Well, I am still largely favouring fun murder mysteries, however July did see a bit of branching out into adventure, a First Nations reckoning, and the annihilation of the universe! Cool!
Furbidden Fatality, by Deborah Blake
According to the fun, bookish podcast “Reading Glasses”, Furbidden Fatality is a “cozy mystery”. A cozy is more or less defined by the fact that all the nastiness, like murder and swearing and sex, takes place off page, and the detectiving is carried out by an amateur sleuth living in a small community. It’s possible that a pun-based title is also a necessary attribute. Basically it’s the Harlequin Christmas Movie of the reading world.
In this case, our smalltown amateur sleuth is super-cute Kari (even her name is cute), who uses a modest* lottery win to buy a local pet sanctuary, only to find herself embroiled in a murder investigation that she must solve herself because the local police just don’t seem to be trying all that hard. She is aided by a super-cute kitten and the super-cute local vet, as well as a refreshingly assorted group of girlfriends and sanctuary volunteers. I have no prior experience that allows me to rank this against other “cozies”, or even against any Harlequin Christmas Movies, but I can say it’s a very satisfying read. I’d argue it’s best enjoyed while wearing woolly socks, drinking hot chocolate that’s overflowing with mini-marshmallows, and sitting in front of a fire on a snowy winter day.
*modest by today’s billion-dollar Powerball and Mega Millions examples
Living with Cannibals & Other Women’s Adventures, by Michele Slung
Every now and then, a book comes along that underscores the disservice done to women over the centuries, from the belief that we aren’t strong enough to carry a firehose that therefore should not be permitted to be firefighters to the accepted position that monthly menstrual cycles make us prone to hysteria and lack of pragmatism and therefore should not be trusted with truly important things like leadership and decision-making.
Enter Living with Cannibals, a book that tells the stories of 16 adventuresome women – 8 from centuries past and 8 who are, as of the time of writing, still at the height of their extraordinary achievements. Here are a few of the women chronicled in the book. Louise Arner Boyd who, in the early 1900s, travelled extensively through the Arctic, including exploring and surveying Greenland. Fanny Bullock Workman who, in the late 1800s, travelled eight times to climb and mountaineer through the Himalaya. Catherine Destivelle who is a renowned free-soloing mountaineer and was not only the first woman to complete many climbs, but in fact the first person, male or female. Ida Pfeiffer, who in the late 1700s, travelled twice around the world, journeying an estimated 32,000 km by land and a staggering 240,000 km by sea. Isabella Bird Bishop, who in the mid 1800s, road horseback 800 miles through the Rocky Mountains despite suffering from chronic spinal ailments.
If I could add one more woman to the list of adventurers, I would choose Jade Hameister, who skied to both the North and South Poles by the time she was 16 years old, making her the youngest person to have completed this “Polar Hat Trick”. And yet still, after posting a Youtube video speaking about about her desire to achieve this goal, a multitude of misogynistic comments were posted, including “make me a sandwich”. FFS. But, not one to let this go unnoticed, when she did finally reach the South Pole, she uploaded a picture of herself on Facebook offering up a sandwich to anyone willing to come and get it. Jade is my hero.
Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey
What a good book this is! Think Veronica Mars drama blended with Harry Potter magic. Drama means a murder mystery, and our private detective in this case is “muggle” Petunia Dursley Ivy Gamble, a melancholy, functioning alcoholic who’s twin sister is a magically gifted teacher at Osthorne Academy for Young Mages. Ivy is called upon to investigate when a murder occurs on the school property. Given that Ivy dislikes her twin and loathes all things magical, you just know that fun times are in store. Mix in some magical tropes like prophecies and a Chosen One with some YA tropes like teenage angst, immaturity, and confused sexual identity. Blend it all up with wonderfully precise writing and you have a triple-layer chocolate fudge cake of a book!
Five Little Indians, by Michelle Good
In May 2021, the remains of 215 children were found on the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School in BC. On June 23 of the same year, 751 unmarked graves were found on the site of the Marieval Indian Residential School in SK. On June 30, 182 more unmarked graves were found near Kootenay Indian Residential School in BC. To date, more than 2,700 unidentified suspected graves have been located. It is Canada’s great shame. We Canadians need to remember that this was allowed to happen, and that for many of us, it was still happening in our lifetime. The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996. 1996!!! It is estimated that there are 80,000 survivors alive today, who suffer from trauma that we can’t even imagine.
Michelle Good’s book provides an navigable path towards understanding just a few of the long-term impacts of the residential school system on survivors, and their friends and families. The story is told through the lens of 5 First Nations teenagers as they “age out” of the residential school system, and attempt to find healing. It is masterfully written in a way that makes it easy to understand and empathize with these characters, when in fact I suspect the full extent of survivor trauma is actually unimaginable. This is an important book, and a step towards understanding reconciliation from a different perspective than we might be used to or be comfortable with.
The End of Everything (Astronomically Speaking), by Katie Mack (@AstroKatie)
Capping off the month is a book that looks, with refreshing humour, on the various ways in which our universe could eventually meet its demise. Will it collapse under its own weight in a reversal of the Big Bang that started it all? Will it continue to expand, getting colder and darker until it becomes a uniform sheet of nothingness? Or will something even more insane occur that changes all of the physics in the universe such that nothing that exists today could continue to exist, including us? I’m sure you’re thinking this all sounds very science-y, or worse, very quantum-y, but let me assure you that Katie Mack has physics story-telling abilities that rival Carl Sagan. I promise you that if you read this book you will a) laugh a lot and b) understand more than you are probably thinking. Happily, there’s no need to worry. With one possibly alarming but unlikely exception, the astronomical end of everything is billions and billions of years away.