torontoc reads books that are still on her shelf

I will try to read 30 books that I have owned for at least 6 months!

Welcome back and happy ROOTing!

glad you're back!

O.K. first Root of 2025
1. Taste My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci This is a reread for my real life book club. I enjoyed reading about Tucci's love of food and how it connects to his family and friends. I looked at the recipes and still love the first account of how his family made " light" tomato sauce.( you need a fire, a pillow case, lots of tomatoes and two big tubs) I wish that Tucci had written more about his incredible foodie film " Big Night". This book does include the recipe for Timpano.

2. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin I reread this novel for my in person book club and I am so glad that I did. Again, the lives of Sam and Sadie as they navigate building games, friendship and loss through out the years is still so well written. This time I was struck by a passage near the end of the book. One of the characters, Marx, quotes the "Tomorrow" passage from Macbeth. He then says " What is a game? It's tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. It's the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The creation of games and the fascination with them was explained to me by this quote.

3. Let It Destroy You by Harriet Alida Lye This novel takes part of the history of physicist Leo Szilard and imagines a slightly different story. August Snow is a scientist who creates a variation on the atomic bomb that he uses to create a radiation machine. This machine will be used to help cure his daughter's cancer. June is August's estranged wife who perhaps did something that endangers her husband's life. The story is told by the alternating narratives of August and June. The story is expertly crafted to describe the lives of two highly intelligent people who have a difficult relationship. Highly recommended.

4. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang This is a very powerful story about plagiarism, adaptation and the punishing online world of accusations, and consequences. June Hayward is a struggling writer who is having dinner with her very successful friend Athena Liu. When Athena dies in a startling freak accident ( revealed in the opening pages) June takes Athena's manuscript and rewrites it under her own name-changed to Juniper Song by her publisher. The success and the later accusations ae the focus of the story and how June/Juniper deals with the online assault on her reputation. There are so many issues raised- from using other people's ideas and stories to who gets to write about history. Highly recommended.

5. Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson This was a very pleasant read. The story of three siblings who navigate various issues in their lives is an easy novel to read. However all three are very privileged. They live in New York and have very wealthy parents and generous trust funds. Do they find happiness- yes after some life changing experiences. Actually the story is about two of the sister and one sister-in-law. Is this a nice beach read? Yes.

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6. Call Me Sammy by Sammy Luftspring I reread this memoir to look for anecdotes about bootlegging and life in the Kensington Market area in Toronto. The author became a very successful boxer and this book is about his career. I did like the early part about life in the market.

7. Shakespeare's Kitchen by Lore Segal I am rereading and reading the stories of this author who writes very well about situations and personalities. In this group of linked stories , Ilka is a young woman who lives and works for a prominent think tank in Connecticut. Ilka meets the people who run the Concordance institute. They are connect to the director , Leslie Shakespeare and his wife Eliza. Many of the stories show Ilka's interaction with her students, and new friends. Beautifully written.

8. Snow Road Station by Elizabeth Hay This is a reread for my book club. I am so glad that I did read this novel again. Hay's writing is clear and inviting. The story revolves around Lulu, an older actress who is taking much needed break from performing in Samuel Beckett's play Happy Days. Lulu forgot her lines in the last performance and head out to a very small town in eastern Ontario- Snow Road Station. Her brother, Guy and her best friend, Nan live there. There are a number of relatives, friends and others whose stories interact with Lulu. The reader learns about life in a small town and the tangled relationships. And about how how run a maple syrup business. Highly recommended if the reader has not read Hay before

9. Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck Hans is an older married man, poet and interviewer at East German Broadcasting in the 1980's. Katharina is a young woman who is just figuring out what she wants to do with her life. The two meet and have a very intense love affair for a number of years. During this time the Eat German government is collapsing. The writing is very dense and I found the story did not " move along" as I hoped that it would. Hans becomes very controlling and Katharina does not take charge of her own desires and life until the end of the affair and her East German country. I did like Go, Went, Gone by Erpenbeck. But this story seems to move very slowly!( and I thought that Hans was a nasty man and Katharina too gullible) The writing style was interesting at times.

10. The Property by Rutu Modan I reread this graphic novel after viewing the film that was made by the author's sister. Both the story and the film cover the same ground. A grandmother and her granddaughter visit Warsaw. The grand mother wants to reclaim the property or apartment that her family owned before World War 11. However there are other considerations-the grand mother is looking for her lost love. The grand daughter really doesn't know the true story but discovers the truth as she tries to help her grandmother. This is a very touching story.

11. Kiss the Red Stairs The Holocaust, Once Removed by Marsha Lederman I reread this memoirs for my book club. The group didn't like the book but there was a great discussion. My thoughts- I wish that the author had concentrated on her family's story. She wrote a lot about the psychological effects that Holocaust survivor parents had on their children. There have been many studies of "second generation children" and I think that the author had the material for a good long magazine article( she is the Western correspondent for the national newspaper in Canada-The Globe and Mail.) Still an interesting subject.

12. Other People's Houses by Lore Segal I have been reading this author's work this year. Although this work is a novel,according to the introduction by Cynthia Ozick Lore Segal was a ten year old who left Vienna in 1938 on the Childrens' Transport to the Netherlands and England. The story follows the young girl, Lore, as she is housed with various families in England. Eventually herr parents are granted perrrmission to com to England and take up jobs. The narration continues as Lore grows up, follows her reratives to santuary in the Domincan Republlc and eventually the United Stares. I like the way the narration shows the immaturity of the young Lore and her prickly personality she grows up. The story is of the uncertainty of life as a displaced person who has lost their culture. The young learn to accommodate. The older are sometimes lost when confronting a new life. Highly recommended.

Hi Cyrel, catching up on threads. And arriving at yours.
>14 torontoc: That sounds like a interesting book to read. I have to search to find a copy. Maybe my brother can help. He's great at that kind of stuff.
Put it on my wish list.

>15 connie53: Lore Segal's books are still in print- I have discovered some and reread others. enjoy!

Thanks, T. You will eventually see if I found any. ;-)

13. What We Buried by Robert Rotenberg This is a reread for my book club. Again, Rotenberg's books focus on crime and how detectives in Toronto solve the case. In this instance, Detective Ari Greene enlists the help of two new detectives to help solve three murders that took place years ago. Detective Daniel Kennicott's brother Michael was shot while he sat in an outdoor restaurant and his parents were killed in a head on collision while driving to their cottage. Daniel travels to the Italian town of Gubbio to retrace his parents' footsteps as they too visited years ago. All clues lead to World War 11 killing of forty Italians by the Nazis in the town after a German doctor was assassinated. Daniel learns the truth about his own grandparents and how his investigation impacts several "model" citizens in Toronto. a great thriller to read again.

14. Hot Breakfast for Sparrows by Iris Nowell This is a reread. The author was the secret girlfriend of Canadian artist Harold Town for over 20 years. This memoir is an accounting of their life together. I am not sure what the status of Harold Town's art is today. He was the "bad boy" of the Toronto art scene in the 1950's and 60's. On rereading this work I think that today's women wouldn't put up the verbal abuse that Nowell suffered. This is a story of sacrifice although I found out that the author did sue the artist's estate and won.

I have been away from LT for a while. Real life got in the wayso books..
15. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz This is a reread for my book club. I must admit that I liked the way the TV series of this book divided up the story of Editor Susan trying to find the ending of the manuscript and the book story. The real book had big chunks of Susan's investigation and then the story of Atticus Pund investigating the murder. Still a fin read.

Hi Cyrel, here I'am again.

I hope live is treating your better now.

And I did read Huizen van anderen and thought it was a nice book with a painful subject.