I hate writing conclusions. Not because I’m sad to reach the end. By four or five months into a project, I’m usually more than ready to finish the first draft. No, it’s more one of the following:

I’ve just finished a (long overdue) reading of The Ship of Lost Souls, by Rachelle Delaney. The book was as entertaining as a swashbuckling Johnny Depp, albeit in an entirely different way.

Check out the intern’s post about novels written by teens.

I have six questions left to write for 50 Poisonous Questions. If I were in a made-for-TV movie, the walls of the garbage compactor would now be closing in on me.

If you are born in Cranbrook, BC, home to a dark little mall, a strip of fast food restaurants, and a parcel of speedboat-owning boys whose fathers have made too much money in logging and mining, you are statistically more likely to become an NHL player than you are to win a Governor General’s Literary Award.

Kate Pullinger has beaten the odds. So of course I had to read her book. Which is delightfully exotic and entirely un-Cranbrook-like. Not even a hint of icy, windswept plateau in her descriptions of Luxor, Egypt.

The Mistress of Nothing is about an amazingly devoted lady’s maid from Escher (sounds like the English equivalent of Cranbrook) who follows her TB-ridden employer to Egypt, and… well, all sorts of adventures ensue.

This was another of those books that left me scanning the author’s bio and the critics’ quotes and anything else I could read to prolongue the experience, and I learned that the story is based on real-life events. Shocking and delicious! I LOVE true stories!

Kate Pullinger, on behalf of those of us from the Kootenays who aspire to non-NHL greatness, thank you.

1. has confirmed that my knowledge of Canadian history is “horrorific”;
2. has (almost) made me want to retire my keyboard, because I could never write anything this good; and,
3. has dramatically increased my affection for donkeys, slingshots, and haints.

I picked up Martha Brooks’s Mistik Lake on my way through the library last week. I LOVED (as in “in love,” would marry it in a second) True Confessions of a Heartless Girl. Mistik Lake isn’t quite so raw, but it’s lovely — a poignant family story with a great love affair and a nice serving of sisterhood on the side.

Don’t ask me why, but about half way through Mistik Lake I was convinced that the main character and her boyfriend were going to turn out to be siblings. Which was not the case. So that was a relief.

I wasted to reassure you in advance, so you can relax and enjoy the novel. (And yes, that was a joke. I am aware that I am the only one twisted enough to worry about such things.)

Students have been tracking me down lately for help with school projects about The Blue Jean Book. The latest group found me on Facebook, and sent me these questions. So I answered the first five in basic, boring style, and then I tried brainwashing them at the end. Think it’ll work?

1. What inspired you to write this book?
It was an interesting way to explore fashion and history at the same time. Jeans act as a window into a lot of interesting parts of our culture, from gold rush prospectors to 1950s teen rebels.

2. Do you feel that jeans were a key innovation in the fashion industry?
They were originally meant as work wear. When young people adopted them as a symbol of independence, then they became part of the fashion industry.

3. What do you find most interesting about Levi Strauss?
He was an ambitious young man in search of his fortune. It’s interesting that he found a way to get rich off the gold rush without actually searching for gold.

4. In your opinion, what made Levi Strauss better or worse than his competitors? How was his company able to stay in business for over 100 years?
Levi Strauss the man had an eye for innovative ideas. Levis Strauss the company has been very good at spotting trends and changing with the times.

5. Do you think that LS&CO has done a good job maintaining fair worker’s rights policies?
I think most clothing companies have a long way to go in improving workers’ rights and sourcing sustainable materials. However, we as consumers bear much of this responsibility. If we’re buying five pairs of sweatshop-made jeans every year, instead of one fairly-made pair created with organic cotton, then who is to blame for the problems? Our buying power should be used as what it is – power.

Dear Margaret Atwood:

I recently noticed the travel schedule posted on your blog. And holy hannah, you’re busy. Plus, it’s only January! Imagine what other things might come up.

Perhaps you enjoy the travel and the events. To me, they sound like week after week of torture. If I were you, I’d start cultivating a reputation as an eccentric recluse. Only leave the house on Wednesdays and Sundays. Never appear in groups of more than three people… that sort of thing. I’m sure if you were strange enough you could get just as much attention, with none of the travel.

Just a thought… In the meantime, happy New Year and safe travels.

Sincerely,
Tanya Kyi

Well, OF COURSE Barbara Kingsolver won the what-to-read first contest. And The Lacuna did not disappoint. I read recently (on a blog? on a website? in the Carol Shields letters? I’m losing my mind…) that men won more prestigious prizes than women because women’s books were less ambitious.

Obviously, that’s just crazy. This book is hugely ambitious, encompassing gender roles, communism, modern art, fear in the media, nationalism… plus characters from Frida Kahlo to Trotsky… and so much more.

All in the story of a young Mexican-American writer. And the protagonist creates books set in the ancient past which reflect upon his time in history, and his life story reflects the present time, and… and, and, and. Let’s all just agree to love Barbara Kingsolver, and I can stop talking.

First dibs on my copy of the book, anyone?