“The Deepest Map” by Laura Trethewey

 I enjoyed this very informative book about exploring and mapping the ocean depths. It opened my eyes to a number of issues including the ecological dangers of deep sea mining and the submerged archaeological information of human habitats. I studied Marine Biology many decades ago, and I find that my interest in the ocean still persists.

“The Mystery of the Yellow Room” by Gaston Leroux (Otto Penzler)

 I was not much impressed by this locked room mystery by the author of “Phantom of the Opera”. It was overly complicated and overly pedantic. It was also a bit overwrought, but that was likely due to the 1907 publication date. 

"The Future" by Catherine Leroux

This book's defender on Canada Reads must have done an amazing job for it to win, because for the most part it is simply boring and sometimes unintelligible, with a touch of magic realism just for fun. I expected an alternate history of Detroit to be more interesting, and definitely less concerned with the life of a drug addict, or the lives of neglected children living in a ravine.

“The Girl Who Drank the Moon” by Kelly Barnhill

 I did not overly enjoy this Newberry Award winning book. Usually I like Young Adult novels, but I think the premise for this one was a bit too ephemeral, and the character development a bit too thin, to grab my attention. It also felt quite derivative and long. 

The basic summary is that a region called The Protectorate was very sad because every year they gave up a baby to whom they thought was an evil witch in the forest, not knowing that the truly evil, sorrow eating witch, lived in a tower in town, She trained girls to be warriors and was the source of the sorrowful lies. Luna, the heroine, was a sacrificial baby. She was saved by the forest witch, who accidentally enmagicked her with moonlight, and there was a creature who lived in the bog who was some sort of Creator, as in God, and there was a cute little dragon who thought he was big. I’m sure if I bothered analyzing the book, it has a number of beautiful themes.

“Carrie” by Stephen King

 It was an enjoyable enough read even though I knew the basic story. I skipped over some of the ugly bullying sections.

“The Final Confession of Mabel Stark” by Robert Hough

 This is mostly a fictional biography about a real person. It was an interesting book, I suppose, but only a few sections gripped me emotionally. I guess now I know about the sexual pleasuring of tigers, among other things. 

“The Passenger” by Cormac McCarthy

 I tried this book because I loved “The Road”. However, I gave up fairly quickly because I did not like the muddled timeline and incomprehensible plot. I was persevering until the book became very Macho, in the way the protagonist talked about his experiences in the Vietnam war.