Books and Beyond

What do extroverts, dinosaurs, snake-infested marshes, and Mongolia all have in common? They’re all featured subjects on Conversations with Chordates, a podcast launched last fall by Anastasia Shavrova, Artsci’13, MSc’17. While Ms. Shavrova works toward her doctorate in reproductive evolution at the University of New South Wales, she uses the podcast to engage fellow scientists in non-scientific conversations on an eclectic range of topics. You can find it on Spotify, Apple, and SoundCloud.

The planners who design our cities and communities often don’t know if their plans will succeed. Mark Seasons, Artsci’75, a professor of planning at the University of Waterloo, says understanding which practices have worked in the past – and which ones haven’t – can help take the risk out of urban planning. His 2021 book, Evaluating Urban and Regional Plans: From Theory to Practice, shows planners and planning students how to learn from past successes and mistakes to make better decisions in the future.

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.

What do you do after your tenure in one of Canada’s most beloved rock bands is cut short? Gord Sinclair, Artsci’86, perhaps better known as the Tragically Hip’s bassist, had to wrestle with that question after frontman Gord Downie’s widely mourned passing in 2017. Fortunately, Mr. Sinclair has sated fans’ appetites in the following years, releasing his debut solo album, Taxi Dancers, in 2020, and his second effort, In Continental Drift, last month. Preceded by its sonically diverse singles “Gool Guy” and “Sometimes,” In Continental Drift is material proof that the spirit of rock lives on. 

Even as Ann Gomez, MBA’00, was forging a successful career as a management consultant, she couldn’t help feeling overwhelmed as her demanding work life interfered regularly with her personal life. Rather than give in to the pressure, Ms. Gomez dedicated herself to researching productivity and sharing what she’s learned with her clients. In Workday Warrior, recently released by Dundurn Press, she shares a three-step strategy – complete with supporting tools – to help you simplify your work and reclaim your time. 

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.  

We don’t often think about feminism and the Industrial Revolution in the same breath, but Elizabeth Gillan Muir, Arts’56, has uncovered more than 400 stories of women who made impressive contributions to Toronto’s growth – from songwriters and innkeepers to reformers and even the owner of a brickyard. Ms. Muir chronicles these stories in An Unrecognized Contribution: Women and Their Work in 19th-Century Toronto, from Dundurn Press. As Rick Mercer said in a recent review, “In these pages lie a hundred movies waiting to be made.”

Stewart Goodings, Arts’62, draws on years of international experience, particularly in Russia and Ukraine, to tell an uplifting tale of friendship amid political violence. My Friend, My Enemy, released in late 2022 through FriesenPress, is the story of two girls, one Russian, one Chechen, who reunite as adults decades after the Russia-Chechnya war. By this time, both women’s lives have been altered by the war, and their reunion forces them to confront their secrets and test the limits of their friendship.

Heather Patterson, Artsci’01, Meds’05, had always used photography to help relieve the stress from her demanding job as a Calgary emergency physician. When COVID-19 struck, she took out her camera again, this time to document the heroic efforts of her co-workers and the patients they were labouring to save. Those photographs became an unofficial record of the pandemic and graced the pages of the Calgary Herald, Maclean’s, and the Queen’s Alumni Review. They are now available in Shadows and Light: A Physician’s Lens on COVID, a compassionate chronicle of the work of some of Canada’s unsung healthcare heroes. From Goose Lane Editions.

As Canada’s population grows older, we must face the fact that our cities and neighbourhoods weren’t designed for healthy aging. In Aging People, Aging Places, Dr. Samantha Biglieri, Artsci’13, Professor Maxwell Hartt, Professor Emeritus Dr. Mark Rosenberg, and former postdoctoral fellow Dr. Sarah Nelson bring reflections from researchers, practitioners, and ordinary older Canadians together to look at the implications of aging in Canada and how we can turn our communities into healthier places to grow old. Now available from Policy Press.

Twenty years ago, while researching a history of the Princess of Wales’ Own Regiment, Brig.- Gen. (Retired) William J. Patterson, Arts’53, MA’57, stumbled on a box of old military medals and letters, still in their original envelopes. The box belonged to Lt.-Col. Francis Edward Wootton, a First World War veteran who went on to lead the Royal Canadian Engineers during the Second World War. Wootton’s Wars, Gen. Patterson’s 10th book, tells Lt.-Col. Wootton’s story. The self-published biography is available exclusively at Novel Idea in Kingston. 

For the last 35 years, Pastor Jeeva Sam, MDiv’82, and his wife, Sulojana, have been counselling couples on the brink of divorce and teaching them to rebuild their marriages on a solid spiritual foundation. The Sams share their secrets in The Unbreakable Marriage: How to Stand in Unity and Withstand Adversity, a self-published guide for pastors, parishioners, and couples at all stages of their marriages.

Even the most diehard hockey fan would be hard-pressed to remember the Coca-Cola Bottlers’ Cup, an epic series of four exhibition games between two terrible National Hockey League teams held in Japan in the spring of 1976. Steve Currier, Artsci’02, a hockey historian and fan of the obscure, chronicles the mostly forgotten series in his second book, When the NHL Invaded Japan: The Washington Capitals, the Kansas City Scouts, and the Coca-Cola Bottlers’ Cup, 1975–76, available now from McFarland Press.

While Linda Dawn Brown-Thomson, Meds’77, worked as a family physician and pediatrician, she spent her spare time writing stories and musicals for children. Now retired, Dr. Brown-Thomson has just released her first children’s book. Finding Us tells the story of a lonely boy who sets off on an adventure with two new friends and discovers the family and acceptance he’d always been looking for. Published by Friesen Press, this hopeful tale blending humour and fantasy is aimed at kids aged seven and eight.