Books - Four good titles
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THE IRREGULARS: ROALD DAHL AND THE BRITISH SPY RING IN WARTIME WASHINGTON
BY JENNET CONANT
Simon & Schuster, 390 pages ($32)
Before he became a writer of stunningly original books for children, Roald Dahl was a British spy in wartime Washington. With Ian Fleming and Noel Coward, he was one of the "Baker Street Irregulars" working for spymaster William Stephenson (a.k.a. Intrepid). He became a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt's and then a conduit for secret information passing between her husband and Winston Churchill. This book of popular history will astonish most readers, says publisher Simon & Schuster. According to spy novelist Alan Furst, "it reads, and compels, like the best fiction." In the final chapter, "Full Lives," Conant unfurls the Irregulars' postwar years. She writes that Dahl touched on his Washington experiences only once, in the autobiographical short story "Lucky Break." As they aged, Stephenson's recruits remained loyal to him and one another.
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NOBODY'S FATHER: LIFE WITHOUT KIDS
Edited by LYNNE VAN LUVEN and BRUCE GILLESPIE
TouchWood Editions, 230 pages ($19.95)
Nobody's Mother, the 2006 anthology of women's essays on childlessness, was widely appreciated. Now its Victoria-based editor, Lynne Van Luven, has joined with Ontario's Bruce Gillespie to offer a companion volume of essays by men. Among the 23 contributors is Vancouver's Richard Van Camp, a Dogrib originally from the Northwest Territories. He notes the irony of having written Welcome Song for Baby, which the B.C. government is distributing to 43,500 families of newborns, without himself being a father. ("I want children," he says when asked, "but it has to be with the right person.") In their introduction, Van Luven says men have much to say about fatherhood and its absence, while Gillespie speculates that not having kids reminds men of other disappointments in their lives. Some fear "visiting the sins of their fathers on their sons."
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WHAT THEY WANTED
BY DONNA MORRISSEY
Viking Canada, 325 pages ($32)
As you'll know if you've followed the CBC's Canada Reads debates, Donna Morrissey -- raised in a Newfoundland outport, now living in Halifax -- brings a passionate intelligence to the Canadian literary scene. What They Wanted brings back many of the characters from her third novel, Sylvanus Now, but this is a story of the next generation. Sylvie and her brother, Chris, are the children of Sylvanus and Addie. To earn a living, they move to Alberta's oil patch but, as one reviewer noted, "the jobs they find pay well but are demeaning and soul-destroying." Featured here is Morrissey's trademark recreation of Newfoundland speech; her characters take the hard knocks that have led her to be compared with Thomas Hardy. Later this month, you'll be able to see Morrissey at the Vancouver International Writers Festival.
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GERMANIA
BY JOHN WILSON
Key Porter Books, 278 pages ($19.95)
Much-published Vancouver Island author John Wilson writes historical fiction for teenage boys and takes pains to make it lively. As he said at last weekend's The Word on the Street festival, "I'm competing with video games, where people's heads explode." Germania is set 2,000 years ago in the place that would one day become Germany. Lucius, a young Roman soldier, and Freya, a Germanic warrior, struggle to understand each other's worlds. The climax of the story re-creates the Varus disaster of AD 9, when a combined force of Germanic tribes ambushed and destroyed three Roman legions -- a shocking event. Wilson enjoys researching history and bringing it alive for teens. He strives for verisimilitude in the dialogue, knowing that if he were to reproduce exactly the kind of speech spoken then, today's kids wouldn't read it.
BY JENNET CONANT
Simon & Schuster, 390 pages ($32)
Before he became a writer of stunningly original books for children, Roald Dahl was a British spy in wartime Washington. With Ian Fleming and Noel Coward, he was one of the "Baker Street Irregulars" working for spymaster William Stephenson (a.k.a. Intrepid). He became a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt's and then a conduit for secret information passing between her husband and Winston Churchill. This book of popular history will astonish most readers, says publisher Simon & Schuster. According to spy novelist Alan Furst, "it reads, and compels, like the best fiction." In the final chapter, "Full Lives," Conant unfurls the Irregulars' postwar years. She writes that Dahl touched on his Washington experiences only once, in the autobiographical short story "Lucky Break." As they aged, Stephenson's recruits remained loyal to him and one another.
- - -
NOBODY'S FATHER: LIFE WITHOUT KIDS
Edited by LYNNE VAN LUVEN and BRUCE GILLESPIE
TouchWood Editions, 230 pages ($19.95)
Nobody's Mother, the 2006 anthology of women's essays on childlessness, was widely appreciated. Now its Victoria-based editor, Lynne Van Luven, has joined with Ontario's Bruce Gillespie to offer a companion volume of essays by men. Among the 23 contributors is Vancouver's Richard Van Camp, a Dogrib originally from the Northwest Territories. He notes the irony of having written Welcome Song for Baby, which the B.C. government is distributing to 43,500 families of newborns, without himself being a father. ("I want children," he says when asked, "but it has to be with the right person.") In their introduction, Van Luven says men have much to say about fatherhood and its absence, while Gillespie speculates that not having kids reminds men of other disappointments in their lives. Some fear "visiting the sins of their fathers on their sons."
- - -
WHAT THEY WANTED
BY DONNA MORRISSEY
Viking Canada, 325 pages ($32)
As you'll know if you've followed the CBC's Canada Reads debates, Donna Morrissey -- raised in a Newfoundland outport, now living in Halifax -- brings a passionate intelligence to the Canadian literary scene. What They Wanted brings back many of the characters from her third novel, Sylvanus Now, but this is a story of the next generation. Sylvie and her brother, Chris, are the children of Sylvanus and Addie. To earn a living, they move to Alberta's oil patch but, as one reviewer noted, "the jobs they find pay well but are demeaning and soul-destroying." Featured here is Morrissey's trademark recreation of Newfoundland speech; her characters take the hard knocks that have led her to be compared with Thomas Hardy. Later this month, you'll be able to see Morrissey at the Vancouver International Writers Festival.
- - -
GERMANIA
BY JOHN WILSON
Key Porter Books, 278 pages ($19.95)
Much-published Vancouver Island author John Wilson writes historical fiction for teenage boys and takes pains to make it lively. As he said at last weekend's The Word on the Street festival, "I'm competing with video games, where people's heads explode." Germania is set 2,000 years ago in the place that would one day become Germany. Lucius, a young Roman soldier, and Freya, a Germanic warrior, struggle to understand each other's worlds. The climax of the story re-creates the Varus disaster of AD 9, when a combined force of Germanic tribes ambushed and destroyed three Roman legions -- a shocking event. Wilson enjoys researching history and bringing it alive for teens. He strives for verisimilitude in the dialogue, knowing that if he were to reproduce exactly the kind of speech spoken then, today's kids wouldn't read it.
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