Into the Continentby Emily McGiffinPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$19.95 ISBN 9780889779891 I wasn’t sure how to begin Emily McGiffin’s poetry collection, Into the Continent, with its similar but opposite-side-up covers, front and back, and a Page 1 at either end. On one cover, a bayonetted rifle on a creamy background. On the other, a “Big Old Axe” against the same. As I chose a side (the rifle) to start my reading, I hoped I’d find the answer to why the book—praised by Jan Zwicky and Tim Lilburn—was structured thus. What is McGiffin, author of Between Dusk and Night and Of Land, Bones, and Money: Toward a South African Ecopoetics, metaphorically saying with this either way-ness and dramatic images? What I do know is that the University of Regina’s Oksana Poetry & Poetics book series, of which this book’s a part, concerns titles that “[probe] discussions of poetry’s cultural role”. I mined the internet and learned that the author/academic’s work “concerns the interplay of extractivism, empire, and expressive arts,” and she self-describes as “a multidisciplinary environmental humanities scholar researching arts, extraction, and environmental justice”. Currently a Research Fellow at University College London, she’s also studied and…

A Ticket to the Grand Show: Journeys Across Cultural Boundariesby Neil McKinnonPublished by Your Nickel’s Worth PublishingReview by Toby A. Welch  $29.95 ISBN 9781778690235 Wow! What a fascinating book! I didn’t even need to dig into chapter one to get hooked; the introduction itself sucked me right in and I couldn’t put A Ticket to the Grand Show down.  McKinnon is insistent that this is not a travel book, more like a story collection of cultural experiences in his life. But I loved reading about the places he visited and the encounters he had in them. The book is more about the culture in the places he traveled to than a list of things to do. “Culture” is a multi-layered concept that cannot be adequately explored in a brief five hundred words. It means different things to different people. Culture is often a deeply buried belief that someone may not even consciously be aware of having. A Ticket to the Grand Show is broken into five parts, each one detailing a geographic location: China, Japan, Mexico, Hawaii, and Canada. Some of McKinnon’s experiences took place decades ago but under his skillful hand, they feel like they happened yesterday.  While I enjoyed reading all five parts, my favourite was…

The Downloadedby Robert J. SawyerPublished by Shadowpaw PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$19.95 ISBN 9781989398999 Robert J. Sawyer is well-known in the science fiction realm. He’s written over two dozen novels and won the sci-fi world’s Big Three: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. His novel, FlashForward, inspired a same-named ABC TV series, and he also scripted the finale of the web series Star Trek Continues. Sawyer’s also a member of the Order of Canada. I don’t ordinarily read science fiction, but I am indeed aware of Robert J. Sawyer. I heard him present at a Saskatchewan Writers Guild conference decades ago, and remember thinking that his brand of sci-fi was something this fan of realistic literary fiction just might enjoy. Fast-forward to the present: I recently read his 2024 novel, The Downloaded, and appreciated how this talented author has created a reality where humans are still basically the same as the ones who currently walk the earth: they have complicated feelings, they make mistakes, they crack jokes. And, in the case of the twenty-four astronauts and thirty-five ex-cons who populate The Downloaded, they also make frequent movie references. The story is relayed through a series…

Defining Sexual Misconduct: Power, Media, and #MeTooby Stacey Hannem and Christopher J. SchneiderPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Toby A. Welch$34.95 ISBN 9780889778092 As Defining Sexual Misconduct is published by University of Regina press, I knew before I even started page one that I was in for a fact-based read that dove extremely deep into the subject matter. I wasn’t wrong. This bookby Stacey Hannem and Christopher J. Schneider takes a handful of high-profile sexual misconduct cases and delves deep into how they are framed by the news media. Readers then get to see how survivors are treated – often horrifically – and the after-effects. The book focuses primarily on the coverage of allegations against former Canadian media personality Jian Ghomeshi, Bill Cosby, Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, as well as two comedians: Aziz Ansari and Louis C.K. It also goes into detail about the Weinstein Effect: the phenomenon where some men (Trump, for example) seem impervious to sexual misconduct allegations whereas others (such as the man that the phenomenon is named for) do not. This is fascinating reading! Two other areas that Defining Sexual Misconduct explores are the #MeToo movement and Indigenous women. I’d forgotten how the #MeToo movement started and it was helpful to…

Tanning Moosehides the Northern Saskatchewan Trapline Way: An Easy Step-by-Step GuideWritten by Tommy Bird, Lawrence Adam, Lena Adam, with Miriam KörnerPhotos by Miriam Körner and Tommy BirdPublished by YNWPReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$49.95 ISBN 9781778690327 In these modern times, when we want information our “Go To” is usually to Google or Youtube it. If one wanted to learn to tan moosehides, for example, they could indeed go online to discover how, but some steps might be missed. If tanning moosehides is indeed your intent, now there’s an excellent resource that you can hold in your hands or spread on a table: Tanning Moosehides the Northern Saskatchewan Trapline Way: An Easy Step-by-Step Guide. The softcover guidebook by northern Saskatchewan residents Tommy Bird, Lawrence Adam, Lena Adam, and award-winning La Ronge writer Miriam Körner takes readers through the twenty-four steps involved in the time-consuming process of tanning moosehides, “a skill passed down from generation to generation since time immemorial”. The book is filled with colour photographs provided by Miriam Körner and Tommy Bird, and it begins with a helpful introduction. If you’re from the north, you may already know the various uses of tanned moosehide. They were and are “sewn into mukluks,…

Back Home: A Poetry Collectionby Jesse A. MurrayPublished by Off the Field PublishingReview by Toby A. Welch  $14.99 ISBN 9781777591304 Poetry. I have a love/hate relationship with it. I want to love it as I value the idea and the beauty of it. The dance of the words on the page and in my mind is melodious. But I usually end up disliking it, getting bored before I get more than a dozen pages into a book of poetry. But that was not a problem with Back Home. I devoured each poem and was bummed out when I turned the last page. Poetry is challenging for me as it can be monotonous. Page after page of six or eight lines, all of them a similar length and tone. That did not happen in Back Home, which I found refreshing. Some poems were in paragraph format, some were just a line or two. Most were somewhere in between with almost all of them coming in at one page or less. The variety, length, and style of Murray’s poems kept things spicy. I tried to pick a favourite poem, but that was impossible to do. Two of the ones I loved best had similar titles…

Benny’s Dinosaursby Ashley Vercammen, Illustrated by P Aplinder KaurPublished by Home Style TeachersReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$20.00 ISBN 9781778152924 It’s common for children of a certain age to go through a dinosaur phase—if memory serves, my own son was about seven when he was passionate about dinosaur books, facts and toys. Prolific Saskatchewan writer and Home Style Teachers’ publisher, Ashley Vercammen, has tapped into that possibly universal dinosaur appeal with her colourfully-illustrated softcover Benny’s Dinosaurs. She’s dedicated the book to her “dinosaur-loving nephew, Benny”. On the first page we learn that the titular “Benny” is a paleontologist about to lead a tour because “It’s a field trip day!”. A picnic will also ensue. Dressed in a brown uniform with a ranger-type hat, brown boots and a backpack, the swarthy blond paleontologist introduces us page-by-page to a variety of well and lesser-known dinosaurs in a rainbow of colours, and some of the creatures feature spots, horns and feathers. The story is illustrated by P Aplinder Kaur with playful-looking dinosaurs—Triceratops is green, Kosmoceratops is blue with fifteen horns and spikes, Tyrannosaurus Rex is dark pink—and their polka-dotted eggs. P Aplinder Kaur—also a cartoonist and digital marketer— lives in Kharar, India. Author and…

Going to Seed: Essays on Idleness, Nature & Sustainable Workby Kate J. NevillePublished by University of Regina PressReview by Michelle Shaw$30.95 9781779400000 In this award-winning collection of essays, Kate Neville melds the different areas of her life into a fascinating perspective on our perception of idleness: personal reflections from living in an off-grid cabin in northern BC and her academic life as associate professor in the Department of Political Science and the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto. Neville draws from a wide range of poets, writers, researchers and scientists to reconsider the notion of idleness in a world where our reaction to problems is invariably to accelerate and advance. What if instead, she asks, we “step back and slow down?” In 2020, when Kate Neville found herself living fulltime in her off-grid cabin during the pandemic, she began to ponder the accuracy of the perception that “going to seed“ was something to be avoided at all costs. As a gardener friend protested — “the seed phase… is a time of so much activity. Plants send out compressed packets filled with the energy and nutrients needed to sow new life.” The fact that I was reading this…

The Headmastersby Mark MortonPublished by Shadowpaw PressReview by Toby A. Welch  $26.99 ISBN 9781989398845 Mark Morton has created a fascinating world in The Headmasters. Blue Ring is an interesting place to spend a chunk of time if you are into science-fiction.  The front of this book is so cool – kudos to the cover artist. At first it looks like abstract black and green art but upon closer examination, the top half is a glimpse at the back of a young woman’s head from her shoulders up, her hair in a neat bun. The bottom half is hard to know with certainty but my best guess is that it’s an upside-down view of a creature’s skull. Regardless of what it really is, it’s a beautiful picture and it inspired me to jump straight into The Headmasters.  Unlike my original assumption that ‘Headmasters’ refers to people who are heads of schools, in this book the word refers to hand-sized parasitic entities (for lack of a better word). Headmasters attach to humans, who become their hosts. The Headmasters first made their appearance sixty years before the start of the book, a time when everyone died except for the people at Blue Ring. All remaining humans…

Reflections in a Farmhouse Window: A Prairie Memoir by Marilyn FreyPublished by Marilyn FreyReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$24.95 ISBN 9780981380346 One of the many joys of reading memoir is learning you share certain places, people or experiences with an author. I didn’t anticipate crossovers between my life and Saskatchewan writer Marilyn Frey’s, but I discovered multiple intersections while reading her candid, thought-provoking and beautifully-written book, Reflections in a Farmhouse Window: A Prairie Memoir. Like Frey, I’ve also lived in Middle Lake, Meadow Lake and Saskatoon, but overlapping communities aside, I really connected emotionally to the sixty stories this talented writer shares about her rural upbringing, the joys and trials of family life, weathering major transitions, and knowing when it’s time to take a few moments for oneself. After a long career in banking—from teller beginnings to becoming a District Manager who frequently travelled—Frey now has the time to turn her attention to her passion for writing, and I’m so glad she does. It’s rare to read a first-time, self-published writer’s book that sings the way this one does: it’s clear that Frey has put the time in re: learning the craft of writing. Her use of literary devices (like personification), the…