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.

Currently Reading & Recommended

Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler | Originally published just over 30 years ago, in 1993, this dystopian gut-punch of a story is eerily relevant today. In Parable of a Sower (the first in a two-book series), Butler describes a gruesome, but not gratuitous, present-day future seen through the eyes of young, middle-class black girl living in California. Lauren is forced to flee her community to survive, motivated by the vague and quasi-hopeful idea of establishing a new way of life centred around her personally cultivated belief system. — TS

Currently available from local independent booksellers such as Massy Books and Upstart & Crow.*

The Wall, by Marlen Haushofer | Almost three decades before Parable of the Sower, in 1968, then Haushofer penned a very different sort of dystopian novel, set in rural Austria and without the calamity of civilization. The Wall (which was published in its original German text as Die Wand) is the quiet and disquieting story of the last remaining living woman on earth. Suddenly confined to her immediate surroundings – yet living without the external pressures, expectations, comforts or strictures of society – the narrator’s internal life is enlarged and she is finally able to take on her true identity and natural role. An unassuming, powerful and emotional survivalist story about reconnecting with the land and self. — TS

Currently available from local independent booksellers such as Massy Books and Upstart & Crow.*

The Committed, by Viet Thanh Nguyen | This follow-up to Viet Thanh Nguyen’s thrilling, 2016 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Sympathizer, is a story about humiliation, repression and expression. Set just a few years later, in the early 1980s, much of the sequel’s conflict and friction comes from its narrator’s contradictory thoughts about his country’s colonizer, France. Nguyen’s narrator – a half-Vietnamese and half-French Communist spy – is a sophisticated escort through the trials of colonialism and racism. Serious yet entertaining. Of note: The Sympathizer debuts as a mini series (on HBO/Crave) this winter, starring Robert Downey Jr. – time to catch up! — JM

Currently available from local independent booksellers such as Massy Books and Upstart & Crow.*

UP NEXT:

Roast Figs, Sugar Snow: Food to Warm the Soul, by Diana Henry | For home cooks needing new, seasonal inspiration in the kitchen: the recently updated version of Henry’s popular cookbook (re-published October 2023 by Octopus Publishing Group) in celebration of cold-climate/winter ingredients and flavours, promises to hit all the right, comforting notes for current appetites. (Also, scope out Henry’s Instagram feed for more of her personal cookbook recommendations, interspersed between photos of beautiful food aplenty, of course.) — TS

Currently available as a special order from local independent booksellers such as Massy Books and Upstart & Crow.*

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

Supplementary Reading

Are $18 Big Macs the price of falling inequality? | An excellent analysis of the travails of market capitalism. Cheap food always comes at a cost, which begs the question: if it’s no longer inexpensive, who’s benefitting? Surprisingly, it’s those behind the counter. Via Vox. — JM

A Better Way to Nourish Livestock | One crafty farmer saw a link between the cost of feeding the animals we eat and the high volume of food waste, and decided to do something to ease the burden on both sides. Founded in Dawson Creek, B.C., Loop Resource takes our leftovers and ‘Robin Hoods’ them to farmers all over Canada. Via The Tyee. — JM

The Food System Is Having a Big-Screen Moment | Consult this handy roundup of new and upcoming food documentaries to find out what’s currently happening in the food and culture sphere. Via Civil Eats. — JM

This alcohol-free spirit actually makes you feel tipsy | A recent (and strategically timed) look into the future of imbibing, via the Independent (UK Edition). Packaged and branded like a liquor, but medicinal-like in taste (according to several reviews), Sentia is working hard to make space in the zero-alcohol market…with the intention to eventual forge a category all its own. — TS