Rare intellect - Book reviews

Page 17

Don Kelly - Director of Communications, Assembly of First Nations

Recommends:

Guns, Germs, and Steel:

the Fates of Human Societies

By Jared Diamond

Random House-1997

Bold new theories of history, science and nature often come not by answering complex questions, but by posing questions so simple no one thought to ask.

In Guns, Germs and Steel, Pulitzer-prize winning author Jared Diamond starts with a simple question: Why is it that the Europeans were able to come over and "conquer" the New World instead of First Nations going over and conquering Europe? In answering that question, Diamond offers a new theory of human development that is as broad and sweeping as history itself.

Guns, Germs and Steel presents a rigorously argued and comprehensive theory about the evolution of human societies that demolishes archaic notions of racial superiority and, in doing so, embraces an implicit but compelling message of respect for all peoples and all cultures.

Eden Robinson - Writer

Recommends:

My Name is Seepeetza

By Shirley Sterling

Douglas and McIntyre-1992

"Sister Maura asked me what my name was. I said, my name is Seepeetza. Then she got really mad like I did something terrible. She said never to say that word again. She told me if I had a sister [nun] to go and ask what my name was . . . She said it was Martha Stone. I said it over and over."

Twelve-year-old Martha Stone, a N'laka'pamux girl, keeps a journal of her Grade 6 year at the Kalamak Indian Residential School in the 1950s. Wry, homesick and hungry, Sterling's narrator has always reminded me of a Native Anne of Green Gables, even though Martha herself would not appreciate the comparison.

This is a book I go back to when I need to remind myself of the power of a dark story told with gentle humor. Sterling has been promising a sequel for more than a decade, so if you know her, phone her up and bug her about it because I can't wait to read the next one.

Herbie Barnes - Actor

Recommends:

The Hero With A Thousand Faces

By Joseph Campbell

Princeton University Press

Commemorative Edition-March 2004

This book explains storytelling in such a clear way, showing how every culture tells the same stories only with different scenery and different characters, but how basically there are only a small number of stories.

The book looks at different religions, cultures, and people and that has always interested me. The book also is a must for any writer.