The Buzz...About Books

Book Buzz--April Newsletter

April Reads

Book Buzz will be featuring two books in April. 

Smoke by Elizabeth Ruth

 Set in 1958 in a small tobacco growing community near Windsor, Ontario, Smoke explores themes of identity and transformation.  Fifteen year old Buster, has a promising future until he is severely burned in a tragic fire.  

Throughout the painful healing process, John Gray, the town’s doctor distracts Buster with stories of The Purple Gang, Prohibition era mobsters who controlled liquor smuggling between Windsor and Detroit.   While the scarred Buster tries to move forward, Doc John struggles to make peace with the past and both of these outsiders must learn to cope with the present.  Elizabeth Ruth explores the themes of identity and transformation in this vibrant novel. 

Midnight at the Dragon Café by Judy Fong Bates
 
Judy Fong Bates’ debut novel tells the story of a young Chinese girl and her family—the owners of the only Chinese restaurant in town.  Through Su-Jen’s eyes, the hard life behind the scenes at the Dragon Café unfolds.  As Su-Jen’s father works continually for a better future, her mother, a beautiful but embittered woman, settles uneasily into their new life.  When Su-Jen’s half-brother arrives, smouldering under the responsibilities he must bear as the dutiful Chinese son, he forms an alliance with Su-Jen’s mother, one that will have devastating consequences.

Midnight at the Dragon Café is the 2011 Keep Toronto Reading One Book selection.

Author Events
 
  

Judy Fong Bates
Live one hour chat
April 14, 7 pm.

 

 

 

Elizabeth Ruth
Live one hour chat 
April 26, 7 pm.

Toronto Public Library acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for this program.

 

Upcoming Discussions
May
The Help by Katherine Stockett

June
Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup

Book Buzz--March Newsletter

March Read

Outcast by José Latour

Elliot Steil is the product of a short relationship between a Cuban mother and an American-born labourer prior to the revolution in 1959.  Now in his  forties, Steil works as a teacher in Havana.  He has become disillusioned by the socialist revolution and its bureaucracy but he does not have the means to leave his homeland.  

Steil is shocked when he is suddenly visited by an American private detective.  Dan Gastler has come to Havana with a message from Elliot’s father and offers him way out of Cuba as a stowaway on a Florida-bound yacht.  Things are not as straightforward as they appear however and midway through the journey his apparent saviour turns on Steil, throwing him overboard to die in the Florida Straits. 

Steil survives and makes his way to Miami where he must contend with his newfound freedom as he struggles to discover who has betrayed him and why. 

Author Event

You've read the book, now discuss it with the author!  Outcast author José Latour will be our online guest throughout March.

Upcoming Discussions

April
Smoke by Elizabeth Ruth
Midnight at the Dragon Café by Judy Fong Bates

May
The Help by Kathryn Stockett

June
Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup

Book Buzz--February Newsletter

February Read

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin   

Mathematics lecturer and amateur photographer Charles Dodgson was teaching at Christ Church College in Oxford in 1856 when he first met Henry Liddell, a newly appointed Oxford Dean.  A friendship grew between Dodgson and the Liddell family. Dodgson was especially fond of the Liddell daughters often accompanying them on outings.  

It was on one of these excursions that Dodgson told a fanciful story about a girl named Alice and her adventures in a magical underground world, takin  g his inspiration from ten year old Alice Liddell.  She urged her friend to write the story and it was subsequently published as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland using Dodgson’s pseudonym, Lewis Carroll.

In this fact-based novel, the ageing Alice Liddell finally has the opportunity to tell her own story.  Her real life has often been overshadowed by the adventures of her fictional namesake and she wants the truth to be known.  This book explores her childhood and the relationship with Dodgson that so dramatically changed both of their lives.  It also delves into Alice’s sometimes privileged, sometimes tragic but always fascinating, adult life.  

Alice I Have Been is also available in these formats:

•     eBook

•     eAudiobook

Upcoming Discussions

March:
Outcast by José Latour 

Author Event: Read the book and meet the author.
In March, Book Buzz welcomes author José Latour as a guest blogger all month. 

April:
Smoke by Elizabeth Ruth
Midnight at the Dragon Cafe by Judy Fong Bates

 

Book Buzz--January Newsletter

January Read

Effigy by Alissa York

In 1857, 120 members of a wagon train were ambushed and killed as they travelled through Utah.  Dorrie, one of the few survivors, is 14 years old when she becomes the fourth wife of Erastus Hammer, a rancher and hunter. 

She has no memory of her early life. 

Although Erastus marries Dorrie, he is not especially interested in maintaining a spousal relationship with the girl.  It is Dorrie’s skill as a taxidermist that appeals to Erastus.  An avid hunter who is losing his sight, he believes that Dorrie’s artistic creations will document and commemorate his hunting skills.  Although Dorrie is passionate about her craft, she finds herself uneasy about her latest project.  As she struggles to create a tableau of a family of wolves, she is tormented by violent dreams. 

Based on the true story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the novel is a story about the way secrets can divide a family. 

Effigy was a finalist for the 2007 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Upcoming Discussions

February: Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin 

• eBook
• eAudiobook

March: Outcast by José Latour

Author Event: Read the book and meet the author.
In March, Book Buzz welcomes author José Latour as a guest blogger all month. 

The buzz...on Book Buzz -- December 2010

December Read

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Set in the Great Depression, the novel tells the story of Jacob Jankowski, a veterinary student who abandons his studies after a family tragedy.  Depressed and destitute, Jacob jumps on to a moving train in the middle of the night, discovering later that it is a circus train.  Because of his veterinary background, Jacob is hired by the circus owner to care for the animal performers.  

He describes his struggle to adapt to circus life, learning the traditions and hierarchy while trying to maintain own moral compass in an essentially alien world. 

Working in this environment he falls in love with Marlena, one of the circus’ star performers.  Their romance is complicated by her marriage to August, an animal trainer who is capable of great charm but also tremendous brutality. 

The story is told from the perspective of the now elderly Jacob, who is looking back at his life from a nursing home. 

Gruen’s novel has been translated into a number of languages and has won fans throughout the world. 

Upcoming Discussions

January: Effigy by Alissa York
February: Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

Join the discussion on Book Buzz.

 

The buzz...on Book Buzz -- November 2010

November Read

The Knife Sharpener's Bell by Rhea Tregebov

Ten year old Annette Gershon is content with her life which revolves around the Winnipeg delicatessen run by her father.  However, the prairies are suffering through the Great Depression and the family situation is far more tenuous than the child realizes.  Her immigrant parents, homesick and frustrated with the collapsing capitalist system make the decision to return to Russia, their country of origin.

The Knife Sharpener's Bell follows the Gershon family as they resettle in Europe.  Although expecting to find a Workers' Paradise, the family is instead confronted by war, anti-Semitism and the relentless horror of the Stalin era.  Annette must first adjust to her new life in Odessa, later fleeing to Moscow ahead of the Nazi occupation, and eventually returning to Canada.  Throughout, Annette struggles to establish her identity and maintain her sense of self while the world erodes around her.

This unforgettable novel about human survival and resilience was inspired by the author's own family history.  Tregebov's grandfather, like the fictional Avram Gershon, became disillusioned with capitalism and applied for repatriation to Russia.  Unlike the family in the book, however, permission to return was not granted.  In her novel, Tregebov has imagined what might have happened, filling her story with lyrical prose and haunting images that will resonate with readers everywhere.

The novel received the 2010 Shulamis Yelin English Fiction and Poetry Award on a Jewish Theme, one of the J.I. Segal Literary Awards.

Special Author Event
 
Rhea Tregebov will be our special guest throughout November.  Visit Book Buzz and join the discussion.

Upcoming Discussions
December: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
January: Effigy by Alissa York

The buzz on Book Buzz -- October 2010

October Read
 
Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
 
Hans van den Broek, a successful Dutch equities analyst, moves his family from London to Manhattan. But, after the 9/11 attacks, his wife returns t o London with their son, leaving Hans behind to consider the state of their marriage.  

Hans takes up residence in the famed Chelsea Hotel, and finds an outlet for his energy in the game of cricket, played in New York by a team of primarily West Indian immigrants. 
 
He is soon befriended by Trinidadian expatriate and umpire, Chuck Ramkissoon. Chuck, a charismatic rogue with big dreams and ties to the Russian mob, introduces Hans to a wholly different side of New York.
 
O’Neill’s award-winning novel has been compared with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby for its meditation on the American dream and examination of memory and loss.  
 
The novel received the 2009 PEN/Faulkner award for fiction.

Other formats:

• Large Print Edition
• Audiobook
  

Coming in November

The Knife Sharpener’s Bell by Rhea Tregebov  
Annette Gershon’s odyssey from Depression-era Winnipeg to Stalinist Russia and back to Canada in the 1950s is both the seldom-told story of those who actually made that hopeful, doomed journey and a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit.
 

Special Author Event

Rhea Tregebov, author of The Knife Sharpener's Bell, joins us throughout November as a guest blogger. 

 

 

Join Book Buzz to participate in book discussions and special events.