Tag: book recommendations

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The Two Keys to a Great Vacation

One of the pleasures of a vacation is to limit your choices. In our daily lives, we have to make decisions constantly. We have to choose what to do and what to do next. How will we fit in all we’re supposed to do? It often feels like we got too much to cram into our waking hours. Gotta exercise, gotta get groceries, be responsible, shovel snow, pay bills, cook, clean, and deal with a plethora of stimuli (much of it upsetting). The world is a firehose blasting away at the teacup that is your brain. On vacation, all you really have to decide is where and when to eat. Then, it’s that rare and precious commodity: free time.

As reported yesterday, my spouse and I spent most of our time in Cuba as sick as sick dogs. The dark hours filled with coughing and night sweats were the worst. The rising sun brought some peace. We crawled out to the pool’s edge, blew our noses into napkins, and lounged. And we read books.

I’m a bibliophile, but vacation days yield more time for getting lost in books. Uninterrupted days filled with the tasty consumption of words are great days, even when you aren’t feeling your best. In today’s example of something good to read, I suggest Bunny by Mona Awad. This author was new to me, but a glance at the first few pages told me I would enjoy her wordplay. It’s reminiscent of Heathers, the 1988 movie starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater (and 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, I might add). If you’ve ever felt like an outsider standing too close to a snooty clique, you’ll enjoy all the delicious evisceration of the in-crowd.

No spoilers. I despise spoilers.

Bunny tells the story of a young woman studying creative writing, and she’s surrounded by assholes. Anyone who has participated in a writing workshop will relate to her hatred of the worst people who show up at writing workshops. Her school has more than its fair share of fake, nasty, and cloying student writers.

Awad’s writing style is clever and hip. (Is it okay to say hip? Is that not hip? No? Okay, it’s bussin’! It’s gas! It’s buttah! Cool? Okay. Far out, groovy, and fresh!) I digress. Go read Bunny.

The keys to a great vacation are (A) not having to make decisions, and (B) a good book. Make time for reading when you aren’t on vacation, too. It’s good for your mental health.

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Weekend Reads: Embracing Literature for Escape

Coffee and a book or two are great ways to start a Sunday morning. I’ve found my escape from the news, at least for a little while.

I just got these this morning, and I already know Writers and Lovers is a binge-read.

Sunday Morning, back home in Nova Scotia

When we weren’t arguing about whether I should be imprisoned in the car and taken to church, Sunday mornings used to be magical. Sunday mornings meant listening to CBC’s Sunday Morning and Dad cooking up a hunter’s breakfast. The theme music was “English Country Garden,” a very civilized and incongruous opening for a series of radio reports about the state of the world. My clearest memory of the show comes from November 1978. I know the date because it was when I first heard the gritty details of the Jonestown massacre. Many years later on the same program, they read a letter I wrote on air. It was an ode to my beloved journalism prof, Walter Stewart, upon his death. Read the second paragraph under Early Life and Career on his Wikipedia page, and you’ll understand why I loved him.

Sunday morning: today.

This morning, I awoke to news of rebels capturing Damascus and Bashar al-Assad fleeing to parts unknown. I had to shovel the end of the driveway again because the plows came through. That done, I headed out as CBC reported on the abuse of First Nations people by police. As I drove home from the bookstore, the cantankerous and fun Fran Lebowitz was interviewed. “English Country Garden” is long gone, but the journalistic standards remain.

I was once a journalist and columnist. Now, when I get a weekend newspaper, I skim the news and head for the Books section. I wonder if I’ll pay so much attention to politics and world affairs for the next couple of years. I love to be informed, but I write fiction. It occurs to me that many of my happiest times were when I retreated into the safety of books.

Books are Milestones of Nostalgia

One Christmas, when all I wanted was a train set, I was sick. I went to bed with a tall canister of Smarties and read Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Fleming. Later, I would read all the James Bond books. They had so little to do with the movies I loved, but I loved the books no less.

University was me putting off toiling in the workforce for four years. It meant hiding in my dorm and reading In Cold Blood and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Once I graduated, I moved to Toronto to work in publishing. I was selling American Psycho and arguing with my bosses about censorship (Them: for; Me: Against).

I ate up Bright Lights, Big City, and related to the story so hard. On a summer night on the 28th floor of my apartment building in downtown Toronto, I devoured my favorite novel, The Color of Light by William Goldman. When I realized he had fooled me again, right down to the last line, I threw the book across the room, partly in exaltation, partly in admiration.

Chase the Cozy

Losing oneself to a novel, there is a coziness that feels like sitting by a crackling fire as a storm rages, a storm you don’t have to face. If you have the privilege of ignoring the violence and disappointments of current events, even for a little while, cherish it.

I encourage you to check out my books and retreat into fictional worlds for some solace. There are plenty of links to your right.

Failing that, here’s a link to Lily King’s Writers and Lovers. Think of it as Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman. I’m only 30 pages in, and it’s delightful.