• This Place a Stranger: Canadian Women Travelling Alone edited by Vici Johnstone: This collection tells stories of women travelling both abroad and closer to home. The stories detail the reactions people have to solo women travellers, the dangers they sometimes face and the insight they gain by being alone. Written by 23 women, the stories are heartwarming, heart-wrenching, anxiety-inducing and adventurous.
• What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe: Written by the author of the popular webcomic XKCD, What If? does exactly what the subtitle states. The author takes a serious look at questions such as: If everyone on the planet stayed away from each other for a couple of weeks, would the common cold be wiped out? What if a glass of water was suddenly literally half empty? And my favourite, What if you tried to build a periodic table made of brick-sized chunks of each corresponding element? This is an excellent book for the scientifically curious.
• When to Rob a Bank by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner: This is another book that’s easy to dip in and out of. Steven Levitt, economist and author of Freakonomics, took some of his most interesting and wacky blog entries and wrote a highly entertaining book. This is a great summer read, both fun and smart.
• Saved by Cake by Marian Keyes: This lovely little cookbook is not only stuffed with delicious dessert recipes, it also weaves in a bit of a story. Keyes suffers from depression and, in her attempts to battle her disease, she turns to the kitchen. Reading Saved by Cake, it becomes clear that she is a courageous, witty woman who manages to write a lighthearted book about a very serious topic. Also, the baklava recipe is amazing.
• Between You and Me by Mary Norris: The author of the popular Eats, Shoots and Leaves returns with a new book. Between You and Me is in turns an autobiography and grammar handbook. Norris discusses some of the most vexing problems in the English language and discusses how she handles them. She also has a lot to say about her nearly three decades working as a copy editor at the New Yorker. It’s a lot more entertaining than a book that’s mostly about grammar has a right to be.
• My Lurid Past by Lauren Henderson: This chick-lit for grown-ups is aptly-named, fun and it has a bit of romance without being sugary sweet. Juliet Cooper is the quintessential thirty-something urban woman. She works in food PR, which is a lot flashier than it sounds, as her biggest client is an up-and-coming celebrity chef. Juliet isn’t in a relationship with anyone and she’s OK with that until the day that she isn’t. The book starts with Juliet ready to embark on a brief affair with a young man. Unfortunately for Juliet, and the young man, that’s the day that she finds that short-term relationships are no longer working for her. Confused by how she’s feeling, she talks to her best friends, Mel and Gillian. As they both have their own relationship issues, amongst the three of them, there is much to discuss. This is an entertaining, urban romance that doesn’t end in a neatly tied bow.
A Good Read is a column by Tri-City librarians that is published on Wednesdays. Sharon Visser Araujo works at Terry Fox Library in Port Coquitlam.
