Principals and Other Schoolyard Bullies - Nick Fonda

A collection of short stories by an Eastern Townships writer from Richmond.  The stories focus on childhood lives and school experiences.  I sympathize with the issues and criticisms he brings up around school culture and its effect on children and parents.  The last story is interesting - in a very tentative way, it seems to be an exploration of cultural difference and perhaps even underlying prejudice within the French school system in Quebec.

Solo - Rana Dasgupta

A bit of a schizophrenic novel.  The first half explores the life of a character born in Bulgaria near the end of the 1800s.  Through this life, you see the various social upheavals that have occurred there since the Turkish period.  It is an interesting social history and focuses on a topic I am interested in, which is the long-term effect on society and personal psychology of living under the Communist system where acknowledged reality and lived reality diverged so distinctly.

The second half of the book changes characters and location - Georgia and the US.  Its focus is organized crime and the exploitation of traditional cultures by the american music industry.  Less successful, less subtle, too trendyish.

Strangely, the guy who wrote this book is Indian.

Ceremony - Leslie Marmon Silko

Silko is a well-established native american writer from the south-west.
Interesting look into a different perspective on the world based on a native tradition (as interpreted by Silko).
Various themes:
- a pretty clear condemnation of the violent, rapacious and alienated nature of white society
- relationships to nature in a traditional native ethos (she writes beautifully about the natural world around her and the relationship you can have with the land)
- explores the theme of cultural crossover and how difficult it is to live in the two cultural worlds
- though Silko seems to see her salvation in a return to old native values and ways, the book has a fair bit of Christian symbolism, especially in the "ceremony"  that takes place at the end of the book - also in Tayo's days alone in the wilderness

She does a nice job of weaving traditional stories and myths into the narrative.

Find more by her.

Diary of a Bad Year - J. M. Coetzee 2007

An unusual narrative technically for Coetzee - two simultaneous stories running at the same time, sometimes even three.  The top of the page in a collection of short opinion pieces being produced by the author (as a character in the book).
The other narratives are either a) the author's private thoughts around a young Filipina woman he has hired to type for him b) the Filipina's thoughts on the pieces she is typing or on the author who has hired her, or on her boyfriend working in Finance c) for one section, the thoughts and dialogue of the Finance boyfriend attacking and attempting to humiliate the author of the opinion pieces

Not sure how it all ties together.  There is a hint that all the male blah blah, both the author's opinions and the boyfriend's, are essentially a lot of male hot air around a woman who for them remains largely invisible as a person.  And for whom the opinions are both uninteresting and besides the point in terms of living your life.

Within the author's pieces and simultaneous personal thoughts, there seems to be a growing awareness of some fundamental uselessness or besides-the-point-ness of the opinions he has been piling up over a lifetime.  That they become some kind of trap or blinder.  At least in the rather strong and categorical form that they have come to take.  As narrow and categorical of the Conservative, Finance, Survival-of-the-Fittest boyfriend's opinions.

Also and interesting aside, delivered by the boyfriend, that the Finance types have taken of the world from the intellectual, reflective types - which seems to be an accurate observation.

L'élégance du hérisson - Muriel Barbery

Jolie petite histoire.  Très émouvante.  Mais cette histoire montre la même tendance, la même croyance, le même espoir face aux injustices du monde qu'on a récemment vu dans un livre par Amin Malouf.  Cette croyance que l'art, que la culture va nous sauver de nos problèmes, de nos petitesses, de nos défauts en tant qu'humain.  C'est drôle de rencontrer cette foi de nos jours, comme si le débâcle de la première guerre ne s'est jamais produit.  Peut-être que c'est parce que ces deux auteurs viennent d'autres cultures, d'autres régimes sociaux et politiques?

The Gingerbread House - Carin Gerhardsen

Another murder mystery by Swedish writer.  She is truly in the murder mystery style - book opens with a gruesome murder.  Enter investigation.  More gruesome murders may be introduced.
Didn't enjoy this one as much as the first one.  Maybe because I've figured out the formula?  Doesn't seem to have as much depth as spy or political mystery fiction.  Lacks the underlying social criticism of Ian Rankin's work.

Hanging Fred and a Few Others - Nick Fonda

Subtitled "Painters of the Eastern Townships"

An interesting read, not so much because of the elements of Frederick Coburn's story, but because of all the different painters associated with the Townships that you find out about in the course of the book.  Then you get to look up their work on Google Images.
It is a very active artistic region.

The Big Fat Surprise - Nina Teicholz

Subtitled:  Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet

Teicholz's book pretty much turns upside down everything that has been gospel about healthy diet for over 40 years.  Turns out butter, meat, etc don't raise cholesterol, or rather, they do, but it is the good HDL cholesterol they raise.  Turns out LDL cholesterol levels show no relation to heart disease risk. Turns out vegetable oils, especially when hydrogenated or heated, show a much stronger relation.
Looks like heart disease, diabetes and obesity are also related to consumption of carbohydrates, especially processed ones.  The food pyramid with grains at the bottom is a recipe for the kind of health epidemics we have been seeing for decades.

This is all very interesting and mind-boggling, but the real underlying issue is how the scientific community's consensus could be so wrong.  The seminal studies behind our modern diet guidelines are highly flawed and show poor scientific rigour.  The results have been reported in a highly biased manner, focusing only on the data bits that have supported the dominant hypothesis.  Challengers to the current field consensus have been humiliated, hounded, shunned and denied funds to pursue their work.  The role of outsized egos, career status and research dollars in creating this "scientific" consensus is shocking.  A prime example of how dangerous and unreliable field experts and accepted norms can be.
Scientific studies must be treated with extreme caution - probably best ignored unless you are personally willing to read it over and verify both its method and true results.

The Plague of Doves - Louise Erdrich

A native writer from the States.  Recounts the convoluted relations between a native group and the families of the settlers over several generations.  Not so much a direct native issues exploration as a capturing of the history, the twisted life stories, the feelings and thoughts of the characters on both sides within the small town and neighbouring reserve.  A clear weaving of some of the things she perceives as different within native societies and relations - justice, the ironic eye, family and children.  Not an idealized us vs. them perspective.

One of the best known Native writers apparently.  Find some more.

Solo - William Boyd

A James Bond novel by William Boyd!  Set in Africa of course.  Well-written as a spy novel.  Some behind-the-scenes comments on the developed countries' attitudes towards  (and machinations within) African nations.   Catches the Bond tone.