B.C. Road Trip

Greetings from Kelowna, British Columbia (Canada)! It’s a city in the southern interior of B.C. next to Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley, which is known for it’s plentiful vineyards and orchards.

My husband and I arrived here after a long day driving on Friday and came for the GranFondo Kelowna 122 km bike ride on Saturday, which was invigorating and a good challenge. We were lucky because it was overcast, otherwise we would have fried like eggs on our bikes.

Afterwards we visited one of our favorite independent bookstores in Western Canada called Mosaic Books in downtown Kelowna. It has a big selection of books and everything is well displayed. In the back, there’s a big stock of “bargain books” where hardbacks and trade paperbacks can be bought for between $6.99 to $8.99, which is a good deal in Canada where non-used books usually cost $20s to $40s. So off we were to the races: here is my stack (below) that I bought at bargain:

Going from the top, there’s “Toute Allure: Falling in Love in Rural France” by Karen Wheeler, which is the second book by the former British Fashion editor and writer who first wrote “Tout Sweet: Hanging Up My High Heels for a New Life in France.” This is a memoir I read before I visited France a few years ago and it proved so entertaining I had to get Part II.

The next down is Margaret Atwood’s second novel “Surfacing” from 1972. It’s about a woman who returns to her hometown in Quebec to look for her missing father. Sounds intriguing, and it’s Atwood talking about Canada after all!

Next is Mitchell Zuckoff’s “Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II.” I heard this one is pretty amazing and was sold at Hello!

Then comes “Mao’s Last Dancer” by Cunxin Li. It’s a memoir about a dancer who grows up in Mao’s communist China and eventually defects to the U.S. I’m intrigued to read it and also thereafter to see the movie of it, which came out in 2009.

The last book in my stack is “Townie” a memoir by Andre Dubus III. Apparently the author of “House of Sand and Fog” has written a powerful account of his life — growing up in a depressed Massachusetts mill town — which I definitely plan to check out!

So all in all, five nonfiction books and one that is fiction. This is rare! Usually fiction rules my picks. Have you read any of these? And what do you think of them? Enjoy your Sunday.