By Sharmini Manoharan
Coquitlam Public Library
A good read has all the healing properties of comfort food without the calories and so we turn to books for help, inspiration, entertainment, excitement or simply because they just make us feel good.
Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt is a book that makes you laugh and cry and then want to be a better wife, mother, sister or friend. Written with sensitivity, humour and a marvelous turn of phrase, Rosenblatt relates the story of how he and his wife Ginny lose their 32-year-old daughter Amy who dies suddenly leaving behind three young children. It then falls on “Boppo” and “Mimi” to bring stability and normalcy into their lives. Rosenblatt writes of the everyday happenings which always have the undercurrent of an absent mother, wife and daughter. The beauty of the book is that he never says outright how much he misses his daughter but talks instead of his anger at God, and through simple statements that carry in them the weight of grief and loss.
If you’re a fan of British mystery novels, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie will undoubtedly entertain you. Flavia de Luce is an eleven-year-old chemistry buff living in an English manor with her father and two sisters. Murder enters the scene and it falls upon precocious Flavia using her skill and knowledge of chemistry to find out who the killer is. Author Alan Bradley writes a true page-turner with a difference because the murder is close to home and the sleuth, although not an adult, will not have the wool pulled over her eyes.
Hope Edelman’s memoir The Possibility of Everything combines history, ancient medicine and mind health while exploring a sensitive yet valid subject. Edelman’s three-year-old daughter Maya resorts to violent acts of rebellion, blaming them on an imaginary friend. When visits to a psychiatrist yield no positive results, Edelman and her Israeli husband have no recourse but to resort to ancient medicine in the hope of having their baby return to a normal childhood and travel to Belize in search of a shaman whom they trust will cure Maya. Interspersed with detailed Mayan history, the pain and fear a mother has for her child who is unwell and the intricacies of married life that have to be navigated when two parents don’t agree on what is best for their child, this memoir is not easily brushed aside.
The Song of the Cuckoo Bird by Amulya Malladi relates the life of a young Indian girl who is betrothed to a much older man and has to live in an “ashram” until she is ready to be married. Headed by a woman who believes herself to possess spiritual powers, this novel spans the lifetime of Kokila and her fellow inmates who deal with poverty, discrimination, hopelessness and friendships gone awry to come through it all with their heads held high, bound together by their vulnerability as women in a male dominated society.
Finally, Linwood Barclay’s Don’t Look Away is a book you cannot put down. This thriller is about a young reporter with a wife and child leading what is apparently a normal, uneventful life until one day they visit an amusement park and there is an attempt to kidnap their four-year-old son. From that point onwards, David Harwood’s life unravels to encompass lies, deceit and murder from the most unexpected of sources. Written with a masterful hand, Barclay leaves you gasping at the turn of events and the most shocking of twists that will not allow you to easily forget this story.
For these and other good reads, visit your local library.
