The latest stack of library books.
I also scored one of Gabrielle Roy's memoirs at the recycling centre in town. Hard cover, to boot.
Homesick, while begun, is set aside to return without finishing. It's about a woman who's moved to her parents' for help raising her son. Didn't hold me. Its author is the Saskatoon writer responsible for The Englishman's Boy.
The Mystery Guest was skimmed but left me wondering why I wanted to read it. No doubt I heard a radio interview with the author and the book sounded scintillating. But again, the printed page did not hold me. The narrator had been called out of the blue by an old love who'd dumped him with no explanation five years earlier. Now she called, invited him to be the one unknown guest at a dinner party; the narrator is certain all will come clear when he sees her again. But by now I don't care.
Home Land has been added to the pile of go-back-unreads.
On the other hand The Bookshop, which I picked up this morning and had nearly finished before noon, is a short and lively little tale of a widowed Englishwoman who opens up a bookstore in an old house shared with a poltergeist. Engaging from start to finish, unless things change at this late point in the story. I'll be diving back into it first chance I get.
I'm grateful to my local librarian for not complaining when I ask her to order in so many books for me, particularly when I don't read them all. If they don't snag me, why should I? Too many books, too little time. My motto.
***
Saw a bull and a mare moose on my way to Kelvington last night. The bull moose walked along the bush before turning sharply to disappear into it. As he made his way in, he had to sway his huge dark head from side to side so as not to bang his wide rack on the bars of naked poplar trunks.
I was thrilled. It’s still rare, to me, to see a moose. I stopped and snapped photos but it was too dark for them to turn out.
