a young graduate student from Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, makes a discovery that inspires a search for a work of art of incalculable value, a painting lost for almost two centuries.

The artist was Caravaggio, a master of the Italian Baroque. He was a genius, a revolutionary painter, and a man beset by personal demons. Four hundred years ago, he drank and brawled in the taverns and streets of Rome, moving from one rooming house to another, constantly in and out of jail, all the while painting works of transcendent emotional and visual power. He rose from obscurity to fame and wealth, but success didn't alter his violent temperament. His rage finally led him to commit murder, forcing him to flee Rome a hunted man. He died young, alone, and under strange circumstances...

After Hours event

Another successful "After Hours" event featuring the Dewey Divas took place last Monday, June 20th, 2011. With more than 80 people in attendance, the atmosphere was electric.

The Bishop's Man

The Bishop's Main by Linden MacIntyre: I facilitated a book club discussion using this work. Most people struggled with some aspects of the story line, but all were in agreement that this was a brilliant piece of Canadian literature.

One of my personal favourite parts of the book was the author's skill in demonstrating Father MacAskill's alcoholic decline. By having MacAskill act as the narrator, the reader was kept in denial, and didn't recognize the main character's decline. At one point, it becomes glaringly evident to the reader that MacAskill isn't coping well. I remember the shock I felt when I realized that he was an ancoholic. At the same time, I realized that there were plenty of hints preceding this point, but I didn't put it together. He was such a good person and I made allowances, just as the community was compensating for him.

This is a deftly written, provocative, funny and haunting work.

The publisher's blurb:
The year is 1993 and Father Duncan MacAskill stands at a small Cape Breton fishing harbour a few miles from where he grew up. Enjoying the timeless sight of a father and son piloting a boat, Duncan takes a moment's rest from his worries. But he does not yet know that his already strained faith is about to be tested by his interactions with a troubled boy, 18-year-old Danny MacKay.

Known to fellow priests as the "Exorcist" because of his special role as clean-up man for the Bishop of Antigonish, Duncan has a talent for coolly reassigning deviant priests while ensuring minimal fuss from victims and their families. It has been a lonely vocation, but Duncan is generally satisfied that his work is a necessary defense of the church. All this changes when lawyers and a policeman snoop too close for the bishop's comfort. Duncan is assigned a parish in the remote Cape Breton community of Creignish and told to wait it out.

This is not the first time Duncan has been sent away for knowing too much: decades ago, the displeased bishop sent a more idealistic Duncan to Honduras for voicing suspicions about a revered priest. It was there that Duncan first tasted forbidden love, with the beautiful Jacinta. It was also there that he met the courageous Father Alfonso, who taught him more about spiritual devotion than he had ever known back home. But when an act of violence in Honduras shook Duncan to his core, he returned home a changed man, willing to quietly execute the bishop's commands.

Now, decades later in Cape Breton, Duncan claims to his concerned sister Effie that isolation is his preference. But when several women seek to befriend him, along with some long-estranged friends, Duncan is alternately tempted and unnerved by their attentions. Drink becomes his only solace.

Attempting to distract himself with parish work, Duncan takes an interest in troubled young Danny, whose good-hearted father sells Duncan a boat he names The Jacinta. To Duncan's alarm, he discovers that the boy once spent time with an errant priest who had been dispatched by Duncan himself to Port Hood. Duncan begins to ask questions, dreading the answers. When tragedy strikes, he knows that he must act. But will his actions be those of a good priest, or an all too flawed man?

Winner of the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize, Linden MacIntyre's searing The Bishop's Man is an unforgettable and complex character study of a deeply conflicted man at the precipice of his life. Can we ever be certain of an individual's guilt or innocence? Is violence ever justified? Can any act of contrition redeem our own complicity?

The Post Mistress

Postmistress, by Sarah Blake
I waited for close to a year to read this book, so I did so with much anticipation. I had heard good things about it and I was hoping for something as engaging as The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Instead, I found this work unsatisfying and contrived.

Here is the publisher's blurb:
In 1940, Iris James is the postmistress in coastal Franklin, Massachusetts. Iris knows more about the townspeople than she will ever say, and believes her job is to deliver secrets. Yet one day she does the unthinkable: slips a letter into her pocket, reads it, and doesn't deliver it.

Meanwhile, Frankie Bard broadcasts from overseas with Edward R. Murrow. Her dispatches beg listeners to pay heed as the Nazis bomb London nightly. Most of the townspeople of Franklin think the war can't touch them. But both Iris and Frankie know better...

"The Postmistress" is a tale of two worlds-one shattered by violence, the other willfully na?ve-and of two women whose job is to deliver the news, yet who find themselves unable to do so. Through their eyes, and the eyes of everyday people caught in history's tide, it examines how stories are told, and how the fact of war is borne even through everyday life.


The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein
A heart-wrenching but deeply heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope--a captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life . . . as only a dog could tell it