Not your regular Noah story

I am about 1/3 into "Not Wanted on the Voyage" having read some more of it on our recent trip to the Pelee Island/Kingsville area of Essex County on Lake Erie to visit some wineries. So far, what I can say is that it is a bit of a "trippy" story about Noah and his family and the lead up to the big flood ... at least I think we will eventually get to that point. Right now a weary Yahweh is visiting Noah and his family, telling him of the terrible things he and his group of angels have seen in their journey across the world. Yahweh has brought with him a caravan of animals which I suspect will end up on the Ark. While completely based in fiction, Findley weaves an interesting and mysterious story about Noah, who is, according to Noah's wife's cat Motyl, who does some of the narration in the story, doing experiments with her kittens. He doesn't sound like the Noah of my bible studies. More soon ...

King Leary

King Leary by Paul Quarrington was my fifth read for the challenge. This book was the winner of CBC's Canada Reads 2008. It took me some time to get into this novel that chronicles the life of Percival "King" Leary, a well known hockey player in the early 1900s. We find Leary in the present at a nursing home when he embarks on a journey to Toronto to film a ginger ale commercial. Throughout the story Leary looks back at, and sometimes hallucinates back and re-lives, things that happened to him on his life journey. He comically interacts in the present day with friends who have long-sinced passed away. Initially I found the hockey-theme rather boring but about 1/3 into the book this aspect became almost the side-line to the interesting story of Leary and his mates that captured my interest and attention. In the end I am pleased I read the book and I can see why it received its honour. The book's characters are apparently based on real people, however, not knowing much about hockey, this was lost on me.

Canadian Fiction Rules

Back in September I joined the "Great Canadian Book Challenge Eh" and began officially documenting my Canadian reads. I have been reading almost exclusively Canadian fiction for about 2 years and was pleasantly surprised by this challenge and this great blog (http://www.bookmineset.blogspot.com/) lists so many great Canadian books that I can add to my own list of must reads. As part of the challenge you must post a review of the books you have read. I put this on my regular blog at http://www.taralynnefranco.blogspot.com/, but the list was getting long, so I have branched out and started this new blog. I will soon transfer over my reviews over to this site. Until then, keep reading. My current read is Timothy Findley's "Not Wanted on theVoyage", winner of CBC's Canada Reads 2008.