The Buzz...About Books

Summer is a great time to catch up on your reading.  Long steamy days become more bearable with air conditioning, icy drinks, and great books.  Some readers tackle the classics; others take it easy with lighter fare. 

Always curious about what my colleagues are reading, I've asked them to share their recent reading experiences.  First up are the unsung heroes of the library system–those behind-the-scenes workers who make the library function.

Communications Officer Ab has been hooked by Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games universe calling it a well thought out series with unique and unforgettable characters.  The books in order are: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay.

Communications Officer Joseph reports:

I've just finished Randy Boyagoda's Beggar's Feast, the saga of Sam Kandy, a barefoot peasant who would not serve nor give when he could be served and take.
 
This spring I read Emma Ruby Sachs' The Water Man's Daughter; a nice first novel wherein a young Canadian woman travels to South Africa to visit the sight of her father's unsolved murder. She finds out more than she wanted to about her father, his business, and South African politics.
 
One of my favourites for the season was Robert Rotenberg's The Guilty Plea which treats the reader to a fast-paced mystery and a tour of Toronto's coolest spots. A fun, character-filled whodunit with the true flavour of Hogtown.
 
I'm not a poetry reader, but Glen Downie's latest collection, Local News is a fantastic and hillarious wander through his neighbourhood, The Junction… people kept asking me what I was reading as I chortled and swayed along the subway line with this slim volume in front of my face.

Graphic Designer Alex:

Stone's Fall by Iain Pears
A fantastic long lazy read, a patient who-dun-it that offers up a big reward with an ending you won't see coming. Caution, remain seated.

Parrot And Olivier in America by Peter Carey  
A humourous, idiomatic, late-17th century tale of adventure involving a young French aristocrat's escape from the revolution, aided by his begrudging, older secretary.

Supercooperators: Altruism, Evolution, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed by Martin Nowak with Roger Highfield
A mathematical theorist's work in evolutionary biology introduces the notion of cooperation to Darwin's theory of evolution with convincing results.

E-Services team member Sandra suggests:

The Machine That Changed the World by James P. Womack
An analysis of the Japanese approach to automobile production and one of the foundational texts of "lean" management philosophy.

The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
A great writer's unfinished posthumous novel about workers in an IRS office in Illinois, the story explores the idea of paying attention (even in the midst of "routine, repetition, tedium, monotony, ephemeracy, inconsequence, abstraction, disorientation, boredom, angst, ennui") as a kind of pure existential state.

Stardust by Bruce Serafin.
After the recent Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver, I was thinking about this writer, who has tried in some of his essays to account for the edgy frontier town that still lurks beneath the surface of the cosmopolitan city.

Administrative Assistant Matthew:

Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin (currently being adapted onto the small screen on HBO's Game of Thrones).  The fifth book in the series A Dance with Dragons came out July 12  (and yes, I ran to the book store after work to pick up a copy).

E-Services team member Marni:

The Information: a History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick
The author draws analogies from unusual sources in his discussion of communication and information. Very elegantly written. I love it so much that I almost bought my own copy despite my overflowing bookcase.

Planning Department Employee Shubha:

The Ridge by Michael Koryta.  A supernatural story that defies any assumptions the reader may have about the genre.  I could not put it down.

As for me, I'm reading Moon over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch.  Main character Peter Grant is a London constable and sorcerer's apprentice in this urban fantasy/police procedural mix.  It's the second book in a series and I wish I'd started with the first: Midnight Riot.