June 14, 2007

Remember when the boys were all electric?

What a good lunch break I had today, dropping out of a brilliant game of catch to read in the grass until the boys were ready to go back in. Sunny with a breeze. Now reading So May Ways to Begin by Jon McGregor, which connects me to the England I’m missing furiously post-vacation*. The book is wonderful so far. I read McGregor’s first novel If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things a million years ago, and though I enjoyed it and McGregor himself was doing something remarkable, the book wasn’t perfect. Whereas the sense I’m getting so far is that in his second novel, he’s finding his feet. Which is so exciting, and it’s wonderful to think of his career still ahead of him and books books to read. It will be nice to follow along, just as it has been so far.

And I was very happy to see that Madeleine Thien’s Certainty was nominated for the Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award. Pleased that Heather O’Neill’s much-deserving Lullabies for Little Criminals is on the list as well, but I’m rooting for Certainty. O’Neill’s had plenty of fun already, and Certainty is the very best book I’ve read this year.

*Ah, missing furiously. I listen to BBC Radio1 at work, and every since Monday have heard the songs we listened to as we drove across the North of England with the top down, and never in my life have I felt such nostalgia for a last week.