deekay's random recommendations

These are recent reads that I summarized on my blog, which is why the blurbs are a little less conversational than they otherwise would be. When I'm feeling less lazy I'll come up with some of my all-time favourites to recommend, too.

• A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews - Heartbreakingly, hysterically funny Nomi Nickel (who would fit right into the Hizzy) is the wry, confused narrator of Toews' novel about a 16-year-old Mennonite girl whose mother and sister have both disappeared, leaving her to live with her bewildered father in a town that suffocates her with its religious restrictions and limited opportunities. While the book offers fascinating insight into a community that has turned its back on much of the modern world, it's easy to identify with misfit Nomi.

• Misadventures by Sylvia Smith - An odd book, consisting of short anecdotes in the uneventful life of everywoman Sylvia Smith. Each section on its own produces skepticism that anyone would choose to read such bland musings about bad dates, random occurrences and transient friendships, but the cumulative effect is oddly compelling, because this is what comprises our lives. It's the anti-Bridget Jones, showing a middle- aged, single woman's life through her low-key reminiscences.

• Losing Gemma by Katy Gardner. The story of two friends travelling in India, told in flashback to explain why beautiful Esther feels responsible for underdog Gemma's death. The vivid writing saves this occasionally cliched story and its improbable ending.

• The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty. Hilarious, odd, and literately street savvy. Gunnar Kaufman is the privileged black misfit in his gritty urban neighbourhood, who becomes a basketball star and reluctant messiah of "his people." For a white girl from Canada, it was like entering a whole new world.

• The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald. She could probably write about paint drying and I would find her fluid prose fascinating. Fortunately, she also chooses involving stories with a central mystery about the protagonist, and her characters are wonderfully flawed and complex. With this and her first novel, Fall on Your Knees, she demonstrates a darkness that could be overwhelming, except that it's tempered with humour and fine storytelling. The story loses its punch when we follow the main character to adulthood, but what comes before is gripping.

• Any Human Heart by William Boyd. The entire 20th century is seen through the eyes of Logan Mountstuart, a writer, spy, and art dealer whose ordinary life has extraordinary insight into not just the human heart, but recent human history.

• Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore. Moore is a complete and utter nutcase - and I mean that as a huge compliment. This is the debut novel of the author of Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. Sadly-immortal Travis is trying to rid himself of the demon Catch, who tends to eat anyone Travis gets close to. Mayhem ensues, but despite the ridiculousness of the premise, these are characters to care about.