"The Wasp Factory" by Iain Banks

Considering how grotesque and ugly some of the scenes in the novel were, I guess it's kind of amazing that I was so riveted by it. Its protagonist and 1st person voice is a 16 year old 'boy' who murdered 3 children when he was young, lives on a Scottish Island with his eccentric father, and has an insane brother who has broken out of the hospital and is heading home.

The amazing thing about the book is that as it progresses, you discover more and more rational reasons for the murders and the "boy's" behaviour. I have recently discovered the goodreads web sites, which contains other people's reviews of books that interest me.  That's where I found out that some people listed this as one of the top books of the 20th century.

Some people were horrified by the book,mor horrified that they liked Frank, the protagonist. To me, they're being childish. To me, Frank just "is" and I attach no judgement to him.

"Georgiana Darcy's Diary" by Anna Elliott

A total piece of fluff which was filled with historical inaccuracies... e.g Lending libraries?!?... as well as inaccuracies from "Pride and Prejudice". Nevertheless, the author made me care about the characters, so the book was reasonably entertaining. The beginning was quite good, and then the book proceeded to devolve into modernity. The basic premise was excellent. It's a pity it wasn't handled in a more scholarly manner.

"Ru" by Kim Thuy

I bought this award winning Canadian novel for a number of reasons, including that the Vietnamese family in the book settles in Quebec, and that Brendan's girlfriend, Linh, is Vietnamese. Also, I like buying books to support Chapters.

The book is a very easy read, and deals with snippets of fact, with impressions, with feelings. It definitely gave me a much greater appreciation of what the Vietnamese people went through. Immigrants sometimes look or sound comical, but their horrible life experiences elevate them above the life awareness of many North Americans.

"Excession" by Iain M. Banks

This book was convoluted and difficult to follow, so it was not my best introduction to Banks. I read him because Christine has raved about him for years and he recently died.

Nevertheless, it had enough interesting and novel perspectives to make me glad I read it. Imagine a world run by benevolent Minds who occupy spaceships, etc. Imagine how much more quickly they process information than humans. For the first time, I realized that God would definitely not have a problem keeping track of each and every life form on earth.