Both I have read ~ and queried the difference.
A book is a collection containing non-fiction and fiction pages;
A novel is a collection of many ideas, characters and fantasies
with the writer's imagination ~ to become a novel.
Apart
from children's books by Thornton Burgess, Gone
With the Wind
was the first adult novel I read. And greatly impressed was I ~
daily carrying and reading it as I walked a mile or so, completing
Grade 13 studies at Brantford Collegiate. More than one curb, did I
trip over as page by page I read about Scarlett O'Hara and Brett
Butler. This novel piqued my literary interest ~ and to this day
always have a novel to read, offering real education in humour, drama
and everyday peoples' lives.
Recently,
a friend, excited about reading Book
Club (which
is now a theatre movie), recommended this novel about four friends,
who after reading Fifty
Shades of Grey
as part of their monthly reading, began to change how they viewed
their personal relationships.
Literary
Women
BOOKS,
a titled article recently in The Hamilton Spectator, captured my
attention with a scenic photo by
Kate Harris
(taken on her lengthy journey abroad), lures one's eyes to deeply
focus on the 'depth of field' layers. Through lacy-leafed trees on
the near shore...to calm rippling waters and beyond...a forest of
trees...and rising behind them, a mountainous range...and lastly,
you're sky-born to the sun or moon.
(Gone are explorer days of Columbus, Magellan and Drake
whose queries were disvoveries of the New World.
And in that era, “A woman's place: was in the Home!”
Today, we call them 'scientists' ~ both men and women
(the latter in a more liberated world.)
Today: Women have Choices!
(Being a lawyer, a medic or steno..,perhaps teacher, musician or
gymnast.
Preferring
to have children (whether married or not),
she
can travel to places for excitement afar:
Challenges
to conquer, stating” I
did it!”
Females
today are ventured to
adventure ~
so much in fact, authors highlight them in prose.
“Books”
features novels and books by Canadian Female Authors.
Wild Fierce Life: Dangerous Moments on the Outer Coast
“We
find the avid kayaker on an expedition as tsunami warnings hit VHF
radio air-waves. Paddling frantically, she has just enough time to
seek shelter in a nearby First Nations community before the Japanese
tsunami is expected to arrive. The author of this novel,
Johanna Streetly
chronicles a close call spanning her 30 years living on British
Columbia's west coast. She braves midnight paddles in impenetrable
fog, a voilent lightning storm, encounters with bears and wolves,
nail-biting boat trips with her one infant daughter and dark
foreboding swells on her 'float house' off the coast of Tofino. It's
all part of 'life in the wild'. In the book's prologue, she wrote: I
haven't hiked the highest peaks or crossed the Pacific in a
periliously small craft. My resiliance does not equal that of women
who've gone before me, raising huge families far from help, with few
resources. But there have been times in wild places when they simply
became precarious. And when they did, the intensity of those
moments opened previously uncharted waters of myself. I found and
lost fears...contemplated death...expanded my understanding of human
kind and of history. Streetly
says she felt it important to write about the many fears she's faced,
living in the remote reaches of B.C. Wave after wave of books
grapple with this very question: celebrating
the wilder side of women's lives and reimaginating what's possible.
More
recently from Squamish, B.C.
Jan Redford's
End
of the Rope: Mountains, Marriage and Motherhood about
her climbing capers.
Bernadettte
McDonald
the author of many books on adventurers says “The tradition of
female adventurers stretches back many years, pointing to 19th
century such as Fanny
Bullock Workmen
and
Alexandra
David-Neal
and the 29th
century Himalayan climbing legends such as Wanda
Rutkiewicz.
Not only are there female adventurers, but it is believed
publishers are more receptive how to tell these kinds of stories.”
Kate
Harris's
magnificent
Lands and
Lost Borders: Out of Bounds on the Silk Road
details
the Rhode Scholar's 10,000 km bike journey along the ancient trading
route, cutting through spectacular scenic regions. The book is equal
parts travelogue, adventure yarn and meditation to the modern-day
explorer. Living in Atlin, B.C. as a child, Harris now says she was
'deeply inspired by the literature of of exploration and the spirit
of it.' This idea of deliberately setting off toward the unknown,
into risk, you can discover incredible things about yourself ~ the
world and your relationship to it.
She
took her inspiration from adventurers such as Jane
Goodall
as
well as Rowing
to Latitude Journeys Along the Arctic's Edge
by
rower Jill
Fredston
and
West With the Night
by bush pilot Beryl
Markham.
Kate Harris concludes, “There's much to be gained from exposing
one's self to such hardships ~
you gain humility and maybe a deeper sense of empathy for what other
people are going through.”
The
publishing trend was ushered in by Sheryl
Strayed's
2012 blockbuster book
“Wild:
From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail”
about hiking the gruelling trail alone.
Many wonderful titles followed in its wake, including last spring's
Turning:
A Swimming Memoir by Jessica
J. Lee,
who as a Canadian in Berlin setting out to swim 52 icy German lakes.
Walk into a Book Store ~ you'll be amazed at the array of selections
from 'Fiction' to 'Novel' and numerous “How To...Books”
Several
years ago, at a bookstand in local Marilou's grocery store, the cover
of a novel, grabbed my attention: Valley
of the Horses.
For anyone, knowing me, I'm most fond of horses and the 'big cats'
of Eurasia.. Reading the briefing on the back cover, I knew this was
a novel of great interest! Captivated by this reading, I discovered
that Clan
of the Cave Bear
was the first of several novels written by Jane Auel. One by one, I
managed to locate the sequence books written by her. What wonderful
treasures they were about life in early European days centred around
Ayla and her life, living in harsh conditions ~ learning to cope and
developing skills ~ adapting to circumstances and her environment.
Written by Merle Baird-Kerr...June 27, 2018
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