Bel Canto

If you listen to the podcast, you’ll know that I’ve committed to doing more re-reading this year. I read a lot of books and, consequently, I forget a lot of books. Even Bel Canto, one of my favourite books by one of my favourite authors, is a vague haze of words that includes terrorists, hostages, Japanese businessman, and opera singer.

Bel Canto was my first introduction to Ann Patchett and the book that put her on the literary map. Published in 2001, it won the Orange Prize and PEN/Faulker Award and was on many top book lists. Set in an unnamed South American country, the novel begins at a birthday party that is at the home of the country’s Vice President. Terrorists break into the party intending to take the President hostage. He’s not there, so instead they take the entire party hostage. One of the hostages is an opera singer, hence the title, which means “beautiful singing”.

This novel was inspired by the Japanese embassy hostage crisis in 1996 and 1997 in which 14 Peruvian terrorists took hostage hundreds of people who were attending a party at the residence of the Japanese ambassador. The situation lasted for 126 days and gained worldwide media attention.

Like French Exit, I am excited to re-read this one, but also a little nervous. What if I don’t like it as much as I remember? What if Dennis and Trevor hate it? Will they let me stay on the podcast? Only one way to find out.

While you’re anxiously awaiting our thoughts on Bel Canto, why not check out the latest episode where we discussed Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice. We were joined by writer-in-residence, Susie Moloney, and for a book about the end-of-the-world, a lot of laughs were had.

And, of course, until next time, make sure you find TIME TO READ.

-Toby

French Exit

I first read French Exit in 2019 and declared it one of my favourite books of the year. But ask me what it is about now and all I can remember was some funny antics between a mother and son and maybe also a cruise ship? I seem to recall that there is also a cat and a clairvoyant…?

That said, I’m excited to re-read French Exit for the podcast this month and find out how much of the above is accurate. Patrick deWitt is a Time to Read favourite. We (though not me, ‘cause I wasn’t on the podcast at the time) read The Sisters Brothers back in 2020. Former host Kirsten loved DeWitt for his lighthouse tattoo and healthy distrust for authority. And just recently, Trevor went on and on (and on) about deWitt’s latest, The Librarianist, on a certain local morning show.

It’s clear deWitt is a force to be reckoned with. Of French Exit, publisher House of Anasi says the book is “brimming with pathos and wit” and calls is a “one-of-a-kind tragedy of manners, a riotous send-up of high society, as well as a moving mother and son caper which only Patrick deWitt could conceive and execute”.

It was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and an international bestseller. It was even made into a movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer.

Will I enjoy it just as much on my second read? Find out next month!

Meanwhile, check out our latest episode on the classic James Baldwin novel If Beale Street Could Talk. It’s a surprisingly prescient book considering it was published in 1974. And until next time, see you on the flippity-flip.

~Toby

If Beale Street Could Talk

“If Beale Street could talk, if Beale Street could talk
Married men would have to take their beds and walk”

Beale Street Blues

The Time to Read Podcast Book Club is reading If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin. First published in 1974, it will be celebrating its 50th anniversary next year. The novel’s protagonist is Tish, a 19-year-old girl who is in love with Fonny, a sculptor. They plan to get married. Tish is pregnant with Fonny’s child, but before she can tell him, he is arrested (falsely) for assault and rape. While in jail, Tish and Fonny’s families work to clear Fonny’s name.

Originally reviewed by Joyce Carol Oates in the New York Times, she called the novel “a quite moving and very traditional celebration of love. It affirms not only love between a man and a woman, but love of a type that is dealt with only rarely in contemporary fiction–that between members of a family, which may involve extremes of sacrifice.”

In 2018, Barry Jenkins adapted the novel for the big screen. It received many accolades including an Oscar and Golden Globe for Regina King who portrayed Tish’s mother.

We hope you read along with us and let us know your thoughts on this book. Will the story’s theme of enduring love melt Dennis and Toby’s cold hearts? Will it seem relevant and important a half century after publication? You’ll have to tune in on December 1st to find out.

And in the meantime, why not listen to one of our older episodes? You can find our most recent one where we discuss Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.

And don’t forget, as the weather turns nasty and the nights get longer, make sure you give yourself plenty of TIME TO READ.

-Trevor

Gilead

This month, the Time to Read podcast is tackling (but not literally, although you never know with Trevor…) Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.

If the word “gilead” is familiar to you, it might not be because of this book. Gilead is in another literary heavy hitter – it is the name of the Republic in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale.

But why, you may wonder, is this word featured in both novels? Gilead is an actual place – it is an old name for the mountainous northern part of what is now known as Jordan. Gilead shows up several times in the Bible and some scholars think it means “hill of testimony”.

Literary scholars have likely devoted hours of their time to unravelling what “gilead” means in the context of these two novels, but we don’t have time for that. Let’s just go with both of these books being a kind of testimony – Offred’s in The Handmaid’s Tale and Reverend John Ames in Robinson’s book.

It is 1956 and near the end of Reverend Ames’s life. Ames starts to write a letter to his young son about their family. Ames is the son of several generations of clergymen and his grandfather was said to have had a vision of Christ which led him to come west to fight for abolition. Ames writes about the tension between his father and grandfather and the bonds between fathers and sons. A few sentence summary isn’t going to cut it here. As our good pals at Kirkus Reviews say, this is a novel “as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and moving as prayer. Matchless and towering.” 

Gilead was a long time in the making. It was Robinson’s second novel and published nearly 25 years after her first one. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 and this novel, along with its three sequels, were an Oprah’s Book Club pic. Of these books, Oprah said:

“Marilynne Robinson is one of our greatest living authors and in the Gilead novels she’s written a quartet of masterpieces. The more closely I read them, the more I find to appreciate, and the more they show the way in seeing the beauty in the ordinary.”

Will any of us like this book enough to read 3 sequels? Find out, on Friday, November 3rd when this episode drops. In the meantime, you can listen to our latest episode on National Book Award winner Hell of a Book. It was that indeed.

Until then, we’ll see you on the flippity flip.

~Toby

We’re reading a Hell of a Book!

I’m only partway through it, but I think it lives up to its title. Let me back up for a sec: I’m talking about Hell of a Book by Jason Mott. It came out in 2021 and won the National Book Award for Fiction a few months later.  It was also nominated for the 2021 Sir Walter Raleigh Prize for Fiction and was longlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize and the 2022 Joyce Carol Oates Prize.

And now it’s getting its biggest honour yet (probably). That’s right: The Time to Read Podcast Bookclub is reading it in September!

“So the critics loved it but what’s it all about?” I can hear you whispering through your screens at me. Fair enough. From what I can gather, the novel tells two parallel stories. The present day story has the reader following a famous, nameless author around on a book tour promoting his latest work. The author’s book in this book is also called Hell of a Book so I have a feeling things are going to get meta real quick. The second story (told in alternating chapters) is about a young African-American kid nicknamed “Soot” growing up in North Carolina. “Soot” is encouraged by his parents to work on becoming “unseen”, a childhood game they play with him where they pretend he can make himself invisible. During the unnamed author’s tour, the author is regularly visited by a young black kid who seemingly can appear at will and disappear into thin air. Is this Soot? Is this the author as a child? Is this a figment of the author’s imagination?

Too soon to tell, friend. But what I can say is that the dialogue crackles with wit and the author’s madcap misadventures have had me laughing out loud on several occasions and I’m only a quarter of the way through.

If you’re intrigued by this admittedly sketchy summary, we invite you to pick up a copy and read along with us. We always love to hear what you think. You can order a paper copy through our library catalogue, or if you’re more like one of those “eBook” people, it’s available through Libby too. Our episode will be available Friday, October 6th. In the meantime, why not listen to one of our older episodes? You can find them all including our most recent one on Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie here. And of course, as always, please make sure you find some TIME TO READ.

-Trevor

Half of a Yellow Sun

Trevor is shirking his responsibility of writing the monthly Time to Read podcast blog post this month in favour of galavanting in the woods. We wish him well and will see him again soon, but for this month, you, dear reader, get a post from another member of the pod, me, Toby.

This month, the Time to Read podcast will be reading and discussing Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Set during the Nigerian Civil War, this novel follows three characters: Ugwu, a houseboy employed by a university professor; Olanna, the professor’s mistress; and Richard, an Englishman in love with Olanna’s twin.

The Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) was between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state that declared independence from Nigeria. Biafra was populated predominately by the Igbo people who felt that they could no longer coexist with the Nigerian federal government which was dominated by the Muslim Hausa-Fulani people of Northern Nigeria. Nigeria ultimately won the war and Biafra no longer exists, but the war’s legacy, particularly as it relates to Igbo-nationalism, continues to this day.

The novel takes its name from the flag of Biafra which was a horizontal tricolor of red, black, and green with half of a yellow sun in the middle black stripe. The eleven rays of the sun represent the eleven provinces of Biafra. This sun image has remained a big part of the iconography of the Igbo people.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian-American writer with an impressive CV. She has published several novels, short stories, essays and a memoir. She was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grand, holds 16 honorary doctorate degrees, and has been nominated for the Booker Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award.

Half of a Yellow Sun, her second novel, was awarded the Women’s Prize for fiction in 2007 (and was later voted the best book to win that prize in its 25 year history), and included in the New York Times’ 100 Most Notable Books of the Year. In 2019, The Guardian ranked it as number 10 in their “100 Best Books of the 21^st Century” and BBC News included it on the list of the 100 Most Influential Novels.

Will we like this book as much as the critics? The episode where we talk about it will be out on Friday, September 1^st. While you’re waiting, check out one of our previous episodes. The most recent one, on The Thursday Murder Club is available here or wherever you get your podcasts. Be warned, that episode contains SPOILERS.

I’m very much looking forward to this month’s read and hope you’ll read along with us.

Trevor always signs off on these blog posts with the podcast’s catchphrase, “make sure you find…TIME TO READ”, but I’m going rogue.  So, uh, see you on the flippity-flip. (Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?)

-Toby

A Grandmother Begins the Story

“All I know to say is we’ve got to play our music no matter who leaves us and no matter who fails us, no matter the memories praying on us in the middle of the night.” Michelle Porter

This month, The Time to Read book club podcast is reading A Grandmother Begins the Story by Michelle Porter. This kaleidoscope of a novel ambitiously tells the story of the Goulet family: a Métis family known for their music and jigging. This intergenerational mosaic is woven from the stories of five different generations (all women), including Mamé, the matriarch, who is reflecting on her family as a spirit in the afterlife.

Although this book is a work of fiction, it seems like a natural extension of her earlier work, 2020’s Approaching Fire. In Approaching Fire, Porter sets out to discover her own great-grandfather, Léon Robert Goulet, a Métis fiddler and performer. The portrait that emerges goes beyond any conventional biography, and “expands beyond documentation into a private realm where truth meets metaphor” to quote the description from our library catalogue.

I’m sure we’ll have lots to talk about, and we’d love to hear your thoughts too. The episode will be available July 7. In the meantime, why not listen to one of our older episodes, including our most recent one on Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy? You can find them all at https://wpl-podcast.winnipeg.ca/ or wherever you find podcasts.

And don’t forget: make sure you find some TIME TO READ.

-Trevor

Migrations

“My life has been a migration without a destination, and that in itself is senseless. I leave for no reason, just to be moving, and it breaks my heart a thousand times, a million.” Charlotte McConaghy, Migrations

This month, the Time to Read Book Club Podcast will be reading and discussing Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy.

Franny Stone is an ornithologist who studies the annual migration of the Arctic tern. As Franny tells us, “The Arctic tern has the longest migration of any animal. It flies from the Arctic all the way to the Antarctic, and then back again within a year. This is an extraordinarily long flight for a bird its size. And because the terns live to be thirty or so, the distance they will travel over the course of their lives is the equivalent of flying to the moon and back three times.”

At the beginning of the novel, Franny convinces the captain of a fishing boat to let her join his crew to follow the Artic tern’s annual migration South from Greenland. She does this by telling him that if they follow the terns, they will find fish.

As the story progresses, we get a glimpse into Franny’s history through a series of flashbacks, and we soon realize we are in a near future where wildlife is going extinct at an alarming rate.

“There are no more monkeys in the world, no chimps or apes or gorillas, nor indeed any animal that once lived in rain forests. The big cats of the savannas haven’t been seen in years … There are no bears in the once-frozen north, or reptiles in the too-hot south, and the last known wolf in the world died in captivity last winter.”

With Migrations, Charlotte McConaghy has created what some call “dystopian environmental fiction” and what others recognize as a call to action before it really is too late.

We hope you read along with us and let us know your thoughts. Our episode will be available on Friday, June 2.

In the meantime, why not listen to one of our previous episodes? You can find all of them, including our most recent one on Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, at wpl-podcast.winnipeg.ca or wherever you find your podcasts.

And as always, make sure you find some TIME TO READ.

-Trevor

Somewhere along the banks of a Reddish River…

Over the past 5 years on the WPL Time to Read Podcast Book Club we’ve read literature, romance, mystery, true crime, travel, poetry: you name it. One thing we haven’t read is an actual play. That all changes this month as we read and discuss Frances Koncan’s Women of the Fur Trade.

Set during the Red River Rebellion of 1869, the play focuses on three women and their take on the events unfolding around them. Marie-Angelique, described as a “Métis Taurus”, Eugenia, an Ojibwe Sagittarius trapper, and Cecilia, a British settler (Virgo), switch back and forth between 19th century language and 21st Century slang as we see a slice of Manitoba’s history from a refreshingly new and delightfully hilarious angle.

The play was first produced in 2020 at MTC’s Warehouse theatre, and this summer will be playing at Stratford during July.

Frances Koncan is currently the Writer-In-Residence for Winnipeg Public Library. Our episode will be available on Friday, March 3rd. In the meantime please give a listen to one of our older episodes. You can find them all here. We love to hear from our listeners. Find us on Facebook or email us at wpl-podcast@winnipeg.ca and let us know your thoughts.

And remember: make sure you always find some TIME TO READ.

-Trevor

The Road to Manderley

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

The opening line of Daphne Du Maurier’s Gothic classic, Rebecca, ranks right up there with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” (A Tale of Two Cities) or “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” (Anna Karenina) in terms of pop culture notoriety. But what about the rest of the novel?? The Time To Read Podcast Bookclub invites you to find out along with them in January, as we tackle this moody beauty.

Although Du Maurier published almost 40 books in her lifetime, Rebecca still stands out as her masterpiece. Published in 1938, it has never been out of print and still shows up on high school and college reading lists. Alfred Hitchcock was so taken with her writing that he based three of his films on her stories: Jamaica Inn (1939), The Birds (1963), and Rebecca (1940), which went on to win the Best Picture Oscar in 1941.

I read somewhere once that Gothic Literature could be defined as “where mental illness and real estate meet”. If true, then Rebecca checks both boxes with giant scraggly marks.

If you’re in the mood to reread a classic, or to check it out for the first time, please join us this month in reading Rebecca. And don’t forget to tune in to hear what we have to say about it on February 3.

In the meantime, feel free to listen to one of our older episodes, including our newest where we discuss Octavia Butler’s Dawn and we reveal our READING RESOLUTIONS for 2023.

Until next time, don’t forget to find some TIME TO READ.

-Trevor