Two of the best reasons for following Canadian politics are the CBC’s “Royal Canadian Air Farce” and “This Hour Has 22 Minutes.” Rick Mercer’s solo rants and raves from “22 Minutes” have now been compiled into his new book Streeters (Doubleday Canada). It contains Mercer’s rants from October 1993 to November 1997 and covers everything from Mike Harris in a Speedo to “Canuba,” a sovereignty association between Canada and Cuba (this would allow us to say to the USA: “We’ve got you surrounded!”).

For hard-core Blade Runner fans, or anyone interested in the filmmaking process, Paul M. Sammon’s book Future Noir, The Making of Blade Runner (Harper Prism) is required reading.

The recently published Better Living In Pursuit of Happiness From Plato To Prozac (Viking) by Mark Kingwell, a Canadian philosopher and intellectual celebrity, provides an in-depth analysis of our pleasure-centric society and the concept of happiness in western philosophy. Although a philosophical treatise on happiness may sound like anything but fun, Kingwell’s fluid writing style, sharp wit and candid autobiographical tales create an enlightening and often humorous read.

A thin little book, The Voice Imitator (University of Chicago Press) by Thomas Bernhard, translated by Kenneth J. Northcott, made me laugh out loud in the dark as I sat propped up in bed, my reading light clipped to the back cover, while everyone else slept.

The Pleasure of the Crown: Anthropology, Law and First Nations by Dara Culhane (Talonbooks) is the book for anyone who wants to understand the Delga-muukw decision—how it happened, what it means and why the Supreme Court ruling last December has freaked out the powers that be in business, banks and politics, and everyone else who has a stake in B.C.’s physical resources, or who has reasons for believing aboriginal title has no place in modern economics. The Pleasure of the Crown describes the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en land claim trial, the longest and most costly in Canadian history.

During a heated CBC Radio discussion about one of these trends—chronic fatigue syndrome, and whether it is a “real” or psychogenic illness—both callers and panelists were emotional and argumentative, straining the usually fair, thoughtful CBC Radio studio atmosphere. In typical Canadian fashion, no conclusion was drawn. Nor was any mention made of Elaine Showalter’s book Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media (Columbia University Press), which when published in hardcover last year added much fuel to the general debate.

Because I am a fairly new fan of Martin Amis’s novels, I picked up slim Night Train (Knopf Canada) with much interest. Amis is well known for novelistic experimentation (his Time’s Arrow is written in reverse time), and he doesn’t disappoint here.

Speaking of the beautifully explained inexplicable things in life Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red: A Romance (Knopf) is a gorgeous, astounding, poetic study of what things are like when you just happen to be red. The colour red.

In Hotel Sarajevo (Turtle Point Press), Jack Kersh has succeeded in translating his story into the thoughts and feelings of Alma, a fourteen-year-old girl who is caught in the hell of Sarajevo under siege. Alma is part of a group of war orphans who live in the abandoned Hotel Sarajevo, a makeshift family who scrounge for food and human contact while around them rockets and snipers’ bullets demolish their lives.

The Blue Circus (Cormorant) by Jacques Savoie, also translated by Sheila Fischman. Same translator, different story. Here the prose flows smoothly from start to finish, and even features the word lexiphone, which I have never heard in any language.