What's So Funny?: Lessons from Canada's Leacock Medal for Humour Writing, by Dick Bourgeois Doyle AND Stephen Leacock: Selected and Introduced by Robertson Davies, by Stephen Leacock

Have you ever wondered about the first 67 winners of Canada's Stephen Leacock Award  for Humour? Me neither. Until, that is, I was presented with a delightful book on this very subject -- What's So Funny?:Lessons from Canada's Leacock Medal for Humour Writing  -- written by Dick Bourgeois-Doyle. Don't be put off by his Victorian-inspired name. He is really quite down to earth. And he is an expert on, among other subjects, the history of science and creativity in Canada. Besides writing quite prolifically -- "contributing to many books, articles, TV features and radio programs," as his biographical sketch states on page 253 -- Bourgeois-Doyle works full time in the federal government. He is currently the Secretary General of the National Research Council of Canada.

      You are probably wondering how an elevated public servant -- he was at one time chief of staff and director of communications to the minister of science and technology -- has managed to pull off such time-consuming extra-curricular publication feats. I know it was my first question when I met the author at a summer evening event at Carleton University's MacOdrum Library in 2015. Though the event was forgettable, his answer was not. It was actually his wife who replied, and I paraphrase: "People always ask this. He never uses government time for his outside activities. He is up late every night, writes all weekend and he is very organized and efficient at using his time."

The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration -- Ta-Nehisi Coates

From the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s, America's incarceration rate doubled. By the mid 1990s, it had doubled again. "By 2007 it had reached a historic high of 767 people per 100,000," says author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates in the October 2015 cover story of The Atlantic, in an article entitled "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration." He adds that the United States "now counts for less than 5 percent of the world's inhabitants -- and about 25 percent of its incarcerated inhabitants. In 2000, one in 10 black males between the ages of 20 and 40 was incarcerated -- 10 times the rate of their white peers. In 2010, a third of all black male high-school dropouts between the ages of 20 and 39 were imprisoned, compared with only 13 percent of their white peers."

The Problem of Pain - C.S. Lewis

Published in 1940, The Problem of Pain – the first in a popular
series of six volumes on Christian doctrine written by C.S. Lewis – is a
short, 157-page book that packs a major philosophical punch. For a patient, curious reader -- not normally your humble reviewer -- The Problem is a smoothly articulated, intuitive journey through the mind of a brilliant academic, one who reverted back to his faith in his early thirties after an intense period of informed and thoughtful atheism.

Climate Change Debate - Four Books

Every time I see a new book denouncing climate change -- a.k.a. man made global warming, or MMGW -- I jump at it. The subject fascinates me. How, I wonder, can reality continue to be rejected. In all of human history, I'm quite sure, there has never been a more contentious scientific debate. Not even the most impassioned flat earth campaigns could match the recalcitrance and quantity of falsehoods emanating from the MMGW controversy. Some well-known believers have even dared go on record suggesting "deniers" be imprisoned. How do we stop this insanity? With each new published book I fantasize that finally, the alarmists will be forced to admit defeat and come down to pleasant, cool earth.

The Hand that Rocks the World: An Inquiry Into Truth, Power and Gender - David Shackleton,

The Hand that Rocks the World: An Inquiry Into Truth, Power and Gender, by Ottawa's well-known men's advocate David Shackleton, is one ambitious undertaking. Shackleton’s goal is to lay the groundwork for a new social science discipline, one that will guide humanity to truth and wisdom. According to Shackleton, once this innovative psychosocial regimen is established and put into practice, it will lead to -- among other previously unattainable accomplishments -- the eradication of the psychological blocks that prevent men and women from understanding and accepting one another other fully. Applied properly, the new social science will ensure both sides learn precisely how the two groups can fit snugly together into the same world, and live happily ever after.

Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town - Jon Krakauer

Jon Krakauer's most recent book, Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, published in 2015, helped this reader (your humble book reviewer) to partially understand the rape culture that has gripped university and college campuses across North America. I first came across the term "rape culture" in 2014 when the University of Ottawa suspended its hockey team after a complaint of sexual assault involving some of its players. The accusation was commenced while the team was playing against Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. A week later, a student union rep got on the radio and started ranting against the "rape culture" in universities across Canada.

Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now - Ayaan Hirsi Ali

     Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a gutsy, smart and beautiful woman. Moral, sincere and extremely courageous, she wowed the world in 2007 with the publication of her life story in Infidel: My Life, a New York Times runaway bestseller. Infidel chronicles her extraordinary and terrifying personal experiences from the time she was a child growing up as a Muslim in clan-based, war-torn and impoverished Mogadishu. The victim of female genital mutilation, she survived family beatings, war and famine under several different African and Middle-Eastern dictators. Covered from head to toe, she lived as an ultra-religious young woman in Kenya. Ultimately, she fled to Holland as a refugee to avoid an arranged marriage. And these were her easy trials!

Reefer Sanity: Seven Great Myths about Marijuana - Kevin Sabet

Published in 2013, it would be a mistake for present day governments to ignore Reefer Sanity: Seven Great Myths about Marijuana. It was written by Kevin A. Sabet, an assistant professor of psychiatry -- though not a medical doctor, his detractors remind us -- and Director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and of Oxford University, where he received his Doctorate in social policy, Sabet is enemy number one to the frenzied, far-flung and demanding hurry-up-and-legalize-marijuana industry.