A little time has passed since I took this photograph but, already, there are more leaves off the trees and on the ground. It’s been rather warm, but early in September, two nights fell to “frost warning” temperatures, and that’s had an impact. The chipmunks don’t have time to chat; they’re busy hoarding. The doves no longer take their baths in the morning but wait until the sun warms the water midday: there’s a line—they’re very civilised. (When it snows, we’ll turn on the heat so they have a source of water. A bowl freezes over here, in minutes, otherwise.)

Sy Montgomery’s The Hummingbird’s Gift (2021) landed in my stack because I couldn’t find her book about turtles. We only see hummingbirds up here occasionally, feeding from the flowers we have planted, but they are a wonder. That’s even more true of this story, which recounts how two orphaned “babies” are rescued, raised, and released into the wild. Sy is the observer, Brenda is the expert. It’s an all-consuming responsibility. The babies must be fed every twenty minutes and too little food doesn’t offer enough nutrients and too much can cause them to burst. (In the wild, Momma hummingbirds leave and return to the nest up to 110 times a day.) They’re the size of peanuts, and vulnerable in so many ways (there’s a harrowing scene when mites are discovered…it has a happy ending). This is one of those attractive gift-books, small and square: it was originally published as a chapter in Birdology but, even if you’ve read it there, the striking photographs in this edition—of this pair but also other hummingbirds—add to the reading experience.

The thing about the stories in Shashi Bhat’s Death by a Thousand Cuts (2024) is that they’re so ordinary it’s hard to describe their appeal.

I knew, just from scanning the titles, that I would like the last two stories, but I didn’t know that the Giantess is a librarian—and who doesn’t love a good library story. Well, there goes my thing about them being ordinary, right? Because…giantess.

Nonetheless, these characters’ concerns are commonplace; they are lonely and seeking, simply going about the business of their lives, whether tasks comprising a work day or small talk on a first date.

There’s conflict when people misunderstand one another or when their needs don’t align, and it all feels real and recognisable. “It was funny how the thoughts at the top of your mind could be at the bottom of someone else’s.” (This from “What You Can Live Without”.)

People are tetchy and they are tender: it’s a winning collection and I wish I could say why. (It could actually be a winning collection: it’s been nominated for this year’s Giller Prize.)

Contents: Dealbreaker, Death by a Thousand Cuts, Chicken & Egg, What You Can Live Without, Indian Cooking, We’re All in This Alone, Giantess, Her Ex Writes a Novel, Am I the Asshole

Michel Jean is an Innu writer and Kukum (2019) is his fictional exploration of his grandmother’s life.

She fell in love with a young Innu man, who canoed past her aunt and uncle’s home regularly when she was fifteen years old, and they went on to marry and have nine children. “Moi, c’était le regard d’un homme qui m’avait incitée à tout abandoner et, comme lui, j’avais fini par trouver le mien.”

The timeframe affords a view of changing landscape—the prose is clear and clean, but still captures the stillness and beauty—and changing culture.

For several years they live in seasonal encampments but, eventually, they settle in a permanent home and then the railway sets the stage for a town to be established.

Mostly, however, it’s the story of her learning to live on the land, fitting into her husband’s family, and understanding how her pull to live this way was deeply engrained before she had a way to name it.

It has been translated into English, but I was able to read the French because the prose style is simple (only it does require some specialized vocabulary for northern flora and fauna, and for the ritual of their hunts).

Eli Cantor’s Broiler (2024) is a page-turner right from the start. I’ve not read his fiction before, but this introduction secures my interest in his work. It begins in such a way that readers are immediately invested. We understand that there’s inside knowledge and we can’t help but be curious. It’s a great technique because these characters’ working lives are horrific: there’s no time to take bathroom breaks when they’re slaughtering the chickens that are in your fast-food sandwiches and deli-counter take-out and bulk-bought boxes, so they wear diapers. Diapers. (I’ve only read a few chapters in this one so far.)

Métis Rising by Yvonne Boyer and Larry Chartrand is a more academic volume than I usually read, but soon I’ll be reviewing a Métis memoir and I’ve been following the news about recent (and ongoing) challenges by other Indigenous Nations to the Métis Nation’s official “status” (partly due to a rise in Pretendianism, partly due to persistent Blood Quantum beliefs, partly politics/greed). I read Leah Dorion’s and Curtis Breaton’s “River Water Flows through Our Veins”, Catherin Littlejohn’s “What’s a Métis, Anyway?”, Paul Chartrand’s “Who Will Come to Bury You?”, and Judith G. Bartlett’s “A Métis Woman’s Journey of Discovery”. In the past, I might have dismissed the whole book, catching a glimpse of the scholarly tone and purpose, but partly out of positive experiences with writers like Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s scholarly writing, I peered more closely and appreciated what I found there.

As the year turns, I’ve been reading less from the library. Early in the summer, a lot of holds that had been delayed surfaced suddenly and, in combination with easier access to the ILL system, I was juggling so many duedates that I set a new record for messy stacks! (My stacks are chaotic on a good day, as you know.)

Two of these books would be particularly relevant reading for this week, in what’s-now Canada, on September 30, National Day for Truth and Reconcilation, when Canadians are urged to contemplate the history of colonization’s impact on Indigenous cultures and encouraged to take steps towards reconciliation.

What’s the most recent library book you returned late? Either deliberately or accidentally? Or, if you don’t go to the library, why not?

[Something went awry with my scheduling, so this is appearing on Thursday rather than Monday. And I neglected to include the link to Rebecca’s page.]