BOOK SUGGESTIONS FOR CHRISTMAS GIFTS

Another tradition at this time of year is my writing an article for my hometown newspaper, The Madawaska Valley Current, recommending books for Christmas gifts.  The article can be found at https://madvalleycurrent.com/2023/12/06/book-suggestions-for-christmas-gifts/ but I've also reproduced it here.

Book Suggestions for Christmas Gifts 

One of my traditions during the Christmas season is to read or listen to Stuart McLean’s Christmas stories.  “Dave Cooks the Turkey” is a favourite, but I recommend all of them.  If you’re looking for other books for winter reading or for gifting to book lovers or yourself, here are some titles to consider. 

 

The Adversary by Michael Crummey

This novel is for those who enjoy books with suspenseful plots and memorable characters.  At its heart is the conflict between Abe Strapp and Widow Caines, owners of the largest mercantile firms in an isolated outport in northern Newfoundland.  They despise each other and are relentless in their fight for dominance in the North Atlantic fishery.   The outport residents, besides being plagued by storms, marauding privateers, disease, and hunger, often end up becoming unwitting pawns in the schemes of the adversaries.  Crummey’s examination of power and corruption is a masterpiece.

 

Rage the Night by Donna Morrissey

This book, also set in Newfoundland, combines fiction and non-fiction.  Roan, a young man searching for his father, ends up aboard a ship heading to the sealing grounds for the spring hunt.  This ship, the Newfoundland, was involved in one of the worst marine disasters in the province’s history.  Not just a tale of adventure, the novel excels in its portrayal of the sealers.  They speak in distinctive accents, but it’s their supportive fellowship, resilience, and humour that stand out.  Lovers of historical fiction will find much to like. 

Cold as Hell by Lilja Sigurðardóttir

For crime fiction readers, I recommend the Áróra Investigations series set in Iceland.  Cold as Hell is the first in the series featuring Áróra Jónsdóttir, a financial investigator.   Her older sister has disappeared so Áróra joins forces with Daníel Hansson, a police officer, to find Ísafold.  At the same time, Áróra meets a man whom she discovers may be guilty of fraud so she opts to also investigate his financial dealings.  It’s an enjoyable, fast-paced read which will inevitably lead to readers picking up Red as Blood and White as Snow, the next two books. 

 

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

This book is for those who like psychological suspense.  For years, Sally Diamond was told by her adoptive father that she is emotionally disconnected and socially deficient.  Certainly she finds people confusing and conversation awkward because she can’t read social cues.  When she is 42, her father dies.  Forced to connect with the outside world after having lived in virtual isolation outside a small Irish village, she faces quite an adjustment.  Sally has always found it strange that she doesn’t remember anything from her childhood before the age of 7 when she was adopted.  There is an intense sense of unease as she learns more about her past.  (A similar psychologically suspenseful novel, also with a narrator on the autism spectrum, is All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow.)

 

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

For readers who prefer quiet, reflective novels, this one has much to offer.  Lara and her husband Joe own a cherry orchard in Michigan.  Because of the pandemic lockdown, their three daughters, all in their twenties, are home and helping to bring in the harvest.  To help pass the hours of grueling work, the girls beg their mother to tell the story of her relationship with a famous actor.  The three young women learn much about both their mother and the actor they’ve admired.  The book has a life-affirming message about beauty and gratitude. 

 

Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry

Another book which emphasizes the beauty of love, family, and friendship is this gem set in the mid-1990s in Ireland.  The protagonist, Tom Kettle, is a retired police detective living on the coast south of Dublin.  One day former colleagues appear on his doorstep to ask for help in the re-opening of a cold case.  This encounter forces Tom to revisit the past, memories of which he has suppressed.  This novel is for people who like unreliable narrators: Tom’s mind veers into fantasy, a dream-world so lifelike that it’s difficult to separate his imaginings from reality.  His memories are unstable and the reader is left wondering which of his thoughts can be trusted.  This book is sometimes heart-wrenchingly sad, but it is also amusing in parts.

 

Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue by Christine Higdon

Another wonderful example of Canadian historical fiction is this book which focuses on the lives of four sisters living in Vancouver in 1922.  The novel is excellent at describing the realities of life, especially for women, at the beginning of the 20^th century.  It examines a number of serious and important issues as characters search for love and justice and acceptance and equality and identity, but in a manner that engages the reader with both heart-warming and heart-breaking episodes.  Though set one hundred years in the past, the book is so relevant to the present because it touches on social issues that are still a concern.  If you end up enjoying this title, pick up The Very Marrow of Our Bones which can almost be viewed as a sequel. 

 

The Observer by Marina Endicott

This is a slow-paced book, but I recommend it for its realistic depiction of the struggles of RCMP officers and their partners in small rural communities.  The setting is the 1990s in northern Alberta.  Julia, the narrator, has paused her career to move with her partner Hardy to a small town where he has his first posting.  Life is not easy for either Hardy or Julia.  Hardy works long hours and is often exhausted physically and emotionally by what he witnesses on a regular basis, whereas Julia, a city girl, has to learn the customs of a small town where she knows no one.  The author’s husband was an RCMP officer so she is familiar with her subject matter.    

 

More detailed reviews of all these titles - and hundreds more - can be found on my blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/). 

 

                               Happy Holidays!   Happy Reading!                             

Review of WHERE ROSES NEVER DIE by Gunnar Staalesen

 3 Stars

This is the next book in the Varg Veum series following We Shall Inherit the Wind.  In my review of that book, I predicted that difficulties would lie ahead for the protagonist.  I was not wrong.

Three years after the loss Varg experiences in We Shall Inherit the Wind, he has become an alcoholic.  As he conducts his next investigation, he struggles with the siren call of aquavit.  His case is the disappearance of 3-year-old Mette Misvær twenty-five years earlier, in 1977.  Her mother Maja wants Varg to find out what happened to her daughter who went missing from the sandpit outside her home, one of five houses in a small housing co-op. 

Varg is very methodical.  He spends his time interviewing people, first focusing on the other four families living in the co-op.  A lot of characters are introduced in a short span of time so it is difficult sometimes to remember who is who and the connections among characters.  Of course Varg always manages to extract information that allows him to move forward.  Mette disappeared without a trace, and the police never solved the case, but Varg does of course.

The incompetent police trope is annoying, especially because Varg solves more than one case.  A recent jewelry heist has more than one connection to the people who were Maja and Mette’s neighbours.  All these connections stretch credibility. 

I can understand a mother wanting answers to what happened to a missing child, but considering the many secrets Maja has, it’s surprising that she hired a private investigator.  Varg uncovers many secrets and lies, many of which involve Maja.

I found parts of the book to be predictable.  From the beginning, I guessed Maja’s secret which added to her guilt.  And when a certain character was introduced, I immediately heard alarm bells and guessed much of the ending.  I read to the end to discover the other details which are not obvious. 

I think I’ll return to this series at a later date; in the meantime, I’ll begin listening to a Canadian series I’ve been meaning to read.

Review of LAND OF SNOW AND ASHES by Petra Rautiainen

 3.5 Stars

This is the third book I’ve read this year about the Sámi people.  Earlier I read Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2023/02/review-of-stolen-by-ann-helen.html) and The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylväinen (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2023/08/review-of-end-of-drum-time-by-hanna.html).  This novel focuses on the crimes committed against the Sámi people by both the Nazis and the Finnish government in the 1940s.

There are two timelines.  One is 1944 when Finland was aligned with Nazi Germany and allowed Hitler’s forces to fight against Stalin in the north of the country, though it was about to sign a peace treaty with Russia that required Finland to eject all German troops from its territory.  During this period, Väinö Remes, a Finnish interpreter/guard in a Nazi-run detention camp in the Lapland town of Inari, keeps a diary in which he records what he witnesses.

The second timeline begins in 1947.  Inkeri Lindqvist, a photographer and journalist, comes to northern Finland to write about the reconstruction, but she is also there to determine what happened to her husband Kaarlo who was a prisoner-of-war held by the Nazis.  Inkeri ends up with a tenant named Olavi Heiskanen who is mentioned in Remes’s journal.  Is there a connection?  Does he know what happened to Kaarlo? 

The treatment of the Sámi is a focus.  The Nazis “had been taught that these primitive northern hunter-gatherer peoples were a relic, the genetic dregs left behind by human civilization, that they were defined as an evolutionary anomaly caused by the prevailing environmental circumstances.”  So the Sámi are treated as subhuman:  Remes writes that “the Nazis have forcibly expropriated most of the herding cooperatives’ reindeer, which is presumably one reason why relations between the Nazis and the local communities here have begun to fray.”  When the Germans retreated from Lapland, they sought to destroy as much infrastructure as possible, burning down entire villages; Inkeri is told about women and children killed and villages “pillaged, burnt, destroyed . . . Ash hovered above the bodies.”

The Finnish government also exploited the Sámi.  For instance, they aided expropriation of the reindeer.  When Remes arrives at Inari, the commander of the camp asks him if he believes in a Greater Finland and the primacy of the Finnish race, and the translator answers, “’It is imperative that we eradicate all foreign elements from among our Finnish brethren across the border so that our peoples may be properly educated and become upstanding citizens of a Greater Finland.’” 

Inkeri comes across a group of men in the school taking measurements and photographs of children.  Piera, a Sámi elder, tells her, “’It’s happened before, back in 1920.  Kajava [a Finnish doctor and racial researcher] sent his quacks up here to measure our skulls.  Stripped us all naked, they did, and took pictures from the front and the back.  They even photographed our eyeballs, dug up the graves on Inarinsaari and took the skulls away. . . . Seems the bastards are back.’”  Some cursory research led me to some of Yrjö Kajava’s writings: "Only by comparing all these many different characteristics (proportions of the head and body, the color of the hair and eyes) can one form an idea of the ideal type that is characteristic of a certain race or ideal type."  This certainly sounds like eugenics to me.

Much of what is described about the treatment of the Sámi reminded me of Canada’s treatment of its indigenous peoples.  The housing of Sámi children certainly made me think of residential schools in Canada.  Inkeri learns that “the children only see their parents twice a year . . . [so] the bonds between the children and their families and traditions become weaker over time.”  A new church is being built for Laplanders but Piera has issues with it:  “’you can’t sing hymns in Sámi in Finnish churches neither.  And I know for a fact it’ll be forbidden in this church too.  One word of Sámi is one too many.’”  Piera is upset about the loss of Sámi culture:  “’We used to be able to teach our children about our own way of life, how to live in the fells and hunt for food, to take only what you need and no more; how to see where the fowl have made their nests if you wanted to hunt them.’”  Obviously the Finnish government’s attempts to assimilate the Sámi continued after World War II. 

The book also provides an interesting perspective:  that of people who did not always agree with what was happening but had little choice.  Remes supports the Greater Finland agenda but he is uncomfortable with some of what he sees, especially prisoners going missing at night.  He is not the only one who later has to come to terms with what he did.  Inkeri is warned not to judge people too harshly for their actions during the war:  “’None of us knows the limits of our endurance, we don’t know when or how we will break.  But everybody breaks eventually.  It’s just a question of time.’” 

The mystery as to what happened to Kaarlo is not solved quickly.  Only towards the end do the revelations come.  The reader actually knows what happened because of the diary entries; Inkeri learns only some of what happened to her husband.  I was pleased that my guess as to Olavi’s involvement was confirmed; of course there are clues in his behaviour and interests. 

I know little of Finland’s history and so wish that I had read the Translator’s Afterword first.  It explains that for the Finns the war had three separate components.  I wish I had known about these separate conflicts before I read the novel.  I would have been less confused at times.  A map would also have been helpful. 

Though I found it difficult to like and connect to the main characters, I liked the book for its history lesson.  I learned about World War II events from the Finnish context, especially the destruction and subsequent reconstruction of Lapland.  Because of its subject matter, the novel is not an easy read, but it is certainly a worthwhile one. 

Review of THE ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF LENNI AND MARGOT by Marianne Cronin

 3 Stars

A patient in Glasgow’s Princess Royal Hospital, 17-year-old Lenni Petersson is terminally ill with an unspecified illness.  While awaiting her death, she becomes friends with a number of people.  One of them is Father Arthur, the hospital chaplain, who is nearing retirement.  Through the art therapy program in the hospital, she meets 83-year-old Margot Macrae who has life-threatening heart disease. 

The two women, whose ages add up to 100 years, decide to collaborate on 100 works of art to represent their combined century of life:  “It isn’t enough to have been a particle in the great extant of existence.  I want, we want more.  We want for people to know us, to know our story, to know who we are and who we will be.  And after we’re gone, to know who we were.”  Since Margot is the much better artist, she does most of the artwork whereas Lenni keeps a written record of their stories.

Chapters alternate between Lenni and Margot in chronological order.  Since Margot has lived a fairly long life, we learn a lot about her past:  her life has been full of both love and heartbreak.  Since Margot has lived 66 more years than Lenni, we learn much more about the older woman.  The problem is that her backstory dominates and Lenni’s past is only vaguely outlined.

In an interview included at the end of the novel, the author stated that “friendship is probably is the most important theme of the book.”  Certainly the narrative emphasizes that friendship can be found in the most unexpected of places.  I looked forward to reading about an intergenerational friendship, but the friendship between the protagonists is not really developed.  We don’t see the development of their relationship, as we do in Lenni’s friendship with Father Arthur and New Nurse.  Instead we are told that a friendship develops and the two go on to tell each other stories from their lives.  Hearing stories is not the same as having heartfelt conversations that develop connections. 

I enjoyed the interactions between Lenni and Father Arthur.  She is irreverent, inquisitive, and straight-forward.  She is witty and sarcastic.  He is caring, compassionate, and sensitive.  It is difficult not to like them so the bond the two form is understandable.  The relationship I had difficulty with is the one between Margot and Meena which receives a lot of attention.  I understand that Margot sees Meena as a free spirit, something she wishes she could be, but Meena just seems self-centred.  And if she’s such a rebel willing to engage in criminal escapades and willing to have an unorthodox relationship with The Professor, why is she so reticent to even discuss things with Margot?

While reading this novel, more than once I thought of the phrase, “If you love someone, set them free.”  Humphrey does that and so do Lenni and Margot at different times with different people.  Of course, the second part of the quote is important too:  “If they come back, they’re yours; if they don’t, they never were.”

This tear-jerker with its life –affirming message (life is possible even in the most inhospitable conditions) will appeal to many readers.  I didn’t hate the book, but I found it rather superficial.  I always check out any discussion questions at the back of a book.  The fact that 8 of the 20 questions (40%) refer only to the reader’s experiences and do not require any analysis of the book suggests there is really not much to analyze.  There are no answers to life’s – or Lenni’s – difficult questions, and the themes are not especially profound. 

Review of THE MYSTERY GUEST by Nita Prose (New Release)

 4 Stars

People who enjoyed The Maid will enjoy the return of Molly Gray in this sequel.

Molly is now 29 and has been promoted to Head Maid at the Regency Grand Hotel.  Because of her obsessiveness about cleanliness and returning things to “a state of perfection,” and her devotion to duty, she excels at her job.  There is a great deal of excitement about the opening of the hotel’s tearoom:  its first event is the appearance of a world-famous mystery writer, J. D. Grimthorpe, who is scheduled to make a major announcement.  But just as he takes the podium, he drops dead after ingesting poisoned tea.  Detective Stark, who suspected Molly of murder in The Maid, reappears to investigate.  Various suspects are considered, including Lily, the newest maid-in-training whom Molly insisted on being hired. 

Though J. D. Grimthorpe is a mysterious figure – I couldn’t help but think of J. D. Salinger – Molly’s thoughts reveal something important:  “I knew so much about the man who’d written [The Maid in the Mansion].  I knew a lot about the book itself as well.”  Interspersed amongst the sections about the investigation are flashbacks to Molly’s childhood visits to the Grimthorpes and their mansion where Gran worked as a maid.

As in the previous novel, much of the appeal of the book is the character of Molly.  She has not changed in that she remains honest, unfailingly polite, and hard working.  Her social awkwardness also remains, although she seems more adept at reading emotions and social cues.  Her maturity shows in her awareness of both her weaknesses (not noticing what is obvious to others) and strengths (being attuned to what others ignore).  She is a charming amateur sleuth in the vein of Flavia de Luce.

Molly’s reminiscences about the past are most interesting.  The reader learns more about Molly’s childhood; her experiences at school are especially heart-breaking.  We also discover more about Gran, the woman who raised Molly.  Gran is a woman whom the reader cannot but admire.  Her sayings serve to guide Molly.  Sometimes Molly’s constant repetition of these nuggets of wisdom becomes annoying, but of course routine and repetition are keys to how Molly functions in the world. 

Of course, Molly’s memories also serve another purpose:  they hold the clues to why Grimthorpe was murdered.  Because she was only ten years old when she visited the mansion and because she understood things in a very literal way, she was not able to interpret the meaning and significance of what she observed and heard.  The reader may understand things Molly does not, but will s/he ignore things Molly does not?  Certainly the clues are there from the beginning.

This cozy mystery is a quick, entertaining read with both sad and silly moments.  Sequels do not have the freshness of the originals, but this sequel is quite good.  Molly is an endearing character so it’s fun to spend some time in her company.  As she was taught by Gran, Molly focuses on the positive, and some escapist reading that ends with a positive message is just what we need in these dark days. 

Note:  I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of TOM LAKE by Ann Patchett

  4 Stars

This reflective novel highlights Patchett’s storytelling skills.  I loved it.

Lara and her husband Joe own a cherry orchard in Michigan.  Because of the pandemic lockdown, their three daughters are home and helping to bring in the harvest.  To help pass the hours of grueling work, the girls beg their mother to tell the story of her relationship with Peter Duke, a famous actor.  Slowly Lara tells them of her short career as an actress and her romance with Duke when she was 24 and starring as Emily in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in a summer stock theatre in Tom Lake. 

Though all three daughters have bought into the mythology of Duke, they have very different personalities.  Emily, 26, has studied horticulture and has decided she will take over the family business; she has a fiery temperament.  Maisie, 24, is studying to be a veterinarian; her pragmatism is what stands out.  Nell, 22, is studying drama in hopes of becoming an actress; she is very intuitive, always anticipating what comes next in her mother’s story. 

The three young women think that they know their mother, but as Lara narrates her backstory, they come to see her not just as a loving and protective mother but as a complex human being who had a very different life when she was their age.  They come to understand that she had desires like they do, but that she also has experienced loss.  Of course, their views of Duke also change:  he’s not just the handsome and charismatic world-famous actor they have read about and seen in films. 

Initially, the daughters expect that their mother regrets giving up a glamourous life as an actress.  Lara, however, has no such regrets:  “’You wake up one day and you don’t want the carnival anymore.  In fact, you can’t even believe you did that.’”  She even confides, “’it doesn’t feel anything like regret.  It feels like I just missed getting hit by a train.’”  I love her comment, “’Look at [the beauty of the trees]!  Look at the three of you.  You think my life would have been better spent making commercials for lobster rolls?’” 

The daughters also think that their mother’s romance with Duke was such a pivotal event that they can only wonder “’How do you ever get over someone like that?’”  But Lara seldom thinks about Duke.  She sees the summer of 1988 as her coming-of-age season, a summer that taught her a great deal.  Though “most of those lessons I would have gladly done without,” she realizes that it also brought her Joe, the farm, and three daughters.  She was betrayed and wounded, but she has left any sorrow or anger behind.  I love her statement that “The past need not be so all-encompassing that it renders us incapable of making egg salad.”

Lara concludes, “There is no explaining this simple truth about life:  you will forget much of it.  The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go?  Now you’re not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else.  Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelievably, those things also get knocked aside as well.”  I certainly agree with her comment that “we remember the people we hurt so much more clearly than the people who hurt us.”

The play Our Town, which was central to Lara’s life as an actress, has as its theme the idea that people do not appreciate what life has to offer.  It is the ordinary things in life that often go unnoticed that are the most important.  Lara has taken this lesson to heart.  She is content with her life in the present; she is grateful for her life.  Beauty and suffering exist together:  they are living through a pandemic, “this unparalleled disaster,” that has overturned their lives, but she also thinks of this as “the happiest time of my life [because] Joe and I are here on this farm, our three girls grown and gone and then returned, all of us working together to take the cherries off the trees.”

The passage of time is inevitable, as are loss, suffering, and death, but there is beauty in even the most ordinary of lives and loves.  This life-affirming message is timely and it is delivered in a beautiful story told in beautiful prose - a tale of gratitude for which to be grateful.

Review of WE SHALL INHERIT THE WIND by Gunnar Staalesen

 3.5 Stars

When I asked for suggestions for a new detective series to listen to during walks, a friend recommended the Varg Veum series by Gunnar Staalesen, who is often described as the father of Nordic noir.  I began with We Shall Inherit the Wind though I understand it is not the first of the series.  As so often happens, not all the books have been translated and translations do not always begin at the beginning.  Nonetheless, this book turned out to be a good place to start since it marks a major change in Varg’s life.

Varg, whose name means wolf, is an ex-social worker who has become a private investigator working in Bergen, Norway.  Ranveig Mæland, a friend of Varg’s fiancée Karin, asks Varg to investigate the disappearance of her husband Mons.  Mons owns land on a remote island which is being considered for a controversial wind farm.  Just as all interested parties and opponents to the plan are to gather on the island, Mons has gone missing.  As Varg searches for Mons and later checks into a land sale, he uncovers business and family secrets.

The book touches not only on disappearances, one in the past and one in the present, and dubious business dealings but also on environmental terrorism and religious fanaticism. 

Varg is a likeable character though he is, as he readily admits, not perfect.  He will not stop until all his questions are answered and though this may be admirable, it is also a flaw.  This determination has him making an error for which he pays a tragically high price.  Yet afterwards, even when the case is finished, he continues investigating on his own because he wants to confirm his suspicions about an unsolved case from the past. 

Another trait that stands out is his stoicism.  He rarely displays his feelings, though his thoughts reveal that he is capable of deep emotions.  The ending suggests that difficulties may lie ahead for Varg because he doesn’t know how to deal with his feelings. 

Varg is 56 years old; as befits his age, he is more old-fashioned in his approach.  He relies on deductive reasoning; he is not the gun-toting tough guy who manhandles suspects. 

My one problem with the book is the names of the characters, and there are lots of them.  Because I was listening, not reading, I often became confused with the many similar-sounding names who, to me, are foreign. 

I appreciate that though there are some unexpected twists, the clues are there.  Things that didn’t feel right prove to have not felt right for a legitimate reason.  All the reader has to do is pay close attention and, like Varg, use his/her deductive thinking skills.

I quite enjoyed my introduction to this series, so much so that I’ve already downloaded the next book.  I look forward to spending my morning walks in the company of Varg Veum.