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In Trees: An Exploration by Robert Moor

A wonderfully broad and digressive look at trees in biology, history and culture. This nature writing at its finest, comparable to Charles Bowden, and Barry Lopez, that combines philosophy, biology and reportage, in original ways.

Note that while American by birth, Moor lives in Halfmoon Bay, BC and hopes to stay forever. In Trees includes chapters on an environmental tree-sit protest in Burnaby, as well as at Fairy Creek BC.

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Category: Ron

The Great Shadow: A History of How Sickness Shapes What we do, Think, Believe, and Buy by Susan Wise Bauer

A look at the experience of sickness and our cultural adaptations to it, from the dawn of recorded history right up to modern times.

A very entertaining and accessible read, although a frightening one at times, such as when Bauer documents the rise of antibiotic resistant disease, and the reappearance of maladies, thanks to anti-vax behaviours, once thought largely eradicated. It’s fascinating to look at disease over the course of centuries, and our reactions to it, albeit somewhat depressing at times (we often seem like our own worst enemy). This would be a great pick for book clubs.

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The Final Score: Six Short Novels by Don Winslow

A collection of six novellas from the author of Savages, City in Ruins and The Power of the Dog.

A master of dialogue and verisimilitude in crime fiction, these stories touch on the strain of familial responsibility, loyalty, and friendship. As always, the joy in reading Winslow comes from his writing style, which moves at a fast, seemingly effortless clip. Readers shouldn’t skip the brief forward by Reed Farrel Coleman, who does a great job of breaking down what makes Winslow one of the best crime fiction writers of our time.

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Category: Ron

London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe

A melange of true crime, history, political science and the portrait of a family, London Falling is another masterclass in narrative non-fiction from the author of Say Nothing.

A young man leaves the balcony of a luxury apartment building in central London; did he commit suicide, was he coerced or murdered? Zac Brettler clips the embankment and ends up on in the mud, rather than the River Thames. The story of what lead up to this moment and its aftermath is filled with fascinating and insightful twists, turns and backgrounds, not just into the life of Brettler and his family, but “the glitzy, mercenary aspirational culture of modern London.” A fascinating read.

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Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies: A Novel by Lindsay Wong

An utterly original work of social satire and horror, leavened with dark humour, by the author of The Woo-Woo, a Canada Reads nominee.

A 25 year old single woman signs away her life to a matchmaking service that caters to the ancient tradition of corpse marriages. We learn what lead her to this decision, her training and experiences waiting for a match while being held captive in the gloomy Zhong caves of Beijing, and the story of her grandmother, from 1920s China to the occupation of the Japanese in Hong Kong and time spent in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

“Villain Hitting” looks at the cultural hopes and expectations placed on Chinese women, and the constant struggles of economic precarity within a framework that defies genre boundaries. While this will likely be too dark and weird for many, I’d call it an immediate cult classic.

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