Dog On It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery by Spencer Quinn

Chet - a dog with mismatched ears who failed to graduate from K-9 school - is Bernie Little's partner in a struggling private detective agency in Nevada. They are hired to find a missing teenager, but she shows up on her own. A few days later, she disappears again. Chet and Bernie are back on the case. This time, everything gets much more complicated.

Chet narrates the events and I found his voice rather annoying for the first while. All that barking... just kidding. He addresses the reader in short, often incomplete, sentences. (Hard-boiled detective style; just the facts, ma'm. Except that Chet's facts do tend to meander: "Snake. I don't like snakes.") What I found tedious are sentences like this: "They get upset, humans, and then water comes out of their eyes. What is that all about?" But then, I got caught up in the storyline and decided I really liked Chet and forgave him for being a dog.

Other people have said they laughed out loud while reading this book. I smiled a lot. Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann, a mystery solved by a herd of sheep, has something of the same appeal.

Premium Beer Drinker's Guide by Stephen Beaumont

Mmmm. Beer. In this book, Stephen Beaumont concentrates on the strongest and boldest beers from around the world. It's about 10 years old, so some brands are no longer available, but it still makes tasty reading. The suggestions for food pairings are wonderful. Belgian styles are among my favourite, so I lingered in those sections. Full recognition is given to Unibroue brewery in Quebec for their Belgian-type ales: Maudite, Fin-du-Monde, Eau Benite, Blanche de Chambly and the like. Another Quebec brewery for which Beaumont and I share admiration is McAuslan - they make St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout and St. Ambroise Pale Ale. Stout is a grand winter drink but pale ale is good any time because it "can quench a thirst in the heat and satisfy the soul in the cold." "Rusty orange in colour, [St. Ambroise Pale Ale] has a pleasantly fruity, nutshell aroma and a full and marvelously balanced flavour, blending nutty and woody hop notes with peachy and orangey fruit." Don't you want one right now?

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco Stork

Marcelo Sandoval is 17 and was looking forward to his summer job working with horses at the special school he's attended since his youth. Instead, he is forced to work in the mailroom of his father's Boston law firm that summer. Marcelo's father wants him to get out of the protective environment of the special school - and the treehouse in which he lives when he's home - and into the "real world." Although Marcelo is on the high-functioning spectrum of autism, the "real world" is scary and difficult. Marcelo grows during his summer at the law firm in ways his father never could have imagined. His story broke my heart and then healed it. Grade 8-12.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin

Bad things happen to good people. Bad things happen to bad people. That description is too simplistic for author Daniyal Mueenuddin's nuanced portrayal of the lives of servants in contemporary Pakistan, but be prepared for one sad outcome after another in this collection of short stories. They reminded me in style and tone of Aravind Adiga's Between the Assassinations.

I listened to an excellent Recorded Books edition, narrated by Firdous Bamji. It was nice to hear the correct pronunciation for Urdu names and words. When he said 'Himalaya' (him-ALL'-ee-a), it took me a split-second to recognize to what he referred. In the final story, A Spoiled Man, listening to details of police brutality was too much for me and I had to skip ahead in the narration. Mueenuddin exhibits a tenderness towards his characters, no matter how desperate their situations. Anyone looking for insight into the complexities of human behaviour will be rewarded by reading this book.

Where Bones Dance: An English Girlhood, an African War by Nina Newington

"I lived in Nigeria from when I was seven until I was ten but, before writing this book, I had almost no conscious memory of that time, or indeed of the first twelve years of my life. The first time I wrote about Nigeria the story startled me with its immediacy. It came from an unknown place inside myself." The University of Wisconsin Press, publisher of Where Bones Dance, assigns the following marketing descriptors on the back of the dust jacket: Fiction / Autobiography / Africa / Lesbian Interest. So, is it fiction or is it true? The author says: "I gave myself, in writing the book, complete permission to lie."

Newington's memories are vividly evocative of Nigeria as seen through the eyes of a White colonialist child. She uses the name 'Anna' in the book. Her father was a British diplomat, observing the civil war as it began in the late 1960s. Her best friend is Helen, daughter of a Korean-American spy. The first time Anna visits Helen's home, she tells her, "My name is Jake. I'm a marine." Helen says, "My name is Dave. It's a code name. I'm a spy." Anna's emerging lesbian self can be glimpsed in her interactions with Helen, as well as in her adamant statements that she will never marry.

Candid, gritty and compelling, the narrative is a collection of memory fragments - sometimes dreamlike, even nightmarish. Anna's relationship with her mother is troubled and dark. Disturbing incidents are dropped liked grenades between descriptions of kite-flying at the seaside and traditional Igbo tales recounted by Christine, a domestic employee.

For other stories of White girlhoods in Africa, try Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight (Alexandra Fuller); The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver); Twenty Chickens for a Saddle (Robin Scott); and Rainbow's End (Lauren St. John).

Ojingogo by Matthew Forsythe

A totally offbeat wordless graphic novel from a Canadian who draws on his exposure to Korean culture while he was teaching in Seoul, Ojingogo features the adventures of a girl and her (reluctant) pet squid in a place where anything can happen. In an Alice in Wonderland sort of way, people - and animals and even cameras - can grow larger or smaller. A monster may be carted off by a larger monster. It's funny. It's surreal. It's great. Grade 3 - adult.

The Big Skinny: How I Changed My Fattitude by Carol Lay

Cartoonist Carol Lay recounts her experiences with yoyo dieting and documents (in full-colour panels) how she has finally achieved lasting (several years) success. Her methods are nothing new - calorie-counting and physical exercise - but her upbeat style may be all the encouragement someone needs. Lay pays special attention to the psychological pitfalls that await dieters and has many tips to counter them. Easy exercises, sample menus and lots of recipes are included.