Books and Beyond

In 1988, Jimmy Strutton was shot four times in a secluded log cabin on the outskirts of Owen Sound, Ont. Each of the four witnesses at the scene told police a different story, and one of them, Mae McEachern, was charged with murder. McEachern’s defence lawyer, Brian Barrie, Law’76, relies on his own memories, as well as trial transcripts and newspaper articles, to bring the crime and the trial to life in Four Bullets, Four Witnesses, Four Liars, now available from Delve Books.

Most Canadians at the time may not have fought in the First World War, but many of them had a hand in financing it. David Roberts, Artsci’73, MA’75, explores the surprising popularity of war bonds and how the federal government used them to convince Canadians to fund Canada’s military commitment in Boosters and Barkers: Financing Canada’s Involvement in the First World War. It tells the story of six bond drives that together raised almost one-third of the country’s total war costs. Read it now from University of British Columbia Press.

One of Canada’s most celebrated contemporary still-life painters, Mary Pratt is best known for transforming everyday objects into iconic images of vulnerability and imperfection. Art historian Anne Koval, Artsci’84, interviewed Pratt extensively and used those interviews as the springboard for Mary Pratt: A Love Affair with Vision. The book is part biography and part in-depth study of Pratt’s life, work, and the issues – gender, feminism, and realism in Canadian art – that informed them both. Available from Goose Lane Editions. 

Former Alumni Review editor Ken Cuthbertson, Arts’74, Law’83, chronicles the 1958 Springhill mine disaster, a workplace incident that still stands as one of Canada’s worst, in Blood on the Coal. At the time, Springhill, N.S., was the quintessential one-industry town whose economic survival depended upon coal. The mine, one of the world’s deepest and most dangerous, continued to operate until disaster struck. The author draws upon archival records as well as interviews with the last surviving miner and his co-workers’ relatives. Available from HarperCollins. 

What enabled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to stand his ground and lead his country so impressively against an invasion at the hands of an aggressive neighbour? Dr. Olga Onuch, Artsci’05, and co-author Henry E. Hale tackle that question in The Zelensky Effect, published earlier this year by Oxford University Press. They learned that the answer is less about a charismatic leader and more about a shared culture and a strong national identity, hard-won after a tumultuous history.

When Winnie Wong, Com’11, learned that only two per cent of venture-capital funding goes to female-led startups, she decided to do something about it. Ms. Wong, a professor at the SP Jain School of Global Management in Singapore, wrote and published You Don’t Have to Look the Part: How East Asian Women Thrive as Entrepreneurs to explore the barriers Asian women face and share tips for overcoming them – from the likes of Canva founder Melanie Perkins and fashion mogul Vera Wang.

Not long after launching his career as a radiation oncologist, Dr. Charles Hayter, Artsci’74, Meds’84, learned that his father had developed cancer. Dr. Hayter weaves the story of his father’s illness with stories from other patients in Cancer Confidential: Backstage Dramas in the Radiation Clinic, released last fall by University of Toronto Press. At a time when one in three cancer patients receives radiation treatment, Dr. Hayter draws on his experience as a historian and playwright to shed light on this well-known but often misunderstood therapy. 

The 2007 discovery of valuable metal deposits in the James Bay Lowlands placed the local Indigenous community at odds with an American mining company. Virginia Heffernan, Artsci’86, documents the battle in Ring of Fire: High-Stakes Mining in a Lowlands Wilderness, a fast-paced, thoroughly researched, and ultimately hopeful account of a complex conflict between corporate interests and Indigenous rights. Ring of Fire is now available through ECW Press.