The National Post put me on to Cool Water by Dianne Warren in their review by Kathleen Govier. It's a novel, but with a lyrical structure of intertwined short stories. Set in a small Saskatchewan town, it follows the lives of individuals and families over the period of a few days. As in a small town where everyone knows everyone's business, these stories intersect. The reader is able to look down on the town and watch as the stories overlap and interconnect. We read of a mother struggling to cope with her children as the family farm is in the process of being repossessed; the bank manager who knows too much about too many people in the town; a young man, adopted by Norwegian immigrants, who has inherited their farm and is anxious about his ability to manage it; a woman passing through town who loses a horse, inadvertently causing a rift between the owner of a diner and her husband; and a man and the widow of his brother who share a home and run the town's drive-in.
While it is true to say that many of these tales are of loneliness, it's not a depressing book. Rather, we watch how people cope with being alone, with striving to make a life in a small town where possibilities of social intercourse are perhaps limited. The setting is rural, but the emotions of living with others but still feeling alone, or of living alone and dwelling in the past could really take place anywhere. Warren's characters are incredibly rich and well-drawn and I felt drawn into their lives. She has created a world that, as the reader, you fell you inhabit. The dryness of blowing sand, the heat off the sidewalk, the sweat under a saddle all jump off the page. An ideal summer read.
Recommended!
- review 
I had a lovely day out with two friends. We met at the 
and I gave the government on this subject.
by 
by 
I was introduced to Laura Zigman's writing through Twitter...I think I started following her after she was retweeted by someone. This took me to a most moving blog post, after which I put her first book on hold at the library.
by 
This was the first book I downloaded onto my Kindle. It's Fallis' first novel, a satirical look at Canadian politics through they eye of an executive assistant on The Hill, and is very funny. I have been listening to The High Road (see below) through weekly chapter podcasts and felt I needed to whip through the first novel as The High Road is a follow-up to this one. I've just got a couple of chapters to go and it's been a fun, light read.
by 
This doesn't come out in print until the Fall, but Fallis is 
I first heard about this book on 
by 
My sister-in-law just lent me this. We're both big Picoult fans and I thought I'd read them all, but this is from 1998 and it doesn't look familiar, although I will be the first to admit that I have gotten a chapter or so into a book before I realised that i'd read it before. But I hope this is a new one! She had it up at the cottage where our paths crossed last weekend, and she sent me back with 
by Rachel Balducci. 
by Alan Bennett
by William H. Armstrong
by Tracey Chevalier
I have had the same pair of (bright pink) earbuds for my iPhone for months and they have disappeared. One of my sons has the annoying habit of borrowing them without asking. (I bought bright pink specifically so the men in my life would NOT feel so inclined.) Said son went away for the weekend, about the same time as they disappeared. 
I've been listening to Terry Fallis read his second novel