On Pierre Poilievre's Bookshelves

What with everything going on in Ottawa these days, my focus on things political has shifted from Parliament Hill to the hot tubs and bouncy castles on Wellington Street, and so it wasn't until yesterday that I found time to watch Pierre Poilievre's three-minute YouTube announcement of his run for Prime Minister the leadership of the Conservative Party.

Last go around, two years ago, the MP for Carleton surprised us all in announcing that he wouldn't be running. “I knew it would be hard on my family life to do this,” he said. 

That concern has passed.

Pundits posit Pierre Poilievre as the next party leader. I have no doubt he'll win, if only because there's no one else in the race.

"Governments have gotten big and bossy," begins Poilievre, who once served in the largest cabinet in Canadian history. The man who provided coffee, hot chocolate, and donuts to members of the "Freedom Convoy" goes on to criticise the Grits for exploiting Covid for political purposes.

Poilievre said more, but nothing so interesting or revealing as the collection of books behind his well-oiled hair.

Invite me into your home and I will cast an eye over your bookshelves. And I will judge. 

Beginning on the left uppermost shelf we have a copy of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward next to the Bodley Head edition of August 1914.

The only volume I recognise on the top centre shelf is Rupert Murdoch's HarperCollins Study Bible (sadly, lacking dust jacket).

The next shelf holds five Dickens novels belonging to the Penguin Clothbound Classics series: Bleak House, Hard Times, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations. PenguinRandomHouse sells these volumes as part of a six-volume set. I wonder what it means that A Christmas Carol is missing.

Framed family photos dominate the second row of shelves, but look carefully and you'll see the second edition of Richard Rohmer's Patton's Gap (Toronto: Stoddart, 1998). I bought two thousand copies when working for a national book chain. Sixteen years passed before I read it. If interested, my thoughts on Patton's Gap can be found in this ageing Reading Richard Rohmer post.

There aren't many Canadian books on Pierre Poilievre's shelves. The Rohmer aside, the only others I see are Stephen Payne's Canadian Wings: A Remarkable Century of Flight and Mark Reid's 100 Photos That Changed Canada. The Americans dominate: Reagan: In His Own Hand, Henry Kissinger's Diplomacy, Karl Rove's Courage and Consequence, Thomas Maier's The Kennedys, and Peter Baker's Days of Fire: Bush and Chaney in the White House.

There are no books on Canadian politics.

What else have we got? A paperback copy of 1984 is followed by The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill. A Regnery Gateway book is next. I thought at first it might be Ann Coulter's High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton, but now have my doubts.

All in all, it's a curious collection, arranged in a manner that can make sense only to Poilievre himself. Everything seems so neat, so orderly, so tidy, but look carefully and you'll find evidence of a more chaotic fourth row of shelves, all but blocked by his well-polished desktop. As with career politicians, some lean left, but most lean right.

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Valentine's Day Cathode Ray Tube Afterglow

               Better than dreaming, look and you'll find
               Even more than the romance that's in your mind

For the morning after the night before, this four-decade-old advert for Harlequin's Superromance series.

That voice!

My wife identified it immediately as belonging to Luther Vandross. Further research reveals that Vandross co-wrote the song. 

I'm a fan.

It's interesting to note that the four titles representing the "4 NEW TITLES EVERY MONTH" were published over a seven-month period.

I wonder how they were chosen.

Abra Taylor wrote two of the four: Taste of Eden and River of Desire. Real name Barbara Brouse, she was the very first Harlequin Superromance novelist. Her Toronto Star obituary, found here on the Brouse family website, is provides an all too brief portrait of a remarkable woman.

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The World's Worst Women
Bernard O'Donnell
Toronto: Harlequin, 1955

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West Coast Canadian Noir

Arthur Mayse's Perilous Passage is now arriving in better bookstores. Its publication comes after a long search. Post-war Canadian noir is expansive, but not in terms of geography. Most novels are set in Montreal; add in Toronto and you've pretty much covered the waterfront.

Pun intended.

For years I looked for a worthwhile novel set on the West Coast; one, two, three were read and rejected before I came upon Perilous Passage.

It more than made the cut. You'll find my thoughts here in in this 2020 blog post.

Perilous Passage was Arthur Mayse's first novel. It garnered attention before publication when the Saturday Evening Post paid US$15,000 (roughly US$176,000 today) for the serial rights. The novel appeared in seven instalments running from May 14 to June 25, 1949.

That autumn, Morrow published Perilous Passage in hardcover; it was soon reprinted.

Other editions followed, the first being a 1950 Pocket paperback with cover by sometime Post illustrator James R. Bingham.

In 1952, London publisher Frederick Muller brought out a UK edition.

The Ricochet edition is the first since Frederick Muller's.

Seventy years!

There was never any question as which cover we would use in its return to print.

The new edition features a fifteen-page introduction by Susan Mayse, the author's daughter.

Again, Perilous Passage is arriving on our better bookstores. It can also be purchased online from the usual sources. Better still, you can get it directly from the publisher through this link.

Any East Coast post-war noir out there?

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