Notes from a Small Island, by Bill Bryson (@McClellandBooks) #seenreadingTO

Southbound, Greenwood and Dundas

Caucasian female, early 60s, with short grey hair, wearing red-framed glasses, long black trench coat and green and red silk scarf.

Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson (McClelland & Stewart)

Page 72:

Knowing already of the town's carefully nurtured reputation for gentility, I moved there in 1977 with the idea that this was going to be a kind of English answer to Bad Ems or Baden-Baden - manicured parks, Palm Courts with Orchestras, swank hotels where men in white gloves kept the brass gleaming, bosomy ladies in mink coats walking those little dogs you ache to kick (not out of cruelty, you understand, but from a slmple, honest desire to see how far you can make them fly). Sadly, I have to report that almost none of this awaited me.

She was at the age now of the mother of that author, the one who wrote a family column on raising a son as a single mother, trying to date while starting a new novel and the recent addition of her mother living steps away in the converted garage. It had been her study for years, but now it housed the woman the author described "as alien to me as if she'd fallen from the stars, beyond the stars, far beyond the stars where it's common sense to wear a cable-knit sweater on a summer day, and, judge me if you will, all I could imagine in that moment was her head facedown in the sand, my hand holding her in place, catching just a few solitary moments of sunshine against my bare shoulders." At the time, it had horrified the woman. She'd always been coldblooded and dreaded the day her own child might resent her for needing to layer. But there was something to be said about these small dogs, their neighbour's in particular, no bigger than the base of a compost bin.

Sanctuary Line, Jane Urquhart (McClelland & Stewart)

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Caucasian female, late 40s, with long, large blonde hair, and striking blue eyes, wearing white ski jacket and new Sorels.

Sanctuary Line, Jane Urquhart (McClelland & Stewart)

Page 17:

In spite of the times when she was home on leave and making every effort to pay attention to each of her old friends while her mind was thinking, thinking, thinking about one man. In spite of the way she returned to this house and collapsed into an orgy of confession with me as her unlikely priest, I couldn't really hear what she way saying. Except, when one is set apart by passion and goes into the world of that secret, there seems no reason to take heed of anything beyond those gestures that protect the secret.

Her family has been protecting their secret so well, they no longer speak of it. They no longer speak. Not in seven years have they uttered one word. Not as hard as you'd think with only the three of them, each with day jobs and rooms in each far corner of the house where they retreat to their books and hobbies. And she knows what you're thinking. What if they stub a toe? What then? But they were never allowed to swear, so why would they start now? Besides exclamations don't count. In fact, laughter is encouraged, humming, and tra-la-la-ing even. It gives the neighbours comfort and provides good distraction from the fourth room in the fourth far corner of the house.