One Down; Four to Go

I took the Globe and Mail challenge to read all the Giller Prize short List

My plan was to buy all five books at once and dive in.  However, only two were available at the Thunder Bay branch of Chapters: The Matter with Morris by David Bergan and Annabel by Katherine Winter.  Annabel is also on the short list for the Governor General's Award.

However, The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skidsrud and The Cake is For the Party by Sarah Selecky were only available on the Kobo e reader.  Mmm. And at a third of the price of the hard covers!

 Light Lifting, by Alexander McLeod was not available anywhere, not even on line.  This book was recommended to me by short story writer Collette Maitland.  She thought it was one of the best collections of short stories she had ever read.  It also received a bang-up review in the Globe.
Bergan's novel starts out in familiar territory: middle-aged, middle-class white male can no longer make sense of life and is driving his family crazy with his odd speeches and odder behaviour.  Roth - land.

But Bergan's protagonist has just lost his son in Afghanistan and his grief is driving him to change his life, start afresh, and "figure things out" with the help of the ancient philosophers and a cryptic therapist. His family snipes from the sidelines as he blunders about. 

I enjoyed the book and finished it in a day.  Now on to Annabel.