My favourite literary selections to get you through the season:
A House in the Sky, by Amanda Lindhout and Sarah Corbett: The true story of a Calgary cocktail-waitress-turned-journalist, kidnapped and held at a Somali prison for 15 months, is beautifully told by Sara Corbett. As harrowing and cautionary as the tale is, it’s the Canadian government’s ineptitude at helping the Lindhout family rescue Amanda that is most shocking. Everyone from the New York Times to Oprah has lauded this page-turner and, now that Lindhout’s back in the news and finally getting justice from her captor, there’s even more reason to pick it up. Get it now at www.amazon.ca
Dept. of Speculation, by Jenny Offill: The best book I read this year, it’s to be devoured in one sitting. It’s about a faltering marriage, yes, and the trials of new motherhood, but, ultimately, hopeful in a poetic, philosophic way that brought in raves from every respected literary review. Though a quick read, you’ll be moved. Get it now at www.amazon.ca
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, by Susannah Cahalan: Girlfriend getaways are a great source for new reading material, and this suggestion from a new Toronto-based journalist is a perfect example. It’s a first-person account of a 24-year-old New York writer’s descent into psychosis and her eventual recovery seven months later returning to the newsroom at the New York Post. In this quick-paced and addictively fascinating tale about a rare brain disorder, she uses her journalistic skills to piece together through interviews with family, doctors and hospital staff what happened to her. And guess what? Charlize Theron is making it into a movie, due to begin shooting in Vancouver on July 13th. Get it now at www.amazon.ca
—Sarah Bancroft
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