The name Richard Pound, S BA 62, is synonymous with the International Olympic Committee, for which he’s served for more than 25 years, and with Olympic controversy through his role as founding chair of the World Anti-Doping Agency. In Inside the Olympics: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Politics, the Scandals and the Glory of the Games (John Wiley & Sons Canada, $34.99), Pound dives into the Olympics’ waters to reveal its splendour and warts.
When heading off to Europe, your Fodor’s guide is a must. But what if you’re stuck trudging around Montreal with the kids in tow and nothing planned? Fodor’s again offers help with Around Montréal with Kids: 68 Great Things to do Together in the City and Beyond (Fodor’s Travel Publications, $17). In a colourful and compact style, Juliet Waters, BA (Eng.) 85, MA (Eng.) 98, presents fun family alternatives from the known — including the Montreal Botanical Garden — to the less so — such as the Musée des Maîtres et Artisans.
Drawing on studies of expressive performances from around the world, Harris M. Berger and Giovanna P. Del Negro, BA (soc. & anthro.) 87, search for the meaning of “everyday life” in Identity and Everyday Life: Essays in the Study of Folklore, Music, and Popular Culture (Wesleyan University Press, US$24.95), part of Wesleyan’s music and culture series. Giovanna is an assistant professor of English at Texas A&M University in College Station.
The bedroom of Josey Vogels, BA (comm. studs. & journ.) 93, may still be messy, but that doesn’t make her less concerned about nighttime protocol. In Vogels’s fifth book, Bedside Manners: Sex Etiquette Made Easy (HarperCollins Canada, $26.95), the “sex-pert” doles out advice for intimate encounters. With chapters such as “Fellatio Finesse,” “The Penile Code” and “Siderodromophilia and Other Sexual Practices They Didn’t Teach You in School” (Siderodromophilia is arousal by trains), the book may not be for everyone. Then again. . . . Visit joseyvogels.com.
The discovery of her parents’ 1912 to 1920 courtship correspondence inspired Muriel Gold, PhD (fine arts) 94, to write Tell Me Why Nights are Lonesome (Shoreline Press, $22.95). A combination biography, memoir and autobiography, the book spans major socio-political events of the century and paints a vivid portrait of a Jewish family over three generations. Gold, former artistic director of Montreal’s Saidye Bronfman Centre Theatre, is the author of several books and was recently awarded a Quebec government grant to write a history of the Saidye Bronfman Centre.
In literature and movies, Italians are usually portrayed as strong men or doting mothers. But what about the daughters? In Mamma Mia! Good Italian Girls Talk Back (ECW Press, $19.95), collected by Maria Coletta McLean, 18 second-generation Italian-Canadian women share humorous and touching anecdotes about their heritage. Maria Francesca Lo Dico, BA 96, contributes “An Affair to Remember,” in which she confesses her greatest love: her mother.
Toronto’s Tent City, North America’s
largest hobo town before being razed in 2002, wasn’t a likely
home for a graduate of Concordia’s creative writing program.
But Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, BA (cr. writ.) 00, spent a year
living there and relates his experiences among the squatters in Down
To This: Squalor And Splendour In A Big-City Shantytown (Random
House, $37). Having won rave reviews, Bishop-Stall will co-write a
screenplay of Down To This with award-winning author Paul Quarrington
(Galveston) who calls the book “a stunning debut.”
