Review: The Summer of Bitter and Sweet

The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is another of the novel in the Book Club assignment I give in my Indigenous literatures course. It follows Lou, a Metis young woman in Alberta, who spends the summer working at her uncles' ice cream shake, just before going off to university in the fall. It is a coming of age book, with a few twists and is a genuinely, lovely story.

Not to give spoilers, what I love about this book is that way that it explores sexuality and Indigenous identity in real life. Lou is flawed like all of us and struggles to learn who she is and how she should be in the world. Yet, she finds her way, supported by family and friends, navigating her relationship with her biological father and her own sexuality. There's hard things in here, like the aftermath of rape and trauma in general. But I can't help but love the story.

This is well worth reading as an uplifting story or as a way of exploring identity.

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Review: Fail-Safe

Fail-Safe by Eugene Burdick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been meaning to pick this book up because it is a classic in post-apocalyptic science fiction at a time when the horrifying truth of the nuclear arms race was beginning to settled in. Along with such books as Alas Bablylon (which I've reviewed), Red Alert (the inspiration for Dr. Strangelove), and On the Beach, Fail-Safe helped define this genre of just how bad, bad can get with nuclear weapons. While somewhat more optimistic than later representatives of the genre (because some people survive), these books are important representatives of the nightmares that the atomic age brought the world in the late 1950s and early 60s.

Fail-Safe's particular nightmare vision is to explore what would happen if all the failsafe measures taken to ensure that a nuclear attack wouldn't be launched all failed together. In this novel, during a fairly routine alert, a flight of American bombers mistakenly fail to be recalled from alert and move to bomb Moscow. The novel explores how the leadership of Strategic Air Command, the Pentagon and the president of the US himself (with his Russian interpreter) attempt to prevent the attack and all out nuclear war. When that effort fails, it leads to a tragic act of atonement (not going to spoil it here) as a last ditch attempt to avoid all out ear.

The book is wrenching as it follows several characters, how they think and how they are forced to make what is a horrifying decision. Also, made into a movie, it questioned the wisdom of nuclear weapons and was an influence on anti-nuclear resistance in the later 60s. The world is very much the 1950s, so a lot of things are jarring, but its message remains important today.

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Review: Wayi Wah! Indigenous Pedagogies: An Act for Reconciliation and Anti-Racist Education

Wayi Wah! Indigenous Pedagogies: An Act for Reconciliation and Anti-Racist Education by Jo Chrona
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first ran into this book when a colleague mentioned it to me last year in connection to the Indigenous literatures course we were sharing. It is, of course, a book dealing with Indigenous pedagogies and, obviously, connected well to the work we were doing on the course. I finally got the book at Christmas and have been reading it slowly on transit since then.

Wayi Wah (meaning 'Let's go, It's time) looks carefully at how to teach, both how to do anti-racist education and foster reconciliation in educational circles, but also looks at the practical concerns of devising a Indigenous pedagogies, from the classroom to how to work on it within an educational system. The author, Jo Chrona, is a Two-Spirited woman of Ts'msyen and European heritage and has been teaching in both K-12 and post-secondary settings for 25 years, especially in British Columbia. Her wealth of experience makes this a crucial book for anyone considering Indigenous pedagogies, in all their complexities.

If you are a teacher, this is an important book and one that I think is important to understand. As a settler who teaches an Indigenous literatures course, it has been really helpful for me as I try to navigate this difficult, but rewarding work.

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Review: Native Nations: A Millennium in North America

Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I picked this up almost two years ago as part of my ongoing education about Indigenous peoples. I've been looking for a solid history and this is what I got, although it is primarily about what is now called the United States (so the search continues for one dealing with Canada!). Dr. Kathleen Duval presents a highly nuanced and thoughtful history of various representatives Indigenous peoples in the United States, following them from early contact to today. It is a remarkable work of history.

What is striking about Duval's work is its emphasis on the resistance of Indigenous peoples, which is enough to shift the perspective away from the vanishing Indian stereotype so typical of mainstream history. The story we end up with is one which saw a closer to even power balance in the early decades of European settlement, when each of the colonial powers made treaties and negotiated alliances with Indigenous peoples which deteriorated as more and more European settlers flowed in and the weakened Indigenous peoples were pushed off their land to the West. That part of the story is familiar, but what we see in Duval's narrative is the consistent resistance to those powerful forces until today, when a renaissance is beginning to take grip among Indigenous peoples. It is an awful story- painful, but also inspiring.

This book is really worth reading because it forces us to think about how history has been written on this continent and how Indigenous peoples have been consistent and relentlessly erased. It is a valuable corrective and an important book.

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Review: How to Be a Monastic and Not Leave Your Day Job: An Invitation to Oblate Life

How to Be a Monastic and Not Leave Your Day Job: An Invitation to Oblate Life by Benet Tvedten
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is, perhaps, hardly a surprise to find in my book list, given the many, many Benedictine books that I've read over the last ten years. And the fact that this is about oblates, just reinforces the pattern. Really, what this book is a manual for oblates of Benedictine monasteries- meant to explain what being an oblate is like, what Benedictine value are and how one an become an oblate. Given the success of oblate recruitment in the last two generations, it is a much needed volume.

As a manual, it has all the things one would expect. A good outline of Benedictine values and practices, of course, as well as plenty of good examples of the oblate life. For someone like me, who isn't especially likely to formalize a commitment like this, it is still a helpful book for learning from the Benedictine tradition. The whole point of oblate life is to adapt the Rule of Benedict to one's life and that can still be done even when one lives away from a monastery.

So, I'd still say this is worth reading for anyone interested in the Benedictine tradition as a way to learn how to apply the Rule to one's life.

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Review: Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've been slow in discovering Kate Bowler, I have to admit and, honestly, I have no excuse. Because my wife has been reading her books for years and i just haven't come around to picking them up. In fact, it took a few of her videos on her new book on Joy to catch my attention. On video, she's funny and sharp and, honestly, wise. Her writing is no less insightful.

In this book, Bowler tells the story of her bout with serious cancer, which almost was fatal, but which has gone into remission. It is also a reflection on the American pre-occupation with self-help and what that does to those who are suffering and those who are grieving. Her study of the prosperity gospel is part of this, but her recognition of the tendency for North Americans to try to find a reason for suffering is one that extends well out of that milieu.

Bowler's point is that we have to recognize that those things that we try to assure ourselves of, that our suffering will mean something , don't just collapse as soon as we face suffering beyond our control, but it is positively harmful for those who are trying to cling to it. But that doesn't mean nihilism or fatalism, but rather it pushes back to God for hope and, even joy. I find it striking that Bowler's description of being in the midst of the cancer and the treatments, not sure if she'd live or die in the coming months, but yet being borne up with a strong sense being borne up by other people's prayers and God's compassion is striking and evocative. And almost completely impossible to replicate. It is grappling with both those realities- imminent death and inexplicable consolation- which drives this book.

This book leaves us in a complicated place without the easy answers to suffering that we'd all love to have, but also consoled as well that God can be there too, alongside. It's a good reminder, but not an easy one.

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Review: The Abbey Up the Hill: A Year in the Life of a Monastic Day Tripper

The Abbey Up the Hill: A Year in the Life of a Monastic Day Tripper by Carol Bonomo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I ran into this browsing around Google Play and was happy to run into it. Years back, I read Carol Bonomo's book on humility, which is both more profound and funnier than one expects a book on that subject to be. Bonomo's blend of curmudgin, Benedictine oblate and honest observer is refreshing and very much places her in the tradition of Kathleen Norris, which is high praise coming from me.

This book follows Bonomo on a years long question to visit the monastery in San Diego which she was recently made an oblate in (or is it to?) once or twice a month. We watch her as she copes with her own sense of being an outsider and her growing connections with her spiritual advisor and with other members of the monastic and oblate community. Her sensitive prose follows her struggles in feeling like she belonged and is definitely relatable.

I really enjoyed this book, both for its honesty and for its comittement to Benedictine values. It is well worth reading.

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Review: The Eye of the Storm: Living Spiritually in the Real World

The Eye of the Storm: Living Spiritually in the Real World by Kenneth Leech
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I started reading this because my rector of my church had mentioned Kenneth Leech and it is actually tricky to find his books these days, so this was in the church library. Published in the 90s, it is an Anglo-Catholic take on how to leave in a complicated and confusing world- one that has surprising resonances to the 2020s. Leach saw the problems of social justice and Christian Nationalism from a British standpoint and is surprisingly prescient about their implications.

Leech's main focus is to articulate a Anglo-Catholic vision of how to deal with an unjust world. He comes from a traditional of Anglo-Catholic British churches in very working class areas, mingling, at least, socialism with catholic theology. His insights are worth looking today as an alternative to a well meaning, but out of touch progressivism which characterizes much of the Anglican church as well as the conservative merging with the political right wing.

This book is definitely worth reading, even despite it's occasionally dated referencing. It offers another way of seeing the Christian life and one that needs to be considered,

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