The possibility of alien life; the sixties scoop; the end of Harper; Anthony Weiner; and the matter of the naked tomato thief.
The news is ephemeral, but books are forever. Illuminate your understanding of current events by checking out these 49thShelf-approved complementary reads.
The central metaphor of the collection The Octopus and Other Poems is the search for new life in the universe—to find something beyond ourselves, and simultaneously to be “found.”
The tension between wanting to understand, and giving in to the mysteries of the universe, culminates in the long poem “The Octopus,” in which former lovers debate the merits of searching for extraterrestrial life.
He considers it a futile and wasteful endeavour, particularly since there are “alien” life forms we don’t understand right here on earth, like the octopus.
She, on the other hand, comes to realize her enjoyment of the search isn’t about aliens at all, but about the pleasure of simply hoping for something new, something spectacular.
In the end, she believes that it’s the hope of the search that matters, not finding or being found, but looking.
To the shock of his family and community, George Woodbury, an affable teacher and beloved husband and father, is arrested for sexual assault at a prestigious prep school in Connecticut. While he awaits his trial in jail, his family is left to pick up the pieces.
His wife, Joan, a trauma nurse, is unable to triage her emotional reactions, and vaults between rage and denial. Daughter Sadie, the consummate overachiever, finds herself paralyzed on her boyfriend’s couch with a bong, while a local author attempts to exploit her story. Their son, Andrew, a lawyer in New York, assists in his father’s defense while wrestling with the unhappy memories of his own teen years in high school. Unfolding over a one-year period, the novel focuses on the Woodbury family as they struggle to support George while privately grappling with the possibility of his guilt.
Taken from the arms of her mother as soon as she was born, Sandy was only one of over twenty thousand Aboriginal children scooped up by the federal government between the 1960s and 1980s. Sandy was adopted by a Ukrainian family and grew up as the only First Nations child in a town of white people. Ostracized by everyone around her and tired of being different, at the early age of five she tried to scrub the brown off her skin. But she was never sent back into the foster system, and for that she considers herself lucky.
From this tragic period in her personal life and in Canadian history, Sandy does not emerge unscathed, but she emerges strong—finding her way by embracing the First Nations culture that the Sixties Scoop had tried to deny. Those very roots allow Sandy to overcome the discriminations that she suffers every day from her co-workers, from strangers and sometimes even from herself.
Torn from the headlines, Sussex Drive is a rollicking, cheeky, alternate history of big-ticket political items in Canada told from the perspectives of Becky Leggatt (the sublimely capable and manipulative wife of a hard-right Conservative prime minister) and just a wink away at Rideau Hall, Lise Lavoie (the wildly exotic and unlikely immigrant Governor General)—two wives and mothers living their private lives in public.
Set in recent history, when the biggest House on their turf is shuttered not once, not twice, but three times, Becky and Lise engage in a fight to the death in a battle that involves Canada’s relationship to the United States, Afghanistan and Africa. The rest of the time, the women are driving their kids.
From Linda Svendsen’s sharp and wicked imagination comes a distaff Ottawa like no other ever created by a Canadian writer, of women manoeuvring in a political world gone more than a little mad, hosting world leaders, dealing with the challenges of minority government, and worrying about teen pregnancies and their own marriages. As they juggle these competing interests, Becky and Lise are forced to question what they thought were their politics, and make difficult choices about their families and their futures—federal and otherwise.
Lush, juicy, bursting with flavor, tomatoes are delicious in soups, salads and salsas, and even in classic desserts such as cakes and clafoutis. The tomato (or "love apple" as the French like to call it because of its suspected aphrodisiac powers) is the most cultivated fruit in Canada. It lends itself to most culinary whims whether you cook it into a delectable pasta sauce, chop it raw into a gazpacho or slice it into a tian or tatin.
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