A Writer's Life: The Margaret Laurence Lectures

Blurb:

For anyone who loves great literature -- or aspires to write it -- this is an essential collection, full of insight, wisdom, humour, and candour from Canada's most important and beloved literary figures.

For the past twenty-five years, the Writers' Trust of Canada's annual lecture series, the Margaret Laurence Memorial Lecture, has invited some of Canada's most prominent authors to discuss the theme of "A Writer's Life" in front of their peers. Hugh MacLennan, Mavis Gallant, Timothy Findley, W.O. Mitchell, Pierre Berton, P.K. Page, Dorothy Livesay, Alistair MacLeod, and Margaret Atwood, among others, have shared the personal challenges they faced in forging their own paths as writers, at a time when such a career was still unusual in this country. 

Intimate, frank, and revealing in tone, their lectures -- collected for the first time in celebration of the series' twenty-fifth anniversary -- provide a unique account of a period when a national writing community was just being formed, and give us unprecedented access to the heroes and heroines of Canadian literature as they share their insights into their work, the profession of writing, the growing canon of our literature, and the cultural history of our country.

Thoughts:

I had never given a thought to Canadian writers until I found the website Canadian Poetry Online. Until then, I had viewed poems by them and American writers as one category.
When I posted her poem on my blog, the Canadian poet Karen Shenfield commented on it. She mentioned her colleagues in that comment. Ever since I have tried to learn more about the writers in Canada.
I started reading about writers' lives this year because I wanted to improve my writing schedule. I did not deliberately choose A Writer’s Life: The Margaret Laurence Lectures. I came to know of this anthology during my search for books about writers.
It contains the experiences and insights of many Canadian writers. While some have stayed strictly on topic, some have veered off tangent. However, every one of them has something relevant to say.
Some have talked a lot about Canadian history. In those parts, my interest flagged and my reading slowed down. However, I liked the book and will read it again in the future.

Background information:

The Writers' Trust of Canada, founded in 1976 by five notable Canadian authors - Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, Graeme Gibson, Margaret Laurence, and David Young – supports the writing community in Canada.
Pierre Berton proposed creating a lecture series to have Canadian writers contemplate their lives and share insights about their work and their community. Accordingly, since 1987, the Trust has commissioned a senior Canadian author to deliver a lecture on the topic "A Writer's Life."
Named in honour of Margaret Laurence, one of Canada's most esteemed and beloved authors, the lectures are presented at the Writers' Union of Canada's Annual General Meeting.
This anthology was published by McClelland & Stewart on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the lecture series.

The Odyssey of Falling

Summary: Audrey Ashworth is an exceptionally intelligent girl trying to come to terms with the death of her best friend Meredith. She is also trying to cope with her infatuation with Meredith’s boyfriend Chase.

She wants to go to the Manhattan School of Music, with which Bandit, another of her friends, is helping her. 

Audrey believes that the universe delivers ‘signs’ and is intent on following them. So when she finds Meredith’s journal in Chase’s car, she decides to do the bucket list tucked inside the pages. She wishes to find closure and to honour her friend.

This book by Paige Crutcher is about how Audrey falls into trouble, adventure, and finally love.

My thoughts: This book describes the lives of teenagers and how they are trying to make sense of their lives. The word ‘describe’ is apt here because it is not just a story but a long series of experiences (as the title suggests) that seem to make sense in the end.

I do not want to classify this as a romance or a YA book because I think it transcends all that; it is a good book. I read it without knowing what to expect and loved every bit of it.

Although it is about a group of teenagers, the characters are not stamped with one characteristic. Each one is distinct, real and well-conceived.

Paige writes well. I laughed and cried while reading the story, which is a point in favour of the book as I have mentioned before in my earlier reviews. I thought about the characters after I finished reading the book.  I even missed them!

My only criticism is that the timeline was slightly confusing; I needed to check more than once to find the chronology of events.

I hope Paige write more books. That says it all, doesn’t it?

Note: Samantha Lien at JKSCommunications gave me this book in exchange for an honest review. I thank her for that.

Travels with My Briefcase

“Travel for the sake of travel is the ultimate extravagance; it ruins the environment, destroys our heritage and consumes valuable resources.
Most travel writing is the ultimate prostitution. I’ll go anywhere, I’ll go with anyone, I’ll do anything, so long as I get paid for it. There is no purpose, no objective.”

The opening lines of Peter Biddlecombe’s Travels with My Briefcase may put you off, if you picked this book up thinking it was just another travelogue. These sweeping statements, which damn almost half of the so-called travel-lovers and most travel writers, may irritate you. However, if you get past the introduction, the gist of which is that business travelers are the true travelers, you will enjoy reading it.

The book does not describe ‘azure skies’ or ‘dark foliage’ or ‘wonderful trills of birds’. It does not wax lyrical over ‘stately columns of museums’ or ‘true cultural experiences’. It does not drool over ‘fondue’ or ‘fois gras’ or ‘spaghetti carbonara’, 'native produce' or ‘vintage wines’. It does not have photographs of the author or his family posing next to statues or hugging people or performing scary acts.

It tells you about what to expect in each country, with just the right mixture of genuine wit, sarcasm, exasperation and appreciation. It shows that travel can be adventurous and eventful, but in a different way.

River Dog: A Journey Down the Brahmaputra

As the title suggests, this is a travelogue. It describes how Mark Shand followed the river Brahmaputra from its source in Tibet, through India and to the sea in Bangladesh.

 

The funny thing is Shand doesn’t actually get onto a boat on the river until very late in the book. First there is the trip to Tibet and a stay in Delhi. Then he travels around Assam by helicopter, truck, etc. However, the latter part of the book provides a vivid picture of life on the river.

Shand describes his journey with verve and humour. The way he describes his dog Bhaiti (chosen exclusively for this journey), his photographer friend Aditya Patankar (whom he calls the Great Maratha) and all other people we meet in this book is endearing and hilarious.

However, I thought that he was merely a first class passenger on a journey where his friends arranged everything from the shore. He even had a crew to sail his boat and feed him. Again, I expected more on Tibet, North East India and Bangladesh and not about Bhaiti’s life.

The book is worth a read although the content varies from the sublime to the silly and Shand sometimes seems highly self-involved.

Eat My Globe: One Year to Go Everywhere and Eat Everything

The title says it all. This is Simon Majumdar‘s account of the year he spent travelling the world and sampling food. 

Majumdar, who is an author, food writer and broadcaster, was guided in this quest by people he met on food-related websites.The book is also about these people as much as it is about the food. 

 Majumdar describes the excellent guides who led him to good eating places and the large-hearted acquaintances who invited him to their homes and fed him delicious meals. It also has anecdotes of the Majumdar family, especially his brother (aka the Great Salami) and his Welsh mother Gwen.

Majumdar eats almost anything from rotten shark meat to cod sperm sushi and stir-fried rat to braised dog during his journey. Although some of his descriptions might make you nauseous, they are funny enough to make you enjoy them.

He maybe opinionated and egotistic but he is equally self-deprecating. The book is by no means thorough or well-written but is extremely enjoyable.

(Simon Majumdar is the co-writer of Dos Hermanos, one of the UK’s most widely read food blogs. He is also the author of another food/travel memoir, Eating For Britain.)

Around the world in 80 dates

by Jennifer Cox

If you want information on where to stay in Hongkong, what to eat in Canada or what to see in Iceland, this is not the book for you. This is the account of a woman’s journey around the world to discover her soul mate.

Jennifer Cox, a career travel writer and globe-trotter, makes use of her worldwide contacts to set her up on dates with recommended single, eligible males. Most probably she wanted to visit countries in which she felt most familiar and comfortable; so she does not travel to South America, Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent.

Cox is witty and entertaining. However, she does not describe the men on her dates well. It is as though she is waiting for one date to end so that she can move on to the next. This is even more evident when midway through the book (date 55) she finds her soul mate. Instead of stopping her journey there, she carries on maybe because unless there are 80 dates, the book wouldn’t have been published! To complicate things further, she also meets another man (date 79) who seems to fit her description of soul mate.

Sadly, the book lacks sincerity because of all this, and you almost wish for it to end with each successive chapter.