BOARDROOM BATTLES

Unscripted by James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams, Penguin Press, $42. In 2016, the fate of Paramount Global – the multi-billion-dollar entertainment empire that includes Paramount, CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Showtime and Simon & Schuster – hung precariously in the balance.

It’s founder and head, 93-year-old Sumner Redstone, was facing a lawsuit brought by a former romantic companion, Manuela Herzer. The lawsuit placed Sumner’s deteriorating health and judgement under harsh light.

He had always been a demanding boss, and an even more demanding father. His daughter Shari’s attempts to take control of the business are met with hostility of boards and management who, for years, had heard Sumner disparage her.

While Leslie Moonves, the popular CEO of CBS, battled her publicly, news began to leak that he had been involved in sexual misconduct. Moonves does what every powerful person in his situation would do – try to make the stories disappear.

All this, against the backdrop of crumbling traditional media models and evaporating revenues. Streaming services like Netflix are on the rise investing billions to woo audiences away from TV channels with serious original content.

And the #MeToo movement, ignited by the actions of another media mogul, Harvey Weinstein, is a raging fire that threatens to consume Moonves and the empire that Sumner so painstakingly built.

James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams lay bare the battle for power at any price, and the carnage that ensued. 

At one level, Unscripted is the story of a daughter’s struggle to redeem her family’s legacy. And at another, it’s about how even a powerful business empire builder can be laid low by greed and character flaws.

LOUISE PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny, Minotaur, $39.99. Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir are increasingly worried about what the reappearance of a young woman and her brother mean for the people in the small, tightly-knit community of Three Pines.

And how a letter written 160 years ago is connected to the horror that unfolds. There’s more in a long bricked-up room than meets the eye. There are puzzles within puzzles and messages warning of mayhem and revenge.

Messages hidden in an old painting called The Paston Treasure or A World of Curiosities.

Louise Penny grabs you with the opening words and holds you in thrall until (and often after) the last page, not only for fans of thrillers and murder mysteries, but for everyone invested in social issues, everything from the rights of Indigenous Peoples to gender equity. 

“We value the papers left behind by the premiers, prime ministers, presidents – the most prominent witnesses to history – and forget there are other witnesses. The people who actually lived it. The First Nations. The farmers. The cooks and cleaners and salespeople. The labourers. The immigrants, the minorities.”

“The women,” said Harriet.

The tension that builds is almost cinematic, you are in that room with Gamache and the others as the seconds tick inexorably closer to what the killer has promised will be a bloody end.

Push. Recover. Push. Recover.

The painting is real. As is Nathalie Provost, one of the survivors of the horrific murder of female students at the Ecole Polytechnique that shook Canada into taking action on misogyny. Penny reached out to her for permission to include her in the novel, she shares in her acknowledgements.

The gripping tale is ultimately about forgiveness. And the coming together of a community to take action, yes, but also to heal.

She also skilfully captures the smaller moments in our lives.

Describing the proud parents and grandparents at a graduation ceremony. And the “bored and resentful younger siblings, glancing toward the windows. And the sunshine.”

There’s a line that will stay with me. It was a free-floating fear. As though an arrow had been shot but hadn’t yet found its target.

WHATEVER YOU WRITE CAN AND WILL BE HELD AGAINST YOU

Agatha Christie by Lucy Worsley, Hodder & Stoughton, $29.99. Queen Mary requested a play from her for her 80th birthday. She’s estimated to have sold over two billion books. And yet, the debate continues over whether she’s a literary genius or someone who churned out lowbrow novels.

Lucy Worsley invites us into Agatha Christie’s world – her parents, her family home, her marriages and the world events that played out during her long life– and traces how she was shaped by all of those. She connects the dots between Christie’s life experiences, the thinking of the times and what appeared in her novels.

And reveals delicious little tidbits about possibly the world’s most famous author.

She listed “housewife” as her profession in official forms, and was turned away from a milestone performance of her long-running play, The Mousetrap, because someone didn’t recognize her.

The paradoxes within Christie make for fascinating reading. She often spoke “against careers for women, or financial independence, or anything like equality with men. But she would also be endlessly interested by the idea of the New Woman” while being financially independent herself.

But then, as Worsley notes, “female writers have always fitted their work in around the edges of ordinary life”. 

There are backstories behind the creation of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, and how Christie came to her in-depth knowledge of poisons.

Her oft-quoted instances of class blindness, or her tax troubles. And the UofT researcher’s study that points to possible dementia in her later years.

Worsley takes us behind the scenes of a few famous Christie tricks, how she broke the “rules” for detective fiction. And provides a modern, more compassionate take on the reasons behind the infamous disappearance that set off a nationwide hunt, drawing her fellow crime writers like Dorothy L Sayers and Arthur Conan Doyle into the search.

I spent a few moments just savouring that delicious piece of information. Worsley goes on to provide Christie’s own version of what transpired.

That a phenomenal amount of research has gone into this book is evident. Which is why seeing Worsley place Peshawar “then in Bengal” comes as a surprise.

She paints a picture of a complex woman who was “kind and hard-working, but also ‘strange, manipulative, fertile in thinking of ways to murder and trick’. That’s not a disparagement. It’s an acknowledgment of a woman’s complexity.”

Fun fact: Christie sent the script of her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles to Hodder & Stoughton, the publisher of this book on Christie.

It was rejected.

ALL BY THEMSELVES

When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar, One World, $37. If They Come For Us by Fatimah Asghar was a powerful and moving exploration of what it means to be a young Pakistani Muslim woman in America.

When We Were Sisters is a heart-rending novel that traces the intense bond of three siblings left to raise one another after the death of their parents. It garnered the  inaugural Carol Shields Fiction Prize for Asghar.

IMMORTAL WORDS

Immortal Poems of the English Language, an anthology, edited by Oscar Williams, Gallery Books, $26.99. With 447 British and American masterpieces by 150 poets, this comprehensive collection includes some of the best-known and most-loved poems from over six centuries.

I found all my favourite poems – the poems we learnt at school and the ones I grew to love as an adult – and so many I wasn’t familiar with, making it a book to cherish.

To love, to suffer, to think... is to seek poetry, it says on the opening page.

Oscar Williams (1900-1964), a distinguished poet himself, has gathered gems that show how the pursuits, longings and sentiments of these poets echo eternally.

ACTION-PACKED FANTASY

Kiki Kalra Breaks a Kingdom by Sangu Mandanna, Penguin, $11.99. Kiki is a worrier who finds comfort in drawing.  Her sketchbook is full of doodles of rich Indian myths that her mother has told her over the years. But what happens when one day, Kiki falls into the magical world of her sketchbook where the characters she draws come alive?

An action-packed fantasy adventure for young readers.

 TEEN REVIEW

By NIPUNA COORAY

The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene, Penguin Random House, $34. In The Laws of Human Nature Robert Greene talks about the unconscious drives and motivations of a singular species, Humans.

Throughout history, humans have had a sense of purpose to feel connected to each other. No matter how much we have tried to deny the fact, we are social animals. We thrive and depend on relationships with the people around us. Robert Greene talks about how to deal with the people around us effectively. How to sense different types of people and see through people’s pleasant fronts. Greene uses real life examples from past and present history to relay his knowledge thoroughly.

Though quite long, the book shows how to deal with your emotions and finding your purpose. It has had an impact on my own self-improvement, helping me realize why I feel a certain way and that some habits stem from my childhood. 

My only issue is the format. Every chapter starts off with a real-life example followed by an explanation/further insight. It is effective, but can get repetitive.

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone looking to improve themselves or further their knowledge of human nature.

• Nipuna Cooray is a youth volunteer at Brampton Library.