LIFE & COMMUNITY great reads
Book
Club The Dictionary of Animal Languages FICTION (VIKING) BY HEIDI SOPINKA, $25.
Ivory is in her 90s and still working on a project she began in Paris before the Second World War. She records and transcribes the wordless communication of animals, in part for WKH VFLHQWL¿F FRPPXQLW\ DQG LQ SDUW because it’s a natural extension of her beginning as an artist painting animals at the zoo. The novel jumps back and forth as Ivory remembers her unconventional life—and a past that inserts itself sharply into the present when she discovers something new about her history. It’s not a quick read, but the time you spend on these superb passages is well ZRUWK WKH H̆RUW —AD 50 | CANADIAN LIVING JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
Canadian Living staffers love a good book— and we know you do, too! Here’s our roundup of new titles to warm you up during these cold winter months.
The Chalk Man
Educated
FICTION
MEMOIR
(DOUBLEDAY CANADA) BY C.J. TUDOR, $25.
(HARPERCOLLINS) BY TARA WESTOVER, $23.
This debut novel is cunning, compelling and decidedly creepy. I was swept up in the plot, which begins in 1986, when adolescent Eddie is hanging out with his friends and devising a secret code using chalk VWLFN ¿JXUHV WR PHVVDJH KLV PDWHV until someone uses the symbols to direct the kids to a dismembered corpse. Alternating chapters bring us up to 2016, when adult Eddie receives a letter containing a single chalk man. It’s time for Eddie to face not only his own secrets and sins but also those of his friends— and family. —SM
Growing up with doomsday-believing parents who didn’t trust the government meant that Tara Westover never stepped into a classroom or saw a doctor and was completely isolated from mainstream society. She devoured textbooks when her dad wasn’t watching and transformed her scarily sheltered, sometimes violent, upbringing into unbridled success, eventually earning her way into Harvard and Cambridge universities (which came at a big familial cost). Fascinating, at times frustrating and ultimately inspiring, this book is a testament to willpower and freedom in knowledge. —SC
