This is the fourth blog in our annual holiday book suggestions. For our final week, here are our suggestions for books you should check out in 2022. You can read each of the previous blogs in the series here.
Families, by Jesse Unaapik Mike and Kerry McCluskey, follows Talittuq on his first day of grade two as he learns about the variety of families his classmates have. Some have one parent, some are adopted, some live with extended family, some have two moms or two dads, and some have a mom and a dad. Families come in all shapes and sizes, and this is a great book to explore what makes a family. This book is featured as part of our Read the Rainbow project in partnership with the Rainbow Coalition of Yellowknife. You can view other titles here.
I picked up The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid, at the Yellowknife Book Cellar after seeing multiple recommendations for it. It’s around 400 pages, but an easy read that you won’t want to put down!
This book is about reclusive Old Hollywood star, Evelyn Hugo. Evelyn hasn’t done an interview in decades and surprisingly chooses an unknown journalist, Monique Grant, to write her tell-all biography. Evelyn shares the stories of her very humble start to her glamorous life as an actress. She tells about her seven marriages, her numerous personal scandals and the consequences that came with it all: ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. As Evelyn’s story nears its ending, it becomes clear why she chose Monique for this job. We see that her life crosses Monique’s in heartbreaking and irreversible ways.
Like me, you’re probably tired of the pandemic. When Louise Penny started to write The Madness of Crowds as she quarantined in March 2020, she thought no one would want to read about the pandemic. We’ve all lived through it, after all. However, she realized that she couldn’t just ignore it, so in an insightful moment she set this book post-pandemic. The Madness of Crowds is the 17th book in the adventures of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache set in the village of Three Pines. In this book, the Chief Inspector investigates a murder on New Year’s Eve. But this book is not just a murder mystery; it involves relationships, and the moral and ethical choices that people make in their lives. No spoilers for this one!
A couple of years ago, a friend lent me Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson. I devoured this book so quickly and enthusiastically that I now question whether parts of the book are from pages read or dreams dreamt. It is a magical book filled with emotion, drama, and adventure that left me wanting to jump through the pages and into the book as a participating character. Now that the third installment of this trilogy is out, Return of the Trickster, I’m looking forward to diving back into the series over the holidays and drinking in all three novels this time—one after the other.
