More top picks for 2012 from Northern Women's Bookstore

Absolutely number one is ..THE ROUND HOUSE.. by Louise Erdrich.  It is magnificient!  What is it about you ask?  It is about Injustice, and a son’s search for Justice.  It’s about truama and healing and secrets.  It’s about Traditional Territory Rights, and unmitigating Racism.  And it’s about Love… parental love, filial love, first teenage love, and the love and camaraderie between four 13 year old boys.  THE ROUND HOUSE, deservedly, won the 2012 U.S. National Book Award.

And then, there is INDIAN HORSE, Richard Wagamese’s brilliant, brilliant novel.  INDIAN HORSE is the Canada Reads 2013 selection representing B.C. and the Yukon (where Wagamese now lives).  But this is a Northwestern Ontario book.  While the overriding theme, the legacy of residential schools, is, of course, nation wide…. the geography, the climate, the racism, the hockey – is the Northwestern Ontario we know.  This is an important book that every Canadian should read.

 The book that absolutley mesmerized me (couldn’t put it down) is SOMETHING FIERCE: Memoirs of a Revoluntionary Daughter, Carmen Aguirre’s memoir of her ten years involvement with the Chilean resistance movement… from the time she was 11 years old until she was 21!  (This was the 2012 Canada Reads winner,)

BAKING CAKES IN KIGALI, by Gaile Parkin, is delightful.  Finding herself in a new country due to her husband’s job, our narrator, Angel, sets up her cake baking business, which quickly becomes famous in her community.  Gently woven into each story of the perfect cake for each particular customer, is a narrative of social justice issues and community concerns that are instructive, heart-rendering, and heart-warming.

 Best known for her novels, Certainty and Dogs at the Perimeter, the book by Madeleine Thein that I most enjoyed is her short story collection SIMPLE RECIPES.  Nothing simple about these stories, rather there is depth, richness and perspective that is beautiful to read. 

 

Madeleine Thein