This Canadian author is new to me, but well worth the read if you are looking for light reading with many laugh-out-loud moments - in the style of Christopher Moore, Carl Hiaasen or David Sedaris.
The estranged Drummond family, from Vancouver, struggle to Florida to see their daughter/sister Sarah, the astronaut, as she is ready to launch into space. But the "state of Florida may never recover from the Drummond version of fun in the sun." Nothing is sacred to Coupland as this family of misfits romps through Cape Canaveral, Disney World and Daytona beach. Plots are many and controversial - including HIV, pharmaceutical drug lords, suicide attempts and black market baby sales.
This book reads lightening fast and I was entertained from the first page. Janet, the family matriarch, keeps trying to draw everyone together, including her youngest son Bryan, who has attempted suicide several times. After his brother Wade is shot, the bullet also hitting Janet, Bryan calls 911 and “squatted on the floor beside them. ‘God, Wade,’ he said, ‘I'd kill to be murdered.’”
In another punchy exchange Wade says, "You should see my family. Every single one of us is psychotic."
"All families are psychotic, Wade. Everyone has basically the same family - it's just reconfigured slightly....Meet my in-laws one of these nights."
Coupland himself says "Families are messy and scary and they don't go away..." I rather like books that don't end with everything tied neatly with a bow, and I have to agree with Janet when she says..."A day in which nothing bad happens is a miracle..."
- Generation X: Tales From an Accelerated Culture
- Miss Wyoming
Sisters of the Sari ~ Brenda L. Baker
This didn't seem like it would be a humourous book when I picked it up, but I found myself roaring with laughter at times and crying on another page.
Kiria Langdon, a successful CEO of a major gaming company, has always wanted to visit India. Not the tourist driven Mumbai or the Taj Mahal. No, she goes to the southern tip, to Chennai. Kiria arrives, but her luggage doesn't! This, plus jet lag, lack of sleep and time differences created a general grumpiness. When she tries to shop for some clothes - none of which fit her portly figure, Kiria slips and falls into a fresh cow patty, finds her purse has been slit and everything stolen. She burst into tears - not her usual response to problem solving, but that is how she meets Santoshi and her journey to India really begins.
Santoshi had been bought by the owner of a begging ring when she was small. Now, she works cleaning hospital rooms and scouring pots, and with no male family member to protect her, she, along with many other women, is locked every night into a government run shelter. She sleeps on a cement floor with fifty others.
This meeting will change the lives of both Santoshi and Kiria, in ways that are unimaginable. This debut novel is witty, funny and charming. The research has been done to create a living, believable story of India - its strengths and its weaknesses. The culture - from the food, the smells, the beauty, family ties, dialects, castes and customs is extraordinary. Baker's descriptions of the women who carried the baskets of sand, gravel and cement, mixed the concrete and bore it off to the men faster than they could spread it, were truly a glimpse into a life little understood in the western world.
As the women in this novel struggle to teach each other and to help each other, I felt I was beside them. There are many laughable moments in this novel and many lessons to be learned.
Santoshi rejected an offer of marriage because she does not want to “...leave her family...the family of my heart." This theme runs throughout the book, although there are pages of death, murder and desperate poverty.
I really liked this one. Add it to your summer reading lists.
Who Knew?
The Tamil language is one of the longest surviving classical languages in the world. Its literature has existed for over 2000 years. With 12 vowels, 18 consonants, the atyam and several compound characters, there are 247 characters to learn if you want to read Tamil today.
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