St. Albert Gazette Great Reading

Book picks as published in the April 24, 2019 St. Albert Gazette. For more great reads, check here.

All our relationsAll our relations: finding the path forward

By Tanya Talaga

Every single year in Canada, one-third of all deaths among Indigenous youth are due to suicide. Award-winning author Tanya Talaga documents suicide prevention strategies, Facebook’s development of AI software to actively link kids in crisis with mental health providers, and the push by First Nations leadership in Northern Ontario for a new national health strategy.

 

Don't label meDon’t label me: an incredible conversation for our divided times

By Irshad Manji

How do we stand our ground yet seek common ground? Infused with scholarly insights and punctuated with stories about Manji’s experiences as a refugee from Africa, a Muslim immigrant to the U.S., and a professor of moral courage, Don’t Label Me offers a gift to every global citizen: concrete tips on how to start and sustain the toughest, most taboo conversations.

St. Albert Gazette Great Reading

Book picks as published in the April 17, 2019 St. Albert Gazette. For more great reads, check here.

Leading menLeading men : a novel

By Christopher Castellani

An expansive yet intimate story of desire, artistic ambition, and fidelity, set in the glamorous literary and film circles of 1950s Italy In July of 1953, at a glittering party thrown by Truman Capote in Portofino, Italy, Tennessee Williams and his longtime lover Frank Merlo meet Anja Blomgren, a mysteriously taciturn young Swedish beauty and aspiring actress. Their encounter will go on to alter all of their lives.

 

Learning to seeLearning to see: a novel of Dorothea Lange, the woman who revealed the real America

By Elise Hooper

In 1918, a fearless twenty-two-year old arrives in bohemian San Francisco from the Northeast, determined to make her own way as an independent woman. Renaming herself Dorothea Lange she is soon the celebrated owner of the city’s most prestigious and stylish portrait studio and wife of the talented but volatile painter, Maynard Dixon.

Joanne’s Mystery Picks

y450-274A MATTER OF MALICE by Thomas King

Things haven’t been going well for Thumps lately. You could call it a bad case of the three Cs: Claire, car, and his cat, Freeway. Of course it only gets worse when the crew of a true crime reality TV show, Malice Aforethought arrives in town to reopen an old case and they want Thumps to help. Trudy Samuels was from a wealthy family and everyone called her death a suicide. Nina Maslow, one of the producers of the show, wants to prove that Samuels’ death was murder. It’s all about ratings, of course.

When Maslow is found dead at the exact spot that Trudy died, and in circumstances eerily similar, Thumps has to determine if there are two killers at large or if Maslow’s death is just a coincidence. While going through Maslow’s files on the show, hoping to shed some light on her murder, Thumps finds that the producer was preparing a future show on the Obsidian Murders – the case that made Thumps throw in his badge. Has Maslow found the final clue to the puzzle that has haunted Thumps for years?

Thumps is a great character and King gives him lots of scope, leading us to believe that we might, some day, see Thumps at peace with his past.

3 Daggers
Joanne gives this “3 daggers out of 5”

Read Joanne’s review for Dreadfulwater Shows Up.

 

MYCROFT and SHERLOCK by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse

This sequel to Mycroft Holmes sees the Holmes’ brothers teaming up, though at times reluctantly. Mycroft’s good friend, Cyrus Douglas, runs an orphanage as a charity. When one of h91wq5evr1ulis cargo ships runs aground, he is forced to attend to the situation, while requiring someone to act as a tutor to the children in the orphanage. This is where Sherlock comes in. Sherlock’s attentions are often focused on the series of grisly murders that have recently been taking place in London and we see the beginnings of the inquisitive nature of the detective.

Nothing goes smoothly with Sherlock in charge and when one of the boys in his charge dies of a suspected drug overdose, Sherlock’s subsequent investigation takes him to the opium dens that litter the docks. It’s here we also see the beginnings of Sherlock’s addictive behavior.

I caught myself often saying “Sherlock wouldn’t say/do that; this is out of character for Mycroft…” Then I’d stop short, remembering that these are fictional characters based on the fictional characters of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and that these authors can take whatever literary license they wish to in their portrayal of the Holmes’ brothers. How easy it is to forget that Sherlock and Mycroft never existed other than on the written page! Of course, I’d much rather read Doyle’s accounts of their adventures.

3 Daggers
Joanne gives this “3 daggers out of 5”

St. Albert Gazette Great Reading

Book picks as published in the April 10, 2019 St. Albert Gazette. For more great reads, check here.

Lost wordsThe Lost words : a spell book

By Robert Macfarlane

All over the country, there are words disappearing from children’s lives. These are the words of the natural world–dandelion, otter, bramble and acorn, all gone. The rich landscape of wild imagination and wild play is rapidly fading from our children’s minds. The Lost Words stands against the disappearance of wild childhood. It is a joyful celebration of nature words and the natural world they invoke.

 

listening to the beesListening to the bees

By Mark L. Winston and Renee Saklikar

Through the distinct but complementary lenses of science and poetry, Mark Winston and Renée Saklikar reflect on the tension of being an individual living in a society, and about the devastation wrought by overly intensive management of agricultural and urban habitats. A unique collaboration that makes for perfect reflective reading for both, Poetry Month and Earth Month.