Meeting of Monday Reading Group, April 17/23

Marsha S, Norah O, Marion W, Leslie L

Marsha: 1) “The Everlasting Meal Cookbook-Leftovers A-Z” A wonderful new cookbook by Tamar Adler.
Marsha found this was “preaching to the choir” as she already uses many of these strategies in her own kitchen, however she has enjoyed sitting down and reading it as opposed to just using it as a recipe book.
2) “Next -Generation Memory and Ukrainian Canadian Children’s Historical Fiction – The Seeds of Memory” by Mateusz Swietlicki
This is an academic work concerning a particular genre near and dear to Marsha’s heart. She has met the author and he has described her as a ‘kindred spirit’. His bibliography has a lengthy list of Marsha’s published works.

Norah: 1) Norah brings us another aged volume which was given to her brother as a book award at matriculation from high school (see notes from March/23). This one is an English translation of “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo-lovely to see it! (1890)
2) “The Secret Guests” by Benjamin Black. This is a work of historical fiction surrounding the supposed relocation of the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret to an estate outside of London during the Blitz for safety. Norah has this from the library and has just started it. She has found it intriguing. M. points out the typical book club cover with the children looking away from the reader towards the distant horizon.
3) “Quick Silver” by Dean Koontz. Science fiction, ‘guilty pleasure’ material.
4) “The Club” by Ellery Lloyd. Murder mystery in the vein of Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians”

Marion: also mentions a memory of accounts by Elizabeth Cavanaugh concerning her mother, a Grade One teacher in Halifax at the time of the Halifax Explosion(s) (dramatic!)
1) “Shadowlands- A journey through Britain’s Lost Cities and Vanished Villages” by Matthew Green
She received this as an Easter gift and has enjoyed this exploration.

Leslie: 1) “Old Babes in the Wood” by Margaret Atwood. A wonderful new collection of short stories. Three sections-first ‘Tig & Nell’-memories of a marriage, family events, little details evoke the emotional connections within the family. The last section is ‘Nell & Tig’ which returns to the same characters/family but includes parents, in laws, siblings and memories of loss. Processing grief is a prominent theme, perhaps influenced by the author’s own loss of her husband to dementia in 2019.
The middle section ‘My Evil Mother’ is made up of 8 more stories-quite a variety! L. specifically noted one story in which the soul of a snail has arrived in the mind of a woman employed as a customer service representative for a major bank (working remotely from home, post COVID). (“Metempsychosis”). The snail has to learn to adapt to his/her new body and adjust language to suit the new role-very humorous! (What an imagination!) Another worthy of mention concerns a visiting alien passing the time with anxious human captives narrating a fairy tale without the vocabulary or context to understand it. This also generates chilling fear but also humour! (“Impatient Griselda”)

Submitted L. L. April 19/23

There was an ice-storm advisory for our Tuesday walk so one member of the walking group opted to walk indoors at the Gretzky Centre. Three brave souls with their six trusty ice-gripping soles ventured out onto the trails and had a wonderful walk in the rain. The trail was nearly empty but the conversation was great!