The Community EditionWANDERING WATERLOO REGION THROUGH BOOKS
After a busy and potentially expensive holiday season, the last activity one tends to think about is travel.
What if you broke that mould?
But what if, from the comfort, ease, and coziness of your couch, you navigated local streets both familiar and unknown? Stick with me, for I am not suggesting the familiar armchair travel of 2020.
I certainly won’t suggest more screen time.
What if you made yourself a cuppa something delicious and warm, found a blanket, and cracked the spine of something new?
Waterloo Region’s unique demographics easily lend themselves to phenomenal and fantastical stories. The books below can be found at local bookstores such as Words Worth Books or Old Goat Books in Uptown Waterloo, and A Second Look Books in Downtown Kitchener. Alternatively, check out any branch of the Kitchener Public Library or Waterloo Public Library for these and other books about Waterloo Region or by the region’s own talented authors.
The Waterloo You Never Knew: Life on the Margins by Joanna Rickert-Hall
Joanna Rickert-Hall is a local author, social historian and recipient of the Jean Steckle Award for Excellence in heritage education.
She writes about the scandals and overlooked yet fascinating tales and the tragedies of Waterloo Region. A delightful assortment of them appear in this book.
Covering nineteenth and twentieth-century stories of both a sensational and sordid sort, this book shares local history that few locals have on their radar.
Think body snatchers, cholera, rum running, and sorcery–to begin. Resident readers will be inspired, shocked, and gain new appreciation for the past and present of Waterloo Region.
For the visually inclined, this collection of photographs from nineteenth and twentieth-century Waterloo Region will transport you through the decades of our collective stories.
Chris Masterman, a former Waterloo Region Record librarian invited residents to share their memories associated with the archival photos she dug up from the archives.
Jon Fear is a columnist for the Waterloo Region Record and kept the memory-gathering tradition alive.
Much as its name suggests, Kissing Bridge is whimsical, magical, and a little mischievous. Woolwich Township, known for its talented Mennonite farming community and calm green landscape, is not the setting you might associate with such a title.
Yet it is, in fact, where this real-life story continues to take place today. Ontario’s last wooden covered bridge in use, it has a striking red façade, is the location of many an odd and delightful fact.
Many such pieces of information are shared in the book, some of which include tales of the West Montrose Swifts and the Conestoga Wanderers (local hockey teams from 1915), the real alibi that allowed so many couples to conveniently take their time crossing the bridge, the peeping eyes that spied from the rafters.
The Back Door by Coral Andrews
Local author and broadcaster Coral Andrews dishes on Kitchener’s former underground music scene at The Back Door. Musicians, concertgoers and neighbours alike involved in Waterloo Region’s music scene, and perhaps more so those of a certain vintage, will appreciate the deep dive into Kitchener’s legendary punk history.
Should you prefer fiction, Waterloo Region’s creative writers have plenty to offer. From poetry to crime, consider the following titles for your January book list.
Black Cherokee by Antonio Michael Downing is a coming-of-age story of a mixed-race Black girl growing up in a South Carolina Cherokee community that won’t recognize her identity.
Nobody Cares: Essays is written by Anne T. Donahue. With humour, she explores friendship, failure, work and what life looks like as a twenty- or thirty-something in modern day. Award-winning local poet Chris Banks has several books.
Midlife Action Figure: Poems has been described as a “rare book that is as exciting as it is provocative, showcasing both pathos and humor” by the ECW Press.
Francie’s Got a Gun by Carrie Snyder is a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and one of the CBC’s Best Canadian Fiction Books of 2022. The survival of a young girl in a small town will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Former Waterloo Regional councillor, Jane Mitchell, has pivoted from serving her community to crafting murder mysteries with her new novel, Bad Council. In it, a local councillor is killed when he tries to release information that will change his community forever.
Set your schedule as “busy”—you’ve got a lot of reading to enjoy this month!
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The Community Edition
Bob Jonkman
Ryan Wightman