Beautiful Book of the Month: January

Apologies for the lateness of this post. I seem to be getting more forgetful and leaving this post later and later each month. The practical side of me is tsking myself and saying I should just skip this month and move this one to the next since February is a only a week away, but I know if I use that flimsy excuse for this month I'll use it again without guilt in the future. Without that "healthy" sense of guilt this blog wouldn't exist in the first place.

To Kill a Mockingbird By Harper Lee

Published June 2010
ISBN:  9780434020485
Format: Special Edition Clothbound Hardback
William Heinemann


An elegant celebratory clothbound edition marking the fiftieth anniversary of an unforgettable classic. My very thoughtful boyfriend bought me this wonderful book as a Christmas gift and I was absolutely thrilled when I opened my present. I left my well worn copy back in Canada and I'm glad I finally have it back in my library.

I've wanted to purchase this hardback since its initial release 2 years ago, but I always found the cover image both immensely stunning and saddening. It's hard for me not to look at it and instantly have the quote "Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird" pop into my head. The decorative red and black flowers and vines that weave themselves along the spine and flow onto both the front and back covers is one of my favourite touches in this design. The symbolic mockingbird is delicately silkscreened onto the fabric preserving the fine detailing work in the claws, beak and tail feathers.

There are certain books that you come across in life that not only profoundly change the way you view the world, but how you view literature and the power that a storyteller wields over readers. As a child and young teenager, I would lose myself in tales of sword swinging fantasy, chilling mysteries and goosebump inducing horrors. For countless wonderful hours, I'd wander the streets, forests, caves and dungeons of these imaginary worlds, but as much as I loved inhibiting these universes they weren't my reality; they weren't my world. Because they were so easily distinguishable, the events, the horrors and the injustice found in between the pages of these books never effected me very much. It was the way of that world, but not the ways of my own.

Mockingbird detail

That all changed during my first year of high school when the curriculum for my English class had us reading Lord of the Flies, 1984 and To Kill a Mockingbird. I never quite got over the feelings of shock, anger and shame those books invoked in me. I developed a new respect for books after reading those 3 novels. Not all books are meant as sheer entertainment, they could be used as effective tools to broaden minds and be powerful enough to change the world.      

Front Cover

This book is one that stays with you. It lingers on in your memory. It was the first book that I read that dealt with racism. I have to confess that I had lived a relatively sheltered life up to that point. I knew that racism existed, but I never had to deal with the harsh realities of it. I was fortunate to have grown up in Toronto, which is an extremely multicultural city surrounded by people from all walks of life so it hit me hard when I read about how people could form such horrible ideas about each other just by appearance.

When Atticus talks with Jem and Scout, he treats them like adults; honestly answering any questions they had about intolerance and discrimination and explaining why the world is sometimes unfair and unkind. To me, he was a literary surrogate father explaining away all the injustice in the world and while he couldn't change the way things worked magically overnight, he made others question themselves and their own misguided beliefs and that was his victory for morality and reason.

The reason I'm telling you all this personal history in this beautiful book feature is because I want to emphasize that this is not only a beautiful book because of its intricate binding or the elaborately adorned cover design, but it's also a beautifully composed narrative full of tragedy, courage and hope. There has been debate over keeping To Kill a Mockingbird as a recommended key text in schools. Some people claim that it's dated; the time period is too far removed from our current, Atticus' stance is too timid and not strong enough and that the liberal use of a harsh racial slur is uncomfortable to the sensibilities of readers today, but I disagree. The messages found in this book are timeless and are no less profound with the passage of time. If anything, the limitations of that era lends to its potency. We may seem to have come a long way, but it's always important to remember the harsh lessons that many had to suffer through to get to where we are today. It's those small building blocks, those small seeds of change planted in people's minds that will continue to improve the world that we live in. I hope that it'll continue to find a large and wide readership, because any book that has the ability to still resonate with its reader nearly two decades on, is something that needs to be preserved and passed on to future generations.      

Flower detail on cover and spine

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

- Atticus Finch

Born Weird by Andrew Kaufman

Publisher: The Friday Project
ISBN: 9780007441402
Format: Hardback
Pages: 270
Genre: Fiction, Quirky Fiction
Publication Date: January 3, 2013

Please note that this review refers to an uncorrected advanced proof edition.

SYNOPSIS

The Weirds had always been a little bit peculiar, but not one of them suspected that they’d been cursed.

At the moment of their birth Annie Weird gave each of her five grandchildren a special power that she thought was a blessing. Richard, the oldest, would always keep safe; Abba always had hope; Lucy would never get lost and Kent could beat anyone in a fight. As for Angie, she would always forgive, instantly. But over the years these blessing turned out to be curses that ruined their lives.

Now Annie is dying and she has one last task for Angie, her favourite grandchild. Angie must gather her far-flung brothers and sisters and assemble them in her grandmother’s hospital room so that at the moment of her death, Annie can lift these curses.

And Angie has just three weeks to do it.

REVIEW

New Year’s always does strange things to me. No matter how many times I tell myself that I don’t care about doing something special on New Year’s Eve and that there’s no real significance or rational function behind all my menial preparations to start the year off “right”, I still find myself running around my flat like a mad person during the last few days of December.

While I hate myself every year for the now expected annual irrational cleaning spree, there is one tradition that I actually quite enjoy adhering to: the selection of the first book to read to start off my year.

This is of vital importance to me. I know it’s silly, but books are a huge part of my life. It doesn't exactly revolve around books (though there might be some argument for that), but books do influence and shape my ideas, passions and sometimes my current outlook on life. So choosing the first of the year means a lot to me. It sets the tone and the expectations I have for the following months.

That’s the reason why I put off reading this book for the past few weeks. As much as my fingers craved to pick up the lovely proof copy, I couldn't think of a more ideal choice that filled me with as much anticipation and excitement and there is nothing quite like the pleasure of discovering that a new book is being published by one of your favourite authors.

Andrew Kaufman’s newest novel is a blursing. Fast becoming my new favourite word, it means exactly what it sounds like; it’s both a blessing and a curse. Born Weird is a blessing because it’s 270 pages of the most enjoyable and madcap writing I've ever had the privilege to read and a curse because I very much doubt I'm going to find something I love more than this book over the next 12 months.

What I love most about the novel is how Kaufman managed to impart each sibling with a unique interpretation of his or her gift. The introductions to each character serve as whimsical side stories that explore how each individual has allowed their ‘blursing’ to dictate their life and define their peculiar personalities. I won’t spoil anything for you since a lot of the addictiveness of the story lies in the unveiling of each curse’s manifestation, but they’re ingenious and wonderfully imagined; even the ones whose outcomes are somewhat predictable.

Andrew Kaufman is an extremely gifted storyteller. I admire his ability to imbue tiny touches of the unusual to otherwise mundane, realistic settings. He gives the everyday, the commonplace occurrences that make up our daily lives, life. That little sprinkle of strange is that little bit extra that livens up what could have been an ordinary family drama into a fantastic modern day tall-tale that doesn't feel out of place or farfetched. It makes you wish you had a little bit more of that same quirkiness lurking in your life. If, like me, you feel by the end of the book that you really want some more of that same magic to brighten up your life, I recommend seeking out his brilliant novella, All My Friends Are Superheroes. It’s one of my personal favourites to read whenever I feel a bit gloomy. It’s Andrew Kaufman just weirdly being weird and weirdly doing well and I hope that never changes. *

*This last sentence may not sound right or even make much sense, but I assure you once you've read the book you will all see how exceedingly witty and clever it really is. That or how cheesy it is.

Short and Sweet: The Twitter Review

The perfect personification of peculiar, Born Weird is a charming tall-tale: Eccentric, comical and with just the right amount of heart.