IN SEARCH OF THE CANARY TREE de Lauren E. Oakes

Eloquent, insightful, and deeply heartening, IN SEARCH OF THE CANARY TREE is a case for hope in a warming world

IN SEARCH OF THE CANARY TREE
by The Story of a Scientist, a Cypress, and a Changing World
by Lauren E. Oakes
Basic Books, November 2018 

Where mountains meet ocean in Alaska’s Alexander Archipelago, white skeletons of dead yellow cedar trees stand in stark contrast to the verdant landscape of old-growth forests. Researchers spent nearly three decades deciphering the cause of the majestic species’ mysterious death: the culprit, they discovered, was neither pathogen nor pest, but instead climate change. In the wake of this discovery, Lauren Oakes, a young scientist, wondered if what the people in this region were experiencing—whatever ways they were finding to cope with their rapidly changing environment and the loss of this sacred tree—might be a scrying glass into the future.
IN SEARCH OF THE CANARY TREE is her six-year-long attempt to answer what happens after the trees die, not only to uncover the future of a handful of magnificent forests, but what lessons could be translated to people in other parts of the planet, where other tree graveyards have become frighteningly common. It chronicles her adventures along the outer coast of southeast Alaska, into various communities spread across the archipelago, and into labs and offices at Stanford University. From thousands of plant measurements, she discovered forests flourishing again in time. From hours of interviews with loggers, naturalists, native Tlingit weavers, and others who value this tree, she found a disparate community of people developing new relationships with the emerging environment.
IN SEARCH OF THE CANARY TREE is a story about finding faith—not of the religious variety—but in the possibility for adaptation and action. Against a backdrop of dying forests and in a scientific profession plagued with pessimism, Oakes became an unexpected optimist. Part Lab Girl, part Into the Wild, THE CANARY TREE is an unforgettable story of science, natural history, and personal discovery.

Lauren E. Oakes is an ecologist and human-natural systems scientist. She is a lecturer in the Program of Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University. She earned her PhD from Stanford University’s Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources and her bachelor’s degree from Brown. She has written about her research for the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, and her work has been profiled by the Atlantic, Outside, National Geographic, and Christian Science Monitor, among other outlets.

FENTANYL, INC. de Ben Westhoff

A fascinating examination of the synthetic drug epidemic—and in particular the rise of fentanyl, the newest and most deadly wave of the opioid crisis

FENTANYL, INC.
by Ben Westhoff
Atlantic Monthly Press, September 2019

Fentanyl now kills more Americans annually than any drug in history, as well as growing numbers in Canada, Europe, Australia, and beyond, one of a crop of new drugs called novel psychoactive substances (NPS). The result of four years of investigation, FENTANYL, INC. is the compelling story of the drugs’ origins in legitimate laboratories, their hijacking by rogue chemists and rapid spread around the globe, the black market in which they are sold and consumed, and efforts to crack down on or contain the damage of this illicit and often lethal industry.Novel psychoactive substances (NPS) are synthetic and intended to mimic the effects of traditional drugs—including replacements for heroin, marijuana, ecstasy, and LSD. They are made in laboratories and often sold over the Dark Web using Bitcoin, anonymous transactions where the drugs are delivered right to the customer’s door. Westhoff traces the drugs back to their source: almost all were developed as pharmaceuticals, before rogue chemists hijacked the chemical formulas and began producing them illicitly. FENTANYL, INC. includes the stories of scientists like Paul Janssen, who invented fentanyl as a prescription painkiller, sold his company to Johnson & Johnson, and died a hero, not knowing his drug would become the scourge it is today.
NPS are often stronger than their non-synthetic counterparts and even more lethal, and they are upending the drug-enforcement landscape with ever-changing formulas that stay two steps ahead of the law. Westhoff explores this shadowy world at each step of the drug distribution ladder: He tracks down a mysterious drug baron in New Zealand who unintentionally sparked the synthetic drug revolution. He visits the shady factories in China where these new drugs are almost all manufactured, infiltrating a pair of operations producing drugs in plain sight and exposing how the Chinese government is subsidizing this illicit industry. Westhoff then widens his lens to chronicle addicts and dealers around the globe, families of victims, law enforcement officers, and underground harm reduction organizers—all to present the shocking and riveting full anatomy of a crisis we are just beginning to understand, and the unsung heroes who are emerging to fight it around the globe.

Ben Westhoff is an award-winning investigative reporter who has covered stories ranging from gangland Los Angeles to Native American blood feuds to government corruption. He has written at length about music and culture, his entry point to the world of synthetic drugs, in Rolling Stone, the Guardian, Village Voice, Vice, Oxford American, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. He is the author of two previous books: “Original Gangstas: The Untold Story of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and the Birth of West Coast Rap” (Hachette, 2016), and “Dirty South: Outkast, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, and the Southern Rappers Who Reinvented Hip-Hop” (Chicago Review Press, 2011).

THE CREEP de Michael LaPointe

A journalist with a history of bending the facts uncovers a story about a medical breakthrough so astonishing it needs no embellishment—but behind the game-changing science lies a gruesome secret.

THE CREEP
by Michael LaPointe
Random House Canada, June 2021

A respected byline in the culture pages of the venerable New York magazine The Bystander, journalist Whitney Chase grapples with a mysterious compulsion to enhance her coverage with intriguing untruths and undetectable white lies. She calls it « the creep »–an overpowering need to improve the story in the telling. And she has a particular genius for getting away with it. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Whitney yearns to transition from profiling rock stars and novelists to covering the stories that « really matter. » When a chance encounter brings her face-to-face with a potentially massive story about a game-changing medical discovery, Whitney believes she’s finally found a story that doesn’t need any enhancement. The brilliant and charismatic doctor behind the breakthrough claims she’s found « the Holy Grail of medical science »: a synthetic blood substitute that, if viable, promises to save millions of lives, and make her corporate backers rich beyond measure. But when Whitney’s investigation of this apparent medical miracle puts her on the trail of a string of grisly fatalities across the country, she becomes inexorably tied to a much darker and more nefarious story than even she could imagine.
Set against the ramp-up to the US invasion of Iraq and the decline of print journalism, Michael LaPointe’s panoramic, ingeniously plotted debut paints an affecting portrait of an increasingly unequal twenty-first century, exploring how deceitfulness, self-enhancement, and confidently delivered lies can be transfused into fact and constitute a broader violence against the social fabric and public trust.

Michael LaPointe’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and the Times Literary Supplement. He writes the « Dice Roll » column for The Paris Review. His fiction has appeared in The Walrus and Hazlitt. He has been nominated for the National Magazine Awards, the Journey Prize, and the Digital Publishing Awards, and his fiction has been anthologized in Best Canadian Stories. He lives in Toronto.

THE HOCKNEYS de John Hockney

“I have always been proud of my older siblings and felt the stories of individual determination to succeed and be themselves should be told. From inspiring parents, and my father’s philosophical comment, “Never Worry What the Neighbours Think,” (an aristocratic sentiment, as David says); we each pursued life paths that vary” – John Hockney

THE HOCKNEYS:
Never Worry What the Neighbours Think
by John Hockney
Legend Press, October 2019

The Hockneys is a never-before-seen insight into the lives of this family, from growing up in the Second World War in Bradford through to their diverse lives across three continents. Hardship, successes as well as close and complex relationships are poignantly illustrated by both famous and private pictures and paintings from David Hockney. With a rare and spirited look into the lives of an ordinary family with extraordinary stories, we begin to understand the creative freedom that led to the successful careers of all the Hockney children. How was it that a poor family from Bradford- headed by a whimsical, conscientious objector father and an intense, religiously strict mother- brought into existence an artist whose work has inspired generations?

John Hockney is a storyteller by profession, a writer and a musician. He migrated to Australia in 1968 but has retained strong ties with his large family. His brother is world renowned artist David Hockney.

THE VEXATIONS de Caitlin Horrocks

A kaleidoscopic debut novel about love, family, genius, and the madness of art, circling the life of eccentric composer Erik Satie and La Belle Époque Paris, from a writer who is « wildly entertaining » (San Francisco Chronicle), « startlingly ingenious » (Boston Globe), and « impressively sharp » (New York Times Book Review)

THE VEXATIONS
by Caitlin Horrocks
Little, Brown, July 2019

Erik Satie begins life with every possible advantage. But after the dual blows of his mother’s early death and his father’s breakdown upend his childhood, Erik and his younger siblings—Louise and Conrad—are scattered. Later, as an ambitious young composer, Erik flings himself into the Parisian art scene, aiming for greatness but achieving only notoriety. As the years, then decades, pass, he alienates those in his circle as often as he inspires them, lashing out at friends and lovers like Claude Debussy and Suzanne Valadon. Only Louise and Conrad are steadfast allies. Together they strive to maintain their faith in their brother’s talent and hold fast the badly frayed threads of family. But in a journey that will take her from Normandy to Paris to Argentina, Louise is rocked by a severe loss that ultimately forces her into a reckoning with how Erik—obsessed with his art and hungry for fame—will never be the brother she’s wished for.
With her buoyant, vivid reimagination of an iconic artist’s eventful life, Caitlin Horrocks has written a captivating and ceaselessly entertaining novel about the tenacious bonds of family and the costs of greatness, both to ourselves and to those we love.

Caitlin Horrocks is author of the story collection This Is Not Your City, a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Her stories and essays appear in The New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories, The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, The Pushcart Prize, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, Tin House, One Story, and other journals and anthologies. Her awards include the Plimpton Prize and fellowships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the MacDowell Colony. She is the fiction editor of The Kenyon Review and teaches at Grand Valley State University, and occasionally in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.