Vacation!

aaah...


Slept in, made coffee, eggs...and have nothing else on the agenda till tonight.


What a lovely morning!


Today is our third anniversary - it's been three years of the normal ups and downs of marriage - mundane and yet glorious. So happy to be able to put our regular schedule on pause and just celebrate and relax together. 


My heart is full today. Thanking God today for all these gifts I'll never deserve...

Book Notes: Louise Penny *Love*

Louise Penny is another mystery novelist that I've discovered this past year and loved loved loved.

She's Canadian too, which makes her pretty darn cool. AND, her books are set in small town Quebec, which is doubly cool.

I'd seen her name around the shelves, thought 'I should probably read her someday', but got my push to actually do it when I read about her on the CBC website. I really enjoyed the first and read the rest of the series in such rapid succession that I'm sure Eric wondered when he'd get his wife back.

Of course, once you've finished all the published works, you have to WAIT forever for new ones! Her latest, The Beautiful Mystery, comes out in August...and I'm super excited.

I love learning about Franco/Anglo relationships and history, and about her perspective on light and darkness in humanity. I love the way she describes food - everything centres around food - crisp baguette with soft cheese is almost its own character in the books. If you're not hungry when you start, you will be partway through your read.

I also loved her detective. It's very important to hang your mystery on a detective that people like and can relate to. Her Chief Inspector Gamache is a kind, warm, grave person. Not flashy, but with real depth. He listens to people, sees people, and gets to the heart of the mystery that way.

I dropped out of took a "Detective In Film and Fiction" English course at CMU some time ago. The prof was very interested in how death was portrayed in the books we read. The "cozies" - Agatha Christie being a prime example - were almost entirely bloodless. There wasn't much grief or horror at finding a body, it was just a plot point - the introduction or start of the puzzle to follow.

These books are different. There is death, there is evil. They are very serious. We see their ramifications playing out over many books. There is also light, love, and hope. Looking forward to August, and wishing every success to this very admirable Canadian author.

Book Notes: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

What a beautiful novel this was.

When it started I wasn't sure whether I would like it or where it was going, but as it got going I was hooked.

Jamie Ford paints a human and compelling picture of relationships: between the US and its Japanese-American citizens during WWII, between an emotionally distant Chinese father and his son, between this son and his own son, between the Japanese and Chinese communities in Seattle in the 40's, between two young people who have their first inklings of the deep friendship and respect that is love.

I loved the portrait of these complex relationships at the time. He managed to get them just right -  a few words, little sketches that promoted my understanding of different people's points of view without going into slogging detail.

Henry is our protagonist. Born on American soil, the only student of Chinese descent in his private English school (where he is bullied and miserable), not allowed to speak Mandarin to his parents as they want him to focus solely on his English (but they don't understand or speak much English, which makes for little communication), forced to wear a "I am Chinese" pin to school by his father (so he is not targeted as Japanese).

With all these conflicting influences, it's no wonder he rebels. His only friend is a black jazz sax player who busks on the street corner, until a Japanese-American girl named Keiko comes to his school. As they share school chores together (they clean the classrooms and serve lunch), their friendship grows.

Even after the Japanese are taken away to internment camps they continue their relationship. But eventually they lose touch. She stops writing. He gets engaged to a very sweet Chinese girl, and loves her, has a son with her, and cares for through her cancer until her death.

I loved this portrayal of love. It was bittersweet. It felt real. He did genuinely love his childhood sweetheart, but when she stops writing, he starts seeing and eventually commits himself to another. Once he's made this commitment, he honors it. There is love and happiness in his commitment, even though it was not his first choice.
A message we need to hear more often, I think.