The holidays are a perfect time to snuggle up with a good book. If your reading list isn’t quite as long as Santa’s list, McNally Robinson Booksellers is a great place to start. Chris Hall and Kathleen Friesen joined Nolan Kehler in the Classic 107 studios for the December edition of ‘What to Read’, which included a couple of gift ideas for adults and children alike.
Children's Books
Kathleen’s selections for children included:
Santa’s First Christmas by Mac Barnett
“This story begins in the old days,” Kathleen says. “Santa didn't have Christmas, so he worked hard all year building toys for all the kids, delivered them all around the world on Christmas Eve and then on Christmas Day, he slept in for about half an hour and then he got back to work. So, one Christmas Day, the elves and a very helpful polar bear up at the North Pole decide that this just can’t do. [Santa] makes everyone else's dreams come true, and we need to do something for him. So, they make sure that Santa gets the whole Christmas experience from stockings, the decorating and feasting, and even a very special visit from a bearded someone in red!”
The Firelight Apprentice by Bree Paulsen
“This is a graphic novel for middle grade, so about 10 to 14,” Kathleen explained. “[Paulsen] did a graphic novel a few years ago called Garlic and the Vampire, which we loved. It’s a bit steam punk, it's a bit cozy fantasy, which is all the rage these days in the bookstore, so we've got airships, we've got magic. Basically, it's a story of two sisters trying to find their place in the world. They've just lost their mother in a recent war, and she was a very powerful magician. It turns out the younger sister Safi is also developing her own magical powers, and the older sister is trying to basically help out at home, help the father in his shop, and also try and protect her sister from some evil forces that are creeping around the city.”
Adult Books
The three selections from Chris Hall for December were:
The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer
"This is one of the bigger titles of the season,” Hall noted. “She's familiar to many readers and many listeners I suspect as the author of Braiding Sweetgrass. The Serviceberry is, to the best of knowledge, is the name of a group of berry shrubs and small trees that includes the Saskatoon berry. Braiding Sweetgrass combined Indigenous wisdom that comes from the author’s background and combines that with scientific knowledge. This new book does the same thing. It explores what she describes as its reciprocal relationship with its world. It distributes its wealth in these sweet, juicy berries, and this meets the need of its of its natural community, and that this in turn ensures its own survival. Kimmerer starts to ponder what this could teach us where wealth comes from your relationships and not from illusions of self-sufficiency.”
The City and its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami
“A new novel by Haruki Murakami is always an event,” Hall smiled. “I know many of his fans. I've met them through our booksellers over the years and what I'm struck by is every Murakami fan you talked to mentions a different book that's their favorite. I've always concluded that that means you can start reading Murakami anywhere you want. YOu can just pick one up and try.”
“His novels always have an aspect to them. It’s slightly askew from the real world. You never know when frogs are going to fall from the sky or you wake up one morning and they're two sunsin the sky. But they're also very rooted in the real world. They're full of details of everyday life, descriptions of wooden chairs and spare rooms and things like that. This new one is a very dreamlike aspect to it. It's almost like reading a fairy tale, although one that's very rich in that detail. There's a real world in this book. There's a shadow world. And as the title says, there's very uncertain walls between them.”
The Voyage Home by Pat Barker
"The Voyage Home is the third in the Women of Troy trilogy,” explained Hall. “The overall story in the 1st 2 novels focused on Briseus. She was formerly the Trojan Queen and then Achilles’ slave. The focus in this new book shifts to an enslaved healer named Ritsa and her mistress Cassandra, who, of course, has the powers of a prophet. Cassandra's warning of the carnage that awaits the Greek king Agamemnon as he returns home, but he completely disregards her once they make landfall. Ritsa is just trying to survive, but Cassandra descends into this dark mood and cruelty of and frenzy. And if you know your Greek stories, you know how this one's going to end. There's no spoilers to to give out, but there's something in the magic of retelling stories. [The Voyage Home] also retells the story from the female characters point of view. So that, of course gives a whole different set of perspectives to it.”
You can hear 'What to Read' with McNally Robinson Booksellers on the first Friday of every month just after 8:30 a.m. on Morning Light with Nolan Kehler on Classic 107.