Windswept

The Reading List for 30 Sep 22

Christopher Hitchens died of esophageal cancer in 2011. He was 62 years old.

Hurricane FIONA tore through the Maritimes and parts of Newfoundland and Labrador last weekend leaving a staggering wake of devastation in a province that has seen its share of devastating weather events over the past 20-odd years.

It’s amazing how fast people forget storms like IGOR in 2010.

This weekend’s suggested readings is a range of topics that look a lot like the stuff left in the wake of a hurricane. No obvious connection to link them all except here they are.

The list is short, partly because so much of what turned up in my usual lists of readings and in emails was repetitive. American politics. American commentaries on Ukraine. And the Quebec election. So this list is largely not about any of those topics. The one carry-over from recent pieces is the Poilievre one. There is one on Ukraine but it’s from a Ukrainian perspective.

Hitchens is there because hardly a week goes by without his work turning up in something I am reading or watching. This one was an oddity but as you get to the end you will realise the author has a book out about Hitchens and his continuing relevance. The guy’s only been dead since 2011 and what he was writing about almost until his last breath was as contemporary as yesterday afternoon. But there’s a book to remind you of him.

Monday’s feature is another toss-up. There’s stuff in the queue, some of it hanging around for months. There’s always the chance that something more immediate will knock it out of the way.

In the meantime, enjoy these tidbits. We’ll see you next week.

• Storm surge explained

• Paul Wells talks with Jason Kenny

• CD Howe Institute has a new paper on the problems facing women returning to the work force

• Liberals are underestimating Pierre Poilievre

• The radical anti-racism of Christopher Hitchens

• Coming back to a recently liberated part of Ukraine to start life again.