BOOKWORM
WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING LATELY
Image credit: JOY DEB from Pexels.
The Body by Bill Bryson, Doubleday Canada, $38. The Body is a head-to-toe exploration of the marvel that is the human body – how it functions, how it heals itself and the ways it can fail.
The best-selling author of A Short History of Nearly Everything guides readers on a fun journey full of Oh, wow! moments.
Such as:
Skin colour is not even skin deep, it resides just in the top millimetre or so. “That’s all that race is – a sliver of epidermis.”
Memory is like a Wikipedia page. “You can go in there and change it, and so can other people.” And also that when we smell something the information goes to the part of the brain close to where memories are shaped. That may explain why certain odours are so powerfully evocative of memories for us.
The most efficient method of transfer of germs is a combination of folding money and nasal mucus.
Shockingly, most big drug manufacturers have given up research on new antibiotics and are focusing on statins and antidepressants that people take more or less indefinitely.
There’s so much modern science doesn’t know. For instance, exactly how pain works “is still largely a mystery”. In another chapter on diseases, Bryson quotes from a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association: “Subtle but nevertheless primarily organic illness whose effects may include exacerbation of underlying psychogenic illness”. He decodes it for readers. Which is another way of saying, “We have no idea”.
We live in an age in which we are killed, more often than not, by lifestyle.
Women generally carry bags with their palms facing forward and men, with their palms facing back. Why so? You’ll just have to read the book to find out!
And you’ll never take this “warm wobble of flesh” as he calls it, for granted again!
Asa Johal and Terminal Forest Products by Jinder Oujla-Chalmers, Harbour Publishing, $28.95. When Asa Singh Johal founded Terminal Forest Products in 1965, he was determined to build a thriving sawmill business.
It was a difficult journey, from learning how to navigate the intricacies of the industry to wrong business decisions, failed partnerships and destructive interpersonal relationships, but the feisty Johal emerged stronger, becoming one of British Columbia’s economic and philanthropic leaders.
Jinder Oujla-Chalmers provides an intimate and revealing account of one man’s against-all-odds journey to multifaceted success.
In places, it reads like a corporate publication with several product shots interspersed with family portraits and chapter titles like Labour Troubles and Mill Expansion or Maximizing Efficiency.
But the remarkable story of how a Sikh immigrant created BC’s largest independent lumber company, the book is also the story of a family – their bonds and the lessons and values passed on from one generation to another.
This Lovely City by Louise Hare, Anansi, $22.95. London. 1950. With the war over and London still rebuilding, Jazz musician Lawrie Matthews has answered England’s call for labour.
Arriving from Jamaica, he’s rented a tiny room and fallen in love with the girt next door. Playing in Soho’s jazz clubs by night and delivering mail by day, he’s dreaming of and working towards a future with Evie. All’s looking well until one misty morning, he stumbles upon a terrible discovery and immigrants who were welcomed with open arms become the prime suspects in a tragedy that threatens to rip lives apart.
‘Extracts’ from local media convey the building tension.
Louise Hare captures the “otherness” a newcomers feels in a few poignant words.
It was a chronic condition, like asthma or arthritis; he could go a day or so feeling perfectly normal and then just a word or a glance was enough to remind him that he didn’t belong.
And the response of someone from warmer climes to England’s weather in a tongue-in-cheek take.
They called this summer because they knew no better.
She also does a masterful job of building suspense, directing the readers’ attention first one way then another, until the final devastating denouement.
How To Make A Plant Love You by Summer Rayne Oakes, Optimism Press, $34. How can one not love a book on how to make a plant love you by someone called Summer Rayne Oakes?
It’s like her parents were enabling an environmental communicator and entrepreneur whose work focuses on health, wellness and sustainability.
Oakes quotes Mahatma Gandhi: To forget how to dig the earth and tend to the soil is to forget ourselves.
She has encouraging words for everyone from those who think they have no space for plants to those who believe they have a “black thumb”.
Don’t get drawn into the fake imagery of social feeds, she urges. This can lead to what her friend Nitika Chopra refers to as the “compare and despair syndrome”.
She quotes studies that show that among hospital patients, those fortunate enough to have a view of trees rather than a view of a building were found to use fewer pain-reducing medications and have quicker recovery times from surgery.
And writes about forest baths – known as shinrin-yohu in Japan - that doctors in Asia are prescribing for high-anxiety urban dwellers.
She describes how her collection of over as thousand – and yes, that’s correct, a thousand – house plants grew with plants she bought, rescued and propagated.
All through the book you’ll find testimonials to the magical healing power of plants by people who suffer from chronic pain, anxiety or were dealing with loss.
And a beautiful anecdote about the Uber driver who told her that her name reminded him of the first summer rains in India. “We always celebrate the first summer rain. It has a special smell – a sweet earthy smell.”
The encounter leads her to the discovery of geosmin at a perfumer’s in Cape Town. Not the most romantic name, she writes, but it captures in a bottle the scent of a Pennsylvania walk in the woods.
The book doesn’t have any actual gardening tips as the title may lead one to expect, but instead is a “love story that invites everyone to embrace the wonder of the botanical realm,” as described by Wade Davis.
It is based on a simple truth: You have to love someone (something) to be loved back. And that, like people, “plants thrive when provided with the conditions to reach their potential in their own time”.
For the tips and practical advice (and gorgeous images of her plant-filled apartment), you will have to visit homesteadbrooklyn.com.
How Good is Your Grammar? by John Sutherland, CPI Group, $27.99. John Sutherland, one of Britain’s most celebrated professors of English literature, is here to test, stretch, amuse and instruct readers with his definitive quiz on all things grammatical.
Why do purists insist that ‘television’ is wrong while ‘telephone’ is correct?
Was Bill Clinton taking risks with language as well as his presidency when he declared, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”?
Neither a rule book nor a primer, but a fun rollercoaster ride through the mysteries and magic of English.
Duplicate Death by Georgette Heyer, William Heinemann, $21.99. Author of the much-loved Regency romance novels, Georgette Heyer also wrote detective stories.
In Duplicate Death, Inspector Hemingway tries to solve a double murder that resulted from a seemingly civilized card game. The two crimes appear identical but were they carried out by the same hand?
Timothy Harte wants to prove his young fiancee’s innocence but digging into her past reveals more than he bargained for.
First published in 1951, the book is sure to delight fans of her sharp, true-to-period and witty writing and find new ones.
The Sniffles for Bear by Bonny Becker, illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton, Candlewick Press, $9.50. A very, very sick bear receives a visit from a cheerful little mouse who assures him all will be well, he has just the cure: A book! And a song! And a performance on a banjo! And a bowl of soup! A sweet little tale of friendship.
TEEN REVIEW by Saraa Seewah of The Life and Death Parade by Eliza Wass, Hyperion, $10.99. The Life and Death Parade is a suspenseful read.
It is an eccentric story with a sense of adventure and a great balance between the emotional portrayal of death and playful storytelling. The story revolves around seventeen-year-old Kitty who is still grieving for her late boyfriend, Nikki, along with his family, the Bramleys. One year ago, Nikki Bramley had visited a psychic who told him he had no future. Now, he’s dead. Kitty is determined to find the psychic to unravel the mystery of her prediction and Nikki’s death. In her search, she is sucked into the dark, twisted world of the Life and Death Parade, a group that explores the veil between life and death.
I was inside and part of the book.
• Saraa Seewah is a grade 10 student and a member of Brampton Library’s Teen Library Council.
