Books and Beyond

In the 21st century, Canada’s democracy is unprepared to meet shocks resulting from regional conflicts, climate change, and technology. In The Adaptable Country: How Canada Can Survive the Twenty-First Century, Alasdair S. Roberts, Artsci’87, examines how Canada’s politicians and leaders, as well as technological changes affecting journalism and a lack of agility within the public service, have made the country less adaptable. The author reminds readers that a country that respects diversity and human rights can also respond well to existential threats. The Adaptable Country: How Canada Can Survive the Twenty-First Century is available from McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Canada relies on thousands of temporary workers – workers who are vulnerable to abuse. Catherine Connelly, MSc’00, PhD’04, looks at their experiences in Enduring Work: Experiences with Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Her book includes various forms of mistreatment, from the perspective of organizational behaviour and human resources management, and she also includes employers’ perspectives, distinguishing between those who follow the rules and those who don’t. Enduring Work: Experiences with Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program is available from McGill-Queen’s University Press.

The mass death on an offshore oil rig on the East Coast is believed to be the work of the fabled kraken, a legendary sea monster of mythical proportions. In his debut novel, False Bodies, J.R. McConvey, Artsci’02, plunges an already unhinged detective into a sinister world of squid cults, a corrupt corporation and tentacled beasts. The author was the winner of the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in 2020 for his collection of short stories, Different Beasts. Giller Prize-nominated author David Demchuk calls False Bodies “a gripping supernatural thriller with a wry, noirish edge.” False Bodies is available from Breakwater Books.

Idleness is not often praiseworthy; it is associated with laziness and unproductiveness that can lead to ruin – a state captured by the idiom “gone to seed.” But author Kate J. Neville, Artsci’04, makes a case for the opposite in Going to Seed: Essays on Idleness, Nature, and Sustainable Work. What could we learn about ourselves, our society, and our planet, she explores, if we simply took a cue from nature and sat idle like a seed, which is a packet containing the energy for new life? Winner of the 2023 Sowell Emerging Writers Prize. Going to Seed: Essays on Idleness, Nature, and Sustainable Work is available from University of Regina Press.

It’s a difficult but essential conversation – and with the right tools, a conversation on aging can be productive, according to author Laura Tamblyn Watts, Artsci’95. CEO of CanAge, Canada’s national seniors’ advocacy organization and a teacher on law and aging at the University of Toronto. The author brings experience and expertise to her book, Let’s Talk About Aging Parents: A Real-Life Guide to Solving Problems with 27 Essential Conversations. In it, she argues that necessary discussions about such topics as caregiving, money, power of attorney, assisted living, and illness with aging parents can be challenging but navigable. Let’s Talk About Aging Parents: A Real-Life Guide to Solving Problems with 27 Essential Conversations is published by The Experiment.

Understanding how Russia thinks and acts can seem perplexing to those in the West – but perhaps it’s because we tend to view things from a western perspective. This is particularly evident with events leading up to the Second World War, argues Michael Carley, MA’71, MPhil’76, professor of history at the Université de Montréal. In Stalin’s Gamble: The Search for Allies against Hitler, 1930-1936 – part of a trilogy on Russia’s foreign policy leading up the war – the author reveals Stalin as a foreign policy maker and examines his diplomatic manoeuvrings throughout the 1930s. Stalin’s Gamble: The Search for Allies against Hitler, 1930-1936 is available from University of Toronto Press.

J.E.H. MacDonald, one of the members of the Group of Seven and famous for his striking landscapes and views of the Canadian wilderness, is the subject of interest for two Queen’s art conservation alumni: Kate Helwig, MAC’92; and Alison Douglas, BFA’94, MAC’96. In J.E.H. MacDonald Up Close: The Artist’s Materials and Techniques, the authors provide a fresh interpretation of the painter’s artistic development, looking at questions of authenticity and dating. Excerpts from the artist’s diaries, letters, and lectures are used to provide socio-historical context to their in-depth reading of the artist’s paintings as physical objects. J.E.H. MacDonald Up Close: The Artist’s Materials and Techniques is available from Goose Lane Editions.

Inspired by the Icelandic term doom eager, referring to an artist’s feeling of isolation and restlessness when sick with an idea, Queen’s engineer-turned-poet Karl Meade, Sc’85, set about penning a collection of poems about love and grief that convey an insistence that lost loves are never gone. doom eager also includes illustrations by Queen’s alumna Celia Meade (Scott), Sc’86. doom eager is available from Raven Chapbooks.