Giller Prize Winner

Happy Halloween.

Yesterday the winner of the Scotiabank Giller prize was announced. If you've never heard of it here is a brief description from their website.

The Scotiabank Giller Prize is Canada’s most distinguished literary prize, awarding $50,000 annually to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English. Finalists on the shortlist receive $5,000. The award was established in 1994 by Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch in honour of his late wife, literary journalist Doris Giller.

In September 2005, Scotiabank was proud to become the first ever co-sponsor of the prize – and it has been known as the Scotiabank Giller Prize ever since

This years winner is Will Ferguson, author of 419. Amazon gives the novel the below description.

From internationally bestselling travel writer Will Ferguson, author of Happiness™ and Spanish Fly, comes a novel both epic in its sweep and intimate in its portrayal of human endurance. A car tumbles through darkness down a snowy ravine. A woman without a name walks out of a dust storm in sub-Saharan Africa. And in the seething heat of Lagos City, a criminal cartel scours the Internet, looking for victims.

Lives intersect. Worlds collide. And it all begins with a single email: “Dear Sir, I am the daughter of a Nigerian diplomat, and I need your help…”

Will Ferguson takes readers deep into the labyrinth of lies that is 419, the world’s most insidious Internet scam.

When Laura Curtis, a lonely editor in a cold northern city, discovers that her father has died because of one such swindle, she sets out to track down—and corner—her father’s killer. It is a dangerous game she’s playing, however, and the stakes are higher than she can ever imagine. Woven into Laura’s journey is a mysterious woman from the African Sahel with scars etched into her skin and a young man who finds himself caught up in a web of violence and deceit.

And running through it, a dying father’s final words: “You, I love.”

Odd Apocalypse by Dean Koontz

I finished Odd Apocalypse the other day. I was glad to see that it kept my favourite thing about the Odd series, which is Odd's sense of humour. I find his sarcastic jokes and his casual approach to the weird events around him hilarious.

I wasn't to sure about this book at first. I was disappointed that the women ghost didn't show up more. She kinda of appeared at the beginning asked for Odd's help then disappeared except for a few moments.

Another thing about this series is that the stories are getting really crazy. I've read lots of Dean Koontz books and I like his science fiction, with scary monsters, and futuristic machines and events, its why I keep reading him. But I always found the Odd series different. Besides the fact that he can see ghosts, the enemies that he faced were always real people and plausible events. In this book and the last one, Odd Interlude, the enemies that Odd faces have been more supernatural. There's nothing wrong with this, it just feels like the rules were changed on me.

Besides that one complaint of mine, I liked the book. It wasn't as much a page turner as his other Odd books, but it still had my attention. I like the Annamarie character, she was introduced in Odd Hours, and she has traveled with him sense. She is so mysterious and is always speaking in riddles, I think if I was Odd I would be annoyed by now and start insisting she answer directly or don't bother. I'm hoping we find out more about her soon. She seems to know everything and made a comment this time about being pregnant for a long time. It makes me wonder if she is an guardian angel, the way everyone listens to her whether they want to or not.

The next Odd Thomas novel, Deeply Odd, is coming out at the beginning of April.

Coming Soon: Oct 15

Iris Johansen has a new novel staring her popular character Eve Duncan. For years Eve has struggled trying to find closure for her daughter who was taken from her. She has learned the truth and is now trying to start a new life. Now she has the disturbing feeling that something is about to go very wrong. Eve's mother Sandra has asked for her help trying to find her missing friend Beth. What worries Eve is that her mom refuses to call the police. Eve suspects that her mother may be hiding something from her, and that something might be very wrong. As Sandra reluctantly gives Eve information, she learns that Beth has been locked in a mental hospital for three years, she is shocked to find out that their fates may be intertwined, and all their lives could now be in danger.

She hires Kendra Michaels to investigate and learns the weird circumstances behind Beth's disappearance from a supposedly safe hospital room. Now that Beth has escaped and her mind is being cleared by the lack of drugs, she starts to see a twisted plot unwind within the Avery family, that threatens to destroy her and anyone who tries to stop what is already in motion.

One Summer day, 16 year old Laurel Nicolson comes down from her childhood tree house after a family party to see a man walking up their farmhouse driveway and her mother stopping to talk to him. By the end of the day she witnesses a shocking crime that challenges everything that she knows about her family and especially her mother Dorothy. Now fifty years later Laurel is an actress and has returned to the family home for Dorothy's ninetieth birthday party. She know this may be her last chance to learn the truth and the only answers are in her mother's past.

Dorothy's story starts in pre-WWII and takes us through time to the 60s and beyond. Her story involves three strangers who meet by chance in war time London, and their lives are forever intertwined. It is a story of dreams and the unexpected consequences they sometime create.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I read The Great Gatsby in anticipation of the upcoming movie. I was not expecting too much. I find that classic books can be hit or miss, some of them I really like while others I find boring. This book was one that I liked. One of the great things about it was that it did not read as an older book. The content and storyline was still relevant and it could easily have taken place in the modern world.

The book is a romance novel and a man's unconditional love for a women and how it ruled his life and ultimately caused his downfall. I liked how the story was not told from the perspective of the lover or his attraction, but instead from the view point of his neighbour and friend. Because you hear the story from an outsider you are open to interpret the characters actions. Some people reading the story may feel different then others about the main characters and their actions. I personally felt sorry for Gatsby but also considered him a fool.

I am very excited to see the movie and how Leonardo DiCaprio will play the character. He seems to do well in movies that are period pieces from the early 20th century.

The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve

I finished The Pilot's Wife last night. I can't say I enjoyed the book but I can see why it was an Oprah book club pick.

This book isn't very long, but the beginning is very slow and dragged on for me. In the very beginning the knock comes to the door which informs Katheryn that her husband has died in a plane crash. From this point on to almost three quarters the way into the novel not much else happens. Speculations are made as to the cause of the crash, and we get to see the effects this has on both the wife and the daughter. I think I was bored of the book at this point because it focused a lot on the wife's thoughts and feelings. This is of course important to a good novel but sometimes the best part of a novel is imagining yourself in the situation, and how you would feel in the characters position. I never really felt any attachment to the wife's character and I did not agree with a lot of the things she was thinking.

The novel didn't get interesting until the wife actually decided to do something about what happened and find out the truth about the crash. At this point the book got really good. I wanted to know what really happened and I felt like I'd been waiting forever to find out. I wasn't disappointed either, I liked the husbands story I thought it was interesting and well thought out. It also posed a lot of difficult questions about love and marriage. I personally think that he still loved his wife, and I didn't feel that he was a bad person. He may have made several bad choices but I felt he was trying his best to lessen the hurt he could have caused, although in the end it didn't quite work the way he planned.

Another part of the book I liked was the flashbacks. When in the mind of a suspicious wife the stories seemed to have two sides. The reader like Katheryn is wondering if there was another meaning hiding behind some of the events. Is something that seems innocent and sweet one moment take a different meaning when seen from the critical eyes of Katheryn.