Review: The Martian Chronicles

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance

Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance by Jesse Wente
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been meaning to get to this book for some months, but keep getting pulled away. In this book, Jesse Wente offers his story of being an Indigenous youth and adult living in Toronto in the 70s onward. In telling his story, Jesse Wente not only connects with the ambiguities and confusions of being an Urban Indigenous person, but also with the racism that underlies Canadian society. He also gives an insight into media and its attitudes to Indigenous issues and people, through is experiences with the CBC and TIFF. The result is a challenging read (for a middle age white guy like me), but a rewarding one.

What I appreciate about Jesse Wente's writing is his honesty and humour which pervade his writing. His discussion about his struggles with his identity, especially because he lived removed from his family's community, is nuanced and expresses the ambiguities of the move to the cities that many Indigenous people have made. His struggles to promote Indigenous voices in media are familiar to someone living through the 1990s and 2000s, but are painful, especially in retrospect. Wente's point is that Canadian society has to face up to the truth not only of what it has done, but what it is doing in respect to Indigenous peoples, and this book contributes to that challenge.

I recommend this book heartily for those who are trying to understand the experience of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Jesse Wente is both poignant and funny, sometimes at the same time, and this is a really good read.

View all my reviews

Review: Red Storm Rising

Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an old favourite which I keep going back to every, say, five to ten years. It is a peculiar book for a peculiar time- the late 1980s in the last years of the Cold War. The best way to describe it is that it was one of those books which sought to give a picture of a war with the Soviet Union which didn't end in nuclear annihilation, as many of us feared at the time. Ultimately, it's basic premises were that the Soviet Union was, despite its military power, economically and socially near collapse (which, actually wasn't far from the truth as we found out after 1989), but also that, when faced with the prospect of nuclear escalation, cooler heads would act to prevent it. In a sense, that also proved true, even if it ignored the disastrous consequences if they didn't.

Without giving too many spoilers, the destruction of one of the Soviet Union's major refineries by Islamic terrorists leads the leadership of the Politburo to plot an invasion of Western Europe as a prelude to an invasion of the Middle East. The result is Clancy's vision of how a conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact would go, which is messy. You can see Clancy is trying to suggest that more combat readiness is needed in NATO, but also that, ultimately, he thinks they can, with enough investment, hold their own. He really likes getting into the nitty gritty of both intelligence gathering and the military hardware, and generally is pretty hawkish. The climax brings the story to the brink of nuclear war, which is avoided only in something of deus ex machina political coup in Moscow. The lesson is that a good defence (with lots of defense spending) means a good deterrent.

Despite the two-by-four across the head political messaging about defense spending, this is still a good book. Clancy, whatever his political thoughts, is a compelling story teller and this is an intriguing story of man at war. There's surprise, sudden reversals, courage and even something of a love story (Clancy doesn't do love stories too much, he likes his military toys too much). It still holds up as a story, even long after the politicals have changed.

View all my reviews

Review: Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance

Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance by Jesse Wente
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been meaning to get to this book for some months, but keep getting pulled away. In this book, Jesse Wente offers his story of being an Indigenous youth and adult living in Toronto in the 70s onward. In telling his story, Jesse Wente not only connects with the ambiguities and confusions of being an Urban Indigenous person, but also with the racism that underlies Canadian society. He also gives an insight into media and its attitudes to Indigenous issues and people, through is experiences with the CBC and TIFF. The result is a challenging read (for a middle age white guy like me), but a rewarding one.

What I appreciate about Jesse Wente's writing is his honesty and humour which pervade his writing. His discussion about his struggles with his identity, especially because he lived removed from his family's community, is nuanced and expresses the ambiguities of the move to the cities that many Indigenous people have made. His struggles to promote Indigenous voices in media are familiar to someone living through the 1990s and 2000s, but are painful, especially in retrospect. Wente's point is that Canadian society has to face up to the truth not only of what it has done, but what it is doing in respect to Indigenous peoples, and this book contributes to that challenge.

I recommend this book heartily for those who are trying to understand the experience of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Jesse Wente is both poignant and funny, sometimes at the same time, and this is a really good read.

View all my reviews

Review: All Christians Are Monks: The Monastery, the Parish and the Renewal of the Church

All Christians Are Monks: The Monastery, the Parish and the Renewal of the Church by George Guiver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was suggested to me in a short course on Benedictine spirituality as part of the Diocese of Toronto's Seasons of Spiritual Renewal, which focused on how Benedictine spirituality can feed the spirituality of clergy and lay people alike. Guiver's book, as you might imagine, fits in well with this objective.

In All Christians Are Monks, Guiver consider the development of monasticism and what it is like as a way of life and contrasts it with parish life. As an Anglican monk, he makes explicit connections to the Benedictine influence on the origins of Anglicanism, especially in the formulation and development of the Book of Common Prayer. He also considers with what makes the parish different and unique. He, understandably, tends to prefer the monastery to the parish, which he seems to feel has a different mission. But he offers useful insights into what parishes can learn from monastics.

This book is well worth reading, especially for those who are trying to live out an admittedly modified Benedictine inspired spirituality in the world. He provides much to think about, especially in considering how to bring those insights into parish life.

View all my reviews

Review: The Life of St. Benedict by Gregory the Great: Translation and Commentary

The Life of St. Benedict by Gregory the Great: Translation and Commentary by Terrence G. Kardong OSB
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked up this book over the summer, mostly because I didn't have an edition of the Life of St. Benedict, which seemed odd, given my interest in Benedictine spirituality. Kardong's edition is a good one, with an informative commentary and a readable translation. Kardong gives a good sense of context and structure of the Life, which is really helpful when reading it.

Ancient and mediaeval hagiography can be something of an acquired taste, given the predominance of miracles and wonders which can put off more skeptical modern readers, whose tastes may lie more towards biography and personality. Yet, the aims of these hagiographies are different- focusing on establishing their subject's spiritual power as reflecting God's power. This life is very much in that tradition, focusing especially on Benedict's miracles. Yet, there is much that is human which comes out. Benedict, for all of the efforts to depict him as the spiritual master, has moments of very real humanity- in his reaction to the community which tried to poison him, his interactions with his sister, Scholastica, who summoned a storm to keep him from leaving overnight and his lovely vision of the world towards the end of his life. I can't say that our reading of Benedict is as well rounded as a modern biographer would prefer (this is ancient hagiography, after all), but I think we see the person as well as the saint.

This biography is an excellent one for those interested in the saints and especially in Benedictine spirituality and history and is well worth reading.

View all my reviews

Review: The Life of St. Benedict by Gregory the Great: Translation and Commentary

The Life of St. Benedict by Gregory the Great: Translation and Commentary by Terrence G. Kardong OSB
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked up this book over the summer, mostly because I didn't have an edition of the Life of St. Benedict, which seemed odd, given my interest in Benedictine spirituality. Kardong's edition is a good one, with an informative commentary and a readable translation. Kardong gives a good sense of context and structure of the Life, which is really helpful when reading it.

Ancient and mediaeval hagiography can be something of an acquired taste, given the predominance of miracles and wonders which can put off more skeptical modern readers, whose tastes may lie more towards biography and personality. Yet, the aims of these hagiographies are different- focusing on establishing their subject's spiritual power as reflecting God's power. This life is very much in that tradition, focusing especially on Benedict's miracles. Yet, there is much that is human which comes out. Benedict, for all of the efforts to depict him as the spiritual master, has moments of very real humanity- in his reaction to the community which tried to poison him, his interactions with his sister, Scholastica, who summoned a storm to keep him from leaving overnight and his lovely vision of the world towards the end of his life. I can't say that our reading of Benedict is as well rounded as a modern biographer would prefer (this is ancient hagiography, after all), but I think we see the person as well as the saint.

This biography is an excellent one for those interested in the saints and especially in Benedictine spirituality and history and is well worth reading.

View all my reviews

Review: The Night Watchman

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was a recommendation from an English teacher colleague, which I followed up on. The novel is set on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota in the 1950s at time when the federal government was trying to eliminate both reserves and Indian status. The story follows several characters including the titular character, Thomas Wazhashk, who combines the role as a member of the reserve council and work as a night watchman at the jewel bearing plant on the reserve. The central over-arching conflict is the fight that Thomas must wage to preserve the reservation which, ultimately, includes a trip to Washington D.C., to defend the reservations status. But this novel also has several sub-plots including members of Thomas' family and others on the reservation. Those can be complex to follow, but the characters are fascinating.

The novel itself is based upon the letters of Erdrich's grandfather, who spearheaded the resistance to dispossession in the 1950s. The story reflects the resiliance and resistance of these communities at at time when assimilation was the policy of many lawmakers in both the US and Canada. The novel gives a vivid sense of the time and is well worth rading.

View all my reviews

Review: The Heart of Perfection: How the Saints Taught Me to Trade My Dream of Perfect for God's

The Heart of Perfection: How the Saints Taught Me to Trade My Dream of Perfect for God's by Colleen Carroll Campbell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I ran into this book, scanning the options in Google Books, which touches on my interest in the Christian saints and how they can connect to how to live today. Roman Catholics tend to do this well because of their attention to saints in their spirituality and Campbell does it better than most. This book, as the title would suggest, focuses primarily on perfection and what various saint's lives have to say about that. The book weaves in Campbell's life and the lives of several saints and a few not saints.

What I liked about this book is not only the interweaving of the author's life and struggles with perfectionism, but also the empathy that she writes with when she writes about the various saints and not saints. She doesn't try to hid their flaws- in fact, the flaws created by perfectionism is part of what Campbell is talking about. She doesn't hesitate to talk about how perfectionism appears in religious life as judgement and harshness, but also looks to see what saints do to move away from all that. She provides a very human look at perfectionism, not shrinking from the darker sides, but also looking towards how our faith ultimately helps us rely on God, not our own perfection.

This is a worthy reflection on the guidance that the saints can give through their examples, both good and bad.

View all my reviews

Review: The Three-Body Problem

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been meaning to read this for a while, partly because it is a book which has had some buzz, but also I'm getting interested in how science fiction is manifested in other cultures. The main premise focuses on the interactions between Earth and Trisolaris, which (as is implied by its name) is experiencing the Three Body Problem in reality, as it navigates both Chaotic and Stable periods. The setting starts in the Cultural Revolution in China and follows Wang Miao as he tries to figure out why leading theoretical scientists are committing suicide. In his investigations and playing out of a video game based on Trisolaris, Wang discovers a conspiracy and a crisis.

I really did like this book, but have to concede it isn't the easiest read. Thankfully, I didn't get bogged down in the science very much and I did engage with the characters. But I could see how the book would be a slog. Still worth reading, I think, but not easy.

View all my reviews

Review: Sunrise on the Reaping

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the most recent of the Hunger Games prequel novels, which follows the Hunger Games of Haymitch Abernathy, the eventual mentor of Katniss in the Hunger Games. The story tells how Haymitch won his Hunger Games, while angering pretty much everyone connected to the games and, especially, President Snow. Written in Collins' signature style, we get into Haymitch's head and see how much the games cost him. It explains so much about how Haymitch appears in the main Hunger Games novels as well as the fact that being a victor really is only the beginning of the torture inflicted by the Capital. No wonder he is an alcoholic hermit by the time Katniss comes around.

There's some interesting parallels between Sunrise and the later books, especially the second one. We see some of the older victors in this book, but we also see a similar attempt to break the arena as we eventually see successfully used in Catching Fire. It doesn't quite work, but the attempt becomes part of the games and, actually, helps determine the winner.

This is definitely worth reading and completes the list of District 12 victor stories.

View all my reviews

Review: India: A History

India: A History by John Keay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have been looking for a book which would discuss the history of India comprehensively, from the earliest evidence of human occupation to roughly contemporary times, but it has been surprisingly difficult to find one, at least, in North America. That seems strange to me, given the importance of India historically in so many ways. But John Keay's India is an excellent entry into this category, if getting a little dated by now.

What was really helpful was Keay's attention to detail and, especially his consideration of sources. This is particularly helpful in ancient Indian history, which, notably, lacks extensive narrative primary sources until around the 5th century CE. This makes the history of the earliest periods of India (which is my primary interest) reliant on archaeological research and literary and religious works whose primary focus is not historical. Keay manages to create a coherent account of this period, which I appreciated.

His handling of more recent eras is thoughtful and well-informed. I appreciated his attention to detail here as well as well as his careful consideration of causation.

This is an excellent overview of Indian history and I strongly recommend it. I would say, however, it is also a huge book- give yourself time to read it because it is densely written. It definitely will reward any effort.

View all my reviews

Review: Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community

Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community by Maggie Helwig
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book has some special connections for me, so be warned that I write with those in mind. Not only is the community which Maggie Helwig describes in my city, but I followed the story at a distance because the church at which the encampment is placed is not very far from where I live in Toronto, but also of the same denomination as we are, but, also, my wife works with the author as well. And we're using this book as our summer reading book this year. So, just noting all those thing for transparency sake.

So, what are my impressions? Encampment is really a beautiful book- painful (definitely!), challenging (absolutely!), but deeply compassionate and grace-filled. It is the story of the encampment which grew up around St. Stephen in the Fields in Toronto from 2021 onwards and the challenges which that brought with the city and the neighbourhood, as well as the inhabitants, who were working through and with their own issues and with life on the streets. It also weaves in Helwig's own story as she was navigating challenging times in her own life, while trying to support this community around her.

The result is a moving story of what good a community can bring for even those whose struggles are overwhelming, as well as the story of the fear of those on the streets can deaden our compassion and how bureaucracy can injure people. It is a story which gives no easy answers, but calls us to see struggling people as people, who deserve dignity and support.

This, I think, is a really important read, especially for anyone who is trying to understand how to deal with housing and with those on the streets. It's empathic, but clear-sighted approach brings the reader face to face with the people who we, all too often, pass by on the streets. It is a challenge to all of us, Christians, non-Christians, whoever- to start considering how do we find a better way to deal with the housing crisis. And I think that challenge is one worth taking up.

View all my reviews

Review: Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction

Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction by Joshua Whitehead
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I ran into one of the stories in this anthology, A History of the New World, because it was one of the short story texts I used in the Indigenous Voices course I was teaching last year. The story fascinated me because of its imaginative combination of climate disaster and how easy neo-colonialism is to fall in for us white folks. I loved the push back from the Indigenous characters and the re-imagining of my city, Toronto, as returning to a state of nature, watched over by a community in High Park (literally, a half hour walk from my house). It is still my favourite story in the collection, but I was fascinated by the remaining stories as well.

The stories are, of course, written within an intersection of Indigenous queer and Two-Spirited writing, as well as, of course, in the Indigenous Futurism genre. The stories explore how these identities combine as well as seeing how the futurism genre affects them. The result are some fascinating reflections on technology and identities. This collection is definitely worth reading if you're interested in science fiction because it breaks the white, cis-male domination of that genre in creative and insightful ways.

So, yes, I definitely recommend the anthology for anyone who wants to see a different take on speculative fiction.

View all my reviews

Review: The Mestizo Augustine: A Theologian Between Two Cultures

The Mestizo Augustine: A Theologian Between Two Cultures by Justo L. González
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I ran into this title in James Smith's On the Road with Augustine, which I reviewed a few years back and re-read recently. He quotes the experience of a mestizo, who is defined as a person born from Spanish and Indigenous blood, but is generalized into a mix of cultures/identities between a 'civilized' (in this book, Roman) and 'indigenous' group (here, Berbers). Gonzalez' basic thesis in the book is that an important way to understand St. Augustine, both is life and theology, is that he was a mestizo, born from a Roman father and a Berber mother. While the identification of Monica as Berber is not definitely settled (though it makes sense), there is certainly no doubt that her form of Christianity was heavily influenced by the distinctive African Christianity, which was prevalent around the time of Augustine. So, Augustine functioned between two cultures, two Christianities, which explains his reaction to both as well as his choices as he developed his theology in the Manichean, Donatist, Pelagian and pagan controversies of his day.

The thesis is bold and, I think, may be hard for those who identify Christianity with a purely Western point of view. But I also find it a fascinating reading of Augustine's life, career and theology. And it is a more nuanced way of seeing Christianity in the time in which Rome flourished. The fact is that we moderns have a tendency to see the Romans as a unitary culture, but what we are seeing more and more in the evidence is just how much hybrid cultures, joining Roman and local traditions, are the norm in the Roman Empire throughout its existence. Ethnic identity tended to morph and shift in this time and there was more than enough code-switching as individuals moved from one cultural context to another in just their everyday life. This book fits into that understanding and, I think, illuminates Augustine's theological moves in interesting ways.

This is very much well worth reading, both for Augustine specialists, but also for those interested in Rome of Late Antiquity.

View all my reviews

Review: Buffalo Is the New Buffalo

Buffalo Is the New Buffalo by Chelsea Vowel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I ran into this while look for another collection of Indigenous futurism short stories (which I'm now reading- Love at the End) and, because Chelsea Vowel is the author, of course, I picked it up. I've enjoyed the author's essays in Indigenous Writes, using them sometimes when I'm teaching my Contemporary Indigenous Voices course at my high school. I knew about Vowel's interest in Indigenous futurism, already, so I was curious to see her writing in that genre.

The stories are a blend of science fiction and Metis story telling in a way that is difficult to describe. Each are really different from each other, but all see futures from a Metis lens which combines a clear-sighted view of how we are today, with a creative vision of the future, combined with Metis spirituality and, because it is Chelsea Vowel, a lot of humour. The narrative styles shift and change and really are fun to read. There's also commentary to explain to background and thinking behind each story.

This collection is well worth reading, especially for this take on Metis futurism.

View all my reviews

Review: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is, of course, one of the prequels of the Hunger Games series, set sixty or so years before the action of the first novel (so, it happens in the 10th Hunger Games, not the 74th as in the original novel series). Here, we find a world in which Panem has only recently emerged from its ruinous civil war with the districts and is only slowly recovering. The Hunger Games remain as an instrument of vengeance, but many of the entertainment elements which gave a subtle horror in the original series are only slowly being added. Here, it's all about the punishment aspect and with minimal superstructure.

The story follows the District 12 female tribute, Lucy Gray Beard, and her sponsor, Coriolanus Snow (yes, that Coriolanus Snow, the President in the later series, but much younger) as they navigate the 10th Hunger Games. The story largely told from the point of view of Snow, whose family were ruined by the civil war and whose father died as a war hero. This left them impoverished and Snow juggling his lingering sense of privilege without the means to support it. Collins is at her best here, revealing the rationalizations and drives which lead him from a scheming teenager to the ruthless young man at the end of the story, who is willing to betray anyone, including the love of his life, for power and money. Lucy, on the other hand, is clever, witty, talented and deeply rebellious, which captivates young Coriolanus and that could be a redemption arc, but, as in the nature of dystopias, that proves a path not taken. I won't say more in fear of giving more spoilers than I've given.

This is a really interesting take on the Hunger Games and stands alone very effectively. Well worth reading.

View all my reviews

Review: Healing Wounds: The 2025 Lent Book

Healing Wounds: The 2025 Lent Book by Erik Varden
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was my Lenten book for this year, so I'm only getting to reviewing it now because of just the busyness of a busy semester. I had been hoping for a reflective Lenten study which would reflect on Jesus' suffering and how our suffering is reflected in that. And, to a degree, that is in this book, written by Erik Varden, a Trappist monk and Catholic Bishop of Trondheim. The reflection is structured on the wounds of Christ, as reflected on by a 12th (?) century Trappist poem on the wounds of Christ.

On the whole, I wouldn't say there was anything theologically wrong in this book, even for a non-Roman Catholic. There is a lot that is right. I think what put me off, however, was that visceral reflection on the wounds, as the physical wounds, which is characteristic of mediaeval Catholic spirituality. I am, admittedly, an Anglo-Catholic, so I'm more likely to be in sympathy with this aspect of Roman Catholicism, but there is a enough Protestant in me to baulk a bit. I mean, if people find it helpful to reflect on the sheer physicality and severity of Jesus' wounds, that's fair. And it's not like I deny those wounds were real and physical and awful- as Christians, we have to remember crucifixion wasn't a painless or sanitized as we often see in churches. The Cross was an instrument of torture, so the physical reminders are important. But reminders are one thing and reveling in the suffering is another. I'm not sure that Varden crosses that line, but sometimes I thought the source poem did.

So, perhaps think about this one. If the Wounds of Jesus are an important part of your spirituality, yes, by all means, this book is for you. If it is less important, this might be a more challenging read.

View all my reviews

Review: The Land Is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery

The Land Is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery by Sarah Augustine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I ran across this book in a bookstore in Waterloo, while visiting my son, who is studying there. This books goes along with the Indigenous authors I've been reading, but with the twist that the author is also Christian, looking at the legacy of colonialism in the context of being an Indigenous Christian. And that is a tricky balance to navigate.

The focus of this book, of course, is the Doctrine of Discovery, that initially ecclesiological doctrine which, effectively, handed the New World (and Africa and parts of Asia-anywhere where Christian kings were not ruling) to the European colonial powers- initially, Spain and Portugal, then Britain and France. Augustine explains the origins of this doctrine, how it morphed into a legal argument and how it is impacting people today, specifically her own Pueblo people, but especially the Yakama people in Suriname. She writes within the Mennonite theological heritage, but her activism comes through in everything she writes.

The result is a challenging book. Not because the theology is tricky. I mean, the absurdity of the Doctrine of Discovery has already been repudiated by almost all mainline churches. The Roman Catholic church which promulgated it in a series of papal bulls has even recently admitted its mistake in teaching in itin the first place. The book is challenging because the doctrine, now a legal principle, continues to be employed in disputes about who owns the land which mining and other exploitative industries work. Augustine is unrelenting in calling attention to these abuses and in demanding help for the Yakima people, and all who are resisting these policies. She doesn't stop with informing. She demands action.

Definitely, this is a worthwhile book, both as a refutation of the Doctrine of Discovery, but also as a call to action.

View all my reviews