Books

This will always be on my list of favorites. I give it to every young girl I know for a seventh or eighth birthday present. As a child, I was fascinated by the singularity of Mary Lennox and I still love to think about how wonderful it would be to have whole days with nothing to do but explore the moors.

At least once a year, I explore Hamlet with elementary school students and am always amazed at the power of the story. Hamlet's predicament and insights are made fresh for me each year when I see them through the eyes of 8-12 year olds. Every child relates to the young man who is struggling to do the right thing. I love being reminded of the generosity of the playwright who created a character who talks to us so movingly.

Heathcliff was the first man I fell in love with. Or maybe I fell in love with the love story of Cathy and Heathcliff. Anyway, another story on the moors captured my heart when I was fourteen and gave me some valuable information about the complications of love.

I love this book not just because Susan Coyne is my dear friend and collaborator and not just because it features a resourceful fairy and is set in my beloved Lake of the Woods in North Western Ontario but because it is a near perfect description of mentorship, kindness, kindred spirits and the power of the word.

This is the most haunting of Ondaatje's books for me. He describes the torn up post war chaos of Sri Lanka most effectively through its effect on the quiet souls of this story. No one lets us into quiet people quite like Ondaatje. Anil's thoughts and feelings are given to us through the details of her painstaking work as a forensic anthropologist and her sensitivity to the people around her. What she sees and how she hears got under my skin and stayed there.

All books by Alice Munro are my favorite. The first story in this collection literally took my breath away. I thought I could never read it again but I did, in order to marvel at how Munro does keep us breathing and turning the page even when her insights and curiosity are overwhelming and devastating. I recommend Munro as required reading for young actors. Her stories are proof that human behaviour is never predictable.

I first encountered the humanity of Ann Patchett in her beautiful book about friendship, truth and beauty. The lives of an American opera singer, a Japanese industrialist, the vice president of a South American country, young revolutionaries and a pianist are thrown together in a hostage taking. Patchett creates tension out of unbearable longing and the story floats like a dream. The book could be called 'Love and Music' as it is about those two essential things.

This is a play I never tire of seeing or reading especially when there is a new adaptation and new proof of how Chekov inspires. I always fall a bit in love with the playwright as well as the characters as I can't help admire and be grateful for his sense of humour and his love for our weaknesses. It is best read with many pauses to sit back and imagine the characters and the house where everything happens. Chekov writes clues and the reader needs time to let them stir the imagination.

I was introduced to the North by Adrienne Clarkson and John Ralston Saul last year when I was invited to attend the Lafontaine Baldwin lecture given by Silla Watt-Cloutier. I have returned twice and hope to continue as I am caught by its beauty and mystery. The next best thing to being there is to read about its people. These compelling stories from three Inuit women: grandmother, mother and daughter offer wonderful and harrowing personal details of life on the land and the transition to life in communities.