A Haunted Room

I wasn't sure if I really wanted to write about today's book. It's not that it's a bad book - in fact, it is probably one of the best books I've read all year. It's just that I think it might be even more effective when read if you go into it totally blind, knowing nothing about the plot, and slowly put all the pieces together. I knew generally what the book was about when I started, but I think it might have been even more of a gut-punch feeling if I'd read it blind. So, for those of you who want to go in to the book completely blind, here's the title and author: Room by Emma Donoghue. You can stop reading the blog now.


For those of you who want to stay and learn more about the book before deciding to pick it up or not, I will tell you my usual limited amount of facts. I will try to be even more circumspect about this book than usual, because I think the suspense factor is high with this one.

Room is about a little boy, Jack, and his Ma. Jack and his Ma live in a very special place which Jack calls Room. The denizens of Room are Bed, Blanket, Lamp, Rug, and some other friends. Jack is 5, and you see the world of Room through his eyes. I could probably give away the central "secret" here - the bookflap does so - but I'm feeling reluctant. I started the book with an innate sense of horror - but I wonder if the reader would have the horror slowly grow on them as they figure out just exactly why Jack and his Ma live in Room in the first place.

And, yes, horror is the right word. This book deals with some serious subject matter that is haunting to the reader. Yet, by having a young boy as the narrator, the horror is made more accessible and, to some extent, managed. The reader is given breathing space to discover the world through the wonderful viewpoint of Jack.

Jack is an amazing boy. He is intelligent and bright. I think the author gets the voice of the 5-year-old just right. You never forget that Jack is a child, and while part of your self is recoiling in horror at the circumstances that Jack and his Ma are in, the other part is marveling at the amazing voice of Jack. Jack doesn't know any better - the horrors we see are simply not present to him, and his voice and viewpoint help the reader inside the world.

Room is very suspenseful. At one extremely tense point, I wanted to turn to the end of the book and read the last page to ensure that everything would come out okay and that everyone would be okay. I'm glad that I didn't and managed to stick through the suspense. I enjoyed that the book did not end where it could have ended - if this were a stereotypically happy-ending movie. Room is a little more complex than that - the author takes you to the edge with Jack and Ma and then through into different kinds of adventures.

Room is a terrific book. The subject-matter may be horrific, and the narrative will haunt you, but the book is extremely well written. You attach yourself to the characters of Jack and his Ma and become totally lost and insensible of time or bus stops. This was one of the top 10 books of 2010, and I see why. Do read it - it is not a horror book; there are no bloody/gory scenes in it. It's not scary in that way - it's more of a haunting-type of scary, but good. Very, very good. Read it - blind or with the limited info I gave here (although astute readers may have figured it out already) and let me know if this book haunted you too.

Pioneer Days

It's a lovely rainy Saturday where I am, so do you know what that means? It means I get to spend the whole day on the couch with a book (or books) and hopefully a cat or two - if they can stop being so adorably cute napping on the bed for awhile.

A good series for a rainy day, or any other day, for that matter, is the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. This series was my go-to commuter book a few weeks ago, and I made it through the whole series in a very short amount of time. As a child, these books were responsible for my ambition to be a pioneer when I grew up. And now, if the apocalypse happens and we go back to a world without electricity and automation, I feel that, with the help of these books, I'd manage to survive.

The Little House on the Prairie series is a fictionalized version of the life of the author, Laura Ingalls Wilder. Yes, Laura was a pioneer girl, but her story had a few more ups and downs than is portrayed in the series. That said, it is my understanding that the events in the stories did happen - except names have been changed at times, and some other events left out to streamline the narrative. Other than that, this is the story of Laura's life.

The books begin when Laura was a little girl living in Wisconsin in Little House in the Big Woods. You meet Laura, her Pa, Ma, and sisters Mary and Carrie who all live in a log cabin in the woods. Life was difficult, but you can sense the real love and commitment this family had. Laura comes across as a headstrong little girl who often just can't measure up to her perfect big sister Mary.

In the next book, Little House on the Prairie, Laura becomes a real pioneer girl when the family moves, by covered wagon, to "Indian Territory" (in what I gather is now Kansas). This book is where I realized just how poor the family was. They lived in a log house on the prairie with a dirt floor! It must have been so hard for the family to give up everything they knew and take a chance in a vast, open land, far away from friends, family, and anyone else who could help them if something went wrong. It is sad at the end when the family has to leave their little cabin and move on, as they had inadvertently settled in land the government meant to use for something else. I wonder how their lives would have changed if they'd been able to stay.

Farmer Boy takes a quick detour away from Laura's family to tell a tale about the childhood of her husband, Almanzo Wilder. The contrast between Almanzo's family and Laura's family is striking. Almanzo's family were prosperous farmers in New York and Laura's family were small-time farmers and game hunters. Almanzo's family still had the same responsibilities to store food before the winter, but they had been settled in New York for longer and had built up more stock and fields and were more prosperous. This is also a good book to read if you like descriptions of food - Almanzo was a hungry young lad and Laura writes the most amazing descriptions of the gigantic feasts this family ate.

On the Banks of Plum Creek picks up Laura's story again. The family has gone back North-East and now have settled in Minnesota. This is the first of the books where hard times befall the family and the reader gets a sense of the fine edge a farmer walks on. Laura's Pa built them a beautiful new house on credit, intending to pay for it with his first crop. But the grasshoppers ate the first crop - what is Laura's Pa to do? The reader feels sorry for the Ingalls family - being forced to start all over again after moving from Indian Territory, and having that fresh new start end badly, forcing yet another new start.

Laura's family starts all over again in Dakota Territory and it's back West for the family in By the Shores of Silver Lake. However, this western trip is different than the one to Kansas. The country is more settled, and while at times they are the only family about, the building of the railroad ensures that they won't be the only settlers for long. Secondly, there's a new baby sister, Grace, and Carrie is getting older. Finally, Laura's nemesis and older sister, Mary, has gone blind as a result of scarlet fever. This is where Laura's gift for description begins, as she becomes the "eyes" for Mary.

The next book in the series, The Long Winter, is a book about just that - the famous "Long Winter" of 1880-1881, when there were so many blizzards that the train with supplies could not get through and people nearly starved or froze to death. Certainly Laura's family nearly starved during that long, cold, dark, winter. The book does make for grim reading, but it is heartening to see the family pull together to survive the Long Winter.

The final two books in the series Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years, deal with Laura's teenage years in the little town of DeSmet, where her family had ended up in the Dakota territory. Her Pa had a claim near town, but the Ingalls family spent most of their time in town, especially during the winter. In town, Laura attended schools and socials, met friends and attended church. She also got her teacher's license and taught school, among other jobs, to help make money to send Mary to the College for the Blind in Iowa. While Laura did not want to teach school, she did not shirk from her duty in helping to provide for a better education for Mary. It is interesting to me that all Laura had to do get her teacher's license was to pass an exam. And after she finished a term teaching, she went back to being a student in the DeSmet school! Further, she never even managed to finish high school before leaving to get married.

Yes, These Happy Golden Years deals with Laura's teenage years and Almanzo's courtship of her. As much as I enjoyed reading about the young Laura in the early books, I enjoyed reading about the older Laura more and seeing how her headstrong ways had been smoothed out, while not losing any of her essential nature. I enjoyed reading about the long-ago fashions and entertainment. The pioneers may have worked hard, but they also enjoyed a good time, just like we do now.

The series ends with Laura and Almanzo's marriage, and Laura's new life as a farmer's wife, instead of a pioneer's daughter. Those who know the Little House books know that the series does not really end there, but I will address those three remaining books in a separate post - these books are written for children and the remaining three books have a different audience.

Upon rereading these books, I realized just how much work is was to be a pioneer family, and just how much people were at the mercy of the seasons. Today we live in an essentially seasonless world, where we can get any kind of fruit whenever we want shipped in from anywhere, and wear whatever clothes we like because the inside is heated/cooled for our needs. Sure, snow in the winter is an inconvenience, but we don't have to worry about storing up enough food in the fall to ensure we don't starve over the winter.

I love the family dynamic in these books. Laura's Pa and Ma grew up in a different time, and so have some different notions of parenting, but their hopes and concerns for their daughters are not much different than people's concerns now: education, friends, and finding a spouse. Laura's Pa loved his daughters and was a gentle and affectionate father with his girls. Ma was stern, but kind and did her best to mould her headstrong little girl into a true lady.

I also enjoy the relationship between Pa and Ma (Charles and Caroline). You can tell that Charles is an incurable romantic, a born adventurer who always wants to be moving on - the eternal optimist who thinks that life just over the horizon must be just a bit better than what's here and now. That is tempered by Caroline's cool realism. While she did not always agree with where Charles went, she and the family followed him faithfully and she always did her best with what they had. Her practical management kept the family together when a less practical woman may have let the family fall apart after following Charles' dreams too often. And Charles accepted Caroline's need to have their daughters educated and settled in De Smet when he may have preferred to keep moving West. While the books are about Laura, the relationship between Charles and Caroline is the core of the series and one sense their deep respect and love for each other.

I loved the books as a child, and I enjoy them now more as an adult. The stories are still excellent, but it is interesting to read between the lines and see the situation the family was in, how poor and how desperate they were at times, but how they still managed to pull together somehow and make the best of everything. There was a sense of "duty" in those days that I think is missing now. These are good, wholesome books and enjoyable reads, for both children and adults alike.

Saturday Morning at the Bookstore

Second only to my love for the library is my love for the bookstore. So many books! My only complaint is that they are too expensive for me to take all of them home. What I often end up doing is just wandering around, seeing what's out there, and then trying to remember the names so I can look them up on the library website and get them out for free! (Well, not free, exactly, but for the low, low, price of $12 per year!)

Anyway, I had a coupon for 20% off, a discount card, and some gift certificates, so I went to the bookstore Saturday morning. The bookstore is, frighteningly for my husband, only a 15 minute walk away from our house. It's a good thing I'm cheap and don't buy a whole lot of books! I picked up 4 books Saturday morning and only spent $7. That's pretty good for 3 books and a magazine, I think.

How do I approach the bookstore? Like most shopping trips, I find it is better to go by yourself - you don't have to worry that your significant other is getting bored sitting over in the military magazine section while you debate for 30 minutes the merits of two nearly identical history books. Ahem. Anyway, I went by myself Saturday morning and I could wander around at will without worrying.

I wanted to try and stay under or around my gift certificate limit, which I managed to do, somewhat. In order to do that, I wandered around to all of my favourite sections, checked out what I liked, assessed the price and my interest, and then went back to all the sections to make my final choices. My trip around the bookstore went something like this: History, Mystery, Fiction, Fantasy, Cookbooks, Gardening, History, Mystery, and Magazines.

In the history section I picked up We Two Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals by Gillian Gill. It's a book about the relationship between Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert. I've read many books about the Queen, but nothing that really focused on her relationship with her husband so specifically. I am especially intrigued by the promised excerpts from their journals and letters. A very close runner up was a new biography of Catherine of Aragon by Giles Tremlett. While I do own two books about Henry VIII's six wives, I haven't read much about them as individuals, so I think this would be very interesting to read.

In the Gardening section I picked up Lois Hole's Perennial Favorites by Lois Hole. The late Ms. Hole is something of a gardening guru here in Alberta, and her books are full of good advice and timeless wisdom. I very nearly picked up a different book on perennials, but you can't go wrong with Lois Hole!

I didn't find anything in the Cooking section that I wanted to buy - besides, my kitchen bookshelf is full, so I either need to purge some cookbooks or get a bigger shelf. Somehow, I think getting a bigger bookshelf will win out.

Likewise, I didn't find anything in the Fiction section that I wanted to buy either. Most of the fiction I read is classified as either Mystery or Fantasy/Sci-Fi anyway, so I'm probably not going to find anything I want in the Fiction section. Plus, I already have the new Jasper Fforde (which is confusingly sometimes classified as mystery and sometimes as fiction) so there wasn't really anything there for me.

In Fantasy, I hesitated over the Mercedes Lackey 500 Kingdoms series, as they had a number of them in paperback. But I didn't want to spend my entire gift certificate on one series, and I couldn't decide which one to get. So I didn't get any.

Similarly in Mystery, I hesitated over the Laurie R. King Mary Russell series: they had some there, and I am collecting the series, but I wasn't sure which one to get. Plus, they've changed the paperback format slightly, so the new copies won't be quite the same as the other ones I have. Which is so annoying - why do they do that? I don't mind having books of all different looks on my shelf, but it does make it difficult to organize them nicely by size if the editions in a series aren't the same.

While I didn't get a Laurie R. King book, I did pick up another Agatha Christie, as I'm trying to broaden my collection past the Poirots and Marples. I picked up the all-time scariest Christie ever - And Then There Were None. There were a few different editions there - I just picked the cheapest. I'm looking forward to reading it. In the daylight.

A random mystery/romance novel caught my eye about a Madam named India, a handsome British Spy, and espionage. I almost bought it of the shelf just for the picture on the front alone. It sounded really interesting. However, when I'm buying books, I tend to go for the tried and true, so I didn't get it. And sadly, I can't remember the name, so I don't know if I'll have any success in finding it at the library. I'm off to search for it after this.

And, finally, I finished up in the magazine section where I bought The Hockey News Magazine Draft Preview 2011. I'm a very well-rounded reader! The draft is coming up in two weeks, and I'd like to know a little bit more about these prospects. So far, they are scarily young. In a few years, I'll be old enough to be their mother!

So, that was my fun day at the bookstore. One note, however, don't expect posts about any of these books soon! I have just a few books on my beside table to get through first.... Right now, I am reading: Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert, The Lady Queen by Nancy Goldstone, One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde, Room by Emma Donoghue and I just finished my commuting book yesterday - Pat of Silver Bush by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Not to mention all the other books I've finished recently and haven't posted about, and some other new books that I got for Christmas and haven't had a chance to start yet, and the library book that's been sitting under a pile of Jane Austens for a few weeks....

As you can see, the trip to the bookstore was not necessary. But it was fun! And while I don't go that often, I do enjoy going when I can - although I will always prefer the library. Happy Reading!

He-La!

This is, quite possibly, the best book I've read all year. (So far.) I am so glad I decided to follow Entertainment Weekly's top 10 non-fiction books, otherwise I would never have read this gem. Sometimes top books are top books for a reason - they're well written, exhaustively researched, and extremely engrossing.


What book am I talking about? The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Go read it as soon as you can. (I'm returning my copy to the library tomorrow before I get hit with some overdue fines!) This is an amazing book. It's Skloot's first book too - she really knocked it out of the park with this one. It is an amazing story.


The book consists of three stories:the life of Henrietta Lacks and her amazing cells, the life her children led after her death, and Skloot's own journey to uncover the truth about Henrietta Lacks and to meet with her descendants. But who was Henrietta Lacks? And how did she become responsible for so many medical and scientific advances?


Henrietta Lacks was a poor black woman who was born in 1920 in Clover, Virginia - a small town which no longer exists. In pursuit of a better life, she moved to Baltimore with her husband and 5 children, including youngest daughter Deborah Lacks. But life did not improve in Baltimore for Henrietta. She developed a very rapid-growing form of cervical cancer. Cancer treatments in the 1940's-50's were still in their infancy. The doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital succeeded in reducing the tumor in her cervix, but soon found out it had spread everywhere throughout her body. Henrietta died shortly thereafter, in 1951, leaving 5 children, several very young. Before her death, researchers at the Johns Hopkins hospital had taken a biopsy of the cervical cancer cells to use in their research.


The goal in research at the time was to create an immortal cell line. Cell samples were taken to the lab, only to be thrown away in disgust when the cells failed to thrive. But Henrietta's sample was unlike any other cell line - the cells grew rapidly. The cell line was named He-La, after Henrietta's initials, and soon it was being used in labs around the world. But for years, the identity of the woman whose body provided those cells has been forgotten.


Skloot tells the story of Henrietta Lacks and her descendants, while weaving through it the story of her own discovery of Henrietta Lacks, He-La, and her quest to contact Henrietta's descendants and write the book. Many pharmaceutical companies have profited from He-La; yet Henrietta's descendants cannot get medical insurance. Skloot addresses the questions of fairness and ethics in medicine while painting a compelling story of the development of medical research from the 1950's onwards. Skloot also draws you in to the life of Henrietta's daughter Deborah and her discovery of her mother's miraculous cells. He-La has affected the Lacks family in both good and bad ways and Skloot addresses the bad side, without being sensationalist. The He-La burden has not been an easy one to bear, and the reader really begins to feel for Henrietta's daughter Deborah and her journey to find meaning in He-La and to learn about her mother.


Skloot handles the science well - she doesn't dumb it down, but explains it in clear words as to make it understandable to the average reader. I found this book fascinating and compelling. It was impossible to put down. I enjoyed the stories of the three women: Henrietta, Deborah, and Rebecca. This is an amazing book. Even if you don't think you are interested in science, cell lines, and cancer research, you will be drawn in to the story of He-La. Skloot finds the human side of medical research while giving the history of cancer treatments, an interesting overview of medical treatment and the segregation of America, and inviting discussion on medical ethics. This is a fantastic book. Go read it.