My Child, My Chance: Guarding and Guiding Your Child’s Identity In the Chaos of Culture and Sex Education by Susan Zuidema (242 pages, $18.87) A Christian, public elementary school teacher, with assistance from an employee in the health care industry, has published a timely book in response to Ontario’s controversial sex ed curriculum. Written by Ontario educator Susan Zuidema with editorial assistance [...]
Over the pasts several weeks I have read and reread Stephanie Gray’s book Love Unleashes Life (LifeCycle Books). At the same time, I also had the privilege of attending the U.S. March for Life, which had a very similar theme of “love saves lives.” I was particularly excited by this book because Stephanie Gray has long been a pro-life heroine of mine, [...]
It’s been a long time since we’ve lived through a juicy controversy about art. The last really huge, international scandals that broke across the headlines and inspired debates on TV and in government were at least a generation or more ago, and it’s doubtful that a millennial will recognize names like Karen Finley, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano or Chris Ofili. Subsequent furors [...]
Karissa Haugeberg, a history professor and author, says that pro-life women are merely tools of the patriarchy in a book examining their involvement in the pro-life movement. Women Against Abortion presents a historical account of women in the anti-abortion movement, highlighting a number of key female leaders. The author, Karissa Haugeberg, is an assistant professor at Tulane University in New [...]
What Happened by Hillary Clinton (Simon & Schuster, $39.99, 494 pages) What Happened is Hillary Clinton’s account of the election debacle of 2016. The former first lady who was seeking to become the first female president was a shoe-in to return to the White House according to polls that suggested Republican Donald Trump was unelectable. Perhaps it was the Democrat who was [...]
In 2002, Richard Florida published his book The Rise of the Creative Class and made a career for himself as an urban theorist, traveling the world lecturing and advising on how struggling, economically challenged cities could revive themselves. His “creative class” – a loose coalition that included artists, tech workers, academics and, interestingly, gay men and women – were rebuilding decimated downtown [...]
The recent populist electoral convulsions in the U.S. and Europe has led to a lot of dubious analysis, but one insightful book about what is happening in the west is David Goodhart’s The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics (Hurst, $27.50, 278 pages). Goodhart looks at British politics and finds that the division is less about left [...]
There is a new book out by Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders called Maximum Canada: Why 35 Million Canadians is Not Enough (Penguin, $27.95). In brief he argues Canada has too much land and too few people. In some ways he is counter-intuitive, saying that more people are necessary for Canada to become an environmental leader. Typically, more population is seen [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman In a widely acclaimed new book, Sex and the Constitution, Geoffrey R. Stone, former dean of law at the University of Chicago, commends the Supreme Court of the United States for revising the laws and the Constitution to conform with contemporary values. Laurence H. Tribe, professor of law at Harvard University, lauds Sex and the Constitution [...]
The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian World by Rod Dreher (Sentinel, $34, 262 pages) Journalist Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option is a rarity: a socially conservative book urging Christians be more faithful that spurred a serious discussion in the mainstream media among pundits about the future of the so-called Religious Right and those who comprise it. David Brooks of [...]
Under Siege: Religious Freedom and the Church in Canada at 150 (1867-2017) by Don Hutchinson (Word Alive Press, $22.99, 276 pages) In Under Siege, former Evangelical Fellowship of Canada vice president and general legal counsel Don Hutchinson writes about the history of Christian churches in Canada describing how the Dominion began as a predominantly Christian nation to one in which is being [...]
Sir John’s Echo: The Voice for a Stronger Canada by John Boyko (Dundurn, $19.99, 213 pages) John Boyko is the author of six books on Canadian history and his latest, Sir John’s Echo, presents the story of Canada since Confederation as a struggle between Ottawa and the provinces, with the central government often asserting itself as a force for national cohesion and [...]
Should We Change How We Vote: Evaluating Canada’s Electoral System edited by Andrew Potter, Daniel Weinstock, and Peter Loewen (McGill-Queens University Press, $19.99 paperback, 230 pages) Turning Parliament Inside Out: Practical Ideas for Reforming Canada’s Democracy edited by Michael Chong, Scott Simms and Kennedy Stewart (Douglas & McIntyre, $22.95, 165 pages) The Unbroken Machine: Canada’s Democracy in Action by Dale Smith (Dundurn, [...]
Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s Great Betrayal by Gwendolyn Landolt and Patrick Redmond (The Interim Publishing Company, 217 pages, $20). This retelling of the abortion story in Gwen Landolt and Patrick Redmond’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s Great Betrayal brings out both the frustration of pro-lifers and a concern over a missed opportunity to have made a difference in the history of our country. The study [...]
I do not typically like books written by current politicians. They are dull, self-serving, and full of platitudes and clichés. Senator Ben Sasse’s new book The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis – and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance (St. Martin’s, $38.99, 306 pages) is none of those things. The Nebraska Republican lawmaker and former university president has identified a [...]