I was quite pleased with Canada Reads program this year. Canada Reads is CBC’s reality radio program where five Canadian “celebrities” duke it out over whose choice of literature should be read by all Canadians. I’ve read four out of five books and they were all excellent. I started reading the fifth and, since it is a collection of short stories. I’ve read one and a half stories out of this one, but it was after I knew that the book was the first to be voted off, and, as it didn’t captivate me, I didn’t care for it too much.

With the four books that I’ve read and enjoyed I would have been happy to see any of them win. “Not Wanted on the Voyage” is the most literary of the lot. It poses many challenging questions while still maintaining both drama and humor. One of the panelists described it as unrelenting. My thoughts were that it was going to win because it is, from a snooty lit-crit point of view, the best. I was laughing out loud on the bus reading “King Leary”. The voice of the narrator is just so alive. “Brown Girl in the Ring” has the most imagination. I loved the post-semi-apocalyptic Toronto, I am actually looking forward to going to TO downtown next time I am there on business. “Icefields” has a calm feel to it and appropriately so since one of the main actors is a glacier.

The panelist were diverse as usual, an actor, a hip-hop/spoken word artist, a musician, a novelist and an astronaut. We correctly predicted that “King Leary” and “Not Wanted on the Voyage” will be the last two books left in the competition. It seriously looked like “Not Wanted” will win, but the astronaut, who had been voting against “King Leary” the whole week, had had a change of heart. The argument that changed his mind was that Tim Findley will be read whether or not his novel wins the competition, but “King Leary” has gone out of print soon after it came out and it was only re-printed now because of the Canada Reads program. Though it is not as complex a work as “Not Wanted on the Voyage”, it is an excellent read and, now that it received proper attention, it can be enjoyed by many readers that would not have stumbled across it otherwise.

Bojnberry.ca has been down a bit too often lately so we’re looking for a new service provider. This one has been great, if for no other reason than that it was free, but it seems like its time has passed.

I’ve been reading a lot lately, partially while feeding Trevor, partially while watching him. Trev is at the stage now when he prefers to play with toys and ignores us, so I usually have an hour or so of quiet time per day.

I’ve finished “Pri?aj mi o njoj” (Tell me about her) by Renato Bareti? after months of reading it. I started reading it in the last weeks of pregnancy and it was my default book to take to the non stress test appointments. Then I’ve misplaced it and read some other books in the mean time.

Overall, I really enjoyed it though it is not as good as Bareti?’s previous novel “Osmi povjerenik” (The eight commissioner). The topic is somewhat more serious as it deals with the aftermath of war. There is plenty of humour in it and it is well written. Bareti? loves playing with dialects, which adds a nice touch to his work. In “Osmi povjerenik” he went as far as making up an entire language. The problem in “Pri?aj mi o njoj” is that he went too far, or at least that’s how it seemed to me. One of the leading characters talks in Split dialect with slang which is fine, but she cuts her verbs which seems unlikely given her education. I just can’t picture a successful journalist saying “Let’s go swimmin’ � without intentionally, rather than casually, cutting off the g. Similar thing happens with the main character’s daughter. She is a ten year old straight A student who grew up with her lawyer and radio announcer parents in Slavonia (opposite side of the country from Dalmacia) and yet, in a year that she has lived in Split she has picked up the most ridiculous illiterate maritime drawl. I remember being her age and dissing ? and ?, but I could and did conjugate (and I wasn�t a straight A student either). Then again, it has been a while since I spent serious time in Croatia. Maybe people really do talk like that. In any case, Bareti? is a very promising author and I hope he keeps publishing novels at par or better than the first two.

I�ve also just finished Atonement by Ian McEwan. I was a bit reluctant to pick it up having a strange prejudice against books from the first three display piles at Chapters. However, since I read Pamuk�s �My Name is Red�, I�ve softened this view a bit. I really liked Atonement. The writing style was quite intriguing and the little twists and turns kept me interested. My sincere apologies must be extended to the first three display piles.

Thanks to the miracle of breastfeeding I have been able to complete yet another book. Orhan Pamuk’s “My Name is Red” is the first book I’ve finished that has won a Nobel Prize. It is the second Noble prize winning book that I’ve attempted. I tried reading “Na Drini ?uprija” (The Bridge on the Drina) a while ago but never got past the third chapter. I was much younger then and I might try reading it again, but I will leave it be for now.

I am glad to have read “My Name is Red” in Croatian for several reasons
1) My sister gave me a copy
2) It is translation from Turkish anyway
3) A number of Turkish words (particularly words from the time of the Ottoman Empire) exist in Bosnian and are used in this translation. It gave the translation an authentic feel that I think English version would not have had the benefit of
4) It had a neat little dictionary of Turkish words at the back so the authenticity did not obscure the text
5) It is a good excuse to keep my Croatian from getting rusty
6) It was cool to compare translations with my friend who had an English copy

Overall the novel really drew me in. There are a number of layers to the story and I’ve only concentrated on the surface. There is a lot of history as well as art history, mythology, theology and other symbolism that I just had to acknowledge to be there without being able to really get into it.

Fortunately for me, Pamuk went into great detail to explain the art history concepts so by the end of the novel I felt that I knew much more on the subject. It made quite a difference in understanding the driving points in the plot. Even though large sections of the book are there to illuminate the reader’s knowledge of art, the plot moves at a fast pace. Every time I would get exhausted form reading the background information, the story would suddenly shift to one of the more exciting sub threads thus delighting the reader.

I was discussing this novel with Chris and he suggested I read Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” since it has a similar plot.

I’ve forgotten how much I like Orwell. I read him in high school and really liked him, but have not picked him up since assuming it was just a high school crush. Well, I just started reading Burmese Days and I can’t put it down.