Pack Your Bags: We’re Going to Canada

 

 

 

 
[pages 132 & 133 in Kus #16: Villages,

available now in our Zines section]

 Oh Canada, exotic neighbor to the north, land of mounties, maple leaves, and strange but delicious potato chips (seriously, what are you magical All-Dressed chips?!).

All joking aside, Canada is more than just poutine (eat it), five-pin bowling (play it), and hockey-fiends (run!); Canada is a country as vast and diverse as the United States and, if the rumors are to be believed, a much friendlier disposition.

One of our favourite authors, Kate Beaton, helps illustrate this point:

While we’re talking about Kate Beaton, you need to read her book. You won’t be able to stop laughing. And she’s Canadian.

David Rakoff was Canadian, too.

You can read his books and listen to this This American Life episode about the Canadians among us. Because Canadians are among us. They blend well, but they’re here. One of our favourite booksellers hails from the great white north (it’s Justus, you can tell because she’s the nice one).

With much more pronounced British and French influences than our country has maintained, Canada is not only a fun, fairly easy to access, vacation destination but also the setting to several excellent books. Whether you’re looking for historical fiction, young adult adventure, or puzzling detective mysteries, the big red maple leaf has something you’re sure to read again and again.

And our Canadian bookseller would probably speak sternly to us if we failed to mention her favourite book first:

The Orenda

by Joseph Boyden

Quite simply, you need to read this book.

You need to read this book.

Set in the mid-1600s, The Orenda tells the story of a time wrought with cultural clashes, conflicting identities, and struggles to determine place in a quickly changing world. Boyden is a rare writer at his peak: his visceral sense of character and place leave you breathless, and his ability to navigate the historical novel’s complicated and rich history is impressive. This could very well be the best book you read, ever.

 

The Boundless

by Kenneth Oppel

This book is pure adventure. A fantastical train is setting off on its maiden voyage across Canada in the mid-1800s and it must survive sabotage. That is if it survives the perils of the Swamp Witch, the muskeg, and the sasquatch. This book has a hint of The Night Circus but for kids. Trust me when I say that you don’t need to be a kid to enjoy this tale.

 

Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life

by Brian Brett

One of the best parts about reading Trauma Farm is knowing how close Saltspring Island is to Seattle — a relatively quick trip compared to other places in our neighbour’s vast northern wilds. This is a stunning narrative told over the course of a day but also over the entire history of agriculture. If you want a work that grounds you in this world, broadens your awareness, and allows your soul to grow, this is it.

 

Anne of Green Gables series

by L.M. Montgomery

Classics. If you remember the tales of spunky, carrot-haired Anne Shirley (breaking her slate over Gilbert Blythe’s head!) and the other inhabitants of Avonlea from your childhood, read them again. If you’ve never delved deeper than the film versions, pick up these books now!

Temperance Brennan series

by Kathy Reichs

Unlike the television series, Bones, these mysteries set in the southeastern United States and in Quebec. They follow the crime-solving exploits of forensic anthropologist Temperance “Tempe” Brennan. Start of with Déjà Dead.

 

Other notable suggestions:

Three Day Road

by Joseph Boyden

The Blind Assassin

by Margaret Atwood

Begin with the End in Mind

by Emma Healey

Inspector Gamache series

by Louise Penny

City of Glass

by Douglas Coupland

Murdoch Mysteries series

by Maureen Jennings

And now you should be ready for the Great White North.

Don’t forget to stop by our Travel Section in the mezzanine for more fantastic recommendations, whether you’re traveling by armchair or truly transporting yourself over that border.

–Brandi

Pack Your Bags: We’re Going to France!

I suffer from chronic wanderlust. Unfortunately my passport sports a sad (small) number of stamps. The best balm for unrequited travel love is reading about your preferred destinations! Our Travel section is highlighting France for the month, and in that spirit, I thought I’d start a new series here spotlighting some great reading lists for different foreign locales! Let’s commence with the Cité d’Amour: Paris!

Metronome: A History of Paris from the Underground Up

by Lorant Deutsch

A look at the history of Paris from pre-Roman times through present day oriented by the stops of the French Metro. Did I mention the author is a well-loved French comedian? Yeah this is the best way to suck up Parisian history.

Les Petits Macarons: Colorful French Confections to Make at Home

by Kathryn Gordon and Anne E. McBride

Vacations are half sightseeing and half gorging yourself on er… sampling the local cuisine. I’m still trying to master making these traditional French delicacies at home, and this is the best cookbook I’ve ever found for them!

The French Cat

by Rachael Hale

Even if you’re not a cat person, which I absolutely am, you can’t help but fall in love with the dreamy light, French locales, and hopelessly French swagger of these felines. The story of Hale’s relocation to France is also told alongside these lovely photographs.

Entre Nous: A Woman’s Guide to Finding Her Inner French Girl

by Debra Ollivier

There are countless books focusing on the inherent chicness of French women and the ways we clumsy and brash Americans can emulate their style. I prefer this one because it illuminates the fact that there is not a cookie cutter type of French woman.

Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong: Why We Love France but Not the French

by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow

Why do we dream about kissing our true love atop the Eiffel Tower or shopping on the Left Bank after spending a morning exploring the Louvre but continue to malign the snotty, spineless Frenchman in our comedy? Read this insightful cultural study and find out!

Stuff Parisians Like: Discovering the Quoi in the Je Ne Sais Quoi

by Olivier Magny

This tongue-in-cheek guide is spot on. Equal parts laugh-out-loud and envy-inducing.

How the French Invented Love: Nine Hundred Years of Passion and Romance

by Marilyn Yalom

I picked this book up earlier this year and couldn’t put it down. Fascinating study on why we associate the ultimate wooing with the French.

A few other notable titles:

• Bones of Paris by Laurie R. King

• Parisian Chic: A Style Guide by Ines De La Fressagne

• The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss

• Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down by Rosecrans Baldwin

• Paris: The Secret History by Andrew Hussey

• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

• Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind

• Murder on the Eiffel Tower by Claude Izner

• Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman

• Marie Antoinette’s Head: The Royal Hairdresser, the Queen, and the Revolution by Will Bashor

• Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life by Justine Picardie

• Mastering the Art of French Eating: Lessons in Food and Love from a Year in Paris by Ann Mah

• Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties by Noel Riley Fitch

• French Lessons by Ellen Sussman

– Brandi

New and Noteworthy

We just got these in our travel section, and I’m so excited about these new Herb Lester maps! They highlight the best go-to spots and make beautiful souvenirs!

 

Sundays In: Travel Companion

by Dave Wheeler

Over the past few weeks, I’ve done my fair share of travel. Not to brag, but since Christmas, I’ve been to Idaho, Wisconsin, and the Canadian province we know as beautiful British Columbia. I’ve traveled by plane, automobile, and, well, charter bus because the train tracks to Vancouver were covered in mudslide between here and Everett. The bus got us there, but the train would have been nice, considering any time I try to read in a highway-bound passenger vehicle I veer immediately toward distressing nausea.

That doesn’t keep me from having at least two books on my person every time I leave my house, though, for those occasions I need to pass the time without letting on that I’m tremendously uncomfortable anywhere beyond my doorstep and would prefer to avoid eye contact as much as possible. The first book is there to keep my company, and the second is there to substitute should I find among my reactions to the first’s qualities boredom, disinterest, and any otherwise malcontented dismissal of its substance.

I can be finicky. My moods are like the wind.

So there I was, on a plane to Idaho, on a plane to Milwaukee, on (ahem) a “train” to Vancouver. I must confess: I’m a terrible travel companion to family, friend, and lover for these moments of transit. As soon as I’m seated, I’m reading. If I’m not reading, I’m sleeping. Probably snoring. Definitely drooling. No matter, I was reading House of Leaves (Mark Z Danielewski) on my trip to Idaho. I was reading How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia (Mohsin Hamid) (on shelves in March!) on my way to Milwaukee. I was reading Every Day (David Levithan) on my way back from Milwaukee.

If I was inclined, I could probably enumerate what I read on last year’s vacations, business trips, and erstwhile comings and goings, back years and years. I won’t bore you with the details too much, but I’ve begun to realize that those experiences in my flashy, jetsetter’s lifestyle are cemented by the particular literature I was reading at the time, as though the books themselves were seatmates on high-flying adventures to here and there.

There’s a funny folktale in my family about my brother. When we were young we’d be driving to a vacation spot, or a relative’s we hadn’t been to in a few years, and he’d pipe up from the backseat: “I remember this place. Last time we were here I was eating…” (gummy worms, Doritos, beef jerky, Circus Peanuts, etc.). Smooth muscle memories. Gastrointestinal mnemonics. And why not? We were an intrepid family on the highway; we traveled with snacks.

That such specific details of location could be established through what seems to me an arbitrary and fickle history of ingestion still remains a mystery, one I find more profound, looking back, than convergences I’ve experienced between excursions physical and literary. Still, it’s nice to know something will keep our histories straight: “No, I must have been in Bellingham at the time because I was reading You Can’t Go Home Again” isn’t all that different than “Remember when we had those peach Snapples going over Snoqualmie?” when you think about it. We grasp whatever stakes we can to nail down those arbitrary, fickle memories we hold so precious, even as we’re climbing aboard a plane, flying off to create the next one.