Rachel's Certified Savvy Reads

Fellow Reader-friends,

I am all agog and aghast and ELATED because I am featured on the Savvy Reader blog from our EXCELLENT friends at Harper Collins Canada.

Please visit the website and see what I have to say and look at pretty pictures ( and watch pretty videos). While you're at it: you might want to visit them on twitter as well

A recap of the books I selected as my personal Harper Collins Savvy Reads:

This is my personal savvy read list (Hard to narrow down because Harper has AMAZING titles. In fact, you should separate them by genre! It’s too hard to pick generally!)

Deafening by Frances Itani : One of the most lyrical offerings in Canadian historical fiction to date. During my tenure as a bookseller (my part time job during my university years), I hand-sold this title more than any other. It appeals to teenagers, to grandmas, to men, women, girls, boys. The emotional resonance of the story and its harrowing (yet romantic) exposition is unparalleled.

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill: I saved this for a 9 hour flight to Austria this summer and read it while the gentlemen adjacent me struggled to keep from snoozing on my shoulder. Not that I would have minded. Indeed, I saw, or heard, nothing else while enraptured by Hill’s convincing female narrative. Rarely have I read a historical novel with such a broad and impressive scope. Meticulously researched, un-put-downable and featuring one of the strongest and persistent heroines in CanLit to date, The Book of Negroesis a must read. As a Canadian, I especially enjoyed the interlude in Nova Scotia!

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel: I was in the subway last year when a lady, nose stuck-in-a-book ran directly into me and spilled tea down my coat. I wasn’t angry. She was reading Wolf Halland I completely understood. A mammoth novel, Mantel turns Tudor history into a captivating thriller. I loved the dialogue and the daily vignettes of court-life. A nice addition to renaissance of Tudor Romances with all the political and religious corruption still popping up in news stories today.

Town House by Tish Cohen: The thinking person’s vacation read! Deceptively fun to read, Cohen embroiders a funny and winsome tale about an unlikely man and his inability to leave his house. In fact, his house becomes a character of its own, especially when populated by the band of eccentrics that pepper our hero’s life. This would make a fabulous movie!

Ines of my Soul by Isabel Allende: Allende’s novels stay with me long after I turn the last page. You finish the book still with that pleasant, potent aftertaste of spice and adventure on your tongue. A tragic, earthy love story painted against a lush Chilean tapestry, Allende’s heartfelt desire to dig and excavate the deepest secrets of her country’s rich history is wonderfully rendered here. I loved this book. Chilling and surreal, it will transport you across time and space.