Books and Beyond

Idleness is not often praiseworthy; it is associated with laziness and unproductiveness that can lead to ruin – a state captured by the idiom “gone to seed.” But author Kate J. Neville, Artsci’04, makes a case for the opposite in Going to Seed: Essays on Idleness, Nature, and Sustainable Work. What could we learn about ourselves, our society, and our planet, she explores, if we simply took a cue from nature and sat idle like a seed, which is a packet containing the energy for new life? Winner of the 2023 Sowell Emerging Writers Prize. Going to Seed: Essays on Idleness, Nature, and Sustainable Work is available from University of Regina Press.

You probably already know this, but here it is again: Canadians kick ass. Although our population is small and our time as a nation short, there’s a plethora of Canucks making a huge impact – and they can all be found in one place. Kickass Canadians, a website created by writer/blogger/photographer/publisher Amanda Sage, Artsci’01, who shares her insights, experiences, and encounters with inspiring Canadians such as environmentalist David Suzuki, astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield, and politician Elizabeth May, as well as many Queen’s alumni. It hosts podcasts, too, on a variety of current topics.

“If something is worth doing, it’s worth overdoing” – so said the Canadian figure skater and artist Toller Cranston, who, it could be argued, overdid art throughout his life – whether on the ice as an Olympic figure skater throughout the latter half of the 20th century, or as a painter, producing approximately 20,000 works exhibited worldwide. Toller passed away in 2015 at the age of 65. For his biography, Toller Cranston: Ice, Paint, Passion, his sister, Phillippa Cranston Baran, Artsci’68, drew upon letters, interviews, photography, and original artwork to reveal who her brother was: a compelling and inspirational Canadian, an artist, an athlete, and an icon in the LGBTQ community. Toller Cranston: Ice, Paint, Passion is available from Sutherland House Books.

It’s a difficult but essential conversation – and with the right tools, a conversation on aging can be productive, according to author Laura Tamblyn Watts, Artsci’95. CEO of CanAge, Canada’s national seniors’ advocacy organization and a teacher on law and aging at the University of Toronto. The author brings experience and expertise to her book, Let’s Talk About Aging Parents: A Real-Life Guide to Solving Problems with 27 Essential Conversations. In it, she argues that necessary discussions about such topics as caregiving, money, power of attorney, assisted living, and illness with aging parents can be challenging but navigable. Let’s Talk About Aging Parents: A Real-Life Guide to Solving Problems with 27 Essential Conversations is published by The Experiment.

Understanding how Russia thinks and acts can seem perplexing to those in the West – but perhaps it’s because we tend to view things from a western perspective. This is particularly evident with events leading up to the Second World War, argues Michael Carley, MA’71, MPhil’76, professor of history at the Université de Montréal. In Stalin’s Gamble: The Search for Allies against Hitler, 1930-1936 – part of a trilogy on Russia’s foreign policy leading up the war – the author reveals Stalin as a foreign policy maker and examines his diplomatic manoeuvrings throughout the 1930s. Stalin’s Gamble: The Search for Allies against Hitler, 1930-1936 is available from University of Toronto Press.

A young artist reunites with her cousin on the muddy banks of Nova Scotia’s Fundy coast where the two spent memorable summers, but the reunion reveals a shared, uncomfortable past. Kettle Harbour is the debut graphic novel by Kyle Vingoe-Cram, MA’14, who explores, through innovative illustrative methods, the reliability of memory and the cascading effects of trauma. Kettle Harbour is available from Conundrum Press.

A couple’s escape from the city to a family farmhouse in northern Ontario leads to an unexpected discovery of a diary from the early 1900s. Behind the Pickle Jar, an historical novel by Wendy McQuaig, Artsci’82, weaves together Canadian history from the turn of the 20th century with the present, providing points of reflection for the woman, in particular, who grapples with her past and modernity. Behind the Pickle Jar is self-published.

J.E.H. MacDonald, one of the members of the Group of Seven and famous for his striking landscapes and views of the Canadian wilderness, is the subject of interest for two Queen’s art conservation alumni: Kate Helwig, MAC’92; and Alison Douglas, BFA’94, MAC’96. In J.E.H. MacDonald Up Close: The Artist’s Materials and Techniques, the authors provide a fresh interpretation of the painter’s artistic development, looking at questions of authenticity and dating. Excerpts from the artist’s diaries, letters, and lectures are used to provide socio-historical context to their in-depth reading of the artist’s paintings as physical objects. J.E.H. MacDonald Up Close: The Artist’s Materials and Techniques is available from Goose Lane Editions.

Inspired by the Icelandic term doom eager, referring to an artist’s feeling of isolation and restlessness when sick with an idea, Queen’s engineer-turned-poet Karl Meade, Sc’85, set about penning a collection of poems about love and grief that convey an insistence that lost loves are never gone. doom eager also includes illustrations by Queen’s alumna Celia Meade (Scott), Sc’86. doom eager is available from Raven Chapbooks.

One evening in 2008, a collection of Queen’s students, faculty, and staff got together at the Grad Club to play music and sing. Today they still play together as The Gertrudes, a Kingston-based “folkestra” that describes itself as “an old-time saloon party travelling through deep space.” They’ve been joined onstage by more than 100 local musicians over the years, and they’ve performed alongside the likes of Ricky Skaggs and Sarah Harmer. Their fifth studio album, Just to Please You, was released in August.

Université de Montréal history professor Michael Jabara Carley, MA’70, PhD’76, draws on archival evidence from the U.S., the U.K., France, and Russia to unearth new evidence of Joseph Stalin’s behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts in the years leading up to the Second World War. In Stalin’s Gamble, released this summer by the University of Toronto Press, he shows how Stalin tried – and ultimately failed – to build a defensive alliance against Hitler.

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.

Jamie Lamb, Artsci’96 and Michael Payne, Sc’99, Ed’00, believe “you need four people to make any decision.” And so they invite two friends – often fellow Queen’s alumni – to join them on each episode of their podcast to help them make some important decisions. In “Should I Keep This Record?” – available for download on Spotify – the pair look at old vinyl albums and debate whether or not to keep them. Seasons 1 and 2 featured albums from the 1980s and 1990s, respectively. Season 3 is coming soon. 

Is it better to enact social change by working within the system or through acts of revolution? Moez Surani, Artsci’03, ponders this question in The Legend of Baraffo, a book he began writing in Dr. Carolyn Smart’s creative writing class. It tells the story of Mazzu, a boy who befriends a political prisoner and later grows up to become the mayor of his troubled town. The Legend of Baraffo is available through Book*hug 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.