Dr. Bonnie Henry
Provincial health officer in charge of B.C.’s COVID-19 response
> What’s the best book you’ve read this year and why?
I haven’t unfortunately had a chance to read much since being consumed with COVID-19! But I have a selection that is building on my bedside table, including The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson, Aria by Nazanine Hozar and Ian McEwan’s latest, Machines Like Me. Someday I hope to have time to read again.
> What book can’t you wait to dive into and why?
Carlo Rovelli’s The Order of Time. Ever since I read his book Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, I have been fascinated by the way he presents complex theoretical physics in a way that makes sense and is almost poetry.
> What’s your favourite book of all time?
I have a few: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, and I also love Madeleine Thien’s Do Not Say We Have Nothing for its wonderful, lyrical story of love and revolution. And I so admire Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for her succinct and poignant We Should All Be Feminists.
> What book completely changed your perspective?
Albert Camus’ The Plague and also José Saramago’s Blindness, and more recently The Book of Joy with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Reverend Desmond Tutu. And a beautiful book called Embers by Richard Wagamese.
> If you could have dinner with any author, living or dead, who would it be?
Right now, Tanya Talaga, to hear from her what more I can do to make sure Indigenous lives matter.