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The Friday Five Link Up is a List Link Up hosted by The Book Date. It can be five connections of any kind. Books can have been read last year or any year. Books can be used more than once. They may not have been read yet. . . It can be as simple or as complicated as you like. Maybe it's not a list of actual books, but things connected to books - e.g. favourite book shops, recipes etc. It might even be five movies related to books or five poems or five poets or five bookish moments, five thoughts about reading - be creative! The link-up will be open each Friday and will close on Thursday. Use the hashtag #connect5books
Monday is Thanksgiving in Canada. Being Canadian, we plan to celebrate! And so here are books by five Canadian authors:
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The Blue Castle
by L.M. Montgomery - Anne of Green Gables is the story we first associate with Montgomery, but this one is absolutely delightful as well. This story opens on the day prior to Valancy Stirling's twenty-ninth birthday, and the opening paragraph says that if it hadn't rained that day her life would been entirely different. You see, Valancy has lived a monotonous, dreary life up until then. Always overshadowed by others and completely controlled by her overbearing extended family, who care nothing for her feelings or interests or dreams. Valancy has accepted that she will remain unloved and unmarried and that she'll have to live out the rest of her days the same way. But because of the rain, a family picnic is canceled, and Valancy decides to go secretly to consult a doctor about the chest pains she's been having. It is a delightful story, full of fascinating characters, humour, small town drama, and some interesting plot twists. It's easy to sympathize with the lonely and downtrodden Valancy, and feel indignant at the little injustices she's subjected to; and it's entertaining to see her thrive and develop as she follows her own course in life.
by L.M. Montgomery - Anne of Green Gables is the story we first associate with Montgomery, but this one is absolutely delightful as well. This story opens on the day prior to Valancy Stirling's twenty-ninth birthday, and the opening paragraph says that if it hadn't rained that day her life would been entirely different. You see, Valancy has lived a monotonous, dreary life up until then. Always overshadowed by others and completely controlled by her overbearing extended family, who care nothing for her feelings or interests or dreams. Valancy has accepted that she will remain unloved and unmarried and that she'll have to live out the rest of her days the same way. But because of the rain, a family picnic is canceled, and Valancy decides to go secretly to consult a doctor about the chest pains she's been having. It is a delightful story, full of fascinating characters, humour, small town drama, and some interesting plot twists. It's easy to sympathize with the lonely and downtrodden Valancy, and feel indignant at the little injustices she's subjected to; and it's entertaining to see her thrive and develop as she follows her own course in life.***************
Janette Oke is one of my favorite Canadian authors. When Calls the Heart was probably my favorite of her many novels, partly because it takes place in Alberta, where I grew up. The story is about a young woman, Elizabeth Thatcher, who gives up a safe life in the city to be a teacher in a little frontier town. Of course she winds up loving her new home and eventually marries Wynn, the handsome Mountie. The series continues their story and that of their children. Years later, Oke teamed up with her daughter, Laurel Oke Logan, to write the next generation of these romances. In Where Courage Calls
Beth Thatcher is about to leave her beautiful Toronto home to become a schoolteacher in the little mining town of Coal Valley, Alberta, following in the footsteps of her relative and namesake, Elizabeth. The conditions in Coal Valley shock her at first - there is no school building, and there are very few of the amenities she is accustomed to. The children have had very little education, and most of them lost their fathers in a recent mining accident. The widows have little and are largely at the mercy of the mining company, but have banded together to provide their children with an education. Beth comes to love the people and think of the town as her home. She also finds that her affections are somewhat torn between Edward, the young man who is a family friend and has come west as an RCMP officer, and Jack, the Mountie who often visits Coal Valley in the course of his duties. When her year contract is up, she will have to make some difficult decisions about whether she wants to return, and which man will win her heart.
Beth Thatcher is about to leave her beautiful Toronto home to become a schoolteacher in the little mining town of Coal Valley, Alberta, following in the footsteps of her relative and namesake, Elizabeth. The conditions in Coal Valley shock her at first - there is no school building, and there are very few of the amenities she is accustomed to. The children have had very little education, and most of them lost their fathers in a recent mining accident. The widows have little and are largely at the mercy of the mining company, but have banded together to provide their children with an education. Beth comes to love the people and think of the town as her home. She also finds that her affections are somewhat torn between Edward, the young man who is a family friend and has come west as an RCMP officer, and Jack, the Mountie who often visits Coal Valley in the course of his duties. When her year contract is up, she will have to make some difficult decisions about whether she wants to return, and which man will win her heart.***************
Murther and Walking Spirits
by Robertson Davies - In the first sentence of this unusual book, the principle character and narrator is murdered. Connor Gilmartin has walked into his bedroom to find his wife and a colleague nicknamed the Sniffer together, and the Sniffer strikes Gil and kills him. What follows is partly farce and partly tragedy and Gil realizes that he is dead and wonders whether he is actually a ghost and what the afterlife will be like even as he is able to observe the actions of his wife and the Sniffer in the days that follow. Gil introduces these characters to the reader and tells a bit about his own background and the events that led up to his death. He and the Sniffer work for the newspaper, and it happens that the Sniffer is a film critic who must attend a film festival. Gil finds that he, as ghost or spirit, is attending the festival as well, but the films he sees are somehow meant only for him.***************
Still Life by Louise Penny - I read this a number of years ago and don't remember it clearly, but it takes place near Montreal. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team investigate a death that seems at first to be the result of a tragic hunting accident.
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The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - Although I've not read this novel, or anything by Atwood, I could hardly focus on Canadian authors without mentioning her work. This novel is set in a a monotheocracy of a future time, and is told from the point of view of Offred, one of the handmaids in this new social order.
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