I flew to London Ontario last week on business. On the plane I selected "Room," a novel I had downloaded to my IPad quite a while back. I can honestly say this was one time that I wished for a longer flight.

The writing seemed a little odd and confusing at first because the narrator is a 5 year old named Jack. As the pages turned, or in my case, scrolled, I realized that Jack and his mother were being held captive by "Old Nick" in an 11 by 11 foot room. I won't reveal any more about this truly mesmerizing story only to say that this is a work of amazing intelligence and creativity. Read this and you will have Jack in your head for weeks. There is a lot of "feel good" in this book as well as tragedy, love, and surprise. And there was an additional surprise for me; author Emma Donoghue lives in London and is a personal friend of the collegues that I met with there. Perhaps these connections will be of benefit for MUSE members further down our literary road.