On the Night Table

"I've just finished Battle Cry by Leon Uris. I'm a sucker for war stories told by combat veterans. It was a pretty good read but not as good as The Thin Red Line or The Naked and the Dead. I'm about to start Cellophane, anthology of plays by Mac Wellman. It came recommended by a Danish friend as something dark and challenging. His recommendation came with the smile of a matchmaker introducing strangers to one another, so I'm expecting great things."

"I am reading Michael Crummy's novel Galore, a terrific Newfoundland saga that spans generations and has undertones of magical realism. I'm also reading Oliver Sacks' non-fiction journey into music and the brain, Musicophilia. It's a fascinating study of why music affects us so profoundly and emotionally and what happens neurologically to distort the way one listens to music. The last book I read, and then re-read because it was so amazingly good, was Jennifer Egan's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, A Visit from the Good Squad. She is a stunning writer who moves characters seamlessly through shifts in time while maintaining a sense of exquisite dark humour and romance."

"When I'm not reading something related to work, I like to read history. I find it relaxing. Right now I'm reading The History of Portugal, by Rui Ramos, Bernardo Vasconcelos Sousa and Nuno Goncalo Monteiro. I'm reading it in Portuguese. I was born in Portugal, and I brought the book back with me on a recent visit. I want to learn about the new Portugal since the revolution of 1974. When I came here in 1968, Portugal was a fascist dictatorship. I was just about 16 and I joined my parents and siblings who were already here. Then I went to Thompson to join my father working in construction. My next book is Thinking Government-Public Sector Management in Canada by David Johnson. I will stop learning when I die."

"I'm reading The Parade's Gone By... by Kevin Brownlow. It's a non-fiction book about the history of silent movies. It's pretty good. I mostly read non-fiction. I read a lot of film books because I like to know about everything I can about them. I'm on a silent-film kick these days. I want to know more about actors and directors -- more than just the stuff that's widely known."

"I have a few books on the go. The last book I read was tennis player Andre Agassi's book Open: An Autobiography and I loved it. I thought it was so honest. I was surprised by it: the character I thought he was and the person he is in the book was different. It was very eye-opening."

"I just recently started reading The Power of Many by Meg Whitman. I was at a conference where she was at a speaker and I am really looking forward to reading more about her and her accomplishments in business. I'm also reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie. I found it at a second-hand bookstore and it's a fun and unique read. As well, I like to always have a mystery/suspense book on the go, so I'm currently reading The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly."

"The novel I am reading is one my 15-year-old daughter recommended, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I enjoy reading stories that take me to into a different world or view the world through someone else's eyes. My favourite novels are historical dramas such as Gone With the Wind, New York, The Book of Negroes, The Concubine's Daughter, and The Pillars of the Earth. I enjoy such Canadian authors as Carol Shields, Jane Urquhart, Margaret Atwood, Robert B. Wright, Frances Itani and Thomson Highway. I also like reading biographies of political leaders. The last one I read was George W. Bush's memoir."

"These days my reading is focused on poet-turned-novelists, experimental fiction writers, and first novels by authors I respect and admire. On my night table is James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, a fictionalized autobiography of his childhood, education and young adulthood. In my purse I am carrying Leonard Cohen's The Favourite Game, the first novel by this man known best for his music and poetry. It is beautiful, exciting and impressive, and also happens to be a semi-autobiographical story about a young man confronting his vocation as a poet. Finally, in my studio I am reading Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, which recounts the author's time as a young writer in Paris in the 1920s."

"The last book I read is The Book of Negroes by Canadian author Lawrence Hill. It's an amazing novel. It so well written and it's very informative about the history of blacks in Eastern Canada I also read Winnipegger David Bergen's novel The Time in Between, about a man who goes back to Vietnam to learn about his father. I enjoyed that one too."

"This summer started with In Light of India by Nobel-laureate Octavio Paz, where he uses his Mexican perspective to look at the interplay of religion, race and politics in India in his erudite style. To change the pace but stay in Mexico, I read Irma Voth by Miriam Toews, where she shifts her search for dysfunctional Mennonite families from Steinbach to Mexico. Next was The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism by Andrew Bacevich, a pessimistic view of the future of America. Currently I am reading Tim Flannery's Here on Earth, a less than flattering perspective of the impact of Homo sapiens on the diversity of our planet."