Curled Up With a Good Book and a Cup of Tea

Sundancer, academic, musician, chief, activist, journalist.  In the public sphere, Wab Kinew carries many different titles.  In his private life, he also carries many titles, and one of those is son.  Born to an Anishinaabe father and a non-Native mother, he grew up on a reserve in Northern Ontario and in urban Winnipeg.  His father was a traditional chief, a respected leader engaged in politics at every level, and a residential schools survivor.  But to Wab, he was a man who found difficulties connecting with his children which put a lot of distance between them. When his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Wab decided to put his career on hold and spend a year reconnecting with his father.  As Wab learned about his father’s experiences at the residential school, his activism, and his role in reconciliation, they grew close. They confronted their pasts and together looked to the future.   The Reason You Walk , by Wab Kinew, was born ...

On December 3, 1976, gunmen stormed the house of Bob Marley in Jamaica, two days before he was scheduled to play at a peace concert.  Marley, his wife, and his manager were nearly killed and several others were injured.  But he would go on to perform at the concert two day laters, then leave Jamaica the very next day and not return for two years. At the time of the concert, Jamaica was gearing up for a general election.  The country was divided between the governing People’s National Party (PNP) and the opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), not just at the ballot box but in everyday life.  The parties gave power and wealth to local gangs in exchange for the allegiance of their territories, which led to decades characterized by gang warfare.  The Smile Jamaica concert was meant to bring both sides together, to work toward peace.  But because it was organized by the government, many felt that it was a political event and that by participating in it, M...

In March: Book One , Congressman John Lewis shared details of his early life in the segregated South and the beginning of his involvement with the Civil Rights movement in a stunning graphic novel, designed to educate and inspire young readers. The story now continues in March: Book Two which is once again written in collaboration with writer Andrew Aydin and award-winning artist Nate Powell.  Picking up where the first book left off, this book covers the sit-ins, freedom rides, and the landmark 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedoms.  As is the case with the first book, this story is told in retrospect as Barack Obama is being sworn in as President of the United States. John Lewis is known one of the Big Six leaders of the Civil Rights movement, and is the last surviving speaker from the 1963 March on Washington.  As we come to a time where we begin to lose the people who shaped some of the most changing decades of our society, it is important that th...

One of the key people of the Civil Rights movement and now an American Congressman, John Lewis has spent his life fighting for civil rights in America.  Born on a sharecropper’s farm in Alabama, educated in a segregated classroom, Lewis was on the frontline of the biggest events of the 1960’s.  Now he is sharing his story in stunning graphic novel form. March: Book One is the first in a series of three graphic novels telling the life story of Congressman John Lewis.  Written in collaboration with co-writer Andrew Aydin and award-winning artist Nate Powell, the book is an incredible way of bringing history to the new generations. This book focuses on Lewis’ early life - his birth, childhood, and education.  It shows Lewis’ motivation for becoming heavily involved in the Civil Rights movement, including his first meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  The book also covers the sit-in movement that swept the south and the birth of the Student Nonviolen...

What does it mean to be “Indian” in North America?  This is the question that Thomas King looks at it in his book The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America .  Serious and funny, history and anecdote, this is a timely and important book that will open readers eyes to the narrative of the history of the continent. The relationship between Natives and non-Natives has been going on for centuries and the entire time has been fraught with difficulties and misunderstandings.  There is a lot that the history books have either misinformed or omitted completely when it comes to the history of Native peoples in North America.  And this has led to a complete lack of understanding in our present day lives.  To counter this, King takes a look at historical events and figures, politics and pop culture, to create an account that isn’t easy, but must be read. The history of the First Nations people in North America is longer and rich...

Best friends Audrey and Caroline are fourteen-year-old girls growing up in a small town in Kentucky.  Audrey knows that she’ll never get out of the town, so she devotes herself to playing the piano at church. Caroline has dreams beyond the town, dreams of Hollywood stardom.   But then a chance encounter gives Audrey a way out of town.  Before she knows it, she’s in New York City, a part of the increasingly popular jazz scene and playing on stage at the Apollo.  And now it’s Caroline who needs to accept that she is destined to stay in her backwards little town. Though the two women grow apart, they forever remain linked through their childhood, their town, and their shared experiences.  And when Caroline finds her way out of the town, and Audrey finds her star fading fast, their paths will cross once again. Saint Monkey , by Jacinda Townsend, is beautiful coming-of-age story, a first novel about growing up in the segregated South and chasing d...

It is 1988 and Somalia is on the brink of a civil war.  In the city of Hargeisa, the revolution is stirring but the dictatorship is holding on to power at all costs.  Change is coming and the country will fall, as witnessed by three very different women. Nine-year-old Deqo was born in a refugee camp, left behind by her mother.  Lured to the city by the promise of her first pair of shoes, she decides it is best to leave the camp and fend for herself.  Kawsar has lost both her husband and daughter and is living out her days in her little house with a garden.  But a savage beating at the local police station has now left her confined to her bed.  Filsan is a promising young soldier who has been sent to Hargeisa from Mogadishu to suppress the growing rebellion.  She wants to follow in her father's footsteps but life in the military can be tough for a woman. As the country plunges into war, the lives of these three women become intertwined and th...

In 1985, an Air India flight leaving Vancouver, Canada blew up off the coast of Ireland.  The majority of people on board were Canadians of Indian ancestry.  It wasn’t until 2004 that two suspects were finally put on trial for what is the largest mass murder in Canadian history. Ashwin Rao is an Indian psychologist who was trained in Canada but returned to India after the bombing took the lives of his sister and niece and nephew.  But the trial brings him back to Canada, to do a study on comparative grief by interviewing people who lost a loved one in the attack.  This brings him into contact with the Sethuratnam family, and their friend Venkat who lost his wife and son.  As Ashwin becomes wrapped up in their lives, he finds himself trying to deal with the emotional fallout of his own loss. The Ever After of Ashwin Rao by Padma Viswanathan looks at the emotions, grief, and recovery of one of the darkest days in Canadian history through the lens of fi...

We use it every day but do we really give much thought as to where it came from?  I’m talking about the English language.  How did it even start?  How did it evolve to what it is today?  And why doesn’t it have a rude history?  That’s right, why isn’t the story of the English language a rude one? Tom Howell has always wondered why the story of the English language doesn’t have a hero and why it isn’t rude enough.  And like any lexicographer would do, he set out to fix that.  The result is his new book, The Rude Story of English .  Beginning in 449 AD, he introduces us to Hengest, the legendary Germanic warrior who tripped and fell onto the shores of Britain, the man who will take us on the journey through the development of the English language and to what it has become today.  Spoken all over the world, English is a rich and diverse language and actually very rude. Travel the world, from England to Australia, from Newfoundland to ...

Snow Falls, a young Iroquois girl, has witnessed the brutal murder of her family at the hands of a Huron warrior.  That warrior, Bird, sees in her the ghost of his murdered daughter and recognizes the special powers that Snow Falls possesses so he kidnaps her to take on the rest of his journey.  One member of Bird's group is Christophe, a Jesuit missionary who has devoted himself to learning the language and culture of the Huron in the hopes that he can bring them to Christ. Bird's tribe have long been at war with other tribes but now they are facing a bigger threat, one that comes from overseas.  As we follow Snow Falls, Bird, and Christophe, we see a people desperately trying to hold on to their way of life and a people trying to lead them to a new life.  As these two worlds collide, life changes dramatically for everyone. The Orenda is Joseph Boyden's incredible new novel that looks at the beginnings of our country and takes readers on an incredi...

When Navy musician Jackson Lewis takes the stage, everyone goes crazy.  With good looks reminiscent of Frank Sinatra, Jack is a wanted man.  While stationed in St. John's Newfoundland during World War II, he meets Vivian Clift, a nineteen-year-old who has never set foot off the Rock but wants to see what Canada and the world has to offer.   Jack and Vivian fall in love and marry, but it's against her family's wishes.  She can't figure out why but there is something about him they don't like.  When the war ends, Vivian and Jack return to his hometown of Windsor, Ontario to meet his family.  But upon meeting his mother and brother, Vivian realizes that she doesn't know her new husband as well as she thought she did.  His life is nothing like he described and Jack's family all look different from each other.  In fact, they look different from anyone she has ever met.   Emancipation Day by Wayne Grady is a moving and touching novel t...

In war-torn Chechnya, Akhmed finds his neighbour's eight-year-old daughter Havaa hiding in the snowy woods after the Feds kidnapped her father and burned down their house.  Knowing that the Feds will be looking for her and that it's unsafe for him to care for her, he takes her to the only place he can think of - the abandoned hospital where one doctor remains. Sonja Andreyevana is barely keeping it together.  As the only doctor in the hospital, she spends most of her time amputating limbs.  When Akhmed arrives at the hospital with the young girl in tow, she protests that she cannot take her in.  But when Akhmed, a trained doctor, offers to help at the hospital in exchange for the girls safety, she cannot refuse. Over the course of five days, Sonja, Akhmed, and others will discover how their lives have intersected over the course of a decade permeated by war and its repercussions.  A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra is an incredible ...

It is 1946, the Second World War is over, and the country of Germany has been divided into four zones - British, French, Russian, and American.  The city of Hamburg is in the British Occupied Zone and it is here that Colonel Lewis Morgan is one of the top people in charge of rebuilding the city.  As a higher-up in the military, Colonel Morgan has been requisitioned a house on the banks of the Elbe River to live in with his grieving wife Rachael, and their son Edmund. But while others are forcing the German owners out of their homes so they can live in them, Colonel Morgan can't bring himself to do it.  Instead, he proposes that the owner, a widower and his teenage daughter, remain living in the home with his family.  This decision leads to a charged atmosphere in which everyone in the home must confront their grief and misconceptions head on. The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook is a novel about war, loyalty, passion, commitment, and betrayal.  Inspired b...

Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days  set the imaginations of people running when it was published was in 1873.  At the time, world travel was opening up to everyone and one can only imagine the dreams this book inspired.  Many wondered if the fictional adventures of Phileas Fogg could actually be done. And so in 1889 a young female reporter for the World  newspaper named Nellie Bly set out to break Fogg's record.  She left New York on a steamship heading east, a nation following her every move in the newspaper.  But on the same day that Bly left, so did another young woman, this time on a train heading west.  Elizabeth Bisland was a young journalist for The Cosmopolitan  magazine and they wanted to send their own person on this adventure, making it a race for the history books. Eighty Days: Nelly Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World  by Matthew Goodman is a fascinating book about the real life Aroun...

Founded in 1753, the British Museum is the first national public museum in the world and it grants free admission to all visitors.  It is dedicated to preserving human history and culture and is home to over eight million objects from every corner of the earth, documenting the world from the very beginning. In 2010, the BBC broadcasted a program for over 20 weeks in which Museum Director Neil MacGregor chose 100 objects from the collection that would document the history of the entire world.  This successful series was published as the book A History of the World in 100 Objects . This is a fascinating book, not just for history lovers, but for everyone.  The history of each object and the place and time period it is from is described in a few pages, with visually stunning photographs.  The book starts right at the beginning with a Mummy from Egypt and a stone chopping tool from Tanzania and ends with a credit card from the United Arab Emirates and a Solar...

During the 1920's and 1930's a cultural explosion occurred in the African-American community of Harlem.  Novels, plays, music and poetry all emerged out of the Harlem Renaissance documenting the plight of Black Americans and redefining Black identity.  One of the most famous names to come out of this movement is Langston Hughes. James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in 1902, an African American descended from relationships between slave owners and slaves.  He grew up in an educated, politically inclined family that instilled in him a strong sense of racial pride and activism.  In his twenties he began to write poetry that expressed the attitudes and difficulties of Blacks in America.  He wrote to uplift his fellow people and to preserve their experiences.   Selected Poems of Langston Hughes is a collection of poems that Hughes himself felt were important for preservation and includes unpublished material.  First published in 1959, this col...