Books we’re reading and loving in August: Memoir The Curve of Time follows a woman’s adventurous travels along the west coast | Canada Voices

Each week, Globe and Mail staffers and readers share what they’re reading now, whether it’s a hot new release or an old book they’re discovering for the first time. Tell me about a book you loved and we might publish your recommendation. Fill out this form, or send your book recommendation to Lara Pingue at lpingue@globeandmail.com

Summer books preview: 35 hot new reads

The Curve of Time, M. Wylie Blanchet

I’ve long known about The Curve of Time and finally got around to reading it. It’s the beautifully written memoir of M. Wylie Blanchet, a widow who explored the wild coasts of Vancouver Island and the Inside Passage with her five children in the late 1920s and 1930s. Adventurous doesn’t begin to describe their travels. Frankly, it’s a wonder they survived. This book joins two others on my shelf – Totem Poles and Tea by Hughina Harold, which follows her years as a nurse and teacher to the Indigenous population on a remote island off the central coast in the 1930s, and Jedediah Days by Mary Palmer, chronicling her summers on a northern Gulf Island without any kind of amenities. All three books feature women whose bravery is almost madness.

–Globe reader Vicki Metcalfe, Victoria

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What Maisie Knew, Henry James

After a 50-year gap, I’m re-reading What Maisie Knew, Henry James’s novel about the misbehaviours of parents and step-parents from the view of a precocious child. Maisie explores her agency by making moral claims on adults and learns hard lessons when their weakness and selfishness fail her. Complex and, yes, sometimes pretentious, this book often requires that passages be re-read to determine what happened or who said or thought what. Still, at 248 pages it’s a manageable introduction to the author. Not exactly a summer beach read, but it may provide a patient reader a unique, absorbing pleasure on a rainy cottage weekend.

–Globe reader Chester Fedoruk, Toronto

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Vigil, Susie Taylor

What is it about Newfoundland that manages to produce some of the finest and most inventive contemporary writers around? Is it the island’s isolation from the mainland, perhaps, or its rich tradition of storytelling? Is it the weather? I count Susie Taylor’s collection of linked stories, Vigil, among the region’s standouts. Set in the fictional small town of Bay Mal Verde, Vigil brings to life a landscape brought to its knees by addiction and economic despair. Still, the community survives, its members struggling to find their place and to avoid despair. Taylor creates a story that’s at turns tragic and brutally funny. I especially loved Taylor’s description of the town, which “loves all her children,” but knows she has let them down.

–Globe reader Wendy Bonus, Toronto

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Gorilla Tactics, Greg Cummings

In Gorilla Tactics: How to Save a Species, Canadian author Greg Cummings chronicles his fight for gorilla conservation in turbulent times. Cummings, who lived in Africa during his childhood, began working with a U.K. conservation group and realized his dream of returning to the beauty of the dark continent, where he navigated the Rwandan guerilla war, the genocide of 800,000 people and armed anarchy. With the help of world-famous celebrities including Arthur C. Clarke, Douglas Adams, Darryl Hannah and Sigourney Weaver, Cummings helped raise awareness of the mountain gorillas’ peril and put a spotlight on the possibility of extinction. This book is also a personal story for Cummings, and he shares his own flaws and failings as he takes on the monumental task of saving a species.

–Globe reader Barbara Golder,Victoria

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Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels

Anne Michaels’s modern classic Fugitive Pieces is a mastery of minimal, first-rate prose that accords well with poetry from its first sentence of “Time is a blind guide” to sentences such as, “The branches look painted onto the onion-white sky.” The story takes place over several decades and includes two narrators: one is a child orphaned by the Nazi invasion of Poland; the other, a Canadian professor who admires the writing of the former child, now an acclaimed adult poet. Both lives have been torn apart by the Holocaust. Fugitive Pieces covers familiar territory, such as grappling with the past, suffering and exploring connections. However, it never falls into cliché because of Michaels’s imagination and superb writing.

–Globe reader Mel Simoneau, Gatineau

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Olga: Shadows of the Soviets, Sharron Pasternak

I worked with author Sharron Pasternak years ago, so I was vaguely aware of her personal history. She was born and raised in Calgary with Ukrainian heritage, and studied at Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv at the height of the Cold War. But it wasn’t until I read her debut novel that I discovered her own remarkable experiences in Ukraine. Olga: Shadows of the Soviets follows the story of a young Polish woman pursuing an education in Kyiv, who finds herself relentlessly watched and manipulated by a KGB agent. Beyond the political tension, the novel also explores themes of family, sacrifice and the enduring strength of the human spirit. Though fictionalized, Olga draws deeply from Pasternak’s time in Soviet Ukraine and offers an atmospheric and chilling portrayal of life under surveillance, state control and political intimidation.

–Globe reader Sandra Smith, Calgary

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Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-year History, Kurt Andersen

The Vertical Mosaic, John Porter

With the Canadian election now behind us, I figured it was a good time to take stock of the political landscape with two books that offer enduring perspectives on both the American melting pot and our own mosaic. The first, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-year History by Kurt Andersen, helped me make sense of the confounding American leadership choice. I get it now. When I hear disturbing news, I think: Oh right, it’s fantasyland with its consistently strange history and curious deviations. Then I checked in on our own backyard by rereading The Vertical Mosaic by John Porter, a masterpiece on social class and power in Canada. The inspiring read made me think of the debt we owe First Nations people, immigrants, blue-collar workers and farmers – all citizens who faced hardship, poverty, racism and bitter arguments in the last century. Those champions built a stable and progressive country, working from the framework of our national institutions, however flawed. The current American leader holds power without wisdom, in my opinion – unlike some past Canadian leaders, like Chrétien and Pearson and others, who held power with wisdom. It takes all kinds to stock a planet, but I’ll take our mosaic any day.

–Globe reader Thelma Fayle, Victoria

Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-year History

The Vertical Mosaic

The Unfinished, Cheryl Isaacs

The Unfinished by Cheryl Isaacs is marketed for teens and young adults, although this senior loved it and has recommended it to her similarly mature book-club members. It’s a gripping mystery about what happens when a friend goes missing and a curious bookstore employee who, with the help of her Mohawk elders, uncovers long-forgotten disappearances in the town. Although not Mohawk myself, perhaps the reference to elders is part of the novel’s appeal to me. Those who indulge in “forest bathing “ or simply enjoy hiking in forested areas may especially appreciate the vivid sensory aspects as the story unfolds.

–Globe reader S. J. Meyer, Greensville, Ont.

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Direct Descendant, Tanya Huff

Direct Descendant is a dark fantasy about a modern mining town with a mysterious past, where the residents are acting strangely and the private investigator looking into a suicide doesn’t quite understand what’s happening around her. Readers will marvel at the original and weird community author Tanya Huff has created, and laugh at the snarky remarks she sprinkles throughout. There are mysteries to solve and a romance unfolding. The characters are fascinating and believable, even the extraordinary ones. This book is delightful, dramatic, enchanting and will hold your attention right to the end. I would love to read more about this fascinating town.

– Globe reader Jane Garthson, Toronto

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