Cathedral Reading Group Booklist

Date	Title	Author	Publisher	Published	Stars	Comments (by Jane)
2023 May	Strange Bewildering Time	Mark Abley	House of Anansi Press	2023		Zoom Date: May 28
2023 April	Maureen: a Harold Fry novel	Rachel Joyce	Doubleday Canada	2023		A slender book with lots to talk about. The first novel we have read with a look back at our Covid lockdown experiences.
2023 March	Jack	Marilynne Robinson	McClelland & Stewart	2020		The discussion was lively. Some had little sympathy for Jack and wondered what Della saw in him - a project? We agreed that the writing was terrific, capturing the 50's so well.
2023 Feb	The Ministry for the Future	Kim Stanley Robinson	Orbit Books	2020	**	Could we really make a better world if we were able to eliminate carbon? Robinson imagines what it would take - socially, scientifically, economically, politically. A book that left us with a lot of images and ideas about the future. Well paired with McKibbon's visit and his book Eaarth.
2023 ?	Palmares	Gayl Jones	Beacon Press	2021		Zoom date: TBD - waiting for the paperback to come out...
2022 Dec	Supernova					We were few in number - the eggnog and popcorn was good!
2022 Nov	House on Endless Waters	Emuna Elon	Atria Books	2020		Very well written; much to learn and discuss about the fate of the Jews of Amsterdam during WWII.
2022 Sept	Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd	Jonas Jonasson	HarperCollins	2022		Everyone enjoyed the book - it made us laugh out loud! We were a bit nervous about racial stereotyping. Someone on Goodreads called it the 'Swedish equivalent of a French farce'.
2022 Aug	Burnt Sugar	Avni Doshi	Hamish Hamilton	2020		Good discussion; it was well written. It was also hard to read; the damage of abandoning a child reverberating across the years between mother and daughter.
2022 July	Book Lovers	Emily Henry	Berkley	2022		A fun summer read. The characters and dialogue were well done. Some thought they would read another of hers!
2022 May	Cloud Cuckoo Land	Anthony Doerr	Simon & Schuster	2021	**	Interwoven stories across six centuries all about the same book. We found it enthralling. Recommended.
2022 Apr	The 7 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle	Stuart Turton	HarperCollins	2018		We all finished the book; whether we all really understood what was happening is another thing altogether! Lots to discuss and to try and figure out.
2022 Feb	Fight Night	Miriam Toews	Knopf Canada	2021		Bit of a wacky book, but we enjoyed it
2022 Jan	Discussion of the Rich Orloff plays - Unmute Me!	Rich Orloff	Performed by Dramatis Personae on Zoom - January 13,14, 15 and 16 at 8:00 pm			We were joined by two of the actors - great fun to dissect the plays!
2021 Dec	Departures	A film by Yojiro Takita	Regent/Here Films	2008		We enjoyed the movie almost as much as seeing each other and drinking eggnog!
2021 Nov	Erotic Stories of Punjabi Widows	Balli Kaur Jaswal	William Morrow	2017		Interesting book! The experience of immigrants and cultural integration, or not. We had a good discussion.
2021 Oct	The Night Watchman	Louis Erdrich	HarperCollins	2020		We generally liked it, although some found it too long. It did teach us a lot about the fate of Indian tribes in the U.S. And about indigenous spirituality and family roots.
2021 Aug	The Midnight Library	Matt Haig	HarperCollins	2020	**	Another good read and good discussion. Jane particularly liked the librarian and her library - of course!
2021 July	Hamnet (aka Hamnet and Judith)	Maggie O'Farrell	Knopf Canada	2020	***	An excellent book. It made us cry.
2021 June	Klara and the Sun	Kazuo Ishiguro	Knopf Canada	2021		It's complicated. His world didn't hold together very well, we didn't think. Maybe that was why we had lots to discuss!
2021 May	Butter Honey Pig Bread	Francesca Ekwuyasi	Arsenal Pulp Press	2020		We all enjoyed the book; it made us want to visit a Nigerian restaurant together!
2021 Mar	The Dutch House	Ann Patchett	HarperCollins	2019		Excellent book, great discussion. The power of real estate!
2021 Feb	Station Eleven	Emily St John Mandel	HarperCollins	2017		We liked this book as well, if we nitpicked a bit. Some of us had read it pre-Covid. On re-reading it, it became more telling!
2021 Jan	The Jane Austen Society	Natalie Jenner	St. Martin's	2020		We all enjoyed the book - it was good to read a lighthearted book. We all had a favourite character. Interesting how she used some of the real history of the actual society!
2021 Jan	An Epiphany get-together.	Bring along a glass to toast the new year.	Also, a brief reading - your favourite poem or inspirational thought.			I think we forgot to toast the New Year! but we heard some great prose and poems, including Edward reading from a novel he wrote - fantastic!
2020 Dec	Songs for the Cold of Heart	Eric Dupont	QC Fiction	2018		A good, long "Quebec" read. It was fun finding the common threads across the different voices. Originally published in French as "La Fiancee americaine"
2020 Oct	Girl Woman Other	Bernardine Evaristo	Grove Press	2019	**	We had a very enjoyable discussion about Girl, Woman, Other which we found both touching and entertaining - highly recommended.
2020 Aug	The Fire Next Time Between the World and Me	James Baldwin Ta-Nehisi Coates	Vintage Spiegal & Grau	1963 2015		Good discussion. We were struck by the similarity across the decades of black parents fearing for and trying to protect their sons. Also the delusional American Dream of 'the people who think they are white' and the assumption that blacks buy into this dream.
2020 June	The Casual Vacancy	JK Rowling	Back Bay Books	2013		Characters very well drawn; not many to love. The best of them dies at the beginning of the book and the fallout ensues.
2020 May	Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend	Matthew Dicks	St. Martin's Griffin	2013	***	Ann redeemed herself with this month's book recommendation (after May's less than successful one). We all loved the imaginary friend; the book asked a lot of good existential questions. Could become a classic!
2020 May	Reproduction: A Novel	Ian Wiliams	Vintage Canada	2019		We wondered why it won the Giller. The author is a poet; his playing with text doesn't work in this novel... maybe he should have called it Reproduction: An Experiment!
2020 April	Prodigal Summer	Barbara Kingsolver	Harper	2000		Three intertwined stories about a mountain and valley in Appalachia. Themes include ecological balance, subsistence farming and family bonds. Both nature and people are compelling.
2020 Feb	Indian Horse	Richard Wagamese	Douglas & McIntyre	2012		Wonderfully told - more intense than the movie - that is good writing!
2019 Dec	Indian Horse	Movie Night	Devonshire Productions	2017		Based on the novel, Indian Horse, by Richard Wagamese. How one young man survives residential school through hockey. A must view for Canadians, and we should read the book!
2019 Nov	The Break	Katherena Vermette	House of Anansi Press	2016		An intense read. Multi-generational story of Métis women and their families, coping with violence and the struggles of their lives. An important read for Canadians.
2019 Oct	Washington Black	Esi Edugyan	Knopf	2018		A story of a young slave on a Barbadan sugar plantation (early 19th century) 'rescued' by his owner's brother - a naturalist, explorer, inventor and abolitionist. The adventures are many and far flung. We were not happy with the way it ended!
2019 Sept	The Organist: Fugues, Fatherhood and a Fragile Mind	Mark Abley	University of Regina Press	2019	***	What a treat - Mark came to our meeting and talked about how he came to write this memoir of his father. We discussed music, memories and time, and changing relationships between parents and children. Mark also read us a few of his poems. It was a lovely evening.
2019 July	Educated	Tara Westover	HarperCollins	2018	**	Another book about a person triumphing over their circumstances. This story is a true one. What was amazing to all of us was the fact that, out of such a dysfunctional family, emerged 3 children who ended up with PhDs. The book is a memoir of one of those 3. Excellent read.
2019 June	A gentleman in Moscow	Amor Towles	Viking	2016	****	What a charming novel! Count Alexander Rostov, an aristocrat in Tsarist Russia is sentenced by the communists. Sentenced to remain forever in the Metropol Hotel. His reaction: "if a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.” Masterful story telling, great characters.
2019 April	The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics	James Daniel Brown	Penguin Books	2013	***	An amazing story about the University of Washington's rowing program during the depression years and the team that made it all the way to the Olympics. You know how it ends, but the author is such a good writer that the story is full of suspense.
2019 March	Across the China Sea	Gaute Heivoll	Graywolf Press	2017		Set in Norway, a story about family and 'respecting the dignity of every human being', as our baptismal phrase entreats us. The setting is a remote house; the place that five foster children and three men labeled “mentally disabled” call home for many years.
2019 Feb	Lear's Shadow	Claire Rothman	Penguin Random House	2018		A father/daughter/sister story, set in Montreal, complete with 'Shakespeare in the park' drama.
2019 Jan	Cancelled due to snow! A first.
2018 Dec	Our Souls at Night	Movie Night	Netflix	2017		We read the book back in February 2017. The movie was quite faithful to the book's atmosphere, but it did wimp out on the ending. Some were okay with that, others not.
2018 Nov	My October	Claire Rothman	Penguin Canada	2014		A French/English family enduring various separations echoes the tensions in Montreal during the October crisis. Very interesting for those of us who lived in Montreal when this happened.
2018 Oct	Annabel	Kathleen Winter	House of Anansi Press	2011	***	Based in Newfoundland, this novel is about gender identity and social conformity. The descriptions of the people and the land are powerful. Recommended!
2018 Sept	Let the Great World Spin	Colum McCann	Harper Perennial	2011		Interlocking stories all in some way connected to Philippe Patel’s famous tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers in 1974. The characters were very well drawn.
2018 June	The Summer Before the War	Helen Simonson	Random House	2016		It felt very much like Downton Abbey. An interesting part was the treatment of the refugees from Belgium.
2018 Apr	Map of Glass	Jane Urquhart	McClelland & Stewart	2005		A family history on the waters of eastern Ontario, with the story moving back into the 19th century.
2018 Feb	The Essex Serpent	Sarah Perry	Custom House	2017		A 'Victorian novel' written today. Interestingly, we compared it to Eliot's Middlemarch and also to Gilbert's The Signature of All Things. Good discussion.
2018 Jan	Coventry	Helen Humphreys	HarperCollins Canada	2009		Coventry was bombed to the ground on November 14, 1940. Humphreys places her characters smack in the middle of it all and describes it vividly.
2017 Dec	Click!	Movie Night	Sony Pictures	2006		A harried workaholic who uses a magical remote control to 'fast forward' through the bad parts of his life, and speed towards the good life. A bit of a morality play - success is achieved at the cost of his humanity. But it's Hollywood, so redemption is possible... Not as good a movie as Groundhog Day, but it reminded me a bit of that movie.
2017 Nov	The Women in the Castle	Jessica Shattuck	William Morrow	2017		The castle is in Bavaria. The story centres around 3 widows caught up in Hitler's Reich and how they survived the war and its aftermath.
2017 Oct	Fifteen Dogs	André Alexis	Coach House Books	2015		A group of dogs are given human intelligence and the ability to speak by 2 Greek gods, who bet that animals, on their deaths would be just as unhappy as humans. One reviewer called it a blitz through Philosophy 101, as the dogs work to figure out what life is all about.
2017 Sept	Middlemarch	George Eliot	various	1871		This classic was our big summer read. Often called the best novel in the English language. We all enjoyed it and had lots to discuss!
2017 June	A Constellation of Vital Phenomena	Anthony Marra	Hogarth	2014		This book is about the war in Chechnya and how people struggle to survive in intolerable situations. Another tough read like City of Thieves.
2017 April	The Love Story of Queenie Hennessy	Rachel Joyce	Bond Street Books	2014		And then we thought the 'sequel' to Harold Fry would be lighter. It's about death in a hospice. But actually really well done.
2017 March	Little Bee	Chris Cleave	Simon & Schuster	2010		We thought we would read another by Chris Cleave. Little Bee is a refugee in England whose life is tangled up with a couple after a violent episode in Nigeria. Cleave looks at 'the Queen's English' in interesting ways...
2017 Feb	Our Souls at Night	Ken Haruf	Penguin	2016		His last novel, written as he knew death approached, written for his wife. Love in the final chapter of life. Beautiful.
2017 Jan	Everyone Brave is Forgiven	Chris Cleave	Simon & Schuster	2017		A Word War II love story based on that of the author's grandparents. The siege of Malta was particularly interesting. We all thought the book was very well written.
2016 Dec	The Course of Love	Alain de Botton	Simon & Schuster	2016		The story of love in a marriage, told with accompanying psychological analysis. Extra copies were bought to hand out to others! We also watched a movie - The Lady in the Van - starring Maggie Smith, based on a true story.
2016 Oct	The Housekeeper and the Professor	Yoko Ogawa	Picador	2003		An ode to the beauty of mathematics (and baseball) and friendships built in spite of the Professor's memory problems.
2016 Sept	The Dust That Falls From Dreams	Louis de Bernières	Vintage Books	2015		Edwardian family saga covering Word War I and its aftermath. The flying bits were well done. Some of us were annoyed at how it ended.
2016 June	Finding Home	Eric Wright	Cormorant Books	2007		Where is home for a Brit who has lived in Canada for decades? Or an American for that matter? A light book after the last two, but we had an interesting discussion on the topic of home.
2016 May	City of thieves	David Benioff	Penguin Books	2009		Absorbing but tough read about the siege of Leningrad and survival WWII in Russia.
2016 April	Preparation for the next life	Atticus Lish	Tyrant Books	2014		A very hard read about dysfunctional America. Interesting, some critics compared its examination of the underbelly of NYC with Dickens' of London.
2016 March	Mister Pip	Lloyd Jones	Vintage Canada	2006		Teaching Dickens in Papua New Guinea, in the middle of a civil war.
2016 February	All my puny sorrows	Miriam Teows	Knopf Canada	2014		Annoying at first, but it got better.
2016 January	Twenty-One Cardinals	Jocelyne Saucier	Coach House Books	2015		No every one was convinced about the ending.
2015 December	Interstellar	Movie Night	A Christopher Nolan film	2014		An interstellar journey to save the world. Science fiction with the emphasis on science. The organ in the Temple Church, London is the instrument in the soundtrack by Hans Zimmer. Great film!
2015 November	All the light we cannot see	Anthony Doerr	Scribner	2014	****	We all enjoyed the book very much. A reviewer compared the author with Louis de Bernières; I imagine with Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – both a war story of innocents and soldiers. The writing is equally marvellous.
2015 October	Us Conductors	Sean Michaels	Random House	2014		Fiction about a real person – well done, although Jane of course had to look up stuff about the real Lev Termen.
2015 June	Thaliad	Marly Youmans	Phoenicia Publishing	2012		Another dystopian future, done in blank verse. So interesting how that changed the story telling – much more left to one’s imagination! Beth, the publisher joined us and we had a great evening.
2015 May	Life After Life	Kate Atkinson	Random House	2013		Time travel, of a sort. The main character is born and reborn and reborn… Jane loved it!
2015 March	The Circle	Dave Eggers	Knopf	2013		Social networking and mind control – A book we had strong opinions about, so our discussion was lively.
2015 February	The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry	Gabrielle Zevin	Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill	2014		A lighter read – good characters.
2015 January	The Return of the Soldier	Rebecca West	various editions	1918		As Jane was taking a course on World War I, we read this short classic about a soldier who has returned from the war with no memory on the last 15 years of his life. The recommended edition is that of Broadview Press, 2010, which contains excellent accompanying material about the English class system at the time, shell shock and its treatment, and WWI art and poetry.
2014 December	Movie night – I am					A fascinating documentary, trying to answer the question of what is wrong with the world and what can we do about it. Highly recommended.
2014 November	Second Person Singular	Sayed Kashua	Grove Press	2012		The author is an Israeli Arab. The protagonist of the book is an Arab lawyer living in Jerusalem so the novel might be of particular interest to people who have visited Jerusalem or are interested in the tensions in this city.
2014 October	In the Garden of the Beasts	Erik Larson	Crown	2011	****	One of our rare non-fiction reads. But it read like a good novel! The author was brilliant at evoking the atmosphere of pre-WWII Nazi Germany during Hitler’s rise to power – all seen through the eyes of the American ambassador in Berlin, William Dodd. I’m giving it 4 stars!
2014 September	The Signature of All Things	Elizabeth Gilbert	Penguin Books	2013		We liked this one – a good big summer read. A good portrait of the times, we thought.
2014 June	The Light Between Oceans	M. L. Stedman	Scribners	2011		Was it a realistic hypothesis? Why do people do the things they do?! If something is done because of love, does that make it all right? Boy, lots of discussion for this one!
2014 May	Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth	Reza Aslan	Random House	2013		We thought it painted a vivid picture of the times. Weren’t sure of his premise that Paul and James were in opposition.
2014 March	The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared	Jonas Jonasson	Harper Perennial Canada	2012	**	A fun read! He is a bit like Woody Allen’s Zelig.
2014 Feb	A Hologram for the King	Dave Eggers	McSweeney’s	2012		Well… not one of Dave’s best. We have lots of problems with this book, but that lead to lots of discussion! A present-day Willie Loman. Also reminded people of ‘Waiting for Godot”.
2014 Jan	Il pleuvait des oiseaux And the birds rained down	Jocelyne Saucier	XYZ Coach House Books	20112013		We all liked the book; the characters were well drawn. Lots of discussion. We thought the translator had done an excellent job.
2013 Dec	The Way	Director: Emilio Estevez		2010		A movie about the Camino de Santiago. Well received.
2013 Nov	Lucifer’s Flood	Linda Rios Brook	Realms	2008		Lots of discussion, as always when opinions are mixed. Some wondered about the author’s agenda. There are 3 more books in the ‘Reluctant Demon Diaries’ series.
2013 Oct	Beautiful Ruins	Jess Walter	Harper Collins	2012		The setting in Italy got me hooked… That’s why it is on this list!
2013 Sept	The Elephant Keepers’ Children	Peter Hoeg	Other Press	2012		Weird and wacky. Jane got a kick out of it, others just found it strange.
2013 June	The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry	Rachel Joyce	Random House	2012	****	What a fascinating read! Highly recommended by the group.
2013 May	22 Britannia Road	Amanda Hodgkinson	Pamela Dorman Books	2011		Britain after the war, as experienced by Polish immigrants – with a history…
2013 April	Testament of Mary	Colm Toibin	McClelland & Stewart	2012		A fascinating idea – Mary’s life after the Crucifixion, from her viewpoint.
2013 March	State of Wonder	Ann Patchett	Harper Collins	2012		Another good read from Patchett.
2013 Feb	The Dovekeepers	Alice Hoffman	Scribner	2012
2013 Jan	Half Blood Blues	Esi Edugyan	Thomas Allen Publishers	2011
2012 Dec	Best Exotic Marigold Hotel	Movie Night	20th Century Fox	2012		Judy Dench and Maggie Smith, among others. What’s not to like?!
2012 Sept	Running the Rift	Naomi Benaron	Algonquin Books	2012		“A genocide is a poisonous bush that grows not from two or three roots, but from a whole tangle that has mouldered underground without anyone noticing.” ~Claudine, genocide survivor. About the genocide in Rwanda.
2012 June	Ru	Kim Thúy	Random House Canada	2012		As a congregation who sponsored a Vietnamese family back in the 1970’s, this book of memories brought back memories for us as well.
2012 May	Left Neglected	Lisa Genova	Gallery Books	2011		An intelligent novel about an over achiever stopped in her tracks after an accident leaves her with neurological damage. Author is actually a neuroscientist.
2012 April	Ship Fever	Andrea Barrett	HarperCollins	1999		Short stories with an historical/ scientific bent. We quite liked them.
2012 March	Open City	Teju Cole	Random House Trade	2012		We liked the book, but thought it felt less like a novel than a collection of blog posts; i.e. there were quite a few continuity problems.
2012 Feb	The Sentimentalists	Johanna Skibsrud	Gaspereau Press	2010		Mixed reviews, which led to some good discussion…
2012 Jan	Cutting for Stone	Abraham Verghese	Vintage Canada	2010	****	A great read! Terrific story and characters. And with Fred and John having been to Ethiopia as doctors, that made it extra special.
2011 Dec	The King’s Speech	Movie Night	Anchor Bay Entertainment	2010		This was a ‘encore presentation’ for all but one, but all really enjoyed it. And a December eggnog party with no snow-boots!
2011 Nov	Player One: what is to become of us	Douglas Copeland	House of Anansi Press	2010		The CBC Massey Lectures: a novel in Five hours.Some were not impressed by it as a apocalyptic tale. Although we disagreed over its merits, we certainly has a good discussion about the characters.
2011 Oct	Far from the Madding Crowd	Thomas Hardy	various	c. 1874		Unusually for us, a classic…And on October 23 we went to see the play put on by Persephone Productions – very well done.
2011 Sept	The Lacuna	Barbara Kingsolver	Harper Collins	2009		A good summer read.
2011 June	Room	Emma Donoghue	Back Bay Books	2011		The reviewers said it was riveting, and they were right. We had a good discussion.
2011 May	The Thousand Autumns of Jacob Zoet	David Mitchell	Random House	2010	**	Well worth reading.
2011 March	Old Filth	Jane Gardam	Europa Editions	2006	***	We all really enjoyed this book. Quite a character. And were happy to learn there is a second novel – The Man in the Wooden Hat – that tells Betty’s story.
2011 February	Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand	Helen Simonson	Doubleday Canada	2010		Enjoyed by all; quite witty, although some of the characters weren’t altogether believable.
2011 January	Motherless Brooklyn	Jonathan Lethem	Vintage	1999		An American detective novel with a Tourette’s twist. Jane liked it a lot; the others, not so much.
2010 December	The Ghostwriter	Movie night	A Roman Polanski film.	2010		A mystery/thriller.
2010 November	Island Beneath the Sea	Isabel Allende	Harper Collins	2010		Another historical novel. An interesting part of history – Häiti and its independence from France. Some thought the characters weren’t very nuanced.
2010 October	Wolf Hall	Hilary Mantel	Henry Holt	2009		A good book – and a good discussion on the fictionalization of history. It is written in the present tense – some didn’t like this; felt the author intruded too much because of it.
2010 June	Snowflower and the Secret Fan	Lisa See	Random House	2005		Foot-binding – eech!
2010-May	Never Let Me Go	Kazuo Ishiguro	Knopf Canada	2006		We had a lot to discuss about this book; the way the reader slowly comes to the realization of what is happening in the same way the youth in the story come to realize what they are. A very skilled author.
2010-Feb	The Elegance of the Hedgehog	Muriel Barbery and Alison Anderson	Europa Editions	2008		The beginning is a bit slow, but it turns into a great read.
2010-Jan	How Reading Saved My Life	Anna Quindlen	Ballantine Books	1998		As expected, we all told our stories about how reading changed our lives!
2009-Dec	Miss Potter	Movie Night	Phoenix Pictures	2007		We enjoyed the movie and its portrayal of an independent woman fit right in with the previous book.
2009-Nov	The Heart Specialist	Claire Rothman	Cormorant Books	2009		Much enjoyed, especially the scenes of Montreal and McGill.
2009-Oct	The White Tiger	Aravind Adiga	Atlantic Books	2008		Interesting. We discussed at length whether it had a different message than other books of India that we have read.
2009-Sept	The Book of Negroes	Lawrence Hill	HarperCollins	2007		It well deserves the awards it has received.
2009-May	The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society	Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows	Dial Press	2008		Seems the mail then was almost as fast as email today! Telling the story via correspondence reminded us of 84 Charring Cross Road.
2009-Apr	The Magician’s Assistant	Ann Patchett	Harcourt	1997		Not as good as Bel Canto, but we had a good discussion.
2009-Mar	The Tenderness of Wolves	Steff Penney	Quercus	2006	**	A mystery in Canada’s north circa 1867. We had a lively discussion. The fact that we discussed the characters so much must have meant they felt very real to us. And they did. Or maybe it was because the book was all about the classic Canadian theme of survival.
2009-Feb	What is the What	Dave Eggers	McSweeney’s	2006		The story of a lost boy of the Sudan. Very well written and an amazing story.
2008-Dec	WALL*E	Movie night:	Disney-Pixar	2008		Great movie, and the special about the sound design was especially interesting.
2008-Nov	The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East	Sandy Tolan	Bloomsbury USA	2007	***	A very good book to help one understand the situation.
2008-Oct	Late Nights on Air	Elizabeth Hay	McClelland & Stewart	2008		We thought the canoe trip was the best part.
2008-09	Seven Years in Tibet	Heinrich Harrer	Harpercollins Canada	1997		A good discussion about Tibet. Jane had watched the film, and recommended it, even though it added ‘human interest’ (i.e. females) not in the book.
2008-06	Three Cups of Tea	Greg Mortensen	Penguin	2007		It made us want to read ‘Seven Years in Tibet’…
2008-05	Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures	Victor Lam	Anchor Canada	2006
2008-04	Bel Canto	Ann Patchett	Perennial Classics	2005	****	We all enjoyed this book a lot. The fact that many of the things that happened really occurred in the real event hostage taking in Peru made it even more intriguing. We all said we wanted to read more of her books.
2008-04	Last Samurai	Helen Dewitt	Hyperion	2002		Quite an interesting book – lots to talk about. Plus we watched the first half of the film, ‘The Seven Samurai’.
2008-03	View from Castle Rock	Alice Munro	Penguin	2007		We don’t often read short stories, but Alice Munro’s are the ones to read when you do. We had an interesting discussion around her portrait of life in Northen Ontario and how it compared with Mary Lawson’s recent novel.
2008-01	Infidel	Ayaan Hirsi Ali	Free Press	2007	***	An amazing autobiography – very topical re reasonable accomodation. Highly recommended.
2007-12	The Secret Life of Bees	Sue Monk Kidd	Penguin Books	2002	***	We all enjoyed this book and found it very well written.
2007-11	Tea with Mussolini	Movie night	Franco Zeffirelli, director	1999		Apparently the story is based on Zeffirelli’s childhood.
2007-10	The Memory Keeper’s Daughter	Kim Edwards	Viking	2005		Another book for which we asked – why did the character do that?!
2007-09	Three Junes	Julia Glass	Pantheon	2002		Most of us quite liked the book; lots of discussion about the story and how the reader’s expectations were not necessarily followed.
2007-06	The Birth of Venus	Sarah Dunant	Virago	2004		We also discussed ‘Arthur and George’, about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Both books are recommended.
2007-05	Arthur and George	Julien Barnes	Vintage Canada	2006		Meeting Date: postponed…
2007-04	The Journey Prize Stories 18	Steven Galloway, editor	McClelland & Stewart	2006	**	We don’t usually read short stories, so we had an interesting discussion about which we liked best – and our choice wasn’t the one that won the actual Journey prize!
2007-02	Pastwatch: the redemption of Christopher Columbus	Orson Scott Card	TOR Books	1996		An intriguing idea – what would happen if you could change a pivotal event in history? The book went over well, even with members who don’t usually read science fiction.
2007-01	Birds without Wings	Louis De Bernières	Random House	2004	***	A great turnout and discussion. Those of us who had read ‘Paris, 1919’ found the interspersing of Ataturk’s story with the fictional characters particularly interesting. Some felt it made the book too long.
2006-12	Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas)	Movie night	Nord-Ouest Productions	2005		The moving story of the soldiers’ truce in the trenches during Christmas 1914. The music is particularly good. Some critics think it merits annual Christmas viewing.
2006-11	Last Crossing	Guy Vanderhaeghe	McClelland & Stewart	2003		An interesting work. We talked about the character development. Its grittiness was off-putting to some, yet it seemed to grow on us. It is interesting how some books generate discussions more about why and how things were written, than about the story itself.
2006-10	A Thread of Grace	Mary Doria Russell	Random House	2005	****	A powerful, fictional retelling of a part of World War II history we didn’t know much about – the sheltering of Jews in Italian mountain villages. Highly recommended.
2006-09	Mr. Golightly’s Holiday	Salley Vickers	Harpercollins	2004	****	Good book and good discussion. The layers are many and fascinating to explore.
2006-06	The Namesake	Jhumpa Lahiri	Houghton Mifflin	2004	***	We all liked this first novel very much and were amazed at how the author bought such vivid pictures to mind with so few words.
2006-05	Saturday	Ian McEwan	Knopf Canada	2005	***	A great discussion, thanks for our having to recap the story for Marjorie. An interesting way to discover how each of us interpreted what was happening, and why.
2006-03	The Spiral Staircase	Karen Armstrong	Vintage Canada	2005	***	A fascinating read. We all felt that Oxford owes Karen Armstrong an honourary degree at the every least!
2006-02	Gilead	Marilynne Robinson	Harpercollins Canada	2004		Feelings were mixed about this book. Some appreciated the quiet, meditative feel to the book; others found it lacklustre. A good discussion ensued!
2006-01	The Time Traveler’s Wife	Audrey Niffenegger	Harvest Books	2004	****	One of our best – one of those books that you give away copies of, you like it so much.
2005	Millions	Movie night:		2005		We enjoyed the movie very much. The saints were especially well done.
2005	A Complicated Kindness	Miriam Toews	Afred A. Knopf Canada	2004		Well written, but some felt the main character’s thought process was too mature, improbable at times for a sixteen year old.
2005	Cloud Atlas	David Mitchell	Vintage Canada	2004	**	We discussed the ‘mechanics’ of the book; some liked his technique and others didn’t. We felt it had been worth reading.
2005	Everything is Illuminated	Jonathan Safran Foer	Houghton Mifflin Co.	2004
2005	The Kite Runner	Khaled Hosseini	Riverhead Books	2003	**	An excellent read – recommended.
2005	Kim (the movie) Starring Errol Flynn and Dean Stockwell as Kim.	Rudyard Kipling	MGM	1950		Finally got to see the video!
2005	Brick Lane	Monica Ali	Simon & Schuster	2004		We enjoyed the book, but were not sure if the ending rang true.
2004	Atonement	Ian McEwan	Vintage	2002	***	Recommended. This book provoked a lot of discussion, especially after everyone helped Jane figure out what the last chapter meant!
2004	The Da Vinci Code	Dan Brown	Doubleday	2003	**	We agreed it was a highly entertaining read, with every quasi-christian conspiracy theory there is included in the mix.
2004	The Dream of Scipio	Iain Pears	Riverhead Books	2002	***	3 stories linked across time – times of social disintegration. How much would you compromise to save your ‘civilization’? It provoked a good discussion.
2004	The Lovely Bones	Alice Sebold	Little, Brown	2002		Uneven, but it certainly makes you think about what Heaven would be for you.
2004	A Gesture Life	Chang-rae Lee	Riverhead Books	1999		Slow at the start, but a good read.
2004	An Unequal Music	Vikram Seth	McArthur & Company	2000		We had mixed feelings. Some thought it captured the life of musicians superbly; others thought it a tad melodramatic.
2004	Snow Falling on Cedars	David Guterson	Harcourt Brace	1994		We enjoyed the book and all thought he really knew how to describe snow beautifully.
2004	Crimson Petal and the White	Michel Faber	Harcourt	2002	**	A big ‘Victorian’ read which we all enjoyed.
2003	Family Matters	Rohinton Mistry	McClelland & Stewart	2003		Real estate really makes a difference in India!
2003	Crow Lake	Mary Lawson	Vintage Canada	2003	***	An excellent read.
2003	My dream of you	Nuala O’Faolain	Riverhead Books	2001	****	Wow! A great summer read. Two of us have already followed the priest’s advise.
2003	The Mark of the Angel	Nancy Huston	McArthur	1999		Our pot luck supper was as enjoyable as the book discussion.
2003	Life of Pi	Yann Martel	Vintage Books	2002	***	A fascinating book. Worth the read.
2003	Girl In Hyacinth Blue	Susan Vreeland	Penguin Books	2000		We had an interesting discussion about art and its value.
2003	Our Lady of the Lost and Found	Diane Schoemperlen	PerennialCanada	2001	***	This was one of those books where we read out our favourite bits – always a sign that we like the book.
2003	Isobel Gunn	Audrey Thomas	Penguin Books	1999	***	A glimpse of life at a Hudson’s Bay Company fort, and on Scotland’s Orkney islands. Is it true Orcadians joined the Company to come to James’ Bay to warm up? We all found it a fascinating glimpse into Canadian history. The audio book is excellent and we have no doubt it will make a good movie.
2002	The Russlander	Sandra Birdsell	McClelland & Stewart	2002		Interesting for its historical glimpse into Revolutionary Russia especially.
2002	The House of Sand and Fog	Andre Dubus	W.W. Norton	1999	***	A compelling read. It isn’t happy books that provoke discussion – this is a truly tragic story, and we found lots of ‘whys’ to discuss.
2002	Last Orders	Graham Swift	Sony Pictures – video	2001		Unlike Hollywood films, this British production remains true to the book and how the story is told with many voices. We were most impressed.
2002	Last Orders	Graham Swift	Vintage	1996	**	A good discussion book – what is your ‘ashes’ story? (A review by Adrian Poole from The Guardian)
2002	Miss Garnet’s Angel	Salley Vickers	Harper	2001	****	Another tale set in Venice. Lots of things to discuss in this book. We all enjoyed it very much. Her web site is incredible.
2002	Kim (the movie) Starring Errol Flynn and Dean Stockwell as Kim.	Rudyard Kipling	MGM	1950		Viewing date: to be re-scheduled – the video was out, so we watched ‘Oh Brother, where art thou?’ instead.
2002	No Great Mischief	Alistair MacLeod	McClelland & Stewart	2001		The closeness of the clan.. them and us .. together in music?
2002	The Garden of Eden	Sharon Butala	Harper	1998		A good turnout on a snowy night and a good discussion.
2002	Kim	Rudyard Kipling	Penguin	1989		Much enjoyed – the way of action and the way of contemplation. We plan to watch the video on May 5th
2002	The Red Tent	Anita Diamant	Picador	1997		Lots to discuss – we liked it, and thanked God we live in this century.
2001	Calculating God	Robert Sawyer	TOR	2000		We liked the swipes at Canadians’ foibles. Good humour and generated discussion about the scientists’ views of God.
2001	Girl with a Pearl Earring	Tracy Chevalier	Dutton	2000		We thought it a very good period piece. And the movie is amazing!
2001	Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith	Gina Nahai	Harcourt Brace	1999	**	Great story telling – Iran through the eyes and tears of Iranian Jewish women.
2001	Pilgrim	Timothy Findley	Harper	1999		Should you believe a person, even if they seem crazy? – Some of us liked the book, some did not.
2001	The Hours	Michael Cunningham	Picador	1998		Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. About Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway then, and Mrs. Dalloway today, living in New York… Very cleverly done. Read Mrs Dalloway again first, to get the most out of it.
2001	Pilate	Ann Wroe	Vintage	2000	***	‘The biography of an invented man’. A fascinating look at all the speculations about Pilate across the ages, from mystery plays to Hollywood movies. An excellent book to have read over Lent.
2001	Disgrace	J.M. Coetzee	Vintage	2000	**	Sparsely written, yet the characters are vivid and the feel of a new South Africa is real. We found lots to discuss.
2001	Stone Virgin	Barry Unsworth	Penguin	1985	***	Lots of layers in Unsworth’s works, and he always provides a mystery – we had a good discussion
2000	The Sparrow	Mary Doria Russell	Ballantine	1996	****	A Jesuit mission to another planet. One of the best.
2000	The Poisonwood Bible	Barbara Kingsolver	HarperCollins	1998	****	Top notch. A view of Africa like no other.
2000	After Hannibal	Barry Unsworth	Norton	1998	***	The Italian landscape. Another multi-age story from Unsworth, one of our favourite authors.
1999	The Kiss of the Fur Queen	Thomson Highway	Doubleday	1998	***	Read this to understand what havoc the residential schools caused.
1999	Behind the Scenes at the Museum	Kate Atkinson	Saint Martin’s Press	1999		Another dysfunctional family.
1999	Memoirs of a Geisha	Arthur Golden	Vintage	1997		Most interesting is the glimpse of what it was like in Japan during the Second World War.
1999	Cold Mountain	Charles Frazier	Vintage	1998	***	National Book Award Winner. A civil war soldier’s trek back home. Stunning images of the land.
1999	Regeneration	Pat Barker	NAL	1993	**	A British officer denounces the war (World War I) and is sent for ‘rehabilitation’.
1999	Larry’s Party	Carol Shields	Vintage	1997	**
1998	The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman	Louis De Bernières	Vintage	1993		South American surrealism.
1998	Fall on Your Knees	Ann-Marie MacDonald	Vintage	1996
1998	The Sixteen Pleasures	Robert Hellenga	Delta	1995		Art and love in Italy.
1998	The Shipping News	E. Annie Proulx	Simon & Schuster	1993	***	Pulitzer Prize Winner
1998	The Bone People	Keri Hulme	Picador	1986	****	Searing. One of our best reads.
1997	The Tortilla Curtain	T. Coraghessan Boyle	Penguin	1995		The Mexican/US border and lives of contrast. Something to re-read now that Bush is President?
1997	Stones from the River	Ursula Hegi	Scribner	1994		Examines the lives of the people in a German town as the time moves from the first to the second world war.
1997	Knowledge of Angels	Jill Paton Walsh	Green Bay	1994	***	An examination of faith and intolerance, told as a fable.
1997	Remembering Babylon	David Malouf	Knopf	1993
1997	Fugitive Pieces	Anne Michael	McClelland & Stewart	1996	****	Reads like poetry. Orange Prize winner.
1997	Morality Play	Barry Unsworth	Norton	1995	***	A medieval murder mystery. Unsworth explores the medieval morality play and the roles played by those in medieval society.
1997	Captain Corelli’s Mandolin	Louis De Bernières	Vintage	1994	****	An unlikely but beautiful love story set on the Greek island of Cephallonia beginning during the Axis occupation in the late 1930s.
1996	Angels and insects	A.S. Byatt	Vintage	1992
1996	The Piano Man’s Daughter	Timothy Findley	HarperCollins	1995
1996	The Rest of Life	Mary Gordon	Viking	1993
1996	The Choir	Joanna Trollope	Black Swan	1988
1996	A Thousand Acres	Jane Smiley	Fawcett Columbine	1992
1995	Open Secrets	Alice Munro	Penguin	1994
1995	A Suitable Boy	Vikram Seth	HarperPerennial	1993		A long read, but if you just let it flow over you…
1995	Happenstance	Carol Shields	Vintage	1982		Her story/his story – which one did you read first?
1995	Midnight’s Children	Salman Rushdie	Penguin	1980	****	The best Booker!
1995	The Stone Diaries	Carol Shields	Vintage	1983
1995	Children of Men	P.D. James	A.A. Knopf	1993		What would happen if we could no longer procreate?
1994	The Volcano Lover	Susan Sontag	Anchor Books	1993
1993	Mystical Paths	Susan Howatch	Fawcett	1993		An Anglican Church reading group has to read at least one Susan Howatch. A good discussion about good and evil.
1993	Silence	Shusaku Endo	Taplinger Publishing Company	1980		Jesuits in Japan
1993	Black Water	Joyce Carol Oates	Plume	1993
1993	Utz	Bruce Chatwin	Penguin	1988
1993	Palace Walk	Naguib Mahfuz	Doubleday	1990		Fascinating glimpse behind veiled lives. Some of us also read the other 2 volumes of the Cairo Trilogy: Palace of Desire and Sugar Street.
1993	The Dark is Rising	Susan Cooper	Collier	1973		Magical struggle between good and evil.
1993	Beloved	Toni Morrison	Plume	1988		1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
1993	A Brief History of Time	Stephen Hawking	Bantam Books	1988
1992	The Color of Blood	Brian Moore	McClelland & Stewart	1987
1992	Such a Long Journey	Rohinton Mistry	McClelland & Stewart	1991		The movie is excellent as well.
1992	The Spire	William Golding	Faber and Faber	1964	***	We read this not long after the Development underneath and behind the Cathedral. And kept a close watch on our Dean…
1992	The Age of Innocence	Edith Wharton	Collier	1992		A Pulitzer Prize book, first published in 1920. We also watched and enjoyed the movie.
1992	Waiting for Godot	Samuel Beckett	Faber and Faber	1965
1992	Disturbing the Peace	Vaclav Havel	Vintage	1991
1992	The Famished Road	Ben Okri	Vintage	1991	****	There isn’t another book like this one. You are transported to a surreal, spiritual world.
1992	Measure for Measure	William Shakespeare	Cambridge U.P	1969		We had a fun time trying to figure out what Shakespeare was getting at.
1992	The Invisible Worm	Jennifer Johnston	Penguin	1992		The first in the genre of dysfunctional families?
1992	A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters	Julian Barnes	Vintage	1989		If you only ever read one Julian Barnes, why not try this one? Highly entertaining.
199?	The Reader	Bernhard Schlink	Pantheon Books	1997
199?	The Master and Margarita	Mikhail Bulgakov	Vintage	1996
199?	The Republic of Love	Carol Shields	Fawcett	1992
199?	Possession: a romance	A.S. Byatt	Vintage	1991
199?	The Kitchen God’s Wife	Amy Tan	Ivy Books	1991
199?	Lives of the Saints	Nino Ricci	Cormorant Books	1990		Winner of the Governor General’s award
199?	The Remains of the Day	Kazuo Ishiguro	Penguin	1990
199?	A Prayer for Owen Meany	John Irving	Ballantine	1989	****	What a great character!
199?	Tiger Moon	Penelope Lively	Penguin	1988		1987 Booker Prize Winner.
199?	The Songlines	Bruce Chatwin	Penguin	1987
199?	The Handmaid’s Tale	Margaret Atwood	Bantam-Seal	1986		Apparently written after a visit to Afghanistan.
199?	Speaker for the Dead	Orson Scott Card	TOR	1986		Winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards. A science fiction treat.
199?	Not Wanted on the Voyage	Timothy Findley	Viking	1984		The tale of a woodworm on Noah’s Ark! Great discussion.
199?	Monsignor Quixote	Graham Greene	Penguin	1983
199?	The Mists of Avalon	Marion Zimmer Bradley	Del Rey	1982		The Arthurian legend, re imagined from the perspective of the women.
198?	All Hallow’s Eve	Charles Williams	Eerdmans	1982
199?	The Mismeasure of Man	Stephen Jay Gould	W. W. Norton	1981	****	One of our rare non-fiction titles. An important book whose points you don’t forget – the misuse of science and the fallacies of reification.
198?	Who was Oswald Fish?	A.N. Wilson	Penguin	1981
198?	The Healing Art	A.N. Wilson	Penguin	1980
198?	The Bell	Iris Murdoch	Panther	1976
198?	Night	Elie Wiesel	Avon	1960
198?	Till We Have Faces	C.S. Lewis	Collins	1956

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