October Reading Round-Up

Out of 28 books that I read in October, these fifteen are all worthy of five stars. 

Frankissstein: A Love Story by Jeanette Winterson 

Audiobook read by John Sackville and Perdita Weeks

Smart, witty and feminist. Alternating storylines—early 19th century, and science-fictional near future—fit together like puzzle pieces. I love the mirroring of all the characters: author Mary Shelley = trans person Dr Ry Shelley; poet Lord Byron = sexbot magnate Ron Lord; author John Polidori = journalist Polly D, etc. “What is your substance? Whereof are you made?” Literary allusions and philosophical musings anchor the playfulness.

Shelley adores towers, woods, ruins, graveyards, any part of Man or Nature that broods.

"An iPhone is not a human right,” Victor said mildly. “Privacy is."

Maybe being a bodysnatcher is bad for my joie de vivre.

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
Audiobook read by Rebecca Gibel

I started this in print format and found it hard to follow Odell's long, philosophical sentences. When I switched to audio format, I adored her style. Her work is a call to activism that stresses the importance of taking time to listen, to pay attention, and to contemplate. Also, it's an invitation to reconsider the idea of what it is to be productive. I‘ve listened to the audiobook twice. 

As someone who is both Asian and white, I am an anomaly or a nonentity from an essentialist point of view. It‘s not possible for me to be native to anywhere in any obvious sense, […] but the sight of western tanagers, a favourite bird, migrating through Oakland in the spring, gives me an image of how to be from two places at once. 

In a public space, ideally, you are a citizen with agency; in a faux public space, you are either a consumer or a threat to the design of the place.

My most-liked Facebook post of all time was an anti-Trump screed. […] It‘s not a form of communication driven by reflection and reason but rather a reaction driven by fear and anger. Obviously these feelings are warranted but their expression on social media feels like firecrackers setting off other firecrackers in a very small room that soon gets filled with smoke.

We the Survivors by Tash Aw
Audiobook read by Jamie Zubairi

Social injustice, class and racial stratification, discriminatory treatment of undocumented migrant labourers in Malaysia: these are the weighty topics of this compelling, humane novel. Told in a circular, conversational style, as a privileged lesbian journalist interviews an ex-convict about his life. How much choice do the underdogs of society have, when all they want is to live a good life? Devastating and insightful. I also really enjoyed hearing Tash Aw at the Vancouver Writers Fest last week.

Sometimes your brain doesn‘t recognise danger or risk until much later — days, weeks, years — and it‘s only then that the event feels scary, because the passing of time has made it seem that you had a choice.

Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch
Audiobook read by the author

The passive aggressive potential in a single period… the confusion caused by generational differences in ellipses use… and other aspects of typographical tone are covered in this delightful audiobook about communication. Linguist McCulloch calls language “humanity‘s most spectacular open source project.” Her enthusiasm for her topic is infectious. I also love her sense of humour, like when she talks about putting “our harrumphing hats on.” Informative entertainment.

Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark by Cecelia Watson

A highly entertaining history and current use commentary on a punctuation mark that isn‘t for “highfalutin snobs,” but for anyone who loves language. “If we can learn to see past rules as the only framework with which we can understand and learn to use language, we might be able to see what purposes rules could really serve.” From the badassery of Elizabeth Anscombe, to liquor laws and the death penalty, the semicolon is at the heart of some great stories!

Kurt Vonnegut was unequivocal in his last book, advising writers, “Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you‘ve been to college.”

The US Supreme Court has ruled that “punctuation is a most fallible standard by which to interpret a writing.” Taking it even further, courts have opined that “punctuation is no part of the English language.”

By the early 1800s, parentheses were already so last century, inspiring T O Churchill's 1823 grammar to coolly pronounce that "the parenthesis is now generally exploded as a deformity." It got worse: three years later, the parenthesis had gone from Quasimodo to quasi ghost, [being deemed] “nearly obsolete.” The curved marks that humanist thinker Desiderius Erasmus had romantically called “little moons” (lunulae) had crashed down to earth.

Uncertainty, after all, is very human, and can call forth our best human virtues.

Punctuation has to be judged by how it shapes the text in which it‘s situated. The problem, for writers and readers, is how to go about figuring out whether punctuation is any good or not without the security of a book of rules. It‘s a tough thing to do, to learn to let go of getting answers from stylebooks and to replace that practice with asking exploratory questions about our texts.

Quichotte by Salman Rushdie
Audiobook read by Vikas Adam

Smart, funny and surprising satire entwined with a humane meta storyline. I smirked my way through the audiobook, admiring the quotable quips and amusing list sentences typical of Rushdie. A thoroughly enjoyable modern version of Don Quixote. 

I don‘t know when I‘ve walked so far except on the treadmill at the gym. 

Another, more colloquial term for going off-label might be… becoming a drug dealer, or even… becoming a narcolord.

Shut Up You're Pretty by Tea Mutonji

Interconnected short stories follow Loli, a Congolese Canadian immigrant, from age 13 to 26, as she blunders through sexual encounters with boys and men, supported and confused by intense female friendships. Raw, surprising and unforgettable.

In Galloway, Mrs Broomfield was legend for witnessing the Rwandan genocide. Her attitude so much positivity and optimism, like, “This is a war, child, it‘s not going to last.” I liked to apply that to everything else: this world is a war, this neighbourhood is a war, this street, this house, this body, this person, this feeling, this war.

Henry had more hair than I expected. On his top lip, a pair of bushy brows, an entire grass field slapped across the bottom half of his face. When he got out of the car and waved, I gave Jolie a look that said, You didn‘t tell me he was a hundred years old. In turn, she gave me a look that said, Stand up straight and stop acting your age.

We once saw a man at the intersection of Galloway and Lawrence with a small teardrop tattoo. It meant he had killed someone, Theresa told me, and lost the love of his life because of it. Detailed, I thought. Didn‘t understand how she could get all of that from a tattoo. 

He just talked and talked and talked. I think my father had enough words in him to rewrite Don Quixote. His favourite book. Because he believed in so many of his stories, I never knew which one belonged to either one of us.

The Innocents by Michael Crummey

Ada and Evered* are children, 9 and 11, when their baby sister and parents die of illness. The two manage mostly on their own for several years in an isolated Newfoundland cove in the early 19th century. Cinematic descriptions, lots of archaic vernacular, the seasonal rhythms, and the immersion into both the outer and inner lives of this pair of siblings as they grow into adolescence—all of these made for a bewitching & meditative tale. 
*note Biblical reference to Adam and Eve

As far as Ada could tell a mother‘s role was incidental at best, her body a passive vessel for the passing wildflower that was a child. The Virgin Mary had gotten her feet wet out picking berries and so fell pregnant with Jesus. It was a condition women caught like a fever or a cold, something that resulted from their own weakness or impudence. Something vaguely shameful.

Sarah Best was half-asleep with her mouth to the newborn‘s downy crown and she glanced across at Ada without raising her head. “What should we call her?”
It hadn‘t occurred to Ada that a name was bestowed on a person and not something you were born with. The lack made the infant seem almost as naked and pitiable as when she first landed in Mary Oram‘s lap.

“He‘s got all the grace of a cow aboard of a dory,” another said. “The gangly old stilts on him. He‘ll never shit a seaman‘s turd, that one.”

She could talk the bark off a tree, their father said, a note of awed disbelief in his voice.

Goodbye Vitamin by Rachel Khong

30-year-old Ruth discovers it‘s possible to make something sweet when life hands her lemons—dumped by her fiancé and then called to spend a year with her parents to help cope with her father‘s Alzheimer‘s. Surprisingly buoyant, this novel is told in Ruth‘s diary vignettes, tenderly collecting moments—absurd, mundane or sublime—like: “The moon is doing something beautiful.” The fragments add up to something charming, heartfelt and beautiful.

“Another weird thing is that pigs don‘t get milked,” I said. “Pigs don‘t get milked.”
“Because piglets drink it all?” Bonnie said.
“Because piglets drink it all.”
“There‘s something beautiful about that,” Linus said, “beautiful and perfect.”
We toasted to piglets and didn‘t notice Theo approach.

At the library, I run into Regina, who was homecoming queen our junior year. She had hay-coloured hair to her waist and I envied it. She has children now. They share names with hurricanes—I don‘t know if it is intentional or what.
“This is Katrina and this is Sandy,” she introduces. The children are 4 and 8, and even so young, their expressions look overcast.

Later, at the farmers‘ market, I watch a couple bros sample dates.
“Shit,” says one bro, coughing, “I think I‘m allergic to this giant raisin!”
“That‘s not a raisin, Steve,” says another bro. “That‘s a Medjool date.”
Born humans, I remind myself.

I like to collect those almonds with the slight curve, the ones that hold your thumb. And not only the curved nuts, but also the nuts that don't have the standard tear shape, that are shaped more like buttons, with a rounded edge instead of the point. Almond anomalies.
What a ridiculous person I am. I unscrew the jar and tip as many anomalies as will fit into my mouth.

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

Quiet yet powerful. Woodson creates vivid characters using the sparest of prose. In this polyphonic novel that spans several decades, we come to know five people from three generations of a single Black family in Brooklyn. I especially loved Iris, a prickly unwed mother without much in the way of maternal feelings, who explores her bisexuality at college.

Something about memory. It takes you back to where you were and lets you just be there for a time. 

King Mouse by Cary Fagan and Dena Seiferling

Delicate graphite drawings by Dena Seiferling are perfectly matched to the gentle tone of this story about instant celebrity and friendship. A heartwarming Canadian picture book.

Slay by Brittney Morris
Audiobook read by Kiersey Clemons, Michael Boatman, Alexandra Grey, Dominic Hoffman and Sisi Aisha Johnson

Washington state high schooler Keira Johnson secretly develops SLAY, an online role playing game to celebrate the Black experience in a worldwide diaspora. “It‘s a double entendre, meaning both to greatly impress and to annihilate.” When a player is killed in real life, media attention brings cyber trolls and claims that it‘s racist and illegal to exclude non-Black players, Keira‘s haven might be destroyed. Excellent fast-paced and moving audiobook.

As we duel, as we chat, there's an understanding that “your black is not my black“ and “your weird is not my weird“ and “your beautiful is not my beautiful,“ and that's okay.

Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
Audiobook read by Jason Isaacs

The use of botanic materials to create every
part of the illustrations in Drawn from Nature is
astounding. For example, look closely at
this hibernating frog in an underground den
made of a desiccated leaf.

I was happy to be back in a gripping story with former police detective Jackson Brodie, friend to anarchy, upholder of justice (which is not always the same as upholding the law). Human trafficking, murder, and so many secrets… but Brodie untangles the mayhem and even sorts out some of his own personal stuff too.

[Her older brother] was employing a very nice illustrated edition of the Grimm brothers to introduce Candace to the more evil side of fairies, tales where people were cursed or abandoned or had their toes chopped off and their eyes pecked out […] because he felt that someone ought to counter the fluffy pink world she was being swallowed up by.

Drawn from Nature by Helen Ahpornsiri

An adorable natural science picture book for all ages. All of the illustrations are collages, painstakingly created entirely from flowers and foliage. Inspiring!

Tentacle by Rita Indiana
Translated by Achy Obejas

My admiration grows the longer I reflect on this queer, peppy time-travel triple narrative set in the Dominican Republic. Can the past be manipulated to avert future ecological disaster? Can altruism triumph over self-interest? A transgender man, Santera sorcery and a magical sea anemone are key elements in this vertiginous exploration of colonialism, gender, art and greed. 

Los Charamicos was a backwards town, dirty and small, and completely dependent on tourism—in other words, prostitution, in all its varieties. 

September Reading Round-Up

Here are some of my favourite books out of the 32 that I read in September:

The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by Esme Weijun Wang

My favourite read in September. Wang writes eloquently about her experiences as a person living with schizoaffective disorder. One of the best books about mental health that I've ever read; it is so good that I bought a copy to give as a gift.

As I grew older and my symptoms worsened, my mother at times expressed deep remorse and guilt at the fact that she had passed this “suffering” on to me, and presently tells me that I would be better off not having children. There are two issues here: one being the act of passing on a genetic burden, and the other being my ability, as a woman living with severe mental illness, to be a good mother.

As Nellie Bly‘s anecdotes, and my own, indicate, a primary feature of the experience of staying in a psychiatric hospital is that you will not be believed about anything. A corollary to this feature: things will be believed about you that are not at all true.

“I went to Yale” is shorthand for “I have schizoaffective disorder, but I‘m not worthless.”

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Heartbreaking autobiographical fiction in the form of a letter from a gay son to his illiterate Vietnamese American mother: “the very impossibility of your reading this at all makes my telling it possible.” It‘s told in tender fragments: “I‘m not telling you a story so much as a shipwreck—the pieces floating, finally legible.” It‘s a yearning for belonging, and a coming to terms with mental illness, queerness and loss. It‘s gorgeous. I applaud the news that Vuong has recently received a MacArthur Genius grant.

Yes, there was a war. Yes, we came from its epicentre. In that war, a woman gifted herself a new name—Lan—in that naming claimed herself beautiful, then made that beauty into something worth keeping. From that, a daughter was born, and from that daughter, a son.
All this time I told myself we were born from war—but I was wrong, Ma. We were born from beauty.

You and I, we were Americans until we opened our eyes. 
They will want you to succeed, but never more than them. They will write their names on your leash and call you ‘necessary,‘ call you ‘urgent.‘

“I‘m not what your mamma says I am.” His gaze is lowered as he tells it, his rhythm cut with odd pauses, at times slipping into near-whisper, like a man cleaning his rifle at daybreak and talking to himself. And I let him run his mind. I let him empty. I didn‘t stop him because you don‘t stop nothing when you‘re nine.

Weep Not, Child by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

This short, tragic story—told with a light touch—brings to life universal experiences of colonialism: dispossession from ancestral lands, cruel injustices and the crushing of hope for a better future. Why read a depressing story set during the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya? Because it‘s one you may never forget. And because novels like this help us understand exactly how the aftereffects of colonialism are still being felt, all over the world.
Reading this classic reminded me strongly of another novel set in about the same time and place: Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (I reviewed it here).

Weep not, child
Weep not, my darling
With these kisses let me 
     remove your tears
The ravening clouds shall not
     be long victorious
They shall not long possess
     the sky...
          -Walt Whitman, from the epigraph

Inland by Tea Obreht

She learned letters and manners from the pale, dismayed wives of her father's subordinates, who raised her to defend the hearth and revile a lie--nominally at least, for the older she grew the more she came to recognize falsehood as the preservative that allowed the world to maintain its shape.

I was on page 62 of this novel, thinking maybe I‘m not in the mood right now for a story set in 19th century America. Having just finished the exquisite Weep Not, Child by Ngugi Wa Thiong‘o about the injustices of colonialism, I was not exactly willing to open my heart to the hardships of settlers in the Wild West. And then I came upon the above sentence. Téa Obreht seduced me with her words. I continued. I was richly rewarded.

Alternating storylines are told from the close perspective of two main characters in 19th century America: Lurie, orphaned as a child shortly after emigrating from the Ottoman Empire, and Nora, a settler struggling with her regrets in Arizona Territory. The third main character is Burke, a camel. It was well worth getting to know them in a tale that gradually gains momentum. I could feel the want, “That vast and immutable want everybody, dead or alive, carried with them all the time.”

“He‘d forgive you soon enough. Boys always do.”
Desma espoused the kind of easy faith in children only held by people who‘d never raised any themselves. And thank God for that, for it was good to be reminded of the merits by someone who lacked the constitution to withstand many of parenthood‘s most profound rewards: the shying and the sulking and the constant ingratitude, and eruptions like the one last night, […]

Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Audiobook read by Allyson Ryan

While it took a while for me to sort out who exactly was voicing this novel and I was also slow catching on to the point of view switches, I immediately engaged with the characters. I was reminded at first of Tom Perotta‘s Mrs. Fletcher, then even more strongly of Lauren Groff‘s Fates and Furies. Society‘s constraints against being our true selves is made poignant in this novel about marriage and other relationships in middle age life. 

I'd grown up not allowed to read the same young-adult novels about babysitters and pretty blond twins that my friends read. My mother thought young-adult books were trash for degenerates and were certainly a red carpet to teen pregnancy and drug use.

Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribas
Audiobook read by Ramon de Ocampo

Equity, grief, guilt and search for identity, as seen through 18-year-old Jay Reguero, whose father is Filipino and mother is white American. When his cousin is murdered in the Philippines, Jay travels there to find out what happened. Duterte's war on drugs is an important backdrop, while the tensions within Jay's extended family are explored and characters are believably developed. One of many strengths: inclusion of queer family members. Also, it was great to hear Tagalog and Bikol words aloud in the audiobook. 

All the stories follow a similar pattern. Someone is accused without evidence. They are killed without mercy. Then the police cover it up without regret. Of course, the official report reads that the suspect resisted arrest, but this is contradicted by videos, anonymous eye witness accounts, or forensic evidence.

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy 
by Jenny Odell
Audiobook read by Rebecca Gibel

I started this in print format and found it hard to follow Odell's long, philosophical sentences. When I switched to audio format, I adored her style. Her work is a call to activism that stresses the importance of taking time to listen, to pay attention, and to contemplate. Also, it's an invitation to reconsider the idea of what it is to be productive.

As someone who is both Asian and white, I am an anomaly or a nonentity from an essentialist point of view. It's not possible for me to be native to anywhere in any obvious sense, […] but the sight of western tanagers, a favourite bird, migrating through Oakland in the spring, gives me an image of how to be from two places at once. 

My most-liked Facebook post of all time was an anti-Trump screed. […] It‘s not a form of communication driven by reflection and reason but rather a reaction driven by fear and anger. Obviously these feelings are warranted but their expression on social media feels like firecrackers setting off other firecrackers in a very small room that soon gets filled with smoke.

In a public space, ideally, you are a citizen with agency; in a faux public space, you are either a consumer or a threat to the design of the place.


The Electric State by Simon Stalehag

An unsettling alternate history set in 1997, with America‘s citizens enthralled to virtual reality and suffering the aftermath of neurological warfare. 18-year-old Michelle is on a road trip mission with her sentient robot, surrounded by eerie additions to the Mojave dessert and mountain landscapes on their way to the Pacific. This oversized illustrated novel has amazing artwork across double pages. Surreal, creepy and beautiful.

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Audiobook read by Ann Dowd, Bryce Dallas Howard, Mae Whitman, Derek Jacobi, Tantoo Cardinal and Margaret Atwood

I loved The Handmaid‘s Tale, which I read shortly after it was published. The tv adaptation (even though I haven't seen it) and Atwood's previous avowal that there wouldn‘t be a book sequel had me skeptical that The Testaments would be any good. I was wrong. I galloped through the audiobook, relishing the format: multiple points of view, performed by six audio narrators including Atwood herself. Very satisfying.

To See the Stars by Jan Andrews

Edie is 15 when she leaves Newfoundland to work and help support her younger siblings at home. The hard life and limited options for the working poor in the early 20th century is portrayed in a quiet, poignant way. It took a while to adjust to the rhythm of short sentences and Newfie words (brewis, sheeny, mauzy) but soon I felt I understood Edie‘s heart. Garment worker unionizing in NYC, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire—it‘s all made real.

The sky was clear, clear, clear. The night was so beautiful. Everything where I was—on earth—all wind and whirling, everything up above as still as it could be. Stars by the million, all so gleaming. The blackness in between them, dark as dark. A sight worth seeing. I held the baby up to look.

July 2019 Reading Round-Up

Audiobooks were my steady companions in July. I even liked one so much that I listened to it twice. See my reading round up highlights below to find out which one that was. As it happens, only one other of my 5-star favourites this month was one that I experienced in audio format.

Bina by Ankana Schofield [audiobook narrated by the author; 5 h]

If you like the voices of feisty old women in your fiction, Bina is for you. She warns her readers: “Know this much—know it firm, know it tall, know it wide: I will not shut up.” Her trials include being unable to rid herself of a younger man who started living in her west Ireland home after he crashed into her stone fence, having a crowd of activists camped in her yard, and facing criminal charges for things she didn‘t do. It is seriously funny and I loved it so much I listened to the audiobook twice in a row. Similar books include Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk and Baba Dunja's Last Love by Alina Bronsky.

Eddie was an eruption, a natural disaster. The first human one. Won‘t be the last. Plus, he‘s still going, erupting and disrupting. Like today. He might be gone, but look at what he left in his wake. A wake is an absolutely cheery goodbye. There will be no wake with Eddie except an earthquake. It‘d take an earthquake, maybe, to really be shut of him. Pity you can‘t order them over the phone, underneath specific people.

I started thinking about Canada and what kind of people might be there. I didn‘t like their prime minister. He was flighty. He looked like he‘d take off if he went rolling up an escalator too fast.

Why was it we weren‘t rewarded with children? And did I think it was timing, or was it God‘s decision? And, were some chosen and some not? I said no. I said it was nothing to do with timing, but rather some of us had more sense, and could avoid a bucket of trouble being sloshed into our laps.  

Matronalia by A B Dillon

Alberta author Angela Dillon‘s heartbreaking and healing words are addressed to her daughter, expressing regrets, love and hope. Some things passed on from our mothers are best not passed along to the next generation, but it‘s not easy to break the cycle. Honesty, generosity, and clear-eyed examination are some of Dillon‘s tools of precision and understanding.

Go to art when you are lost, my darling. 
Stand before something that breaks you.

You were bold, and this angered him, so instead of giving you the flowers he had bought for you, he threw them in the garbage. Mark me, buy flowers for yourself at least once a month. Your heart is a rose that belongs to no one but you. Besides, who wants Safeway carnations when behind your ribs peonies flourish and the linnets sing fresh and freely?

I release you from ever having to search my face before you leap. 
Does the cherry blossom seek permission?

A man or a boy will want the right to your body. He will whittle you down, girl, whittle you down. Remember this — no one, no church, no man, no boy, nobody, not even me, has a right to your body. You alone navigate the terrain of your wonderful estate. 
Wander and get lost, wander and get lost. 
Get wonderfully lost.

Dunk Tank by Kayla Czaga

Fresh similes (“the wind sighs like it‘s locked its keys in the car”) and encapsulations of teenage girlhood (“synchronized eye-rolling”) and social media (“Can you feel me tap / on your faces, liking your life? / Do you like your life? I like it / so much I make all the small / hearts underneath you light up.”) make this a delightful, sometimes dark, sometimes funny queer Canadian poetry collection.

I‘m very avant-garde in what 
I use for bookmarks. That 
look on your face would do. 
-Bibliophilia

Figuring by Maria Popova 
[audiobook narrated by Natascha McElhone; 21 h]

A long and mesmerizing audiobook that begins with Kepler in the 17th c and ends with Rachel Carson. In between is an interwoven tapestry of the lives of scientists and artists—with a focus on queer women—showing the cross pollination between art and science, the way poetry and music have inspired discoveries and invention. If you love Popova‘s Brain Pickings blog, you will love this too.

The very term ‘pesticide‘ seemed no longer appropriate to Rachel Carson, for designating any organism as a pest to be decimated for the benefit of another organism, the human animal, was an affront to the elemental interconnectedness of nature. She thought ‘biocide‘ better captured the impossibility of violating earth with such poisons without making it unfit for all life.

Having received more congratulatory calls from friends after the Peanuts nod than after her National Book Award, Carson joked, “I found that true immortality seems to rest in being included in a comic strip.”

Urania had taken on a different meaning. As sociology and medicine sought to classify identities that diverged from heteronormative sexuality, uranian, coined before homosexual, came to signify a person of a third sex. First, a female psyche in a male body, then more generally those whose attractions differed from the normative standards of their anatomy, or what we today might call queer people.

Algebra of Infinite Justice by Arundhati Roy

I was waiting for my library hold on Roy‘s new collection of essays, so I decided to reread this one that I own. In her dust jacket photo, Roy (born in 1961) looked young when this collection was published in 2001. The content concerns socio-political issues of two decades ago, but her insights and witty style remain engaging. In the title essay: “President George Bush can no more ‘rid the world of evil-doers‘ than he can stock it with saints.” 

I've looked at the table of contents for Roy's new collection, My Seditious Heart, and I see that all six of the essays in The Algebra of Infinite Justice are included, along with another 37 pieces.

Nowadays I‘m introduced as something of a freak myself. I am, apparently, what is known in twenty-first century vernacular as a ‘writer-activist.‘ (Like a sofa-bed.)

The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive and die only when you are dead.

Let‘s just say we‘re an ancient people learning to live in a recent nation. The majority of India‘s citizens will not be able to identify its boundaries on a map, or say which language is spoken where or which god is worshipped in what region. To them the idea of India is, at best, a noisy slogan that comes around during wars and elections.

They were on the streets, celebrating India‘s nuclear bomb and simultaneously “condemning Western Culture” by emptying crates of Coke and Pepsi into public drains. I‘m a little baffled by their logic: Coke is Western Culture but the nuclear bomb is an old Indian tradition? Yes, I've heard--the bomb in in the Vedas. It might be, but if you look hard enough, you'll find Coke in the Vedas too. That's the great thing about all religious texts. You can find anything you want in them.

The New York Pigeon: Behind the Feathers by Andrew Garn

Striking pigeon portraits, taken by photographer Andrew Garn at the Wild Bird Fund rescue centre in NYC, are the stars of this gorgeous, oversized book. There are also chapters on the history and biology of these birds, as well as stories about people who love them. 

Because of their loyalty and excellent homing abilities (employing a combination of visual and magnetic cues) pigeons were recruited as messengers early on. In 2500 BC rulers of Sumeria used pigeons to carry news. Gengis Khan established a pigeon post system covering almost one sixth of the world. In the 20th century almost one million pigeons served in the great world wars, saving the lives of thousands of soldiers.

If sightings of pigeons were to become as scarce as hen‘s teeth, bird watchers would travel great distances to seek them out. They would be astonished and covetous when witnessing their great splendour.

Pigeon eyes. Photography by Andrew Garn

Gumballs by Erin Nations

While transgender cartoonist Erin Nations‘ square-head drawing style didn‘t appeal at first glance, I quickly warmed to his sincerity and humour in this autobiographical collection. Included here are short slice-of-life strips and single page comics about his childhood as a triplet, his gender dysphoria and transitioning, his interactions with colleagues and weird customers in his work as a grocery produce manager, and amusing fictional personal ads.  

Yoga for Everyone: 50 Poses for Every Type of Body by Dianne Bondy

An encouraging body-positive yoga guidebook. 50 poses are illustrated step-by-step with eight diversely-abled models, including a man with no legs, and a very pregnant woman. Support and stability props like blocks, straps, chairs and walls are clearly demonstrated in the variations for each pose. At the end there are a number of sample sequences to help devise a customized practice.

The philosophies behind yoga can foster body positivity by helping you realize that you‘re enough. The central tenets of yoga include nonviolence, contentment, gratitude and self-study.