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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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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: PARASITIC OSCILLATIONS

Article By Barb Minett

Date: 26 Mar 2022

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Parasitic Oscillations: Poems

Tell all the truth but tell it slant –

Too bright for our infirm delight

The truth’s superb surprise.


– Emily Dickenson


Guelph professor Madhur Anand illuminates so many slants that she sets up oscillations that will lead you into other dimensions and the amalgam that is left is curiosity and wonder.

Madhur is the inaugural director of Guelph Institute of Environmental Research. This is a house with many mansions - areas of expertise and research, complicated patterns of thought and individuals who have probably given it all they have got. I’m sure her plate is full, and yet she has room to publish a book of poetry after winning The Governor General’s Award for non-fiction last year.

Initially I was intimidated by the scientific erudition. When I asked Madhur how she recommended reading her poems to people who are not scientifically literate, she said – with patience and curiosity. “No need to ‘understand’ or ‘get’ poetry. Ignore the parts that you don’t like…But for the reader who has an open mind, my hope is that you discover things in these poems. A new word, or better, a new thought…..”

So I lingered with the text – which starts by referencing mathematical models of birdsong. The characters of physics, biology and mathematics are unveiled and act upon her various experiences and notions. Interspersed are glimpses of her personal journeys with her mother, her children, her life as a student, her inherent love of the natural world, her time in India, her shared interests with A.O. Hume, who was by the way, a 19th century British member of the Imperial Civil Service, a political reformer, ornithologist and botanist who worked in British India. He was also one of the founders of the Indian National Congress. Ah, history is another character!

The book ends with a long Whitmanesque prose poem. In her earlier poems, the physics, the math, the chemistry - are all breeding inside her head. But the longer poem beautifully renders how the life of poetry flows through her.

“That is how poetry arrives. With a picnic, other people’s poems, history.”

These lines arise from her time at a writer’s retreat that used to be Al Purdy’s home.

Reading a book of poetry can be like going to a foreign country. It can be colourful and energetic, strange, luscious, and yet at the same time somewhat unknowable. But we feel privileged to have visited. Thank you Madhur. Oh, and congrats for Parasitic Oscillations being CBC’s top poetry pick of the spring!

Join Madhur for her book launch at The Arboretum April 23 @ 5 pm. For more info or to rsvp contact parasticoscillations@gmail.com.

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