Cori-Beth's Books

Do you have a favourite author that you like to read? Any and all books that they've written? Or maybe just a few? Jane Austen, C.S. Lewis, Alexandre Dumas. Or how about Dianne Chamberlain, or even Stephen King? How about lesser known authors such as G.P Taylor or even Janette Oke? Those names aren't known in a whole lot of circles. How about even Jack London? He's more well known. So you like the Call of the Wild, huh? Well, how about Jules Verne, my favourite author?

Now you would think my favourite book by him would be something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in 80 Days, Journey to the Centre of the Earth. But, no. My favourite by him was the last one that was actually discovered by his great-grandson called Paris in the 20th Century. They also call it the Lost Novel. He never had it published, but his great-grandson did when he found the handwritten manuscript.

Follow along in the book as a young man named Michel who very much so is into the arts such as reading and books and writing poetry. Except in Paris in the 20th Century, that's frowned upon. Any form of art is frowned upon. Dancing, singing, writing, reading, you name it. You wouldn't think that reading is a form of art. Writing books, yes, but reading, no. Also, anything such as paintings. Oh, you don't think of paintings like billboards being part of the arts, but they are. Think of

Well, think about it, like I just said, billboards, they're a form of art. How about those street signs? The ones that you see while you drive to work. Oh, wait a minute, building, creating, and designing a car, it's a form of art. If we didn't have art, you wouldn't have your car.

In the book, things like sciences and math, those things are more important than art. Not to say that they are not needed, of course. But to be mocked and ridiculed, criticized because you write a poem, that's just wrong. Yes, I know, I know. Sciences and math are art forms in and of themselves, but bare with me as that wasn't the point of the book. Nor how a lot of people see them. Most see art as painting, writing, singing, etc. including the society in the book.

Michel is shunned. He has to sneak into a hidden library just to read books, because books have been completely banned. Any and all books that are considered literature. Now that sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Think of all the art we have in our world. We have fibre art, we have paintings, we have music, we have singing, we have dancing, we have television, even. Comedies, musicals. We even have plays. Think about a world without Broadway for example. Could you imagine? A world without art is not a world at all that I want to be in.

We have so much art. But, think about it again, that you would be mocked, ridiculed, shunned, even considered obsolete if you even wrote a poem, wrote a book or even read a book. Or even if you sang a song or whistled a tune. Oh, again with those street signs, you don't consider that they're art? Well, they are. Someone had to design them. Street signs that you see, while you are driving in your car that was designed by somebody, who had an eye for art, to those jobs that you consider more important than anything to do with the arts.

How about the clothes that you wear? Those were designed by somebody. Yes, designed, created. Those are art. Event the colour that was picked for them. How about photographs? Those are art. How about the technology you have now? Those are a form of art, with creators and designers. How about the food that you eat? That is a form of art. Created, even if it's bland, even if it's tasty, it's a form of art.

In this book, Michel is shunned from society. Laughed at even though he received an award for his poem. He was still an outcast, a pariah in society. His uncle just wanted him to be an accountant. There's nothing wrong with being an account, just to be clear. But that's all his uncle wanted him to be, nothing else, because any form of art was considered wrong.

Now think about this, again, all books about literature were banned. All books, but anyone, any author. Authors that you may like to read. All banned. Destroyed. Considered obsolete. Not important by the powers that be, and soon by the majority of society because they soon believed the powers that be.

Jules Verne definitely was ahead of his time. He didn't mention in his book all the things that I mentioned that are forms of art such as technology, street signs, and what not. But he was ahead of his time. He mentions skyscrapers in the book. Skyscrapers had to have been created by architects who are artists. Yet, artists weren't important according to the society in the bo
ok. Those skyscrapers that the scientists and accounts work in . Now, it sure sounds like modern times, doesn't it? Paris in the 20th Century, Jules Verne knew what he was talking about, even 100 years ago.

Now the next time you think that they arts should be cancelled, that they shouldn't exist, that they should be cut from our schools, from our society, think about how much art that we actually have. So much. So much. Heartbreaking how Paris in the 20th Century is now.

Do you have a book that sticks out to you from when you were a child, or even as an adult, and you still read it to this day?  Or if you don't still read it, you just remember it from when you were a child or from years ago?  Well, I do.

When I was younger, I was gifted a copy of Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.  Now that's not the book that sticks out most from when I was a child, not as much as another one.  I don't remember who gifted me the book, but it very well could have been my Aunt Mary.  She really liked reading all of Lucy Maude Montgomery books.  Since I was gifted the book, I have collected all of the books in the Anne series as well as all of Montgomery's other books.  It took me several years to do so.  In fact, I found some in a bookstore in a mall in the area of Toronto, Ontario named Queen's Quay.  On a whim I looked in there while on a church trip to see the Blue Jay's game at what was then called the SkyDome.  I found books I couldn't find anywhere else.  This was before online shopping and Amazon.

Back to the Anne series.  I have read the series at least two times, and the one book in the series that always has stood out to me as my favourite is the very last one, Rilla of Ingleside.  It is about Anne and Gilbert's youngest daughter Rilla.  If you know the Anne series, then you know who Rilla is named after.  None other than Marilla, who, along with her brother Matthew, adopted Anne when she was just 11 years old and an orphan.

The book takes place during at time that was dark in the world, World War One.  Of course, during that time, it wasn't called World War One because they didn't imagine that a second world war was going to happen.  It was called the Great War.  The book speaks about how Anne and Gilbert, all of their children, and the community react to the war and all the young men going off to fight.  Will their sons go off to war?  Will their husbands go off to war?  Will they return the same way they left?  How does Rilla react as she sees her brothers one by one enlist?  What's going to happen when her closest brother, Walter, is thinking about going off to war?  He is the most sensitive and intuitive of the Blyth siblings.  A poet with a quiet spirit and demeanour.  He hears what he calls the piper calling him and other young men.  He sees the piper leading young men away to fight.  Will he follow the piper?  What about the one young man that Rilla is love with?  Will he come back from war?  Will her brothers come back from war?  They surely will be changed.  Life continues.  Dances continue.  But it's not the same.

Rilla of Ingleside made me laugh and cry.  I found it amusing when all the women and young ladies would gather for crocheting and knitting bee during the week and gossip.  One character would even run the flag up the pole, the Union Jack at that time in Canada, when a good news report came back from Europe about the war, a victory for the Allies and Britain for example.  When sad news came back, I was crying right along with the characters.  It's one of those rare books that will actually make me cry.  One of the many reasons I liked about it, as crazy as that may sound.

So what book or novel has stood out for you (that isn't necessarily a favourite of yours) even years after you have read it?  What book have you read several times, even if it's not your favourite, but you have to read it over and over?  Something by Lucy Maud Montgomery, like me?  Or another book?  And why?  I have others, of course, but there isn't enough space to discuss all of them.

If I leave you with one thing after all this meandering, enjoy what books you enjoy and be sure to share your love of them with others.

Alyxandria Hill has entered a world that is not her own, far from everything she has known.  A forest, secret experiments, an illness that mimics the one that took her friends and loved ones on her own world.  The Resistance needs all the help they can to pull off a rescue and save Fásra from the evil that has descended upon it.

Entangled in a forest of Tranquility, a serpent lies in wait. Paradise isn't what it seems in Eutopia.

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I am over the moon that book 2 in the Eutopia series is now available for purchase!  Thank you all once again for your encouragement and support.  Join Alyx as she continues on her journey to another world and discover what God's purpose is for her.  Join the Resistance and try and stop the ADF from spreading their poison.

Alyxandria Hill was eight years old when her world turned upside down.  With both parents gone, she looks to her grandmother and her cousin Ethan to be a constant.  Trusting God's plan, she pushes forward with her life in Silverbrook. Soon, her world is rocked again.  This time she will be thrown into a reality she could never have dreamed of.

An evil of grave proportions has descended upon the world of Aotrum.  An illness, death, threat of war, total destruction.  What could possibly be next as Project Eutopia unfolds?

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I had the idea for Escape From Eutopia come to me in a dream over twenty years ago. The kids in the old deli, a little boy hiding things in a cubby in the wall, the kids had to save the world, etc. Odd dream, right? But it stuck with me so much that I wrote it out. I still have my original notes, complete with a layout of the old deli.

It evolved over the years and ultimately I started to write it at the beginning of 2020, before the pandemic and lockdowns, not then realising how closely the events in the story would be to real world events. Of course, I was gobsmacked by it. A virus, a pandemic, people believing it was the government who caused the virus. A cure. I have since tweaked the story and it will now be a trio of books, each taking place on a different world, following along with our heroine, Alyxandria aka Alyx. The story is made up, but there are some parallels to real life, like I said. Alyx is the key to saving them all in the first book of the Eutopia series, Escape From Eutopia. Will she figure that out in time? Yes, there is a reason that it's spelled with an 'e' at the beginning of the word. But you will have to read the book to find out why, if you haven't already.