There’s no holiday from tariffs for Manitoba retailers

Atop a bookshelf is a miniature scene — of bookshelves.

It’s the only one of its kind inside Whodunit Mystery Bookstore, unlike management’s initial vision. The Bumsteds planned to sell diorama-esque book nook sets for the holiday season.

That changed following a confusing roller-coaster of tariffs implemented and reversed on both sides of the Canada-United States border.

“(It) prevented us from starting to carry a product that we were excited about,” Michael Bumsted said, pointing to the book nook.

On the night table: Terry Fallis

Terry Fallis

Author, The Marionette

My wife and I are in a book club — we have been for 30 years — and we’re reading a book now called A Woman in the Polar Night. It’s a memoir written by Christiane Ritter in 1938, I believe. It’s the story of when she and her husband spent a year up in the Arctic, the Norwegian Arctic. The writing is beautiful. It’s the only book she ever wrote and it’s still in print today. It’s a short read, but you feel like you’re right there on the ice. It’s a tremendous read, I’m really enjoying it.

Wintry musings run hot and cold

Winter can evoke feelings of dread due to cold, snow and darkness.

While the Earth Holds Its Breath is one woman’s attempt to reframe that dread.

Helen Moat’s from Northern Ireland but was, until recently, a longtime resident of Derbyshire, a largely rural county in England’s East Midlands. Her previous book was A Time of Birds (2020), a bike-across-Europe travelogue.

Most of the book is spent on her wintertime explorations of Derbyshire. She artfully paints scenes of rolling hills, wooded glens and valleys, wild moorlands and the picturesque villages of her beloved Midlands county.

Iranian prisoner resists, persists with stirring courage

In 1946, Holocaust survivor and famed psychologist Viktor Frankl struck a deep chord of dissonance by associating human experience — and meaning — with human suffering.

In Man’s Search for Meaning Frankl, who survived the Nazi concentration camps, argued that “human life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have a meaning, and that this infinite meaning of life includes suffering and dying, privation and death.”

Pretty heavy stuff, but a sentiment paralleled by Iranian-Canadian writer Sirous Houshand, whose memoir, The Darkest Night Brings Longer Days: Surviving War and Iran’s Evin Prison, asks deep questions about human suffering, our search for meaning and the very nature of our being. It’s all contemplated through the backdrop of the Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq war and then three years in one of the most infamous prisons, Evin.

Waiting for imminent execution in Evin, the author, former political prisoner and engineer dives deep into wells of angst, hope, absurdity and stoicism: “when faced with existential threat, our attention refocuses on its dazzling allure. Death gives meaning to life.”

Celebrated ‘Inconvenient Indian’ author Thomas King says he’s not Indigenous

Celebrated author Thomas King says that despite believing so nearly all his life, he is not Indigenous.

The writer of books including 2003's "The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative" and 2012's "The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America," says he is reeling from recent news that he has no Cherokee ancestry.

In an essay titled "A most inconvenient Indian" for the Globe and Mail, the Guelph, Ont.-based King says he learned of rumours several years ago that questioned his heritage. 

The California-born King says he made a concerted effort this year to find their origin, which brought him to a U.S. organization called Tribal Alliance Against Frauds.

Tragedies and triumphs abound in Priscilla Presley’s post-Elvis memoir

Broken relationships fall on a continuum from friendly to toxic.

Priscilla Presley’s divorce seems to have been entirely amicable. According to her enjoyable new memoir Softly, As I Leave You, her “Life After Elvis” did not sever myriad affectionate connections with the King of Rock and Roll.

Now 80, Presley first met Elvis when he was 24 and she was 14. She wrote about the early, apparently chaste relationship and eventual marriage in 1986’s Elvis and Me. That book is hardly mentioned in her new memoir, co-written with Mary Jane Ross, except when she discusses Sofia Coppola’s film version, 2023’s Priscilla.

Marriage stresses included Elvis’ reign over Graceland, his entourage, rumours (and evidence) of affairs when he was on tour or shooting films and his explosive temper — although she insists that “he rarely exploded at me.”

Toews, Belcourt among Time’s must-read authors

Six Canadian books have landed on Time magazine’s list of the 100 must-read books of 2025.

New in paper

Realm of Ice and Sky: Triumph, Tragedy, and History’s Greatest Arctic Rescue

By Buddy Levy (St. Martin’s, $28)

A disastrous trek to the North Pole by Italian aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile in 1928, and the efforts to rescue his crew, are chronicled.

The Slicks: On Sylvia Plath and Taylor Swift

Lyrical prose invokes dreamlike, dread-inducing imagery in Peters’ unsettling new novel

Nova Scotia-born, Toronto-based novelist and poet Sara Peters’ latest novel is a lyrical fever dream brimming with unease and dread.

Peters’ first book was the poetry collection 1996, which was followed by the 2019 experimental novel I Become A Delight to My Enemies. That novel blended poetry and prose to explore themes of loss — and ghosts.

Mother of God leans similarly into experimental forms and the horror genre, using lyrical and highly imagistic prose to slowly reveal the complexity of a troubled relationship between a mother and daughter. Billed as literary horror, the novel will appeal to fans of experimental, gothic, dreamy horror such as Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin or Spider by Patrick McGrath.

Marlene works as an internet psychic. On her business cards, she appears as, “Marlene The Exorcist, Psychic Wound Healer.” In reality, while she does indeed have psychic abilities, they are limited only to visions of her mother, Darlene. These visions begin when Marlene is a young girl and continue into her adulthood, even after she has moved away from her childhood home in Nova Scotia to Vancouver.

Franklin the Turtle book publisher condemns ‘violent’ post by U.S. defense secretary

The publisher of the Franklin series of children's books says an online post by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth depicting the titular character as a bazooka-wielding soldier is denigrating and violent.

Hegseth shared on social media Sunday a mock cover of a Franklin book titled "Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists" with the caption: "For your Christmas wish list."

In it, a smiling Franklin is seen dressed in military attire — with an American flag patch on his arm — firing a weapon from a helicopter at one of three boats carrying packages.

The post appears in reference to U.S. military strikes against suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

Body’s signals to brain worth heeding for health

The erosion of the relationship between science communication and the general public became increasingly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Part of this is no doubt due to a numbness caused by the popular media barrage of new cancer and disease cures, if not the end of aging itself.

Caroline Williams is a seasoned translator of neuroscience into accessible language. In Inner Sense, her study of interoception traces the history of a niche scientific field as well as potential future vistas.

Interoception refers to signals arising from the body and communicated to the brain — perceptions of fullness, feelings of worry and respiration rates are familiar examples. When heeded and correctly interpreted, interoception keys us to shifts away from homeostasis towards incipient illness and dangers. Williams heralds research into interoception as one of the most significant areas of study to emerge in science and medicine in many years.

Interoceptive ability varies by individuals, but is trainable. Improvements can influence our behaviour to foster greater health resiliency and energy and to reduce stress. Research may offer insights into treatments for arthritis, fatigue, depression and many other maladies; these interventions range from developing heart-rate awareness to more invasive surgical procedures.

Thomas King’s revelation he is not Indigenous sends ripples through culture sector

TORONTO - Thomas King's revelation that he has no Indigenous ancestry sent ripples through Canada's cultural sector, while raising questions about what responsibility a person has when they claim a heritage they say they cannot prove.

The 82-year-old author of "The Inconvenient Indian" revealed on Monday that he is not part Cherokee on his father's side, as he said his mother told him as a child. The same day, the Edmonton Opera announced it would no longer stage an adaptation of his 2020 novel "Indians on Vacation," following conversations with Indigenous community members from Treaty 6 territory. 

Communications director Jelena Bojić said those conversations were not in response to any single article or revelation, but began several weeks ago when community members raised concerns about the production.

She didn't directly respond to questions about whether those concerns were about King's Indigenous identity.

Atwood’s sprawling memoir rife with reflections on her captivating life and career

Canuck literary legend Margaret Atwood’s wonderful new memoir lives up to its hype.

Book of Lives is an absorbing must-read for anyone interested not just in the grande dame of Canadian letters, but in North American cultural development in the second half of the 20th century.

Think of such entertaining autobiographies as Peter C. Newman’s Here Be Dragons and Barbara Amiel’s Friends & Enemies.

Just shy of 600 pages — 550 of them devoted to the main narrative — this is not a small tome. But interesting and often funny details pop off virtually every page.