http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=49.460091,-2.5811&spn=0.121171,0.296288&t=h&z=12&msid=100914396836643406446.0004770085524a485bbdb

The video is a must-see as well, for a glimpse of the island as it is today, and to hear its story from a few of its longtime residents, some of whom lived through the occupation themselves.

My husband and I took a city tour on a Hippo (land and water vehicle) on a perfect summer day.

We drove past the Fairmont Royal York hotel.

My antenna rose excitedly seeing the beautiful old hotel.

I elbowed my husband in the ribs.

“Look, honey!  That’s where Richard and Iris were married”

He still had his eye out for the Hockey Hall of Fame.

He folded up his city map, and took a look back at the hotel.

And asked a very logical follow-up question…

“Who are Richard and Iris?” 

And I blurted out, “They are people in a book I read.” (He now refers to them and some other characters from books, as my “imaginary friends.”
But I’ll bet anyone reading this had had a similar experience.)

In this case, Richard and Iris Griffen, main characters from the book The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood.   But I had forgotten that they were fictional — they were as real to me as anyone I knew.

As I toured through Toronto for what should have been the first time, I was touring with the influence of all of the Atwood books I read and loved.

Which places and people reminded me of Cat’ Eye, which of The Edible Man? Which character worked at the Royal Ontario Museum? Where was that great salon near the university?

I had that same feeling that I have sometimes when trying to remember properly a story my Grandmom told me about an event when she was growing up. If only I had listened more carefully, I would know so much more!

In the same way that I cannot help walking through the city of Baltimore looking for Anne Tyler’s people and places (who among us would pass up the chance for dinner at the Homesick Restaurant?), it was impossible for me to see Toronto without seeing and hearing Atwood whispering (or sometimes yelling) in my ear.

I have yet to send Richard and Iris their wedding gift — and as it turns out, that marriage did not turn out so well. But Atwood had given me, without me even thinking about it, the gift of some of her vibrant city of Toronto. And I am a grateful recipient.

When the Hippo landed, my husband asked me if there were any real or fictional bars I could recommend in the area. I chose not to tell him about The Toxique from the The Robber Bride — but I would have definitely stopped in if I had passed it.

By Elizabeth Pappas 

The women in The Help are bold.   The author, Kathryn Stockett, captures how a group of southern women step out of their comfort zones, tell their stories and illuminate their lives.  The black women divulge vignettes of life working in white households as maids. Their stories reveal perspectives that were squashed during the 1960’s in the South.  Jim Crow laws forced the help to live separate lives from the white families with separate bathrooms, separate tables, separate schools, separate and unequal.   Yet those same, separate hands did intimate acts.  They gave flavor to white peoples’ meals, changed diaper after diaper, polished silver, wiped the brows of sick men and women, scrubbed grout, braided hair, cleaned scrapes, they prayed.

The book, The Help, is not the story of Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evans, Malcom X or Rosa Parks.  Sure, their essence lifts up the people in the book, but the visionaries in The Help are the women who work as maids.  Twelve maids unite with the glue of a young, white woman who scribes their stories and gets their truths published. The stories embody humorous secret ingredients, tender child rearing moments, bold, loving actions for friends.  The stories are turning points toward advocacy and human rights. The white woman realizes that silence is agreement and feels discord because of the racism brewing in her community.  Her writing expresses her search for equity and dignity.  She finds something to believe in, something that brings out the best in her and the help.  

These risk takers inspire me to ignite my boldness, over come fears and tell stories.  Everyday woman telling stories build up momentum and create positive change for humanity.  I am inspired to scan the world for small acts of kindness.  This book teaches me that bravery and small moments are the tipping points that help us live with meaning.

A novel by David Maine

Submitted by Dianne Snell 

My favorite book?  Please!!  That’s like asking a mother to pick her favorite kid!  I have read—just guessing— hundreds of books in my near-70 years (Okay, 65 years since I couldn’t read until age 5) and you ask me to pick my favorite?  Even so, in order to enter the contest, I decided to choose one book I have read and write an essay on it.

I never read books that I don’t like.  I may start one but never finish it.  A recent book that I finished—therefore liked—was “The Preservationist” by David Maine.  Not my usual reading fare, but in his new slant on this ancient tale Maine captured my imagination with his vivid descriptions of the insurmountable problems faced by “Noe” as he obeyed God’s commands without question.

I learned the Bible story of Noah and the flood early in life, but until Bill Cosby came out with his comedy version back in the 1960’s I never really questioned the premise of a 500-year-old man building a huge boat to save his family and two of each kind of animal from a flood that was to cover the entire earth.

First Cosby, and now Maine, started me pondering the logistics of such a colossal undertaking.  In Cosby’s version. God said, “Noah, I want you to build an ark.” Noah said, “Okay Lord.” (pause) “What’s an ark?” (laughter).  “The ark is to be 300 cubits long.”  “Okay Lord.” (pause) “What’s a cubit?” (laughter)

Maine’s version reads more like a reality show, only with more reality!  Hear “the wife” questioning in Part One: “So when Himself starts with the visions and the holy labors and the boat full of critters, what am I supposed to do? Talk sense? Ask questions he can’t answer, like, How do you propose to keep the lions from eating the goats? Or us for that matter? No thanks. I just fuss with the stew and keep my thoughts stitched up in my head where they belong. Long ago I quit asking questions.”  What wife doesn’t relate to that kind of logic?

The astounding thing about “The Preservationist?” I expected a farce, but the more I read the more logical it became until I could almost believe that the events happened just like the author said. Impossibilities were explained away and made to seem entirely possible.  Maine managed to allot a distinct personality to each character and I found myself playing favorites among the sons and daughters-in-law.

“The Preservationist” was a fascinating read, and I have already ordered Maine’s “Sampson” to see what take he puts on that familiar story.

Submitted by: Joana Lucashuk

Overcast and cold outside, I lay inside on the couch with the cream blanket I have owned since high school thrown over my legs while I read Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian in the dim light cast by the gold leaf lamps I inherited from my grandparents.  T shouts from the kitchen table during a break from studying, “Are you really going to lie on the couch all weekend and read that book?” to which I reply, “Yes, I am really going to lie on the couch all weekend and read this book.”

        Three interweaving story lines detail the narrators’ search for Vlad the Impaler (a.k.a. Dracula) as they criss-cross Europe and the Ottoman Empire in this novel by Ms. Kostova.  Through Amsterdam, Oxford, Budapest and Sofia, main characters Paul and Helen pursue Dracula.  Their hunt also leads them to Istanbul, a Byzantine word that means “the city,” as Paul notes after examining his guidebook. 

On a Saturday in February, in an apartment ten hours away from Istanbul by plane, The Historian teaches me that the Byzantine Empire lasted from 333 to 1453, and that the sea once lapped Istanbul’s city walls, enabling the emperor to embark by boat from his palace.  I also discover the Hagia Sophia, originally the Byzantine Church of Saint Sophia, with “its famous whirling domes and arches, its celestial light pouring in, the round shields covered with Arabic calligraphy in the upper corners, mosque overlaying church, church overlaying the ruins of the ancient world.”

But more importantly, The Historian gives me a sense of Istanbul’s culture as Paul and Helen experience it in 1954.  From my couch I picture the “chunks of bread, a dish of smooth yogurt studded with slices of cucumber, and a strong fragrant tea in glass vases,” which a waiter serves Paul and Helen in “a restaurant decorated inside with brass vases and fine tiles.”  And I note the things familiar to Helen:  the “Turkish place-names, a cucumber salad consumed in an outdoor restaurant, the pointed arch of a framed window,” and observe through Paul’s eyes the “men in dark vests and small crocheted caps, women in brightly printed blouses with ballooning trousers underneath, their heads wound in scarves.” 

 As I lay on the couch all weekend reading The Historian with T in the kitchen studying, the cab drivers honking their horns outside, and the winter wind whipping through the city, I dream of minarets and mosques, crowded bazaars, and the city that is Istanbul.

When I was a young girl, it was a common stereotype for a twelve year old girl to have a passion for horses, even if the closest she ever came to them was a well-worn stack of novels.    I could easily describe a slew of these books, remembering the dog-eared pages and the easy Sunday afternoons that would pass while curled up with an old favorite.   But it was a mystery novel by Dick Francis, called Break In, which kindled my personal passion for horse racing and the race courses of England.  To me, a pre-teen in a small town in the U.S., England itself was as far away as the moon.   But one day browsing through the small town library, I saw the logo of a jockey on a horse on the cover of a book on display.   It quickly joined my weekly stack of check-outs, based only on that graphic outline of a horse.

                Mr. Francis’ plot is fairly simple, but the first person narrative and the English race course setting, soon swept me into the race world of Kit Fielding, as he bends over the powerful shoulders of the delicate thoroughbreds racing to the finish line, while on the side, he solves the mystery of who was wrecking the life of his twin sister and her Montague husband.  Of course, Kit, the stoic hero, saves the day and gets the girl.

Until then, the stories of horses that I had read had revolved around Western ranches or wild Arabian ponies.   They were romantic scenes, but I recognized them for the unachievable fantasies that they were.   But with Break In, I was taught the real agony of the jockeys as they tried to keep down their weight in order to meet the race allowances.  I understood the process of “weighing in” with my saddle in hand and wearing the silk uniforms in the owner’s colors.   Even though he was the male character of the story, it was Kit’s stoic strength, loyalty, and mental connection to the speeding thoroughbreds, which I, a young girl, hoped to embody. 

While writing an entertaining adventure of evil entrepreneurs and rascal newspapermen, Mr. Francis also introduced me to his world of racing and horses.   As I watch the Derby on television, or when I eventually made it to Kentucky to watch races in person, I never again look at the horses or their jockeys in the same way.   Without having ever touched a racehorse, I intimately recognize the sweat, the toil, and the passion with each race.  Thank you, Mr. Francis, for this and the other books set in what is now “our world”.