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Food Guides: Essential & Delicious

The Flavor Thesaurus: Pairings, Recipes And Ideas For The Creative Cook

By Niki Segnit

In the store

An invaluable resource for foodies: seasoned or unseasoned!

Food Rules: An Eater's Manual

By Maira Kalman, Michael Pollan

In the store

How should a person eat? Michael Pollan's beautifully illustrated guide has all the answers!

Curious History of Food and Drink

By Ian Crofton

In the store

A fun, irreverent voyage through food history - food lovers and trivia junkies rejoice!

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RT @Travis_Steffens: Need a last minute gift and live in #Guelph? Head over to @Bookshelfnews and see their great selection including th… t.co/aGeU1BDdfD

@mccaw_m Nothing's on the schedule yet, but there's always a chance.

The Whale opens on Saturday and Living opens Friday Feb 3rd. Keep an eye on t.co/OYs5xFP41D for the reutrn… t.co/0G9QmAFAe7

Tár returns Friday night and watch t.co/OYs5xFP41D for the return of The Banshees of Inisherin and times fo… t.co/d6ueqihJhH

Buzzfeed: It's All About the Bees!
  • Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive

    By Mark L Winston

  • Keeping The Bees: Why All Bees Are At Risk And What We Can Do To

    By Laurence Packer

  • Bees: Nature's Little Wonders

    By Candace Savage

  • Storey's Guide to Keeping Honey Bees: Honey Production, Pollination, Bee Health

    By Richard E. Bonney, Malcolm T. Sanford

  • Beekeeper's Bible: Bees Honey Recipes And Other Home Uses

    By Collins

Meditation: Where to Begin

Full Catastrophe Living (Revised Edition): Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness

By Thich Nhat Hanh, Jon Kabat-Zinn

In the store

The bible for secular mindfulness!

Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

By Jon Kabat-Zinn

In the store

A lovely poetic series of reflections to accompany Full Catastrophe Living...

Meditation For Dummies, with Audio CD

By Stephan Bodian, Dean Ornish

In the store

A wide range of meditation practices suitable for beginners with CD...

Secular Meditation: 32 Practices for Cultivating Inner Peace, Compassion, and Joy - A Guide from the Humanist Community at Harvard

By Greg Epstein, Rick Heller

In the store

From the meditation leader of the Humanist Mindfulness Group at Harvard University....

The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness

By Jon Kabat-Zinn, John Teasdale, Mark Williams

In the store

Highly recommended by many therapists, includes a helpful CD...

Non-Fiction

REVIEW: FINDING THE MOTHER TREE

Review By Barb Minett

Date: 2 May 2021

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Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

I literally tripped over Suzanne Simard on page 152 of a book called Entangled Life. In it, scientist Merlin Sheldrake says “... in 1997 a Canadian PhD student Suzanne Simard, published the first study suggesting that carbon could pass between plants in the natural setting.” 

She was the first person to understand what is now called the wood wide web. I immediately thought how exciting for her, what happened after that, what is she doing now, and of course I was very pleased that she was Canadian. 

In Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest Suzanne has integrated her complicated, busy personal and work life. She cannot cleave one part from another and still be whole. As the intensity of her academic work increased so did the pressure of family life. She reveals many difficult things as her life unfolds: the unexpected death of her brother, her marriage and the births of her children, the break up of her marriage, a new same-sex relationship and, most recently, the grim time of breast cancer treatment. 

Suzanne grew up in a logging family, but one which logged sustainably, always leaving older trees intact. She loved the work and decided to work inside the logging industry, which unfortunately held the predominant philosophy of Free to Grow. Said differently, this means obliterating through roundup all unwanted plants and trees so that the fir of their choice could grow unimpeded. 

Ironically, Suzanne proved in countless experiments that this method did not work. Trees grew best in communities. Through their fungal networks birch delivered carbon and water and other nutrients to fir trees, alder partnered with white pines. They aided and abetted each other. 

She understood early on that the only way her discovery of this fungal network would be taken seriously was to get a PhD, become a professor and work with grad students to experiment and continually collect data. It is very hard to produce scientific results when you are not working inside a lab. Outside there is the weather, grizzly bears, deer, people who want to sabotage your work – but with determination and grit she and her cohorts have managed to turn the ship of opinion in a different direction.

She knew that she was on to something transformative and just had to wait awhile for the world to catch up.

I am very pleased to announce that Suzanne Simard will be the guest of The Bookshelf and The Arboretum for a virtual event. Save the date – Thursday Sept. 9 at 8 p.m.

I would love to hear her opinion about this issue. The Canadian government has pledged to plant two billion trees in the next 10 years to combat climate change. Is this possible to do in a diversified way so that these trees can live a long and healthy life and be part of the solution, not the problem? 

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