Tag: novels

Buying Canadian

Of course we didn’t like the tariffs, but it was really the 51st state / Governor Trudeau / not a real country / artificial line / not needing anything we have / US is subsidizing us talk that really pissed everyone off. It produced that very rare occurrence: an actually effective consumer boycott. Travel to the US really is down. So are California wine sales. And businesses relying on cross-border shoppers.

It’s a bit sad, as it’s not actually the hotels and restaurants, the vintners, and the duty-free shop owners that we have a beef with.

But what’s a foreigner to do? We don’t have a vote to grant or withhold. We’re not allowed to make political donations. It’s not exactly safe to go over there and protest. And I’m not feeling this is an administration that would be moved by a sternly worded letter.

So, we got our wallets. It’s economic warfare, and many are choosing to direct our meagre funds to products made elsewhere than the United States. Ideally in Canada.

I’m hardly perfect at it, but you do what you can. Since I’m not in this by myself, it’s not only up to me! And it turns out more is accomplished when we come together as a group to work together toward the same goal. Seems there could be some kind of lesson there…

In the meantime, I have discovered some great Canadian products. And I will share! In my favourite categories: food and entertainment.

Foodstuffs and sundry

Black River pure tart cherry juice bottle.

Black River pure tart cherry juice

Cherry juice is very delicious and apparently also a good anti-inflammatory. Black River brand is made with 100% Ontario cherries. It is a little expensive and somewhat caloric. But both problems are solved by serving it diluted with water, which is still delicious, but makes it cheaper and lower cal per serving.

Also worth mentioning (though I discovered it a while ago): Heartwood sour cherry sparkle, another delicious beverage made with Ontario cherries, this one already diluted with sparkling water. 50 calories a can.

Yoggu Coconut Yogurt

I wrote earlier about not yet having found a good non-dairy yogurt, but this is it—as long as you don’t mind a mild taste of coconut. It’s made in British Columbia and has only four ingredient, one of which is gut-friendly probiotics.

Lee Valley Tool jar opener

Some jars are just a nightmare to open, and Jean’s not always around to help. So he bought me this metal gizmo, which hooks and releases the seal. He also got me a rubber gripper thingie (made in England). With that combo, I can open jars with ease.

Jar opener gizmo.
Blue gripper thing for jars.

Good Leaf Greens

The first week of not buying American was tough in the lettuce aisle, because there seemed to be nothing but California lettuce. Over the next few weeks, though, more and more GoodLeaf Greens became available. These are grown in greenhouses in Southern Ontario. The stay-fresh packaging is really fantastic, and this stuff is good!

Arts and entertainment

I have most definitely have not given up all American TV shows and movies and books (and streaming services). But, I have recently consumed some good Canadian media as well…

TV series

Empathie (Emphathy)

This Québec series, available on Crave, is just a stunner. It’s one of my favourite shows right now. (Jean loves it also.)

Suzanne, a former criminologist turned psychiatrist, starts a new job at the Mont-Royal Psychiatric Institute, where she meets Mortimer, an intriguing intervention officer with whom she strikes up a friendship, and fascinating patients.

Right in the first episode, as we segue from Suzanne’s private to professional life, expectations and assumptions are upended. It only gets more fascinating as more of her past is revealed, and learn more and more about her troubled patients and dedicated but flawed coworkers.

Wholly original. You gotta see it.

North of North

The scenery is the main stunner in this CBC Gem / Netflix series, which was filmed in Inuktitut. But it’s also fun watching Siaja try to make more of her life than being a wife and mother. You can’t help but cheer her on. It is a comedy, but there are some heavy moments as well. Nothing you shouldn’t be able to handle.

Small, Achievable Goals

This CBC Gem series might not be for everyone. It’s a comedy in which two women of very different characters and slightly different stages of life are forced to work together to make a podcast. It’s particularly notable for its very open depiction of perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms. It’s funny and very feminist and I wish it had been available when I was first navigating the mysteries of perimenopause.

Book

Fall on Your Knees

Yes, that Fall on Your Knees, the Anne-Marie McDonald novel, set mostly in Cape Breton, first published way back in 1996. I have just finished reading that now.

I had avoided it partly because it’s quite long, but more because I thought it would be super depressing. Turns out, it’s not particularly depressing. Admittedly, a lot of pretty terrible things happen. It takes place in the past (late 19th and early 20th centuries), when things weren’t so great for women (unlike now, haha).

But for the characters, things just are as they are, and they have to cope, without falling into despair (although that happens on occasion). More often, though, they find original and often terribly misguided ways of dealing. It’s so interesting! I just found myself pulled along and wanting to continue reading, so the length wasn’t much of a problem, either.

The novel starts with the meeting of James, the piano tuner, and Materia, the daughter of one of the piano owners. Their ill-advised marriage sets all subsequent events in motion, and the novel continues through the lives of their daughters and grandchildren.

Movie

Drive Back Home

This is a road movie, based on a true story. It takes place in 1970, when things weren’t so great for LBGTQ+ people (unlike now, haha). Following his father’s funeral, a plumber from a small town in New Brunswick has to drive to the big city of Toronto to get his brother out of jail, after he’s been arrested for public indecency. Their mother insists that he bring his brother back home.

Some funny and some rather harrowing moments ensue. The movie stars the wonderful (despite not being Canadian) Alan Cumming and the also very good (and probably Canadian) Charlie Creed-Miles. It’s available to stream on Crave.

Books 2023

Instead of an overview, I decided to focus on two books that captured some of the social unease of 2023. (Albeit with additional recommendation of short story collection How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa.)

The Survivalists: A Novel by Kashana Cauley

The Survivalists, by Kashana Cauley, is a novel centred on Aretha, a young Black lawyer. Near the start, she goes on a date with the handsome Aaron. She doesn’t go into the date with high hopes, but she and Aaron really hit it off. However, this is not a romance novel.

Aaron is a coffee entrepreneur—he sources, roasts, and brews high-quality beans. He works out of his home, a mansion that he shares with two other people. Their focus is not so much on coffee. Brittany and James are more into protein bars, bunkers, martial arts, go bags… and guns. They are survivalists.

Aretha finds this out only gradually, learning some of the alarming details only after she moves in with Aaron. Aaron is frequently away, hunting down beans, leaving Aretha trying to make the best of it with her odd roommates. Meanwhile, her career prospects, which she has banked her entire future, seem in increasing jeopardy as a new hire consistently outshines her. The prospect of working on survival gradually takes on more of an appeal, much to her best friend’s dismay.

It’s definitely uncomfortable taking this journey with Aretha, whose choices at many points are… not the ones I would have made, let’s put it that way. And that made be the reason for the rather polarizing reviews of this book. But I was really drawn into this story, and I felt it was saying something about today’s society, and its risks, and how much we can protect ourselves from them.

Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein.

Doppelganger, by Naomi Klein, is a more personal work of non-fiction than this author has produced in the past. Over the years, Naomi Klein has been confused with Naomi Wolf, author of (most famously) The Beauty Myth. This became something of a problem during the pandemic era, as the previously liberal and feminist Naomi Wolf came to embrace anti-vaccine, pro-gun, conspiratorial, right-wing beliefs.

Klein is alarmed that her name is mistakenly being associated with extremely troubling opinions that she by no means shares. She discusses how this damages her online “brand”, not being at all sure what to do about it, and the fact this is even a concern is something of an irony for the author who first came to fame with No Logo.

Klein then becomes very curious about the question many were asking: what the heck did happen to Naomi Wolf? Klein researches Wolf’s past, revisiting some of her past work, noting some of its limitations, and pointing out areas where her data is weaker. And also traces the history of her declining influence in leftist circles, which culminates when Wolf’s confusion about the phrase “death recorded” as indicating execution when it meant the opposite, led to the cancellation of her book Outrages.

In contrast to the mocking engendered by that, Wolf was truly embraced by the right, receiving the kind of acclaim and popularity she hadn’t had in years. Stuck at home during the pandemic like the rest of us, Klein became somewhat obsessed with following Wolf’s trajectory—even to the point of becoming a devoted listener of Steve Bannon’s podcast (shudder), where Wolf is a frequent guest.

The book looks into the wider questions of how the right has been so successful in garnering attention and enthusiastic followers. “They get the facts wrong but the feelings right.” Klein notes the missed opportunities on the left to fight the government for policies such as school ventilation upgrades, debt cancellation, and permanent paid sick days for all. (But also the difficulty in doing so when everyone is, by necessity, separated.)

It also examines the predecessor anti-vaccine debates and their effects on the autism community, along with a fascinating but appalling history of approaches to treatment of autistic children. (Klein’s son is autistic.) It covers the lost opportunities on climate change. And using the point that both she and Wolf are Jewish and have made stances related to that, it also includes what turned out to be a very timely chapter on Israel and Palestine.

It’s all a bit of an unsettling journey, through the personal and the political and back again. Klein concludes that we need to continue fighting for what we believe in, as a group effort. But with no illusions that it’s going to be easy.

Pandemic vacation in Quebec

That it did wonders for my mental health, there’s no doubt. Despite the constant consideration of risk to physical health in everything we did.

Jean wanted a vacation that actually felt like a vacation, which to him, meant getting out of the province. We weren’t up for flying, though, and of course wouldn’t have wanted to go to the country to the south even if we were allowed to, which we weren’t. In a week, the only “outside Ontario” destination that was possible was Quebec.

We did start in Ontario, with a couple days in Ganonoque. Then it was three days in Quebec City, and two in Montreal to finish. In the days leading up, I became obsessive about reading the daily Covid case counts—which at that point, were actually pretty good. And while away, Ontario trended up a bit, but Quebec was still on a downswing.

It did feel like a vacation. Though one unlike any other. (Including the slightly uneasy feeling about blogging about having managed a pretty good vacation in these times… )

Continue reading “Pandemic vacation in Quebec” →

So instead, I’m writing about “Little Women”

I haven’t blogged in ages because I keep thinking that I should write something personal and insightful. But when I start trying to do that, I just get bogged down. I don’t want to seem preachy, I don’t know how much I want to reveal–I just don’t enjoy it.

So chuck it. Let’s talk about Greta Gerwig’s Little Women.

I work at a tech company, and before the Christmas break, the chatter was all about Star Wars. Who would see it when, how many times, in what format, and at which theatre. So much excitement.

… Which I couldn’t share, ’cause I didn’t care. I did see the first two in this new Skywalker set. I thought the first one was too much of a rehash of the original Star Wars. I found the second better, more interesting. But this one, somehow, really seemed primarily aimed at the super-fans (who are legion). I’m sure it’s an entertaining enough movie. But I’m in no hurry to see it.

When I first saw the trailer for the new Little Women, I wasn’t sure it was necessary, given that the 1994 version was so good. I was intrigued, though, by the near suggestion that maybe Jo… Doesn’t get married?

And then all the amazing reviews started coming out, so I started really anticipating its release. I had visions of seeing it at the VIP theatre–lounging in my comfy chair, being served appetizers and wine–but then realized that while it was playing at that theatre, it wasn’t in the VIP room. (Not with stupid Star Wars hogging a bunch of those screens.) So instead we trundled off to see it at on a regular screen at a regular theatre, with regular seats and not even any popcorn, because the lineup to get that was too long. (Stupid Star Wars.)

Jean’s been watching a bunch of women-centred shows with me lately: TV series Fleabag (which he loved), the movie Girls Trip (which he did not; must agree it was pretty stupid), and the movie Booksmart (I liked this one more as it progressed; he remained unmoved by the main characters).

With Little Women, he loved the cinematography and found the characters interesting, if not always likable. He’s never read the book and doesn’t remember the 1994 Little Women (which we saw together), so the story was all new to him. He declared he wished there was more plot. (Does Fleabag really have any more plot, though?) And he kept mixing up the actors playing Beth and Amy (declaring they looked too much alike), which made for a certain amount of story confusion, as you might imagine.

Me, I read the book multiple times in my youth, so it was all about seeing how the famous scenes were interpreted this time. And the unique approach here is that much of the story is told in flash-back form, as the movie begins with Jo in New York, meeting Professor Bhaer. As events occur in that time line, she thinks back on moments from her youth.

It’s kind of an exhilarating way of presenting it, as those of us who are familiar with the story are also, basically, looking back on those scenes with nostalgia. Giving away Christmas dinner to the Hummels. Getting in trouble over pickled limes. Oh right, the ice skating accident. Beth and her piano. The burnt dress. The burnt dress. The burnt stories! (So much burning!)

The movie just skitters along at a contemporary pace, moving across scenes before we can get bored with them, but without seeming rushed.

The actors are all terrific. Among the famous are Saiorse Ronan as Jo, Emma Watson as Meg, Timothy Chalumet as Laurie, Laura Dern as Marmee, and Meryl Streep as Aunt March. Not previously known to me were Florence Pugh as Amy and Eliza Scanlen as Beth, which I assume contributed to Jean’s confusing the two of them. They stood up among this cast, with Pugh doing an especially great job with Amu. And I would note that both actors had startlingly rich, deep voices, which was really striking (to me; Jean claimed to not have noticed).

But does Jo marry? (Spoiler alert, I guess?) That’s the thing: it’s not clear. By that point in the story, Jo is working on a novel called Little Women, based on her life. She is discussing the fate of the fictional Jo with her editor, he of the opinion that women characters must end up either married or dead. There is a scene of Jo and Professor Bhaer kissing in the rain. But did that really happen or is it just written into the novel…?

Brilliant.

This Vox article–The power of Greta Gerwig’s Little Women is that it doesn’t pretend its marriages are romantic–gives a great take on Little Women‘s “marriage problem”: that it’s hopelessly unsatisfying that Jo ends up with Professor Bhaer (especially the way he’s described in the novel) while Amy gets Laurie. Apart from making Jo’s marital status ambiguous, Gerwin makes the Laurie / Amy partnership much more palatable partly by, as the article says, spelling the economic reality for women at that time.

Sorry, Star Wars fan, for dumping on your movie, which I haven’t even seen. Just a joke. I do hope you enjoyed it. Because I do understand loving something in your childhood / teenagehood and wanting to see it re-created on-screen. Only for me, that something is a novel about four young women in the time period of the American Civil War.

Good shows

Having finished the latest seasons of Glow and Mindhunter on Netflix, and the six episodes of Chernobyl on HBO (those are all recommended series, by the way, as is the new Stumptown), Jean and I needed a new show to stream. I short-listed four:

  1. Killing Eve
  2. The Expanse
  3. Good Omens
  4. When They See Us

Jean declared interest in all but the last (about the Central Park Five), which he thought he’d find too depressing.

We decided to start with the six-episode Good Omens, from Amazon Prime.

The premise here is that history as told in the Bible is actually true, and all that dinosaur evidence to the contrary is just God’s idea of a joke. Also, the apocalypse is nearing. An angel (Aziraphale) and a demon (Crowley), who have both been on Earth for quite some time, and have grown rather fond of the place, secretly team up to try and thwart it.

Four episodes in, we’re quite enjoying it. It’s quirky and funny. The cast, led by Michael Sheen and David Tennant–but also featuring John Hamm, Michael McKean, and the voice of Frances Macdormand–is terrific. The episodes don’t waste any time in speeding along toward the end of days. As an added bonus, it also happens to feature a great deal of Queen music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJoR4vlIIs
Good Omens trailer

If there’s anything the show reminds of me of, that would be my favourite network show, NBC’s The Good Place.

Currently in season four, with past seasons available on Netflix, The Good Place is a half-hour comedy starring Kristen Bell and Ted Dansen. It begins when Eleanor Shellstrop dies and finds herself in “the good place” (as opposed to “the bad place”). Only, given the wonderfully charitable lives the other inhabits of “the good place” have led, Eleanor fears that she has mistakenly been assigned there. And has to figure out how to avoid being found out and sent to the bad place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfBgT5djaQw
Good Place season 1 trailer

But that’s just the initial setup. This series goes places in its four seasons, with twists you don’t see coming, unexpected alliances, and utterly bold time jumps and compression. The series is really better watched unspoiled, so I don’t want to give much away. But it does share with Good Omens the off-kilter look at religious themes, the representation of the forces of good and evil as largely banal bureaucracies, and a cartoon-like comedy approach to dealing with deep subjects. Like the best of fantasy series (hi, Buffy) both use the fantastical to comment on modern human realities.

Still, you can’t push it too far. Good Omens is a six-part series of one-hour episodes, based on a beloved (albeit not read by me) Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett novel. It’s largely about poking fun at the absurdity of literal religious beliefs. (I think. I mean, I still have two episodes to go.)

(But, one of my favourite parts of Good Omens so far is the look back at the time of Noah’s Ark.

[The following are not exact quotes, but…] “What’s going on, then?” asks Crowley. “God’s feeling tetchy. She’s decided to drown everyone. Big storm,” replies Aziraphale. “What? Everyone? Even the children?” The angel nods, mutely. Then adds, “Well, just the locals. I don’t think she’s mad at the Chinese. Or the Native Americans…”)

Whereas The Good Place is a completely original, four-season (all short seasons) sitcom. It does not take on traditional religion and its beliefs, but really digs into morality and philosophy: can people change? What does it mean to be good? It’s stunning that there is a half-hour American sitcom about that, isn’t it? (And yes, it’s hilarious!)

So, in summary, Good Omens and The Good Place are both good shows that are somewhat similar but also not really, except that both are deserving of your time and attention.

Finding fiction

A tip on reading more books that I’ve found useful is to just embrace having more than one on the go at a time. Prevents any one book from feeling like a slog that is stopping you from moving on to your new, shiny books.

Personally I aim to have at least one fiction and one non-fiction book in progress. Non-fiction isn’t so hard to line up—just go with subjects I’m interested in. Fiction is tougher. I now see why so many people love genres of fiction: makes it easier if your aim is to have a bunch of mysteries, romances, or sci fi novels at the ready.

But if your genre is, basically, General Fiction? Quite a bit tougher to narrow that down. I seek inspiration everywhere.

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce

Source: Spotted it in a book store (but later bought the ebook)

A love story, of sorts, between an eccentric owner of record store—as in LPs, at the time when everybody was buying CDs (and maybe cassettes)—and a mysterious young woman who swooned outside the shop one day. She claims to know nothing about music. He agrees to teach her about it.

That’s the best part of this book, to me—the in-depth discussions of great exemplars of different types of music: jazz, rock, classical, R&B… Makes you want to rush out and listen to what’s being discussed. Fortunately, the book comes with a Spotify playlist:

I do not know what the book’s main character would have thought of Spotify…

An American Marriage by Tayah Jones

Source: Barack Obama recommendation

A novel about a recently married couple in which the husband is wrongfully convicted of sexual assault. The wife has no doubt of her husband’s innocence; nonetheless, he faces a long incarceration away from her. How do you manage that?

Much of the novel is told as a series of letters. The story does not proceed on a predictable path, but it is plausible one. Thanks, Obama.

Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin

Source: Kobo (ebook seller) recommendation

A work of fiction built around the story of a young woman who has an affair with the older, married, male Senator she’s an intern for. Shades of Monica Lewinski, yes, though that affair is mentioned in the novel as the news that drives her own story out of the headlines.

What’s interesting is that the story is told exclusively from the point of view of the women involved: the intern, her mother, her daughter (the story covers many years), and the Senator’s wife. And you’re not always sure who is who, at least not right away. I loved the approach and really got caught up in this novel.

Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday

Source: New York Times best books of 2018

This one didn’t work out!

The novel is in three parts. The first two seem unrelated. The third is supposed to bring them together. I read the first part, about a love affair between a young woman and much older man (a writer). They were interesting characters, but they didn’t really do much. There wasn’t much plot happening.

Before proceeding, I look into other reviews. They said that the second part was less interesting than the first, and that the supposed connection you find out about in the third is tenuous, maybe unfathomable. So, I gave up on this one.

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian

Source: Recommendation from The Washington Post

Cassandra Bowden, a flight attendant and a binge drinker, wakes from drunken stupor to find that the man she spent the night in Dubai with has been murdered. What to do?

If there’s one genre I do tend to return to, it’s the thriller, and this one is somewhat reminiscent of The Girl on the Train. Unlike that novel, however, it’s clear early on in this story that Cassandra did not murder her lover. But her lack of memory about what happened complicates her situation. And her frequently poor judgment often makes things worse.

This was a pretty fun read. I got it as a library ebook and had to binge read through the last parts because someone else had put a hold on it and I wanted to know how it ended.

Non-fiction

I’ve been in a bit of a rut here, of musician bios.

Thanks a Lot, Mr. Kibblewhite is Roger Daltrey’s breezy, easy-reading autobiography. You can tell that it was built from Roger telling his story to the writer he worked with, who assembled the pieces into a coherent narrative.

It is an interesting story, starting in the deprivations of post-war London and continuing up to closing out the Olympic Games, making a triumphant return to Hyde Park, and nearly dying of viral meningitis. With many entertaining anecdotes on the way, from Keith Moon’s antics to the many women in his life (and a number of surprise children) to The Who’s financial challenges and musical triumphs.

I can recommend this one as being appealing even to more casual fans of The Who, as Jean and I listened to the audiobook version (read by Roger Daltrey) and Jean was approving. He had a much higher opinion of Mr. Daltrey by the end of reading this than he had going in.

Unlike with Roger Daltrey’s book, which I preordered and read pretty promptly, this one has been sitting on the bookshelf for a while. I ended up quite enjoying it, though.

This Ray Davies’ second autobiography. Though it does some moving back and forth in time, it’s told in a much more straightforward fashion than his first, which employed a faux, third-party narrator. Here, Ray just writes his own story, focusing on The Kinks relationship with America, and therefore covering the period starting in the early 1970s when the band’s work ban was lifted. It includes the whole 1980s “arena rock” period during which I discovered The Kinks and became a fan, so was of particular interest.

Ray discusses some of his relationships he was in during this time, but with considerable discretion, so if you’re hoping for dirt on his volatile relationship with Chrissie Hynde, you’ll be disappointed. It’s mostly about the music, the band, and his uneasy relationship with the US itself—culminating in his shooting by a mugger in New Orleans. Getting shot is no joke, it turns out…

Another book with a soundtrack (yes, there’s also a Part 1; I just prefer Part 2)

Three books, five days

… And that’s pretty good for me. The key, I’ve found, is trains. And given what’s currently happening at airports, more of us may be taking trains. At least take comfort in knowing it’s good for literacy.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

… even though, I have to confess, two of the three books were consumed in Audible form, on my iPod. That way you can also watch the scenery. And the snow-covered trees were really pretty.

OK, the most important thing about finishing Oryx and Crake is that I’m no longer in the embarassing position of never having read a Margaret Atwood novel. Yes, I know. You’d be amazed at the great authors I’ve yet to read. Though, to be fair, I have tried reading Margaret Atwood before. I just had to give up about a third in, due to incredible lack of enjoyment. (Not even sure what book that was, anymore.)

But Oryx and Crake, I found really interesting. It’s an Apocalyptic future kind of tale, taking place in a globally warmed future where a single remaining homo sapien coexists with “Crakians”, genetically engineered humans who lack humans’ more destructive impulses. A lot of the realities of the book—the bizarrely genetically engineered animal hybrids, the smart technologists locked away in compounds away from the “plebe-lands”, the reliance on medicine to treat everything—seemed somewhat plausible, only a little beyond what is actually going on.

So it was an unpleasant yet somewhat familiar world, and it was fairly engrossing uncovering the mystery of what led to this point.

Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell

I had seen and enjoyed the movie, so I got curious about the book, which I did actually read, and without the benefit of train motion. Julie Powell had a blog that covered her efforts to make all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in one year. Though a personal strain (these are not easy recipes), the blog became very popular—ultimately becoming a book, then a movie (obviously).

Watching the movie, I somewhat related to Julie. She and I both like to write about food, for example. She and and I both cook from written recipes (as opposed to just whipping up your own thing, which is a whole other talent). She and I are both in a long-term, childfree marriages to really sweet guys.

And reading the book, I found even more similarities. Like—I kid you not—her total obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One of the most dire crises of the book is when CBS wants to interview her on the night of the very last Buffy ever!

So part of my brain thinks, geez, why didn’t I think of blogging about making all of Julia Child’s recipes in a year so that I could get a book deal, and a movie deal, and get to write another book?

But then I’m reminded that there are some key differences between Julie and me.

She’s much more open than I about writing about personal, embarrassing stuff, for example. And that is a big part of the charm and appeal of the endeavour, which made it a success.

There’s also the fact that she was really dissatisfied with her secretarial job, and her difficulties in getting pregnant, both necessary fuel for taking on and maintain this crazy project of hers. (Along with occasionally copious amounts of alcohol, cigarettes, and expletives.) Me, I don’t have quite enough angst to take on making boeuf bourgignon until 2:00 in the morning, sustained only by nicotine and rum.

And most particularly… Frankly, I would never do classic French cooking. Reading the book, even more than seeing the movie, made me realize I have no interest in this type of arduous cooking: Digging out bone marrow, making gelatin from a calve’s hoof (seriously! apparently smells like a tannery), chopping up a live lobster (all the parts squirm, it appears), boning an entire duck.

It was fun to read about, though.

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

This was the return trip audiobook. I had downloaded Fahrenheit 451 as well, but that was starting to seem like a little too much apocalypse for one trip, so I dug around and stumbled upon this one, the first Sookie Stackhouse mystery. OK, vampire mystery. But the vampires are still incidental, even though I realize this is the second time they’ve been mentioned in this post.

And also, that all three books are from a single individual’s point of view.

Anyway. In this case, the point of view is Sookie Stackhouse’s, a telepathic bar waitress in a world where vampires exist and have just attained legal status. Sookie meets Bill, a vampire who sets her small Southern town a-twitter by deigning to live in it. She’s intrigued because she cannot read his mind; this comes as a major relief. But their path to true romance hits stumbling blocks in the form of the murder of women who have a sweet spot for vampires.

Jean declared this too much of a chick book for him, though not too much for him to listen from start to finish.

I found it diverting enough, but I’m not sure I’m compelled to read any more of these. Sounds a bit weird to say given that the main characters are a vampire and mind reader, but there were more supernatural elements introduced later in the novel than I wanted. Made it a bit harder to believe in the world. Sookie was a fun character, it had some nice sexy bits, and I was curious about the murderer’s identify. But it’s not something I’d say you’d have to go out of your way to read.

(In case anyone was wondering, I haven’t yet seen True Blood, which is apparently based on, but very different from, these novels.)