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Reviewed by Gail Picco  - In Likeness, an achingly sad and sometimes hilarious memoir, David Macfarlane uses a portrait of himself created by preeminent Canadian painter John Hartman as a vehicle to access his memory.

Reviewed by Kathleen Adamson -  According to Andri Snær Magnason, we need stories. In his excellent book Of Time and Water, the award-winning Icelandic fiction author turns his hand to a nonfiction climate change narrative, braiding family memories with scientific reporting and poetic literary association.

Reviewed by Kathleen Adamson July 9, 2021 The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome from 161-180CE, make up one of the most popular and enduring works of philosophy of all time, although they were never intended for public consumption. The texts, divided into 12 notebooks, consist of personal reflections, intentions to do better, and affirmation of the basic principles of Stoicism. But Aurelius was no abstracted ponderer—according to editor Robin Waterfield, he was ‘a man who longed to do good and to love all humanity, while… his status as an emperor impeded his achievement of these goals.’

Reviewed by Kathleen Adamson, June 28, 2021, We live in a sea of information, but it surrounds us so completely that the word ‘information’ itself is difficult to define. Nowadays we might say ‘data,’ thinking of the vast swathes of personal details, financial records, satellite photos, and security photographs that pile up like sand on servers all over the world.

Reviewed by Gail Picco, June 22, 2021:  Canadian poet Lorna Crozier said of Unravelling Canada by Sylvia Olsen that “This book knits us together, not only with strands of wool but with compassion, intelligence, caring and storytelling of the most appealing kind.” All that is true. Unravelling Canada is a page turner of a travelogue.  But Sylvia Olsen manages—through delivering knitting workshops to 40 communities from one end of the country to the other—to cover an incredible amount of historical and sociological ground as she pulls at the stitches of Canadian history.

Reviewed by Wanda Deschamps (June 14, 2021): Diary of a Young Naturalist is a year-long chronicle of Dara McAnulty’s perspective on nature as a teenager from the age of fourteen to fifteen, originally published in the UK. Through his journey, including his family’s relocation from the west of Northern Ireland in County Fermanagh to the east in County Down, to his encounters at school we learn about an extraordinary young autistic environmentalist living his life as his true self empowered by his family and deeply connected to insects, birds, plants, and other aspects of nature he loves.

Reviewed by Roger Ali, June 11, 2021: Saga Boy is a memoir of love, loss, and pain, of self-actualization and acceptance. It is a beautiful, raw story about Antonio Michael Downing’s life-long search for his black identity as he approaches each stage of life with vulnerability and courage. In the four-part memoir, with each act referencing a specific period of his life, he masks as a different person, his alter egos—Tony, Michael, Mic Dainjah, Molasses and John Orpheus.

Reviewed by Kathleen Adamson (May 23, 2021): Anne Heberlein’s new biography of Hannah Arendt sparkles with energy and clarity. Hannah Arendt’s brilliance as a writer and political thinker has long been overshadowed by the controversial elements of her career.  But with lively and personal style, Heberlein places each of Arendt’s major works in a biographical context that makes its relevance clear.

Reviewed by Gail Picco (May 10, 2021): Road Allowance Era, a powerful conclusion to The Girl called Echo series of four graphic novels written for Highwater Press by Canadian novelist and Métis writer Katherena Vermette, is a singular accomplishment that combines vivid Métis history with what it’s like growing up as a Métis teenager in Canada today.

Reviewed by Wanda Deschamps (May 6, 2021): Unwinding Anxiety speaks from both the brain and the heart. Author Dr. Judson Brewer has experiential knowledge and education in the topic of mental health and writes in a style that places him in the book alongside the reader. “My own history with anxiety goes back much further. I’m a doctor – a psychiatrist, to be precise. Only after years of struggling to help my patients overcome their anxiety and continually feeling like I was missing something important in their treatment did I connect the dots between anxiety, my lab’s neuroscience research on habit change, and my own panic attacks.”

Reviewed by Ginelle Skerritt (May 3, 2021): I am noticing a trend. We seem to be going through a period where Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training, books and gurus are like the haute couture of organizational fitness. It’s in. Like the fads we chased in my youth, DEI policy and training seem to be on everyone’s must-have list. Inclusion is officially hot.

Reviewed by Kathleen Adamson (May 13, 2021): Like the legal system, the language of academic discourse has become so complex that it sometimes requires an interpreter -- someone like Benjamin Miller. But that does not mean nothing important is there. Revisiting theoretical works to update concepts based on the history that has occurred since their first hatching may seem like a luxury that these urgent times do not afford us. Yet to fail to do so is to ignore a great many things that could help us on our way. However, very rarely does an author take political theory, apply and interpret it with the relevance and clarity of Benjamin Miller. Miller’s first book, The 100 Year PR Plan, is a breathtaking antidote to much of the overexposed, repetitive jargon and histrionic search for novelty that characterizes a great deal of modern political commentary and the news cycle.

Reviewed by Ginelle Skerritt (May 21, 2021): You may recognize author Jamie Swift from his work as a documentary producer for Ideas on CBC radio. He is also a writer and has been a business professor. His latest book, The Case for Basic Income: Freedom, Security, Justice is co-authored with Elaine Power, whose research focuses on poverty, class, food, and health. They have come together to present the facts that show why Basic Income is an important part of any honest attempt to address the growing gap between the haves and the have nots. They tell the story of decades of political and social activism across the political spectrum to champion basic income in Canada.

Reviewed by Gail Picco (April 30, 2021) It was a sort of epiphany says David Love.  He and his wife Ann, who helped found Pollution Probe, were working up north setting up an independent school in Yukon. At the same time, one of the first “environmental CEOs” Monte Hummel, who went to Woodstock for his honeymoon, had just taken over World Wildlife Federation (WWF) as its executive director. He asked David to come onboard as an educator. Love quickly made the not-so-big-a-leap to fundraising and has been committed to fundraising for the environment ever since.

Reviewed by Roger Ali (March 30, 2021): Neglected No More by André Picard is a compelling read about the urgent need to improve the lives of Canada’s elders in the wake of the pandemic. He makes a heartfelt plea to stop dehumanizing elders, to reimagine long-term care and to fix a broken system. Sadly, it took a coronavirus pandemic to open our eyes to the deplorable state in long-term care homes.