Rebecca and Tara close out September with what they are currently reading and what they've read since their last book chat.
Rebecca (@canadareadsamericanstyle):
- Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of The Kingdom of Redonda by Michael Hingston
- The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
- Little Moons by Jen Storm
- Not Cancelled: Canadian Caremongering in the Face of Covid-19; Life After Loss: Reflections on Moments of Grace and Courage in Grief by Catherine Kenwell
- Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
- Outsider: An Old Man, a Mountain and the Search for a Hidden Past by Brett Popplewell
- The Circle by Katherena Vermette
- Driving the Green Book: A Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance by Alvin Hall
Tara (@onabranchreads):
- Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder by Julia Zarankin
- The Circle; Real Ones by Katherena Vermette
- Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
- Wild Dogs by Helen Humphreys
- The Women by Kristin Hannah
- The Brickworks by Lucy E.M. Black
- Pay the Piper by George A. Romero, Daniel Kraus
- The River; Burn by Peter Heller
This is "Canada Reads American Style" featuring two friends who love Canada Reads and Canadian literature. Welcome our host Rebecca from Michigan and Tara from Ontario. Hi everyone it is Rebecca and Tara and today is book chat number 20 and I really seriously Tara I can't wait till we get to like book chat 1000. But anyway how are you today? I'm good thanks how are you? I'm good but you know what we need rain how about you? We totally need rain. I've been thinking in the last couple days we have rain forecast it for tomorrow and most of next week I think. Oh okay good that's good. So what have you been up to? You know what I started a new let's I'm gonna call it hobby. Yeah hobby sure activity activity over the summer which you know about but I started paddle boarding with a friend and it is the pictures are amazing yeah the photos we have the two of us have the best time I was so excited when she invited me probably like it's been six weeks now and we go out once a week at to the same place and it's so like it's a it's a brilliant physical workout but at the same time so relaxing to be out on the water and I'm not the first person to say this but you know out on the water and just like immersed in it it is amazing and I'm super excited because I'm a big chicken and it's taken me a long time to get the nerve up to like really practice my standing up so it stand up paddle boarding is what it is but for most of it I've been sitting or kneeling yeah and enjoying it and it took a long time for me because it looks super easy it is not easy and mostly because I had a mental barrier of thinking that I was going to fall down so I would get nervous as soon as I stood up but last week I like I own that paddle board for quite a while standing up I was so excited and I love it we're planning on this I told my husband he thinks we're insane going right up into the fall season as long as we can like we're thinking October Thanksgiving we were planning last week we're like we're gonna get be dressed for it have extra clothes in case we do fall in because I have fallen in once and we're gonna we bought like we have little cup holders on our board so we're gonna bring like a hot beverage with us we're I love it so badass we love it now when you fell in how deep is the water because I can't swim and water scares me so well this was I think my first week the first time we went out maybe the second time we went in close this is a really small lake that has a beachy area for swimming so I went in close to practice my standup and that's when I fell so when I fell it was only came up to like my waist further in in the middle of the lake it is quite deep like you know it will be over my head kind of deep I couldn't tell you how deep it is but it's over my head but you're within swimming distance of the shore kind of thing it's so funny when you were talking about this I'm I just have to admit I was thinking of it like an Adam Schultz kind of like like you're doing one of the great lakes like but you're not doing that no this is like a very small enclosed like lake on a conservation area my friend has gone on bigger lake like she went in I think she said one of her first times because we live very close to Lake Ontario like a 10-minute drive so she went there but you get this groove and she said they just heard her friend we're just paddling and before they knew it they were like super far from shore and it freaked her out a little bit because it's it's yeah it looks like the ocean Lake Lake Ontario can fool yourself into it right so mm-hmm so she tends to keep to smaller lakes or I know she's gone on Lake Erie I believe where you can go a quite far and still be within like close to a sandbar or something like that oh nice I haven't done that I will I'm we're hoping to do next year do Lake Erie and actually do a organized paddle around the Toronto islands at nighttime oh that would be incredible the company that organized it for organizes it provides the paddle boards the boards that have lights attached to the bottom of them so everything is lit up we have big plans okay that's amazing and then the last thing I'll ask is I'm going to assume if you're standing on the board that it takes core strength and you're building up your core shit yeah oh yeah like amazing even because sometimes I if you when you if you kneel on the board simply just like kneeling on both instead of sitting on your butt but kneeling takes a lot of core strength it's amazing how much core strength and your butt and your thighs get a whole work it like I was surprised that I'm like sore for two days afterwards yeah yeah that's fantastic oh my god that's so cool what makes no you know I got nothing I got nothing that I mean not even remotely that exciting although I'm going to be doing something this winter that I'm not gonna talk about yet but I will tell you what I'll be doing this winter because I've made a commitment to myself to do something that I haven't done in a long time but I will say mostly the last couple this week I've been watching my little baby Raptor a little Amos who is Sedonia's youngest brother and he is like two and a half and let me tell you two and a half year olds are a lot of work they're a lot of work but he is so freaking cute and I just love spending time with him and yeah so that's what I'll be doing it again today so yeah I that might be more work than I will tell you all three of them together is more work it has to be more work than paddleboarding because I just about pull my hair out yeah anyway it's not relaxing not at all all right so what are you currently reading okay so I have two books on the go well one I just just finished but anyway so my current nonfiction is a book that I purchased recently over the summer actually so it's called Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder by Julia Zirankin and it is about Julia the writer becoming a bird birder a birder like a hardcore birder and it is a lovely it's so I've realized that birding memoirs are my favorite type of memoir and she's funny and insightful and she links her birding experiences back to her life experiences which I flipping love that and at the meantime you know like you get these descriptions of birds and I love looking up these birds she did one this morning she mentioned this bird this morning and I'm gonna put it out there for everyone to check it out because she described it in the book as the cutest bird ever and I'm like really there's some cute birds out there but I looked it up and I soon as soon as the picture popped up I went oh my gosh so it is the bridled titmos look it up it is adorable it is the cutest bird I've ever seen now where does she live a Toronto actually oh yeah he's still climbing on the west coast originally from one of the Russian Soviet countries that no longer exists as a country and immigrated to Canada when she was younger with her parents has moved around spent some time in the US for school graduate school and as a professor at one of the universities and found her way eventually back to Toronto what do you think okay first of all I love when a bird has like that crest on their head because even though I love you know the male cardinals and I love that little crest I love the females even more because they just have a hint of red on their crest and this one I'm not gonna say what color it is or anything just people look it up it is I love it I've never seen it I've never seen this bird isn't he adorable yeah absolutely oh okay so that's my current non-fiction and my current fiction which I just finished is Tom Lake by Anne Patchett which is not like I'm not bringing I'm like oh I've never everyone's heard of this nobody you're late getting to it which is fine because even though I love Anne Patchett I've only read one of her books but I do love her she seems like a wonderful person I tend to make books wait a while when there's a lot of buzz and this one totally lived up to my expectations I think even surpassed it it's a lovely fantastic book it's very quiet her writing reminds me of Mary Lawson in that it's just like this little family drama and stuff unfolds and the way she like so much happens but so little happens at the same time so just a quick one this is Cherry Orchard in Michigan during the summer during the COVID at the beginning of COVID and the parents who are probably middle-aged I would say probably around my age in their fifties there are three adult daughters come back home to spend the COVID the clock in with them at the same time it's Cherry harvesting time so they're all harvesting the cherries because there's a lack of staff because of the COVID and she tells her daughters the story of the summer that she spent performing our town at Tom Lake the town of Tom Lake and the at the same time dating who would eventually be a huge movie star in Hollywood so yes right and I'm just that's all I can say because there's like these little nuggets of the plot that she just that you want the answers to but you you just wait for them and without knowing it sometimes she just drops it on you and you're like oh it's brilliant even the way she met it up as being during the lockdown she doesn't come right out and go it was 2021 June like you know yeah sets it up for you that they have a lack of staff due to the world environment at the moment or that she hasn't seen her neighbors because her neighbor has asthma so they only go see them from it you know it's really beautiful she's brilliant it's funny one of my mom's friends recommended it to my mom for me and I haven't read it so I haven't read any and patch it yet so I need to get on board here but I kind of feel the way you do when somebody when people really really really hype up a book like a million people hype up a book I'm less likely to read it which is not a good thing and I'm like you I'll read it way later but not generally like when the hype is at the highest peak yeah me too unless it's like an an author that I already have like a long-standing relationship with right otherwise I late you know it's funny cuz Sarah Pritzky's my favorite author in terms I just love her her mystery series of Vi Werschowski and her latest book came out in April I still haven't read it yet because I have this weird thing that when she drops a book now no normally I don't wait this long but I take my time reading it I mean I wait to read it and then I read it kind of slowly because I like to drag out that experience because I know it'll be another couple years before the next one comes out so I kind of just wanna I know it's there but I'm not quite ready to jump in because I know you know I have to wait for the next one yeah those are two excellent excellent books well the one I'm reading right now again I'm finishing up the books I need to read for this year and is try not to be strange the curious history of the Kingdom of Redonda by Michael Hingston and I saw him last year at Eden Mills and it turns out this island of Redonda which is in the Caribbean is a very small rocky uninhabitable island but people have for like I think over a hundred years or more they have this weird thing where some celebrity author is the king of the Kingdom and it's just this weird story this weird history of this island that no one can ever go to or you can't see it it's all rocky and anyway it's a weird tale and obviously nonfiction so I'm reading that and I will say this Michael is he's very wordy so it's kind of a dense book so I hope that I enjoy it so I'm only maybe about 20 pages in right now but I'm just curious this is the kind of nonfiction I like this kind of weird stuff is it a long book like roughly how many pages would you say you know I would say maybe it's I think it's under three hundred okay so maybe two sixty some but it's but it's the print is small and it's very like it's very long paragraphs yeah so it's it's very dense and I feel like he's almost going into right off the bat like too much detail it's like dude I don't need it's like when I give detail I know people are going I don't need that much detail that's kind of it is with Michael but anyway I think I will enjoy it I think it's the kind of thing I want I want to read yeah it sounds fascinating it sounds like a yeah I know you you at one point you just said obviously nonfiction I'm like that sounds like a fiction story like it really does and it has and I looked it up it has a long history of famous authors or notable ought I shouldn't say famous notable authors of the time period who were the king and then they can assign different people like their role in their court even though it's all fake and they get like a certificate and then when somebody dies they will it they will the kingdom to somebody else so it's like this weird thing which is cool yeah so we'll see okay how about you go first we'll have you we will have you start with your what you've read since the last time we jetted yeah which has been quite a while like I checked this morning when I was getting ready it was the beginning of August and we are now mid-September since we've done one of her book chats okay that explains why I have so many okay yeah because normally I pick like three or four but I have a lot here and I'm like what is going on and then I checked so I'm gonna start with I'm actually gonna put two books in one because it's the same author and then if this one of my books is not on your list then I want your say or whatever like I know that you're gonna be able to pop in on this one as well so I read by Katarina Vermet very recently finished reading the circle which is her third book in the I don't know what the name of the trilogy is but the first one was the brave then the strangers and then the circle to finish the trilogy and then I read her most recent one which was published at the beginning of September which is real ones so the circle Rebecca and I buddy read that together so I'm gonna let her say a little bit but I will just say the real ones I also really enjoyed it's the story of two indigenous sisters so their father is indigenous but their mother is white she is a very famous famous artist in Canada who has been pretending to be indigenous for like the last decade or so and she eventually gets called out as a pretending pretending and it's not so much her story it is the story of the two sisters how this affects their relationship with their mother with their indigeneity with their mixed race because she is Caucasian I really enjoyed this book mm-hmm I want to read that one it does sound really fascinating yeah did you want to mention the circle yeah sure so the circle is the third book and as I just said in the series in this book so Phoenix who in the first book performed a extremely violent act in book two we saw her spend her time in prison and how she that was that her experience there essentially and then third book she has been released we get very little of Phoenix's story in this third book because most of the book has to do with her disappearance she disappears I think the day after she is released and it has more to do with the effect of what she has done and her disappearance on the people that were involved in that original violent act so the survivor her family Phoenix's family and how they're taking it all in I really enjoyed it I really enjoyed it although I had questions like I would love to see the series continue Rebecca what did you think so I you did a really beautiful job of laying out the story and how it and really what the story that it's telling right I didn't like it as much because I loved the first book I loved the second book even more like I loved that second book and the third one for me was just kind of a like oh I wanted more of Phoenix and then her sister Cedar because Cedar was the character that at the end of book two I really I really cared about her and I just wanted her to be okay and I don't know that I get enough from Cedar in the third book so I felt a little like oh I feel like you still have more to say about these characters and I do agree that this that we get all those like you said you know the her the family of the yeah anyway we get all those characters and then even some peripheral characters that aren't necessarily family members right so it's like you said it is community-based and I appreciate that about it but it just did not hit me in the same way so I would I think I gave it like three stars no four stars I think I think I'm good reads but then I gave it three and a half on Storygraph because I could knock it down just to touch yeah so but definitely I would love to hear other people's point of view on that because it's a trilogy it's phenomenal she's an amazing author and for me it just ranked it was just a little flat but I'm sure most people probably feel the way you do about it yeah and we should say I forgot to say that each chapter was a different character like we got some characters got multiple chapters like cedar Phoenix I think may have gotten no I may be just one or two we don't hear a lot of Phoenix that was my big feeling the difference between book two and threes and book two we got a lot of Phoenix it was Phoenix's story and I made me see a side of Phoenix that we didn't see in book one in book three I found we went back to the Phoenix of book one where she was almost just a one dimensional character in that she did what she did without regard to anyone else and I think there's more to Phoenix than that but maybe there isn't maybe there's also like I thought maybe because she had so much trauma when she was young that maybe that is all she can do at the moment is just think of survival oh look at that yeah see I think you're and now you're making me and because I even said in my review I feel like if somebody really talked me through this book I might I might upgrade how I feel about it and I think you are doing that in many ways because again all of what you're saying is so true and maybe my view was just so limited because I wanted this I wanted this and I didn't get this you know what I'm saying but all of what you're saying is very very true so yeah okay what's your first one my first book is the sentence by Louise and I don't know if it's Erdrich Erdrich I don't know how to pronounce her name I apologize I didn't meant to look it up but I had not read any books by her and I thought oh I was at a bookstore and I picked up the sentence and it's so funny because if that one that was kind of a for me I didn't love it part of it I think is it is set during the pandemic and you know they're set it's set in Minnesota which is of course where the author lives and has a bookstore and so there it was about the kind of like the pandemic and then the murder of George Floyd is all sort of central to the story the time period of what when it's taking place and for me that's just too soon like I and especially to because unlike the one you were talking about what book were you just talking about about the circle oh no Tom what Tom like about how it's set during the pandemic but it's kind of like a subtle feel to it whereas I felt like this was more heavy-handed and it just felt like oh god I don't want to revisit this right now it's just too soon I think 10 years 20 years from now people will read this book and and they'll be fascinated by what she's talking about the other part of it that I just wasn't that keen on is the whole idea is it's kind of has a ghost story in it and the resolution of the ghost story rang so flat for me that I was like what that's it like it just I was just expecting a really sort of intricate interesting story about this care these characters and it just wasn't there for me so I finished it and I thought it's not obviously gonna sour me on Louise Erdrich or anything because obviously she's a great author but that one for me just was not my favorite and I did read good reviews and many of them kind of said what I said so I didn't feel like I'm way out in left field of not necessarily enjoying it I mean it was a fine read but little flat for me yeah I read that one as well but a couple when it first came out and I enjoyed it but it's I I can't give you a hard number so I've probably read maybe three or four five of Louise's books that is not my favorite like I enjoyed it but it is not my favorite but I do love like she has another one coming out very soon I don't even know what it's about so it's called the mighty red it's coming soon I just heard about it like a couple weeks ago I instantly put a hold on at the library I have no idea what it's about though so I can't even tell you that well let me just ask then if you had to recommend one for me to read is there one off the top of your head that you can remember that you would say oh read this one I know the long house was like an award-winning book or whatever that I don't think I've read that one I'm going to double check as we chit chat here I'm just double checking her books because there is one that sticks it which I think is the most recent one I'd read before that oh okay oh I did love future home of the living God but that's not the one I'm thinking of it is of course now it's not popping up the one that I'm thinking it's something about a rose okay I can also sorry that's all right I'll look at it I'm totally not finding it here I will let you know through DMs okay thanks okay she has so many books well I know okay my next one goes towards my goal of reading Helen Humphrey's list and it is wild dogs which I think was from I don't have it written down here the date I will find it oh yeah 2005 so I went way back in her back list for this one and it is about a group of strangers so people who don't know each other but they live in this small town in northern Ontario and for different reasons their pet dogs have all been put into the wild and so there's a band of stray dogs that just yeah Rome wild throughout the the town and every night this group of six or seven people gathered together at the edge of this field for the chance of maybe getting a glimpse of their former dog I know it's lovely each chapter is a different character's perspective so you learn how their dog ended up in this pack because obviously these people still have strong connections to their pet dogs they're going to try and visit them every you know but these dogs have gone feral like all of a sudden like a beloved pet dog is just like I'm part of this pack now yeah later human and it's just so it's you get the dog story a little bit not from their perspective but you get how the dog ended up there but mostly you're getting this group of strangers connecting through their dogs and the relationships that I have to read that it's so good it's so different from everything else of hers I've read so far because they've all been like historical fictions this isn't a historical fiction it's set in like modern day could be right now even though it was like 15 years ago and a different style of writing from before like it's it's just it's so good I love that yeah my next one is Little Moons by Jenn Storm it is a graphic novel for I would say tweens teens adults and it is about missing and murdered and I'm trying to think of the initials missing and murdered indigenous women girls or to spirit I can't remember all the letters exactly in order yeah but anyway it's about a family where the older teen daughter goes missing and what I loved about this book and I did receive it from the publisher to review and I this is one of my favorite graphic novels it's short it's beautifully designed and illustrated absolutely gorgeous but what I loved about it it is about how a family deals with grief and how different members of the family are managing their grief and their loss and I think that's really important for people to see because I think it's you know when somebody passes you know those of us on the outside sometimes judge other people's reactions right and I think what's so powerful about the story is everyone copes to the best of their ability in the way that is valid for them and we have to respect that we may not like it but we have to respect it and then there's also an act that the family does in sort of in solidarity which just brought me to tears I just thought it was a really moving story and I think it's a great way to have that conversation about the subject of missing girls and women and to spirit but I think it's also important to learn to not be judgmental because we all do it we're human we're judgmental but I think it's a beautiful way to help younger people learn that people do the best they can in in really extreme situations so I loved it yeah when you finish that book you sent me a message about it I think when we were talking and it's sitting right here on my I'm reading it this afternoon like oh yeah let me know what you think yeah okay I'm bringing oh my gosh another like big buzzy book from probably last year I think it was I don't know I put a hold on this when it was first published it took me ages no probably this summer maybe spring it doesn't matter people because I should say it doesn't matter Tara so I can stop rambling about it anyways it's it's the women by Kristin Hannah this one oh my gosh I loved this book as well and it is the story of one woman who becomes a nurse who goes and serves in the Vietnam War as the nurse and when she comes back so what's about her experience during the Vietnam War the experience of women during the Vietnam War and their experience when they come back from the war how it was not they were not recognized as having served in the Vietnam War even though they were in the middle of it how much they had to fight just to be recognized as having been there and it's a beautiful book it's it's really beautiful book it reminded me of course we watch mash right it reminded me like I this throwback to watching mash as a kid so I loved that feel of it but I just more I loved the story it's funny because her books I've read a several now and there's always a love story or a romance and there is in this one and there was at one point when I was kind of getting annoyed at the love story because I'm like if this goes where I think it's going I'm going to be pissed I thought she was going to jump the shark she did not I'm like good I almost applied because I'm like thank you for not doing that and it end up I can't even I do remember now how the love story ends but that was secondary to me anyways like it was all about these women the nurses and what they did in the war it was pretty and I I learned a lot about the Vietnam War which you know I thought I knew a lot but I didn't know as much as I did thought yeah no that sounds really interesting and yeah I agree I remember back in the 80s they were talking about having a memorial for the women who served during Vietnam and to be honest with you I know I signed a petition donated something or other I remember back then but I don't even know if they ever actually did that so I should look into that they did cuz she had a picture up of the memorial at the back of the book yeah oh that's awesome yeah yeah so kudos to you were backing her involved in that I was oh yeah because I knew I knew a woman who had served she was a nurse and she had served and that how I found out about this push was through her so yeah yeah okay thank you my next book is life after loss reflections on moments of grace and courage and grief by Katherine Kenwell and the publisher asked me to read this book she had published a book about COVID-19 in the middle of the pandemic a collection of essays and I said at the time I really enjoyed that book and I'll include the title because I don't can't remember it right off hand but I said that is a book that historians will look at to get Canadian perspective on the pandemic while people were living it how they felt what their experiences were what their everyday life looked like so that's gonna be a fascinating historical document primary source material which will be great this one same thing same style people writing essays about grief and loss and it's a lot of different categories so it could be the loss of a marriage it could be the loss of a pet the loss of a family member the loss of identity because the author Katherine Kenwell had a significant brain injury and it changed her life and she was no longer the person she was prior to the accident well next it was a tornado she was in her car and a tornado hit and she was she end up with brain damage but anyway I really enjoyed the book I think that as I've mentioned many times before I've had a couple of significant losses in the past year or so and so I will admit that while I was reading it I had to put it aside for a little while because it was just kind of bringing up a lot for me but one of the things I really love about it is you know as humans we pretend that we and no one else around us will die and the reality is people die we're all gonna die so I'm of the position that the more you not obsess about it but the more you think about it the more you try to read other people's perspective of things like this I think it helps you manage your own situation when the time comes right so I really enjoyed it again I think it's something that somebody may need a little bit of distance from occasionally when they're reading it but if you've not lost anyone I think especially that might be a good book to read to get other people's perspectives as you will eventually face it one day yeah so I definitely would recommend it okay my next book I won't say too much about because I think I mentioned it on our on a recent YouTube video Rebecca has discussed it Rebecca has interviewed the author but I have to bring it because I did love it so much so it has to be in our book chat for this this month and it is the brick the brickworks by the C.E.M. Black, Ontario writer fantastic book it's been I read it at the end of August so a few weeks ago so I'm not gonna get the details correct but two men that immigrate from I think Scotland right where they go from Scotland to nor they find their way to northern Ontario event no more than somewhere in Ontario it's not northern Ontario I don't think no no they're not too far away from Toronto basically yeah yeah so to Ontario and they decide to start a brickworks so which is exactly like sounds a company making producing bricks I love the book it was amazing you got their stories in present day you got their stories from when there are children what brought them to Ontario what brought them together there are love stories there's a for both of them as they find their partners but mostly it is about their relationship Hollister and Brody because they have it's probably one of my favorite male friendships that I've ever seen portrayed in a book Lucy did a great job it's phenomenal I have to agree I loved that is what I loved most about the book was the relationship between these two men they were brothers they were deeply bonded and I loved that because I agree and I think I said the same thing at the time I don't really see books about just like two men sometimes you see groups of men but like two men really really bonding yeah I could see we have our video on us we're doing this and as I was describing it before I even mentioned the name or back it's like nodding she's like I love what you're bringing it exactly I love that book so much so if you haven't read it or if you have read it let us know what you think but if you haven't read it pick up a copy you will love it guarantee my next book is devotions the selected poems of Mary Oliver I decided that as I've said so many times before I apologize for repeating myself so often but I'm not a big poetry person because I do struggle I'm a real I'm a literal nonfiction reader so sometimes poetry just bypasses me I don't always get it and I find it hard to sit with it because I just feel like I don't get it I just and then I struggle right but I did read I spent the past year started in January reading this book and obviously her primary thing is she's a nature kind of a nature poet and so I've tagged all the pages of poems that I really really enjoyed and I'm glad that I had that experience that I was kind of every day making a commitment to kind of read some poetry every day so I have a couple of suggestions from others for other poets and I don't know what I will do yet for 2025 we will see but you will continue with this poetry journey I think so I really do you know it's interesting there's that I feel like it's a Instagram account it's like poetry is a luxury or poetry I don't first something poetry I don't remember what the name of it is but I follow them and when I read their poems I always and it's always different people and I think oh I love that I love it so much so I think I might look for a collection of other poems by other people rather than one person's voice through the whole year but I think I would like a collection because I don't I think that would be I would like to discover many people many poets so I'll probably try that okay I'm bringing something a little different from my previous books and it is Pay the Piper a horror book by George A. Romero and Daniel Croce so George A. Romero is deceased but he was responsible for the living dead right is that the movies the night of living dead the zombie movies like the essential zombie zombie movies which I haven't seen zombies really freak me out even though I think that if you just move fast you can outrun them but I don't know why I think I don't get it either I don't get that yeah why they freak me out so much because I'm like I'm not even a fast runner and I think I could outrun them but anyways they're just I haven't seen these movies yeah however but the publisher got in touch with me because this is so Daniel Croce is an author American author and when Romero passed his estate got in touch with him to help finish I think one book and then they gave him the opportunity to go through Romero's papers and he found this unfinished book so he then finished it so that's why it's George A. Romero and Daniel Croce and it is not a zombie book but it's so pay the piper is set in Louisiana present day in like the bayou in very swampy town and is a very small town that is being bought up land is being bought up by the petroleum company by oil companies but something is taking their children Oh disappearing and people and mostly children are disappearing because the people of this town they have a long history of being in this place and how it's not a successful place but their history their history that they have always really held up is two pirate brothers and I can't remember their name but they've been held up as the you know the epitome of what comes from this from Louisiana and there's a history of slave trade which was not acknowledged and you know what the someone wants them to acknowledge their history in the full sense so is it a revenge story kind of it is a little bit of a revenge story yes but unfortunately it's children that are being oh well that's right because yeah yeah I know so it's a you're like yes we both love a revenge story but you're like we don't know because it's a take on the pie piper story right the pie piper yeah yes I should have said that so the pie piper just in case if anyone doesn't know I don't remember where it's originally set but whatever he the pie piper goes to a town that is being overrun by rats he tells it is it somewhere in Germany thank you think so yeah yeah and so he's like I will get rid of these rats for you for this price for whatever the price was and so the town was like yes please get rid of these rats so he plays his pipe the rats fall him out of town I think they jump off a cliff or something then when the pie piper goes back to the town the town refuses to pay what they had promised so he plays his pipe again and leads all the children out of the village to their death so that's what this is like basically a coming to terms with your history acknowledging well set in Louisiana so acknowledging American history that is not always been acknowledged could I read this I think you could actually okay I think you could like there's a couple of scary parts but they're not super scary they're just a little creepy there's a little bit of gore to it but again not too bad and it's only it's not the whole book it's just interspersed throughout to make a point but the point is not the the gore right the point is actually the story this really this reckoning with your history okay that sounds really good I'm gonna put that I enjoy that my next book I'm gonna make the bold prediction that this will that it is and will remain my best read of 2024 oh I love this book so much okay it's titled outsider an old man a mountain and the search for a hidden past by Brett Popplewell and I saw him last year at Eden Mills he spoke about this book I was so excited to read it and I have to make sure that I do not let a whole year go by before I read my Eden Mills books because I feel like oh my gosh I should have read this book sooner because I loved it so much but it's basically about this old man who is a ultra marathoner he was a extreme skier he was like one of the first extreme skiers ever and he was in the movies industry he was a Labensborn child which I did not know about but it turns out that when the Nazis went into Norway they decided to pair with the Norwegian women for to raise you know Arian looking children and then the children were going to be sent back to Germany to be raised by German couples so if you were a Labensborn mother who was impregnated by a Nazi soldier you were vilified if you were a child as a result of that relationship you were vilified and I did a deep dive and went in and sort of looked at the way these children and these women were treated after the war I mean it's just you know especially the children it wasn't their fault I mean they were just that's how they were born and one of the ABBA members was a Labensborn child which is like I didn't know that I never even heard of this I didn't know I'll be honest with you I didn't even know the Nazis invaded Norway and were in Wisconsin Norway I didn't know that I swear we have to start doing a better job teaching history in the world I just honest to God I'm so sick of this but anyway so the whole point is Brett meets this man he develops a relationship with him he is really trying to live his best life and not let age define him and he his his philosophy his quote it has changed my perspective on aging I can't even tell you the value to me of reading this book and this character who's just amazing I ugly cried during this book it's the story is so beautiful it's so well told Brett also sort of inserts himself into the story the good news is I'm not gonna go on any longer about it I you just have to trust me that it's great and I got to interview Brett and it will I believe his podcast will be up or I think around October 11th please listen to it I made sure I tried to make sure that we didn't have any spoilers in our conversation but if you haven't read it yet pick up a copy it it is it is the best of what nonfiction does it tells you a story story about people and lives that you just didn't know and you just feel for these people I just feel like the gear the guy's name was DAG is he's still alive he's 83 still alive oh and I should mention he lives in a broken-down old bus in the like in the mountains in BC somewhere like nobody knows where he is it's hard to find where he is but there he is so it is absolutely fascinating and please listen to the podcast and please read the book and I think our good friend Zoralda she has a copy and I don't know if she's ready yet but I can't wait to hear her perspective as well that's meeting so cool okay my next book I actually forgot when we did our little pre-recording talk I forgot that I put this book on here because you had told me that you were bringing a myth book and I was like I thought about bringing a myth book but I didn't but apparently I did it was on my list and I totally I forgot it was here and my myth book is burned by Peter Heller which is Heller's latest book so I became a fan of Peter Heller's back in like 2019 with the I when I read called The River which was about two young men who are best friends every year they go on a fishing trip somewhere just by themselves out in the wilds and this one I think they were in somewhere northern Ontario or sorry northern Canada and shit hits the fan and it sounds like a survival story of the two of them and their friendship it's a beautiful book like I highly recommend it I I ugly cried at this book I loved this book loved it so since then every time Heller releases a book I read it because I'm looking for that same experience I haven't found that same experience because his writing is kind of like it's it's the same but there's something going on with it anyway it's not been the same experience but I've been hunting for that same experience so then again this one came out this one is about again two best friends two men who are best friends every year there's there is a theme here in his books they're all they go on a fishing trip out in the wild and this year they were in Maine they went to Maine and when they come out of the woods a year late sorry not a year a week later shit has again hit the fan because prior to going into the woods in this world there is secession talk going on in Maine among other states in the US that want to separate from the country so when they come out of the woods the town first town that they go into has been burnt to the ground and there are no people and then they continue finding this and they're like what the heck is going on their cell phones aren't working they can't get in touch with anyone then when they do come across people those people try to kill it so it's the story of that so I had moments in this book when I was like especially at the beginning when I was like so happy to be back in his writing sorry I just knocked something over apologies so moments when I was at the beginning just happy to be back in their writing in his writing in his world because he has a very specific way of writing and it's very beautiful and quiet and you feel like you're in the woods then I would have moments of going I should not like this like I you know I don't know if I should like Peter Heller's work as much as I do because it's very masculine it's very straight it's very you know like I'm like on paper I shouldn't like his writing but I do then I got tired of his writing it's a real journey it's a short day yeah then I got tired like there are passages I was writing was like well I don't need to know about this and I was just kind of like skim read which I rarely do and then the ending came and I kind of went huh and I slept on it and then I woke up the next morning and just pissed at the ending cuz I'm like that is not an ending it was just I was really annoyed with the ending I don't know and I feel like my journey with Peter Heller is now over you know yeah just cuz yeah right yeah like and I feel like maybe he's setting up for another sequel because that first book The River some of the character stories do continue in the subsequent books which is what I enjoy but I don't know I think I'm done think I'm down yeah I've never heard you say that about an author not I mean you have done it in the past but for between the two of us yeah I didn't wow that's interesting yeah like I did I I didn't hate it I did hate the ending yeah but I didn't hate the book and I and he's still I think a great writer but I I don't know I don't it sounds like like you said it his themes are similar yeah right so maybe so maybe what it would be is waiting a look like a couple of years before you pick up the next one and sort of be putting that back into the rotation but maybe to it's like for me it's like if I read too many romances in a row I would be like oh I need to switch it up yeah so maybe maybe that's it but I've only been reading like one every couple of years whenever it kind of thing so it's not like I've been I haven't gone to his back list or anything I've just been reading the new one since and I've noticed this trend like they're very quiet books which you know I love quiet books but this one and the one before they end like an action movie like all of a sudden it was like especially the last one it was like bam bam bam bam bam and I'm like what is going on here like okay I think I'm gonna speak for myself and our audience we give you permission to let him go I think I'm letting them go yeah okay thank you and you know what I don't mind bringing this out here because Peter Heller will be just fine whether or not I read him or not whether or not I just the book or not and I'm not really missing it I am a little but he'll be fine yeah yeah he has his audience and I don't think it includes me anymore okay I think that's a fair a fair judgment I think that's good like braver and the more we book podcast the braver I'm getting about speaking I know that's that's good because I do think you know that's what you and I talked right before we started that I just said I don't often bring a lot well maybe I do and I don't realize it a lot of math books right and I thought but I think that's important too because one of the things I would say is any book there that I ever say it wasn't that keen on it please send your you know let us know your comments your feedback I would really love to to hear that because nobody owns the truth it's all our own what we bring our own experience what we bring to a book and so I'm totally open and like I said you know some of the things you just said about the circle has me thinking and again I think my judgment was maybe a little harsh maybe not I don't know but it's always good to have those conversations yeah yeah so our last podcast I gave a little teaser that I was going to bring something and yesterday after you and I chatted I went to my public library and I did the work so I would be prepared today I'm going to try and I'm just gonna say I'm gonna try really hard not to go on too long about this but if I do just skip ahead whatever you know so anyway but I'm gonna try so I read and I'm so sorry I have talked about this book like 5,000 times all year long for the past year driving the green book a road trip through the living history of black resistance by Elvin Hall and what I want I will say when I finish the book I feel like they missed a major opportunity to write a road trip book about a road trip because they literally did a road trip from Detroit to Louisiana and then I think they went east and west but to be honest with you I don't know because they didn't really write it like a road trip book which is bizarre to me missed an opportunity I know it was a podcast it was also a BBC series like a five part series or something so they got a lot of play out of it and Elvin Hall will be fine that I didn't love his book you know what I mean so I agree with you although some people in the comm in the Goodreads reviews said the same thing I did so I feel kind of justified or validated I should say and I learned a lot so I wouldn't say don't read this book but what I would say is maybe listen to the podcast or read it knowing if you just love history read it because it's fascinating but again stylized style wise I wasn't keen on it but here's what I learned so what I learned was in that so the green book was a book for African American travelers from 1936 to 1967 so that if they were going to be doing a road trip they would be able to stop at black owned businesses and feel more safe on the road because there was that you know movement the great migration where African Americans after slavery and and going into like the 20s maybe turn the century the 1920s 30s moved north for jobs so then of course when they were going to go on vacation what were they going to do go back to the South and visit family so that's why these this guide was fabulous so what I did because it turns out the New York Public Library has digitized all the green books so I thought well I'm gonna look at the green books what I discovered was in 1940 the guidebooks started listing people's personal homes as places you could stay so they literally put up like a bed and breakfast or Airbnb except they were living in their homes you could stay at one of these houses so I look up Flint Michigan where I live and there were three listings for Flint so I went to my public library and I looked up these three people and here's what I found out one of them was born in 1886 and he was originally from Alabama and he was a beer he owned a beer tavern so he and his wife ran a beer tavern well actually she was a housekeeper I found out she was a housekeeper another one he was born in 1895 originally from Mississippi he worked in the factory in the so that's again a lot of them came up to work in the factories and his wife also was a housekeeper and then the last one he was born in 1880 he was a janitor in the factory and they were originally he and his wife were both from Canada and his wife was disabled and was unable to work so she so he and I'm thinking wow as a janitor my gosh like I can't even imagine he was probably paid dirt wages not only because he was black but also because back then the until the union came around they were not you know they exploited those auto workers labor like you can't believe which is why the UAW United Auto Workers eventually was born so reading about these people it was absolutely fascinating and to put a name and a face to people who opened their homes to travelers I just think is such a beautiful part of history and what I want to do is I'm gonna dig a little deeper because I was just doing like top-level research yesterday but I want to know I want to try to find their offspring right and I want to know did they know their parents had they were listed in the green book because you know how families often don't share family history so I'm really fascinated to see if these people because some of them had children not all of them because you know you can look at census data etc and and again I was looking at city directories which literally will tell you who lived there whether they were the homeowner or not whether they had a telephone I mean there's so much information in these these primary resources and it's just so much fun and also what I learned was by 1967 their homes were vacant because they put a freeway interchange in right there in this community and devastated it and I was talking to one of the librarians and she said yeah when that happened they had been talking for years that they were gonna put this interchange in and so people stopped putting money into upkeep of their homes because they knew they didn't know how long it was gonna take when at what point they were going to lose their homes so by the time they put the stupid thing in which was in the mid-70s I think these houses were really degraded and people basically walked away with no equity no nothing and what she told me was in Flint they were only African Americans were only allowed legally to live like in South Flint and they couldn't go west of a certain dividing street a major street in Flint they were allowed to go to cross it to go to work as housekeepers but they weren't allowed to live west of this one marker and I didn't know that I mean I'm not surprised by it but to learn the history of people who are just like you know humans are humans we're all the same and yet this is what the you know when we talk about systemic racism in the United States and people say oh pull yourself up by your bootstraps and all that crap you can't do that when the system and the laws are telling you otherwise and it's just anyway I learned so much I want to find the the other people in these families and just say did you know your you know your parents were or grandparents were great grandparents we're listed in the green book which I think is kind of amazing so yeah I just I love deep dives that's one of the things I love I miss research so I had so much fun yesterday with three different librarians chatting with them and so my overall point is go to your public library the resources you will find at your public library will blow your mind and it's I if you love history and you had no idea that you could find all this kind of and I'm giving you like a little bit of what I the research I did but there's so it's so fascinating it'll tell you if there's a lodge you're living in the house I did research years ago on my grandmother's house and my mom and my aunts I said do you realize 11 different families or people lived in your family home before my grandmother bought it and lived in it for her whole life and they were like what 11 different families lived in her house and they didn't they never knew that so there's so much research you can do go into your archives your history room at your public library find out what you can do about your own family researcher or and not just genealogy but just like a home house research city research it's just so much fun so thank you for letting in you know indulging me to talk about something that is a passion and so much fun and that's what I got out of the green book yeah you know what Rebecca I think that's it I'm gonna end it there like I was gonna bring another book but I don't what that's like a wonderful note to end it on so I think yeah I think we end our book chat right there for this month that was awesome thank you you have me and I'm not a researcher I'm not a history person although I'm getting more interested in it I now want to run to my public library and like find out about my house I think I need to do that absolutely yeah you can do it okay thank you for joining us everyone Rebecca puts all the books we mentioned in the episode notes so check them out there and happy reading thank you for joining us on our bookish journey if you enjoyed this episode please consider subscribing reading and reviewing Canada Reads American Style wherever you listen you can connect with the podcast and Rebecca on Instagram at Canada Reads American Style and with Tara at on a branch reads until next time keep reading (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
