Rob Ford: T.O. superhero

'Maybe he's cleaning up the city by smoking all the crack in it. You're next, prostitution rings.'

-- Daily Show host Jon Stewart, weighing in on Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's crack cocaine-video scandal.

One true thing

Do you know what the nose game is?

For those who are self-employed or study in isolation, the nose game is a juvenile way of determining who, within a group, must perform a less-than-desirable chore or task. I learned the rules of this game the hard way. A couple of years ago, my amazing colleague, John Robinson, was going on sabbatical. This meant we needed someone to teach the Grade 12 economics course.

Guess who lost the nose game?

So there I was, forced to teach micro and macroeconomics, never having taken an economics course in my life. Although the task was daunting and difficult, I soon fell head-over-heels in love with economics. I would come to each class and exclaim, "Guess what! I just learned about...!" My students were very kind and were gracious with my new enthusiasm.

TORONTO'S Kathryn Mockler begins The Saddest Place on Earth (DC, 70 pages, $18) with some sage advice: "It is not a good idea to be in the same room as / someone who is just about to murder you."

Thus begins a meditation on murder that oscillates between thoughts banal and bizarre. Mockler tends towards the sardonic.

Many poems read like micro-fictions or dialogues: "This weekend I'm going to rock out, he said. / Good for you, I said. I'm planning to kill myself."

The collection's highlight, Serial Killers, presents a science-fictional, Hollywood high-concept premise as its kick-off: "Humanity is stopped in its tracks when / everyone is sterilized to eliminate the human / race. Basically it's mass suicide."

Randi Gage

Winnipeg palliative care specialist, 2013 YWCA Woman of Distinction

"Last fall I found all the discussions and dismay surrounding Catholic Church issues kept pointing to the release of the Third Secret of Fatima. So I went in search of more information and found several books, which, I might add, are not easy reads. The one I finished is called Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph by Friar Francois de Marie des Anges and Georges de Jesus. It recounts the information and misinformation about the 1917 prophecy up to 1999. It contains some very interesting bits of history. Currently I am reading The Awesome Fatima Consecrations by Father Paul Trinchard. He offers insight into the different views of the whole Fatima controversy. Overall, it is interesting and thought-provoking, but it does make me want to throw it all the wall at times. I usually read fluff, so for me to read history is an adventure."

ON the last day of Christmas holidays, an 11-year-old boy in Montreal finds out his parents are splitting up.

Hurt and bewildered, he prays to the sky to help him. The next day an ice storm begins. The boy, his family and their neighbours find their lives permanently altered by the devastating ice storm of 1998.

This first book by French-born Montrealer Pierre Szalowski is a lighthearted novel with a touch of magic realism: the boy (who's never named) believes he caused the storm, and his friend Alex eventually believes this, too.

First published in French in 2007, it's now being released in English in Canada and the Anglophone Canadians will have the odd experience of reading a story, set in Canada, told in British-inflected English -- for example, translator Alison Anderson, apparently an American, uses "face flannel" for washcloth, "mobile" for cellphone and "flatmate" for roommate.