Flames Across The Border: 1813 - 1814 - Pierre Berton

The War of 1812 is perhaps the best example of the stupidity of war - after two years of killing and maiming, burning and pillaging, the two countries went back to they way things were. A point of contention between Canadians and Americans, or at least for those who care, is the result of this war, with both sides claiming victory. They're right and wrong. If Canada had won, most of Upstate New York would have become part of the British Empire, while if the U.S. had won, Ontario and Quebec would now be a state. (At least Toronto would have a better chance then at getting an NFL team...)

Berton is a master at making history come alive, and his skill at getting inside the heads of the players is magical. It reads like fiction, but for the people involved it was all too real.

Under The Banner of Heaven - Jon Krakauer

The detached journalistic tone serves Krakauer well in this book as he details how Ron and Dan Lafferty, Mormon Fundamentalists, killed their brother's wife and baby daughter after receiving instructions from God to do so. Krakauer avoids calling the brothers crazy, or even hinting at any level of snark, and presents the facts. Connecting the dots between Mormonism beginnings, the splinter groups that developed over disputes regarding polygamy and the events leading up to the night of the killing, Krakauer weaves a masterful tale.

Your Movie Sucks - Roger Ebert

There is an art to writing well about something bad, and Ebert is a master. Inspired by Deuce Bigalow: European Giglo (the only instance that phrase will be ever used) Ebert collects some of his lowest reviews. The collection starts with the aforementioned Rob Schneider movie, which receives special attention as Schneider called out another movie critic, in a letter sent to the media, for his negative review and not having any award credentials. Pulitzer prize-winning Ebert takes it on himself to bash Schneider around the head with his gold coin for the travesty that is the sequel to Deuce Bigalow. The next featured review is for Chaos, a horror movie I've heard of that took Ebert to task for his negative review.

Ebert is willing to change his mind, which he did with Brown Bunny. Seeing it at Cannes he wrote it was worse than watching his own colonoscopy, but after meeting a year later with the director/star and seeing a new cut, he offers a more positive review.

Of course there are some great lines - for Catwoman: The director, whose name is Pitof, was probably issued with two names at birth and would be wise to use the other one on his next project. 

Three Day Road - Joseph Boyden

Two Cree, as close as brothers, go off to fight in the Great War. Both residential school survivors, one is talkative, the other silent. Their hunting skills come in handy in the war, but the war changes them. There is the expected racism and classism that are staples of stories about the First World War, but the two Cree gain respect for their ability to kill. The war story alternates with the story of Nishka, the wild Indian woman who lives in the bush and suffers from visions. When only one of the boys returns from the war, she takes him home, a three day journey in which they both tell their stories. The war details are gory and the ending somewhat predictable, but it's a good read nonetheless.

A Visit From The Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan

Somewhere between a collection of linked short stories and a proper novel, this book details what time does to us (the goon squad). All of the characters are connected in some way, but it doesn't really matter that they are. Each chapter is it's own story, and each one ranges from satire to tragedy, from third to second person, and even a journal in PowerPoint form. It all holds together, a look at loss and aging and how we don't always get to be the person we want to be, we always end up becoming the person we are.

Distrust That Particular Flavor - William Gibson

It's a small surprise that this is his first collection of non-fiction, considering that he, albeit briefly, had the mantle of Chief Prognosticator, back when we thought the future would be delivered to us through VR googles and sensory pads. He explains his discomfort at non-fiction in the introduction, claiming that he wants to spend time writing fiction. Fair enough, and those most of the pieces in this collection slim, there are some excellent insights on Japan, eBay, and Borges. The best part is the author's comments afterwards, placing the piece in some kind of context. The piece on Singapore for Wired caused the magazine to be banned there for a number of years, a fact that I only knew through the comments. My favourite one is about Tokyo, also for Wired, which the author dismisses in the comments (saying that he feels guilty of using most of the good material he gathered on the magazine's dime for his novel Pattern Recognition) but to me conjures about Japan in a way that only those who have been there can fully understand.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

What strikes a modern reader of this collection of adventures of the great detective is how many remain unresolved. In The Five Orange Pips, the suspects disappear in a ship sinking. In The Adventure of the Copper Breeches, the resolution is tied up neatly, without much intervention from Holmes. Unlike modern detective tales that are strewn with corpses, most of these cases don't have a body, but instead verge into the merely interesting or slightly perplexing. Still, it's a good read, and has the classic line: "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."