Books, reviews, and writings

  The Englisch Daughter – Cindy Woodsmall & Erin Woodsmall   The Englisch Daughter is a sweet but colicky baby named Heidi. An innocent child who could rend asunder the Amish family Graber. How would a loving people deal with economic distress, physical and mental health issues, addictions, gender roles, faith… and the arrival of a child born out of wedlock, out of infidelity? This a story on the need for dedication to one’s convictions, and on the need for convictions of our own choosing.       Cindy and Erin Woodsmall introduce us to the world of the Amish. This is shown not only as an idyllic, religious, dedicated society, with specified roles for men, women, children, and God; but, also, a society whose members deal with what the reader would consider ‘Englisch’ (i.e. not Amish or Mennonite) issues. Pastoral, picture perfect lives come at a price just as much as our modern ones do, they tell as. And at the very heart of all issu...

  Book of David, A Manifesto for the Revolution in Mental Healthcare -
Michael Benjamin, M.D.   The Book of David is a peculiar beast. It offers an initial overview on the workings and creation of personalities, psychological issues, and the use of medication to deal with them; a short foray into autobiography; a proposal for new, both personal and institutional, approaches to mental healthcare. They all have one thing in common, however: the search for happiness. That Golden Age which, if skipped, will make us unwell; which, although always imperfect, therapy attempts to recreate. The multiple sides to this book make it difficult to classify; therefore, to evaluate. Not quite self-help, not exactly academia, the reader is nevertheless guided to introspection, as well as to intellectual curiosity. Whether it is on the intricacies of Automated Everything, the characteristics of narcissism, or the stories of past cases, it is difficult to avoid comparin...

  White Zion – Gila Green   Gila Green’s White Zion tells us, though a collection of short stories, the story of Miriam Ehrblich, and those of her family. Miriam, a secular Canadian Jew, half Ashkenazi, half Yemenite, will eventually become an orthodox mother in Jerusalem. She is thus closing, perhaps healing, the cycles opened by her great-grandparents.   She does so addressing dichotomous issues such as race, sex, education, and secularism, among others. Miriam’s parents’ memories, the stories of her family members, her own remembrances, all are visited. Reminiscent of Margaret Lawrence’s short stories, there is a shade of painfully shabby nostalgia colouring this collection. The grotesque Ida, weather-impervious father, cruel grandfather, blank mother… all the characters seem to have an all-encompassing characteristic to shake the reader into discomfort. These are not tales for passive relaxation, but a prickling exploration of the darker rea...