We like consuming words on the page almost as much as we like consuming food on the plate. Welcome to the Scout Book Club: a brief and regular rundown of what we’re reading, what’s staring at us from the bookshelf begging to be read next, and what we’ve already read and recommend.

For the first Scout Book Club of 2025, local graphic designer (and bonafide bibliophile) Spencer Pidgeon (“Vancouverites” interview here) chimes in with a few suggested titles. We only recently discovered that Spencer is an avid reader — he even makes it an annual tradition to merge his design talents with his love of literature by re-imagining the covers of his favourite books of the year. Naturally, this made him a perfect fit for our first guest Book Club contributor of the New Year!

Currently Reading, Recently Read, and Recommended

North Woods (Penguin Random House), by Daniel Mason | Reading North Woods reminded me of why I love books in the first place, but it also made me rethink what a novel can be. It takes on so many different forms, spans genres and has interludes with illustration, poetry and music. The story covers over 300 years of history of a single cabin in the woods of Massachusetts, offering a glimpse into the lives of its various inhabitants and the way they are linked and layered together. Nature plays a big part in the story and I found the writing really transported me to a specific place in time. Side note: one of my personal projects is to redesign the covers of my five favourite books that I read that year, but the original cover for North Woods is so good that I almost didn’t want to touch it. —Spencer Pidgeon

DETAILS | Currently available from such local independent bookstores as Massy Books, Iron Dog Books, and Upstart & Crow.*

Butter (Ecco), by Asako Yuzuki | The first English translation of a work by the lauded Japanese author, Butter is an engrossing read with plenty of cross-cultural interest, including gender roles, sexual dynamics, friendship, beauty standards, societal expectations, and the pleasure of feeding oneself and others. Its 450 pages amount to a thoroughly satiating combination of entertainment, tension, thought-provoking social commentary, and genuinely good, imaginative food writing (the likes of which could only come from a truly food-loving, expert writer, which I suspect Yuzuki must be). —TS

DETAILS | Currently available from such local independent bookstores as Iron Dog Books and Upstart & Crow.*

On Community (Biblioasis), by Casey Plett | The term “community” gets thrown around a lot these days – including plentifully in this very publication – but what does it actually mean? That question is the catalyst for Casey Plett’s longform essay, On Community. Although not an exhaustive examination of the term (if that’s even possible), Plett does a lot of work in just 170 pages, zooming in and out on ideas about what constitutes a “community” – from her own experiences as a Mennonite and trans woman, to more macroscopic and narrow-minded iterations – without coming to any definitive conclusion…except, perhaps, that the term requires constant examination. Equal parts opinionated and open-minded, On Community is an insightful, personal, provocative and urgent little “pamphlet” that, I think, any member of the living human “community” should get their hands on. — TS

DETAILS | Available from such local independent bookstores as Massy Books, Iron Dog Books, and Upstart & Crow.*

Tastes Like War: A Memoir (The Feminist Press), by Grace M. Cho | From foraged ingredients to forgotten recipes and secret snacks, food is the framework for Grace M. Cho’s memoir about her mother, a Korean immigrant to the USA by way of a questionable marriage to Cho’s father, an American military man. By examining how her mother-daughter relationship played out from growing up as the only two Koreans in a small American town up until her mother’s death, Cho reveals the multifaceted power of food in forging various connections – not just with the environment, its producers, and others, but also with our selves, pasts, memories, roots, mental health and morals; as well as how cultural foods, dishes and preparations can be alienating and shameful parts of the immigrant experience – and what happens when those ties are severed. Overall, an intensely emotional story mining the depths of food and relationships. —TS

DETAILS | Available as a special order from such local independent bookstores as Massy Books, Iron Dog Books, and Upstart & Crow.*

Hi, It’s Me (McLelland & Stewart), by Fawn Parker | To say that Fawn Parker (the protagonist in author Fawn Parker’s literary-pseudo-memoir) is an “overthinker” is an understatement. A LOT goes on in Fawn’s head over the mere 24-hour-long time period in which Hi, It’s Me is framed. Granted, her mother has just died via assisted suicide that very morning…and the small town setting is full of characters for fodder – not least of all the collective of women her mother spent the end of her illness living with. A dizzying, stream-of-thought-style story about the complexities of a mother-daughter relationship – from its closeness and competitiveness, to its inherited neuroses and mental illnesses – and what rises to the surface when the bond is permanently severed. Concluding with a bizarre “celebration of life” in a neighbourhood pub, Parker reveals her innermost self, expounding on ideas about femininity, feminism, sex, death, work, and art. Hi, It’s Me is dark and self-deprecating, humorous and honest in a flinch- and awkward-laughter-inducing sort of way. It’s full of violence – perpetrated against the self and others, as well as slyly/societally against women – and vulnerability, unlike anything else I’ve read in recent memory. — TS

DETAILS | Currently available from such local independent bookstores as Iron Dog Books and Upstart & Crow.*

Sugaring Off (Book*Hug Press), by Fanny Britt | A cloying (maple- and taffy-flavoured) story about class, wealth, and privilege. Sugaring Off explores the insidious “butterfly effect” of a surfing accident that physically cripples a young woman (Celia) from a (hard) working class family, and psychologically devastates a rich and famous Quebec celebrity chef (Adam). Although book-ended by chapters narrated by Celia, whose family legacy is a handmade taffy business in Martha’s Vineyard (where the crash occurred), the majority of the story is narrated by Adam and his girlfriend, Marion, as the former – ill-equipped to deal with his resultant guilt and emotional damage – attempts to cope with the implications to his social, sexual, and familial relationships by purchasing a small, family-run maple syrup business. Through this juxtaposition, Fanny Britt slyly explores what happens when the classes collide and effectively remove the sheen of privilege from the privileged. — TS

DETAILS | Currently available from such local independent bookstores as Massy Books and Upstart & Crow.*

Rina (Open Letter Books), by Kang Young-Sook | A botched escape plan sees the titular young Korean woman thrust into the grimy cogs of a vast, corrupt system of forced labour and enslaved prostitution. As time presses on, Rina’s rough and convoluted transition from adolescence into womanhood seems paradoxically to have transformed her into a hardened sociopath and imbued her with an exceptional sense of compassion – making her a truly unique and complex character, with complicated desires and relationships. Over the course of its 250+ pages, Korean author Kang Young-Sook covers a lot of ground (both literally and figuratively) while at the same time going nowhere, speaking directly to the futility of life in general. Reading Rina is both strenuous and entertaining, full of moments of impossible-seeming positivity (not to be confused with hopefulness) and absurdity, woven among non-stop disaster and tragedy. —TS

DETAILS Available as a special order from such local independent bookstores as Massy Books, Iron Dog Books, and Upstart & Crow.*

*It would be remiss for me not to mention Vancouver’s various independent and used book stores, and encourage you to pay them an in-person visit to seek out these and other titles.

More!

The World Is a Prism, Not a Window: An Interview with Zoë Schlanger | At the end of 2024, the author of The Light Eaters (HarperCollins) (previously highlighted in Scout Book Club, Vol. 11) sat down with Emergence Magazine’s founder and executive director, Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, to discuss her inquisitive and insightful book, and to elaborate on “how embracing plant consciousness upends the structures and hierarchies we’ve placed around living beings—ourselves included.” Listen to their conversation and/or read the transcribed interview here.

Fire Season: Making Sense of a Burning World | The Los Angeles fire situation is lighting up news headlines lately; but, with their publication Fire Season, local artists Amory Abbott and Liz Toohey-Wiese have made a collaborative, multi-perspective and -disciplinary project of wildfire education in general since 2019. Besides getting your hands on the books themselves (to date there are three volumes), you can also watch their interview with author John Valliant, hosted by the Vancouver Public Library here to find out more.

The New Vocabulary of Nonalcoholic Drinks | Clearly, the proliferation of non-alcoholic beverage options, brands and events isn’t stopping any time soon. Case in point: Vancouver’s new Free Spirit non-alc beer, wine and cocktail tasting event (January 16th, 2025) which sold out in advance. Still not on the bandwagon or even clear what all the hype is all about? This cheeky new rundown by Rachel Sugar for Punch can help sort you out!

WORD: Synonym | Another word for a print-only magazine that’s all about sharing food-related stories through immigrant perspectives is Synonym. From their website: “As strangers in a new land, a taste of home can provide comfort and familiarity. Bringing those tastes together with the food at hand creates new traditions, a new heritage. We’ll spotlight these stories and share how trade, politics, colonialism, and capitalism have changed food cultures around the world, for immigrants and countries’ natives alike. We’ll explore all of this in the most intimate ways possible — through generationally shared flavors, the dishes placed on a table, the spices packed in a suitcase.” Seriously, how cool is that? Their most recent issue, themed “Rice and Beans”, dropped late last year, and is already sold out from their online shop…and local stockists remain elusive. However, while we eagerly anticipate scooping up their next issue some time in 2025, the Synonymn Instagram feed (@synonymn_mag) offers up all sorts of delicious visuals and IG rabbit holes to entertain you.