what i'm reading: michael ondaatje

After a run of some excellent nonfiction, it's time to give my brain a rest and read a few novels.

I love literature, adore novels, but in recent years am having a hard time finding novels that hold my interest. More and more literary novels are dissatisfying to me. I don't know if my standards have become unreasonably high, or if now I just prefer nonfiction. But I read book reviews, write down titles, go the library or a used bookstore with a list, and end up disliking most of them. I'm not proud of this, I don't like it, but there's nothing I can do about it.

This morning I went Mississauga's wonderful Central Library and came home with an armful of books. As always, I'll only write about the ones I like.

I'm finally reading Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion, which has been recommended to me by many wmtc readers and Toronto friends.

I started it this afternoon and I'm devouring it. I've read many historical novels set in New York City - in fact, I read so many that I OD'd on the subgenre and had to stop reading them altogether - so I'm very familiar with this type of book. This one is very good.

I'm glad I didn't read In the Skin of a Lion earlier, that I waited (although not purposely) until I had more knowledge of Toronto. I'm getting a lot more out of it now than I would have three years ago. I'm also happy that a book that's been recommended to me so many times turns out to be so good. Everyone wanted me to watch Rick Mercer, and we know how that worked out.

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