Book Reviews

 From the Catalyst, Summer 2018

Grass, Soil, Hope: A Journey Through Carbon Country

By Courtney White

Chelsea Green Publishing, 2014

Reviewed by Wayne Groot

Courtney White in his book Grass, Soil, Hope does a wonderful job explaining what carbon is, and how it is a necessary building block in anything on this planet that is alive. He explains how power from the sun through photosynthesis can bring huge amounts of carbon back into the soil and thus lower CO2 levels in the atmosphere.  

 From the Catalyst, Summer 2018

Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City

By Tanya Talaga

House of Anansi Press, 2017

Reviewed by Sarah DelVillano

Seven Fallen Feathers, winner of the Indigenous Literature Award this year, is a powerful account of the deaths of seven Indigenous youths in Thunder Bay. It shines a light on each individual story behind the seven fallen feathers of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation.

​ From the Catalyst, Summer 2018

The Patch: The People, Pipelines, and Politics of the Oil Sands

By Chris Turner

Simon & Schuster, 2017

Reviewed by Karri Munn-Venn

Who knew that a 319-page book on bitumen could be so captivating? The Patch is undoubtedly the best book I have read in a long time.

 From the Catalyst, Summer 2018

Upstream Medicine: Doctors for a Healthy Society

Edited by Andrew Bresnahan, Mahli Brindamour, Christopher Charles, and Ryan Meili

Purich Publishing, 2017

Reviewed by Janelle Vandergrift

It is hard not to be inspired by the depth of first-hand knowledge and the dedication of the impressive roster of physicians interviewed in Upstream Medicine. The book is a collaborative project between Upstream, a non-profit in Saskatchewan, and the Canadian Federation of Medical Students. In this book, various medical students have interviewed established doctors about the social determinants of health, also-known-as upstream health issues, of the patients they see.

 From the Catalyst, Summer 2018

Engagement Organizing: The Old Art and New Science of Winning Campaigns

By Matt Price

On Point Press, 2017

Reviewed by Natalie Appleyard

The let’s-do-this-together organizer in me had many a great a-ha moment while reading this book. I had to stop taking notes because it was essentially turning into copyright infringement. This is an excellent book for anyone who loves bringing people together for a common cause, not only because of its smart and strategic insights, but because of the integrity of its practices.

 From the Catalyst, Summer 2018

Religion and Canadian Party Politics

By David Rayside, Jerald Sabin and Paul E.J. Thomas

UBC Press, 2017

Reviewed by Joe Gunn

Is faith still a factor in Canadians’ voting patterns, and the activity of Canadian political parties? The three academics who wrote this book were particularly focussed on the power of “moral traditionalists.” Unfortunately, what progressive movements of faithful Christians contributed to Canadian public policy remains of less interest.

From the Catalyst, Summer 2017

The Vimy Trap, or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War

By Ian McKay and Jamie Swift

Between the Lines, 2016

Reviewed by Debbie Grisdale

April 9, 2017 marked the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge where 3,598 Canadians died and 7,000 were wounded, with an estimated 20,000 casualties on the German side.

In this timely book , MacKay and Swift focus on the evolution, over the past century, of the remembrance of WWI, and in particular the battle for Vimy. Canada has moved from seeing it as a battle in a horrific, pointless, and costly war to a romantic myth that Vimy in some way represented the “birth of our nation.”

From the Catalyst, Summer 2017

An Army of Problem Solvers: Reconciliation and the Solutions Economy

By Shaun Loney

McNally Robinson, 2016

Reviewed by Asha Kerr-Wilson

An Army of Problem Solvers is about empowering people to be the problem solvers of the big social, economic, and environmental problems faced by their communities. Shaun Loney is a social entrepreneur and former civil servant who has worked with and been involved in establishing a number of social enterprises – small-scale community non-profits that aim to address social or environmental challenges using market forces

From the Catalyst, Summer 2017

Towards a Prairie Atonement

By Trevor Herriot

University of Regina Press, 2016

Reviewed by Dennis Gruending

Trevor Herriot is a gifted Saskatchewan writer who has published five acclaimed books within the past 16 years. His grandparents were European settlers on land just north of the Qu’Appelle River, which flows through Southern Saskatchewan into Manitoba. Herriot has staked his literary claim on that region. He has a strong naturalist bent and writes in illuminating detail about what he sees and hears on the ground, and about what has been lost. The prairie landscape, he says, has become one of the most altered on the planet.

From the Catalyst, Summer 2017

Living on the Land: Indigenous Women’s Understanding of Place

Edited by Nathalie Kermoal and Isabel Altamirano-Jiménez

Athabasca University Press, 2016

Reviewed by Michelle Nieviadomy

Living on the Land is a beautiful and complex collection of perspective, story, knowledge, and wisdom. This book captures the traditional role, depth, and power of the Indigenous women from the Mohawk, Cree, Naskapi, Mayangna, Métis, and Inuit peoples. Not all Indigenous women come from the same narrative. And this book importantly gives each Indigenous woman a distinct voice on where she originates. Her story is meaningful as it is a bridge of knowledge from the ancestral way of being to the modern world in which she lives.