The Sad Truth about Happiness by Anne Giardini

Reviews have called this work "over written" and "deeply flawed," but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Perhaps, more note worthy is the fact that I want to discuss it with someone.

For example, why did the author decide not to mention Philip in Maggie's life once he leaves her care? Did Charles really leave her that house? Did Lucy ever talk to her again? Again, what about Philip??

And her analysis of the state of happiness is intriguing. Is it merely chemical like Janet; is it an emotional state; it is something that comes to you rather than something to be pursued? Here is an excerpt, basically the end of Maggie as narrator, as she describes her happiness:

Happiness is more ephemeral than thought. It can't be observed without changing its nature. Its ingredients are subtle, and there is no guarantee that a formula or recipe for joy can be written out or passed on or repeated even once again. Happiness evades capture, dissolving like a melody into the air, eluding even the most delicate, careful grasp. It frustrates any systemic search, responding better to random fossicking and oblique approaches and its rewards are infuriatingly arbitrary, stingy or abundant by purest chance...

...We work it out, how to be happy, but sooner or later comes a change -- sometimes something small, sometimes everything at once -- and we have to start over again, feeling our way back to a provisional state of contentment.

I used to float along in all of this, like a leaf on a coursing stream, but I am heavier now, less easily moved, more resolute and steadfast. I am no longer in pursuit of happiness. As I stand here at my front door, key in hand, I think it is just possible that happiness, at least for now, today, this hour may be in pursuit of me.

Another aspect that I loved about this book is Maggie's reference to other authors. Like my own degree, mostly male authors were studied. Maggie gets a "second degree" by reading the following (the authors in italics are those who I haven't read): Mary Shelley, the Brontes, Virginia Woolf, Margaret Drabble, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Doris Lessing, Joyce Carol Oates, Edna O'Brien, Nadine Gordimer, Jane Smiley, Amy Clampitt, Carol Shields, Barbara Kingsolver, A.S. Byatt, Annie Proulx, Muriel Spark. I have a new reading list!

Sad Truth about Happiness by Anne Giardini

Finally, a book has grabbed my interest. I've tried a number of titles, but nothing has been compelling until now. I've been so desperate for a good read that I was reading Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie again.

Once again, I'm reading a book that describes the relationship between 3 sisters. While Flavia was the precocious youngest, Maggie is the calm, perfect middle child.

Here is the publishers blurb:
MAGGIE IS 31 YEARS OLD, single and solvent. As the perfect middle child of eccentric parents, Maggie has allowed herself to become a cool observer rather than an engaged participant in her own life. Only when she accepts her roommate Rebecca’s invitation to complete a magazine quiz does Maggie’s outlook begin to change. She answers the question “Are you happy?” with “no,” a response that threatens to shave decades off her life. In fact, the quiz predicts that Maggie has only three months to live.

Maggie’s sisters—stormy Lucy, who has just returned from Rome pregnant and unmarried, and self-absorbed Janet, who has found contentment in a single daily pill—distract Maggie from seeking her own measure of happiness. But when it appears that Lucy will lose custody of her newborn child, Maggie is forced into action. On the road with baby Philip, Maggie is helped by a succession of women who speed her, like a heroine on an old-fashioned quest, on her way. Is Maggie’s journey the route to happiness, or is happiness simply too mysterious, too elusive to lend itself to capture?

Anne Giardini has intuitive storytelling ability, an affinity for the interior voice and a warm affection for her fallible, lovable characters. The Sad Truth About Happiness is a witty and deeply felt novel that explores the vexing problems of family, love, work, friendship, loyalty, the ingredients of happiness and sorrow, and our purpose and role in the world.

Sweetness at the bottom of the pie

What a fun read. I finished it last week and just can't stop talking about it. I'm recommending it to everyone I can and I even joined the fan club Web site. Maybe it's because I can relate to Flavia. I too have older sisters!

Here is the publisher's blurb:
Winner of the 2007 Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger
A delightfully dark English mystery, featuring precocious young sleuth Flavia de Luce and her eccentric family.

The summer of 1950 hasn’t offered up anything out of the ordinary for eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce: bicycle explorations around the village, keeping tabs on her neighbours, relentless battles with her older sisters, Ophelia and Daphne, and brewing up poisonous concoctions while plotting revenge in their home’s abandoned Victorian chemistry lab, which Flavia has claimed for her own.

But then a series of mysterious events gets Flavia’s attention: A dead bird is found on the doormat, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. A mysterious late-night visitor argues with her aloof father, Colonel de Luce, behind closed doors. And in the early morning Flavia finds a red-headed stranger lying in the cucumber patch and watches him take his dying breath. For Flavia, the summer begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw: “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”

Did the stranger die of poisoning? There was a piece missing from Mrs. Mullet’s custard pie, and none of the de Luces would have dared to eat the awful thing. Or could he have been killed by the family’s loyal handyman, Dogger… or by the Colonel himself! At that moment, Flavia commits herself to solving the crime — even if it means keeping information from the village police, in order to protect her family. But then her father confesses to the crime, for the same reason, and it’s up to Flavia to free him of suspicion. Only she has the ingenuity to follow the clues that reveal the victim’s identity, and a conspiracy that reaches back into the de Luces’ murky past.

A thoroughly entertaining romp of a novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is inventive and quick-witted, with tongue-in-cheek humour that transcends the macabre seriousness of its subject.

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

So far so good. In fact, it is exceeding my expectations.

You have to love any book with a precocious, 11 year old protagonist who has to suffer under the torment of older sisters (she dishes it out, as well). I love her! In my mind's eye, she has red hair -- a British Anne of Green Gables type!

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

Just got this new work of fiction by Canadian author, Alan Bradley. Let's see if it lives up to all its hype!

Coventry by Helen Humphreys

I am still revelling over Humphrey's latest work, Coventry.

It is a breathtakingly beautiful book even as it takes place during a time of utter hell. it is filled with such prose that would make most writers weep. I loved it and will probably sit down right away and read it again. I had expected great things from Humphrey after The Frozen Thames, and I was not disappointed.

From the Publisher
On the evening of November 14, 1940, Harriet stands on the roof of the cathedral in the British town of Coventry and marvels at the magnificence of frost glittering beneath a full moon. But it is a bomber’s moon. The Germans are coming to unleash destruction.

For Harriet, Jeremy, the young man who shares her duties as a firewatcher, and his free-spirited mother, Maeve, this single night will resonate for the rest of their lives. In a story of breathtaking beauty, with the wondrous poetic style that has earned her international acclaim, Helen Humphreys recreates the terror of the infamous Second World War bombing raid on Coventry. As Harriet and Jeremy make their way through the burning city in search of Maeve, their trek becomes a journey of fear and awe as they witness butter from the dairy flowing down the streets in a burning stream and landmines on parachutes swimming like jellyfish out of the darkness. Cold dread brings to life both a grief and a love that Harriet thought she had put behind her forever.

Drawing on actual events of that horrific night in 1940, Coventry is an astounding work, at once tense and lyrical, shocking and exquisite. Touching on themes of love, loss, loneliness and remembrance, Humphreys has crafted a story that will seize readers’ hearts and imaginations.

Read it. Own it!

The Shack by William P Young

I'm currently reading The Shack by William P Young. It was recommended by word of mouth as "a good read" that illustrates our "connectiveness." I was warned that it has a child abduction in it -- ever since Lovely Bones I don't read anything that discusses attrocities to kids -- but it was worth the read regardless. After skimming over the child abuduction part, I'm finding that I'm enjoying it. It is an easy read albeit awkward and didactic but I'm keeping an open mind. It reminds me a bit of of Tuesdays with Morrie. I'm trying to get through it as quickly as possible since I picked it up on the Quick Read shelf at the local library. I have a week to get through it.

Although it was recommended to me, I had no idea of it was building such momentum. When the National Post covers it, it's pretty main stream. Here is a summary from the National Post: http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=1288635

From the Publisher
Mackenzie Allen Phillips's youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation, and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later, in this midst of his great sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change his life forever.

Added note:
I just placed a hold for Sweetness at the bottom of the pie by Canadian author, Alan Bradley. I love this success story:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090213.wbradley0214/BNStory/Entertainment/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20090213.wbradley0214