Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

Eerie & Beautiful Novel by Amy Sackville: "Orkney"

Saturday, April 26, 2014

As the spring weather starts to wane, and the summer sun gradually breaks through those moody days of cold rain, I have a fantastic novel recommendation.

The novel Orkney by Amy Sackville will whisk you away to a barren island in the farthest northern reaches of Scotland, where an old university professor and his white-haired, pelagic young wife (once his student) hole up in a wind-battered cabin for their honeymoon.  While the girl spends her days on the shore, staring out to see, her doting husband watches her more and more frantically, trying to maintain an already-fragile hold on this mysterious woman whom he loves to obsession.

The author's saturated imagery makes the novel seem like poetry in disguise.  You will find yourself getting lost in the sound of wind, waves, and water.  The voice of the narrator will suck you into his mental web of unquenchable-fixation; and the young woman he has claimed as his own will quickly become just as spellbinding to you as she is to him.

Just to get a sense of Amy Sackville's gorgeous, vivid writing style, here are a couple choice quotes that really lingered with me while I was reading this book:

"She falls asleep instantly; these few nights I have spent with her, she has swum deep before I have even steadied my breath.  And as she dreams  her submarine dreams I lie beside her, a whale's carcass, a wrecked ship, a vast ribcage in the dark blue deep; and she is a tiny luminescent silver fish, picking me clean, in and out of all that's left of me, bare bones long since freed of flesh or rigging." (61)

"Out at the sea's edge, the water churns over, a static rolling like horses pawing the ground; it comes to her feet in a wash of foam and fret.  She is a kind of orphan, a ragged orphan, out there on the beach, as if abandoned.  Wilfully abandoned.  The forsaken mermen remain in their chariots, observing their daughter, withholding, squinting into the strange glare." (159)



"If on a winter's night a traveler..." by Italo Calvino

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

This is an incredible book.  It completely lacks the traditional structure of a novel - the reader is taken into story after story in abrupt bursts, and then becomes the protagonist of the story himself/herself!  The feeling of being drawn into a tale, only to have it abruptly taken away without giving you an ending or any resolution whatsoever... this is just one of many odd psychological tricks Calvino pulls on his readers.  Ultimately this novel is about reading, about the relationship between readers and their novels.  Sounds like it would give you a headache, but it's actually an absolute thrill to read!  I have to share my favorite quotes from this must-read.  Enjoy!

"...then a kind of weariness settles on her, perhaps only the shadow of their weariness (or my weariness, or yours).  They have known her since she was a girl, they know everything there is to know about her, some of them may have been involved with her, now water under the bridge, over and done with; in other words, there is a veil of other images that settles on her image and blurs it, a weight of memories that keep me from seeing her as a person seen for the first time, other people's memories suspended like the smoke under the lamps." 19

"This is how you have changed yesterday, you who insisted you preferred a book, something solid, which lies before you, easily defined, enjoyed without risks, to a real-life experience, always elusive, discontinuous, debated." 32

"But how to establish the exact moment in which a story begins?  Everything has already begun before, the first line of the first page of every novel refers to something that has already happened outside the book.  Or else the real story is the one that begins ten or a hundred pages further on, and everything that precedes it is only a prologue.  The lives of individuals of the human race form a constant plot, in which every attempt to isolate one piece of living that has a meaning separate from the rest--for example, the meeting of two people, which will become decisive for both--must bear in mind that each of the two brings with himself a texture of events, environments, other people, and that from the meeting in turn, other stories will be derived which will break off from their common story." 153

"If one wanted to depict the whole thing graphically, every episode, with its climax, would require a three-dimensional model, perhaps four-dimensional, or, rather, no model: every experience is unrepeatable.  What makes lovemaking and reading resemble each other most is that within both of them times and spaces open, different from measurable time and space." 156

"At other times, on the contrary, I seem to understand that between the book to be written and things that already exist there can be only a kind of complementary relationship: the book should be the written counterpart of the unwritten world; its subject should be what does not exist and cannot exist except when written, but whose absence is obscurely felt by that which exists, in its own incompleteness." 172

"If a book truly interests me, I cannot follow it for more than a few lines before my mind, having seized on a thought that the text suggests to it, or a feeling, or a question, or an image, goes off on a tangent and springs from thought to thought, from image to image, in an itinerary of reasonings and fantasies that I feel the need to pursue to the end, moving away from the book until I have lost sight of it.  The stimulus of reading is indispensable to me, and of meaty reading, even if, of every book, I manage to read no more than a few pages.  But those few pages already enclose for me whole universes, which I can never exhaust." 254




The Sound of Things Falling & The Cellist of Sarajevo

Tuesday, January 14, 2014


Happy 2014!  I have used my brief winter break to do a bit of reading, and want to recommend two books that I greatly enjoyed reading:  The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vásquez and The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway.

The Sound of Things Falling is the latest novel by Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vásquez, and it follows the interconnected lives of a professor in Bogotá named Antonio, a pilot who spent years in prison, his gringa Peace Corps wife, and their Colombian-raised beekeeper daughter.  It's a beautifully-written story that takes a convoluted but smooth route through the timelines of individual lives, through remembered and imagined moments, through recordings and letters.  The conclusions drawn from the introspection of these characters raise larger questions about the trauma of an entire country: Colombia in the time of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar's reign.

The Cellist of Sarajevo is also a war story.  It takes place in the besieged city of Sarajevo.  There are four characters that the novel divides its time among: a husband and father man trying to survive the trip to and from a brewery to fetch water for his family; an elderly man on his own errand, also trying to avoid the shells and snipers causing the citizens of the city to drop like flies while crossing streets and bridges; a female sniper given the task of defending a cellist from enemy snipers in Sarajevo; and the cellist himself, a man who plays Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor for 22 days, one for each person killed by a bomb while buying bread at the shop across the street.  Amazingly, this novel is based on a real cellist who played in ruined buildings during the siege, Vedran Smailović.

The themes in these novels have a lot of overlap, and both are driven predominantly by the inner thoughts and drives of their characters.  These books left me with a sense of the fragility and senselessness of human life and the world we inhabit, while also taking great pain to focus on the smallest, silliest coincidences and singular events that define lives and make them unique and cherishable.


A time-sensitive read: Kofi Annan's Interventions

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

This book has been on my list for some time now, and when Kofi Annan himself came and lectured on my first day of classes at Uppsala University less than a month ago, I was absolutely amazed by this man's combination of candor and composure. I picked up his autobiography of his years as head of UN Peacekeeping Operations (1993-1996) and then as Secretary-General (1997-2006), during which time he was awarded the Nobel Peace Price in tandem with the UN itself. The book, Interventions: A Life in War and Peace, is a concise, focused read which dives right at the heart of the multiple international failures of the 1990s and early 2000s: Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq... Kofi gives a blunt, refreshingly-sharp critique of the shortcomings of the United Nations as a cohesive actor in conflict prevention, an issue he has made it his business to remedy over the past twenty years.

I can't speak highly enough of this book. As a Peace and Conflict Studies student with a basic knowledge of the topics and players in major UN debates of my lifetime, my knowledge was completely uprooted by Annan's summation of the conflicts from the perspective of the UN. Not only does he present the issues in an incredibly fluent and concise manner (a testament to his natural ability to zero-in on the root of a conflict, the place where diplomacy must be targeted), he also peels back the complex layers and interactive structures of the UN to easily engage the reader with the interplay of countless nuanced exchanges between many, many actors over endless years of conflict after conflict. In the throes of what was no doubt one of the most challenging jobs in the world, Annan emerges as a lucid, forward-thinking individual, one who was always attune to the bigger picture, even as actors (often the US) barraged the UN to make narrow-minded and thoughtlessly reactionary decisions in the face of global trauma.

This is a book that you can open to any page and find immense wisdom. I would love to quote many, many of his paragraphs, but I would like to mention this one, because it really gets at the heart of why the UN fails to act in the face of crisis. It's not because they don't want to or don't have the ability to; rather, it's the very nature of the organization, i.e. that it is reliant on the whims and decisions of the actors that constitute it. The UN is not an independent force, and this is something that we tend to forget. "The UN" is a term for the consensus (or at least the bargaining table) of every country in the world (except Kosovo, Taiwan, the Vatican, and Palestine).  Failure to act on the part of the UN is merely a failure for the broader international community to act.
"Contrary to what many suspect, the UN has few resources of its own.  For a peace operation, I had to go to the troop-contributing countries and ask for peacekeepers.  For development assistance and humanitarian relief, I had to go to the donor governments." (140)
With events unfolding in Syria, this is a very timely book to read - Kofi Annan leaves off in this memoir with mentions of the escalating tensions in Syria.  I would recommend reading it now before it becomes outdated by a barrage of new developments in the Middle East.

One last point I want to make about this book: he gives a thorough account of the Iraq War from where he sat as Secretary-General while the US chose to commit an illegal act of invading Iraq without the approval of the Security Council.  In light of everything Annan writes up to this point (he saves the Iraq War for last), in light of his descriptions of how painstakingly the UN had to be restructured in order to step out of the Cold War era and into our world of contemporary armed conflict (most of which is actually intrastate in nature), this decision to flout the UN had terrible ramifications that continue to be seen and felt, even a decade later.
"By behaving the way it did, the United States invited the perception among many in the world--including many long-time allies--that it was becoming a greater threat to global security than anything Saddam could muster.  This was a self-inflicted wound of historic proportions--and one that did immense, and possibly lasting, damage to U.S. standing in the world.  Abu Ghraib did not come out of a vacuum, and neither did Guantanamo.  The way they both ran counter to the principles of the rule of law has done incalculable damage to the global struggle for human rights." (366)
The sad fact is that Kofi Annan had been devoting nearly all of his time to engaging in diplomatic processes all over the Middle East -- with Iraq, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Hizbollah, you name it!  And real strides were actually being made!  The US invasion of Iraq put pretty much all of this to a halt, delaying peace in the Middle East by years, if not decades.  This isn't old news; the consequences are apparent today, in the US's less-than-amicable relations with many Middle East leaders.

Buy on Amazon
All-in-all, I was absolutely riveted by this book - it's a remarkable historical artifact, going through all the major conflicts of my lifetime (I'm 22) and discussing the ways in which the UN has adapted for the better (while still pointing out where the organization has still to better itself).




October book to buy: The Kinfolk Table

Sunday, September 22, 2013

I wish more people knew about Kinfolk magazine.  Based in Portland, OR, this new indie magazine has a very unique theme: small, intimate gatherings.  Good food, good company, good conversation, the passing on of recipes and home-related skill sets, exploration, travel, &c.  It has a fantastic aesthetic - natural, rustic, simple, beautiful.  The team of freelance photographers, writers, travelers, and filmmakers who contribute to each new issue come from all over the world.  Their latest issue (#9 - they haven't been around that long!) has the theme of "defining your weekend, finding the right balance between work and play" and you can check it out here.  Another cool element of Kinfolk is their monthly events, which are themed each month but which take place simultaneously in locales all around the globe.  Take this month's "Preserving the Season" gatherings in Seattle, Mexico City, and Oslo, to name a few - all celebrating the harvest and teaching guests about canning, pickling, etc.  Upcoming events are always posted to their website here.

This October, Kinfolk is branching out even further - they're publishing a cookbook!  I had the pleasure to preview it, and it is really just fantastic.  The Kinfolk Table: Recipes for Small Gatherings is divided into sections by city/locale.  From Brooklyn to Copenhagen, to the English Countryside, each sections includes profiles of a variety of individuals who have been discovered by Kinfolk over the years.  Photographers, bakers, farm owners... they come from all walks of life, yet they've all welcomed Kinfolk into their homes and have shared their most precious recipes.  Some are their original creations, and some are recipes that have been handed down through their families.

The cookbook is full of gorgeous photography, not just of the culinary creations included but also portraits of all the contributors, and even a great deal of photos of their homes, their kitchens, the small beautiful elements that make up their daily lives.  The volume leaves you not only with the ability to make simply, healthy, delicious meals and desserts (such as Pasta with Wilted Arugula, Almonds, and Soft Goat Cheese or Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cake), but also stories: of people, places, livelihoods...  It's incredibly true to the magazine's mission, and is definitely a must-have for chefs, travelers, and all indie/hipster types. ;)

You can pre-order The Kinfolk Table on Amazon.
Release Date: October 15, 2013
$21.00 | hardcover

Book Reviews: The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. & Aleph

Wednesday, August 28, 2013



I cannot speak highly enough of two of the books I read this summer.  Adelle Waldman's first novel, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.: A Novel,absolutely rocked my world.  I've never read a book that so perfectly captured what young adult relationships are like.  Nathaniel P. is a hotshot freelance writer living it up in NYC.  At the start of the novel he's already had quite the timeline of relationships, hookups, etc.  The book delves into his past romantic experiences while also watching how he navigates his current affairs.  I won't spoil the ending, but it was refreshing and left me feeling that we're all sort of Nathaniel P., wanting to be the moral compass in every interaction but oftentimes overlooking our own selfishness, our own ulterior motives, even our own flaws.  I think Waldman did an excellent job capturing the male psyche - the book could perhaps have been subtitled "What Your Boyfriends Are Thinking."  Though The Love Affairs was a tough act to follow, I think Paulo Coelho's strangely mystical/autobiographical novel Aleph really nailed it.  I am familiar with Coelho but this was the first book I'd ever read by him.  It was spectacular.  Definitely one of the strangest books I've ever picked up, it is the semi-autobiographical account of a married writer named Paulo who decides to ride the Trans-Siberian Railway all the way to Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan.  Following him on this journey - despite his best efforts to dissuade her - is a young woman named Hilal, a violinist.  As the story develops, it turns out that the narrator and Hilal have met before.  This is where the novel takes a sharp left into the fantastical: Paulo and Hilal have met in a past life, hundreds of years before, during the Spanish Inquisition.  Something happened then that was never resolved, and it is on this grueling, eerie, beautiful train ride that they together delve into their shared existence using something called the Aleph, "the point at which everything is in the same place at the same time. I'm at a window, looking out at the world and its secret places, poetry lost in time and words left hanging in space...sentences that are perfectly understood, even when left unspoken. Feelings that simultaneously exalt and suffocate."  This is a fascinating book, full of beautiful quotes on life and love, very philosophic while simultaneously containing a great deal of adventure.  I want to end with one of my favorite quotes from Aleph, which sums up the unique manner in which human relationships are perceived in this book - as being repeatedly broken and reassembled:
“The world is being created and destroyed in this very moment. Whoever you met will reappear, whoever you lost will return.” (p.13)

summer reads: eli's picks

Saturday, June 1, 2013


Reading outside is best done in the summer months, and there's nothing so refreshing as lying in the shade of a tree with an engrossing paperback. As the school year winds down (or comes to a complete end, as is the case for most college seniors like us), it's finally time to kick back on a lazy hot day with that book you've been eyeing longingly for the past school year.

1. With My Body by Nikki Gemmell. Beginning with the dreary daily existence of a suffocating British housewife, the majority of this novel is composed of this woman's memories of her youth in Australia, particularly the summer of her sexual awakening. Her brief but exhilarating love affair with an English writer in an isolated old house is hauntingly beautiful, and the lessons about love and relationships that this novel offers make it a piece of astounding emotional weight.

2. The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. Heller's premier novel will whisk you off to the wilderness of Colorado, where protagonist Hig tries to maintain a sense of normalcy in a post-apocalyptic world where government no longer exists and most of the population has been wiped out by flu. While running regular surveillance flights with his dog Jasper in a 1956 Cessna, he hears a faint radio broadcast that sends him on a journey past his fuel point of no return.

3. The Ramayana by Valmiki. One of the most epic love stories, this sacred epic of India charts the love story of god Rama and Sita, who is kidnapped by the demon Ravana. Rama's epic quest to rescue his beloved with the help of Hanuman the monkey-god and others is a timeless classic and transports you to the beauty of India through its imagery and Hindu iconography.

4. Chéri by Colette. A charming classic from Belle Époque France, this short novel charts the affair of retired courtesan Léa de Lonval and young Fred Peloux, who is engaged to another, the young beauty Edmée. If you like the book you should see the film also, starring Michelle Pfeiffer.

5. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. We actually recommend the entire Gemma Doyle Trilogy, but this first book in the series is incredible. Set in Victorian England, four misfit girls meet at the eerie Spence Academy for Young Ladies. One of them, Gemma Doyle, has a secret: she has visions of another world which she alone can open the door to. A darkly magical, absolutely addictive book - you won't be able to put it down!

6. That Was Then, This is Now by S. E. Hinton. All of S. E. Hinton's books were my personal favorites as a young teen, but in my opinion this one is even better than The Outsiders. It's a coming-of-age story of Mark and Bryon, whose small-town lives provide some inspiring lessons about life, family, and friendship.

7. Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen. One of the best books ever written on what it's like to be a teenager. A treatise on young love and friendship.

8. The Queen's Lover by Francine du Plessix-Gray. While I'm not a huge history buff, this biography of Marie Antoinette told through the eyes of her lover, the Swedish Count Axel von Fersen, is absolutely incredible. It sucks you into the decadence and gossip of the late 1700s, and provides a startling intimate look at the Queen during the darkest parts of the Revolution.

9. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. This book will break your heart. Whether or not you liked the movie, the book is better. Set in the Chicago area, it chronicles the unusual love story of a normal woman and a man who has strange epileptic attacks where he travels backwards or forwards in the timeline of his own life.

10. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. This is the one book in this list which I haven't yet finished - it's my summer 2013 reading. This story spans lifetimes and years of wars, slowly weaving together the lives of its brilliant characters.

Feel free to submit your own recommendations for summer reading! We'd love to know!

summer reads: zab's picks

Monday, April 22, 2013

Freedom is near! The fresh, warm breezes of summer are starting to reawaken the world, and you can feel the sunshine energising your body and mind. Summer is a time for growth and relaxation and happiness, if you can afford it! Though many of us still have work, school or other obligations to occupy our summers, there is always some precious time to sit outside in the sun with some iced tea and a good book. Because this season has, since childhood, been the time for imagination and play, it is the perfect time for adult-you to relax and allow your mind to indulge in some good old stories.

In this post, I highlight my all-time favourite novels to enjoy during any season - but if you can, I highly encourage you to pick up one or all for summer reads! Just sneaking in a few minutes of reading here and there is an ENORMOUS stress reliever. Escaping into a fictional world has always been one of our favourite ways of dealing with the troubles of real life! These picks vary from timeless classics to modern French erotica (ooh la la!), so there will be plenty to spark your interest. Most of these novels are relatively light and passionate on the surface but reveal deep lessons about humankind underneath.They will supplant your summer with not only relaxation but learning. Enjoy!

My favourites (in no particular order because they are all equally fantastic):

1. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. I would say that Lolita is the most inappropriate influential novel ever written. Nabokov's novel tells the story of little Lolita, a tantalising, fascinating pre-teen dripping with sexual equivoque who draws in the helpless and much older Humbert Humbert. This book has become not only a classic but has defined an aspect of society that pretty much all others have deemed untouchable and not-understandable. I think that Lolita is the most intriguing character ever created, and Humbert Humbert's doomed obsession tells us a lot about humanity.

2. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas. Truly a novel for summer, this lengthy but captivating work is filled with adventure, scandal, love, and grief. It is set in beautiful France and Mediterranean islands after the exile of Napoleon, and follows the life of Edmond Dantes, a young, sincere, and successful sailor whose life is plagued by jealousy and revenge. He is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes from jail, acquires an incredible fortune, and sets about getting revenge for those who harmed him in the past. Dantes' life is full of astonishing twists, passion, danger, and sadness. This book is considered a classic and a masterpiece for a reason, and is surprisingly easy to read considering it was written in the 1840s.

3. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence. Initially forbidden in many countries when it was published in 1928, this is one of the most classic novels of feminine awakening and independence. An upper-class British woman shakes away the shackles of society and searches for wholeness, particularly the cohesion of her mind and body. She becomes involved in a sexual relationship with a lower-class man, with whom she experiences true emotion and self-awareness.

4. The Awakening by Kate Chopin. The perfect summer read, for women in particular. Like Lady Chatterly's Lover, this short novel explores the process of self-realization of a bored, wealthy housewife and was likewise banned for some time. This novel is set on a resort island just beyond New Orleans, and describes the luxuriant but empty lifestyle of a woman who should want nothing. She seeks fulfillment through society liaisons, charming young men, and music but only slowly makes her way towards feminine independence.

5. Monsieur by Emma Becker. This book was written only a few years ago by a young Parisian woman. It vividly details the relationship between the author and an older surgeon/family friend. I love this book because of its honest sexuality and emotion, and Ms. Becker's heart-wrenching, relatable obsession with an man she can never be with. You can read my complete review of this novel here.

6. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. If you have not already read this book, do so immediately. Set in the stark Prague Spring, this story explores the fragility and strength of love. Tomas, an intelligent, successful, and attractive womaniser sleeps with many women but loves only his wife, the reserved and beautiful photographer Tereza. The story follows the interactions and development between Tomas, Tereza, and Sabina, Tomas' free-spirited lover. It explores the 'lightness' of life, the idea that each person has only one life to live, and that time is irreplaceably precious.

7. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Truly a modern masterpiece. This is a very difficult and emotional book, but it is also a necessary read. This novel follows the intertwined lives of two women living in Afghanistan as they face incredible pain, hardship, and love. Hosseini's writing abilities and depiction of humankind blows me away.

8. Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Another perfect summer novel. This work of art describes the 227 days spent by a young Indian boy lost in the Pacific Ocean with only an adult tiger for company. Terrifying, exhilarating, and touching, this story is beautifully told and focuses on humankind's place in the animal kingdom, how we are similar to and different from the animals.

9. Island by Aldous Huxley. Quite different from his most famous novel, Brave New World, this is the story of a journalist who is shipwrecked on the Pacific island of Pala and finds a clandestine perfect society. The people there indulge in leisure and contemplation, and everyone belongs to each other in a seamless, happy society. This book was actually written as the utopian alternative to Brave New World and its themes of relaxation, self-understanding, and learning are perfect for summertime.

10. Lord of the Flies by William Golding. You might be sensing a common thread here: the ocean, shipwreck, and developing an understanding humanity. This very short novel is the ultimate combination of these elements. A group of English schoolboys are stranded on an uninhabited island with no adult supervision and must form their own self-government, with disastrous results. This story delves deeply into the human psyche, in particular the battle between solidarity and selfishness. These abandoned boys confirm Jean-Jacques Rousseau's theory that 'uncorrupted morals' will prevail when humans are in their natural, ungoverned state.

We highly recommend all of these novels - they include some of our very favourites. Pick out one, two, or all to fill the extra hours of your summer with some relaxation, contemplation, and adventure!

book picks: the dog stars & delicacy

Thursday, March 28, 2013


In the past week I've finished two books, which is a pretty big deal considering senior year schoolwork and the like. The reason? These were both absolutely wonderful reads, impossible to put down once opened. They are similar only in their inherent theme of tragedy and adaptation. Beyond that, they could not be more different.

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller takes place in a post-apocalyptic USA, where mankind has been practically eliminated by an outbreak of flu (or something flu-like). The protagonist Hig lives in Colorado, carrying on with no one but his dog Jasper and his crazy wilderness comrade Bangley. Bangley keeps himself sane (or semi-sane) by focusing all his efforts on fortifying the hanger they call home, while Hig tries to retain a sense of his past life by channeling his energy into fishing, farming, cooking, and scouting the perimeter in a 1956 Cessna (with Jasper as copilot). When Hig hears a broken transmission come through his radio from another airport, he decides to go beyond his plane's point of no return in search of some fragment of his old life.

The best part of this book is it surprising capacity for humor. Dark humor mostly, given the circumstances, yet I still found myself laughing out loud at some of the things that came out of Bangley's mouth. Even after Hig leaves Bangley far behind, the latter sticks with Hig in his mind's eye. The thoughts and imaginings of Hig are beautiful, heartrending, and poignantly human. In fact, what this novel ultimately seems to be about is the often unacknowledged moments that make up humanity.

Delicacy by David Foenkinos is a romance, originally French but recently released in the US in English. However, for its protagonist Natalie, it is a pseudo-apocalyptic tale. She has just become a widow in a tragically sudden accident. Young and now without her beloved husband Francois, she finds herself the object of male obsession in her office. Her (married) boss is very direct in his confessions of love for her, but Natalie has locked herself away.

In a surprisingly charming twist, it is her geeky coworker, a Swede named Markus, who finally starts to melt her aloof exterior. Apparently the book was made into a film with Audrey Tautou as Nathalie. I haven't seen it, but it's definitely on my list after reading this delightfully sweet little novel.

read this book instead of 50 shades of grey: monsieur by emma becker

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Eli discovered this seemingly little-known erotic novel a few months ago, and it has quickly become one of our all-time favourites. Published in France just last year by 22-year-old Emma Becker, this extremely personal autobiography has attracted little attention but deserves the reputation that 50 Shades of Grey unjustifiably earned in recent years. Not only is Miss Becker’s novel very well-written, it describes the profound sexual and emotional obsession with men that almost every young woman has gone through. We girls have all wanted someone we couldn’t have, or become involved with someone who doesn’t love us in the same way that we love them. Emma’s doomed story of passion is relatable, fascinating, and brought me to tears.

Essentially, ‘Ellie’ (Emma’s alias in the novel) becomes sexually involved with a renowned, married surgeon much older than herself after discovering a common interest in erotic literature. Ellie becomes obsessed with this man (who she never names in the book, referring to him only as Monsieur). She describes him as a drug: she spends every minute without him quivering in anticipation of their next meeting. She lives only for the simplest communication with him, even just a short text message. The rest of Ellie’s life is a pretense that will disappear and show its emptiness as soon as her mobile lights up with his name. Monsieur becomes her only reality.

‘And then Monsieur, whom I hate… magically brings me to life, blowing on the ashes of my phoenix, his velvet tones, tender and amusing, simply saying, “Good morning, Miss Becker.”’

Many women have been in a relationship similar to Ellie’s, though perhaps one not quite as drastic or taboo! Many of us have experienced that attraction, even obsession, where our world seems to revolve around another person who has absolutely no idea how involved we are. This kind of relationship advances from hatred of that person (for being oblivious), to utter addiction, to self-hatred, to depression. This is a story that cannot have a happy ending.

However, I whole-heartedly recommend this book! Not only is Monsieur extremely sexually explicit, which is always a bit of fun, but it puts together the very best of my favourite erotic novels. This story is basically the creation of Catherine Millet from Lolita. Monsieur takes The Sexual Life of Catherine M. and puts you, a modern college student, in Catherine’s place. Ellie takes you through the intimate thoughts and emotions of moving from being merely ‘sexually active’ to becoming a deeply sexual being, finding yourself in the depths of filth and sodomy, and loving it, finding it beautiful beyond expression. Monsieur describes a side of women that is almost always hidden away, that little Lolita in us that truly wants to be defiled.

Not only this, but I absolutely fell in love with Emma (Ellie) Becker. I loved her eloquence (which is beyond her age), her bravery (or perhaps stupidity), and her fragility. I was vicariously able to live the life of this daring, unashamed, doomed girl through Monsieur.

‘Sex in his arms is a playground in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is forbidden… it’s like being drunk, the sense of release so deep that I can’t find words to express it.’


You can find Monsieur at bookstores like Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com for less than $10. We highly recommend picking it up!

life of pi

Saturday, November 24, 2012


‘Life of Pi’ is one of my favourite books; I think it is one of the richest and most colorful tales anyone has ever put into the form of black letters on white paper. Though one of the intrinsic draws of the book is the unanswerable question of whether Pi has told his story truthfully or has fabricated the entire thing – no one can ever know which is the case – the book taught me much about myself and my relation to the world, especially animals. We (the readers) love to believe Pi’s story because we see how possible it is on a personal and natural level. Martel describes a relationship between man and animal that is fiercely accurate. We are animals, and share a bond with animals on that very basic but beautiful level. But does our sense of reason and compassion extend to animals as well? Or do they act exclusively on instinct? This is the fundamental question Pi (through Martel) focuses on in his story.

At the very surface, I don’t believe that Life of Pi lived up to the claims that it is the ‘new Avatar’ – though the story is much better than Avatar’s. It is visually stunning, as I expected it to be, but it somehow did not do justice to the gorgeous and fantastical scenes that played through my mind as I read the book. However, it was indeed fascinating to see the white of the lifeboat against the immense colours of the Pacific, the floating carnivorous island, and a thin Indian boy side-by-side with a beautiful Bengal tiger. The acting was good: Suraj Sharma (who plays Pi) did an excellent job portraying Pi’s emotions during his ordeal. Irrfan Khan (adult Pi) was also very moving and believable.

Despite all this, I have never found any film adaptation to be as good as the original book, and this film is not an exception. Somehow, reading a book is so much more personal than watching a 2-hour film. Maybe it’s the valued time that I dedicate to reading a book; maybe it’s the full descriptions, or the insight into characters’ minds. I just know that I am moved much more deeply by books than I am by their film adaptations. This was the case with Life of Pi. It certainly did not make me sob like I did when I finished the book! I also believe that condensing the story (as was necessary for the film) reduces the viewer’s appreciation for young Pi’s survival at sea, which is truly astonishing. However, I certainly recommend seeing the movie: it is a beautiful portrayal of Pi’s story, and again made me reflect upon our incredible relationship with animals and nature.
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