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.]
As you already know, I loved the Shashi Bhat collection. I also loved Sy Montgomery’s octopus book, so I imagine I’d also like the hummingbird one.
(I’m commenting on my phone, so we’ll see where this ends up!)
Don’t you want to know how many people loved that octopus book (and movie) are still eating octopus?
I’ve asked two people (whom I felt I knew “well enough”) and they said they didn’t change their consumption at all.
(Your phone did great. But someone else is now missing a comment cuz it didn’t get all creative with its placement. lol)
The thought of octopus as food is so obscure to me (especially because they don’t call it octopus on the menu) that I didn’t even think to wonder that! But now I’m wondering! *Spit it out*
I didn’t know you could read French, that’s awesome! I’ve got rudimentary French and I’m trying to better it through my work on the Duolingo app, which is surprisingly helpful and fun.
I think the Shashi Bhat has a good chance of winning this year. I haven’t read it myself, but it’s been getting lots of buzz! I love that cover too.
One of Mr. BIP’s kids was in French immersion, through most of high school, so I had to be able to read the parents’ memos and homework assignments, which kept me at it. heheh
Duolingo is fun, eh? And so many languages! Are you a paid user? I’m not, so I have five “hearts” each day and, after five mistakes, I’m out. Annoying. lol
That’s so funny, I am not a paid user, and I refuse to become one. I’ve got the 5 hearts each day too, and I suffer through those stupid ads. It is so fun though, and I’m on a 600 day streak…
I’ll start with the end … I don’t GO to the library, and the only library books I borrow these days are e-audiobooks for when we drive. They can never be late because they WHIZZ back the minute they are due. This is a strange thing for me who is a librarian, who spent my childhood haunting libraries not to mention making her own library from her own books. BUT over the last few decades I got into the habit of buying books plus I receive a lot as review copies and usually receive a few as gifts for Christmas and birthdays. I like to own books because I do write in them and you can’t do that with a borrowed book.
Of your books above, they all sound interesting but you probably won’t be surprised to hear that the one that most interests me is the short story collection. It sounds exactly what I like, and a Giantess librarian? What’s not to like? I’d also love the hummingbird book. When we lived in southern California for three years, I planted some hummingbird attracting flowers especially to attract them, but, unless I missed them we attracted only a few. Indeed I can only remember every seeing a couple. That was sad because they are amazing creatures.
That does seem so strange! We both had homemade library records and borrowing materials and I can’t imagine not visiting the library regularly, after an entire lifetime of doing so. BUT I have had surprising 180s in my life, dramatic and even seemingly oppositional changes in habits, so I see that it happens. And you are patronizing them, with your audiobook usage, so you remain a supporter in that sense.
The librarian surprised me, in a good way! It’s a very satisfying collection overall, just the kind you like-about “nothing really” and everything, and I’m sure you’d enjoy it if ever a copy dropped in your lap (that’s neither a threat nor a promise heheh although I realise it kinda sounds like that, only an acknowledgement that I know you are focusing on books you already have in hand).
We planted too, but the blooms were not as abundant this year and I don’t know if that’s why we had relatively few sightings ourselves. Sy Montgomery’s books are, in general, very good. And I think they would make fantastic gifts, with such a variety of topics too.
Nalo Hopkinson’s brand new Blackheart Man has a minor thread about hummingbirds – why are they in stories from 200 years ago but there are none now (in fictitious Chin Chin)? I still don’t know the answer (and had no idea they were found outside the tropics).
I finished Kukum a month ago and chose not to review it. It’s a gripping story, well told. My big disappointment was that it was the fictitious memoir of a real woman (the author’s grandmother) written by a guy. But I did appreciate it as a vehicle to discuss the restrictions the Inuit face, and in particular, the disappearing wilderness. Clear felling (which we Australians still practice) is disgusting.
They do SEEM like the kind of bird that should only live in the tropics. And I really want to read that Hopkinson novel, now, knowing how much you’ve enjoyed it.
If I knew about that when I added it to my TBR I’d forgotten it by the time I read it (I’d been waiting for an English translation by Susan Ouriou, but the library did not order it) and I am a painfully slow reader with French so I didn’t even suspect that until I was reading the afterword. There are so few books about life in the far north, so I’m glad to see another, and I still appreciate it being a woman’s story (even if it’s imagined, but not entirely either) but I understand your misgivings.
I’ve never seen a humingbird but would love to! I like the sound of Kukum
They’re really just a blur, so another way of looking at it is that you’re not missing much. hee hee
Haha … very true … they are.
Yay for all this reading! I have added Death by a Thousand Cuts to the top region of my to-read list, the reviews on Goodreads look promising too. And it’s been awhile since a short story collection has really resonated with me. I have a couple of library books out late right now but thankfully my library system stopped monetarily fining people for late books.
I will likely lose track of the details by the time you get around to finding/reading it, but there is ONE STORY in there that I really wasn’t sure how to interpret; I’ll be curious whether or not it strikes you the same way! There are no fines here anymore, either, which is quite a turnaround.
We have hummingbirds here but I see them so rarely that when I do, it’s particularly wonderful. Had one zip into the garden early august, hover around the hyssops for a few seconds and then zip away. I’ve seen a hummingbird nest with eggs in it before when I was a kid, and I can’t imagine raising the babies.
I can’t remember the last time I returned a library book late. I’ve returned them as late as I can without actually being late though 🙂
The idea of tending to orphaned and injured not-miniature birds amazes me to begin with: this whole story left me gob-smacked.
As in the morning-of the day-after-the-duedate? Before the staff can empty the contents of the return bin? So they get marked as having been returned the day before? /nods lol
Hahahaha Marcie, you know exactly how slipping in a book so it’s not counted as late works 😀
I notice you’re not admitting to any personal experience; I assume you must protect your professional integrity.