War of 1812 Commemoration: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Composite Image: Close-cropped subject with wall inserted in background.

War of 1812 Commemoration: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
f/6.3; 1/400 sec.; 208mm; ISO 250

By: Richard Wagamese

We follow Saul Indian Horse from a little boy to a man in his mid thirties as he struggles through the Canadian government’s child stealing days and tries to recover himself afterwards. He is at the New Dawn Recovery Centre trying to get his life back in order after becoming an alcoholic — narrating his story in an attempt to heal himself.

This is a work of fiction but was set in the very real and recent past when it was government policy to abduct Native children and deliver them to “residential schools” that were managed by the Catholic Church. It was the Church’s job to eradicate the children’s existing sense of place, belonging, and culture. In addition to this extremely malicious mandate the children would often suffer physical abuse.

Fortunately Saul had discovered hockey as an outlet and in the process he encountered both admiration and loathing by being extremely good at it. From residential school team, to inter-reserve tournaments to the NHL he became great and greatly troubled. In the background of his live there was always the trauma inflicted at the residential school taking it’s toll. It isn’t until the end of the book that Saul understands the full extent of what happened to him at the school.

Most Canadians today seem to know about the residential school system, but only superficially for the most part. This book will leave you breathless and it will leave you with an understanding of what happened and of what the consequences still are for people living today.

Another good candidate for required reading in Canadian schools.

By: James S. A. Corey

Caliban’s War is the worthy second book in the Expanse series. It begins with an attack on Ganymede station by a monster. Ganymede Station holds the only farms in the outer solar system and the monster looks like the handy-work of the alien protomolecule that was introduced in book one (Leviathan Awakes).

We still follow Holden and his small crew of the Rocinante but three new major characters are introduced. There is Bobbie, the martian marine who survived the monster attack on Genymede; Prax who is a refugee from Ganymede and looking for his stolen daughter, and Avasarala who is a crusty and potty-mouthed little Indian grandmother and undersecretary of the UN representing Earth.

While all of this is going on, the protomolecule that crashed into Venus is still building something under the planet’s clouds and causing a great amount of concern throughout the solar system.

If you liked the first book in the series, then you’ll find that the second book adds a lot more onto the first.

By: James S. A. Corey

Leviathan Awakes is the first book of the Expanse Series by James Corey. The story is set a few hundred years from now in which humanity has expanded away from Earth but is still limited to the Solar System. Mars and Earth both have big powerful navies and there is a tension between them. Add to that, the people who live further out in the asteroid belt and on some of the moons of the gas giants. They feel that they are taken both for granted and advantage of by the people further down the gravitational well. Yet all people will admit that long-term survival still depends on Earth.

Now that the uneasy balance has been established, the situation is ripe to stir the pot. Without giving away the plot, events happen that pit the major factions against one another. Holden and a small crew survive their parent ship, an ice-freighter, being attacked and destroyed while attending a distress call and have implicated Mars. Meanwhile, on an asteroid station, a detective has become infatuated with finding the daughter of a wealthy Lunar family who wants her found and returned to the Moon to avoid danger which the father seems to know is coming.

The detective’s investigation leads him to seek the surviving crew of the ill-fated ice freighter and the missing daughter turns out to have discovered the real reason behind the war. A weapon of unspeakable power and of extra-solar origin.

Leviathan Awakes is well written and has a number of characters who you get to know and care about. The story is mainly an action-adventure where I found myself quickly turning pages to see what was going to happen to them next. As a added bonus, the story also takes a moment to explore some interesting philosophical questions about life, death, and justice.

Good and fun!

International Centre, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Composite image; indoor; fluorescent lighting; no flash.

By: Susan Cain

Our culture in the West keeps getting louder and faster… And louder still.

The past century has seen a shift from valuing quiet introspection to placing a high value on being loud and gregarious. For the extroverts among us, they can’t have it loud or fast enough while introverts find fewer and fewer places to retreat. Susan Cain’s book explores cultural trends and the physiological differences between extroverted and introverted people.

The United States, which Cain says is considered one of the most extroverted cultures in the world, is compared with many Asian cultures where being quiet and contemplative is more highly regarded. Canadian cultural likely falls somewhere on valuing a more extroverted ideal but not to the same degree as the United States. Yet in all cultures, individual people vary in their levels of introversion or extroversion regardless of what their culture values. She explores why extroversion is so highly praised and why introverts are often the ones who are ignored or even disliked in Western culture.

From from being anti-extrovert, the book explores many examples and reasons why both traits are useful and how many very introverted people can be extroverted for short times when the need arises. She delves into the fascinating world of physiology to explain why introverted or extroverted people are not that way by choice but by their biological makeup. The book also dispels the myth that continuous physical contact is better for productivity in the work place and that brain storming really doesn’t result in more and better ideas than coming up with ideas on your own. (The one exception is on-line collaboration where people are free to generate ideas by being physically alone while still working with other people who are physically remote.)

The underlying message is that we should place a high value on the quiet people. I highly recommend this book for understanding those who fall into the introverted and extroverted ends of the spectrum. It helps you accept others for who they are, and just as importantly, it helps you accept yourself for who you are.

Suculent Flowers, Etobicoke Greenhouse, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
f/4; 1/60 sec.; 7mm; ISO 100
Purple succulent flowering body, Etobicoke Greenhouse

Cactus Flowers, Etobicoke Greenhouse, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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Cactus Flowers in February, Etobicoke Greenhouse

By: Gary Kinder

Every once and a while a real-life project makes for an excellent read filled with risk, adventure, and innovation. Ship of Gold is about the search and recovery of a lost gold shipment on one of most famous shipwrecks in the history of the United States. The main focus of the narrative in this book is the recovery of the wreck but we are also treated to an account of the California Gold Rush, which is where the gold came from, and an excellent account of the shipwreck itself.

The gold travelled safely from San Francisco to Panama, where it was transferred by rail to the Caribbean side and loaded into a ship called the Central America, along with a lot of Miner 49ers on their way back to New York. A few days out of Havana, the Ship encountered a hurricane and was wrecked off of S. Carolina where it sank to the bottom 2 400m below the surface. Because a significant amount of people survived, there are many accounts of what happened and the book included an intriguing account of the Ship’s captain, Captain Herndon, who was a remarkably man himself.

Jumping back and forth in time between the historic events and the contemporary, Kinder weaves the story together and sets the context for the attempt to recover the lost shipment of the Central America. The main architect of the endeavour was Thomas (Harvey) Thompson, who is described as a brilliant, slightly manic, character that is obsessed with finding ships in the deep ocean. The reader follows along as investors are sought and secrecy is impressed upon all involved.

Thompson wants to use new and relatively unknown technology (in the 1980s) to locate wrecks on the bottom. After assembling a crew we are taken along on a grand adventure where storms at sea, technical problems, secrecy, and dare-devil stunts all come into play to find the ship, secure the area, and look for the gold. Up until then, subs and ROVs have only been able to descend and take a few photos before they had to return to the surface. Thomson was determined to not only take photos but to actually be able to work on the deep sea floor for hours at a time.

Needless to say, Thompson and his team were successful and the adventures they had keep you turning pages. I highly recommend this excellent book to anyone who loves a challenge.

As of 2012, the investors are saying that they have never seen a return on their investment despite the recovery of a large amount of gold. There has been an arrest warrant issued for Thompson, who is now 60 years old, and his whereabouts are currently unknown. The intrigue continues…