Aidan Koch blurs the boundaries of comics, poetry and fine art in this collection of four short stories, illustrated with watercolours, gouache, penciAidan Koch blurs the boundaries of comics, poetry and fine art in this collection of four short stories, illustrated with watercolours, gouache, pencils, pastels and collage. Koch explores themes of our connection to nature in all four stories, including my favourite, "Man Made Lake," which has an absolutely stunning first page spread.
"Spiral," the first story, is the longest, examining a fading friendship in juxtaposition with examining the place where two rivers join together. Koch is brilliant at using negative space and colours to give shifting sense of space and time. The only issue I had was how difficult it was to read Koch's lettering. While the way it was lettered casually like a sketchbook did contribute to the atmosphere, it pulled me out of it to have to squint to make out some words....more
Naomi Klein's exploration of her doppelgänger, Naomi Wolf, and the "Mirror World" inhabited by conspiracy theorists like her, is a beautifully meanderNaomi Klein's exploration of her doppelgänger, Naomi Wolf, and the "Mirror World" inhabited by conspiracy theorists like her, is a beautifully meandering, strange and thoughtful book. Klein's exploration of what doppelgängers mean in art, literature and psychology seamlessly blends with memoir as well as analysis of social forces shaping our world today, like the wellness-to-QAnon pipeline and other "diagonalist" trends. It's a nuanced analysis that resists us/them dichotomies and simplistic explanations.
Talking about doubling and mirroring requires also looking at the mirror twin in ourselves, the various forms of doubling in our own lives, and Klein does this through considering her own uncanny similarities to Wolf, as well as through looking at issues on the left that have allowed the Steve Bannons and Naomi Wolfs of the world to move in and mobilize average people for ultimately capitalist, individualist ends.
At one point Klein talks about how a correspondence with John Berger helped her to recognize:
"[T]he search for calm is why I write: to tame the chaos in my surroundings, in my own mind, and - I hope - in the minds of my readers as well. The information is almost always distressing and, to many, shocking - but in my view, the goal should never be to put readers into a state of shock. It should be to pull them out of it."
I certainly left this book feeling calmer and more centred, having been forced to engage in some uncomfortable mirror viewing but more able to feel a path forward. ...more
Before she became a best-selling cartoonist, Kate Beaton was a young university graduate with a massive student loan debt and no significant job prospBefore she became a best-selling cartoonist, Kate Beaton was a young university graduate with a massive student loan debt and no significant job prospects in Cape Breton. So like many Atlantic Canadians at the time she picked up for Alberta's oil sands and its promise of jobs that paid good money. Ducks is a weighty, tense and nuanced memoir of her two years working different oil patch sites, where she was one of the very few women.
Beaton shares both the unvarnished awful around her - the gender-based violence, the workers' personal and mental health struggles, the workplace accidents - and the moments of kindness and support that kept her going. Her haunting black and white drawings of the various worksites in between her chapters evoke not just environmental impacts but also the isolation of the workers. Ducks is a memoir and it wasn't until late in her stint there that Beaton started to learn about the environmental devastation of the oil sands, as well as impacts on local First Nations. These dynamics are there as haunting background as the narrative continues, with the lives of the workers in the foreground.
I read the entire book on a plane, fully absorbed. Content warning for (view spoiler)[sexual assault (hide spoiler)] but I felt she handled the topic thoughtfully and profoundly....more
A really interesting collection of speculative art and design about climate change and interconnected issues. Having been published in 2008 there is aA really interesting collection of speculative art and design about climate change and interconnected issues. Having been published in 2008 there is a fair amount of content about George W. Bush and the Iraq War that feels somewhat dated now, but most of the rest holds up. What's actually most disappointing is just that so little has been done to change direction on climate change since this collection was first published....more
Even as a fan of Mary Oliver's poetry, and a nature and reading enthusiast myself, I found this book challenging to embrace. It's divided into five seEven as a fan of Mary Oliver's poetry, and a nature and reading enthusiast myself, I found this book challenging to embrace. It's divided into five sections and I think it'd be a rare reader that really loves all five.
I really enjoyed the first section on nature and the creative process. It contains inspiring and powerful observations about what it means to be an artist and why the outdoors are so important to her writing. The second section delves more deeply into observing the nature around her home in New England. As always, Oliver demonstrates her skill in finding the right words to describe flora and fauna, but in the longer essay/prose poem format I found it more challenging to get into, and less personally relevant than the opening section of the book.
The third section is a series of essays on some of Oliver's favourite poets and writers, including Whitman, Emerson and Poe. The challenge with writers writing about writers is that you need to have read the original works as well to appreciate it. Oliver also compares these writers to others, such as Poe compared to Kafka and James, so if you're not an English Lit major (with a strong American Lit background) you might find a lot of it goes over your head, as it did with me.
Section four is a bit eclectic. In addition to a piece on building a house, it includes some stories of animals Oliver encountered, as well as some more observations on nature and writing. I found these pieces all lovely and they drew me back in after the literature section. The final section is just one short essay about the history of Provincetown and Oliver's relation to it.
Overall I can't deny the skill and feeling that went into the pieces in this collection but I don't know that they needed to be published together as one. ...more
If you just pick up this book based on the title you might be expecting a self-help book that will walk you through how to stop being constantly pluggIf you just pick up this book based on the title you might be expecting a self-help book that will walk you through how to stop being constantly plugged into social media and email, but this book is not quite that. What it is is a thought-provoking, philosophical look at how the attention economy disconnects us from nature, each other, and the possibility of positive social change; why we should strive for a different balance; but also why it's neither possible nor desirable to disconnect completely. It's very interesting and the beginning really helped to crystallize some thoughts I had about the tensions of wanting to disconnect but also wanting to use modern tools for social change. However, I would've appreciated more concrete steps and ideas that I could try. There are lots of examples that Odell gives but few that I felt I could translate into my own context. ...more
This Place is a stunning collection of 10 stories by different writers and artists, designed to de-colonize our understandings of "Canadian history." This Place is a stunning collection of 10 stories by different writers and artists, designed to de-colonize our understandings of "Canadian history." A range of time periods and artistic styles are represented and some stories are more literal while others create imagined characters and interweave spiritual themes and symbols. Every one is powerful, important and inspiring.
A couple of my favourites were "Rosie," a story of Inuit shamanism with incredible art; and the sci-fi story by âpihtawikosisân (Chelsea Vowel) that closes out the collection, pointing out that for Indigenous people, dystopia started when colonisation began - a fact mostly ignored in pop culture dystopias today.
Reading Ursula K. Le Guin is often a transformative experience - she never fails to provide new worlds to explore and new ways of looking at old ideasReading Ursula K. Le Guin is often a transformative experience - she never fails to provide new worlds to explore and new ways of looking at old ideas, or in this case, old ways of looking at newfangled colonialist ideas. This collection of short stories and poems links the exploitation of the land and nature with colonialism (although she does not employ the term), and the devaluing of women and children. As she states in the introduction:
By climbing up into his own head and shutting out every voice but his own, 'civilized man' has gone deaf. He can't hear the wolf calling him brother - not master, but brother. He can't hear the earth calling him child - not father, but son.
I think it's accurate to say that throughout this collection, particularly in the first story, "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight," Le Guin attempts to write from an Indigenous worldview, personifying important animals like Coyote and Chickadee. Given that the components of this book were written in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I thought it was quite remarkable. As a reader in 2019 I wanted her to explicitly reference colonization/colonialism and name/honour the groups she was attempting to stand with as an ally. I highly recommend reading this article: "The NishPossessed: Reading Le Guin in Indian Country" for a bit of a deeper analysis of Le Guin's background as the child of anthropologists and the incorporation of indigeneity in Le Guin's work.
For me, the most interesting story in this collection was "Vaster than Empires and More Slow," set in the Hainian universe and the only really sci-fi story of the collection. The story looks at a group of researchers surveying potential habitable worlds, who all have their own mental health and personality issues but particularly struggle with one colleague who's described as an "autistic" (in this case meaning that he was isolated and unable to function in society as a result of being extremely empathic and overwhelmed by others' emotions). When the group explores a new planet, his role becomes crucial and the dynamics between the people and life on the planet are fascinating. Again, the language she uses around neurodiversity is a little uncomfortable in 2019, but her portrayal is incredibly sensitive and nuanced and succeeds at really making the reader feel the pain of stigma against people who are neurodivergent.
My biggest qualm with this collection was simply that Le Guin over-introduces some of the stories and poems in a way that really affects the first reading, in some cases spoiling twist endings. Some of the stories also feel quite repetitive, including several that use a bait and switch technique by revealing the narrator wasn't who you thought it was. They're good on their own but it hurts the surprise to read them next to each other.
If you're going to pick this up, I'd suggest reading "Buffalo Gals", "Vaster Than Empires", and everything from "Schrodinger's Cat" to the end of the book, but avoiding reading the introductions to each piece until after you finish them....more
A charming and fascinating guide to all the things trees do that you may never have thought about, including communicating, feeling, and maybe even leA charming and fascinating guide to all the things trees do that you may never have thought about, including communicating, feeling, and maybe even learning. Each chapter gives new insight on the dynamics of trees and how they influence and are influenced by their environments. The book answers questions like why conifers' branches grow horizontal or down while deciduous trees' grow upwards, why some sick trees recover and others don't, how trees grow differently in urban areas, and how trees are coping with climate change. After reading this book you will absolutely look at trees with much greater awe and appreciation for all they do....more
Thomas King's The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America isn't a typical history book. It's a personal, often sardonThomas King's The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America isn't a typical history book. It's a personal, often sardonic look at the history of Indigenous people in North America from colonization to the present day. King's narrative flows outside a strict chronology, interspersing concerns about Native American representation in film with discussions of historic displacements of Indigenous people, residential schools, treaties, land claims and more. It's accessible and inspiring - a must-read for anyone who cares about Indigenous justice, or doesn't yet know why they should care. ...more
My dad picked up this book from the library accidentally and started reading it out of curiosity. He could hardly put it down and eagerly recommended My dad picked up this book from the library accidentally and started reading it out of curiosity. He could hardly put it down and eagerly recommended it to my brother and me. Tom's River is exactly my kind of book: non-fiction that keeps your attention, maintaining a degree of suspense while illuminating the science, politics, and individuals' lives behind an historical event.
In this case the event - industrial pollution in the small town of Toms River, New Jersey - is hard to pin down as it takes place over several decades in different ways, due to the actions of different corporations and individuals. Fagin helps us clearly navigate the complex history of companies like Ciba-Geigy coming to Tom's River, the politics that kept the first warning signs of pollution out sight and out of mind for the public, and how suspicions of a "cancer cluster" in the town finally brought everything to a head with massive publicity, lawsuits and years-long epidemiological studies.
Fagin doesn't over-simplify the players or the politics. He also does an excellent job reaching back through the history of cancer and industrial illness research to help us understand the limits of accepted epidemiological studies in towns like Toms River, and what that means for people who may be exposed to toxic, mutagenic and/or carcinogenic industrial chemicals today. ...more
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