Under covers

>> From new mothers to ageing heroes, war reporting to surrealist tales: books to curl up with

by JULIET WATERS

There should be no better season to hibernate with a new book than winter. Unfortunately, the publishing industry virtually shuts down and interesting new titles are few and far between. Here are some that might lure readers out.

John Ralston Saul raised some fur last month when he questioned the U.S. reaction to September 11 in his latest book, On Equilibrium. Saul was in town this week to discuss his user’s guide to citizenship in the modern world. He had nothing to say about his role as the Governor General’s husband; journalists had been warned off that topic. But as Canada’s most widely read political philosopher, he’s not about to shut up about recent events. Find out what he had to say in next week’s Mirror, and also if he has anything to say about our very own modern citizen, Ken Hechtman.

Punk Planet editor Joel Shalit represents “a new breed of public intellectual,” according to the back cover of his book Jerusalem Calling. American by birth, Israeli by association and “homeless by conscience,” Shalit was raised in a secular Zionist household of one of Israel’s founding families. He meanders his way through topics such as the New World Order, the Middle East, the rise of fundamentalism, civil war in the former Yugoslavia, and independent music.

From the editors of another popular zine, Hip Mama, Ariel Gore and Bee Lavender bring us Breeder: Real-Life Stories From the New Generation of Mothers. With an introduction by Dan Savage, Breeder is a vast selection of essays from alternative moms across the U.S.: single and married, queer and straight, pierced and tattooed, enlightened and pissed off, at home and on the road.
Foreign correspondent Ian Stewart will be in town this spring to talk about his memoir Freetown Ambush. Stewart, a Canadian who at age 32 was the West African bureau chief for Associated Press, was one of the few journalists who dared venture into Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. In September of ’99, he and two colleagues were ambushed. One was killed, Stewart was shot in the head, left paralyzed and clinging to life. He has since made a remarkable recovery. His book recounts his terrifying year in Africa, but is also a commentary on the indifference of the West to the horrors he witnessed.

Up in smoke

On the somewhat lighter side, Robert Sabbag follows up his bestseller, Snowblind: a Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade, with Loaded: A Misadventure on the Marijuana Trail. Expect to see part of Sabbag’s story of how he became an international drug smuggler out of Columbia published in Rolling Stone.

Anyone feeling inspired by Sabbag might first want to take a look at Sean Thompson’s Letters From Prison: Doing Their Own Time—Secret Lives Behind Bars. Thompson, a journalist and prison activist who spent a weekend locked up in Kingston, Ontario, decided to start a correspondence with prisoners across North America. This book includes letters from Leavenworth, Kingston and Rikers, to name some famous prisons, and is tied together with commentary from Thompson.

For those who’d prefer to escape real life as much as possible, two works of fiction look promising. Ray Vukcevich’s Meet Me in the Moon Room is pure surrealism—33 stories concerning men, women, teleportation, wind-up cats, brown paper bags, nose roaches and baby poop. And Terry Pratchett’s The Last Hero seems like an intriguing antithesis to Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. If anything, the illustrations by Paul Kidby are fun. Seems like Cohen the Barbarian aka Emperor Ghengiz Cohen is out to destroy the world... that is if he can remember where he put his teeth. He doesn’t like the way the world lets old men grow old and die, so somebody’s gotta pay. Is he the last hero, or will that accolade go to whoever stops him? :