Curled Up With a Good Book and a Cup of Tea

For all of her life, Lizzie has never liked the way her body looks. Her friend Mel says that she’s the pretty one, but all Lizzie really sees is a fat girl. And as she gets older, she’s convinced thats how everyone else sees her as well. So she loses weight. She counts every calorie, deprives herself of the foods she loves, logs every mile she travels through exercise, and eventually she becomes the thin person she's wanted to be.  But she quickly realizes that being thin isn’t the solution to all of her problems because being thin doesn’t mean she sees herself as anything other than a fat girl. 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl , by Mona Awad, is a novel told in thirteen short stories. It is a moving and heartbreaking story of a young girl who is spurned by the body-obsessed culture that surrounds her and who struggles through her whole life to conform. This is such a unique and interesting book. I didn’t know what to expect going into it and I found myself moved by the ...

Nalo Hopkinson is known for her fantastic, vivid, and stunning works of fantasy fiction.  One can only imagine how incredible it is to possess her imagination.  From Brown Girl in the Ring to Skin Folk , Hopkinson is at the top of the class when it comes to fantasy.  Her mix of modern speculative fiction with Afro-Caribbean folklore makes for incredibly inventive stories.   Falling In Love with Hominids is a new collection of short stories written by Nalo Hopkinson, most of which are unavailable anywhere else in print.  These eighteen stories were written over the past dozen years and cover a wide variety of themes. Fantasy and Speculative Fiction aren’t genres I read much of, in fact I’m not familiar with them enough to even know if there is supposed to be a difference between the two.  But whenever I hear people discussing the genres, I hear Nalo Hopkinson’s name come up.  Brown Girl in the Ring is often held up as one of the best. I ha...

Fairy tales for grown-ups, that is exactly how Heather O’Neill’s first collection of short stories can be described. Daydreams of Angels  is an incredible and descriptive collection of short stories, designed to stretch your imagination and take you on a journey that is touching and full of wonder.  O’Neill’s novels are ones of great creativity.  She has an incredible way with words and the rich descriptiveness of her writing jumps off the page.  Often when I read short story collections I read one story and then take a break but with this book I just wanted to keep going to the next story.  I couldn’t wait to see what else her mind could come up with.   Two of my favourite stories include: Swan Lake For Beginners - an experiment is undertaken to clone Rudolph Nureyev but each generation is never quite right and soon a town in Quebec is heavily populated with the clones. Dear Piglet - a teenage girl who became part of a cult is writ...

A landlord who cannot get rid of his loud and violent tenants, a man whose wife blogs about motherhood insulting him in the process, women at a bar desperately seeking husbands.  These are just a few of the “so-hip-it-hurts” characters in Russell Smith’s newest short story collection, Confidence . I was instantly drawn into this collection and I quickly realized why. This segment of Toronto’s population - the overly-hip, upper middle class, young and privileged - is the one that people love to hate.  And Smith does a fantastic job at capturing exactly the reasons why we dislike them.   My favourite stories: Crazy - a man who is dealing with the aftermath of a wife who thinks he is cheating on her and has tried to commit suicide.  While she is in hospital awaiting her release, he heads to a massage parlour. Gentrification - a man and woman rent out their basement apartment to two women who are often loud and violent.  They are trying to find ...

Who Should Read This:   Besides the obvious short-story lovers, readers who enjoy stories that are a little off-beat. One of the most common phrases in print is “cover before striking,” a warning to those about to innocently strike a match to be careful not to burn their fingers. In Priscila Uppal’s brand new short story collection,  Cover Before Striking , all of her characters are playing with fire.  These are characters who are testing the limits of both themselves and the world around them.  From an immigrant Portuguese family living in Toronto to the feet of a woman who sleepwalks to a man who loves cats, the characters and their stories are different, eccentric, and intense but poignant and touching at the same time. Whenever I review short story collections I mention how I have a hard time with them because I almost always feel a little unsatisfied at the end of the stories.  I promise this will be the last time I mention that.  Though I do...

I have a terrible confession to make.  I, Shan, lover of Canadian literature and really all things Canadian, have never read anything by Alice Munro.  That’s right, celebrated writer of stories that scream Canada, our first winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Alice Munro.  But I can proudly say that I am now able to change that statement. Family Furnishings is the newest collection of short stories by Munro, twenty-four stories selected from the last two decades.  It is a companion volume to her previous Selected Stories (1964-1994.) At 640 pages, this is a book you will treasure and devour slowly.  Most short story collections you can read straight through, this is one you will spend a lot of valuable time with. I’m a big fan of CanLit that takes you inside the treasury of quaint small-towns we have.  Munro situates most of her stories here, presenting a uniquely Canadian way of life.  Her writing is flawless and beautiful.  I ...

American Innovations is novelist Rivka Galchen’s first collection of short stories, a follow-up to her successful debut novel Atmospheric Disturbances .  A collection of stories that are slightly eccentric with a tinge of the supernatural, this book deals with the complexities of life with average people in unique situations. A few of my favourites: Once An Empire - a woman returns home late one night to watch all of her furniture climbing out the window. The Lost Order - a woman receives a telephone call from a man trying to order Chinese food but doesn’t tell the man that she is not the restaurant.  This inability to tell the truth isn’t just with this stranger though. Wild Berry Blue - the story of a 9 year old girl who develops her first feelings of love for a junkie who works at McDonalds. Something I didn’t know about this collection because I was reading an e-copy and didn’t read the book jacket : The tales in this groundbreaking collectio...

The rubble of an ancient civilization. A village in a valley from which no one comes or goes. A forest of mother-trees, whispering to each other through their roots; a lakeside lighthouse where a girl slips into human skin as lightly as an otter into water; a desert settlement where there was no conflict, before she came; or the town of Wantwick, ruled by a soothsayer, where tourists lose everything they have. These are the places where things begin. Paradise & Elsewhere by Kathy Page is an incredible collection of short stories that balance the line between fantasy and reality.  Described as a collection of short fables, the stories in this book take you to far-away worlds, ones that are both familiar and strange. I absolutely adored this book of short stories.  I’ll admit that I have never been much of a fan, I prefer full-length fiction but this book hit the spot and gave me new appreciation for the genre.  What did it for me was the fantasy element of ...

Fatou, an Ivory Coast refugee, is working as a live-in nanny/housekeeper for a wealthy family in London.  Every Monday, she steals a health club guest pass from a drawer at the family’s home to go swimming.  As she walks to the club, she passes by the Embassy of Cambodia, a place a narrator first explains to us as something nobody would have expected there, a place where there never seems to be any signs of life except for the sounds of a badminton shuttlecock from behind the fence. But the focus of the book is on Fatou.  She reads of a woman who was being held as a domestic slave and wonders if that could be her.  But her weekly swims and Sunday morning church attendance makes her think otherwise, even though the family she works for her has taken her passport. The Embassy of Cambodia by Zadie Smith is a short story that was originally published in The New Yorker .  At only 69 pages, it packs a punch, examining the issues of class, immigration, dome...

In Hellgoing , Lynn Coady presents nine unique stories that present human nature in a funny and incredible way.  A young girl whose religious fanaticism leads her to anorexia and the nun who is charged of helping her, a couple involved in an S&M relationship, a bride who throws herself down the stairs in order to cope, these and many more interesting characters make up this award-nominated collection. These are stories of flawed people with unusual problems and yet the characters come across the relatively few pages and make you like them.  The theme that runs through the book are people whose inner lives are at odds with the world they inhabit. While I usually find that when I read a book short stories that a few stories stand out more for me than others, that wasn't the case here.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading every single story.  One really has to wonder what is going on in Coady's head, or who she meets in life, that she was able to bring these cha...

Margaret Atwood is a celebrated Canadian novelist known worldwide for her incredible novels of fiction.  Her well-known books cover a wide range of topics and genres including speculative fiction, dystopian fiction, historical fiction and romance.  But she is also a writer of short fiction and non-fiction and this is what we find in her book The Tent . This book is a collection of short pieces previously published in magazines and anthologies.  They are fictional pieces inspired by real life characters, including orphans, aging homemakers, and warlords, and other daily occurrences that have given her pause for reflection.  Each piece is very short, I wouldn't call them stories with most being just a couple of pages.  It very much has the feel of taking a peek into Atwood's writing journal, her drawings adding a unique and personal touch.   Atwood draws heavily on the ironies of life and writes with biting sarcasm and wit.  What I enjoyed mo...

A five year old boy who repeats the things his father says to his mother.  The caretaker of a prairie amusement park.  A divorce lawyer whose own marriage is at risk.  A travelling sports drink salesman.  A suspended paramedic who answers a call against orders.  These characters and more all have one thing in common - one major quality that has become their biggest weakness. Whirl Away , by Russell Wangersky, is the 2012 Giller Prize long listed collection of short stories that examines what happens in peoples lives when they are forced to face the realization that their lives have gone astray and the one thing that has been keeping them going is now bringing them down.  It's a fantastic look at what happens to people when their worlds begin to spin off axis. I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of stories.  Each one is rich in details, with characters who could be anyone you pass daily on the street but who hold inside of them secrets and ...

Violet has a history of being in abusive relationships and her current boyfriend Mick is no exception.  But Violet believes that the good times are so good, it makes it worth putting up with Mick's behaviour. Then one day Violet comes home to find a mysterious package on her doorstep.  It is addressed to her but there is no indication who it is from.  She opens it to find a beautiful necklace, one that looks familiar but she can't place where from.  And when she puts it on she discovers that this necklace will change both her life and Mick's forever. Absorbed is a 16 page short story by Penelope Crowe that draws you in from the moment the package is left on the doorstep right to the end where its true nature is discovered. It has the makings of a psychological thriller, though I feel that it was a little too short to really develop that sense.  It still made for a good read as the mystery of who sent the necklace and why is enough to keep you re...

Inspector Zhang is a member of the Singapore Police Force and a fan of mystery books.  His biggest wish is to one day encounter a locked room mystery, a true mystery that is seemingly impossible to solve.  But for Inspector Zhang, this may never happen, as Singapore has one of the lowest crime rates in the world, and barely one murder a year.   Until one day Inspector Zhang is called to a five star hotel to investigate the murder of a wealthy American businessman.  After reviewing the hotel security tapes, Zhang realizes that he is in the midst of an actual locked room mystery.  Using the principles set out by famed mystery writer John Dickson Carr, Zhang relishes the fact that he has finally got his wish.  But will all of his reading help him solve the case or will he get more than he wished for? Inspector Zhang Gets His Wish is a short story by Stephen Leather, one of the UK's most successful thriller writers.  It is one of four Inspecto...

Mary has spent much of her life waiting for the time that she can let go of her MIA husband and find closure, not just for her but her daughter Teresa who was very young when her father went off to war.  Over the years Mary and Teresa have learned that grief has its own course and that closure isn't something you can just make happen.  When Mary discovers a dead dog while on a walk, she contacts the owner and quickly finds that her time for closure is upon her. One More Winter by Rebecca K. O'Connor is a short story that was originally written to help O'Connor through her own experience of loss.  She was the owner contacted by someone else and through the story, O'Connor imagines the life of the person she met only briefly on the phone.  I thought this was a beautiful, heart-tugging story.  I had trouble understanding the characters of Mary and Teresa only because I didn't connect to them as the age they were portrayed (Mary read to me as being the age Teresa...

In The Thing Around Your Neck , Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gives us twelve insightful short stories that take readers deep inside Nigerian culture as well as to the intersection where Nigerian and American cultures collide. This collection is a beautiful portrayal of African culture.  It's about the people and their lives, their emotions, wisdom and the human struggles that occur for everyone.   Adichie's subjects are men and women, adults and children, both in Africa and the United States.  This book takes you beyond the Africa you see on television or in the media and shows you the people at the heart of it. In Tomorrow is Too Far , a young girl reminisces about the summer her brother Nonso died.  Nonso was the favourite of their grandmother, and the young girl as well as her cousin Dozie felt the pain of jealousy.   But after 13 years, the true story behind her brothers death continues to haunt her. In The Thing Around Your Neck , a young woman ...

When Gregg accidentally stumbles upon his neighbour's lingerie collection drying in her bathroom, he can't hide his fascination.  He never would have thought she'd be the type of person to wear that kind of lingerie.  And it gets him wondering if his wife would want to wear that kind of lingerie. But then his neighbour is murdered, strangled with her own fishnet stockings.  And Gregg is caught up in the mystery of who killed her, afraid of when and where the killer might strike next. Laundry Day is a short story offering by mystery author Stacy Juba.  It's an entertaining read, a little bit racy, a little bit of mystery.  I think it could have felt a bit more suspenseful but the ending definitely packed a punch which makes it a great read.  This is my first introduction to the cozy mystery genre and it definitely has my interest now. Laundry Day is available for free download for Kindle here .  It also includes short excerpts of Stacy...

We first met Darcy when she was planning her wedding to Dex in Emily Giffin's debut novel, Something Borrowed .  And though she wasn't always a person who was easy to love we felt for her when Dex called off the wedding, leaving her for Darcy's best friend since high school, the always good girl Rachel.  And then we tagged along and watched Darcy move on and grow up in the sequel, Something Blue . Now, we can go back in time to Darcy's high school days and learn all about her past in The Diary of Darcy J. Rhone by Emily Giffin.  This short story follows Darcy from her freshman year to senior year, and adds a little more backstory to the relationship between Darcy and Rachel we see in the two novels. The story wasn't bad.  It's written in a diary format and so the language and artistic extras give it the feel of snooping in a teenage girls diary.  Darcy can definitely get on your nerves, but it's a nice glimpse into her early years.  It doesn...

Ruth moved to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of being writer.  And her dream came true when she became a writer on a hit television show.  For unfortunate reasons though she leaves her job and to support herself takes on freelance writing jobs.  But these aren't the jobs she would like to be putting on her resume.  As she spends her time helping high school students write their college entrance essays she can't shake her disappointment and heartbreak.  And so she takes to the pool, swimming lap after lap, trying to wash away her feelings.  But when an unexpected client asks her to help craft his online profile, Ruth learns the importance of diving into life headfirst. Swim by Jennifer Weiner was originally published in the short story collection titled The Guy Not Taken and is the prequel to Weiner's just released novel The Next Best Thing .  This is a very sweet story, one that pulls you in right from the start (which is important in a shor...

Brooklyn Bites by Scott Stabile is a collection of short stories that centre around relationships and incredible, delightful food in Brooklyn, New York. Heart-warming, rich and well-written, these stories will have you smiling at their familiarity and your mouth watering. While they capture the spirit of Brooklyn, New York you don't need to be from the city to make a connection. In Truffle Fries , a woman and her boyfriend share a steaming plate of truffle fries between them. As the women looks across the table, she sees the man she has loved for the last two years but lately has wanted to push off a cliff. As she lets the truffle fries whisk her away to far and romantic places, minus her boyfriend, she considers what it is she really wants from life. In A Little Taste of Chocolate , Rick and Shelly wake up hungover to the sounds of the irritating bulldog across the street. As they dread the day ahead in the tough economy that has hit everyone, they share their love along...