By: Deanna McFadden
There's something utterly human about making New Year's Resolutions. Even if the promises are already broken by the first week of January, at least there's an intention to make your life better, to make the world better, and to be more conscious of the issues that have an effect upon your life and, well, isn't that half the battle?
Almost all of my book blogging friends are about to embark upon various different reading resolutions for the year. Whether it's staring down a challenge or two or finally finishing the giant Russian classic by your bedside, trying to read more in 2008 seems to be a consistent theme. Personally, I'm trying to read more books by international authors and have created the Around the World in 52 Books challenge to drive much of my leisure reading for the year.
Part of the idea behind Around the World in 52 Books was to be more aware of world literature, but also to support artists from other countries, and learn more about what's considering literary outside of Canada. Another point would to be to explore more social and political issues through reading – which brings me to my featured event for this month: the University of Toronto Bookstore Reading Series presentation of Christie Blatchford and Kevin Patterson discussing Canadian Accounts of War.
Christie Blatchford's bestselling Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army tells of the author's trips to Afghanistan. Not stopping with simply her own experience of reporting on the events, she furthered the story by contextualizing the soldiers's stories within their lives outside the military as well – she talked to their families, their commanding officers to create a point of view about the war that only Blatchford could.
I've long heralded Kevin Patterson's Consumption as one of the most underrated books published in the last couple years. As a doctor who served in Afghanistan himself, he's utterly qualified to edit Outside the Wire: The War in Afghanistan in the Words of Its Participants, which was published in December by Random House Canada.
Heading out in what will most certainly be a cold, gloomy night in mid-January to the Hart House might not be the easiest thing to do, but it would certainly be the most rewarding. Regardless of your own personal feelings about the war, both of these authors are putting human faces on the news reports we hear each day on the CBC about what's happening in Afghanistan. And as they'll both probably be taking questions from the audience, I'm sure there will be some feelings flying from both sides of the issue, which might stir up some heat in the drafty old university building.
Here are the important details:
U of T Bookstore Reading Series
"Fifteen Days" and "Outside the Wire": Canadian Accounts of War
Monday January 14, 2008
7:30pm
FREE
Hart House Library
(7 Hart House Circle)
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