Us Conductors: A Novel by Sean Michaels (2014)

Photo via the Globe and Mail

This book won the Giller Prize! Which is pretty much the biggest award for fiction in Canada. I had already read (and reviewed) All My Puny Sorrows and I was sure it was going to win. So did a lot of other people, according to this pic (from the Globe and Mail). So an upset is always fun! Plus it bumped Us Conductors to the top of my to-read list.

This is a story about the inventor of the theremin, which is a sort of instrument you play by manipulating the electrical fields created by the antennae. The characters in the book are based on real people, and although parts of the plot really did happen, it’s still a work of fiction. (The notes section states the lack of evidence that our protagonist ever learned kung fu, for instance.) (Do other people actually read the notes sections in books? Or the acknowledgements section? Because I feel like most people don’t and I feel like they’re missing out. Anyway.)

The rest of these books on the list above are on my to-read list as well, except for one that I started and actually gave up on about halfway through, which I almost never do. But I just didn’t care about the characters, so I couldn’t be bothered to find out what happened to them. I’m not going to tell you which book this was, because I don’t want to ruin it for you — that would just be mean and unCanadian. And I’ve heard from a number of other people who really liked it.

Here, a video of Leon Theremin playing his own instrument:

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews (2014)

So I started reading this book a few nights ago, and it was so good that I was planning on spending my Friday evening curled up on the couch until it was done. Which is exactly what I did, but I had to contend with my roommates having an impromptu get-together with buddies of theirs to eat pie. As in, they showed up at the door, pies in hand, right when I was getting to the saddest part. (All My Puny Sorrows is about a woman who’s trying to keep her suicidal concert pianist sister from killing herself; it’s loosely based on the author’s real life. So yeah, it’s a tear-jerker.) Luckily my roommates’ friends brought two pies (blueberry AND lemon meringue) and they were all pretty focused on those, so I could basically just cry in the corner without anyone noticing. I think.

The Rosie Project: A Novel by Graeme Simsion (2013)

Pink Sweetheart Roses. Source: muffet1 via deviantart

You know when you stay up super late because you started a book, and you just have to finish it before going to bed?

It’s almost 1 a.m. local time, and I just finished this book. I’m still processing. I can’t sleep yet, so I figured I’d blog about it instead.

You know when a book is so good that as soon as you’ve read the last page, you want to flip it over and start from the beginning again? Even though you figured out the plot twist halfway through and you know how the story ends?

I have to work in the morning, so I can’t re-read this right away. But it’s still a newbie at the library, and pretty popular (and for good reason) so it’s only a seven-day loan. Which gives me ’til Saturday. I only started this book on my lunch break today, so I’ve got plenty of time to re-read it before it goes back to the library. Maybe even twice.

The Rosie Project just reminds me so much of ME, and it reminds me so much of SO MANY PEOPLE I KNOW, and it’s like it explains so many things about the human condition, and yet I’ve got more questions now than I did before. I kind of teared up at one little section towards the end, and I don’t know why, of all the scenes or sentences or phrasings, that was the section my brain went for.

More questions to answer. More thoughts to ponder. Not sure if I’ll fall asleep with my brain on like this… maybe I’ll start re-reading Rosie again right now. (Rosie is the name of one of the main characters, by the way.)