On the Night Table: Colin James

Colin James

Singer-songwriter and author, Playing the Changes: A Musician’s Memoir

Everything I’m reading right now is kinda heavy lifting. I’m reading Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump — like I need to hear anything more about Trump, but here I go.

I just started the Roy Cohn book, American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump, by Kai Bird with Susan Goldmark. And I’ve got End Times Fascism I’m reading by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor. Oh God, what am I? A sucker for punishment, that’s what.

Massey Lectures author argues housing should be a right — not a commodity

Homelessness, a burgeoning issue in North America, is also an international problem. Proposals to help the unhoused have included building more housing units, government-controlled rents and subsidizing the needy.

Leilani Farha, a former United Nations special rapporteur, Ottawa-based lawyer and international advocate for human rights and housing, blames the crisis on rampant commodification of shelter. Her first book Housing Inc., based on her 2026 CBC Massey Lectures, examines global perspectives on the unhoused and precariously housed.

Farha’s extensive experience and deep caring for those denied the security and human dignity of a place of their own are clear on every page. Her very personal descriptions of dealing with homeless people and groups, as well as governments and businesses, are heart-wrenching and frustrating.

She opens with the section Home, eloquently elaborating on richly varied aspects of human need for housing: “Think about what home gives us. Existence. Dignity. Identity. Security. Our relationships with each other, and with society at large.”

Naturalist offers personal reflections on the finite nature of life

Canadian poet and naturalist Neil Griffin has written a historic and personal globe-spanning account of massive extinctions over centuries, caused by weather disruptions and by mankind. It’s a detailed, well-written account, sometimes with a touch of humour, but predominantly a frightening and depressing look at the losses and consequences.

Griffin opens by describing artifacts on his desk, “a pocket gallery of past and present ruin” — memento mori collected during his former life as a wildlife biologist and “cold reminders of what was and will not be again.”

The author combines geological and natural history with observations of his own, made during travels to destinations such as Canada’s boreal wetlands, the jungles of Belize, Kenya’s savannahs and the mountains of Rwanda — all places where he encountered endangered species.

Griffin takes readers through Earth’s five mass extinction events caused by upsets in the carbon capture cycle, planetary wobbles causing climate change, volcanic eruptions, meteors and how the “bad behaviour of Earth’s inhabitants” impact so many species. More than 99 per cent of Earth’s total plant, animal and fungal life is now extinct, and human beings will also be extinct someday, he writes, recognizing that extinction is a natural phenomenon, but that current extinction rates far exceed the norm.

Purchase of iconic Emily Carr painting sparks exploration of artist’s past loves

In Shades of Emily, B.C. author Leslie Howard explores the mystery of one of Canadian painter Emily Carr’s relationships, telling the story of the Carr family and how the painter’s interactions with her parents and siblings, and later her art, shaped her life.

Howard has a background in economics and political science, and is the author the bestselling novel The Brideship Wife as well as The Celestial Wife. She divides her time between Vancouver and a small farm in the Okanagan Valley.

Shades of Emily alternates between the life of Emily Carr and the fictional story of Cassie Hastings, a newly unemployed lawyer helping her grandmother buy one of Carr’s (real-life) paintings, Quiet. Although Cassie’s family has some claims over the painting, its provenance is disputed, making it necessary for Cassie to join the bidding for the painting.

After she and her grandmother successfully acquire the painting, they discover a note at the back of the canvas which implies the artwork was intended for someone Emily loved. Cassie and her grandmother then try to uncover the identity of that person, encountering a wide cast of characters along the way including the Carr family, patients at the sanatorium where Emily Carr spent some time and some of the people she might have met along the way.

Coalescence of dangerous forces requires the rest of us to be our best selves

We all feel it — a sense of loneliness, despair, and malaise in our society. People find it hard to get out of bed and go to work, most notably at schools, hospitals and other public systems. Smiles and nods on the street are sometimes met with confusion. And social media rants about “the other” are rampant.

Our loss of humanness seems inevitable — that somehow the end times are coming.

But perhaps this loneliness is manufactured, and there is an exploitative and deliberate intervention into who we are — that there are forces trying to tear us apart.

Canadian writer Naomi Klein (No Logo, The Shock Doctrine, This Changes Everything) and Winnipeg-born author and filmmaker Astra Taylor (The Age of Insecurity) push back against the forces which would want us to collapse and relinquish all hope in their collaborative book End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World. “The mayhem now being unleashed online and in our lives is anything but inevitable,” the pair writes.

Mysterious book takes woman to pivotal moments in her past, present and future

Having the ability to see yourself in the past and future might be a blessing or a curse — you could be forced to relive transformative or traumatic incidents from your past, or discover a happy or tragic future. B.C. author Gail Anderson-Dargatz explores this cosmic dilemma in her new novel, The Atlas Keeper.

Anderson-Dargatz won acclaim for both her first novel, The Cure for Death by Lightning, and her second, A Recipe for Bees, both of which were Giller Prize finalists. The Cure for Death by Lightning won the U.K.’s Betty Trask Award, the B.C. Book Prize for Fiction and the Vancity Book Prize. Among her other work, she’s also written thrillers, including The Almost Wife, a Canadian bestseller, and The Almost Widow.

The life changes in The Atlas Keeper’s protagonist are reflected in her first name, as she cycles through calling herself Ellie, Elsie, Beth, Eliza, Lizzy, Ziz, Liz and finally Elizabeth. When the story begins, she’s almost 28, living in a moldy basement suite in a house rented by her sister Bailey, and working as a mapper at her father’s forestry consulting company. She’s barely recovered from a severe depression caused by witnessing her mother’s accidental death on a mountainside. Feeling trapped in her dull life, she doesn’t see a bright future ahead.

However, Elsie’s life takes a major turn during a hike with attractive astrologist Zander to mark the fifth anniversary of her mother’s death. Upon reaching the plateau where her mother fell, she sees an old woman in a white nightgown who appears to vanish into thin air. The geocache left on the plateau includes a strange-looking book titled The Pocket Atlas of Nostalgia and Longing which is decorated with the phases of the moon and contains astrological charts.

Hitler’s dismantling of Weimar Republic chronicled

In late January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. He moved quickly to consolidate his power, effectively entrenching himself as an unchecked ruler within less than two months.

European historian Timothy Ryback recounts Hitler’s transformation of the German political system in 53 Days, an interesting but conventional narrative that does provides little in the way of original insights.

Ryback claims that he has invoked “fresh perspectives from previously unexplored archives and primary sources.” But there is little evidence of this in his retelling of a familiar story.

Ryback details the steps which Hitler took to dismantle Germany’s democratic regime known as the Weimar Republic. The opposition press was suppressed, the civil service was purged and the infamous Reichstag fire was exploited to crack down on political opponents.

Canada’s literary awards say publishers are in best position to sniff out AI

TORONTO - Canada's top literary prizes say they largely rely on publishers to ensure the books they award were authored by humans, not artificial intelligence. 

The executive directors of Writers' Trust of Canada and the Giller Foundation both said Friday that they have policies barring AI-written works from their awards.

Their responses come as one of France's top literature prizes pulled a Canadian author's debut novel from its long list over allegations he wrote the book with generative AI, which he has denied. 

"Writers' Trust is clear in its guidelines for every prize: Works containing AI-generated text, in whole or in part, are not eligible," David Leonard said in an email. 

Quebec author dropped from Goncourt amid AI, plagiarism allegations

MONTREAL - Quebec author Thélyson Orélien has lost his spot in the running for one of France’s most prestigious literary prizes over allegations that he used artificial intelligence to write his first book.

The Académie Goncourt announced Friday that it had removed Orélien’s novel, “C’était ça ou mourir,” which translates to “It was either that or dying'' from the running for the Prix Goncourt amid allegations that the book was written using artificial intelligence, and separate plagiarism allegations involving his earlier work.

The decision marks the latest fallout from a controversy that has quickly spread through the French-language literary world, prompting Orélien’s Quebec publisher to suspend promotion of the novel, citing Orélien’s well-being, and a Quebec book fair to cancel his appearances.

Orélien, who earlier this week vehemently denied using AI to write the novel, declined on Friday to respond to the new allegations or provide further comment. 

Quebec publisher halts promotion of book in AI controversy amid new allegations

MONTREAL - A Quebec author who earlier this week was accused of using artificial intelligence to write an award-winning novel is now facing a new set of allegations regarding the originality of his previous work. 

A La Presse report published Wednesday alleges that some articles attributed to Thélyson Orélien and published in Quebec and French media between 2012 and 2014 included passages that were also found in previously published work by other authors.

The La Presse article said the newspaper used the U.S.-based Pangram software that flagged the apparent similarities.

The Canadian Press has not independently verified the allegations reported by La Presse. 

Bluesman’s memoir focuses on life before music fame

He was born Colin Munn in Regina in 1964, but he’s best known by the name given to him onstage by his late friend Stevie Ray Vaughan in Ann Arbor, Mich., 20-plus years later — Colin James.

Four debut novels among the Writers’ Trust fiction short list

TORONTO - Four debut novels are on the short list for the Writers' Trust of Canada's fiction prize.

Toronto's Téa Mutonji and Zak Jones are among the nominees for the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize that awards $70,000 to the best Canadian novel or short story collection of the year.

Mutonji was shortlisted for her first novel "My Person" about two friends navigating a breakup. Mutonji was previously nominated in 2019 for her short story collection.

Jones is nominated for his debut "Fancy Gap," which is about three estranged family members in Appalachia struggling with loss and poverty. The Canadian-American author won a Writers’ Trust award for emerging writers in 2023.

Botterill’s memoir Why Not You is sure to inspire future rosters in women’s sports

Decorated Olympian. Hard-hitting hockey analyst. Inspiring author. Winnipeg’s own Jennifer Botterill is adding yet another chapter in her historic and storied career.

Botterill’s autobiography Why Not You: My Story of Perseverance, Hockey, and Olympic Gold, that hits the shelves Sept. 22, takes a step-by-step look back at the former forward’s many sports lives — from her days as a ringette player growing up in Winnipeg in the 1980s, to her Olympic debut as a fresh-faced 18-year-old at the 1998 Nagano Games, to her burgeoning career as a hockey analyst as part of the beloved Hockey Night in Canada broadcast crew.

And wrapping up her long resumé was something she already had in the works before she was inducted into the Canadian Hockey Hall of Fame last November.

“It was just nice timing on how it all worked out,” Botterill told the Free Press last week.

Give-and-take relationship of Roman leaders takes centre stage in Harris’s historical fiction

British novelist Robert Harris’s latest work is a reflection on tyranny, corruption and betrayal among all-powerful political leaders.

You might be forgiven for thinking it’s a contemporary thriller — it’s actually historical fiction set in ancient Rome.

A former BBC journalist, Harris debuted as a novelist in 1992 with Fatherland, an alternative history where Nazi Germany won the Second World War.

Since then, the prolific author has become best-known for his works of historical fiction, especially his ancient Rome trilogy released from 2006-2015 and the novel Conclave, which was published in 2016 and was made into the film of the same name in 2024.