This is the first year in a while I was able to sit back and do some reading. Previously I had been so busy writing and making deadlines, not to mention living in an apartment where peace and quiet simply was not possible, but this year I actually managed to get 15 books read. Well, 14 so far. I’m on number 15 right now.
That’s not really a big number when you consider in past years I read through about a hundred a year, but it’s a huge start, and I think some of these books deserve a good shout-out.
The Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan – I actually enjoyed the sequel much more (and am eagerly awaiting the Christmas book), but this is the book that kicked off my return to reading back in February. City girl’s relationship and business tanks, and she heads off to Cornwall to get her bearings together. She doesn’t plan on staying, but after her hobby of baking bread turns into a career she decides to put down roots. There’s a a hunky fisherman, a hunky bee-keeper, a curmudgeonly bakery owner, and a baby puffin in this one. A BABY PUFFIN.
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion – This one has been out for a while but I’d been avoiding it, and it was on my Kindle longer than it should have. It’s about a scientist with Asperger’s syndrome looking for a wife in a very scientific way. You’d think he was being thrown into a cutesy scenario where Rosie is the wild, unpredictable love interest that brings him out of his comfort zone, but Rosie is pretty average as love interests go. Definitely one of my favourites, and I’m keen to get started on the sequel.
Mattie’s Story by Margaret A. Westlie – Another one that sat on my TBR for too long. This authors is local to me, from Prince Edward Island, and her book was right up my alley. At fifteen, Mattie’s father dies and she’s married off by her mother to a schoolteacher, David. It’s a coming of age story set in the 1800s and you follow Mattie from her tomboyish adolescence into marriage and then motherhood.
Hyde by Daniel Levine – Finally a Jekyll and Hyde adaptation that didn’t make me want to rip my hair out while reading. Told entirely from the perspective of Edward Hyde, we learn that he’s not the villain that the original book made him out to be, and we learn why he exists to begin with. There’s a twist, and even if you see it coming you’ll still be on the edge of your seat by the end.
The Secret Path by Jeff Lemire – This graphic novel is heartbreaking and based on a true story. A part of The Secret Path project that includes an album from Gord Downie, a concert series, and a television special, The Secret Path gives a name to the sixties scoop in which native children in Canada were placed in residential schools to assimilate them into white Canadian culture.
My TBR for 2017 has over 75 books on it (!!!) – the accumulation of about 2 years worth of book buying, so my goal is to read every single one of them at 2 a week, and with one exception I’m pretty much cut off from buying any more books until I get every single one of them read.
Annemarie Hartnett 