This page has JC’s posts of her views about books she has read. Each mini-review, written after the book ends, will share her candid assessment of the craft and contents of books on her reading list. Reviews will be kept to around the same number of words as the characters Twitter allows per Tweet. The views expressed are entirely her own. She welcomes feedback on her Bookends comments through this website or X (formerly known as Twitter) at @jcsulzenko.
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Two, New Bookends Mini-Reviews by JC
JC reviews two recent reads.
Go to Bookends on this site to find her ratings of a book that’s hard to typecast: “World of Wonders: In praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments,” written by Aimee Nezhukumatathil and illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, 2020.
The second review JC shares focuses on a very Canadian novel written in 1973, that still resonated with her: “The Book of Eve” by Constance Beresford-Howe.
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The Book of Eve, Constance Beresford-Howe
One of my book clubs read Constance Beresford-Howe’s A Serious Widow. And after I discovered The Book of Eve (1973), on loan to me, on a neglected shelf amidst yet to be read poetry collections, I read it in almost one-sitting.
Not the only writer to tackle a wife/mother/slave to her time and place in the world who abandons her life (e.g., Anne Tyler, Ethel Wilson), this slim novel is a keeper. At times in some ways reminiscent of A Serious Widow, the writer captures the stages in this leave-taking unflinchingly—the discovery of self, the loss of self, degradation, second-thoughts, and ultimately acceptance of self and embracing life choices made. Beresfor-Howe’s writing is writes honest, perceptive, touching, true to her subject 100%. And all this in the context of Montreal’s East End and downtown, where the city so familiar to me becomes a character in the story in its own right.
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World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments
This 2020 book by by Aimee Nezhukumatathil and illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, was on one of my book club’s list for last year, but we didn’t get to it. Part memoir, part selective, nature exposé focussing on creatures and flora of surprising and unusual variety, part poem, part collection of mini-essays, part Cri de Coeur regarding climate change. Illustrations lovely. Short. Digestible. Memorable.
I have given away the extra copy I received. And may give away the one I meant to keep. Or not.
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“The Jane Austen Society,” Natalie Jenner, St. Martin’s Press (2020)
A perfect antidote to everything pandemic, particularly for those honest enough to admit publicly how often they reread Jane Austen’s novels for sheer pleasure.
Jenner’s characters, settings and solid references to Austen’s body of work fully satisfied my cravings for escape into a world not of our time. The charm of this Canadian author’s novel offsets the somewhat predictable plot. Read this book and smile.
8.5/10Share this:
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Suzanne, Anais Barbeau-Lavalette, 2015 (translated by Rhonda Mullins 2017)
I cannot escape the aura of this granddaughter’s singular capture of the life of her elusive artist and poet grandmother, Suzanne Meloche, in a fictionalized series of short, diary-like accounts written in the 2nd person and based on facts uncovered in personal effects and through a private investigator’s research.
The portrait is complex. Suzanne, “the woman who flees”—a literal translation of the original French title—created poetry and abstract, violent art in the context of the Automatist movement in Duplessis-repressed Quebec. Utterly selfish and cruel, except when in the thrall of new love or pity, Suzanne abandons children, lovers, cities and rarely regrets not belonging anywhere.
Her photo shows a beautiful, catlike and feral face that becomes who she became.
This 2019 CBC Canada Reads selection: a must-read. 8/10Share this: