Elizabeth Abbott, S BA 63, has quickly become one of Canada’s leading non-fiction writers. Following her acclaimed 1999 book A History of Celibacy, Abbott has been garnering more attention and praise with the second volume in her planned trilogy, A History of Mistresses (Harper Flamingo Canada, $38.95). Mistresses compellingly and often disturbingly details how “kept women” — from biblical Hagar to Camilla Parker-Bowles and countless in between — have been viewed and treated in society. A native of Ottawa, Abbott earned her PhD in 19th-century history from McGill and is now dean of women at the University of Toronto’s Trinity College. The planned final part of her trilogy is a history of marriage.
Diners looking for good food at good prices have long savoured the Cheap Thrills series. The fourth edition, Cheap Thrills Montreal: Great Montreal Meals for under $15.00 (Véhicule Press, $9.95), by Nancy Marrelli, S BA 72, and Simon Dardick, has arrived, with ripe updates on 30 restaurants plus 60 delicious new entries. Contributors (including this writer) offer insight and information on Montreal’s most economical eateries, ranging from the familiar, such as Schwartz’s, to the obscure, such as Sri Lankan restaurant Jaarl Paadi, described as “a bit of adventure.” Succinct and succulent reviews for the hungry but frugal.
No doubt taking note of the success of Cheap Thrills, Sarah Musgrave, BA 96, adds her own flavour to the food-guide world with Resto à Go-Go: 180 Cheap and Fun Places to Eat and Drink in Montreal (ECW Press, $16.95). Also sticking to a $15 price limit, Musgrave delivers a taste of 140 restaurants and 42 drinking establishments, and provides bite-sized but juicy appraisals and info. Unlike the contributor approach of Cheap Thrills, Musgrave performed all the “research” herself — sounds like a tough assignment, but one that she’s well prepared for as the Montreal Gazette casual dining critic. While Cheap Thrills and Resto à Go-Go include some overlapping entries, they feature enough discrete items on their menus to merit sampling both.
In the early days of the Second World War, the Polish government secretly sent some of its national art treasures to Canada for safekeeping. Michael E. Rose, BA 77, uses this factual backdrop as the spark for his taut thriller, The Mazovia Legacy (McArthur & Company, $24.95), set in the (familiar) frigid Montreal winter. When a Polish man mysteriously dies, his niece and a journalist set out to uncover the truth. Rose, a native Montrealer, is an experienced international journalist and broadcaster now living and working in Lyons, France. The Mazovia Legacy is his first novel, and he intends it to be the initial one in a series of mysteries starring investigative journalist Francis Delaney.
There has certainly been no shortage of high-profile executives who have led their companies downhill in recent memory — think of Vivendi or Nortel, to name just two. In Why Smart Executives Fail, and What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes (Portfolio, $40.00), Sydney Finkelstein, BComm 80, examines those mistakes and prescribes ways for others to avoid them. Finkelstein, the Steven Roth Professor of Management at Dartmouth University’s Tuck School of Business, mixes the thoroughness of academic research with a readable and well-organized style, and the result is a must-read for executives, managers, entrepreneurs — and anyone wanting to avoid the business errors of others.
If you’ve seen him even once on TV — and with his many appearances, including the pre-Oscar telecast, you probably have — then you’re not likely to ever forget Steven Cojocaru, BA 85. Words such as flamboyant or showy only begin to describe this camp-meets-kitsch maven of style. But Cojocaru has parlayed his outrageousness into a career as a fashion correspondent for The Today Show and Access Hollywood and West Coast style editor for People magazine. Cojocaru’s first book, Red Carpet Diaries: Confessions of a Glamour Boy (Ballantine Books, $35.95), is both a memoir of this Montrealer’s unlikely rise to fame and a dirt-dishing gossip sheet that includes the scoop on celebrities from Barbra Streisand to Steve Tyler to Liv Tyler. What makes it palpable — and completely fun — is Cojocaru’s refusal to take himself or his subjects seriously.
Here’s a tough one: Who is resented more outside their respective countries: the Americans or the French? Dislike for the U.S. stems at least in part from their standing as the world’s only superpower — and their insistence on constantly reminding us — but why the French? Their prickly reputation was established long before their recent stance on the war in Iraq. In Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong (Why We Love France But Not the French) (Sourcebooks, $26.95), Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow, MA 94, try to cut through the clichés — how can French people consume all that cheese, chocolate and wine and still live longer? — to redefine and explain the French character and values. They present a well-researched and well-written analysis and observation of French history, philosophy, politics and culture. Nadeau and Barlow are both Montreal journalists; Barlow received her master’s in English literature from Concordia.
By day, Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, BComm 00, is VP of advertising and public relations with AskMen.com, one of the leading online men’s magazines. But Karbasfrooshan is also a fledgling screenwriter, radio talk-show host and business author. In Course to Success: Everything You Need to Succeed Beyond Business School (1st Books Library, $45.55 hardcover, $26.19 paper), Karbasfrooshan offers business students insight on how to succeed not only in school but also in life, touching on Plato, Freud and the Chinese principle of yin-yang. In these days of questionable ethics and misplaced priorities, Karbasfrooshan’s efforts to “mold students into ethical capitalists,” as he writes, is timely.
Concordia master’s in creative writing graduates Joshua Auerbach, MA 02, and Eleni Z. Auerbach, MA 02, are the editors of Montreal-based literary journal Vallum ($7). The journal features an impressive and well-presented mix of poetry, essays, interviews, visual art and reviews, and highlights the work of both new and eminent writers and artists from Canada and elsewhere. Vallum also sponsors readings and literary events in Canada. For more information, visit vallummag.com.
There has been an effort in Canadian schools in recent years to encourage more young girls to become interested in science. Following that theme, Montreal freelance journalist Kelly Di Domenico, BA 00, has just published Super Women in Science (Second Story Press, $10.95), aimed at girls and boys aged nine to 13. The book features 10 short biographies of women who’ve made significant contributions to the sciences, from Hypatia, a renowned teacher who lived in Alexandria c. 400 AD, to African-American astronaut Mae Jemison. Di Domenico and fellow alumna Kelly Wilton, BA 94, are editors of the newsmagazine Montreal Families.
