Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: Lakeland

Lakeland: Journeys into the Soul of Canada by Allan Casey 2009

Within Canada's borders are found 60% of the world's lakes, but until Lakeland, few books had been written about them. Nature writer Allan Casey visits 10 lakes, to meet the people who live and work on them, and assess how the lakes have changed over time. The result of this tour is a book both passionate about what is being done to the environment and entertaining in its observations about our Canadian society. He describes how local economies have moved from fishing and lumbering to servicing cottagers and tourists. One year-round resident wonders "How there got to be so many people who can afford million dollar vacation homes to sleep in 20 nights a year." The theme that binds these visits is that our love of our lakes also endangers them. They are being destroyed by rampant over-development and our ever-increasing standard of affluence. One local is quoted saying, "Newcomers think it's beautiful here. They don't know how beautiful it used to be".

Winner of 2010 Governor General’s Award for Non-fiction

Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: Paris Under Water

Paris under Water: how the City of Light survived the Great Flood of 1910 by Jeffrey Jackson 2009

If you have ever been to Paris you must read this intriguing book which details the catastrophic Great Flood of 1910. The author Jeffrey Jackson is an Associate Professor, Department of History at Rhodes College in Memphis,TN. Jackson is an expert on this topic as he spent thirteen years conducting research in Parisian archives. In 2007 he was named “Top Young Historian in the United States”. Jackson tells the tale in such a way that the reader gets a real taste of the pain and suffering that this flood imposed on the Parisians.
Several days of rain in January 1910 resulted in higher than normal water levels on the Seine and its tributaries. This rainfall resulted in flooding of streets, homes and businesses around the greater Paris area and areas up and down the river Seine. Parisians of all backgrounds allied to save their city and one another. Jackson uses many original source materials to put a human face on this catastrophe, and the reader is caught up in the pain and destruction that this flood imposed on the pre-World War I citizens of France.

Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: Tar Sands

Tar Sands: dirty oil and the future of a continent by Andrew Nikiforuk, Revised and updated in 2010

Andrew Nikiforuk reveals the true costs of America's oil addiction and suggests that the Alberta Tar Sands may well be one of the worst environmental tragedies. For the better part of their history, the Alberta tar sands have been out of sight and out of mind for most Canadians. Government operates as an absentee landlord. Governor General’s Award-winning author covers the fallout in detail, from the massive destruction of the natural environment – turning a good chunk of northern Alberta, including the world’s third-largest watershed, into a toxic wasteland. What he exposes most of all, however, is the mind-boggling short-sightedness and stupidity of the entire enterprise.
Overall, Tar Sands provides an excellent guide to all of the environmental repercussions of our oil dependency. Nikiforuk concludes with “Twelve Steps to Energy Sanity,” an oil-addiction recovery program. We can’t avert a disaster that is already under way, but we might be able to prevent things from getting horribly worse.

Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: The Wayfinders

The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World by Wade Davis 2009

This is the text of the 2009 Massey lectures, a project that, since 1961, has sponsored an annual cross-Canada series of lectures by a noted Canadian or international scholar, to explore the important ideas of our time. Over the past four decades, Massey lecturers have included John Kenneth Galbraith, Martin Luther King Jr., Noam Chomsky, Stephen Lewis, Ronald Wright and Margaret Atwood.

The 2009 Massey lecturer was Canadian Wade Davis, ethnographer, writer, photographer, filmmaker, and Explorer in Residence for the National Geographic Society, and “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all life’s diversity”.

Beginning with an introduction to how humanity and its cultures emerged, spread and diversified, he takes us on a global tour ranging from the San Bushmen of the Kalahari to the seafaring people of Polynesia, through the Amazon, Tibet, North American and Australian aboriginal cultures and others. Throughout, he highlights the unique view each has of the relationship between humans and our planet, and how its knowledge of how to live in harmony with nature is indispensable to the modern world.

The Wayfinders brings together a lifetime of his research and thought to discuss the impending loss of at least half the world’s cultures, and with them the ancient wisdom that’s needed to confront the challenges the world faces today.

Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: The Omnivore's Dilemma

The Omnivore's Dilemma:a natural history of four meals by Michael Pollan 2006

Buying food is becoming more and more complicated. We are bombarded with terms such as monoculture, range-fed, organic, genetically modified. In his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma: a natural history of four meals, Michael Pollan examines the different paths our food takes to our plate. He traces the ecological footprint that it leaves, its chemical content and effects on our bodies, and the quality of life of the animals that end up on our dinner plate. In his research, he spends time at a factory farm, a monoculture corn farm, a large organic producer and a self-sustaining farm. He takes part as much as possible, or as much as he is allowed in the process of producing the food. He even goes out on a boar hunt and forages for edible mushrooms. It is very interesting reading that helps us make choices about what we put in our mouths.


Incidentally, there is also a young people's edition of this book which was published in 2009: The Ominvore's Dilemma: secrets behind what you eat

(Did you catch Michael Pollan on Oprah last week? He has some fabulous "rules" for what to eat, including my favourite: Eat food that your great-grandmother would recognize as food. Sound advice! I have to wonder what my great-grandmother would make of a cheezie? )

Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: The Deniers

The Deniers by Lawrence Solomon 2008

The theme of this fascinating book can be found in its subtitle: "The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution and fraud*. (*And those who are too fearful to do so)."

Solomon has found and describes many, reputable scientists who are questioning the soundness of the science that is being used to support the idea that humans are causing the climate to change or that this change will be harmful. One scientist attributes the warming to an increase in the sun's intensity. Other "deniers" link climate change to sun spot activity or believe that we are gradually emerging from a "little ice age" and will shortly enter a new one. This book demonstrates that there is a lively debate among the various sciences that underlie the study of climate.

Although he doesn't attempt to resolve anything, Solomon does raise many questions, giving the science that contradicts the alarming headlines and 30 second news-clips that inundate us. What makes the book persuasive is that Solomon is an environmentalist and energy activist. His Energy Probe Research Foundation works to stop environmentally destructive projects around the world.

Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: Apples to Oysters

Apples to Oysters: a foodlover's tour of Canadian farms by Margaret Webb 2008

A sign in my grocery store reads, “If you have eaten today, thank a farmer.” Margaret Webb travels to 11 special farms across Canada to show us exactly why we should be appreciative and supportive of those who persevere in their quest to bring quality products to our tables. Webb stays with each family participating in their work, preparing food, sharing recipes and chronicling their stories, most of which are shared in the intimacy of the family meal time. Their journeys are so captivating and inspiring that the reader must remember that this is non-fiction—these are real people, not characters, struggling to establish and maintain high standards in the face of competition from huge agri-businesses. Webb’s wonderful sense of humour in relating these stories is balanced by her poignant personal reflections about her own experiences growing up on a farm near Barrie, Ontario. Apples to Oysters not only underscores the real challenges facing Canadian farmers, but it also offers intriguing information on Canada’s natural history, geography and on what happens when political, commercial and academic organizations try to meddle with Mother Nature. The next time you visit a grocery store or restaurant you will find yourself asking, “At what cost do we produce cheap food?” Nominated for OLA’s 2009 Evergreen Award.

Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: Hot, Flat and Crowded

Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution — and How It Can Renew America
by Thomas Friedman 2008

Friedman, foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, is best known for his recent book The World is Flat. "Flat" as in technology has leveled the global economy, allowing more people to compete, connect and collaborate. Since that book, he's noticed 2 other trends: the weather is getting hotter and the population is growing rapidly. He sees these 3 trends exacerbating 5 problems: resources are decreasing as people wanting them increase; as the prices of these resources increase, money is being transferred to petro-dictatorships, who oppose our western society; climate disruptions; energy poverty, where poor societies cannot afford the electricity to participate in the global economy; and the loss of biodiversity.
His analysis is based on extensive travel and interviews with experts. Friedman's thought-provoking solution is that America must reinvent itself as a green and energy efficient society and export this new approach to the world. Non-Americans might find his wide-eyed patriotism annoying and excessive. But the world notices the American lifestyle, either rejecting it or embracing it, so his arguments are compelling.

Monday's Pick!

Dry Spring: The coming Water Crisis of North America.
Although this book's focus is on water, Chris Wood also examines the related climate changes such as ocean warming, the ferocity and duration of storms, and water management strategies (35 pages of citations in his bibliography). Wood succeeds in exloring the complexities of each of these and other topics and how they impact on the world's supply of fresh water. Perhaps the most interesting section is the one entitled, "Up in the Air: The Great Lakes' Uncertain Future" as it impacts on us directly. Anyone living in Ontario should pick up this book for this chapter alone. Wood suggests that the last three decades sharing water with our neighbors to the south haven't been "an easy glide down a lazy river". He ends the book identifying three transformations that have been and continue to change our world and how we live in it as well as his concerrns for people and countries who ignore the warnings of climate change and the looming water crisis.

Wednesday's Pick!

In The World Without Us journalist Alan Weisman asks us to envision our Earth, without us. What would happen in nature if humans suddenly disappeared, if we stopped creating, changing and destroying. He suggests it would take 2 days for New York City’s subways to flood and about 7 days for nuclear reactors to begin either melting or burning. But 100,000 years would pass before carbon dioxide levels would return to pre-industrial levels. Some plastics could last 100,000's of years, until microbes would evolve that would eat plastics. Human "perfected" domesticated animals and plants would revert to their original forms or even die out. He offers an original approach to questions of humanity's impact on this planet. Fascinating and thought-provoking.

This title also available on Book on CD!

My Pick of the Week!

Although The Party's Over by Richard Heinberg is not a light summer read, it is an interesting, compelling and timely chronology of how we got to where we are regarding climate change, high gas prices and the realization we need alternative energy sources. The prediction of the end to oil dependency between 2003-2020 is motivation enough to read the chapters: " A Banquet of Consequences" and "Managing the collapse". Before you drive to the cottage or book your holiday abroad, place a hold. Then, read The Party's Over.

Read any good books lately! Let me know one of your favourite authors!!