BOOKWORM
WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING LATELY
Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh, Hamish Hamilton, $34. Much like Anosh Irani in Translated From the Gibberish and Amit Chaudhuri in Friend of My Youth, Amitav Ghosh captures the essence of migration beautifully.
Experience taught me that to travel between Calcutta and Brooklyn was to switch between two states of mind, each of which came with its own cache of memory. But the link to reality is tenuous as the tale veers into a world in which creatures – both mythical and real – figure large. Threads of climate change, corporate greed and the illegal migrants and refugee crisis sweeping across Europe are all tied together in a story that seems to want to cover too much too quickly. There are clues galore in ancient rhymes and symbols that the antiquities and rare books dealer Deen Datta has to solve, reminiscent of symbology professor Robert Lang-don in Dan Brown’s novels.
Taal-misrir-desh, or the Land of Palm Sugar Candy is, of course, Egypt, Misr being the Arabic word for the country. This might have come as a huge revelation for those who don’t know the language, but left me feeling a little cheated. I expected more from the author of the Ibis trilogy.
Some parts ring true. Palash, a Bangladeshi living underground in Venice, tells Datta, “My friends and I thought of Finland as everything Dhaka was not: quiet, clean, cool, uncrowded – and, of course first cellphones were Nokias, made in Finland, so we always had a soft spot for that country.”
But then Ghosh uses words like autochthonous that act as stumbling blocks in the narrative when Indigenous would have served equally well.
The Billionaire Murders by Kevin Donovan, Viking, $26.95. The double murders of Barry and Honey Sherman had shocked Canadians.
Not just by the fact that the well-known entrepreneur and philanthropist and his wife had been murdered but by the brutal and bizarre manner in which it was done. Kevin Donovan, chief investigative reporter for the Toronto Star had covered the homicides for the daily and in this book, takes readers behind the scenes into the lives of the couple, into their mansion and shares little-known details of their lives and rise to power and fame.
The fact that Barry Sherman drove an older car, for one, while Jack Kay, his second-in-command drove an X-class Mercedes Benz.
At their offices in the Toronto headquarters of Apotex, immediately to the right of the front door, were two named parking spots, Barry Sherman’s and Jack Kay’s. Barry’s rusting convertible was a stark contrast to Kay’s gleaming Benz. “Jack, don’t you worry about what our employees will think?” Sherman asked his friend on many occasions. “They work so hard, and while they are well paid, they don’t make what it would take to afford that kind of car. I worry about what they would think.”
Kay would just shake his head.
With old family photographs and ones that were taken just weeks before the murders, the book is a whodunnit, asking the questions that everyone was asking about the high-society crime. Was it a business deal gone wrong? International assassins who flew in and out of Toronto after staging a macabre scene to buy time? Or was it a simpler, more commonplace killing?
Donovan’s coverage of the ongoing investigation unveils new chapters in the saga periodically.
Through Two Doors At Once by Anil Ananthaswamy, Dutton, $36. In the 1800s, scientist Thomas Young demonstrated that light behaves like a wave.
Almost a century later, Albert Einstein showed that light comes in quanta, or particles. The so-called simple yet elusive “double-slit” experiment raised the question: How can a single particle of light behave both like a particle and a wave? And even more curiously: Does a particle exist before we look at it, or does the very act of looking create reality?
Is that pure science or sublime philosophy?
...the photon ostensibly behaves like a wave if we choose not to look at which path it takes, and as a particle otherwise. Does the photon “know” we are looking at its wave nature or particle nature? If so, how? And can we fool the photon, say, by not revealing our hand until it has crossed the double-slit as a wave, and only then choosing to see which slit it went through, thus examining its particle-like behaviour?
Anil Ananthaswamy journeys through history and tries to nail down the smallest scales of physical reality. Science that I found difficult to wrap my head around, but a fantastic voyage nevertheless.
Natural Woman by Dr Leslie Korn, Shambhala, $33.95. Leslie Korn, a licensed clinician specializing in mental health nutrition, herbal medicine and integrative medicine for mental health and the physical symptoms of traumatic stress has over 40 years of experience in herbal traditions and healing modalities.
Writing that she was “fortunate enough to get sick with almost everything possible” while living in Mexico because that exposed her to the healing power of herbs and plant medicines, she offers treatments using common and easy-to-source ingredients to address everything from autoimmune conditions and anxiety to sleep disorders and menstrual issues, skin ailments and much more. But unlike quacks who will promote everything “natural” she cautions that “every herb has the potential to cause side effects or to be contraindicated”. And she also writes that as many herbs are on the verge of extinction due to overharvesting or climate change, one should consider whether to gather them from the wild, grow some in one’s garden or purchase from ethical sources.
The word medicine is derived from the Sanskrit root word Ma, meaning measure or balance, she writes. From ginger and ginger extract for nausea to garlic and coconut oil for a fungal infection, the remedies will sound familiar to many of us. And my favourtie: After a long day I fill the tub with hot water and add a cup of Epsom salt which relaxes the muscles and the mind. I then add 5 to 10 drops of attar of rose oil and soak for 20 minutes. As the rose oil dissipates, I add 5 drops of lavender oil and I am ready for a deep sleep.
The sleep of a queen!
The Porpoise by Mark Haddon, Bond Street Books, $34. The celebrated author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time returns with a contemporary story that mirrors an ancient legend.
When the pregnant wife of the unimaginably wealthy Philippe is killed in a plane crash but their daughter Angelica survives, his obsession for her safety morphs into something sinister. A young man named Darius decides to rescue her but the plan goes awry.
The theft of female agency by rapacious men, the theme speaks deeply to the current moment.
Chop Suey Nation by Ann Hui, Douglas & McIntyre, $24.95. Ann Hui drove across Canada to answer two questions: Why is there a Chinese restaurant in every small town? Who are the families who run them? It was only after the story was published that she discovered her own family could have been included – her parents had run their own Chinese restaurant, The Legion Cafe, before she was born.
Chop Suey Nation weaves together Hui’s own family story with those of dozens of Chinese restaurant owners from coast to coast. Hui also details the fascinating history behind “chop suey” – which, in Chinese means, literally, a mix of stuff – and the invention of classics like ginger beef. Uniquely Canadian fare like the Chinese pierogi of Alberta has a starring role.
Family photographs and those taken along the way make this story of perseverance, entrepreneurialism and deep love for family warm and personal. It is, at the same time, the story of all immigrants – and a quintessentially Canadian one.
Flip Flap Dogs by Nikki Dyson, Nosy Crow, $12.99. What happens when you cross a whippet with a chihuahua? A whippihuahua!
What about a beagle and a poodle? A boodle, of course!
But this delightful book offers more than just funny rhymes, it is interactive fun with flaps that can be opened in different combinations to create magical creatures that will tickle the imagination of children.
TEEN REVIEW By VIDHI SHARMA
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Greenhaven Press, $24.99.
Sylvia Plath illustrates the life of Esther Greenwood, who is an English major with dreams of becoming a successful poet.
She wins a scholarship for a month in New York and gets the opportunity to become an editor for the Ladies’ Day magazine. During this trip she makes great friends, and meets influential people. While the other girls were having the time of their life, Esther is plagued with doubts. Is she really worthy of these opportunities?
However, life has something else planned for her. She becomes suicidal and ends up in Dr Gordon’s care as a psychiatric patient. She is sent off to an asylum and can’t look at herself in the mirror because the reflection she sees is not what she wants. The face she sees and the identity she sees are not what she hopes for. While just some time ago she was an exceptional scholar, now she is trying to drown or hang herself in order to end her life.
Follow the story of Esther Greenwood and how she lets life take control of her like a roller coaster ride and eventually begins to make it to the top of the ride again. Sylvia Plath describes depression in a beautiful way through the ups and downs of Esther Greenwood’s life.
• Vidhi Sharma is an alumna of Brampton Library’s Teen Library Council.