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Over the past few days, the MQUP seems to have accumulated a few book reviews.
Peruse and enjoy.
The Love Queen of Malabar: Memoir of a Friendship with Kamala Das by Merrily Weisbord
Chronicle of a beautiful friendship: Merrily Weisbord introduces Canadians to Kamala Das – The Gazette reviews The Love Queen of Malabar
Merrily Weisbord
Photo: Marie-France Coallier, The Gazette“The Love Queen of Malabar is unique in structure and style. Weisbord is the main narrator, but sometimes the women’s voices merge – overlap – and then flow their separate ways. Weisbord understands that Das’s poetry is indivisible from her experience. Many of Weisbord’s sentences catapult into Das’s sparkling verses. Situated throughout are precious candid snapshots.
The Love Queen of Malabar was meant to offer a cultural exchange in which each woman’s story balanced the other. Of course, it could not turn out as such. Das has lived longer and harder than Weisbord, and she is the larger, more charismatic personality. Happily, Weisbord is satisfied to step back, observe and let Das shine. That’s how it sometimes is with sisters and friends.“
Click here to read the full Gazette’s review
A conversation about love – The Globe and Mail reviews The Love Queen of Malabar
“Yet a series of questions soon arise for Weisbord when Das appears unusually contradictory at a lecture at Concordia University in Montreal. Is Das all that she seems? Is she a reliable truth-teller? Or is she caught in a “high-wire attempt to balance loyalty to her family with justice for herself?”
…
The Love Queen of Malabar is fascinating conversation between two strong-minded women, a narrative set in two countries and many cultures. It proves that none of us fit under one label or one identity, but are complex and contradictory and simply stuck with the messiness of our lives.”
Click here to read the full Globe and Mail review
The Solitary Self: Darwin and the Selfish Gene by Mary Midgley: review
The Telegraph reviews The Solitary Self: Darwin and the Selfish Gene by Mary Midgley
“Mary Midgley comes from a formidable generation of women philosophers. She was at Oxford in the Forties with Iris Murdoch, Mary Warnock and Elizabeth Anscombe – all famously clever and combative. But although Midgley has been involved in some sharp exchanges – notably with Richard Dawkins – her work is imbued with the co-operative spirit she found at the all-female Somerville College, which she described in her memoir, The Owl of Minerva.
“Did you understand that bit?” Mary would ask Iris of some tricky problem. “No, I didn’t; it sounds mad.” Though never less than rigorous, Midgley’s writing has always had the quality of good conversation.”
Click here to read the full Telegraph’s review
A Knight in Politics: A Biography of Sir Frederick Borden
Canada’s History reviews A Knight in Politics: A Biography of Sir Frederick Borden by Carman Miller
“Miller explores the interplay of political, military, and social history in this fascinating portrait study that will be required reading for those who wish to understand Canada in the early twentieth century. Borden played a key role in helping to ease Canada forward in its long march to full nationhood.”
Click here to read the full Canada’s History review
The Strange Demise of British Canada: The Liberals and Canadian Nationalism, 1964-68
Canada’s History reviews The Strange Demise of British Canada by C.P. Champion
“Centred in a well-written and well-researched retelling of the battle for a new national flag and the unification of Canada’s armed forces, the book offers an interesting exploration of the causes and effects of the rise of Canadian nationalism during the Pearson era. Strange Demise outlines a compelling case for the role of British traditions in forming a distinctive, modern identity for our young nation.”
Click here to read the full Canada’s History review
What’s to Eat?
Cuisine Canada reviews What’s to Eat? Edited by Nathalie Cooke
“One of the most satisfying chapters of What’s to Eat? relates the story of how uniquely Canadian Red Fife wheat was re-discovered and re-established in this country. It’s the kind of story that makes passionate Canadian food activists, Slow Foodies and locavores stand up and cheer.”
Click here to read the full Cuisine Canada review
Montreal’s sixties heyday
Rabble.ca reviews The Empire Within: Postcolonial Thought and Political Activism in Sixties Montreal by Sean Mills
“The 1960s was a turbulent period. Liberation movements in the Third World, anti-Vietnam war protests, China’s cultural revolution and movement against racism and for a just society in the western world were there. However, the political turmoil in Montreal, the subject of Mills’ book, The Empire Within, was unique, not only because of it was bigger than in any other Western Metropolis, but also because it combined its internal contradictions with anti-colonial struggles.”
Click here to read the full Rabble review
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