Merry Christmas One and All!

Hard to believe another Christmas has come and gone! We had a great day, which began with opening presents at Mom's house...even little Holly was impressed by all the loot under the tree.

Jean and I hosted Christmas dinner this year and managed to fit eight guests in our dining room: Mom and Dad; Jim, Janice, Richard and Ian; Marna and Nin. We had a lovely evening of chatting and laughter and I don't think anyone even missed the turkey! Instead, I made a roasted vegetable gallette, spaghetti squash, brussels sprouts and beet/carrot/apple salad. The highlight of the meal, though, was Nin's hard sauce that accompanied my xmas pudding.

Richard even challenged Jean to Carcassonne and beat her twice - now that's a Christmas miracle. Anyways, a fun-filled but very busy day; Holly wasn't the only one who felt like this at 10pm!

More Bookish Thoughts...

Zoe Heller is probably best known for her novel, "What Was She Thinking? Notes On A Scandal," which became an Oscar-nominated movie. But Heller's newest book, "The Believers," certainly deserves the same attention as it paints an insightful, multi-vocalic portrait of a dysfunctional New York family.

The author describes the trials of the Litvinoffs after father Joel suffers a major stroke and ends up in a coma. A lawyer famous for his passionate defenses of political radicals, Joel leaves his caustic, disagreeable wife, Audrey, to handle his legacy. Also greatly affected by Joel's absence are his children: Karla, an overweight social worker trapped in an unhappy marriage; Rosa, a disillusioned revolutionary who finds herself strangely drawn to Orthodox Judaism; and Lenny, the adopted, heroin-addicted son.

As the story unfolds, all the characters experience revelations, forcing them to discover who they are and who they want to be. Heller's prose is astute, imaginative and humorous, all the while drawing attention to the subtleties of human behaviour, relationships and faith.

More Bookish Thoughts...

Last year, I raved about Lori Lansens' "The Girls," an amazing novel about conjoined twins living in rural Ontario. Lansens' new book, "The Wife's Tale," has a lighter tone but is no less engaging or thought-provoking. It chronicles the self-actualization of Mary Gooch, the damaged and alienated protagonist whose weight tops 300 pounds. When Mary's husband fails to return home on the night of the couple's 25th wedding anniversary, Mary embarks on a literal and symbolic journey on which she meets a cast of misfits, unlikely mentors and friends.

Mary’s mission to find her husband reveals human strengths and limitations and also foregrounds such painful issues as racism, alienation, poverty and, especially, hunger. For Mary, food makes due as a substitute for that which she can't name or define and therein lies the most powerful theme of the novel: to be stricken with hunger is more of a spiritual deprivation than a physical one.