WALRUS READS

The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters By Emily Esfahani Smith

“Meaning” hasn’t been a hot concept for a while — to anyone who came of age after Douglas Coupland published Generation X in 1991, it bears a tinge of nonironic embarrassment, the kind associated with circulating a meme with an inspirational quote, or liking the music of Céline Dion. In The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters, Washington-based journalist Emily Esfahani Smith seeks to put sincerity back on the table for those of us driven to grow a social-media following, chase venture capital, or define a personal brand. Based on her viral 2013 Atlantic essay “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy,” Esfahani Smith’s book argues that the digital age has put immediate happiness — a short-sighted goal — ahead of more fulfilling sources of well-being, such as self-betterment and selflessness. Chapters on “Belonging” and “Purpose” make the case that face time with others — from an interaction in a store to a support group for the bereaved — puts the individual life in context in a way that an hour on Twitter can’t. “Meaning’s all about connecting and contributing to something that’s beyond yourself,” said Esfahani Smith, who grew up in a Sufi meeting house and was surrounded by Islamic mystics. “If you’re trying to lead a meaningful life, I would ask yourself: what’s one thing you can do today to make someone’s life better?” — Jessica Johnson

The If Borderlands By Elise Partridge

“Nothing fled when we walked up to it, / nor did we flinch” were the first words Elise Partridge published between book covers. Those two lines encapsulate how, across three volumes of poetry, the Canadian American poet charted her relentless, punishing, piecemeal demise from cancer — a disease that finally claimed her in early 2015 at the age of fifty-six. The If Borderlands, which collects the majority of the poems Partridge wrote during her lifetime, makes her achievement impossible to ignore. Since the mid-1970s, when the stigma around the illness began to disappear as treatment options became more available, cancer has reshaped the modern elegy, radicalizing it with combat metaphors. What made Partridge different was her refusal to militarize her medical suffering. She also often applied a euphoric mindset to her illness, seeing even her chemotherapy as part of the inexhaustibility of reality, and thus an experience to be embraced. Many of these poems may be written from the sickroom, but the poet opens her senses wide, leading to a rush of colour and textures — “Red digits blink: morphine drip / Chest a gauzy snowpatch, itchy with tape” — and a scramble to find a way to capture it all. — Carmine Starnino

Next Year, for Sure By Zoey Leigh Peterson

Chris loves Kathryn. After nine years of dating, they’ve slipped into a comfortable domestic routine of familiar restaurants, long bike rides, and (very occasional) sex. Then he starts to fall for Emily, a young woman whom he sees regularly at the neighbourhood laundromat. She’s exciting and carefree — she even lives in a commune. Chris clearly wants to be with Emily, but he insists he still loves Kathryn and doesn’t want to leave her.

At first, Kathryn has no issue with Chris’s puppy love. Playing the role of the openminded girlfriend, she encourages him to pursue Emily for a date, certain he’ll soon get the crush out of his system. But as Chris and Emily spend more time together and develop an intimate bond of their own, Kathryn’s laissez-faire approach to non-monogamy gives way to the jealousies, insecurities, and fears she had always been harbouring under the surface. Next Year, for Sure offers an empathetic, honest look at modern relationships, and at the small cracks within them that, in an instant, can turn into chasms. — Daniel Viola