CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Henry David Thoreau. CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. 1848. In THE ANNOTATED WALDEN, Potter, 1970. Philip Van Doren Stern, Ed.

I've carried this volume with me for 50 years, always intending to read it, especially the "Civil Disobedience" essay. Now, after an angry and abusive trucker convoy occupied my capital, Ottawa, it felt as if time were running out. 

Thoreau explains why he is hesitant to pay property taxes to a government which condones slavery and funds a war against a sovereign neighbour, Mexico. (The editor suggests that, after the first incident, Thoreau's aunt paid his taxes in advance, in order to keep him out of trouble, out of jail.)

He refuses to pay to support a church of which he is not a member. He has no problem paying the road tax because he uses the road. 

He explains why he does not respect the legal arguments that the Constitution which permits slavery to continue is more right than the New Testament.

He dreams of a future in which individual rights are respected and people with different opinions will be able to live in peace side by side.

SH*T ROUGH DRAFTS

Paul Laudiero. SH*T ROUGH DRAFTS: Pop Culture's Favorite Books, Movies, and TV Shows As They Might Have Been. Chronicle, 2014.

Amusing. And a fast read.

HOME

 Harlan Coben. Home. 

This is my first Coben. Did not really work for me. Not impressed with the protagonists. 

TEACHING THE DOG TO READ

Jonathan Carroll. TEACHING THE DOG TO READ. Subterranean, 2015. 

A novella about the origins of dreams, love, reincarnation, and the possibility of insertion into this sphere during times of crisis.

THE LITTLE PRINCE

Antoine de Saint-Exupery. THE LITTLE PRINCE. Farshore, 2017.

Re-read this classic. It is somewhat dated but the main idea for me is: that the use of imagination (or hallucination) during times of crisis is a survival skill. 

It inspired one of my favourite haikus last year: 

Side by side 

On the thrift store shelf

The Prince and The Little Prince. 

IN SEARCH OF THE LITTLE PRINCE: THE STORY OF ANTOINE de SAINT-EXUPERY

Bimba Landmann. IN SEARCH OF THE LITTLE PRINCE: THE STORY OF ANTOINE de SAINT-EXUPERY. Eerdmans, 2014.

An illustrated children's book about the beloved writer's life. I always think this is such an important point to make with children, to stress that books are written by real people. 

THE MISSING PIECE

Shel Silverstein. THE MISSING PIECE. Harper Collins, 1976. 

Finding yourself, told in pencil and line. 

I just had the feeling that we've learned things since then. Pretty basic, that no one or nothing else can make one complete. 

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE

Kurt Vonnegut. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE. 1969

I wanted to read this book because I had heard it referenced in some creative non-fiction writing as a great example of the technique of braiding stories. Billy Pilgrim, as a very young soldier, witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden. Twenty years later, after he has trained as an optometrist, married the bosses daughter, runs his own and several other offices, attempts to research and come to terms with what he saw and learned when he was one of the child soldiers. Ironically, for me, he too references the 19th century book from which Penny got her title, The Madness of Crowds. It is a wonderful read. I especially remember the scene where Billy imagines the bombs going back up into the planes, the planes back to base, the bombs back to the factories where they were made, the metal used to make them going back into the ground. 

THE MADNESS OF CROWDS

Louise Penny. The MADNESS OF CROWDS. Minotaur, 2021.

I love everything Louise Penny writes. This book is set in a post-COVID universe where the shadow of the pandemic still hangs over society. One scientist begins to gather notoriety by proposing that the pandemic deaths prove that, to save society, we should systematically get rid of those with vulnerabilities and conditions. Gamache does not agree.

Stephen Hawking's A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME: A Reader's Companion

Stephen Hawking, Ed. with Gene Stone. Stephen Hawking's A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME: A Reader's Companion. Bantam, 1992.

I cannot say that I read all this book but I looked at the pictures and read the captions, and the chapter about his early life. I liked the story about how he liked getting his robatic voice but objected to its American accent. 

For anyone wanting an intro to astrophysics, this book would be useful.

Bastards & Boneheads: Canada's Glorious Leaders Past and Present

 Will Ferguson. Bastards & Boneheads: Canada's Glorious Leaders Past and Present. Douglas & McIntrye, 1999.

An interesting review of topics/"great men" in Canadian history. The reaching for the laughs and the use of offensive labelling gets tiring very soon. 

I learned one fact that applies to personal family history--that people who moved from Maine to Acadia to take up land vacated by the "expulsion" were called Planters.

I learned the most interesting details about the FLQ crisis. 

It seems to me that the book focuses on what happened but is not very illuminating on why things happened. 

He misses the mark completely on Louis Riel because he does not see that the Metis resistances were both totally about abuse of/denial of human rights by the Eastern politicians who were eager to have Canada become a nation with colonies. 

The book suffers by being outdated, especially with reference to Indigenous issues which the TRC brought to our attention.