Acadia Reads 2019
The Acadia Reads initiative encourages the Acadia community to share their love of books by reading Scott Fotheringham’s The Rest Is Silence and participating in programming surrounding the book.
How did we decide whose story to tell? The Campus Community voted for the book that Acadia Reads from a shortlist. The closing date for voting was April 15th, 2019 at midnight.
The Shortlist
Company Town
New Arcadia is a city-sized oil rig off the coast of the Canadian Maritimes, now owned by one very wealthy, powerful, byzantine family: Lynch Ltd. Hwa is of the few people in her community to forgo bio-engineered enhancements. As such, she’s the last truly organic person left on the rig—making her doubly an outsider, as well as a neglected daughter and bodyguard extraordinaire. When the youngest Lynch needs training and protection, the family turns to Hwa. But can even she protect against increasingly intense death threats seemingly coming from another timeline?
The Marrow Thieves
Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks. The Indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream.
The Rest is Silence
Acadia Reads 2019 Winner!
In the backwoods of Nova Scotia, a man has decided to slowly simplify his life and withdraw his presence from the world. He builds a cabin, plants a garden.
About: Scott Fotheringham
Certain Dark Things
Domingo, a lonely garbage-collecting street kid, is busy eeking out a living when a jaded vampire on the run swoops into his life. Atl, the descendant of Aztec blood drinkers, must feast on the young to survive and Domingo looks especially tasty. Smart, beautiful, and dangerous, Atl needs to escape to South America, far from the rival narco-vampire clan pursuing her. Domingo is smitten.
Station Eleven
Day one: The Georgia Flu explodes over the surface of the earth like a neutron bomb. News reports put the mortality rate at over 99%. Week two: Civilization has crumbled. — Twenty years after the pandemic, life feels relatively safe. But now a new danger looms, that threatens the hopeful world every survivor has tried to rebuild.
Programming & Events
The Rest Is Silence: A multi-disciplinary discussion.
Discover how The Rest Is Silence stimulates a variety of perspectives and responses through the lens of each panelist’s experiences, knowledge, and discipline.
Panel Members:
- Dr. Glenys Gibson (Department of Biology)
- Dr. Laura Robinson (Dean of Arts)
- Mike Beazley (Liaison Librarian to Faculty of Arts and the Environmental and Sustainability Programme)
- Dr. J. Coplen Rose (Deartment of English & Theatre Studies)
Moderator:
- Ann Smith (Acadia Reads Chair, Vaughan Memorial Library)
The panel discussion is at 6:30pm in the David Huestis Innovation Pavilion Classroom (INN 173) on November 20th, 2019.
Landscapes and Art with Emily Clark
Join local artist Emily Clark in a hands-on art workshop that will explore concepts and landscapes present in Scott Fotheringham’s novel, The Rest is Silence. Attendees will learn how to transfer images and utilize upcycled materials to create unique works of art. (All materials will be provided).
The class is from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm in the Quiet Reading Room in the Vaughan Memorial Library on December 11th, 2019.
Reading Into It? Facilitated Discussion
Please join our conversation with Danielle Pierce, Learning Technologies & Instructional Design; Laura Robinson, Dean of Arts; and Ann Smith, Librarian; as we reflect upon the book. Danielle, Laura and Ann will facilitate ideas, comments, and reflections exploring some of the ideas and our responses to The Rest Is Silence by Scott Fotheringham. All welcome! Come and be inspired to read the book.
The discussion is from 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm in the Quiet Reading Room in the Vaughan Memorial Library on February 26th, 2020.
Author Reading & Presentation: Scott Fotheringham
Scott Fotheringham lives in Ontario. He holds a PhD in molecular biology and genetics from Cornell University, and a BSc in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of Guelph.
He is both a creative writer and a medical writer at Canopy Growth, a diversified cannabis company. He has worked as a freelance copywriter, a manager of market and media relations for biotech, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and technology, an occupational therapy assistant and a community support worker. He is currently writing his second novel.
Reviews of The Rest Is Silence:
The author presentation is at 7:00 pm in the K.C. Irving Environmental Science Centre on March 4th, 2020.
Selection Criteria
The committee produced a long-list of twelve titles. These books were read and voted on to produce a short-list of five titles.
- A Canadian author writes the 2019 book.
- The book must be from the genre of speculative fiction.
- The book must be capable of generating discussion and an exchange of ideas.
- The book must be appealing to students with a focus on first-year undergraduates.
Selection Committee
- Makenzie Branch – ASU Vice-President Academic 2018-19
- Suzie Currie – Dean of Pure and Applied Sciences
- Abu Kamara – Coordinator Accessible Learning Services
- Anthony Pash – Librarian in Professional Studies and Faculty of Theology
- Danielle Pierce – Instructional Designer, Learning Technology and Instructional Design
- J. Coplen Rose – Professor of English Literature
- Ann Smith (Chair) – Librarian in Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences
- Britanie Wentzell – Librarian in Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Professional Studies
Contest Winner
English undergraduate student, Jade Veinotte was the winner of an Amazon gift card and a book of her choice from the 2019 shortlist. Jade selected Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.
2018 Shortlist and Winner
The campus community selected The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King as its Acadia Reads 2018 book.