Sometimes, when you are sick, but not horribly so, the nicest thing you can do is read in bed between naps, cups of tea and sips of soup.
Some recent favourites from the last time I was sick include The World Before Us by Aislinn Hunter. The novel’s protagonist, Jane, is an archivist haunted by a tragic event in her past, and when present day events conspire to bring people from her past into her present, she is compelled to act in unexpected ways. A very enjoyable novel.
I re-read Conceit, by Canadian author Mary Novik. If you like historical fiction, you will enjoy this book. Conceit tells the life of Pegge Donne, daughter of metaphysical English poet John Donne. If you are an attentive reader you will especially enjoy the allusions to his poems sprinkled throughout the book.
Other recent favourites include The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson. If you like her inventive, exuberant writing, you will enjoy this. It is a riff on Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale, Winterson’s most treasured play.
This publication marks the inaugural outing of the Hogarth Shakespeare project, which aims to retell Shakespeare’s plays by today’s acclaimed novelists. Forthcoming titles include ones by Margaret Atwood and Howard Jacobson.
Thinking about Shakespeare prompted me to borrow How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare by playwright Ken Ludwig.
What a fun book! Memorizing poetry might seem old-fashioned to you, but he suggests that it is an excellent way to spend one-on-one time with children in your life – and increase their self-confidence by teaching them how to memorize and recite poetry. As anyone who has taken an English Lit class knows, so many familiar expressions we use stem from Shakespeare’s plays.
While the Bard may have suggested “neither a borrower nor a lender be,” the New Westminster Public Library has no such compunctions. We would love to lend you a great book to read. Please ask us for recommendations!
