Because I read mainly novels, the identity and experience of the author is usually immaterial to me. Of course, who they are and where they are from shape their words and the stories they tell, but seldom do I pay attention to these things. My belief is that the authors would want it to be so – that they would wish for their stories and characters to stand on their own, and to be authentic without our knowing anything about the artist who brought them to life. Sometimes, however, this isn’t possible. Having looked at the copyright of The Grapes of Wrath, for example, I know going in that John…

I loved this book. Again, it was a quick read, which I seem to be getting a lot of lately, so I polished it off in 2 sittings. The first thing I noticed when I started this book was that the first chapter appeared to be chapter 2. Hmmm. Did I get a bum copy? Doesn’t look like a bum copy. The next chapter is 3, then 5, then 7. Oh, OK, prime numbers. Christopher Boone is writing a murder mystery, and he is an autistic savant living in Swindon, England, and loves ‘maths’. He finds great comfort in numbers and the way they work…it helps him to cope with…

What if you were a 15 year old white boy in Texas with some sort of irritable bowl condition, and your best friend were a gay Mexican boy who couldn’t take the cruel teasing of his classmates, and shot and killed 16 people at high school, including himself? What if, because Jesus (your best friend) is dead and also a murderer, and the townspeople want answers, and blood, you suddenly find yourself in jail, not yet accused of a crime, but coming close? What if you befriended a CNN reporter, the only semi-decent reporter in town, only to have him betray you, sleep with your mother, and then you find…

Waiting is the story of a man, Lin, who lives in Communist China during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. He is a doctor in a military hospital, and is satisfied with his life there. His aging parents live in a remote village, and want to arrange a marriage for Lin, so that the wife will care for them in their illness and old age. Lin agrees, and so he is married to Shuyu, a devoted and old fashioned woman who cares very well for Lin’s parents, and gives him a daughter, Min. Lin does not love Shuyu, and never has, but he is grateful to her for all that…

Last week, while banished from my house so that painter men could change our walls from a boring white to an inviting brown, I was thankful to live in beautiful California, and that our townhouse has a pool just outside the front door. So, I sat beside the pool and finished the next book in my Book Awards Reading Challenge, Runaway, by Alice Munro. This book won the Giller Prize, which is an award given for outstanding works of Canadian fiction. If you’re unaware of Alice Munro’s work, it is almost exclusively comprised of short stories, and Runaway is no exception. There are 8 short stories in this volume, all…