For young women friends and daughters
Under This Unbroken Sky
(Viking Canada, $32) is the compelling first novel by Nova Scotia filmmaker Shandi Mitchell. In 1938, Teodor, the broken patriarch of a Ukrainian family homesteading in the Alberta bush, returns home from an unjust prison sentence to his wife, Maria, five children, abused sister and her two children. Imbued with the smallest details of love, work and poverty and the large splendour of land and sky, the novel reads more like a film.
With The Golden Mean
(Random House Canada, $33), Annabel Lyon makes lush, enchanting fiction from an improbable source — the relationship between philosopher Aristotle and a very young Alexander (to become the Great). Cautious Aristotle is tutor to the scarily mercurial Alexander, but he’s also a man who, in the name of scientific inquiry, dissects live chameleons and makes detailed notes about his wife’s private parts. Not just a brainy achievement, but also a great read.
For armchair and actual cooks
Both A Year in Lucy's Kitchen
(Random House Canada, $35) by Lucy Waverman and Earth to Table
(Random House Canada, $45) by Jeff Crump and Bettina Schormann are guided by the seasons in quests for what is fresh, access-ible and irresistible in Canadian food. Neither book is stuffily purist about eating local — recipes include such far-flung ingredients as olive oil, chocolate and lemons.
Waverman really does do all her cooking in her own kitchen, so her tips are completely practical (best canned tomatoes? San Marzano plum variety). All her recipes look delicious; among the standouts: mac ’n’ cheese, chicken osso bucco, and peach and blueberry cobbler. Husband Bruce provides wine tips for her special-occasion menus.
Crump and Schormann (respectively executive chef and pastry chef at the Old Mill in Ancaster, Ont.) tell stories about the great Red Fife wheat and give pointers on everything from composting to canning and making bread. Look for: white truffle risotto; maple, molasses and beer bean pot; and blueberry upside-down cake.
