Kaveh Akbar is a poet and this was some of the most enjoyable I’ve read all year. There was lots here for someone who’s been in the recovery rooms, anyone who’s lived their salad days struggling with their ambition and identity, and for those who continue to wonder about the meaning of a life well-lived. That is, most of us. The relationship between Cyrus and Orkideh anchors an exploration of the ties that bind us as family, friends and lovers in a web that is more important than the whole. None of us are wholly disconnected from humanity: I act on you with my existence, and you act on me. 4/5.
Tim Cook is an Ottawa author, chief historian at the War Museum. Lifesavers and Body Snatchers has been published for a couple of years now, and I’m glad the staffer at Westboro Books made the recommendation! The book covers the First World Ward period for the Canadian Medical Army Corps as that organization was spun up from almost nothing to eventually treat hundreds of thousands of battlefield casualties and learn the hard lessons of over 60,000 Canadian deaths. As one might expect, the CMAC was faced daily with the same task as medics and healers in countless wars: the technology used by the opposing armies to kill and maim each other was made significantly harder by struggling with disease at the same time.
The quick tour through Canada’s toughest and most reputation-cementing battles is all the more compelling thanks to Cook’s contribution of describing the consequences of trench warfare through open battle on the human body. I did find his periodic pause in that bigger story to explore the harvesting of human parts for an eventual military museum a bit of a kludge, but overall the pace was blistering and the writing generally crisp and accessible. One gets the sense there’s some serious academic foundation to the work, and I’d be interested in reading some of his more academic work assuming he publishes regularly, but this is an accessible work for the masses. I’ve lent it to a colleague who served recently on the battlefield, and am keen to hear his impressions. 4/5.
