Genius of Common Sense + Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad
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Genius of Common Sense + Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad

Genius of Common Sense
Glenna Lang and Marjory Wunsch
Boston: David R. Godine, 2009, 128 pages

Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad
Frances Moore Lappé
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Small Planet Media, 2007, 208 pages

How do you change the world? Where do you start, locally or globally? For inspiration and a way out of the paralysis that stymies so many of us, two remarkable­ women – Jane Jacobs and Frances Moore Lappé – offer some practical­ ideas.

Jacobs, the late, great thinker, activist and author, is the subject of a new book written for people aged “10 to 100.” It is the story of how Jacobs’ seminal work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, came to be written, and what shaped and influenced her life.

Younger readers will enjoy meeting Jacobs as an inquisitive, fearless child who never lost her propensity to think independently until the day she died in 2006, just a week shy of turning 90. The book’s title, Genius of Common Sense, is not hyperbole. Jacobs’ observations about what makes cities livable ran counter to urban theorists in New York City, where she lived at the time. Lacking a university degree, she wasn’t taken seriously until she began writing articles and making her voice heard in neighbourhood protests.

Augmented with photographs and pencil illustrations, Genius of Common Sense chronicles Jacobs’ life [Click here to read more!] Continue reading Genius of Common Sense + Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad

The War in the Country: How the Fight to Save Rural Life Will Shape Our Future
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The War in the Country: How the Fight to Save Rural Life Will Shape Our Future

The War in the CountryThe War in the Country: How the Fight to Save Rural Life Will Shape Our Future
Thomas E. Pawlick
Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2009, 320 pages.

In The War in the Country, Thomas Pawlick has done a great service. He documents recent tensions and traumas that have battered every rural commun­ity across Ontario. Moreover, he reports in the voice of family farmers, small businesses, native people and back-to-the-landers. These stories are worth keeping in your library to be read from time to time – to be reminded of the countryside that once existed.

Economies of scale sent farmers away from local, independent suppliers to better deals in regional supply centres. Larger livestock barns led to demands that municipalities and provincial regulators set standards for [Click here to read more!] Continue reading The War in the Country: How the Fight to Save Rural Life Will Shape Our Future