Book Club - Christ Church Deer Park

Wednesday, January 25, 2012, the Fifth Business by Robertson Davies.

"Fifth Business is Davies' masterwork, the book that cemented his reputation as one of the great storytellers of our time" (review note at Amazon ») - A wiki backgrounder on the novel here » / on Robertson Davies here » or here »
Wednesday, November 30, 2011:
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. Backgrounder summary at Wikipedia »
Wednesday, October 26, 2011: J. D. Salinger’s classic novel The Catcher in the Rye
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 our first gathering of the fall season to discuss books we each chose to read during the summer.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 we have chosen, “False Impression” by Jeffery Archer. Our last meeting of the season. Visit the author's website here »
Wednesday March 30 - Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen - “One man’s mission to promote peace...one school at a time”. / Book's official website » / Backgrounder about this book here »

Tuesday, February 22 at 7:30 pm. we’ve chosen to read Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner. This novel won the Booker Prize in 1984.

In the novel that won her the Booker Prize and established her international reputation, Anita Brookner finds a new vocabulary for framing the eternal question "Why love?" It tells the story of Edith Hope, who writes romance novels under a psudonym. When her life begins to resemble the plots of her own novels, however, Edith flees to Switzerland, where the quiet luxury of the Hotel du Lac promises to resore her to her senses. But instead of peace and rest, Edith finds herself sequestered at the hotel with an assortment of love''s casualties and exiles. She also attracts the attention of a worldly man determined to release her unused capacity for mischief and pleasure. Beautifully observed, witheringly funny, Hotel du Lac is Brookner at her most stylish and potently subversive. - Review from Chapters.Indigo.ca Backgrounder see here » / Read a chapter online at Amazon.ca

Wednesday, January 26 at 7:30 pm. We will discuss Three Day Road by Canadian writer Joseph Boyden. Backgrounder on the novel here » / backgrounder on the author here ». Three Day Road was Nominee for the 2005 Governor General's Awards, winner of the McNally Robinson Aboriginal Book of the Year Award, Winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize 2005,and selected for inclusion in Canada Reads 2006, where it was championed by filmmaker Nelofer Pazira. Also Winner, 2006 Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award. See reader reviews here »

Wednesday, November 17 at 7:30 pm. we will discuss the historical novel Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross.

Official website of the novel here »
"Peek inside", read a couple of chapters, reviews - Amazon.ca »
Background on the historical character here »

The Book of Negroes, a 2007 award-winning novel from Canadian writer Lawrence Hill, won the 2007 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Nominated for the 2008 Giller Prize. It was the winning selection for CBC Radio's Canada Reads 2009, in which journalist Avi Lewis championed the novel. Plot summary here » About the author here » (Wednesday, October 27, 2010)

Nation by the Carnegie Medal-winning author Terry Pratchett (April 28, 2010)

The Private Patient - by P. D. James. March 31, 2010

Book Club: Never Let Me Go Tuesday, February 23 Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Read Margaret Atwood's review (!!) of Never Let Me Go - here » "... this is a brilliantly executed book by a master craftsman who has chosen a difficult subject: ourselves, seen through a glass, darkly.
Author interview on YouTube »
shortlisted for the 2005 Booker Prize (an award Ishiguro had previously won in 1989 for The Remains of the Day),
shortlisted for the 2006 Arthur C. Clarke Award and for the 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award
Time magazine named it the best novel of 2005 and included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005
ALA Alex Award in 2006.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - On Wednesday January 27 at 7:30 pm, we discussed the novel

"A beautiful and gripping story about the power of words and the ability of books to feed the soul."Watch a 4-minute interview with the author on YouTube » Backgrounder on the book - Wikipedia » The Book Thief is a best-selling novel by Markus Zusak published in 2005. It was a 2007 Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book.

"Death (the narrator) meets the book thief, a 9-year-old girl named Liesel Meminger, when he comes to take her little brother, and she becomes an enduring force in his life, despite his efforts to resist her. "I travelled the globe . . . handing souls to the conveyor belt of eternity," Death writes. "I warned myself that I should keep a good distance from the burial of Liesel Meminger's brother. I did not heed my advice." As Death lingers at the burial, he watches the girl, who can't yet read, steal a gravedigger's instruction manual. Thus Liesel is touched first by Death, then by words, as if she knows she'll need their comfort during the hardships ahead. .. Death, like Liesel, has a way with words. And he recognizes them not only for the good they can do, but for the evil as well. What would Hitler have been, after all, without words? As this book reminds us, what would any of us be?" [- From The Washington Post review]

Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary-Ann Shaffer Wednesday, November 25 at 7:30pm

Though it deals with a dark period in history, this first novel is an essentially sunny work. It affirms the power of books to nourish people enduring hard times—not so surprising, since Mary Ann Shaffer, who died earlier this year, had a long career as a librarian, bookseller and editor. Her niece Annie Barrows, a children's author, finished the manuscript after Shaffer fell ill; between them, they crafted a vivid epistolary novel whose characters spring to life in letters and telegrams exchanged over the course of nine months shortly after the end of World War II... - the Washington Post

Barbara LaRocque was a soprano lead with the Christ Church Deer Park choir during the 70's and early 80's and subsequently with choirs in other Toronto churches. Returning under Bruce Kirkpatrick- Hill, she continues to sing with the present choir. Her father, Charles Wall, was posted to Wolfe Island in 1930 as lay-incumbent to Trinity Anglican Parish. Thus began a life-long love affair with the island, its history and its people.

Wolfe Island, situated about three miles south of Kingston, sits at the very crossroads of Canada’s history. From Champlain, through the arrival of the Loyalist settlers, rum running in the 30’s to today, it has been a place of historic and strategic interest and home to a hardy, independent people. After her father’s death, Barbara took it upon herself to complete the research he had begun on the history and people of the Island. The result, Wolfe Island, A Legacy in Stone, is a book both historically and personally fascinating.

This event was held Sunday, November 15, 2009 in the Holy Grounds Café (after 9:15 & 11 am services).

Our first Annual Book Sale was a great success...with the support of our many volunteers and of the community, we raised $3,500! We’re already amassing enough books for another great sale... and, if there is going to be another one, we need a Convenor(s) and a few extra hands. We have volunteers sorting now and ready and willing to assist in any way. All it takes are a few regular hours over the next six months (at your convenience) to sort, box and store the books as they come in. It’s not onerous and can be a lot of fun. We need you... take a chance... put up your hand... get involved! Speak to Rita Becker: [personal contact info available from the Parish Office: 416-920-5211]