All posts by MJS

Brantford news, Scholarship and Donating

Congratulations to Susan Zuidema!

Karen Innes presents Susan Zuidema with her award.

The successful candidate for the 2023 Award B is Susan Zuidema. Susan has worked for several years in Brantford with people who are struggling with poverty, homelessness, addiction, and mental health. She has seen first hand their trauma and feelings of hopelessness. A genuine advocate for the disenfranchised, Susan has been instrumental in mobilizing food programs, increasing temporary shelter beds, and establishing Charlie’s Place for young men and also housing for young mothers in need of mentorship. As the former executive director of “Why Not” mission, Susan helped many at risk young people. Susan believes that a trusted psychotherapist is a crucial component of healing and hope. She has enrolled in the M. of Div. clinical counseling three year program at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto.

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Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

The Monday Book Club selection for November is the graphic novel, Ducks,: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton.  This Canadian comics artist wrote the first graphic novel to win Canada Reads.
The author portrayed a powerful message illustrating the themes of environmental destruction, loneliness and lack of mental health resources, misogyny, labor exploitation and corporate greed, and the detrimental effect on the local indigenous communities.
The group were glad to be exposed to this literary style, which is popular among the youth of today, but most prefer to read a book in text rather than through graphic images.
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Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy, by Tim Harford 

Jeanne C’s Comments: The book is a series of short essays in which the author explains how each invention came to be and how it has changed the lives of its readers. For example, we learn that passports were originally letters of permission to travel and were provided by nobility to their subordinates. In 1920, after World War II, The League of Nations formally standardized passports and contributed to making them widely required. Another topic of interest is barbed wire and how its invention in 1876 shaped the European settlement of North America and the notion of private ownership of land. Topics are diverse and times span far into the past and right up to today’s technological achievements.
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Five Wives by Joan Thomas

Leslie L spoke of three books she recently read but particularly wanted to highlight Five Wives by Joan Thomas, which won the Governor General Award a couple of years ago.

The events at the centre of this book took place in 1956 in Eastern Ecuador.  A group of evangelical American missionaries was trying to make “friendly” contact with an isolated tribe of indigenous Ecuadorians living in the Amazonian basin.
Five young men with their wives and children arrive and settle in with different personalities and backgrounds and different attitudes towards their mission.  It is a doomed attempt and the five husbands/fathers are killed.  The wives and a sister of one of the men continue the mission with predictably unsettling results.  The author has fictionalized much of the story and has added a modern twist.  An excellent and compelling read!  Joan Thomas is a Canadian author living in Winnipeg. published 2019.

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The Personal Librarian

Jeanne C’s description of The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray had us all wanting to read it!

Here’s her review:
J.P. Morgan, the famous New York City financier of the early 1900s chose Belle da Costa as his personal librarian to help him locate and acquire the masterpieces of the celebrated Pierpont Morgan Library. Throughout the book, Belle struggles to hide her origins as the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and to pass as White. The story follows her as she navigates through upper-class society and outmaneuvers her colleagues to negotiate for valuable artworks. The reader catches glimpses of well-known historical figures as they are portrayed in Belle’s own writings from the time.