Academy Award Nominated Books

January and February may technically be a part of winter, but to me and many others they comprise a totally different season: awards season! The Golden Globes and the Academy Awards are two of the most exciting nights in Hollywood, and there's nothing I like more than joining in on that excitement from the comfort of my own living room. In order to do that, I like to try and watch as many nominated movies as I possibly can. This includes a little bit of guess work before the nominations actually come out, but when you're as involved as I am, you can smell an Oscar-bait film from a mile away. So far this year, my money is on The Revenant for Best Picture (though my favourite was The Martian), Leonardo DiCaprio for best picture (it could finally be his year!), and Cate Blanchett for Carol.

One thing that I found especially interesting about this years nominees - so many of them came from books! Adaptations comprise seven of the eight Best Picture Nominations, and many others are nominated in categories for acting, music, screenwriting, and more. Check out the list below for a sample of awards season appropriate reading material!

The Martian by Andy Weir 
Nominated for Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects, and Adapted Screenplay.
"Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he's alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue would arrive. Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills - and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit - he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?" publisher

The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith (Movie has been renamed to "Carol")
Nominated for Actress in a Leading Role, Actress in a Supporting Role, Cinematography, Costume Design, Original Score, and Adapted Screenplay.
"A chance encounter between two lonely women leads to a passionate romance in this lesbian cult classic. Therese, a struggling young sales clerk, and Carol, a homemaker in the midst of a bitter divorce, abandon their oppressive daily routines for the freedom of the open road, where their love can blossom. But their newly discovered bliss is shattered when Carol is forced to choose between her child and her lover." publisher


The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff
Nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Actress in a Supporting Role, Costume Design, and Production Design.
"Loosely inspired by a true story, and a New York Times Notable Book, this tender portrait of marriage and identity asks: What do you do when the person you love has to change? It starts with a question, a simple favor asked by a wife of her husband while both are painting in their studio, setting off a transformation neither can anticipate. Uniting fact and fiction into an original romantic vision, The Danish Girl eloquently portrays the unique intimacy that defines every marriage and the heroic story of Lili Elbe, a pioneer in transgender history, and the woman torn between loyalty to her marriage and her own ambitions and desires. The Danish Girl’s lush prose and generous emotional insight make it, after the last page is turned, a deeply moving first novel about one of the most passionate and unusual love stories of the 20th century." publisher

The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge by Michael Punke
Nominated for Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role, Actor in a Supporting Role, Cinematography, Costume Design, Directing, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects.
"The year is 1823, and the trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company live a brutal frontier life. Hugh Glass is among the Company's finest men, an experienced frontiersman and an expert tracker. But when a scouting mission puts him face-to-face with a grizzly bear, he is viciously mauled and not expected to survive. Two Company men are dispatched to stay behind and tend to Glass before he dies. When the men abandon him instead, Glass is driven to survive by one desire: revenge. With shocking grit and determination, Glass sets out crawling inch by inch across more than three thousand miles of uncharted American frontier. The Revenant is a remarkable tale of obsession, the human will stretched to its limits, and the lengths that one man will go to for retribution." publisher

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Nominated for Actor in a Leading Role, and Actress in a Supporting Role.
"Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing." publisher
Room by Emma Donoghue
Nominated for Best Picture, Actress in a Leading Role, Directing, and Adapted Screenplay.
"To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world... It's where he was born, it's where he and his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits. Room is home to Jack, but to Ma it's the prison where she has been held for seven years. Through her fierce love for her son, she has created a life for him in this eleven-by-eleven-foot space. But with Jack's curiosity building alongside her own desperation, she knows that Room cannot contain either much longer.Room is a tale at once shocking, riveting, exhilarating--a story of unconquerable love in harrowing circumstances, and of the diamond-hard bond between a mother and her child." publisher

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis 
Nominated for Best Picture, Actress in a Supporting Role, Directing, Film Editing, and Adapted Screenplay.
"When the crash of the U. S. stock market became public knowledge in the fall of 2008, it was already old news. The real crash, the silent crash, had taken place over the previous year, in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn’t shine, and the SEC doesn’t dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can’t pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren’t talking." publisher

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
Nominated for Best Picture, Actress in a Leading Role, and Adapted Screenplay.
“'One of the most unforgettable characters in contemporary literature' (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the hard years following World War Two. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America, she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind. Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, who loves the Dodgers and his big Italian family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future." publisher

Staff Pick: In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

The 2015 Christmas movie blockbuster season has begun with the release of Ron Howard's In the Heart of the Sea, based on the non-fiction book In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. The book tells the true story of the shipwreck that originally inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick.  In the early 1800s, whaling was the ultimate resource extraction industry, and Nantucket Island off the shores of Massachusetts was the unlikely center of the industry. Philbrick's book draws us into the culture of early 19th century whaling; the years away from home navigating the globe in search of sperm whales, the military rigour of the life at sea, and the logistics of slaughtering and processing huge whale carcasses lashed to the side of a wave-tossed ship. When the Essex is destroyed by a whale, the crew attempt to navigate to South America several thousand miles away with rudimentary instruments and a scanty supply of food and water. Philbrick uses personal accounts of the shipwreck as well as contemporary studies of starvation and deprivation to delve into the desperate mindset of the survivors. It's a gripping story of men driven to the very limit of survival.

Philbrick also references other famous tales of exploration, shipwreck, and survival in In the Heart of the Sea. The famous mutiny of Captain William Bligh's ship The Bounty had occurred 30 years before the wreck of the Essex, and the story of his survival in an open boat on the Pacific would have been known to the survivors of the Essex. The Bounty : The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty by Caroline Alexander traces the steps of  the mutineers as well as the Captain Bligh. "Alexander's reconstruction of the mutiny and its aftermath (thanks to her exhaustive research through books, reports, newspapers, correspondence, historical societies and archives) is almost as remarkable as Bligh's feat. She details daily events during the captured mutineers' court-martial, expanding on court transcripts. Separating facts from falsehoods and myths in the closing chapters, she finally turns to the life of the mutineers on Pitcairn Island, noting "this fantastic tale of escape to paradise at the far end of the world had the allure of something epic." Publisher.

Captain Bligh's Portable Nightmare by John Toohey attempts to present a sympathetic view of the notoriously cruel Captain and brings attention to the remarkable navigational skill that allowed Bligh to make the 4000 mile journey to saftey in an open boat. "Instead of rehashing the tale of the famed 1789 mutiny on the HMS Bounty (as done by so many historians, novelists and filmmakers), Australian historian Toohey tells the story of what happened to Capt. William Bligh after the mutiny was over. After his ejection from the Bounty, Bligh traveled halfway across the Pacific (to Java) on a cramped 23-foot launch with 18 crew members. Drawing heavily on survivors' accounts and other contemporary sources, Toohey recounts the dramatic tale of this voyage in an almost novelistic narrative, reconstructing conversations and interior monologues and capturing the terror and cunning of men facing slow death on the high seas." Publisher.

Readers that enjoyed these stories of survival against all odds might also enjoy reading about Ernest Shackleton's failed expedition to the South Pole in the early 20th century. The setting for these adventures is in frozen Antarctica rather than the open Pacific, but the desperate will to survive by the crew is very similar. Endurance : Shackleton's incredible voyage by Alfred Lansing has been called the "definitive account of the Endurance's fateful trip". Using team member diaries and interviews with survivors, Lansing describes the story of survival after their ship gets trapped and eventually crushed by the ice.

Caroline Alexander's book, The Endurance : Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition also tells the tale of the Shackleton expedition, and includes 170 previously unpublished photos taken by the expedition's photographer, Frank Hurley, described as "stark, artfully composed tributes to the savage beauty of the ice and to the fortitude of the men and their dogs. Not one of the men died during their sojourn in a freezing hell; as Alexander makes clear in her gripping, emotionally resonant book, this incredible fact bears witness not only to Shackleton's leadership but to the strength of the human spirit." Publisher.

DEVOUR! Some Great Food Writing

Devour! Food Film Fest is the world’s largest food and film festival, happening now in Wolfville, NS. Here are some books inspired by the festival line-up this year:  

Movies featuring food as a subject or theme are a relatively new sub-genre.  Steve Zimmerman's Food in the Movies shows the progression of food moving from being used merely as minor props or storytelling devices to the many films where food is an integral part of the theme or plot of the film, and the eventual creation of the food film genre. The book features over four hundred movie scenes where food is an important component to the story. Definitely recommended for the food film fan!

Babette's Feast is a 1987 film that is widely considered to be one of the best food movies ever made, and will be screened at the Devour! gala event this year. Did you know that the film is based on a short story written by Isak Denison in her anthology of short stories, Anecdotes of Destiny? Babette's Feast tells the story of a skilled French chef that is forced to leave Paris, and finds work in a repressive religious household in 19th century Denmark. When Babette wins the lottery after spending years cooking bland food for a pair of elderly sisters, she spends her entire winnings on cooking an extravagant banquet for the community. Despite the sisters' ingrained distrust of pleasure, the feast transforms those around the table.

Documentaries and non-ficiton books about the health and environmental effects of the modern food industry are changing the way we think about our food systems. Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto is a classic in this genre, and is the inspiration of a new documentary film of the same name. Pollan sees modern society's obsession with fad diets and nutrition making us more unhealthy than ever: "Pollan proposes a new (and very old) answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Pollan’s bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating." Publisher.

Many of the unhealthy aspects of our modern food processing industry are being exposed by investigative journalists who tell their stories in documentaries and in non-fiction books. Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us was written by Michael Moss, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at The New York Times. "Salt, Sugar, Fat is a journey into the highly secretive world of the processed food giants, and the story of how they have deployed these three essential ingredients, over the past five decades, to dominate the North American diet." Publisher.


The creators of Thug Kitchen, a foul-mouthed, trash-talking vegetarian food blog, will be also speak at this year's Devour! festival at a workshop, with the Trailer Park Boys appearing as special guests. Their edgy vegetarian cookbooks have been on the bestseller lists since they came out, and it's not just because they're making vegetarian food cool: "This book is an invitation to everyone who wants to do better to elevate their kitchen game. No more ketchup and pizza counting as vegetables. No more drive-thru lines. No more avoiding the produce corner of the supermarket. Sh*t is about to get real." Publisher.

Dueling Magicians, or What to Read while You’re Waiting for Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

If you’re anything like me, you might be inclined to skepticism towards movie adaptations of your favourite novels. For every stellar Gone Girl, there’s a “what were they thinking?” Winter’s Tale. When it comes to putting fiction on screen, there are only two words guaranteed to have me drooling in anticipation: BBC miniseries. I have been chomping at the bit to see the 7-part adaptation of Susanna Clarke’s 2004 bestseller Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell ever since the project was first announced in 2012. The series is currently airing in the UK and is expected to premiere in Canada and the US next month. If you need a few great books to tide you over until then, might I suggest the following:

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

If you haven’t yet read Clarke’s Hugo Award-winning epic, there has never been a better time to do so. Described by me to my mom as “what would happen if Jane Austen wrote fantasy,” the novel follows the careers of the two titular magicians set against the background of the Napoleonic Wars. Mr. Norrell and Jonathan Strange begin a mentor/mentee relationship that soon bellows out into a bitter rivalry, as their respective values diverge. Witty, original, and occasionally philosophical, I’d recommend this book to those who like well-written fantasy novels, lovers of magic realism, or anyone who wonders if the Classics might not be improved with the appearance of a magician or two.

The Night Circus

Erin Morgenstern’s 2011 debut is a perfect union of form and content. The book is a mysterious wonder, the plot a feat of acrobatic art. Celia and Marco, two children with strong magical abilities, are drafted into a lifelong duel to the death, of which neither knows the rules. The circus begins as a battlefield and evolves into a labour of love, as gradually the object of the game becomes not to win but to keep on playing. This is a book you can live inside. I wanted to read it forever, to just stand inside and smell the air, and let all of its marvels blissfully swirl around me. This is magic realism at its finest, and fans of mystery, romance, and fantasy will all find something here for their tastes.

The Prestige

If you’re familiar with The Prestige, more than likely you’ve seen or heard of the excellent 2006 Christopher Nolan adaptation, starring Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, and Scarlett Johansson. Lesser known is the 1996 Christopher Priest novel that inspired the film. After an act goes tragically wrong, Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier, two former friends, become committed rivals. Borden throws himself into magic, harboring a closely-guarded secret that forms the key to his success. Angier, on the other hand, seeks to destroy Borden, searching for magical success by pursuing the newest frontiers of science. Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the World Fantasy Award, The Prestige meditates on the destructive nature of obsession, with twists that will keep readers guessing until the final bow.

by Amy P.

North Korea and Film

As we celebrate Asian Heritage Month, I decided to check out a book that might shed some light on the history of North Korea, an isolated country shrouded in secrecy: A Kim Jong-Il Production: the extraordinary true story of a kidnapped filmmaker, his star actress, and a young dictator’s rise to power by Paul Fischer.

This book tells the incredible story of the lengths to which dictator Kim Jong-il was willing to go in order to improve the North Korean film industry: by kidnapping prominent filmmakers from South Korea. Shin Sang-ok, South Korea’s most famous director, and Choi Eun-hee (“Madam Choi”), a renowned actress who starred in many of Shin’s movies, were a formerly-married couple who had fallen on hard times in South Korean film industry. They were separately kidnapped, held in North Korea for a decade, and forced to make propaganda movies for Kim Jong-il after undergoing years of imprisonment and attempted brainwashing. Eventually, they gained Kim Jong-il’s trust and managed to stage their escape to Vienna in 1986. It really does sound like something out of a movie plot, and indeed, an upcoming documentary called The Lovers and the Despot will cover their story.

What I really appreciate about this book is not only the amazing fortitude of Choi and Shin but also the insights they and others are able to give us about what it was like living in North Korea: the staggering wealth inequality where Kim Jong-il owns countless luxury mansions while many of his people starve. I was stunned by the contrast between Jong-il’s lavish parties with personal entertainment while political prisoners are fed soup filled with rocks and forced to sit perfectly still for sixteen hours a day or be beaten. The book emphasizes that kidnappings to North Korea happened on a frequent basis, and once you were there, it was almost impossible to escape from the country. But the main message is Jong-il’s obsession with reinforcing his family’s regime through the power of film. The movies became one of Jong-il’s main tools in building and maintaining a national identity from worship of his father, Kim Il-sung, to himself and beyond.

This might help to explain the extreme reaction to the political satire film The Interview, starring Seth Rogen, James Franco, and Randall Park as Jong-il’s son, Kim Jong-un. Sony Picture’s theatrical release of the film was eventually cancelled due to threats of violence from hackers linked with North Korea, which unfortunately may have a chilling effect on future films satirizing North Korea.

Those wanting more satirical films could try the 2005 film Team America: World Police, made by the creators of South Park. Here, Kim Jong-il is made to look particularly ridiculous—but then, so is everyone else parodied in the movie, whose actors, amusingly, are marionettes.

While comedy films may invite us to mock the dictators of North Korea, we must remember the actual harm done to the everyday citizens who suffer under the regime, which seeks to suppress the free thought of its people and can have them and their entire families thrown into prison without a trial or even an official charge. The documentary Kimjongilia: the flower of Kim Jong Il shares appalling firsthand stories from six former detainees: survivors of the horrors of the prison system, sexual slavery, torture, mutilation, and starvation. While the inclusion of interpretive dancers distracts from the accounts, the harrowing tales have undeniable power.

For another documentary about North Korea, try National Geographic’s Inside North Korea, with correspondent Lisa Ling. She traveled to the elusive country by posing as part of a medical team under Dr. Sanduk Ruit, a Nepalese eye surgeon whose goal was to spend 10 days doing 1,000 surgeries to remove cataracts from North Korean citizens—including many children—who had become blind due in part to malnutrition, a chronic problem in the country. While unfortunately, the team was constantly monitored by government officials, simply gaining access to Pyongyang was quite a feat. One amazing scene in particular showed how strong Kim Jong-il’s cult of personality had become: when those who had been blind finally had their bandages removed, rather than thank the doctors standing there, each of them instead profusely thanked the pictures of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il on the wall.

Finally, try A State of Mind. The creators of this fascinating documentary were given unprecedented access to two young Pyongyang gymnasts who work tirelessly to bring glory to their country. Pak Hyon-sun (age 13) and Kim Song-yon (age 11) spent months training for the Mass Games, a gloriously colourful performance that requires up to 80,000 gymnasts in the floor display and 12,000 schoolchildren for the floor backdrop. The purpose of the Mass Games is to celebrate the unity of the people and the glory of the state and leader. While the spectacle of the Games was beautiful, perhaps more interesting were the scenes of relatively privileged everyday life in the capital city, including ubiquitous power cuts and accordion performances. These scenes help to humanize the people living in North Korea and remind us that they are doing the best they can to make a living in an oppressive environment.

Movies to Books

While it’s common for fans to look forward to popular book titles being made into upcoming movies (see Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Fifty Shades of Grey, etc.), sometimes the trend goes the other way, and fans of movies are inspired to read the book that started it all (for example, with classics like Lord of the Rings, Pride and Prejudice, or The Great Gatsby).


It may be strange, but I personally prefer to watch the movie before reading the book. This is because a well-written book is always good, regardless of whether you’ve seen the movie first or not. On the other hand, if I’ve already read the book, I sometimes find the movie lacking because it can’t match up to my imagination. I have also found that if the movie is good, it leaves me craving more. What better way to satisfy that craving than picking up the book! It’s such a great way to discover new authors and titles.


With that in mind, here are some fun movies that inspired me to seek out their book adaptations.

The dystopian movie The Postman, starring Kevin Costner, has all the elements that I enjoy in a plot. It’s both exciting and inspiring. After a war that causes a three-year winter, the country splinters, leaving survivors struggling to stay alive in their little communities. Kevin Costner plays a drifter who finds a postman’s skeleton, complete with mail and uniform. He decides to use it to his advantage, crafting the lie that he is a postman in a restored government. To his surprise, though, communities are eager to hear him tell stories about the new president and to actually give him mail to be delivered! Reluctantly pulled into his own ruse, he ends up deputizing another postman, and before long, an actual postal system begins to thrive. But not everyone is happy about this: a local commander sees the threat a postal route could pose to his personal empire and starts to hunt down postmen. In the showdown between the mail and an army, who will win? I only recently discovered that this movie was based on a well-written sci-fi book of the same name, The Postman by David Brin. So if the movie makes you want more, like it did for me, check out the book!


Another book that I was surprised to enjoy so much was the young adult sci-fi romance The Host by Stephanie Meyer. I first watched the movie The Host (starring Saoirse Ronan) and was instantly sucked into the world of parasitic aliens (called “souls”) that invade new worlds by stealing the bodies and minds of their hosts. What makes it so interesting is that the souls claim to be peace-loving but somehow cannot see that erasing other species’ minds is not very peaceful. In the story, Wanderer is a soul who has traveled through many different worlds before coming to earth and taking a human host named Melanie. However, Wanderer is unprepared for the fierceness of Melanie’s will to live. Melanie, a human fleeing the invasion, is determined to protect her friends and her little brother: she refuses to be stopped by an alien in her head, stubbornly holding onto her own personality. The two fight each other for possession of their shared body until Wanderer is brought to a human stronghold, where she comes to love humanity. Meanwhile, there are those whose mission is to see that every last human body has a soul controlling it. Will Melanie and Wanderer be able to work together, or are souls and humans too different to co-exist?


Finally, I loved the fantastical movie Inkheart, an entertaining film that combines books, magic, adventure, and Brendan Fraser. He plays a character named Mo, who has the magical power of making book characters come alive—literally! When Mo accidentally frees a great evil from a book with his talent, his family is torn apart. Vowing to never read aloud again, Mo and his young daughter, Meggie, try to stay off the radar and avoid his mistakes. But before long, Meggie discovers her father’s secret and heads off on a quest to save both her family and the world. Watching this movie inspired me to pick up the book, Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, which was just as imaginative. I love that idea of characters being dragged out of their books and interacting in our world.


These are just a handful of the enjoyable adaptations out there, but without these movies I would never have discovered some great books. Are there any book/movie combinations that you couldn’t resist?

Sarah B.

African Heritage Month: Books to Movies

As we celebrate African Heritage Month, we look back on the heroes of the civil rights movement, an ongoing struggle that has made great strides toward justice and continues today. Here is a selection of books that have been adapted into memorable films about this revolution.

To accompany the movie Selma, the Oscar-nominated retelling of one event in the inspirational life of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. (played by David Oyelowo), check out the documentary King: a filmed record—Montgomery to Memphis. Without a narrator, this documentary consists of Dr. King’s stirring speeches and sermons, allowing archival footage and sound recordings to speak for themselves. For non-fiction works, there are many excellent explorations of King’s life and legacy (see some of them at this post). For a book that looks at just a small snapshot of his life, try Tavis Smiley’s Death of a King: the real story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final year. This book recounts the events in the twelve months leading up to Dr. King’s assassination in 1968, showing all the setbacks he had to move past in order to lead the civil rights movement.



Civil rights leader Malcolm X’s autobiography was written with the assistance of journalist Alex Haley (who penned the family saga Roots, which itself was adapted into the television miniseries Roots). The Autobiography of Malcolm X inspired director Spike Lee to take on the challenge of a film adaptation in the biopic Malcolm X. Starring Denzel Washington in the mesmerizing lead role, this story chronicles Malcolm X’s troubled childhood and six years in prison, ministry with the Nation of Islam, advocacy for black pride, and work as a human rights activist until his assassination in 1965. For more about Malcolm X and Dr. King’s legacy after their tragic assassinations, try the film Betty and Coretta, about the men’s wives, Dr. Betty Shabazz and Coretta Scott King, respectively played by Mary J. Blige and Angela Basset.


On Monday, February 16, we observed Nova Scotia Heritage Day, celebrating local heroes like Viola Desmond, a human rights activist who was arrested for challenging racial segregation in a New Glasgow movie theatre in 1946 by refusing to leave a whites-only section of the theatre. Her bravery eventually led to an end to segregation in Nova Scotia. For a documentary about Viola Desmond, try Long Road to Justice: the Viola Desmond story. For a fuller biography of Desmond, check out Sister to Courage: stories from the world of Viola Desmond, Canada’s Rosa Parks, written by Wanda Robson, Desmond’s youngest sister, about the family and world that shaped both of them and their other siblings.


Rosa Parks is considered by many to be Desmond’s counterpart in the U.S. because of Parks’ arrest after refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white passenger in 1955. Her act of defiance became a powerful symbol that sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped lead to the bus segregation law being declared unconstitutional. Her life was documented in the biography The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis. Check out the film The Rosa Parks Story, starring Angela Basset, for a dramatic adaptation.


Finally, the movie Lee Daniels’ The Butler, starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey, is based on the story of White House butler Eugene Allen, who saw eight presidents come and go during more than 30 years of service starting in 1957. This movie was based on a 2008 Washington Post article by Wil Haygood called “A Butler Well Served by This Election” and accompanied the release of Haygood’s book The Butler: a witness to history.