From My Bookshelf....by Lynn Willoughby

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Canada Reads 2011 - the choices have been unveiled. I have read some of the top five, or other books by the top five authors, but certainly plan to get them all read. Here are the selections. I hope you can read along too and take part in the defense and voting for these books in March.
The Best Laid Plans - Terry Fallis
Essex County - Jeff Lemire
The Bone Cage - Angie Abdou
Unless - Carol Shields
The Birth House - Ami McKay
Weather and how it affects us is the theme of the two books reviewed here. Who can live in Canada and not start most conversations about the weather?
Russian Winter - Daphne Kalstoy
This is a debut novel, and while it gets wordy at times, it held some interesting nuggets of life in Russia under Stalin. The Bolshoi Ballet and the backstage tumult of theatre life is a large part of this novel. The lives of various artists of the time, poets, composers and dancers give a behind the scene look at life in Russia in the early 1900s. The powerlessness of the people, the poverty, starvation and unending cold, plays against the sumptuous waste of the elite.
A collection of remarkable jewels smuggled from Russia by Nina Revskaya causes a real stir as the auction day comes closer in present day Boston. The jewels, particularly the unique Baltic amber pieces, form the mysterious thread unraveled throughout the novel.
I found the descriptive sections wonderful. "...dirty icicles hanging from eaves, the sun waiting until ten to rise..." Emotionally, Kalstoy takes us on a roller coaster - ...the fear of doing or saying something that might be misinterpreted, pride in performing and boosting morale." The anti-sematicism and the reality of banishment to the gulags, the private concerts at caviar serving clubs, makes for a layered plot.
There are alot of people in this book and I found the characterization somewhat weak.  Nevertheless the story of the arts in Russia and an inside look at a contemporary auction house make it a worthwhile read.
A Student of Weather - Elizabeth Hay
This is a complicated novel written in beautiful prose with unforgettable characters. High praise indeed for a wonderful Canadian author. We can taste and smell the dust of the prairies during a dust storm in the 1930s.  It not only blankets everything with a fine dust, it blow drifts against fence posts, barns and porches.
Norma Joyce Hardy is a strange, dark, self-possessed child who struggles through the death of her twin and the death of her mother. Her stern, unbending father somehow blames her for those deaths. When Norma Joyce can no longer stand the blame or the rivalry of her beautiful, dutiful sister - she leaves for New York City.
This compelling novel spans thirty years and the setting moves between Saskatchewan, New York and Ottawa. The relentless quest for love and for art is played against day to day chores and duties. The beauty of prairie light, the intricacy and tenaciousness of prairie plants, especially grasses, will tug at anyone who has lived on the Canadian Prairies.
I loved this book of contrasts - light and dark, snow and dust, love and rejection, truth and deception. Although it is at first glance a love story, none of the characters are very lovable. The real story is how Norma Joyce learns to live in a way that is comfortable for her soul.
This book may be an exception for me - NOT one I will give away. It will stay on my bookshelf until I have read it at least once more.
    Late Nights on Air
    Garbo Laughs
    several books of short stories and non-fiction.

Who Knew?
Caraganas - planted as wind breaks around so many pairie homesteads, were imported from the Russian Steppes in the 1890s. They are native to Siberia and Manchuria.